Will the membership dues allow us to boot vendors that continually lie/sttrrreeeetttttccccchhhhh the truth? And when people pay to be on this site, all who have paid should be able to evaluate vendors and make yearly recommendations on who stays and goes?
I skipped over all the post's, but is everyone else having problems searching? It tells me my term is too short, I make it longer.. and it still doesn't work.
on a side note, where are you living these days? i remember you were in vegas a while back, we met at our local meet behind the in-n-out burger
Toronto, Canada Its cold. I miss vegas.
Quote: Originally Posted by rlundi86
if we pay, would they enable the preview thing where you can put your mouse over a thread and it previews it without having to actually click on the thread? cause not having that is annoying as hell
The preview thing works for me. I'm not sure if it ever worked on active topics, tho I've done nothing that should have broken it.
Quote: Originally Posted by Illegal Machine
Wade, you and I both know that is something that should have been worked out BEFORE telling people about the new member system.
Now people are frustrated, and they can't even voice their frustration because they have to wait for the page to load (which makes things worse..).
It *appears* that the site was intentionally messed up (banners, load times) to essentially force people to pay to make it better.
"Better" being what we had for free about 6 hours ago.
So.....I think its pretty understandable that people are upset....
I addressed this in another thread but the only change as far as adding "ads" goes was adding a single ad unit below the google ad on the left hand side bar. We replaced auction ads with a different ad company... but other then adding that one ad in the left hand sidebar there were no additional ad spots added.
Quote: Originally Posted by Ghowie
I paid and can't disable the sidebar?
You should be able too as long as you see that your user title is premium and you have the premium image. If not, your upgrade has not taken effect yet (could be paypal issue)
Quote: Originally Posted by master_1011
Ekool,
Will this paid membership carry over to your sister sites??
i.e. Titantalk (where I am a member already), or the charger forums (where I will soon be a member)
Unfortunately there is no way to link memberships to multiple sites
Quote: Originally Posted by leadfoot
EKOOLSRTME
I noticed a few weeks ago that I lost my photos privlages. I assume this was what he was gearing up for. If all I get for being primium member is access to post my photos, other admin functions, and block adds, no thank you. Maybe time to finaly remove my SRTOC plate frames, as they will be collectors items.
VayaconDiosSRTOC
We never removed anyones privileges. More then likely the "Veteran 4" usergroup was never set up in the photo gallery so your "automatic" upgrade unfortunately brought you a negative side effect. This is one of the reasons we are doing away with the tons of usergroups we have right now. There are about 5 usergroups for "registered" members and about 5 more usergroups for "srtoc" members. This makes things much more complex then it needs to be and the only reason its there is for the custom user title.
I'm working on a hack that will replace the need for that many usergroups.
Rest assured your privileges were not removed in anticipation of this move. I had not logged into the photo gallery to update permissions in >6 months.
__________________
SRTforums.com - Dodge SRT forums - Covering the SRT4, SRT6, SRT8 and SRT10.
Just me rambling here for a minute. My first thought after logging on tonight after all the changes for the first time went something like this: "Let me get this, in addition to all the vendors paying fees, the thousands of dollars in AdSense and other revenue, now he wants me to pay to be less annoyed?"
There probably was a time when I wouldn't have had much of a problem with this. And there are other web sites I'm currently on that have minimal advertising, great moderation, and an active forum owner (for example focaljet.com and couple of the turbo Dodge sites) where I wouldn't mind forking out a couple bucks because I feel the site is worth something. But over the last couple years srtforums has turned into a commercialized cluster and I don't want to support the site, i.e. fork over money for services I don't see a value in.
This comes across as trying to milk every last penny of revenue from the forums while you can. I think everyone knows that the Neon SRT-4 is out of production and anyone who has been online for years dating back to automotive mailing lists to the dawn of internet forums has seen the life cycle where everything starts off strong and eventually dies down and people splinter off as cars age or get discontinued. That's what is going on with the SRT-4 right now.
