Annual Fee For Your Comment? 553
CaptainThunderbolt writes "Imagine this: you read an interesting story on Slashdot and you have a comment to make, so you login only to be greeted with a message saying you will need to pay a fee in order to make your comment. Seems ridiculous, doesn't it? Why on earth would you pay just to make a comment? Well, that is exactly how thousands of Aussies feel right now. AtomicMPC is an Australian PC Magazine with a fiercely loyal readership and an equally loyal online community. Yesterday it was announced that access to the most popular sections of the forum will soon attract a $20/year fee unless you are a magazine subscriber or a high-ranking forum member. The reaction to this announcement triggered the most vicious backlash I have ever witnessed as the website feedback forum went beserk. Users baulked at the idea of having to pay to access a community which the feel they are responsible for creating and I must say I understand how they feel. Is this a trend I should worry about? Will I one day have to pay a membership fee to access other popular forums?"
Hey, Subscribers! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hey, Subscribers! (Score:5, Funny)
Let Capitalism run its course. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, after you run off every worthwile user who donates their time making content, well...
I wonder how much it would cost if Slashdot paid hundreds of worthwhile scientific people to make +4 and +5 comments?
Re:Let Capitalism run its course. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let Capitalism run its course. (Score:5, Funny)
"Libratarians
I'm a Scorporiotarian --- what should I do??
Re:Let Capitalism run its course. (Score:3, Funny)
KFG
Re:Let Capitalism run its course. (Score:3, Funny)
"Bite me"
You meant to reply to the grandparent correct?
Re:Let Capitalism run its course. (Score:5, Funny)
...For the love of God, look out behind you!...
Oh, crap.
Re:Let Capitalism run its course. (Score:5, Insightful)
The market only responds to the high-order bit, where the decision about which bit is highest-order is also decided by the market.
Suppose you have a great Chinese restaurant near your house. The food is world-class. The owner is nice. But the service is consistently slower than you wish. You can't simply stop going there and expect a new one, just like it, to pop up to compete. The market doesn't work that way. It can't discriminate why you are failing to send it money. Especially if you're eating Indian food at the restaurant next door in the interim, in which case it will conclude you have stopped liking Chinese, and you're more likely to get two Indian food restaurants than an Indian and a punctual Chinese one.
It's common in US Presidential elections for newly elected Presidents to claim, as our latest president did, that The People actively wanted the whole platform, when in fact mostly all a vote ever shows is that "for some reason(s), you thought this president was better (or less bad) than the other." It certainly does mean "for all reasons" nor does it help you discover for which reason(s).
Salon Magazine [salonmagazine.com] tried the same thing as is being complained about here quite a while back. They wanted to charge people for posting on TableTalk [salon.com], their online forum, but continue to allow people to read for free. I was incensed. Charge the content producers and let the users get things for free? As a sensible poster, I stopped posting and went away. Salon continued, though, in spite of that.
What's hilarious to me about complaining about such matters here is that Slashdot [slashdot.org] is a haven of free software buffs--that is, people who champion the idea that people should pay to produce stuff (you do have to eat while you code) but you shouldn't have to pay to use stuff (you don't pay for the result of all that free software that it cost someone to produce).
Perhaps the human mind is some sort of capitalist market, deciding what rationales are most and least important based on internal market forces that we can only barely understand because we see only that same, elusive, high order bit of outcome. Maybe understanding the process from the outcome is more than we should expect...
Re:Let Capitalism run its course. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the people who believe in free markets champion the basic concept that people should get paid if they provide desired goods & services, and shouldn't expect to get paid otherwise. Why should someone get paid over and over every time someone ELSE distributes their work, when the creators put out the effort to create that work only once? If they want to keep getting paid, then they should keep producing, just like any other c
Re:Let Capitalism run its course. (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought Slashdot believed that everything should be free and I can optionally pay for if I think it has value. Like, I should be able to LISTEN TO THE DAMN CD before I have to pay for it. The WHOLE THING not just like one track. I should be able to READ THE DAMN BOOK before I have to pay for it. It's no good spending $50 on a book if it doesn't contain the knowledge I need. I should be able to _WATCH THE DAMN MOVIE_ before I pay for it. That's why I download, so I know if a movie is worth buying or not. I buy _MORE_ movies because of this, and MORE CDs and MORE books. I also should be able to drive my car before I buy it, and not for like 5 miles but DRIVE IT UNTIL I AM DONE WITH IT. It's stupid that I have to pay for a car when it might turn out to not work for me in 5 years when gas prices go insane. I should be able to LIVE IN THE DAMN HOUSE before I have to pay for it. How do I know if I'm going to like going up and down stairs to do laundry, or what if a tornado hits it and ruins it? I wouldn't ever have bought it in the first place if I knew that was going to happen. It's such crap that I have PAY for things before I get to use them. What's next? Are they going to expect me to BUY MY FOOD before I eat it? How am I supposed to know whether or not I like it until I've eaten it? And if it sucks why should I have to pay for it? That's such bullshit. It's all corporate greed, trying to screw me over.
