New Classified feature

[JohnM]

I am in complete agreement with Gid here.

For the past ten years, I've owned and operated two sports websites with very heavily-trafficked forums. I remember the growing pains we went through when our traffic started to go vertical. The technical and financial issues seemed to get worse by the day - thankfully, we were able to move to a subscription format that basically saved us. (We tried the donation route - it works for one or two short term periods, but it never lasts and it just delays the inevitable.) I can understand what Jorge is going through and I'll wager that is probably a lot more stressful than he will ever let on.

There is a model out there for him - photo.net. When you register for photo.net, it states in plain black and white that you are expected to upgrade to a $25 yearly subscription if you become a frequent user. (They make allowances for people who cannot afford the subscription.)

The same should work here - if you are a frequent user and you have the means, perhaps there should be an obligation to pay for it. I don't use the gallery, but I read the site often enough to where I feel obligated to pay the $25 for the premium gallery subscription. I am sure there are others like me - why not create a photo.net-style "patron's" subscription of $25 per year?

The site costs money and we would hate to see it suddenly disappear one day, so let's face the problem head on.

 

[john neal]

Another vote of support for Gid's idea here.

I would hate to see the forum die for lack of funds, but equally would not want members to fall out with each other over auctions going awry - stuff would just go to evilbay anyway.

Let's pay a reasonable sum for access to all features

 

[jaapv]

a $10+ DONATION a year to become a 'sponser' member seems much more logical, and $50,000 is MUCH more than a site like this would need... not to mention the fact that there are already so many sponsors on the site... who does all this money go to? even if only 1/5 of the members decided to donate $10 a year, $10,000 would be more than enough to support the site IMO. the classified ads saves many of us RFFers lots of money over the alternative, and Im sure we wouldnt mind (even us broke college students) chipping in a couple of bucks. but dont make it manditory... thats just asking people to leave...

I think Jorge is the better judge of the economics of the site than you are. This is a resource he has built up. He has a right to charge for it, basically he could charge what the market would bear. I think that charging 25$ AND keeping the site accessible for free is way below market value. So make your own judgement if you think the extra features are worth 25 bucks, but don't go making little sums and drawing (probably wrong) conclusions from them.

 

[JohnL]

I also don't see the "Place an Ad" link.
Just to add further confusion to the issue - let's keep it simple at all costs. My suggestion would be the annual subscription. A minimum of $5 per year to kick in one month after a new member subscribes - i.e. everyone new gets a one-month trial period. Have a super-member or "sponsor" category at $10 per year, or even more, with extended posting and other (let's try and think of some) privileges.
I've nothing against the classified idea, but I suspect it would be a lot of work to administer.

 

[NL2377]

I think Jorge is the better judge of the economics of the site than you are. This is a resource he has built up. He has a right to charge for it, basically he could charge what the market would bear. I think that charging 25$ AND keeping the site accessible for free is way below market value. So make your own judgement if you think the extra features are worth 25 bucks, but don't go making little sums and drawing (probably wrong) conclusions from them.

whoa whoa whoa... first of all, I didnt initiate the $10 suggestion or the $25 suggestion, I am mearly stating that it doesnt cost $125000 a year to run this place. no need to get angry. I personally dont feel that RFF, at this point in my endevour, is a wise investment for $25 anually of my funds, I just spent $10 on a nerf gun today!

I suppose that If I had more money, it wouldnt seem like such a big deal, but to me, and probably many others, it is. we are getting off topic, and I fear that a lot of it is my fault... Ive got ADD of sorts...

back to the point of the thread... the classified forums... they arent forums anymore w/ the new setup, they are ads... very similar to ebay, and as others have stated, that would bring competition into the community and the only way it would be acceptable is if all bidder's IDs were kept private. (I dont know if that is how it is now) with auctions, there cant be any quick transactions... there's got to be someone assembling this, asking questions, getting responses, things of that sort. someone to plan it all out. Jorge, I have no doubt that you are a good man, a great man, in fact... after all, you have made this forum an excellent resource for many photographers! You've put out, and you need to take a break. Find someone that you know and trust, someone who will not be bias in the desision and creation, and give them the task of finding out what to do with the buy/sell forum. have them post polls, figure stats, do something, that way it isnt all on you! What I would suggest staying away from, is doing things w/o a heads up... Tonight I was on the b/s and all of the sudden I couldnt post... didnt know what was going on until I found this thread in a totally different forum! a sticky in the B/s would have really helped out, although i could have looked it over if there is one, because I tend to have tunnel vision at times 🙄 so what I am trying to get at, is: at some point, youve got to start outsourcing... choose, choose wisely, and relax. that way you can read posts when you feel, and laugh when you see people like me doing this: :bang: because we've just exposed our film by forgetting that we didnt rewind the spool before opening! 😛