And if there are going to be less and less paying vendors I can somewhat see adding some advertising or looking into other means to support a site and make money. But when the forum looks worse than many porn sites and is more commercialized than most, me, as a customer has to ask "why should I pay?"
One of the main reasons I've started to drift away from here has not been the slow site and all the ads. It has been about things like pretty much zero moderation. There have been a couple good admin/mods but there's only so much one or two people can do. And I never see Mr. Gonzalez active on the boards. There are off topic posts that spread to every part of the boards, there's flaming and racial slurs thrown around, tons and tons of miss categorized posts, vendors that jump into every single tech thread of someone asking a question and trying to push products, and on and on. There are some sections like the California area that have not had an active moderator for literally years. The current one hasn't even owned an SRT-4 for two or three years now and never logs on. I'm pretty tolerant of a lot of things, but when I take the time to flag something blatantly inappropriate like NWS stuff in a sig or avatar and it takes a couple weeks to get corrected that tells me this place is on auto pilot.
The scamming vendors used to really be a sore point with me and it still bothers me a lot. I'm sure most reasonable people understood you as a site owner can't be responsible and baby sit every single transaction, but after multiple giant group buy fiascos and countless tens of thousands of dollars lost it was never publicly made clear whether any internal policy had been set up or changes made in an attempt to limit it from happening in the future. Things like maybe requiring a business check, business license information, etc. before allowing a vendor to sign up. Just washing your hands and stating essentially stating "caveat emptor, I just let them pay me to sell here but you're on your own" doesn't sit very well.
That's how I generally feel about this site now days and there are a lot of people who have been around a long time that feel the same. So by not doing anything to correct real problems and taking the time to make this a better place, not just make more money I don't see why I'd want to pay. Adding things I don't want (crappy ads filling every square inch) or taking things away that we had before in order to get people to pay into something isn't a great idea. It's a community and if you drive people away you're left hoping new members will join and keep it going, and while that is required to help sustain a community, if everyone else starts leaving it's going to fall apart and people will go elsewhere even more than they're doing already. Is that why these changes are being made?
Now that I'll get off the soap box and offer my suggestions on what I feel is reasonable and what I'd like to see. I fully understand you don't have to listen or even care about what I think, but I don't like to complain without offering suggestions to fix the problem (but then again if you don't care about your member base and what they think you'll get the same in return). - There needs to be active moderation and admins for every section of the forums watching for posts in the wrong sections, profanity/racial slur/flaming, etc. Just the very basic stuff every forum needs. Add more of them and be selective on who you add. Unbiased as possible and fair should be a requirement (a few have been fairly hypocritical).
- Vendors. They shouldn't be allowed to enter every tech section and push products and argue with other vendors. That's why they have their own sections. Make a policy that they can answer questions and discuss theirproducts in the performance, tuning, fuel sections, etc., but when they start arguing and/or jumping ineverywhere trying to push something an admin needs to step in. Otherwise it leaves a bad commercialization feeling in the mouth of members.
- Ads. Figure out a policy and stick with it. Even if I were to pay today what guarantee is it that there won't be other changes in a few months that add some new venue generating content to the site? There's a fine line between providing a service and getting a little revenue in return, but when a member in addition to a guest is hounded with fifty thousand ads it's too much.
- Do not implement paying a "premium" membership to get features. Get rid of it. I absolutely hate when a site that's making good revenue (i.e. enough to support themselves) asks their member base to pay to gain access to common forum features. If, and that's a big if this was a small web site that didn't have a lot of people on it (in other words not enough to bring in ad clicks) or didn't have enough paying vendors to support it I could see asking the member base to contribute and maybe give them stuff in return as an incentive. But on a large scale site like this has become it ticks people off and comes across as blatant money grubbing.
