How annoying some of the site requires special perks to view. I have chat requests that i can't view unless i pay does anyone else think this is to the detriment of the site or is it just me?
This is old news now and most of us have either paid up or just accepted the fact that not everything in life is free! the site although is still a good place to visit and post on. The owners do a great job and who can blame them for trying to get a bit back of the expense of running the site.
the money for the perks membership is cheap when compared to other sites.......25 dollars a year is nothing.....for a nice fun site as this place.. i pay 30.00 dollars a month on others sites.....just to have the perks(gold status,silver status or whatever they call it there)
i'm sorry, if i sounded cold about the money...i know that everybody has bills to pays...it's a neverending saga...lol it was never my intention to disrespect anybody........or to offend
I can see the argument against having to pay, as some people won't and it limits the community. But there's also something to be said about having to pay for content like this: and that is if you're willing to pay for something it shows you're more serious about it. Also, running a site like this isn't free. It's got to come out of someone's pocket. Seriously, $25 for a year is nothing, and I'm pretty damned poor. I wish more people would buy the perks membership, just to get everything more active.
I think simpletwistfate's point about limiting the coummunity vs paying is the debate. No matter how cheap some may never sign up.
Very true. The internet is generally "free" but the price is often a lot of advertising on a page. The owners here have taken the opposite view and want to keep ads to a minimum which is good. Some more ads for non payers would maybe be an encouragement to pay for less than a coffee a month to be free of ads. It seems to work with "free" apps on Apple and Android so why not here? Having said that non perk members still have access to mini chat as far as i know so be "friendly" and the problem is solved.
Exactly. Here is my perspective on the issue as a web developer and industry analyst: At a basic level, sites cost money to host. Beyond the hosting, developers are constantly having to fend off spammers and those seeking to inject malware into their websites. This site is much more susceptible to security attacks simply because it's a community and each user (both free members and paid members) have a certain level of access to the servers which can cause complications. At the end of the day, the website owner(s) need a reason to continue hosting the website. If they have to pull out of pocket to pay for things month after month, it isn't worth it...that time and money could be spent on another internet venture. I have yet to pay for a premium membership, however, once my spouse and I sink our teeth deeper into chastity (CB-6000 arrived yesterday), that will change and I will happily pay to use the website. The owners have done an excellent job and are totally deserving of compensation, of which I will happily oblige.
It is kind of ludicrous though to claim that running a web site and forum costs so much you need to charge $25 a year for the privledge. I run a VPS with multiple web sites on it. Costs me less than $20 per month and it could easily handle 50-100 web sites like this one. I'm fine supporting community sites, I do it all the time. But it really bothers me to pay for the privledge of participating in a forum. Forum members provide the content, why should someone who setup a customized PHPBB charge the users who create their site for them?
Hosting is trivially cheap. If this site drops its fees I'll host it on my VPS for free. That leaves only the domain name registration fee per year as a cost. We're talking $20 or less per year.
VPS for less than $20 a month? Great, message me the website so i can take a look, although i very strongly doubt it could handle 50-100 websites like this one
http://nocster.net/linvps.shtml $20 per month gets you this: VPS PACKAGE #3 VPS Software: vePortal™ / OpenVZ™ CPU: 2000MHZ GUARANTEED Memory: 1.5GB GUARANTEED Disk Space: 100GB (RAID BASED CONFIG) Bandwidth: 2000GB/MONTH IP Addresses: 2 (IPv4) + IPv6 Management: BASIC MANAGED DDOS Protection: CISCO™ GUARD FREE SETUP I use them for my VPS. Without a control panel you can get a very decent VPS for $20 or so per month. Some perspective - when I ran a hosting company years ago I used to run an average of 200 client sites on the following hardware: 1 ghz P3 1 GB RAM Dual 80 GB HD in Raid That's running Apache, Tomcat, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and CPanel. The servers were fine and handled it no problem. That was years ago. The VPS I indicated above is roughly 5x more capable than that hardware. I can guarantee it can support this site and many more. There isn't that much traffic here. Edit: No I don't work for them. I do use them for my own stuff though and I'm happy to point you to my sites via PM.
I posted this in another area of the forum, but after the last upgrade and all the work that the mansion went thru in doing this upgrade, I paid for a membership. I have be on and off of this site for a few years and was away for almost 9 months once, which is why I didn't pay for a membership when it was first instituted. Even if hosting the site was free the time involved in maintaining it is not. So "Hats off and cages on!" to the owners and the admin who keep this place going for us! arty0019: Gabby
Now I feel compelled to join as a member just to cover for all the cheapskates that will never pay money for things online. The makers of this site have put hours of effort and considerable funds into creating and maintaining a place for us to get together and complain about not wanting to do our part. I think its a trivial amount of money for the amount of good this place brings into our lives.