(Poll) RFF Site Future...

[Jocko]

Joe's Go has much to commend it, but I voted for Jorge's Fjord. Why? Simple: RFF is a community. Part of its special quality is the way in which new members are rapidly drawn in and photographic horizons expanded. By charging a fee before anyone can post we exclude people who don't immediately feel able to commit themselves. I was drawn to this site through an interest in Soviet cameras - the RF aspect was fairly unimportant. Yet in less than a year my outlook has been transformed, entirely thanks to fellow members. RFF made me a rangefinder photographer. Yet would I have paid to begin with? I doubt it.

In a photographic world shaped by advertising hype, RFF has an advocacy role, backing the best of creative film photography and the unique potential of the RF camera. Let's do nothing to discourage new recruits to the cause!

Regards, Ian

 

[pesphoto]

Maybe make the majority of the forums by paid subsciption and have 1 or 2 that are open to public view. Just throwing out ideas.

 

[traveller]

Maybe make the majority of the forums by paid subsciption and have 1 or 2 that are open to public view. Just throwing out ideas.

I don't think this is a good idea. Speaking of myself, I wouldn't be here if that would have been implemented earlier. Better 30 days for free without participating in the classifieds to help people deciding if this is the right site for them.

 

[pesphoto]

hmmm...not bad at all

 

[hoot]

I'm for Gabriel's fundraiser idea (option 3 in the poll). In my opinion, the benefit of this is that people will donate due to a sense of social obligation (i.e., gratitude and peer pressure), rather than because they are forced to.

Of course there will always be some people who could afford to give money but lack any sense of social obligation. Personally, I don't feel threatened by the existence of that kind of behavior at all. If the existing donations suffice to buffer the so-called 'freeloaders' (not my term), then who cares? After all, this is not about *who* donates; it's about *how much* is donated in total, and whether that sum can finance the costs of RFF.

Sure, a flat membership may be 100% waterproof, but anyone who likes to photograph with rangefinder cameras knows that a small margin for framing errors is allowed, and harms no one. 🙂

 

[markinlondon]

Joe's Go for me. I have no qualms about chipping in to a good thing.

I don't want a baseball cap whatever you put on it.

Mark (dodgy trilby wearer) 🙂

 

[brightsky]

I voted for "Joe's Go."

Please don't tell me that anyone who can afford a computer to access the site, camera and lenses, etc., cannot afford $5 or $10 a YEAR for this site......

I think classified listings should be free for subscribers, but a percentage to RFF for items sold is reasonable.

 

[dmr]

Maybe make the majority of the forums by paid subsciption and have 1 or 2 that are open to public view.

I don't think this is a good idea. Speaking of myself, I wouldn't be here if that would have been implemented earlier. Better 30 days for free without participating in the classifieds to help people deciding if this is the right site for them.

I know I wouldn't be here if reading or posting were restricted. In fact, I made my first post as a guest and joined primarily due to the great response I got.

I think one of the things that makes this site great is the open-ness of it.

 

[dnk512]

Forums likes this are great for the responces to questions. Responces are contributions of the users toward the forum. To have to pay to write a responce is not wise.

It will backfire.

Now if a handfull number of people here wish this to be their private forum then go ahead and charge to post.

Membership with an extra service in return is my vote for. Extra room for galleries, forwarding email, more options in the classifieds etc...

 

[DougK]

My $0.02 worth....

A basic membership including reading all forums, posting to forums with the exception of posting classified ads, and limited gallery space (x KB total or x number of photos total) should be free. It's a good way to attract new members and allow people to participate in the discussions without excluding those who can't afford the additional cost; having internet access does not always mean people own computers or have internet access in their homes.

A nominal annual fee for extras such as more gallery space, posting classified ads (not responding to them, just the ablility to sell stuff), more sophisticated email, etc. is quite fair. I'd pony up for that and I suspect a lot of people will. Running a site like this costs money and if Jorge manages to make a couple of extra bucks that way, it's more than fair for the labor involved in maintaining this site.

If an occasional additional fundraiser is required to cover unexpected cost increases, I'm good with that too.

I would not be in favor of any other tiering or "options a la carte" funding plan.

'Nuff said from me.

 

[ray_g]

I know I wouldn't be here if reading or posting were restricted. In fact, I made my first post as a guest and joined primarily due to the great response I got.

I think one of the things that makes this site great is the open-ness of it.

I agree. Like many others, I "lurked" here for months before I joined the community and started posting. As someone else said, posting and regularly interacting is what "hooks" someone, and makes him/her come on a regular basis.

