More thoughts and suggestions.
A lot of the discussion here has been about donating, and people chiming in on the fact that they did, which is great. However, Keith also asked for suggestions when he started this thread, and I've seen a few good ones go by, and I want to make a few of my own.
First, I agree with the suggestion above about limiting picture downloads to registered members. Is that possible with vBulletin software? It would certainly encourage people to become members, and during the registration process I also agree that people should be reminded/encouraged of the need for an annual contribution.
Just to see what the non-member sees, I tried Logging out to look at the front page. This is the main paragraph:
Quote:
Originally Posted by SMC Main Page
Welcome to the Sawmill Creek.
If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking
the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the
register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the
forum that you want to visit from the selection below.
I wonder about adding a paragraph here about just what SMC is. For example...
"SawMill Creek exists to provide a method for woodworkers to communicate. That is our one simple goal. There are many other benefits, such as our friendly atmosphere, which you will learn as you browse these pages. One thing you won't see is advertising, as the members have chose to fund this themselves."
Another idea is for the FAQ. What if we add an FAQ item that gently reminds people to donate:
"How is SMC supported: SMC is supported by the members. We decided that we would rather fund this ourselves than depend on advertising.
For less than the cost of one magazine, an annual donation of just $6.00 will help us to keep the Creek online, healthy and advertising free. Please use the Donate button in the menu bar at the top of every SMC web page."
Finally, I have noticed several people post who do not know how to donate. used to be one of them, in the first months after I joined. And I'm wondering why is it that people don't notice the Donate button. I suspect that we just visually "tune out" everything that isn't connected with the article we are reading.
So I expect that we'll have to patiently point out the donate button every now and then. That said... I wonder if we could improve the visibility of that item by changing the colour of that menu bar. Right now it is all the same "SMC blue", and it just blends in. What if the colour of that menu bar were changed - darker blue? Green? What would be a good bright colour that still complements the blue on the rest of the page?
Hope this helps.
...art
How about this suggestion?
What's your opinion on this suggestion? I will make a donation for either $60 to SMC or to a hosting company (that I have used for the last five years) (that for $60/ year) that has the same bulletin board, is all maintained with no maintenance fees and has a 20GB transfer. This would allow Keith to focus on his business rather than the maintenance of this wonderful site and the donations could be used to pay for the admins that so deserve it.