I also will not be joining the "pay" forum once its up.
I wish you the best of luck for the future.

An alternative, That I would more than jump for is if it was a yearly donation of say bout $50.00.

As I am in another forum that I and others donate yearly.
We are given to our accounts extra options to a artwork folder
where we share and can request files that we've made/done
and also the option to post in another folder for selling.

They also have the option to donate more to get a "merchant" option where we can advertise our products to other forum members.

They been doing it for about 2 years now and they've grown bigger than anyone had imaged (3,628 users) when they converted over.

Here are the options that they give, might help you out for ideas:

Contributing Member:
This is a voluntary, renewable membership fee for those Registered Members wishing to help defray cost of operating the forum.
1 Year - US$50.00
6 Months - US$30.00
3 Months - US$17.50
1 Month - US$7.50

Merchant Member (Job Shop):
For shops in the engraving, embroidery, sublimation, signmaking, screen printing, digital printing & other areas. This allows you to create new threads in the Merchant Classified Forum to make announcements and, in general, to promote your products and services.
1 Year - US$150.00

Merchant Membership (Supplier):
For manufacturers, resellers, distributors & others not involved in operating a engraving, embroidery, sublimation, signmaking, screen printing, digital printing business. Membership allows you to create new threads in the Merchant Classified Forum to make announcements & to promote your products & services.
1 Year - US$300.00

I've listened to the opinons and have decided to leave this forum free, although it will be headed by another moderator.

I've contacted a person who I feel would make an excellent choice. If he declines my offer, it will be up to the membership to decide who they wish to run the forum.

Once the subscription side is established, I'll continue to participate, as time allows.

How sad is all this..?

I cant believe we have all witnessed this turning into a tit for tat public slanging match...

and the behind the scenes contributions of members being brought forward, then a bucket of humiliation dropped on them...that in my opinion is not very nice... ( how embarrasing :-$ )

My 2 cents worth here is ,David, please dont write disparaging remarks about contributors, their writing styles etc...

:-( 

Keep those things to yourself...

( remember , " If you dont have anything nice to say...dont say anything at all" )

Before anyone else lights into me about defending etc...the best defence here is my last 2 statements.

This has descended into really poor form.... :-( 

Peter

Boy have I been out of touch! We bought our new house and moved the 1st of April, and between boxes and unpacking and setting up the business and trying to find everything!!!!! and working on my website, I haven't checked in in a while.

David and Harvey and all of you guys who have done so much for our industry and for us, the engravers out there, I salute you! I will definitely be one of the EBS folks! This forum has been invaluable to me, and I consider it an honor to be a part of this group. It saddens me to see all of a sudden all the bedlam created by the changes to the site. Those of us who have benefited for so long at no cost should certainly have no problem subscribing to the forum! Time is money! And this falls under the tax deductible expenses!

Anyway, I'm not about to get into a p------- contest. Just let me know when it's time to pay, just in case I am missing in action as I have been this month. I AM IN!

Thanks again! I look forward to continuing my membership with you!

I think we will have to wait a little bit for what will happen.

I just took David out to the woodshed and explained a few things.

Could not reach Takes first so I took him out alone.

Give him a few minutes to regroup. I hope we see some return to normal.

Philadelphia, PA (Really Bensalem)

Harvey's Tips Page When you finally understand it completely... it changes.

Chuck,

I know I have been absent from much of the discussion on this subject, primarily because business has exploded over the past 30 days and I'm just scrambling to stay ahead of the deadlines. I've checked in, but didn't want to post without giving my comments some serious thought. I think I really wanted to soak everything in and make a less emotional post. Well, that's not working, here I go.

I joined this forum when it was on Delphi. My business was just coming out of its fledgling stage, with myself still having a great deal to learn to maximize the full potential of my business. I can say that this forum has, without a doubt, been the single most important resource that has contributed to the growth and success of my business. I am grateful for that.

What I am feeling right now in my gut is great sadness. Our little world here was so unique and different from any other professional forum I have ever seen. I loved this place.

I truly think there has been some division, and I don't think we will ever be able to have what we once did. I so hope I am wrong.

The number one priority for me personally is to unite the membership. I personally don't care if the free site is on Engraving Etc. or World of Engraving. I think the split of membership into two free forums is inefficient for all of us and just doesn't make sense.

The subscription website that David is proposing will have great value once it is completed. A private forum will be an important part of this so that subscribed members of the website can also discuss more openly subjects like pricing, marketing practices, etc. without worrying about the public looking in.

In hindsight, it would have been wiser to keep this forum as it is and offer the subscription to the website on its own merits. Hindsight is 20/20.

I think calm is about to fall upon us.

hi David,

Are you saying that the long term plan is to have two forums? One private the other public and free?

Brian,

That is what I read into David's post. I'll let him speak about the plan. I can't say either way.

Thanks,

I asked him myself in a subsequent post this morning.

So.............we may have to make the same post on 3 forums? Wow, I thought this was time consuming before! :'-( 

It's already hard enough to get any work done.....oh ya, it would help if I stayed off the golf course.

Dave, Brudda,

I have only read 72 posts in this thread as of this writing but here's my gut feeling.

I, like most here, appreciate everything you do for hosting a forum where businesspeople can gain information to improve their businesses. This also applies to Cherie Derrick at DSSI. But I am having a problem with this site going subscription.

Its not that a dime, a quarter or dollar a day is too much, its the nature of the world wide web. We are accustomed to the free exchange of ideas and banter online. And lets face it, a lot of what goes down on these lists is chit-chat, not ground breaking technical or business inovation.

I for one would like you to adopt a model where you accept advertising instead of charging an annual fee. I think the rank and file would relate to that better.

There is/was a teriffic photo site I used to visit daily, the Rob Galbraith Forum. Most members were serious professionals, not wannabee flamers like on some photo sites. But it recently sold and is now a membership fee list. Will I subscribe? Probably not. It just doesn't seem right after so many years of visiting the free site. And maybe in the final analysis that's it really, changing midstream from free to fee. If you were just starting up perhaps the perception of a subscription fee would be different.

Just my 2 cents and we all know how much that is worth.....

If I may weigh in... I don't believe their intention ever was to just make us pay to use the forum. As in, leave things just like this and just start making us pay. I believe they have much grander things in mind, the logo's just being part of it. I think a "wait and see" attitude should be observed until we can see what they have in mind before jumping to too many conclusions. Heck, just hang out at the free forums (or stay here since he already said he was going to leave the forum portion free) and pay the 10 dollars when it's time to see if you want to pay for a years worth. No one ever said it's a year or nothing.

I'm pretty curious, so I'll pay 10 bucks to see what's what. If it doesn't appeal to me as a laser hobbiest, then I'll let it lapse.

PS... stock logos and art was one of the suggestions made in one of the other threads a while back. I for one would like to see them. Not just logos, but stock art like a greyscale winter wolf, horse, barn, creek...

PPS... he only offered to delete posts to those that didn't want them on the pay site, was never a threat, he even said he didn't want to.

THat's about it...

Shaddy