Re:Let Capitalism run its course. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is similar to what happened at Builder Buzz back in the day. CNET decided to take the "our site, our content" bit to extremes. The biggest contributors to the discussions didn't like the idea of CNET charging people for 2-3 years' worth of content that they'd donated for free, with the understanding that others would be able to make use of it for free, and left. This in spite of the fact that many of these folks (including me) were offered free subscriptions.
sign me, "Former Builder Buzz Community Leader"
(BTW, if you've ever wondered what happened to the original Builder Buzz crowd, a number of us hang out here [hiveminds.org] now. Feel free to drop by sometime and say Hey.)
It's not even just a matter of money (Score:5, Insightful)
In hindsight, I should have been suspicious of anyone who plays the GPL champion but doesn't actually have CVS access or released any code in years. But, still, I figured it must at least be a community among those donating the content, if not open to the world at large.
It turned out that behind the scene it wasn't even vaguely near being either OSS or a "community", or was just becoming something else. The "waah, others are copying our content" paranoia had struck big time, after someone had discovered a few of their rooms on another MUD. Think a Stalin officer purges class paranoia to find which spy is giving content away to others. You were treated like a thief until proven innocent... and there was no way to be proven innocent.
The real ridiculous part is that room descriptions and such were stuff that you didn't even have to be a coder or a builder/wizard/whatever-you-call-it to see. Any player could just bloody well turn on logging in their MUD client and have the descriptions for whole areas. But try telling that to the owners.
I suddenly needed to go through a ridiculous bureaucracy just to get the files I needed to do my work.
Worse yet, others needed to go through that bureaucracy to see _my_ code. They actually didn't even bother any more. I couldn't shake the feeling that it's like donating code to Microsoft, just for the sake of being locked by someone in a vault and called _their_ property.
I left and never looked back.
Though I suppose the damage had been done. Around that point is where "OSS" and "GPL" stopped being magic words for me. Was a bit of a rude awakening at the reality that some people will pay all the lip service in the world, but only because they like having a free ("as in beer") OS on their server. Ask for access to _their_ code, though, or in this case to code that they just took from others anyway, and it's suddenly "Noo, you can't take my preciouss."
Re:It's not even just a matter of money (Score:4, Informative)
*please correct me if I am wrong!!*
anyway, it sucks but if every website was a ship, the captain's word is law and primate under god....
Re:It's not even just a matter of money (Score:4, Insightful)
All of it just IMHO.
Re:It's not even just a matter of money (Score:3, Insightful)
If you give me a tie for Christmas, and I never wear it, that is my right. If you donate code to my projest (as opposed to lisencing it to me) then I can use it, not use it, sell it, whatever, 'cause it's mine.
On the flip side, if you want donations you have to use the donations that you get in ways
Re:It's not even just a matter of money (Score:3, Insightful)
AFAIK the GPL allows selling of source-code, provided that the copy you sell is also GPL:ed so that the person can modify it, give it away, or even sell it if he wants to.
Also, if it's _their_ installer, then they don't have to GPL it, so it might be copyrighted under another license.
Re:It's not even just a matter of money (Score:5, Interesting)
Long story short, the *CODE* for the RPG was all GPL, but all the game content, was curiously licensced under the planeshift license, which was bascially, "we o3n jou!" I started asking people, hey, why shoudl I as a musician assign my copyrights to you again? Why do you need that in an open source game? The were bullheaded and said basically "thats how it is."
Like a year later it leaked that the top brass had secret plans to sell the game all along, and were basically harnessing open source enthusiasts and naieve artists/musicians/writers to develop a proprietary game for them. I confronted one of them about it and all they had to say in their defense was "we never said we WEREN'T going to sell it."
Re:It's not even just a matter of money (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It's not even just a matter of money (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's not even just a matter of money (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Let Capitalism run its course. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. People will buy elsewhere when a seller does something dumb like this.
Re:Let Capitalism run its course. (Score:4, Insightful)
You greatly underestimate the stupidity of the average capitalist consumer.
If people actually were to take their business elsewhere or simply not buy junk from greedy companies then there would be nothing like the ridiculous cell phone rates with the privileges of paying extra for "going over your monthly minute allotment" and paying an even more ridiculous fee for the privilege to stop using their "service" (they call this breaking your contract agreement).
