Another Move - New Format

Excellent move!! I'd be glad to contribute as I have offered before and/or pay membership here and get a forum with more features and capabilities ... such as RSS feeds :grin:

Just let me know where and when to sign up and send the membeship dues :thumbsup:
 
are there discounts for those who don't own boats :huh:

Just kidding. I'm in just let us know.
Thanks again Jim, for my Virtual boating experiences and such a great community.

When we move sites does Gary have to contact the local authorities as a registered SeaRay offender? I'm just curious... :huh:
 
The ROI here is nearly immeasurable; only waiting to send a check or provide my credit card number.

C-
 
Some thoughts on membership

By contrast Boatdeisel.com a sight devoted to discussion on diesels in boats, a somewhat narrow population when all boaters are considered charges 25 bucks a year for membership. Non paying people can hav elimited use but not fuull privlidges like responding to posts or opening photos ...

I find the few times a year I ask questions plus the invaluable training I get from reading about the trials of others and the solutions offerred from professional technitions and manufactirers makes the cost well worth it.

If you were to organize the site an "association" with a governing board that would allow the site to be self governing and directing.

If this site had a membership fee that was graded to boat size; say under 28' $15 bucks a year; 28' to 38' $20 bucks; and 39' and up $25 bucks it would make sense.

In the member posting ID, I'd recommending only showing length of membership and the number of posts, but give only a designation based on class of boat size, drop the "Admiral" type of nominclature as it incentivizes motor mouths to post senslessly to get a merit badge.

I would also encourage the idea for non boat parts and gizmo manufacturers to advertise their wears in "badge type " ads and their CSR's to have Q & A sections on their products. The advertisers should be SR boat centric i.e. no realeste advertisers for instance. The ad revenue would offset the cost of operation to members.

In items for sale, if members could list their boats for sale, they might get the ad for free but would pay $100 bucks if the boat sells to another member.

Just some thoughts.
 
Re: Some thoughts on membership

Asureyez said:
If this site had a membership fee that was graded to boat size; say under 28' $15 bucks a year; 28' to 38' $20 bucks; and 39' and up $25 bucks it would make sense.
Click to expand...

WHAT?!!

You want some kind of "dockage fee" scale?

WHY?!!

I agree... but it should be INVERSE to size. Under 28' $100/year; 28' to 38' $50, and 39' and up $5/year... Otherwise, I'll register my dinghy. :grin:
 
Chad,

How about these questions in light of your suggestions:

I think I have initiated 2 threads in the last year and they were to make others aware of certain boating related news. All my other posts were responses to help another boater with his issues or to help him fix his boat. Why should I pay for the privledge of solving other people's problems? Don't misunderstand me here....I am more than willing to pay my share of the overhead, but I have a problem paying more to help others just because I own more fiberglass.

The member posting ID thing may have some merit, but I would like to see us move toward more specific boat information rather them less in signatures, ID's or whatever. I'm at the point where I just don't usually take the time to ask qualifying question on location, boat model, engine or drive type in order to answer questions. If the original poster doen't provide us enough information for us to give him quality answers, then he should be stuck with the general and many times inaccurate answers he gets as members have to guess at the specifics of his boat.
 
Fair Points

FrankW I understand ... maybe we need to have a Bos'ns rate, and for Gary, a dingy rate where any boat under 18'5'' is 300 bucks!
 
If any relevent company wants to advertise, like if a local dealer wants to sponsor a regional forum or something thats fine. But I have no intention of using ad revenue to support the site. I personally find ads on a site to be interesting as long as they are relevant. On lots of other forums I go to I have found some pretty neat stuff this way.

This site does not need to be member supported. Content will never require a membership to be viewed, and you will never need to pay money to participate or ask questions.

The reason I want to accept donations at this point is because I get member after member asking if they can donate some money. I am over my head in programming duties so I figure its the right time to accept some of those donations and put them towards the site. What I have come up with is as follows:

Silver Sponsor - $25 annual donation
Gold Sponsor - $100 annual donation
Platinum Sponsor - Any significant contribution in time, money or services

For example, First Born spends a lot of time moderating this site, so he will be a Platinum Sponsor. I just spent a grand on the last server move, this upcoming server move, software, and some custom programming, so I will be a Platinum sponsor too. We have a member that donated a web server to us for hosting the site so he will be a Platinum sponsor (I will only let you know who it is if he wants, I'm afraid if the server goes down he might get bombarded with emails like I do!)

The only extra privileges i can think of for sponsors would be additional image storage, maybe a free boat classified, maybe I'll think of more things. I just want people that donate money to the site to be recognized, so this should accomplish that. We will still have the various levels of seniority based on post levels.

If somebody wants to donate money, great, if they don't thats great too. Active participation is whats most appreciated :thumbsup:
 
OK, we are now on the new server, but apparently the VB guy did not preserve any of the forum settings. So I think I am back at square 1 :smt021

So post away, and give me some time to get things the way I have spent the last 7 days to get them.
 
Jim............I am on the new site but I didn't get a re-direct from my old URL. I was using a URL for new posts for the last 24 hours. Maybe you need a redirect for a variety of combinations of possible URLs. Also, I noticed I don't have the right editor in my profile. I had to change it to get the additional smilies and text editing capabilities. Is this something everyone will have to do?

Dave
 
Just a suggestion, but maybe a member that owns a marine store would like to sponsor the site? Over on the dark side at www.Baylinerownersclub.org/forum we have Boatfix as our coorporate sponsor and he gets lots of biz from us because he has great prices...
 
I'm in lot of valuble information on the site and well worth an annual membership fee.
 
admin said:
If any relevent company wants to advertise, like if a local dealer wants to sponsor a regional forum or something thats fine. But I have no intention of using ad revenue to support the site. I personally find ads on a site to be interesting as long as they are relevant. On lots of other forums I go to I have found some pretty neat stuff this way.

This site does not need to be member supported. Content will never require a membership to be viewed, and you will never need to pay money to participate or ask questions.

The reason I want to accept donations at this point is because I get member after member asking if they can donate some money. I am over my head in programming duties so I figure its the right time to accept some of those donations and put them towards the site. What I have come up with is as follows:

Silver Sponsor - $25 annual donation
Gold Sponsor - $100 annual donation
Platinum Sponsor - Any significant contribution in time, money or services

For example, First Born spends a lot of time moderating this site, so he will be a Platinum Sponsor. I just spent a grand on the last server move, this upcoming server move, software, and some custom programming, so I will be a Platinum sponsor too. We have a member that donated a web server to us for hosting the site so he will be a Platinum sponsor (I will only let you know who it is if he wants, I'm afraid if the server goes down he might get bombarded with emails like I do!)

The only extra privileges i can think of for sponsors would be additional image storage, maybe a free boat classified, maybe I'll think of more things. I just want people that donate money to the site to be recognized, so this should accomplish that. We will still have the various levels of seniority based on post levels.

If somebody wants to donate money, great, if they don't thats great too. Active participation is whats most appreciated :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

Jim, I would develop a special avatar supplement to idnetify the supporters on the board, similar to what www.bobistheoilguy.com did. that way the contributors get the recognition they deserve in addition to the little benefits. Nothing else needed from my view.
 
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