How should PriusChat be paid for?

Charge Trolls $100 per post...

 

I like Prius Chat and generally like the way it is run. I also agree that the bills need to be paid and don't mind helping pay them, but intrusive ads suck.

I don't see intrusive ads after an initial few annoyances because I use ad blockers in Firefox the first time a site hits me with an intrusive ad.

I would actually like to see a reasonable number of non-intrusive Prius related ads but once intrusive adds tick me off, I tend to kill all ads on a site.

I have and will continue to support sites I like with donations. If there is a donation option here, I haven't seen it.

 

membership levels seem to work best.

provide memberships that run from free to not free.

as the level increases, add privileges.

 

That has problems if you are only using $$ to measure a persons contributions to the board. It is unreasonable to expect a person who contributes large amounts of useful technical expertise to pay as much as a person who doesn't meaningfully contribute to board content.

 

I think a blend of member donations and non-intrusive ads would work. I'd be happy to pay $20-30 a year to feed my addiction.

 

I wouldn't mind knowing how much is does cost to run this show. Of course I wouldn't expect Danny to disclose that information. I realize that it is not free for sure but a site with this much traffic I suspect there has been many offers for hosting ads, etc.

 

you have never heard of exceptional circumstances? rare perhaps, but they most definitely exist.

but then again, maybe we should have a poll with 100 possible responses so that much more people could be included.

i thought my suggestion to be a reasonable one. sorry if i implied it was a perfect one

 

There wasn't a selection for non intrusive ads only.

 

Non-intrusive ads don't pay enough by themselves to run this place.

I'd chip in some bucks if there was a button somewhere to do so.

 

Hmmm, I'm a Yorkshire man, so am careful with my money (another way of saying tight!). But equally I do like the forum. What about restrictive access for non paid up members? Or maybe restrict the number of daily posts for non paying members? I know that would mean me, but hey there's no such thing as a free lunch.

 

I think there is a fine line when it comes to these forums and it really goes back to what the founder(s) expects from them. I think most people that set these things up do for the "love" of the subject area and not money. Of course it takes money to run them and the more popular the sites become... the more it cost to run them.

If however they pose a fee up front, I think most of those sites don't work out or if they do become stagnant. One of the things the makes PC such a good site is that we have people from all over the world that have something in common. I know if when I first started searching for information about the Prius about a year and a half ago, if PC was a pay for site I would most likely not have signed up (to the delight of some I am sure).

With that said, if Danny is putting up ads for needed operation funds, I have no problem with them. If it goes to pay for, I might just stay on because I know what an informative site it is. If it was much though I would likely leave because I am tighter than "Yorkshire man".

 

Rubbish. A Yorkshireman is commonly described as a Scots Man but with deeper pockets!

And a handful of Yorkshireman jokes for you - and I'll be very surprised if any of you who haven't spent time in the UK can understand them!

1. Yorkshire man takes his cat to the vet.
   Yorkshireman: Ayup, lad, I need to talk to thee about me cat.
   Vet: Is it a tom?
   Yorkshireman: Nay, I've browt it with us.
2. A Yorkshireman's dog dies and as it was a favourite pet he decides to have a gold statue made by a jeweller to remember the dog by.
   Yorkshireman: Can tha mek us a gold statue of yon dog?
   Jeweller: Do you want it 18 carat?
   Yorkshireman: No I want it chewin' a bone yer daft beggar.
3. A Yorkshireman's wife dies and the widower decides that her headstone should have the words "she were thine" engraved on it. He calls the stone mason, who assures him that the headstone will be ready a few days after the funeral. True to his word the stone mason calls the widower to say that the headstone is ready and would he like to come and have a look.
   
   When the widower gets there he takes one look at the stone to see that it's been engraved "she were thin".
   He explodes, 'Blimey man, you've left the "e" out.'
   
   The stone mason apologises and assures the poor widower that it will be rectified the following morning. Next day comes and the widower returns to the stone mason, 'There you go sir, I've put the "e" on the stone for you.'
   The widower looks at the stone and then reads out aloud, 'E, she were thin.'

 

Just curious... what happen? Why were those things dropped?

 

I personally don't find these ads intrusive. Some websites not only have the pop-up before reaching the site, but they also have a pop-up on the site that blocks all content until one closes the annoying 'floating' window. Then the sides of the forum are covered in banners, many of them blinking. The first forum post starts four or five advertisements down, with advertisements 'blended' to look like forum text so it's difficult to tell where the post actually starts. That's not enough... between every two or three posts, there are more ads.

Compared to that, the banner here on PC and the occasional 'splash screen' hike is nothing, and if it pays the bills, then I personally would not bother with creating a complicated system of keeping track of who has paid what. Remember that all that has to be administrated and maintained by someone.

 

Maintaining email accounts is a major PITA for a webmaster, definitely not worth using the webmaster's time.

Larger storage could be a worthwhile benefit, I remember seeing one of our more prolific contributors running up against the existing limit. It would also be easy to administer, one database tweak when a person made a donation, then no other action required.

 

^ Interesting... thanks for the history.