I mean, lets count the number of other services that we have one to two year lock-in contracts in order to use. Yet people have been more than willing to pay so much extra for the convenience of being able to talk to people in stores, while walking down the street, while driving, and my favorite, when they come over to your house.
Re:Let Capitalism run its course. (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it stupidity, or they just value the service more than you and are willing to go through what you're not? Are the companies greedy, or just trying to turn a buck? Have you looked at their SEC filings to see how much they're really making? Don't they have a right to charge whatever they want, since they've invested billions in their infrastructure, or do you just deserve the service for free?
Wireless companies are a little more willing to beat up on individual consumers than businesses. However, in order the subsidize their phones, they have to lock consumers into a contract. Terminating your contract early without cause is a breach of contract. Otherwise, providers would either have to charge an insane amount of money for the phones, or simply lose gobs of money on them. Since they're a business, they won't jsut eat those dollars and not turn a profit. Besides, most will allow you to go contract-free, but you won't qualify for discounted phones or their most aggressive rates. Some providers have business level agreements (for multiple phones) where contracts aren't required (like Nextel and Cingular/ATTWS). Others have these requirements. That's where capitalism comes into play -- you have a choice, and if you don't like your choices and don't want to play, you don't have to.
Re:Let Capitalism run its course. (Score:3, Interesting)
Good point, yes it is. Free Market systems will choose the best course. Naturally, a website cannot simply sit around making no money and expect to continue providing content.
The real problem is the people who have come to expect a "free as in I'm too cheap to pay" community on the web. Of course, I guess we could just ask the government to entitle us with "free as in payed by taxpayers who are too stupid to notice the rising taxes" web services.
Re:Let Capitalism run its course. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Let Capitalism run its course. (Score:3, Informative)
I wonder how much it would cost if Slashdot paid hundreds of worthwhile scientific people to make +4 and +5 comments?
Beyond the fact that, yes, that's precisely how markets work...
Rob and Jeff have explained repeatedly that the vast majority of Slashdot readers don't go past the front page, and that those are the cheapest, most profitable readers to serve as the front page is cacheable. In fact, the site's prom
Oh dear (Score:5, Insightful)
*cough*
err, no (Score:5, Informative)
You can find numbers from 2002, when he was registered as Something Awful LLC in Washington state, with monthly revenue of around $60,000, of which only about half went to pay for server colocation and bandwidth. I'll let you do the math on what that leaves in profit.
In fact, he makes enough profit that the front page writers are also paid for their content, in addition to it being his full-time sole source of income.
Re:err, no (Score:4, Insightful)
The truth of the matter is that the $10 one time fee serves to keeps the riff-raff out. People don't first post, flame wars are few and far between, and there's a general attitude of respect for other forum goers.
If you fail to meet the minimum requirements, you get banned and have to pay $10 to register again. It's a rather effective form of regulation.
The truth is there are always people who will shit on something just to get attention. Something Awful makes it cost money to do that, and if you keep doing it, it can cost a lot. Most of the internet chuckleheads will go where the registration is free to get attention, and frankly Something Awful doesn't miss them a bit.
fees happen (Score:5, Insightful)
I, for one (and hopefully not the only), would be more than willing to pay a fee for something I find useful... Just because it started out free isn't a guarantee it stays free.
And, juxtaposed with other things in my life.... $13/mo for tivo subscription (and don't flame me about mythtv.... time invested is worth money, too), $600 insurance/year to drive my car, $30/mo for ISP access, $30/mo for satellite TV.... I only marvel so many things have been so free for so long. So, in context with other things I pay for, I'd happily pay $20/yr for something like the right to do this on slashdot. Not saying it should happen, but sometimes things just gotta be paid for!
I may not WANT to pay for yet another "thingy", but it's a system of choice, and if the sum total of things I want and their costs exceeds my budget, I selectively cull thingies until equilibrium is re-established. It's the way the market works.
And, for the record, I sometimes fear the OSS/(and linux) community hurts their cause by their sometimes overly militant won't pay for anything mantra. I once asked a commercial vendor of a really good product if they'd consider vending a linux version.... they responded they were too small of a shop and really couldn't afford to create a version for a community that didn't want to pay for their product. Not speaking for the "community" I did tell that company I thought there may be more of a paying public out there in the linux world (but I really don't know). ~
Re:fees happen (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:fees happen (Score:5, Funny)
I can empathize with your stance you wouldn't want to provide profit (e.g., for slashdot) when you (and the community) are the providers of the content. But, in my opinion (and I don't know the economics of the posted article's site, nor do I know slashdot's), the fee requested or charged seems modest and I'm guessing it barely covers the cost of providing the systems, the bandwidth, etc. to support the forum. Again, I may be wrong about that, but I don't see this akin to gouging and submarining the user population.
