Good News and Bad News

[Matt Meiser]

Keith, I hate to see things change, but clearly they must. I say why not make some changes now:

- add advertising for non-contributors. I know you don't like it and I know you feel that you promised us you wouldn't do it, but frankly you only promised it if there were contributions.
- add a "nag" screen for non-contributors, if that can be done easily.
- make some forums read-only to non-contributors
- turn off image posting by non-contributors which should cut bandwith and/or increase contribution
- automate contributions, if that can be done with a vBulletin add-in relatively easily.
- black out the forum for non-contribtors occasionally to remind them what a great thing they are missing.

I'm concerned about turning off the search resulting in an increase in posts that wouldn't have been made if the search was there.

[Keith Outten]

Bill, Mark and Matt,

Thanks for the great input, your suggestions will be put to good use. As we transfer to a subscription based Forum our TOS will definately be revised to reflect Comunity needs. I realize there will be consequences for making these kinds of changes but I'm sure now that the benefits will by far outweigh what we may lose.

.

[Bill Cunningham]

There are many 'other' forums around that wont allow the showing of pictures, or downloading by clicking links unless you are 'registered' .. In this case 'registered' can mean 'contributor' Even the regulars contributors that might be a little slow sending in their yearly contribution will get the hint when pictures and download links are suddenly unavailable to them.. The shear number of downloads available here make this site the best bargain around for a measley 6 bucks!!! Then, when the inevitable statement "I can't see the pictures" or "Why can't I see the pictures" comes up, then they can be directed to the donation page..
Sort of like the old saying "Grab them by the .... Their hearts and their minds will follow"

[Mike Hood]

Kieth;

Please don't take this the wrong way. It's certainly not meant to be personal. I've just been down this road myself.

We disclose our expenses openly, and as the group sees the ability to control their community, they answer up pretty quickly.

Administering a site like this can be a chore, but too many people know what hosting fees are these days, and the associated costs. People will pay to be banner free. People will pay to sponsor in other areas. It just has to be thought out and clearly laid out.

[Bob Childress]

Kieth;

. People will pay to be banner free. .

Apparently not, actually.

[Keith Outten]

Mike,

I think Bill is right and I have just about given up on the current model. A small percentage will pay and tens of thousands will not and there isn't anything I can do to change it.

I expect that 99% of all woodworkers could easily afford 6 dollars per year but they choose not to contribute. What it costs me to run SawMill Creek isn't just about bandwidth and software costs, the real cost is labor and I can't provide it for free anymore so a change is coming. We will lose some people which is to be expected but our labor costs wil drop dramatically which is a necessity.

I fully expect The Creek to return to a smaller Community that will require less time to manage...even to the point that I can do it as a volunteer. I don't mind volunteering my time, my track record here proves that. What I do mind is The Creek becoming a full time job without the benefit of financial compensation. Rather than shut down The Creek I prefer to reduce the number or people that I must support. The easiest way to do this is to convert to a pay to play model.

I am positive that I can keep our Contributors here happy and provide a first class forum without advertising. I can answer contributors email and Private Messages and help them when they need assistance but I can't possibly administer to tens of thousands of people with volunteer manpower.

.

[Niklas Bjornestal]

- add advertising for non-contributors. I know you don't like it and I know you feel that you promised us you wouldn't do it, but frankly you only promised it if there were contributions.

I think that is a good idea, specially if its google adwords ads. I "like" ads at forums if they are positioned well on the screen (eg. dont get irritating) and are relevant to the current topic.

- add a "nag" screen for non-contributors, if that can be done easily.

Whats a nag screen? Is it some kind screen that shows when you enter the forum? If so, make it so that it dont show during the first 30 days for new members, after that make it so that non contributors have to wait maybe 1 minute before getting access to the forum.

- make some forums read-only to non-contributors
- turn off image posting by non-contributors which should cut bandwith and/or increase contribution

Thats really stupid... even non-contributors might have useful things to write.

- black out the forum for non-contribtors occasionally to remind them what a great thing they are missing.

Personaly i would never donate to a forum that punish members that dont donate.

One thing that might help to get contributions is to allow contributors (and only contributors) to have a link to there webshops in their signature.

[Peter Zacarelli]

I sincerely believe that if The Creek starts charging membership then the feel of this wonderful forum will forever change! I paid a membership fee on another "laser forum" and it just never felt good even though I have forked over much more money to The Creek but that was my choice - to pay for something I felt deserved my support.
So come on everyone, chip in a couple of bucks, it's the least you can do for FREE information that you get from this site.

[Kim Vellore]

I was just going through the postings and did not see many folks with the other point of view than being surprised why people do not contribute. Here is my thoughts with some of your comments.



“I am just about convinced that The Creek will be converted to a subscription based forum next year. Those who don't think The Creek is worthwhile won't have to worry about donating or visiting. I really dislike advertising on a public forum however that is how most are surviving these days”

It is the people who make the forum and this kind of thinking will make it like a preferential club. You should make it inconvenient to folks who have not contributed but not stop them.

