An Answer to BB's dilemmas ?

[gregbickal]

Well, it works for drugs.... Give it away for free until your customers become hooked, then start charging them. (not saying I know anything about drugs other than what I watch on tv)

Would I still pay for Koi-Bito, am I hooked that bad I plead the 5th

[Brian]

Quote: Originally Posted by TomLally I had originally subscribed to Koi Bito and NI. Both of them lapsed when the subscriptions lapsed. I'm lazy, when I subscribe I just expect it to keep on arriving and money to keep on going from my account. When I notice that I haven't had a mag for a while I'm too lazy to do anything about it but I should. perhaps the subscriptions should be continuous until otherwise notified... Whatever, maybe it's about time we who use these boards start paying for the privelage ?

Hi Tom,

re-sub notices are going to start going out with a DIRECT payment link on them. I'm not comfortable holding clients' CC information, but my processors are so you can register with them once, and simply "push a button" when it's time to resubscribe.

About charging for board access...that's not something that I'm going to be doing. I think that many people will stop coming just on general principles if they have to pay. Premium access for other content, etc. is a possibility, but I"m not going to charge people for regular board access.

What I MAY do though, is require people to registered if they want to be able to view posts. We have over 3,000 unique visitors per day and only a little over 1,000 have reigstered. I'd like to increase the registered number, so we'll see how that all pans out.

rgds,

[Valarc]

Brian,
In my experience if folks have to go through anything more inconvenient than clicking a button, they often won't read the site and will move on. I imagine quite a few people find this board by googling for a specific topic that happens to be discussed on a thread here - if they had to register they very well might move to the next link in the list and never give bito another glance.

I believe the board requires registration before you can view images - is this correct? If not, that might be a good compromise.

I still say implementing a "premium" member plan would be a great way to let people support the site.

[koifishgirl]

Or you could have a donation column to help. I think a lot of the members on the board would not mind making a donation to help with board expense. Why not, this is not just your regular forum, It is a Koi-Bito Magazine Forum. I had been on other forums for a long time and could not get a lot of the info I needed, I was told to come to the best forum for help. Here I found out more in two weeks than I did in a year on another board.

What do you all think of this?

Judy

[MikeM]

KFG, Brian does not need charity. He has a great communication vehicle to sell. Just get the mag & talk it up in koi circles. A few hundred new subscriptions would be nice, I'm sure.

Personally, I'm waiting for the DVD that follows the great one on Momotaro. I'm just hoping Brian does one and does not price it too high. Although as many times as I've watched the Momotaro DVD, I'm not sure I could afford a truly fair price. .... that, in my opinion, is the best work on nishikigoi produced in non-print media... so far.

[koifishgirl]

I did not mean it that way. What I was talking about is money for adds. Maybe I got lost somewhere along the way, but talking up the Koi-Bito you bet. Just got to get back to work so I can afford one.


Judy

[Brian]

Folks,

I've seen quite a bit of bickering on the boards as of late, and am receiving a lot of feedback that it's turning a lot of people off. I'm not one to edit or ban except in the worst of cases, (I've only banned 1 person in 3 years) but I would like the general forum to maintain the civility which attracted many new users in the first place.

That being said, I've made a decision that when two or more people just can't get along and the mood of the thread breaks down into little more than a textual version of fisticuffs, that it's time to take it "outside" as the bartender would say.

There's a new subforum off of the Koi-Bito Magazine categories called "outside". I will move or split threads from here on out that I think have gotten a bit nastier than most folks would care to see. Things can be picked up and continued there if the participants so wish. I'm hoping to spare others that would rather avoid this sort of stuff from having to suffer through it. I hope that nobody takes it personally when I choose to do so.

And please don't ask me to take sides folks. I'm just trying to bring you good information about koi and run a business here. I wouldn't dream of showing up where you work and asking any of you to takes sides between your customers in a personal dispute...I hope that you'll afford me that same benefit.

Best regards,

[dinh]

Thank you Brian !!

Quote: Originally Posted by Brian Folks, I've seen quite a bit of bickering on the boards as of late, and am receiving a lot of feedback that it's turning a lot of people off. I'm not one to edit or ban except in the worst of cases, (I've only banned 1 person in 3 years) but I would like the general forum to maintain the civility which attracted many new users in the first place. That being said, I've made a decision that when two or more people just can't get along and the mood of the thread breaks down into little more than a textual version of fisticuffs, that it's time to take it "outside" as the bartender would say. There's a new subforum off of the Koi-Bito Magazine categories called "outside". I will move or split threads from here on out that I think have gotten a bit nastier than most folks would care to see. Things can be picked up and continued there if the participants so wish. I'm hoping to spare others that would rather avoid this sort of stuff from having to suffer through it. I hope that nobody takes it personally when I choose to do so. And please don't ask me to take sides folks. I'm just trying to bring you good information about koi and run a business here. I wouldn't dream of showing up where you work and asking any of you to takes sides between your customers in a personal dispute...I hope that you'll afford me that same benefit. Best regards,

[Valarc]

A great idea Brian - not really censorship because people still get a chance to respond, and it keeps these things out of the way of the people who get sick of seeing the fights.

I admit I go overboard sometimes and should just ignore some of these things that really get under my skin, so I apologize for adding to your work load.

[woodyaht]

Brian I can't say thank you enough. I am sick and tired of having to sort through constant BS just to read a post. It would be different if these people actually were contributing to the enhancement of the board by posting on KB.

Quote: Originally Posted by Brian Folks, I've seen quite a bit of bickering on the boards as of late, and am receiving a lot of feedback that it's turning a lot of people off. I'm not one to edit or ban except in the worst of cases, (I've only banned 1 person in 3 years) but I would like the general forum to maintain the civility which attracted many new users in the first place. That being said, I've made a decision that when two or more people just can't get along and the mood of the thread breaks down into little more than a textual version of fisticuffs, that it's time to take it "outside" as the bartender would say. There's a new subforum off of the Koi-Bito Magazine categories called "outside". I will move or split threads from here on out that I think have gotten a bit nastier than most folks would care to see. Things can be picked up and continued there if the participants so wish. I'm hoping to spare others that would rather avoid this sort of stuff from having to suffer through it. I hope that nobody takes it personally when I choose to do so. And please don't ask me to take sides folks. I'm just trying to bring you good information about koi and run a business here. I wouldn't dream of showing up where you work and asking any of you to takes sides between your customers in a personal dispute...I hope that you'll afford me that same benefit. Best regards,