On the other hand, were they (or slashdot) to ask something more like $20 A MONTH, I'd question their motive (as I question Microsoft's), and would probably step back and take a look as to whether I still considered posting on that forum at that price a "deal" I'm willing to take.
Again, market forces. Yes, we in many ways create and sustain communities like slashdot, but I know from experience putting something like this platform together, maintaining it, and sustaining ain't easy, and it ain't free. So, I'm willing to cut slashdot a little slackdot (even though it wasn't slashdot the original post points to -- just wanted to use the slackdot pun -- even though it was a bad one..)
Re:fees happen (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, but there's no way in hell I'd pay to provide content, especially if my content then was to become someone else's copyright (which I bet just might be the case here).
Re:Um, OK. (Score:3, Interesting)
I hope so, but I don't know so. Maybe you know something I don't. Sometimes services are provided in the hope and belief that, though they start out losing money, they are good enough and valuable enough, and yes, maybe even get enough God Love, th
Re:fees happen (Score:5, Insightful)
The last time I looked, telecos didn't publicly broadcast the contents of your phone conversations and make money on selling advertising spaces in the broadcast. At least, I'd hope not.
Re:fees happen (Score:5, Insightful)
The content of phone conversations has no value to the carrier.
For many types of forum, the things that members post in them are the entirety of the value. Imagine Slashdot without the discussions. Would it be profitable at all?
What about the forums for Eidos Interactive? They are a meeting place for fans of their games, sure. Some of us sometimes also provide unofficial support for one game or another. That is valuable to Eidos because it builds goodwill towards their products and saves them money on support staff.
That having been said, I think getting upset about this is stupid and futile. It's the owner's site, they can do whatever they want with it. If my friends and I go to a bar every day for five years, does that mean the owner owes us something extra? Does it mean that we should have a say if she wants to change it from industrial music to all Van Halen all the time? No, it means we should go somewhere else.
The **only** reason I can see people having a legitimate complaint is with something like GameFAQs, which is just a collection of docs people have written about games and submitted. But you know what? If those people really wanted to have complete control, they should have posted them on their own website.
Re:fees happen (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:fees happen (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't actually matter whether you disagree with the other opinions you find. Personally, I find it useful just as a way of seeing other angles that I mighht have missed.
Re:so does unemployment (Score:3)
Wow, your reply is even out of line for a slashdotter! So, you're just graduating from college, and got three job offers. This apparently means:
Hmmmm, come to think of it that's about all that means.
Sorry to hear you only got three offers, that pales in comparison to the number of offers I had (not bragging, just stating), and pales pretty much in comparison to others in my graduating class. But, beca
Umm, Something Awful? (Score:5, Informative)
I think that people don't like paying for something they used to get for free, but there's precedent for it. The OP needs to stop pretending that there isn't.
Re:Umm, Something Awful? (Score:5, Insightful)
"The SA forums have been doing this for years, and you know what? They're popular as hell"
I'd go so far as to say they're popular because of the small fee, not in spite of it. The big problem with webforums is the amount of people who just like to make trouble. When people have to pay for something, no matter how small the fee, they tend to act a little more responsibly. Most people aren't going to pay $5 just to act like an ass and see how quickly they can get banned. When you have a lot of "troublemakers", it overworks your mods and starts to drive away the good forum members. You can ban somebody but there's *nothing* preventing them from signing back up with another IP address!
The downside is that a fee definitely will reduce the amount of new members you get and some members will definitely feel indignent about having to pay for something they've been using for free. (And I don't blame them!)
At the site I run, we started out free, but I always made it clear the members were beta testers and that the site would be for-pay someday as opposed to suddenly going pay without warning. About three months ago we made the transition to a for-pay site. There was some grumbling (which I totally understand) but overall the atmosphere was highly supportive. To ease the transition, we've done the following:
* Early site members had the chance to earn free memberships if they completed all of the beta testing requirements
* This was unintentional, but the beta testing phase stretched on about six months longer than initially planned, so everybody basically got a free six months anyway
* Perks for paid members such as giveaways
* Parts of the forums are still accessible for free
* Free members can earn paid memberships by doing things like printing up flyers, etc.
* Invite system allows paid members to give invites to their friends, entitling their friends to enjoy paid memberships without paying anything
All in all, I've probably given out 2x as many free memberships as have been paid for. I'm 100% okay with that because it's made the site better and that increases the number of people who want to by memberships in the long run. It's still an experiment in progress but it's been going well...