- Availability and performance imprevements need implemented. Bandwidth alone does not appear to be an issue here. For those familiar with SQL databases and web site/forum design I'd bet the biggest problems most people have and complain about are caused by extra content such as ads loading and the database server being overtaxed and/or the forum software not flexible enough for a giant site with large numbers of concurrent users. I'd suggest spending some time working on the backbone and improving performance if you want people to pay. More servers. Faster drive arrays. Better software. Whatever it takes, spend the money to fix it. And if you can't because a lot of it is due to the extra ads and things added to the site to produce revenue I'd maybe reassess those items. Nothing infuriates people more than hearing "looks great from my end" or "upgrades are being put online" while it remains the same experience or marginally improves but is still worse than it has been in the past from the user's perspective.
- Back to vendors again and the scams. I've never really heard anything that has been done and don't know what steps have been taken to prevent it in the future, but it would be nice to come out and state either way what's going on. Put up a section on the forums or a link that shows the requirements and provides information on how to become a vendor. That way the general user base can look at it and see what's required. If you're then requiring a lot of information and taking steps to ensure it isn't a fly-by-night operation they'll know about it (and if you're not there are bigger problems). There needs to be more active admins that can and should keep an eye on big group buys or watch for developing problems they could bring to your attention before it spirals out of control. On a side note I'm sure people enjoyed seeing the rotating banner ads still on the forums for a company months after that vendor had disappeared without a trace (Kustomatix, Glacial, etc.).
-More involvement with the community. I get the feeling you're in it ONLY for the money (and perception is reality). And there's nothing wrong with that, but maybe consider bringing in more site leadership who actually cares about the subject the site is promoting, or in other words people who care about and are involved in the SRT-4's. You'll get less resentment to changes and maybe having people truly involved in the community can help it grow or at least sustain itself better. Otherwise you'll see the continued fragmentation of people leaving, new members not sticking around, and in turn less ad clicks, vendors, and money in your pocket.
Good gawd someone please listen to this man.
I usually never read posts over 2 sentences but I read this whole thing and I agree with everything he said 100%
I usually never read posts over 2 sentences but I read this whole thing and I agree with everything he said 100%
x2 you beat me to it.
As I said earlier, this has been executed poorly.
You shouldn't ask people to pay $40, and when they ask WHY you say, "We don't know yet"....
That makes people PERCEIVE, you care about the money, not about making the site more enjoyable, regardless of what your intentions actually are.
I'm more disappointed in the people who shoved money at the site before getting a list of new features. What incentive does he have to change anything if you're going to throw money at him for doing nothing!?
SO with this lifetime membership
Why is "lifetime membership" only 25 years? i think a majority of the member here will live to see another 25 years, so this so called lifetime membership isn't really a lifetime
What if the site gets shut down before the 25 years are up? would members receive their money back?
What happens if in 2012 the world does come to end, do they get their money back?
SO with this lifetime membership
Why is "lifetime membership" only 25 years? i think a majority of the member here will live to see another 25 years, so this so called lifetime member ship isn't really a lifetime
What if the site gets shut down before the 25 years are up? would members receive their money back?
What happens if in 2012 the world does come to end, do they get their money back?
He is using the money to hedge future "contracts" on our lives. If any of us are still alive (haven't DIAF after street racing) and still active on the site, eKool will simple have us whacked to fulfill the "lifetime" membership promise he made 25 years prior.
SO with this lifetime membership
Why is "lifetime membership" only 25 years? i think a majority of the member here will live to see another 25 years, so this so called lifetime member ship isn't really a lifetime
What if the site gets shut down before the 25 years are up? would members receive their money back?
What happens if in 2012 the world does come to end, do they get their money back?
The maximum they can set is 25 years. They can't extend it our further until 15 years from now.
No successful business plans for the day it goes out of business.
I wonder if any of the non-vendor advertisers know that their ads can be effectively blocked by the paid membership, and if they are getting a discount on ads for potentially lost revenue. :
I wonder if any of the non-vendor advertisers know that their ads can be effectively blocked by the paid membership, and if they are getting a discount on ads for potentially lost revenue. :
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