Go back to your first few days when you discovered RFF. If, initially, I had only a pre-set time of even 30 days before I knew I had to pay at leat $10, I probably would not have given RFF a second thought and moved on to another site that was free - like PNet, APUG or FM - to look for the answers to my questions, read threads about what I was looking for, etc. I would not have had the chance to really get to know this place and would not have known better.

With a pre-set fee system and no option to read and post on threads and at least browse through the gallery for free, the only thing you can be sure of is that the number of NEW members will drop significantly. We think this place is great, but people will eventually move on, for one reason or another. How many members from a year ago do you still see regularly today? If less new people subscbie than the people that leave, the outcome is clear.

We all think this place is great. But imagine the same crowd everyday, day after day. Pretty soon, there will be no more new questions or topics that have not already been discussed. How many times can you discuss your "dream outfit" or your favorite lens?

 

[willie_901]

no cap

no cap

I ordered a cap months ago. It never arrived and I was not billed. I never heard anything.

 

[MP Guy]

I have quite a few caps left. however, i am living in a rental house now and 70% of my stuff is still packed including the caps. that is why i removed them from the site. god willing, I may be back in oregon by june 🙂 I will then unpack it all once again .

 

[tajart]

membership

membership

what about an annual membership fee or a lifetime membership fee?
from my experience with this wonderful site, i've been a member now for about a year-
i've enjoyed the forum, the give and take, the civility and collegiality, and i've bought and sold a few things via the classifieds.
i've also wondered why everyone hasn't joined before. one can see who is viewing a thread, members and # of guests.
non-members can view all threads but couldn't respond or have direct access to classifieds.
annual membership view, post, and reply to threads, including classifieds.
life-time members all of the above plus have galleries.
maybe this has been said before.

i've just relocated and am attempting to figure out a sense of order amongst boxes and boxes.

 

[Rich Silfver]

I know I wouldn't be here if reading or posting were restricted. In fact, I made my first post as a guest and joined primarily due to the great response I got.

I think one of the things that makes this site great is the open-ness of it.

Agree - preventing posting until you are a paying member is NOT a good idea.

 

[RichC]

I voted for a membership subscription.

However, having read other posts and thought a bit, I take the point that preventing visiters from posting may put them off from joining. I can see that this may well have been the case with me - after all, until you join and participate, RFF is simply one of numerous web forums.

On reflection, I'm still in favour of some form of paid subscription applicable to everyone, but with a caveat: it would be wise to give newcomers a trial period. Although some members think that RFF has recently grown too quickly, too fast, it would be a tragedy if RFF atrophied through lack of new blood.

Someone raised the point that the downside to a time-based trial period is that it may expire before a potential member has had time to participate fully. I can appreciate that argument to an extent; however, an obvious solution is to have a longer trial: 30 days has been mooted - why not make this 60 days? Two months is plenty of time for someone to decided if RFF is the forum for 'em (sorry!).

An alternative is a post-based trial period: new members are allowed, say, 50 posts, after which they have to subscribe.

I've no idea whether the forum software can support either a time- or post-based trial period...

By the way, I think it's essential that visitors should be able to read (most) of the forums.

I would also like to make a final point, about payment.

Although PayPal is convenient, it may put some people off (unjustifiably IMO - but that's an argument for another time, another place), so there ought to be other options - cheque, money order, etc. (Sean Reid, on his subscription site, asks those who wish to pay by means other than PayPal to contact him by email - which seems to me a sensible approach).

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

Make the money from the advertisers, they must love 4,000 members, don't try to make money from the members.

If I was in the business of selling expensive cameras to people here I would be very willing to pay big time to have my ad on the front page.

 

[sf]

You know, that makes sense. I always figured that was the case already, given their description as "Sponsors" regularly. "Sponsor" implies some financial support in this case.

Jorge, don't they kick anything back to you for rent of space on the page?

 

[Jocko]

Make the money from the advertisers, they must love 4,000 members, don't try to make money from the members.

If I was in the business of selling expensive cameras to people here I would be very willing to pay big time to have my ad on the front page.

I wonder if thought's been given to advertisers outside the USA - especially those serving specific niche markets or selling "usables" - in the UK, Retro Photographic and SRB immediately spring to mind and there are many others who might happily pay for a link. In very many ways, repairmen, sellers of film, filters, chemicals etc have an even greater interest in sustaining this community than camera stores, who could only reasonably hope to sell to a minority of members.

Ian

 

[RObert Budding]

I used to visit a Contax site that went subscription only. That pretty much killed the site as many people left and there was then less content that anyone was willing to pay for. The final blow came when Kyocera killed Contax camera production.

Be very careful. The real value here is in the large membership. Anything that drops the number of members will hurt the site.