Re:Umm, Something Awful? (Score:3, Interesting)
N.
Only if... (Score:2, Insightful)
Even if it was like $0.50 US the simple requirement of doing something might prevent people from doing it. Maybe. Probably not.
FP!!! (Score:3, Funny)
(and it didn't cost me anything....)
Re:Only if...everything remains the same but diff (Score:5, Interesting)
What I don't get is why, when the moderation system and filters available allow for you to screen for almost anything, people seem to read a -1 then rant about First Posts and trolls, but hey, that's just me.
I'm a /. fanboy, I like /. warts and all. I see it as a the net's agora [google.ca]. Like any open gathering place you should take what you value with a grain of salt, until you've been able to substantiate it. Reading /. at +4 gives results equal to the best techno sites, but it's up to the reader to validate the information.
I liked /. best before it was sold, but think, that to date, it was at it's best about 3 years ago when the post grad ratio was at it's highest and the best and the brightest seemed to post. But again that's just me; I don't subscribe, not because I don't want to support /., but because I get alot of value out of the ads and think they're germane.
cheers
Not if....... (Score:2)
SomethingAwful proves it works (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also one of the best, most vibrant communities on the internet. Cash is an effective gatekeeper.
(I think the secret to SA's success is that the fees are one-time, as opposed to subscription-based. It creates a sense of ownership and value. I bought an account, not just a subscription)
Re:SomethingAwful proves it works (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a sense of cameraderie there and the forums are much more close-knit than say slashdot, where I seldom remember another poster by name. Because you stand to lose something real (your right to post or 10 dollars), you're more likely to behave, contribute, and get something out of the forum.
All in all, I'd say that this is a good move. SA did this several years ago. When they moved to the payment system from being a free forum, users who didn't post comments lost their accounts and contributors kept them. This makes sense more in light of the 'one-time cost' model than a subscription one (a subscription for life saves you much more than $10 in the long run and is much more a liability to the owner). I know people who lost their accounts then. Years later, they don't care. Most of them payed the $10 and kept on lurking. If anyone was bitter, it didn't kill the forum.
Now if we could only figure out how to keep these annoying as fuck highschoolers out...then we'd really have it figured out.
Re:SomethingAwful proves it works (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually there are plenty of specialty forums out there that are reasonably well moderated and free of idiots. Slashdot does seem to have a large number of idiots but the moderation system more or less keeps them out of the mainstream. The problem with Slashdot is that they let idiots become moderators, and then perfectly innocent comments get modded down just because the moderator disagreed with the poster. So I tend to read at -1 to make sure I don't miss a relevant comment.
I don't think this is a good trend at all. These web sites need to have a real service to offer. If it's a user-contributed knowledge base then they are biting the hand that feeds them. When the Motley Fool forum (www.fool.com) went private, I stopped reading it. It didn't seem right to me that after contributing my comments for a couple of years, some of which received high ratings and helped stimulate a few interesting discussions, I suddenly had to pay, on top of having to wade past banner ads and such. Sure, it's a fairly high quality forum, but I already waste too much time online; why should I add yet another subscription fee to my load so I'll feel even more guilty if I don't use it every day?
I pay for services that seem like a good cause, such as sourceforge.net and lwn.net, and for excellent content providers such as the Wall Street Journal online (wsj.com). I don't subscribe to Slashdot because, oddly enough, I like to see the ads.
Re:SomethingAwful proves it works (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not like they ban you randomly, but if you're contributing rubbish, you'll be warned, probationed, then banned. There's a list of things that are 'bannable' it can change moderately frequently, but usually things are announced and the first few days after, if you do something bannable, then people will give you a friendly reminder
Fee for your comment / fee for your content (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, in Second Life (a 3D world in which you live, build, and interact with others, but not a MMOG) you contribute to discussion events in much the same way as you would contribute to a forum thread. In addition, you contribute content in the
So does metafilter (Score:3, Insightful)
So? (Score:3, Insightful)
People are certainly welcome to start and host their own forums if they don't feel like paying. Then when the bill for the bandwidth comes in, they will be welcome to start charging as well.
Re:So? (Score:3, Insightful)
This has happened on several sites I know of. The sites run their forums for free for several years, and then when they have a large enough user base that's addicted to the site because of the friends they've made there, they slam the users with fees. The heavy posters feel compel
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why shouldn't they charge? Just because people made the forums great, doesn't mean the people who host the forums should lose money. $20/yr isn't so much to pay if you've made lots of friends there. Perhaps if they think the forum are so great, they should subscribe to the magazine and attempt to ensure the forums can be sustained.
