Site finances

[Chris S]

As most of you will have seen the site speed is vastly improved as we have moved to a new server.
This site has been online now for over 4 years and during this time we have to the best of our ability attempted to help all our members and answer all questions,
Due to the sucess of our site it has grown larger & larger and is now costing more than pocket money to run, and as you all know we run without sponsors or sponsorship or any other income apart from the Google adverts.

My question to you the members, is how should we as a group finance our site?

We have a hard core of approximately 110/120 members, if we charged a membership 2 or 3 pounds each per year which could be paypalled over then the site would be well financed.

The questions are
1) Why should the old members pay for this site? as they do tend to provide more of the answers than the questions.
2) Should we ask for donations with the on site for sale adverts?
3) Or should we provide a special membership (as other sites do with discounts from preferential supliers) after payment of a membership fee?
4) Or should we just stay as we are?

Please post your thoughts on this

btw, this site is hosted & run by LD50 & personally costs me nothing and I will not financially benefit from any payments to this site in any way shape or form, my only thoughts are for the continuation of this site and the knowledge that is here.

[holmes]

discounts from suppliers and a couple of pounds a year is fine by me[] great site and very helpfull

[VR6SyncroMark2]

A couple of pounds a year sounds fair to me, “cheap at twice the price”

[ld50]

I’m still in two minds about this – on the one hand having some sort of revenue from the site would help contribute towards the cost of the server which is definitely a good thing – but on the other hand I don’t want to start a segregation between those who’ve paid and those who haven’t…

I was wondering whether we could offer other perks to so called “premium” members… e.g. access to a private ftp server which could have on it a LOT of useful stuff which is no longer available like SSPs, scans of syncro brochures to name but a few. However then theoretically we create a segregation – and why should some of the more long-standing members have to pay when they actually provide much of what is on offer (like chris said).

I’d have thought that if we were to talk to a number of car-related suppliers we’d proabably be able to quite easily negotiate discounts, but we also need to bear in mind this needs to work globally since our members are all over the place and a 5% discount from demon tweeks isn’t much use to Les in Canada.

Also either then things like logins for said FTP server need updating regularly or eventually they get passed around (as they do/fact of life) and the structure gets eroded and we end up with everyone on vortex/clubgti forums pillaging our server.

It seems like the only thing which is fair is to get some kind of contribution as people directly take a benefit from the site – like the 1-post for-sale wonders but even there as has been mentioned before that might prevent them posting and thus the members might miss out on some genuinely interesting stuff…plus it then needs looking after to make sure it runs as planned which is also extra admin for someone or extra programming for someone else.

I for now guess we could just put a paypal donate button on the front and see what happens…

[Chris S]

I have just had a wonderful thought? (I think it maybe anyway)

Why not charge a one off payment of a couple of pounds to join? (payable by paypal)this would possibly get rid of the spammers as well as leaving things as they are for existing members, and as we know new members are either notoriously heavy with questions or one post (usually for sale) wonders, hows that for an idea???

[ld50]

hmm will mull it over – sounds quite good though.

I suppose if someone doesn’t then log in again within 6 months the account could be deleted just like usual…so for those 1-post wonders it works as a for sale fee with free attached 6 months membership, and for any new long-term members who keep their account alive and post, it costs them nothing to continue.

Perhaps the best way to test it would be to just implement it from now on – anyone who’s already a member can stay so. I guess we can just send a paypal invoice to the new signups or I’ll knock up a paypal checkout page and then people can send the payment along with their registration…

does that sound unfair to anyone? How does £2.50 sound? that’s no more than about $5 is it?

[Chris S]

Why not give a conditional lifetime membership for a joining fee?, and your membership will run for a period of 6 months from your last log in, or 12 months from your last post, but if you have not logged on or posted during this period then your membership can be cancelled.

btw, these are the criteria I use for deleting members atm.

£2.50 is about 3.75 euros or $5 which sounds fair enough to me, lets face it its only the cost of a pint of beer! or not even that if you live in or near London!

[no such user]

Just ask for donations as an announcement, or sticky at the top of the forums. This avoids any work to create donate buttons etc etc. I think you’ll find you might create a load of hassle trying to collect money, or people will just start posting ebay links etc to avoid the cost – some people will do anything to avoid paying and there’s a bunch of other sites I’d advertise stuff on before putting it on here, unless it was a whole car.

With a voluntary system if people value what’s here then they’ll contribute. If they don’t then we’ll know this is more of a bunch of people who love some slightly odd-ball VWs, messing about somewhere that’s easy to link up with other people of a similar mind.

I’ll happily toss £20 into the pot to ensure this site is maintained. It’s important for me as people with stuff for Syncros might show up trying to sell stuff I want.

[test user]

a simple donate button would be super easy to implement so that’s in its favour already…

opps sorrty that’s me ( – from testing emasils earlier..

[1.8TsyncroB3]

I have to agree with Diamond Hell.
My own practice is to avoid sites with a mandatory sign-up fee. I may be missing out on a great site, but the site may also be missing out on a potentially great member! [] That said, i’m willing to make a reasonable donation towards this site’s survival.

A voluntary donation would be the best place to start. A sticky would serve as a reminder to members that we do need funding to survive. We can always make changes as our financial needs evolve.

Regarding discounts from suppliers, we need to target suppliers that can serve the “Majority” of our members. Since a small percentage of our members are “long distance” users like me, they may not be able to benefit from the discounts, but most of them already realise and accept that limitation. I have actually found that some hard to find syncro parts can be purchased from UK suppliers and shipped to me in Canada for a total cost lower than what can be found through my local suppliers.

[Chris S]

ok then lets just put a paypal donate button on the front and see what happens

[no such user]

sounds like a good plan

[Chris S]

Its there, look on the lower right of the home page

[ld50]

hi guys yeah sorry for the lack of info but it’s there… I realised looking at another site that we ought to have it in the 3 main currencies – i.e. UKP, EU and USD for members’ convenience. I’ll amend soon though

modereators pls see other updates regarding pics…

[ld50]

Thanks very much to those who have contributed already

[Author]

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