“However, what one gets from SMC is the opportunity to have comment and input from dedicated, dependable, and informed people that do not have a profit agenda. That just simply is not available on the net - period!!”

So you should not be expecting the “dedicated, dependable, and informed people” to pay to give their inputs. It is like you got to give money to donate blood…


“I do see that there are some members that have over 2,000 posts to forums that have never contributed, and some that have not ponied up for a couple of years.
Those of us that use the forums on a regular basis and get benefits from the information probably won't get too upset to see it become subscription based in the future.”

Again missing the point the person with 2000 posts, just imagine the amount of time he/she has put in to contribute to the forum, either be asking a question or answering, they are both important for a healthy forum. That is the person you don’t want to loose from the forum



“The handwriting is on the wall folks, the majority don't want a Member Supported Community...they want free. The big issue for me is I cannot support a Community this large at the current pace as a volunteer. Last year we were much smaller and the time required was reasonable, since late last Spring it has become a full time job”

You need more volunteers

“Before anyone suggests that I appoint more Administrators to help with the workload I wil tell you it won't work. People will not give up their free time for very long to take a job that kills their woodworking hobby, time with their family and work for so many that don't feel their contribution has value.”

You should try it, There are a lot of passionate people here I have seen them take a lot of time out of their hobby family and work to contribute. I know they will be more than glad to volunteer and make this forum grow.

“It isn't the amount of money that is donated that is important, it is the fact that people will take just a few minutes of their time once each year to show their support for this Community. Even a 50 cent donation would be more than welcome as it shows that people care enough to spend just a couple minutes of their personal time to validate our efforts.”

What more validation do you need than the creek growing 10 fold, Lot more people contributing. Again it is the people in the forum, you need more joining and more contributing.

“We aren't sinking but we are in dire need of some changes. I had hoped that there might be enough financial support this year to hire someone to take over as the Forum Administrator so I could get some relief but that isn't going to happen. I would be happy to just scale back a bit and gain some control of our unbelievable growth rate.”

Please put a volunteer request word in the forum you will be surprised how many will want to support you.


“I have suggested to our Moderators that we close the doors for awhile and only accept new Members when they had a reference from an existing Member but our Staff hates the idea.”

You have a good staff team


“I am going to periodically turn on and off new registrations here folks for a period of time in an effort to throttle our growth rate.”

You should realize this growth is great, you don’t want to cut that. For all you know you could be bought over by Google.


”I work a full time job during the day and have a reasonably successful part time sign business going when I can find the time to get in my workshop. I'm not wealthy but I don't need to make money from The Creek...I won't work here any longer for free. Continuing to work for people that won't contribute toward our financial needs has to stop. Effective immediately I will only be able to provide for those who have made contributions. This may sound harsh but it is nothing but cruel reality...there are way to many people here for me to provide administrative support.”

It is pretty harsh, Again you are missing the point, The real contributors to the forum are the experienced and selfless individuals who take their time to contribute to the forum.

If you are really pressed for time please post a line in the forum requesting for your replacement you might be surprised how many volunteers you get, you will have to spend time to filter out.. If you want you could also train an another volunteer to take over this forum. There are a lot of folks who would love to volunteer to be in your position to support a world wide forum that is growing as big as this. There are many options than to force or cut off the good people in this forum.

Keith,
I am not belittling your work, you have doing a great job, this forum exists thanks to you and your team, but it is just your view of the future I am not agreeing with. I hope you find a different way of making it work for all rather than cut off growth to the forum.

I had speak out my mind in whose ever side/favor it is, that’s what makes this a great forum.


Kim

[Michael Kowalczyk]

Hey Keith,
It is a shame that only 7% have stepped up to the plate but I agree with "pay to play". It seams that over 90% may be infected with the "Entitlement Syndrome". I would have thought, at a minimum, that the 80/20 rule would have clicked in by now but not even halfway yet.

Dave said a lot of what I was going to say and agree with him with a few words added. Most of the ones that will leave because they don't want to contribute a meager .50 cents a month to have access to a wealth of information and experience probably won't come back because they want a free ride. If they are just a hobbyist I can understand but "ANYONE" who has used ANY information from this forum and profited from that info should not balk at making a very reasonable yearly contribution.

Keith, Just out of curiosity, which part of the forum has the highest % of contributors? general woodworking, Turners, Laser or can you tell?

Also if it goes to a limited access/pay to play, will this effect how search engines will place posts? I see SMC posts in the top 10 all the time but rarely see any other laser forum show up when Googled.

[Scott Shepherd]

Everyone keeps mentioning in their posts that we need to all pony up, but in my short searching around, there are a couple of obvious things. First, most authors in the laser area are Contributors, so asking people to pony up who are the people who already ponied up isn't going to solve the problem.

Two, some of the most knowledgeable people on this laser section who we ALL learn from and ALL ask questions are not contributors. Would everyone here be happy if the smartest people on the forum left? Be careful what you ask for, or either allow Contributors to buy memberships for those people.

Look around, you'll see what I'm talking about. Just as a for instance, some of the tech support folks from laser companies are on here and they help people on weekends, nights, and go above and beyond for some of us. Yet they aren't contributors. Are we willing to give that up? I'm not, and I'll gladly cough up the $6 extra to keep some of those folks around.