I think it's a crock that people pay nothing for a service and then feel they have been cheated because they used it for free and now have to pay.
Oh, and their "payment" for contributing to the forums and making them great was the enjoyment they got from reading and posting.
going down hill (Score:3, Informative)
What's the problem? (Score:2)
Trend forwards or back (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, if offered something good for free, people like it and will switch to it. But paying communities thrive today in both MMORPGS and things like Second Life (which does let you own the stuff you build in order to attract people who do have this concern.)
But this is nothing new, it's a competitive battle that will continue for a long time to come, with free and paid and people choosing.
Hurry it up /. (Score:2, Interesting)
So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
There is nothing wrong with looking to make a profit (or at least break even) on your work and the services you offer. If people really care, they can pay for the service. If they don't, they won't and you'll have to reverse your policy and find another way to survive (or just stop providing the service). The control is in the hands of the members. If they find it isn't worth paying for, they won't participate and the policy will be obliterated. If there are enough that make it profitable, it will remain.
It's called capitalism. Supply and demand. Not everything has to be free. Christ, I wish I could get paid for the thousands of hours I've put into my service. That'd be wonderful. There's nothing wrong with trying.
That said, I just don't see how this is a big deal?
Re:So what? (Score:3, Interesting)
So what? Those "loyal members" don't own the equipment and don't pay for the bandwidth. Loyalty doesn't mean jackshit if you're the guy that has to pay the bills.
2.) Those of us who have been around the Internet for a while remember when the whole purpose of the thing was the free exchange of information.
Big - fucking - deal. I remember those days, too; they weren't nearly as entertaining a
IQ Test (Score:3, Funny)
Re:IQ Test (Score:5, Funny)
Re:IQ Test (Score:3, Funny)
Like a $20 cover charge at a bar... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Like a $20 cover charge at a bar... (Score:4, Funny)
No it doesn't keep the riff raff out (Score:3, Interesting)
No, it doesn't. You assume that the "riff raff" is either poor or too tight to spend a little money for the privelege of harrassing their target forum. You also assume the same for bars and nightclubs.
In both cases that assumption is incorrect.
There are plenty of well-to-do jerks and "riff-raff", and plenty of excellent people of modest or little means, so while you may be creating a little club based on the exclusivity of daddy's wealth, y
Mixed feelings (Score:2)
But on the other hand, it's also a quick and dirty way to make a cheap buck. I doubt that forums are draining the resources of t
Is it really that suprising? (Score:2)
Now, $20 for that particular forum seems a bit steep, but I suppose if you really like it, it is less than $2 a month, hardly a major outrage imo.
Straight Dope MB (Score:3, Interesting)
Cecil, not Cyril (Score:3, Interesting)
There were even comments by adm
Micropayments? (Score:3, Insightful)
Scientific Publishing (Score:3, Interesting)
A lot of people there seem to think it makes sense for the author of the paper being published to pay for the publication costs himself - the argument is that the fees can just be folded into the researcher's grant proposal and so won't have much of a negative effect.
I personally think that idea is very stupid, and I hope that as the Aussies have rebeled so does the scientific community. The people who benefit from the work should be the ones to pay for it in some fashion or another.
For example the aussies ought to look at a peer-reviewed system where comment posters get discounted to free access while lurkers have to pay "full" price (note the peer-review to insure bogus posts don't flood the system just for free access, peer-reviewing would also qualify for discountage).
For the journals, I think the "lurkers" ought to pay too - the university libraries and corporations that currently pay for subscriptions should continue to pay, in advance. As long as enough groups pay in advance to fund the journal's operations, the results would be free to all. If not enough groups are willing to buy subscriptions, then the journal should either close down and give all the money back, or operate on a smaller budget with a smaller number of articles published.
Welll Slashdot Does it again (Score:5, Informative)
So you have 5 groups
1) Subscribers - They have paid money and get access for the length of their subscription
2) Mag Buyers - They get access every month they buy the mag. All they have to do is enter that months code. They have paid money for the mag and get a free months access with it. This is reusable for every month.
3) You are a God or Mod or SuperHero or Hero - You are at the top anyway so you get access free
4) You dont buy the mag - so there is a $20 year charge for something that is based around a magazine and is a commercial entity. Heck slashdots subsribtion cost money. You need to stay afloat
5) You dont buy the mag and dont want to pay so you just lurk
Re:Welll Slashdot Does it again (Score:3, Insightful)
The subscription (IMHO) is a different to things like the SA forums, this monthly access isn't there to cover the costs of hosting. Atomic PC is run by a large company (AJB Publishing, which is a part of Haymarket Media) and the way I see it the printed magazine is their core business.
