Membership and Charging an update

[Tim Walker (The Bodger)]

HI Thanks for all the replies regards upgrading the website it has all been very positive. In addition to the replies on the forum i'vehad a few emails that i thought I would share with you for your thoughts. The revolve around moving/migrating the site.

One member has suggested moving the site to an alternative hosting provider which provides a free forum service and another member has advised that he runs an IT company and could provide us with some free hosting on his servers. Both of these options would negate the need to start charging along with the other option of leaving the current site as is. I'm guessing there could be a fair amount of work in migrating any existing content but if someone can assist then it may be possible.

 

Anyway i'd appreciate your thoughts on these suggestions.

I created the site purely as an extra site to those already available and by no means am i hoping to become the next Mark Zuckerberg (lets face it if i was out to make money i wouldn't have bought a money pit Dutton) but equally in the curent climate I have limited pocket money hence the cap in hand for membership.

 

Based on current feedback i'm getting i'm looking into the detail of the upgrading (probably implementing in January) but thought it only fair to share other suggestions that members have given thought to.

 

In the meantime Seasons Greetings to you all and here's hoping Santa brings you all lots of Garage and Dutton Goodies.

 

Tim the Bodger 

[Big Vern]

So long as the facebook style front page isn't lost I'm easy and happy to pay if that keeps things as they are.

One thing I still dont quite understand is the limit is 150 members but I don't see anything like that number using the site regularly certainly not posting regularly.

Seems to me the popular part of the site is the front page. Would it not be possibe to keep to the 150 limit with only active members? 

Just a thought

[Dave Taylor]

This is what I like about the site over the others, it's instant. We can see when the member last visited the site, and that's how we have been able to accept new members by deleting the earliest dated visits. Here's where the difficulty starts as the last space I made had last visited the site in Feb 2012.
Tim, if you can send out another mail asking if a member is still an active Duttoneer, if you don't receive a reply by let's say 1st Jan 2013 we could remove them. That would release space and an upgrade would not be required. If the removed members come back in the future then they can be re-activated.
Should work and no payment to worry about.

[Paul Sheridan]

So am I right in understanding that all 150 members have posted some time this year?  If thats the case it is going to be difficult to get every one to cough up for an up grade, because your going to get some saying, why should I pay when I dont use the site on a regular basis. 

So ...... here is a proposition: as Tim currently funds this personally with out asking us for any money, how many of us are prepared to split the annual cost of an upgraded site with him.

I am,   who else.  (if we only get 10 of us, it will be worth it)

 

[1midz0wwbl268]

How  much does it cost each year?  as long as its affordable , count me in too, is the £150 if the site upgrades  on top of the cost or the whole cost per year,  because, if enough of us agree to step up to the plate then might it be worth having the upgrade so that if by chance we exceep the current limit, then theres no need to axe some members  who might be put off from returning at a later date

[Adrian Southgate]

Tim, setup a paypal account and you can have my '10 year in'  right now.

I might be being harsh here but I see the simple solution as disabling someone's user account if they haven't paid by 31-01-2013. They can have read only access of the front page pretty much as we see it now until they cough up the £1.50 at which point full access can be restored. I'm sure the .ning system can cope with restrictions like that.

[Big Vern]

Think we have already established there's no issue with people contributing to the cost of the upgrade and future running costs.

I only asked about active members as there seems to be many names of the members list that never seem to post. In that case they could view as guests thus freeing up one of the 150 slots for people who are keen to be active in this community.

If I dont use my mobile phone for 3 months the account is locked and if I haven't used it in 6 months then the account closed and the number will be re-issued. Perhaps some system like that could be employed to ensure there is room for those who will be 'Active'

[Dave Taylor]

BV, you've done it again. Never thought about it that way. You only need to be a member to post, hmmm! If we deleted membership from say 1st June 2012 that would free up space for new more active members. No extra cost.
I'll get in touch with Tim.

[Dave Taylor]

The site works exactly the same to a visitor to the site, they just can't post

[Adrian Southgate]

I still think the upgrade is worth £1.50 irrespective of wether we take on any extra members.

[Pete Clayton]

Agreed, its not like its a large amount of money