View Poll Results: Pay to play system

Voters
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  • Leave as-is relying on member and visitor donations

    6 40.00%
  • Lock certain forum sections until fee is paid

    8 53.33%
  • Lock the entire forum until the fee is paid

    1 6.67%
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Thread: Attention All Nova-nuts!

  1. #1

    Attention All Nova-nuts!

    At the current time, the site is underfunded. Understandably, economies on both sides of the pond and around the world are putting the crunch on folk's pockets, so the staff has a decision to make. Our choices are to leave the system as it is, relying on people to freely donate any amount that they feel they can; implement a partial 'pay to play' fee that, once paid, allows the user access to certain forums (to be decided - likely the most used ones, of course) that the user can both read and post on; or the full 'pay to play' - full access to the forums once a mandatory fee has been paid. The fee hasn't been set yet. We're still figuring the number of active members versus what the site needs to comfortably operate from year to year.

    Of course, the downside to all of this is that a 'pay to play' will undoubtably ostracize forum lurkers and folks that are just browsing through. But on the other hand, without appropriate funding, the forum won't be here at all!

    Tell us what you think!!

  2. #2
    Member
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    Re: Attention All Nova-nuts!

    Rick, I've never seen the amount of the fee.Maybe I missed the post.
    I've seen a graph of 25% of ?
    Just need to know how much to donate a fair share?

    Randy

  3. #3

    Re: Attention All Nova-nuts!

    Hi Randy,
    At the moment it's whatever you feel like donating. I think Dan has the general default donation as $20 USD, but you can give more or less as you please. He just revealed what the site takes yearly to maintain, but I won't divulge that just yet. It's not cheap, but it certainly isn't pocket change either.

  4. #4
    Euro-Nova Founder bobbybrown's Avatar
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    Re: Attention All Nova-nuts!

    The donation amount on the new system is set according to what most of the donating members have sent through over the past couple of years, with that averaging at £10/$20.
    It is changeable on the new system, you can still send whatever you like by putting your own amount in the box below, as some already have done.
    So far noone has sent less, but some have sent more, which of course, we're very greatful for

    As Rick mentioned above, without appropriate funding we won't be here at all, I certainly can't afford tro finance the site from my own pocket, as he said, the amount it costs to pay the fees for this place and keep it running smoothly for each year is not pocket change, its quite expensive.
    The Euro-Nova database is huge now, and it costs to keep it going, which is why we ask for donations.

    Thing is, if the donations end up not covering the fees then we will have to think seriously about a membership type system similar to what Rick has already suggested.

    Time will tell.

    The graph in the other donations thread will be updated daily over the next week, so we'll see where we are then.

  5. #5

    Re: Attention All Nova-nuts!

    And we should emphasize that due to the ever increasing expansion of the forum, and the requirement that the platform is stable and reliable, it can't be hosted on a cheap server - so the running costs have risen a lot since last year.

    The biggest problem has been that the majority of the members don't donate anything, so that those that do are paying for their use and enjoyment of the site as well.......
    It's a 52 year old car and everything works, just not always at the same time.......and it's probably about to get jealous!
    *Donate to Euro-Nova today!*

  6. #6

    Re: Attention All Nova-nuts!

    is there anything we can do to cut the cost?
    -thestevie

  7. #7

    Re: Attention All Nova-nuts!

    It comes down to how active the site is, Ken, and the individual 'requests' the site sends to the server (visits, questions posted, photos, etc), and fortunately this site is very active considering the narrow band of enthusiasts. In a nutshell, there really isn't any place to cut costs. At the moment we have no advertisements to offset the initial investment (which may change...see the Samba for an example forum ((www.thesamba.com))) and no extraneous luggage on the site in the way of heavy graphic elements or special effects. If you look at the site stats for this past June (time to post this months, Dan!) you'll see that per day we get over 12 thousand hits - that's quite a bit of bandwidth!

  8. #8
    ***Euro-Nova Supporter*** Spacenut's Avatar
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    Re: Attention All Nova-nuts!

    ...And as you say, the cost of all that bandwidth/service has to be split between a comparatively small minority of enthusiasts. Its ironic that the costs have risen due to the increased activity of the site... but then again, increased activity usually means more forum members prepared to split the costs, instead of the same people posting more...

    In a vain attempt to stem any possible influx of adverts or other money-spinning ideas, I intend to increase my contribution this year, but I'll cough up around November if thats OK?

    There seems to be only a limited number of Nova/derivative enthusiasts in the world, and it would appear that they are all here!

    Lauren
    only Pythagoras can save me now!

  9. #9
    Euro-Nova Founder bobbybrown's Avatar
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    Re: Attention All Nova-nuts!

    If every single member that is on here donated, then the target would be finished very quickly, even if just the people who post donated it would be brilliant.
    The way it is at the moment, there are about 30 of you that donate, out of over 120 members.
    This the reason why a membership system would be good and bad, good as the regulars would pay up but the others, who do contribute to the site but not financially may decide to leave. It's a difficult decision.
    The people who donate are the ones who are most active on the site, hence the reason why this year if you donate, your name turns blue so everyone knows that you're helping out. (With the exception of my name, I can't change the colour of that)

    Lauren, November is fine

  10. #10

    Re: Attention All Nova-nuts!

    Quote Originally Posted by letterman7
    It comes down to how active the site is, Ken, and the individual 'requests' the site sends to the server (visits, questions posted, photos, etc), and fortunately this site is very active considering the narrow band of enthusiasts.
    i know about all that i was thinking about ads or maybe a sponser


    how long do we have until we cant donate?
    is there a time frame is it open all year?
    -thestevie

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