Just my opinion. I believe the laser section has a much higher contribution rate than some other areas. Now, if we could get people to follow our lead

[Pat Kearney]

First I think this site is great and was the reason I purchased a laser engraver - reading through the threads took away some of the unanswered questions that I had floating around in my mind. If it were a site that I could have only been invited to then I would never have been introduced to such a great group of people and never had the great satisfaction of owning my own laser engraver. For this reason I do not believe an invitation only site would be the way to go.

Second I just started contributing this year because I read something Keith had typed regarding the costs associated with running a site and I never realized it before. I only contibuted $10 because I read the $6 amount and figured I would contibute a few dollars extra. I would gladly contrbute more if I thought it would keep the Creek running. The knowledge shared by Keith and the many others is well worth it to me. I suggest that a set amount is required, $12-$24 per year maybe?

I do not agree with not allowing people who do not submit to any threads for a long period of time. I know in my case I read the creek faithfully several times a day but between working a full time job, raising a young family, involvement in the community, and running a home-based business I just don't get a lot of time to spend at typing, not to mention that usually someone has already answered the question before I even get a chance to read it. Sometimes months will pass before I type anything.

I think a business model of allowing anyone to be a new member but place a limit on the amount of time they can be a non-contributor, say 2 months, after which time they have to make a decision to pay up. They may get around this by creating a new acct every three months but to discourage this from happening I agree with limiting their ability to view and download files during this 2 month period.

Ultimately Keith the decision will be up to you and I agree with you whole heartedly, you cannot continue to support an extremely large and growing group of people for nothing. I believe a mandatory, reasonably priced, annual fee will help to offset your costs and limit the qty of people who you need to support - but you should still allow new people to view and join as this will help you attract and retain those who will add value.

Thanks and keep up the great work.

Pat

[Peter Zacarelli]

Well said Kim. I am not a great writer/speaker and you said what I was sort of thinking.

[Thinus Rabie]

Hi Keith & Team ,

I have been following the fund drive , and the stats 7% of 9500 members that contributed. It just is not enough to sustain the Creek it seems.

I have a very radical thought , but obviously do not know if it is possible , or even if you & the Team would consider something like this.

We have two sides of the coin it seems , of which the one side is the members that feel they do not want to contribute for their own reasons. The other side is the the members that do contribute , which feel the same as you & the Team regarding advertising .

I personally found that the knowlegde that makes the Creek so amazing , in fact lies within both the unpaid members and the current contributors. Therefore my thoughts are that it would be sad to loose either of the two groups.

Yet I feel that you & the Team should not only break even , but get kindly rewarded for your efforts over the past couple of years, and obviously for the future. The Creek should therefore in my point of view be run as a bussiness to sustain itself in the future.

Now my radical thought to keep both groups happy is as follows. Why not bring in the advertising part , yet design the Creek in such a way that it can run in two levels. The one level where the unpaid members get to see all the advertizing , but the contributors are free of the same or choose to have the option of being able to either see the advertising or not.

I really do not even know how difficult it might be to do something like this , but I know in todays world everything is possible.

This might sound silly to some of the folks out there, or maybe not , I know you can never keep everybody happy , and that is why I suggest this as a radical thought.

Keith , you and the Team deserve to be rewarded. Everybody gets older , and the word "passive income" is always nice to have in a persons vocabulary , especially if it is combined with the word "sustainability".

It would be nice to hear what the thoughts are of the people out there , and especially what the Sawmill Creek Team think of the same. A very good friend of mine always say when a new idea crosses his way " I will put it in my pipe and smoke it for a while , and then tell you what I think".

All the best
Thinus Rabie
South Africa

[Mike Hood]

I run two VBulletin forums myself. It's easy to setup Groups (non-contributing versus contributing... or any other) and a rolling banner manager.

Then you build advertising banners around those groups. It accomplishes two things.

1 - Contributing members feel as though they have something for their money as opposed to non-contributors

2 - Your advertising base begins to grow.

You really don't want to look at advertising as a bad thing necessarily. You could set up seniority systems so that long-time members still can participate without the banners for a time, and with a large userbase, you have something a sponsor would like to pay for.

Even banners for the Creek itself would work. I'm sure there are many companies that would love to trade small banner rotations for raffle items or other fund raisers.

Growth is inevitable, but if you want income (as opposed to charitable contributions) then you need to think that way. Google adsense, banners, even pop-ups (God I hate those though), are big money makers. Targeted marketing is huge.

Just in this forum alone I can think of better than a dozen that would be approachable:

Epilog
Universal
Trotec
Red Sail
Shop Bot
GCC
Sign Warehouse
Rockler Tool
McMasters
VersaLaser
LaserBits
Jamison
Certec
Chewbarka
Laserbuzz
Lasertile
Engravers Network
A&E magazine
Engarvers Journal

And a tastefully designed banner isn't offensive. It pays better than contributions, and MANY of us would actually use them. (Especially if they lead you to a site discount. MANY offer free shipping, or 10% off orders when coming in through a link.