Upgrade and new features 9/09

Interesting point about maximise the received amount Shiney. I've never looked at what Pay Pal cream off.

Does paying with a Debit Card reduce the PayPal commission?

Where does the VAT get removed? (if you sent me a £10 personal payment by Pay Pal would that get VAT'd?)

 

I use paypal to pay for online games I play and don't get charged for doing so, even if there are no funds in my paypal account and the money then has to come straight out of my bank account.

 

I won't pay, there are too many other forums-if I need to go elsewhere for advice I will and have done.

Free forums often have ads-almost invariably so. The ads don't bother me as much as all that-if I want it I buy it, if I don't..........well you get the picture. What is starting to bug me are the so-called "new" members who only ever make one post about say casino's, or hotels, or some such-it will link in an ad for it at the top-now that really does bug me.

A privileged area for paying members only? Happens everywhere, who cares? Nightclubs, planes, hotels everywhere. The only interesting point of note with this is that the idea that you will receive a better calibre of advice because you have paid is a nonsense and I really can't imagine how other forums who use this take off anyway-that is the overwhelming reason people come here in the first place-free advice, if they are immediately asked to pay for it most will just search google again.

If all you want is extra pic space then you will just find people linking to the free image hosting sites, there are loads of ways around it.


On a side note I haven't paid for a magazine on gardening for years Sam, always finding them at dentists and doctors receptions lol.

 

"I use paypal to pay for online games I play and don't get charged for doing so, even if there are no funds in my paypal account and the money then has to come straight out of my bank account."

Its the recipient that pays the "commission", or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

"What is starting to bug me are the so-called "new" members who only ever make one post about say casino's, or hotels, or some such-it will link in an ad for it at the top-now that really does bug me"

Press the next to the post and report it - I find that the MODs remove rubbish like that very promptly when I report it :thumb: (although I expect you already know about that)

"A privileged area for paying members only?"

Agree: pointless IMHO. I post for a wide audience to critique, not the few folk I know in some sort of "mates only forum".

Discount off donation for "Regular contributors" kinda defeats the object ... they are the most likely to donate.

"The only interesting point of note with this is that the idea that you will receive a better calibre of advice because you have paid"

Ah, so Punter pays for good advice, I give said Good Advice, and I then receive a commission? Now that I could donation for ... ermm .. hang on a minute!!!

I think there is mileage in a follow-up to a one-question-poster, who gets a reasonable answer, "Did you find this useful? if so a voluntary donation to help support the site would be appreciated"

I expect Nathan is busying selling his Ferrari and buying a Yacht as I type this ... :D

 

A paying members area is seen as elitist and is unnecessary. By all means have a "free" members only area, but from experience on other forums, it becomes elitist, cliquey and to be honest, very dull! On one particular forum I belong to, the members area is full of smutty jokes and "adult humour". Fun for a while but rapidly gets boring.

Keep this place as it is. I don't know how much a forum costs to run and maintain, but donations from some members will be very welcome I'm sure, but please don't make donating a route for extra "privileges" on here.

As for the adverts, I'm already managing to ignore them, much as I do with avatars and pictures that some mebers have on their profiles and posts. Nothing wrong with them, I just seem to overlook them now.

 

As one does!

The suggestion for a site supporters forum was just that, a suggestion. Doubt we'd have actually done it unless there was an overwhelming sway of opinion in favour! Which there wasn't so ...................

 

Yes members areas are available everywhere these days claire. It was merely a suggestion (not a recommendation) as I know a lot of sites DO. Maybe no one would donate any other way, i dunno.

I do know though, that when we were looking at buying a MG car we had a million and one questions and when you log into the MG forum you have to pay. You can look at some stuff but not all. You cant view photos and cant ask any questions without paying ... yet they have thousands and thousands of fully paid up members.

Hey I am straight in and straight back out again when I go to places like that so never notice what magazines they have. I think they are all about 20 years old with half the pages missing though :hehe:

Yes you have the right end of the stick

Kristen if you want to give me your phone number and be on 24 hour call, then you could have had my £15 ... you only had to ask :hehe:

As already said Aaron, its was just a suggestion ..... like 'brain storming' to come up with ideas on what makes people donate. I know from lots of other forums this gets people to get the good old credit/debit cards out.

Guess the idea was, that if more and more people can be encouraged to donate (they might need a push in the right direction though), then the site makes more money, which in return will make the site better with new improvements etc ..... good for everyone all round surely ?

The better the site is, the more people will use it and the more people will then donate .... etc etc etc.

