Brian has made many good points. We're on a slippery slope here, have been for several weeks. I'll throw in a few more thoughts for consideration.
You run a RFF Contest ostensibly to increase membership. You advertise the contest on Pnet and elsewhere to drum up new members. When new members flood in at a rate you did not prepare for or anticipate, resources are strained. When are we going to get that bigger is not always better in so many aspects of our lives? Not bigger cities, stripmalls, developments, and in this case, perhaps, not bigger forums. There is still some value to a town where you know everyone.
My local politicians (the mayor, city council, governor) are always out there trying to court this or that company with giant tax breaks to come in to the state or town and set up a new factory. They assure me it will create a hundred or a thousand new jobs. But what they fail to think about is the actual unseen and unpopular costs, the actual footprint of increasing numbers. Environmental costs, healthcare costs, school expansion, social services, more taxes to support the growing population. Increasing populations in any context is not an endeavor that has costs in a vacuum. So who in the end benefits when they taut a new company coming in? Almost never the existing people who were there to begin with, save a select few.
The costs of increasing membership has far wider 'environmental' impact than just more traffic for your sponsors/advertisers. The site was bogged down for quite a few days. People (even some old veterans of this site) seem to be on edge more often than before. The attitude of friendliness and comraderie has subtly changed. In the last few weeks, I've seen more petty arguments among members than I've ever seen in the previous year and a half.
I come here because there is a core group of very decent, helpful, nice people who are fun to talk to. They are still here, but lately it seems like they are being drowned out by loudmouths and politically correct AND incorrect extremists. People who believe a shoutdown is the highest form of conversation. In short, I come here to get away from all that is wrong with Pnet's Leica forum and Ebay. In steady drips, I'm sad to find that these differences are eroding. And in short order, may not even exist in the future.
Forget the last straw and the suspense of waiting for the next big announcement, just go to a subscription fee and be done with it.
Cheers