I think I'll stop typing on this thread til after I get some sleep. -Nick

 

[Gid]

I think Jorge is the better judge of the economics of the site than you are. This is a resource he has built up. He has a right to charge for it, basically he could charge what the market would bear. I think that charging 25$ AND keeping the site accessible for free is way below market value. So make your own judgement if you think the extra features are worth 25 bucks, but don't go making little sums and drawing (probably wrong) conclusions from them.

You are absolutely right that the only person with a handle on the economics is Jorge. I don't dispute that. I used $10 a member as an illustration of the sort of funds that could be generated by a relatively small donation. I am more concerned with the principle - it costs money to run a site like this so lets stop trying to find ways of avoiding the inevitable and keep the site up and running and keep the admin simple. I think Jorge already gives enough of his time for free without adding unnecessarily complicated tierd charging and service charging ideas.

 

[jaapv]

Ok, that is formulated differently, and I have no issue with that, each of us will put his own value on this site, or on money generally for that matter. BUT I still fail to see that it would be a bad thing if Jorge (don't make those sarcastic background noises, Jorge 😀) did make some money out of this site, after all, it is his brainchild and his effort. Maybe, if he could get it to pay for some extra time to take from his day job to make it even better would benifit us all.

 

[Toby]

In the long term rff has to be paid for to keep running, and realistically someone has to be paid to run it. I've got no problem with Jorge making money out of this site, most rff members work and expect to get paid for our work. Why shouldn't Jorge? If he could earn enough extra income out of the site to go on a nice holiday once a year what's wrong with that? After all the BS that has gone on recently he probably needs one.

 

[Gid]

Ok, that is formulated differently, and I have no issue with that, each of us will put his own value on this site, or on money generally for that matter. BUT I still fail to see that it would be a bad thing if Jorge (don't make those sarcastic background noises, Jorge 😀) did make some money out of this site, after all, it is his brainchild and his effort. Maybe, if he could get it to pay for some extra time to take from his day job to make it even better would benifit us all.

I have no issue with Jorge making money from the site. I will pay to subscribe as long as the cost and value stack up. That equation is going to be different for different people and will be related to use, perceived value and ability to pay. Finding the right number - the one that gets the best take up whilst at the same time providing enough income to keep the site going - is not easy unless you have the economics at hand. Too low doesn't pay the bills and too high drives people away and in doing so ultimately reduces the cost of running the site because you free up memory, processing power etc to the point that you probably wouldn't need to charge anyway - catch 22. 🙂

 

[Sonnar Brian]

It has been less than a week since you implemented the premium membership fee. Adding this on top of it is a mistake. The Classified Ads include some Free Items, For Trade, low-priced items, etc. I made a lot more money on EBay selling stuff than I ask for it here. That's because RFF is a community where people appreciate the stuff.

Give the premium membership some time. Gaining filesize and upload number to display images is worth it; supporting the site is worth it; paying for a formerly free service that is "Ebay-Lite" and will bring in less money for a given item as compared to selling it on Ebay is not worth it.

 

[ChrisPlatt]

Looks too slick for me, and too much like eBay.
I come here to get away from that kinda stuff.

Perhaps there is some other way to help fund RFF...

"Excelsior, you fathead!"
-Chris-

 

[Andrew Touchon]

Jorge,

Why are you trying to make support of this site so complicated? I realize that it cost money to run the site and I really don't care if you make a nice profit for running it. I would strongly recommend you stop the nickel and dime approach and just charge a flat annual fee for members to use the site, with equal access to all of the features. As someone else mentioned, you could offer a free trial membership for the first 30 days. Almost all of the members have hundreds if not thousands and in some cases tens of thousands of dollars invested in their photography hobby and $25 a year more is not a significant extra expense for the value this site offers. KISS.