Claire already mentioned new members joining and then spamming .... I am sure in this day and age there are better ways of preventing this or at least making it too hard for them to bother ..... but again this all costs money. Hence why donating to a site you use on a regular basis is win win all round ... as I see it anyway.

Anyway, £15 isnt an awful lot of money when you think of what we must spend on gardening stuff and plants. It would probably buy me 2 possibly 3 plants .... but whats the point in having the plants if I put them in the wrong place or they die through neglect because there is no one with any knowledge to ask because the website has shut down due to no money ?

Yes there are other forums out there. I have been in some. I didnt go back ...........

 

Which is my chief concern with the paysite or be bombarded with ads campaign, lets look at that again...and let it sink in.

Scary thought eh? No new members to bounce ideas off or to get their "take" on things...bringing something new to GC for open discussion...look around you..we are it, the full membership! Of course that could be wrong but as today is the 1st October, here's a marker for 1 month..until the 1st Novemeber. Lets see if these figures change by then

Threads: 23,687, Posts: 323,660, Members: 4,799, Active Members: 428 <-- Copied and pasted from forum front page.

Steve...

FAO Daiseies...that flashing ad you said should not be allowed is still being shown on the forum. Its above this thread reply box as I type. http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/imgad?id=COu-9rWn-NOiZxDYBRhaMgg4lrAfpT-fLw

 

"much as I do with avatars and pictures that some mebers have on their profiles and posts"

I have Avatars and Signatures turned off (the option is in the "User CP" somewhere). Moving-images makes it very hard for me to concentrate on the text.

"Claire already mentioned new members joining and then spamming .... I am sure in this day and age there are better ways of preventing this or at least making it too hard for them to bother"

Sadly not :( The usual way around this is a CAPTCHA (some text distorted to make machine recognition impossible, but humans cope OK). Some sites have things like "What's 3 plus 4" and have a huge range of questions so that roBOTs can't win.

So what do the spammers do now? Employ students and people in low wage countries to fill in the forms by hand :(

By the by, there is a really nice CAPTCHA called, I think, "Re-capture" which shows a known distorted image and then an image of a second word which has come from the scanning of old books, or some other laudable academic exercise. These extra images have defeated the academic's OCR in converting the scanned image of the page into text, so Punters see the two words in the shown by the CAPTCHA, type in the text for the distorted word (which the system knows the correct answer to) and also for the second academic project word (answer unknown). If you get the first one right you are considered a human and your answer for the second one is probably valid. The same picture is given to other punters too, and if everyone gives the same answer then that must be the correct text - Progress!

 

"Of course that could be wrong but as today is the 1st October, here's a marker for 1 month..until the 1st Novemeber. Lets see if these figures change by then"

A worthy baseline. I reckon that questions are declining this time of the year and should increase again in Spring and Early Summer ...

In Winter does the amount of chatter in "Think of a word beginning with ..." go up? (I don't read those threads, so have no idea on that - could distort the baseline stats though). I expect the Admins are able to pull those sorts of stats from way-back, so will eb able to gauge if the site is growing / shrinking.

IMHO folk pitching up to ask a question won't be bothered by adverts and requests to donate.

People who are regulars will either be able to tune-out, be guilt-persuaded to donate, go away (I doubt it if they enjoy the company here), or just install something to hide the adverts - which is basically the equivalent of being first-out-of-the-taxi-and last-to-the-bar ...

 

Is there no way to know that you have donated then?

When site was first upgraded there were "badges" for Supporter / Sponsor. They were a trail [presumably] but I'm curious to know if they are coming back

I've changed my mind on this. I previously said that I wasn't bothered if I had a badge, or not; indeed, I am not bothered on that score.

However, although I'm prepared to help anyone - provdied they aren't a complete jerk - I would certainly put more effort into helping someone who was helping the site financially, in particular a Newbie.

 

Maybe the way you register could be slightly harder to people off spamming then maybe ? Would they not just move on to the next easy site maybe ?

Oh I have an uncle just like that .... I would hate to be known as he is throughout the whole family. He knows what we all call him on too and doesnt seem to care!

Thats actually a really good point Kristen ... not that I can offer much advice but do at least try where and when I can (if its something I have actually grown with sucess). But yes you might find that people are more willing to go that little bit extra out of their way for the right person.

Going back to something I mention earlier about other forums. I cant even remember which ones now, but I do remember joining a few when I first got into gardening and you will be amazed at how many either completely ignore you or treat you like you are completely beneath them. Some also came across as very very clicky ... something I never found here (and yes I have asked some stupid questions!)