[Ed. I made a couple changes; for one, I added my address in here, although it's found elsewhere in the thread. I'm also re-announcing it as a reminder.]My fellow .net people:
The time has come when we will not be able to offer all services on [rocksmyfaceoff.net] for free.
Starting 1 Nov 2005, we will be charging regular users of the Rumor Forum US$5.00/yr. for full access to the forum.If you know you want to pay and don't need to be convinced, go right ahead. If not, read on.
If you want a slightly more detailed breakdown in how much it costs to run the .net,
please check out my detailed discussion on this point. Suffice it to say that, each year, we come $1,000/yr. short, even after generous donations by many folks around here.
We've agonized over this decision for some time, and Bryan and I have talked about it a number of times. It's just untenable for me to continue to cover that much cost each year, especially since I'm a volunteer administrator on top of it all. The decision we came down to is this: charging for regular use of the Rumor Forum.
How does one define regular use?We could use any number of metrics to define "regular use". The easiest is, as you might expect, post counts. At the time of this posting, we have 881 members of The Rumor Forum,
258 of whom have at least 100 posts to their credit. Post volume is easily a power law here [and yes, I am the #1 poster, and let's move on], and the 100-post point is, in my observational experience, the inflection point at which people move from being a "lurker" or a "newbie" to a "regular".
If we charged those 258 users a nominal fee, then, we could recoup our losses. As the PayPal Fee Calculator will tell you, a
$5.00 payment nets us $4.56 after PayPal's fees are deducted. Doing some quick math: 258 users * $4.56 / yr - user = $1176.48 / yr.
Now, would we like that fee to be lower? Sure---we don't like it at all. We never have, which is why we've never charged to use the Rumor Forum. But, again ... this situation is untenable.
Also, it's highly unlikely that all 258 of you with more than 100 posts will value The Rumor Forum enough to pay $5/yr. for full access. If you take out 1/6 of that pool, we're back down to ~$1,000---about the shortfall we presently have, and still quite reliant on the Charter Membership folks' generous support to make it happen.
But what if I don't want to pay? What happens to me? Are you going to delete my account?No, we won't. People who choose not to pay the yearly fee will simply be restricted to a small subset of the boards around here---specifically, the Caedmon's Call and Tour Boards, the Derek Webb and Webb Across America Boards, and the Feedback, Help, & Information Board. We do not wish to drive you away from a community of people who love good music; however, I think you'll all agree that this community is about much more than good music.
How will you do this technologically?We have ways. Ohhhh, we have ways. I'll be setting up a place for PayPal subscriptions to be set up---a nice, easy, one-click process if you have a PayPal account---and I'll simply "upgrade" your account once you send in your payment.
[1]You mentioned PayPal. How else will you take membership payments?I'll take membership payments via personal check made out and mailed to me, which I will then deposit in the credit union account I've maintained since May 2003 for this purpose. I won't like it, but I'll do it. [While PayPal does cut about 10% of my payment out with a fee, they automate so much of this process that it's worth it to me to pay them the overhead of maintaining this data for me.]
The address to send me checks is:
Geoffrey Morris
158 Stone Meadow Ln
Madison, AL 35758What about Bartenders and Charter Members---do they have to pay?Bartenders: yes. I broached the idea of them not paying, and they universally rejected the idea.
Charter Members: no. Many of them will pay anyway, but in donating at least $25 to the site this year already, they've gone above and beyond what we're asking here, and I see no reason to ask them to pay twice.
May I sponsor someone else who's poor?Of course. Contact me, and you and I can work out the mechanics of that on our own.
Are you going to hate me if I don't give you money?
If you're not giving me money now, why should your choice not to start giving me money change anything?
When does all this take effect?We'll take subscription payments all of October, and account changes will happen on 1 Nov 2005. We encourage people to send in their memberships prior to this date so that I'm not processing everything all in one day.
Okay, you've convinced me. How do I sign up?Visit the membership page and choose your desired subscription level.
Please reply with your thoughts and concerns. We're well aware that this won't be universally well-received. For those of you who are more than okay with this, please refrain from browbeating your peers.
Thanks for your time and consideration,
Geof F. Morris
[rocksmyfaceoff.net] Server Weenie
[1] Actually, we'll be "downgrading" the accounts of those who don't pay. That's easier to do.