Is this the only magazine that will be charging for access to their supporting forums? Is this to try and convince users to buy the magazine or is it to try and
Re:You forgot 7.) (Score:3, Funny)
Taking advantage of your users twice (Score:3, Informative)
If they use my material, which I grant them permission to use (and they credit me, they don't transfer copyright to themselves) and they get ad revenue from putting ads on the pages showing my photos, why should I have to pay? I've already essentially paid by helping them get more ad views/clicks.
I let the "reservation" time out because I didn't agree with their policy.
Talk about overreaction (Score:3, Insightful)
The restrictions affect two of their about twenty forums - those two being a "general chat" forum and a "buy/sell" forum. All the others, general PC chat, hardware, linux, programming etc. will still be free for all. And being a computer magazine, these are what the forums are about - anything else is a bonus.
It's the same as Aussie broadband site, Whirlpool [whirlpool.net.au], only allows access to its "off-topic" forums (TV, sports, news, music, etc) to long standing members. The site is about broadband, and anyone can access those forums, but off-topic forums are a priviledge.
No (Score:3, Insightful)
I hardly see how paying for news in irrational, unless you LIKE having a corrupt society where the papers and government are run by those with the most money. If people think it is ridiculous to pay less than five dollars a month for news, then truly there is no hope left for society. Remember, just because you don't have to pay for it doesn't mean it's free.
Sounds like poor planning (Score:3, Funny)
* Shrug *
Hindsight's 20/20, of course, but it seems obvious to me that you introduce fees in a formerly free setting by charging for new, premium services. To use Slashdot metaphors:
View Askew boards (Score:3, Interesting)
Slashdot's discussions do okay because of the moderation system, despite its flaws. But ever read an unmoderated discussion on say...Ain't It Cool News? Read their Talk Backs for 10 seconds and you'll wish you still had a CRT monitor so that you could punch through it and end your painful existence.
By charging for access, you keep out the riff raff.
The ViewAskew.com boards (View Askew is Kevin Smith's production company), among others, has been doing something similar for a while now. To register on the View Askew boards you need to pay 2 bucks. It's a low fee, and it all goes to a rape/incest survivor charity, because, after all, Smith isn't trying to make a profit from this registration...the money is really just a gate keeping mechanism. $2 is low enough to not be prohibitive for legitimate users, but high enough to keep out the idiots.
Free software community won't stand for this. (Score:3, Insightful)
You forget that most of the code to Slashdot is free software. If that ever happened on Slashdot, it will take about ten minutes for a new site called Slashpoint or something to pop up.
In the free software community, garbage like this will simply not be tolerated. Behold what happened to XFree86 when they thought they were too smart.
IGN has had this for years... (Score:3, Interesting)
I get SO much pre-info from those pages that it is SO worth it for me. I wonder if perhaps the nominal fee keeps the trolls at bay (sorta, we get a few "Gamecube is TEH GHEI!!! XBOX RULES!!11!!" losers), and there are few people w/multiple ids ($40/year is pushing it). But I guess if it used to be free and now isn't, i can understand their frustration...
If you don't like it go elsewhere (Score:4, Insightful)
There is an advantage to restricting posting on certain boards, because you can cut out idiots and trolls if you do this carefully. There is no advantage to restricting commenting based on who has more money. It's called trying to make a quick buck. People forget that commercial magazines are about making money and not about giving people a warm fuzzy feeling.
In the end this will likely damage the quality of the magazine, because sensible people without a large disposable income are not going to waste money making comments somewhere for a price, when you could make them elsewhere for free and enjoy other areas of the hobby.
Still they're free to run their business how they like. Vote with your feet. It's the Aussie way!
Re:If you don't like it go elsewhere (Score:3, Insightful)
some humble opinions... (Score:4, Informative)
no, i dont particularly want to be identified by those members of the forum being discussed that actually know me (though i'm sure a few will guess... meh)
i happen to be one of the "high-ranking" forum members mentioned, and though i get a free ride, i'm rather annoyed at the fact that a lot of my 'lower ranked' friends will now be charged to keep in touch with their mates, as there are a number of members of the community who either dont buy the mag, or live elsewhere in the world where the mag isnt sold...
at the same time i can see where Haymarket are coming from...
i did have something useful and constructive to post here, but all i'm really feeling is ambivalence, and cant make up my mind whether to support this idea fully, or be outraged...
oh, and i just thought you'd like to know that there's a small group of atomicans that are quite chuffed that the community made the front page of
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Access fees. (Score:3, Informative)
You can also access these areas if you buy the Magazine at the newsagents, although then you do have to update the access code monthly.
