As much as you might think I overestimate my importance , I really think that you overestimate this forums. It's a great place to be , nice folk , great sense of community but I really dont think that it influences the industry to any large extent and it's certainly not worth paying for. I can do better with the money - like a years subscription to clipart com that has way more than 700 pieces.

I'm not even from the usa , so wont get the tax break and the $99 is a lot more in my country than for you. At the end of it all , why do ! even HAVEto have a justification for payment when none was required before???

The other forum made the archives free to view and imho if you convert this to a pay site , that has be the case here.
On the other forum , the issue was the Copyright of the articles and post which remains with the author notwithstanding anything they had on the site rules etc
When they were bought over and the site was about to be changed to charge anyone to see em , a lot of the authors objected strongly due to the fact thay posted the stuff freely and at the time never expected or wanted it to be used to generate income.
You are actually offering diddly squat for the subs David , the clipart is mickey mouse Your advertisers will want to see figures etc before commiting money , for that you need more traffic , not less (and assuredly as you say , the no's will drop)
PPL coming to this forum or other specialised ones ARE the demographic , only ppl interested in engraving and related fields will visit them , be it yours or anyone elses. I think it really sucks to both have to pay to view and then also be targeted by advertisers. I would suggest one or the other.

I agree with with you Rodney. They are acting like the Bank ATM's - free until they got you, then wham pay to use.

$99/yr is too much. I feel you will lose many.

The users of this free forum have contributed freely. We sell nothing to the others within it.

This is a great forum. Its too sad.......

I have to agree with you on many points Rodney....Over on the DSSI forum we wrangled with the same subject....and wondered what would ever happen if it went pay.....I am very interested in seeing what happens here. To the point of it being worth the first $10 installment ;) 

There is still a forum on delphi that mirrors the format of this forum...In fact the goal of beehive was to have it look and act like the DELPHI forums that both DSSI and EE started on. Both sites still exist and could easily be the place that people go to when the change takes place......There are all kinds of archives on both....

I have a gut feeling as you do that when it comes time to pony up, that there will be a few very active members that do so. The rest of the "lurkers" will go "lurk" somewhere else. I hope that I am proven wrong, as I enjoy this forum and want to see it succeed. Part of that success is the "free" exchange of ideas.....so I understand both sides of the issue. If it were up to me....the forum would stay the way it is.....After all....being exactly what it is.....is what makes it great.

I would suggest creating a poll as to how many people would pay for this site....you could easily take the number of views and get a percentage of theoretical success by doing some simple math.

I am not suggesting that David not move forward with this, as the results will be interesting.... I just have many reservations.

If it were up to me, I think I would work on having a tiered system like many of the photography sites do. They have a "professional" forum, and a "general" forum. The professional portion is pay, and the general is not......

Both forums happen to be active, and the free portion introduces the forum to new people on a continual basis. The biggest concern about going all pay is where will the newbies come from without some sort of free trial period or opportunity to see what all the fuss is about.....

I will miss your input if you choose to forgo the fee......I will most likely pay the fee at least once to see how things shake out.

This forum has come out of David's pocket for a long while now. The drain must stop, in my opinion.

Selling advertising is against one of our, (moderators), rules. It makes you be wary of what you say due to money issues. That has been a long standing complaint in magazines. We will not permit that to happen here.

The only advertising allowed, and free at that, is for companies that give discounts to our members. We will do this as a service to our members, and any company that is found lacking in ethics or is giving members a problem, is GONE. We have no financial stake in them being gone, so we can do that with a clear conscience.

David has left the Delphi site in operation, but we will not have the time to moderate there. It is available to all.

There has been much talk, (privately by the moderators), about free access for a specific time for those that have an article accepted.

Rodney, all you need to do is see if the editing David did on your article is acceptable to you, (another thing magazines do not do), and you will have that time free.

Is the price right, wish I knew. We cannot grow without it and talking to other sites with contributions, they are haveing problems.

Philadelphia, PA (Really Bensalem)

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

All,
I'm one of the newbies that have gotten tons of advise and help from this forum...would I pay for it? Probably, but at the same time I would be looking for the new ones that pop up. If I found a free one that had the same level of experience, then I would go with it...I'm a new business with all the new business expenses and the added expense of this, no matter how small, shows in my pocket book. But like I said, I'd probably pay because of the experience level of the people here and the help I've recieved.

However, I would have to wonder if I'd be willing to pay if I were the experienced one. Seems like there are some people here that don't ever really ask questions but they sure do answer a lot. If I were one of those, would I be willing to pay to be giving advise? It would be like going to Microsoft and saying, "I've been working with your product for 20 years. I'll pay you XX dollars to become one of your tech support and you don't have to pay me anything." I'm just afraid that a lot of the experience will leave the board because of that reason. And that's the whole reason I'm here...

Just my two cents (worth about .5 cents)

Mike