Premium Membership

pezenfuego

pezenfuego

Active Member
I had a thought that may go into improving your site. Just a thought, nothing more.
It is called premium membership. There are a lot of things that members want that are not practical. For example, there is a want for a chat room, t shirts, animated avatars, and trade forums. (pick and choose).
For premium membership you have to "donate" 10 dollars or something like that. When you do that, you purchase the rights to use the "premium" layout.
What do you think? Does not everyone win? It would be free for you guys to do this (aside from the T shirt idea of course) but you would roll in the big bucks with little to no problems from that.
And of course...Mods get free premium membership :p
 
jackri

jackri

Active Member
I highly doubt it would be free for them as they have to pay someone to set it up.
I'd be interested to see who would pay to use it personally when there is sooo much free info out there and other chat tools. The T-Shirt could just be added to their store if they wanted to sell it. Just my thought :)
 
aquaknight

aquaknight

Active Member
I am a 'premium member' on a few car forums. The reason for premium memberships, vendor memberships, etc, is to help the forum pay the bills. While yes, just one to a few people own the forum and the money does go to them, it still doesn't pay the bills for operating a decent sized forum. One of the owners is local, I've meet him a couple times at a few car meets. You pay the $15 because you want the forum to stick around. Yes there are perks, but it's usually nothing worth $15.
The thing with SWF is, the forum itself is an extra. It's dependent on the health of the retail store. If you want to help SWF and see SWF forums stick around, click one of the links on the top right, fish/inverts/coral, then click buy. If the product you received is in good health, write up a good review. Dangling the carrot of trade forums for a fee, just doesn't seem right...
 
beth

beth

Administrator
Staff member
The forum is also SWF.com's best advertisement. Thousands of people come to this forum, even just to visit. And many of those have become customers.
Unlike other forums, as AquaKnight describes, SWF.com is a business and the forum is a part of that business. It doesn't need advertisers, or paying members, to help fund the site.
However, I was thinking of charging people who come to the Disease Forum looking for ich advise. What you all think?
 
florida joe

florida joe

Well-Known Member
However, I was thinking of charging people who come to the Disease Forum looking for ich advise. What you all think?
As Madonna said and I must point out you are a material girl
 
pezenfuego

pezenfuego

Active Member
Originally Posted by Beth
http:///forum/post/3153606
The forum is also SWF.com's best advertisement. Thousands of people come to this forum, even just to visit. And many of those have become customers.
Unlike other forums, as AquaKnight describes, SWF.com is a business and the forum is a part of that business. It doesn't need advertisers, or paying members, to help fund the site.
However, I was thinking of charging people who come to the Disease Forum looking for ich advise. What you all think?

I wasn't looking for SWF.com to make money really. I just know that it doesn't take very many people to spoil privileges such as trade forums or chatrooms. The premium membership would serve as a sort of filter to leave those bad apples behind. Of course money wouldn't have to be a filter, we could do by handpicking seasoned and respectable members such as you and the super cool guy who posted before me. Seasoned=long term hobby member, not long term world member lol.
In any case, brainstorming doesn't hurt and I do now see the flaws, thank you for posting.
 
reefforbrains

reefforbrains

Active Member
If premium memberships come it would be the beginning of the end.
Our playing field is currently equal and free for someone straight from google with a question, or someone who has been a member for years to explore and exchange as equals. A few basic Mods for dispute resolution and behavior control. But they already donate their time for the neverending task as it is.
The moment you slap a label that says premium, or special etc then it becomes a big clique. Newbies often get into lurk mode and fear raising too many questions already. Amplify that timid nature of someone fresh in the hobby and the entire forums becomes one dimensional.
Great suggestion, but JMO a terrible idea.
 
beth

beth

Administrator
Staff member
Actually, some of the other top forums offer premium memberships, however, they also offer a lot of hobby related content beyond the forum.
I wouldn't mind seeing a trading or hobbyist selling forum up under premium membership, but SWF.com is pretty clear about never wanting selling here again. Its just too much to police it.
 
t316

t316

Active Member
Originally Posted by Beth
http:///forum/post/3153990
I wouldn't mind seeing a trading or hobbyist selling forum up under premium membership, but SWF.com is pretty clear about never wanting selling here again. Its just too much to police it.
Although that might be the thought process, I don't think its so much the policing (one mod could be brought on that specialized and stayed in that area) but rather the competition in sales with SWF.
 
pezenfuego

pezenfuego

Active Member
Originally Posted by ReefForBrains
http:///forum/post/3153824
If premium memberships come it would be the beginning of the end.
Our playing field is currently equal and free for someone straight from google with a question, or someone who has been a member for years to explore and exchange as equals. A few basic Mods for dispute resolution and behavior control. But they already donate their time for the neverending task as it is.
The moment you slap a label that says premium, or special etc then it becomes a big clique. Newbies often get into lurk mode and fear raising too many questions already. Amplify that timid nature of someone fresh in the hobby and the entire forums becomes one dimensional.
Great suggestion, but JMO a terrible idea.
Thank you. Brainstorming, no matter how stupid, is always a productive thing to have when striving to improve the forums. Thank you for your opinion and I can now say that I agree.
 
teen

teen

Active Member
Originally Posted by Beth
http:///forum/post/3153606
The forum is also SWF.com's best advertisement. Thousands of people come to this forum, even just to visit. And many of those have become customers.
Unlike other forums, as AquaKnight describes, SWF.com is a business and the forum is a part of that business. It doesn't need advertisers, or paying members, to help fund the site.
However, I was thinking of charging people who come to the Disease Forum looking for ich advise. What you all think?

you'd be rich. I've honestly always wanted to bring this up, but idk how you deal with that subtopic. i feel like its the same questions over and over again, yet your always there to help them out.
and as for the premium membership, i feel its kind of unnecessary. the only thing i would like to see would be a B/S/T forum again, but i don't see it happening again here. and plus, its not like we don't know of the other forums out there. theres plenty of places you can go now to bst in this hobby. and you can still chill here at the same time
 
beth

beth

Administrator
Staff member
Originally Posted by teen
http:///forum/post/3154051
you'd be rich. I've honestly always wanted to bring this up, but idk how you deal with that subtopic. i feel like its the same questions over and over again, yet your always there to help them out.
And that is why the Diseased Fish and FAQ Topics in the Disease Forum were born. So I don't have to answer the same questions over and over.
 
scsinet

scsinet

Active Member
Originally Posted by ReefForBrains
http:///forum/post/3153824
The moment you slap a label that says premium, or special etc then it becomes a big clique. Newbies often get into lurk mode and fear raising too many questions already. Amplify that timid nature of someone fresh in the hobby and the entire forums becomes one dimensional.
I completely see where you are coming from here. I've wandered onto some of the other forum sites out there before, and felt this way.
It's impersonal, makes some members seem like elitists, and makes you feel like dirt if you don't want to or can't buy your way in.
One of the things that has made me stay with this site exclusively since I've joined is that there is a sense of community. I don't remember ever feeling unwelcome or not "part of the club," even when I was at 20 posts.
Just as an example, there is a social circle of a handful of members on this site who hang out in the aquarium that, although it's unofficial, I can perceive it. This particular example is not a problem, per se, but it's there and noticable.
No matter what you did, you'd end up with two groups... the premiums and the non-premiums. There would be some overlap... but not enough.
 
beth

beth

Administrator
Staff member
That is an excellent point. Especially if the premium membership means you pay dues. Which means some forum visitors may be excluded just because they can't do that.
 
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