Note the two parts of the forums that have been blocked are only general chat and trademart, all the tech related articles are still available free to everyone, so the comments that people have made to help the community at large are still freely available, it is only the general rubish that has been restricted. And trademart, but again that could be considered a premium service! Who complains about having to pay to use the trading post or similar??
The comment has been made that the loyal supporters of the mag are upset about this. Why? If they support it, then they are buying it and therefore will have access to all areas! Is it really such a problem for people to support what it is they use??
I'll say it again, the only part you miss out on if you don't buy the mag or pay is the general chat (The Green Room) and the Trademart. General chat is really just a forum based chat room. If thats all you use and now can't because you don't support the Atomic Magazine, what have you really lost? A chat room.
As a subscriber this doesn't impact me. I can't understand the reasoning of people who don't buy the magazine and refuse to pay a fee. If you don't support the place, why are you here to begin with?
Two sides of the coin (Score:3, Insightful)
I see both sides of the story. I get that it takes large amounts of capital to run sites like this (I used to work for userfriendly. don't hurt me), and I totally understand that they need to recoop some money somewhere. But I also see the community's side of the story, feeling betrayed that they built a community and now they have to pay to stay in it.
It'll be interesting to see how this develops... I want to study online communities when I go to graduate school, I think this may give me another angle to look at.
Same ol, same ol (Score:3)
Meetup.com Ends Free Meetups
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/13/03592
Of course, it seems that not only lemmings stampede towards their own demise. Apparently suits do so to.
You do remember, dontcha?
Usenet (Score:3)
Spam levels on Usenet also seems to have peaked now, while the problem seems to be getting worse in subscription forums.
Fee (Score:3)
'No, but you may have to switch to another forum'.
Beware: with fees comes responsibility (Score:3, Interesting)
If someone implements a subscription system on their forum they had better be ready for professional and mature management.
They risk losing customers otherwise and possibly even risk legal headaches from people who are not content to simply cancel their subscription and move on.
There will be less room for the inconsistent and sophomoric forum management often seen on the web.
When people pay, they expect more.
The original poster mentioned that the forum members in the article were angry because they felt that they contributed to building the community for which they are now being told to pay for.
Healthy on line communities often happen by accident.
It takes a different set of skills to throw a successful party then it does to set up an internet forum.
There is no shortage of empty web boards, abandoned email lists, unused Usenet groups and forgotten IRC channels.
A person looking to implement a subscription based forum should be sure of his/her social skills and ability to intentionally create ( or at least maintain ) a successful social environment.
S/he may have to start one (over) from scratch if people chose to leave ( or not come ),
If a forum owner has these skills then s/he has something to offer in exchange for charging a fee where other forums owners with the same I.T. skills do not.
Any technically skilled person can set up a web board, an email list or an IRC channel. However very few people who can do these things also know how to create a successful social environment.
If someone wants to charge a fee for a forum s/he should be aware that if s/he only has I.T. skills then she will have a huge number of competitors...and a huge number of free competitors to deal with.
Sounds Like Meetup.com (Score:3, Informative)
But seriously a monthly fee for recieving what many other (most other) sites provide for free, is a great way to shutdown an active site. I think that making plees to the users to make a donation or offer new services at a premium price, is way better than charging for what was once free. Just bad business.
Something awful and metafilter do this (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I agree with this (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Social Contract (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Alternate Proposal (Score:5, Funny)
AborigiNeal?
Re:MacFixIt (Score:5, Insightful)
what if you had to pay a fee to get a newspaper to print your letter to the editor? And, then the newspaper still charged to get reprints of that letter and the op-ed pages?
Do you often write letters to newspapers to which you don't subscribe? Maybe you should just consider that you are paying to read other people's comments. And newspapers do sell your letters - along with everything else in that issue. If the site can't find a way to make enough money to pay for itself with ads I guess it should just shut down. I don't know about you, but I really don't want newspaper level ad density on online forums. Popups are the online equivilent of newspaper inserts, do you think that would be a good way for the "ad people" to "figure out how to get sponsers to support the forums"? Most places people meet have some sort of entry cost involved - be it cover charge, admission fee, taxes, or just the cost of a beer to sit at the bar. Try going down to your local office supply store and telling them you deserve free paper and pens because you're going to put up some valuable 'content'. Try plastering some of that content up on the wall at your local mall. I'm sure you can imagine the form 'moderation' would take. You know, if you place so much value on your comments, maybe others would also. Then you can become a columnist and get paid for your views. You could try it yourself but I doubt your revenues would cover the bandwidth. Don't forget though that every bite of your reader's comments is going to cost a little for storage. Do you really believe that 80% of the content in most forums has value to anyone besides its author? On
billy - the checks in the mail