Tech Section

[Tiger]

Your solution is

bump..!!

What mudsurfer said

[gwh200]

From reading through 21 pages, most of which seem to be based on arguments and moaning, I've donated money to Nigel a few times as a thank you for him keeping this place running. The Tech section is great, the info is invaluable, and we pride ourselves on being part of the best forum on the Internet all the time - so what makes it so great???

The people, the info and it's availability.....

When I joined, I think I paid up quite early on - but agree that the link to the subscription needs to be made more obvious, and Rod - I like the idea of 'premium' memberships, I like the 'microsites' approach too - and I think that adding a charge to the Tech section may deter some users, and ensuring that people have to pay to post may also deter newbies - but will also reduce the overhead created by spammers etc.

Advertising, if there were banners at the top and bottom of the page, that isn't intrusive, and if a referral fee could be worked out with RoughTrax and Milners, then that should be looked into too.

Maybe a little section on how to use photobucket or similar would be good, to reduce the number and size of attachments so we just use links instead.....

We all benefit from this forum in some way, whether its tech help, advice on where to get your Surf dirty, and general banter - we all get something out of it - and if the number of posts or something along those lines could be restricted until you subscribe, this too may reduce admin overhead etc.

I don't know how the subscriptions are processed, and how the stickers are ordered and sent etc, but there may be a way of automating the star setup or something to lower the time overhead etc to do this - although this isn't the point of the post.

I'll be talking to the 'A' team about a possible fee for the Big Wales Weekend, as organisers of that and contributors to the forum, we could ask for a small fee for us running the trip that goes to the upkeep of the forum, and anyone else organising a big trip, in the same vein as RTTS, could do the same - a fiver per car isn't a lot of money, and 12 x £5 gives the forum £60 - do that 4 or 5 times a year for trips in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, South East, North East.....you get the idea....plus whatever goes to the forum from RTTS, you won't be far off £1000 for the year.

Even if the standard subscription was £15 - it's still not a lot to pay for the use of this site, and I would be happy to pay more each year....

So - can we think of viable alternatives that we can all participate in, and good ways to raise money, then let's see what we can do that may stop Nigel having to restrict access to parts of the site and take away one of the things that has been cited as a great part of this forum...

there are two differing arguments.the one that says keep it free,and the one that says charge for access.
this is about the best set of ideas,and compromise i have read so far andy

[Koi]

Didn't actually say I was going to do anything, it was not my idea to start with. Just a suggestion by a couple of people on here who said it happens on other forums.
But i have now thought of a solution.............


www.hiluxsurf.co.uk name for sale

[gwh200]

Didn't actually say I was going to do anything, it was not my idea to start with. Just a suggestion by a couple of people on here who said it happens on other forums.
But i have now thought of a solution.............


www.hiluxsurf.co.uk name for sale

?

[MattF]

But i have now thought of a solution.............


www.hiluxsurf.co.uk name for sale

(Warped sense of humour or really peeved)?

[Tiger]

Didn't actually say I was going to do anything, it was not my idea to start with. Just a suggestion by a couple of people on here who said it happens on other forums.
But i have now thought of a solution.............


www.hiluxsurf.co.uk name for sale

Are you selling?

[MudSurfer]

Didn't actually say I was going to do anything, it was not my idea to start with. Just a suggestion by a couple of people on here who said it happens on other forums.
But i have now thought of a solution.............


www.hiluxsurf.co.uk name for sale

Or...

http://www.streamlinenet.co.uk/uu.php

[Tiger]

Bit drastic, what about share holders

[MattF]

Or...

http://www.streamlinenet.co.uk/uu.php

The problem with the hosting deals that sound very good value however is that they rarely stay that way. They either realise they need to charge more, or they seriously over sell and their capacity and reliability suffers.

[darkdezigns]

GWH paid for your membership remember mate - Koi probably just posted them to GWH - so its probably not a windup.
GWH is a decent feller - not a total wind up merchant.... well, saying that


i pm koi straight away with my addy,as per gwh instructions!
Calm down buddy!

ahem...apologies will be greatfully accepted.im sure i recieved some stickers a while back,and i was going to have a look for them,but right now im going for a coffee


btw cheers rod

apologie for??

[MudSurfer]

The problem with the hosting deals that sound very good value however is that they rarely stay that way. They either realise they need to charge more, or they seriously over sell and their capacity and reliability suffers.

Who do you use? I'm sure that the research of hosting options has been done to death - but just trying to help out - I'd offer to host it via our stuff, but it would take a year for them to get it sorted out......

[nero279]

effectively we are trying to find £40 a month at the minute? = £480 a year

How many blue star members do we have? I'm gonna hazard a complete guess at 60.

£480 / 60 = £8, i think £18 a year subscription would seem a little high to many although some would be more than prepared to pay that.

I would say put the annual subs up to £12.50 should bring in around £150 of that,

leaving £330 p.a. shortfall.

I'm gonna be flippant again and suggest we maybe we would get 1 or 2 new subscribers a month if we pushed the voluntary subscriptions working on one a month at £12.50 p.a. = £150

still leaves £180 a year to find.

An annual fundraiser? As has already been mentioned most driving events would be governed by MSA etc... So a non-driving annual fundraiser?

Even just a membership push? if everyone was to print 6 calling cards and place them on surfs, we are basically looking for an extra 15 paying members a year at £12.50 on top of what i already allowed.

Not sure i agree with a dual layer membership, but i'm sure the admin ain't gonna say no if an extra cheque falls on the door mat every now and then? There's already people basically doing that anyway though in their own subtle ways (thinking Bushwhacker & Splasher, vixxen also has a blue star i think, and possibly there's others too)

[MattF]

Who do you use?

I don't.

[MudSurfer]

I don't.

Cool - let's host it at Matt's.....

[MattF]

These two appear to be well recommended, however:

http://www.theplanet.com/
http://www.ovh.co.uk/