 

[grizzz]

It has been less than a week since you implemented the premium membership fee. Adding this on top of it is a mistake. The Classified Ads include some Free Items, For Trade, low-priced items, etc. I made a lot more money on EBay selling stuff than I ask for it here. That's because RFF is a community where people appreciate the stuff.

Give the premium membership some time. Gaining filesize and upload number to display images is worth it; supporting the site is worth it; paying for a formerly free service that is "Ebay-Lite" and will bring in less money for a given item as compared to selling it on Ebay is not worth it.

I have to agree with this. Not to sound to negative but this was darn near the first thread I read after hitting the paypal thing for $25. Kinda gives you the feeling of what is next. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with the donation but I agree with some here that at some point this site will require a subscription instead of a donation.

Only the owner knows the finacials so comparing other sites can't get the real numbers. I host a few as well and it's hard to guess what this costs. Just know it DOES COST. Most of us seem to agree that a fee structure is in order.

I think the powers that be here just collected enough to keep RFF up and running for a while. Why not sit back and test some things instead of just changing on the fly. I think the quick change has troubled some here more than the fee. I actually sent a pm on a classified last nigh around midnight EST. I went back to re read the post and it was gone. The donations should give you the working room to beta some new changes and see how they fly. Just my 2 cents... 🙂

 

[RichC]

I'm with Gid - I think a small membership fee allowing the ability to the post is the way to go. It's fair, easy to implement, and requires minimal changes to the site. $25 a year is only about 5 cents a day!

I preferred the informality of the previous classifieds section.

 

[c.poulton]

All of this and the Premium gallery membership is just skirting around the real problem. To run a site supporting just short of 5,000 members costs money. A $10 subscription from all members would raise $50,000 a year, which I imagine would enable the site to support the membership in the manner we have become accustomed - 24 x 7 access 365 days a year at reasonable speed. We don't have to stop visitors to the site, just don't let them post. We can then leave everything just as it was - no premium gallery, no classified fees. $10 per annum is peanuts compared to the value I get out of the site - I donated last year and have subscribed to the premium gallery because I value the site. If you value the site then $10 really is a small price to pay for what you get back IMHO.

Best regards

Good idea Gid, and cheaper than Sean Reid's review site 😉

 

[dexdog]

I agree with what Brian Sweeney said.

 

[c.poulton]

Maybe we should have a poll on the suggestion of a subscription - most people seem to think that it is a good idea generally instead of the Classifieds section / payment option?

I have no problem whatsoever with the site generating money via it's users, or Jorge making a small profit (after all he has put a great deal of his own time and effort into setting it up and running it) but I am not too keen on a two tier membership system, or the 'commercial' classifieds section that does take away from the feeling of a group of friends sharing their thoughts, expertise and equipment. (IMHO)

 

[pesphoto]

Maybe we should have a poll on the suggestion of a subscription - most people seem to think that it is a good idea generally instead of the Classifieds section / payment option?

I have no problem whatsoever with the site generating money via it's users, or Jorge making a small profit (after all he has put a great deal of his own time and effort into setting it up and running it) but I am not too keen on a two tier membership system, or the 'commercial' classifieds section that does take away from the feeling of a group of friends sharing their thoughts, expertise and equipment. (IMHO)

Nicely said!

 

[flashover]

I was still getting use to the fee to use the gallery and two classes of menbers. Not that I use the gallery much as you can see if you were to look. But pay for listings and auctions. Thats why I don't use ebay much. I don't think I would be listing items on RFF. Not to say I haven't sold here but the items I have sold here we not to make a profit and in most cases went for less then I might of got elsewhere. I have sold more on the local Craiglist for higher prices. In all honesty I probaly wouldn't have made the 25 dollar investment for the gallery as I don't use it and there are other free sites. I could see a $10 per menbership of maybee $15 but at the monment hobby funds are tight and that's why stuff has been moving out the door rather the in. So I would say the I would not be upgrading to the 25 USD level, closer to 30 CND. Thanks it's been fun John K

 

[FrankS]

I really don't like the way this is going. RFF was special because it was different, it was a community. With these proposed changes (auctioning items like ebay, for heaven's sake!) the specialness is beginning to disappear. Please reconsider, Jorge! I support Gid's suggestion of a flat membership fee, and whatever Brian Sweeney said.