Exclusive Members

[SecNam]

Originally Posted by rob

Why all the fuss?

It is optional, if you dont like it dont pay and you lose nothing. Zero change to how AD works to you.

Exactly....

[rob]

Originally Posted by texidriver

06-11-04

How many of the 1st 100 are still around?

maybe 1/2 doz

I think AD made a mistake launching this

if you had offered charlie and the other OAP's an exclusive section

then invited others to pay to join them, it might have been more acceptable.

no one likes a poseur who goes to the front of the queue with a fiver.

100 quid is too rich for me, they might all be 12 yr old girls from MySpace anyway.

Age of membership , nor wallet size , denotes quality of membership.

However if people have been using the forum for a year etc, surely they could see it as contributing to running costs?

As I said before, if people dont like it they do not lose out by not paying for a membership so it is a none issue!

[Nigel]

I can't say I like the idea of an exclusive area, but then one sees the 2% sedo reward for joining and mathematically it appeals. But we've been with sedo from the start (long before any uk domain forum discussed ppc) so why should an exclusive domain forum member get 2% more than us? I would like to read a sedo post explaining the reasoning behind this and the way the bonus would operate and we'll give it some thought but my initial reactions are a little negative and I can understand some longstanding members unhappiness at the situation.

[admin]

Can anyone tell me what would be acceptable then? I want to generate a revenue stream from the site in return for all the time I put into it.

So I tried it based on optional donations, trusting people's goodwill to donate when taking names from the drops lists for example, which are still there for free by the way.

What happens? People take names and donate nothing, don't even post a simple thank you for taking a name with a Overture rating. Other people take 10 names from one list, again nothing.

So I decided to create a NEW section, that is optional to join, that didn't take anything away from what was there already, that was funded (or at least partially) by a parking promotion, so that the member was not bearing all the cost directly, and I get slammed against the wall for it.

Ideas anyone?

Or is the only acceptable option to allow members to take take take and dont dare ask for anything in return, just be grateful for people using the site?

[FC Domains]

Originally Posted by rob

However if people have been using the forum for a year etc, surely they could see it as contributing to running costs?

Firstly I haven't been using the forum for a year, I've been contributing.

Secondly, if a low volume board like this costs more that £100 per year to run, there's something very wrong. (My main server only costs £700 a year for 3TB of bandwidth.)

This was a bad idea. A load of good will has gone down the pan. People are suspecting fingers in the pie and how many people have actually paid? Was it worth it?

[Whois-Search]

The value is in the forum itself.

How much is http://www.webhostingtalk.com worth ? do they charge ?

FREE lists also bring people to the site in the first place.

I think sedo and namedrive have enough wars of their own to deal with.

[charlie]

i've had a few drinks so bear with me!

There was once (this aint a fairy tale ) a forum that anyone and everyone involved with the co.uk scene visited, you didn’t have an option that was the only place to learn anything about it. (Long since dead-ish- note)

The issue was here that there was a certain closed community of members that didn’t deal with newbies. They had no intention of opening up and spreading any knowledge amongst drop list feeders and the people who didn’t have huge backing and budgets. The newbies at the time mainly did it for the challenge of finding that gem!

Acorndomains filled that gap. Admin did an amazing job by breaking away and risked alienating all the "old school" members by actively publishing drop lists and pending drops to all forum visitors. As a collective the early members had a astonishing openness about the industry, shared code, ideas and what where once secrets openly amongst the members.

I my mind acorn was still there until this change. I complete understand the admins need to fund this venture I have a number of domains running and know that you'll have to work bl**dy hard to make a living! What I don’t want to see is this segregation of the industry. Sure the whole thing is different even since 2 years ago the numbers of members has rocketed. As a collective we could control the industry not just influence how sedo (nothing personal) make an extra hundred quid from every sale.

I'm not totally against the paid forums. I know there are tiers of involvement some members are spending thousands and do this as a living, others, including me, as just experiment hoping we might make enough to ditch the 9-5 job. I agree that perhaps certain members are talking 1000's rather than 10's.

What i would have liked to see is AC as a group pushing the values of co.uks up with the spread of knowledge. Rather than working against each other, we could work against the paying industries. Spreading the sales techniques that improve the values of the co.uk across the board, educating the sectors on the value of a decent domain(s) names. If we become split there will always be the option to go else where for a name that might be not as good but its over half the price.

Personally i don’t have domains that warrant a top tier seat, if this was posted as a request for funds then i would have happily contributed, admin knows i pay for all my registers (just ) but the spit has mad me apprehensive. I'll see how this develops.
I was hoping that sedo might cut its minimum transfer fee. If they are going to embrace the co.uk as we have incorporated them. But i doubt they go higher that 2% total bonus for a forum of this size. Business opportunity there, a co.uk only sales board. So perhaps this is a sign of this is where the fun of the industry disappears and now its serious business? I'd hope that we can pull together rather than apart to increase the value of the co.uk but I personally will watch to see how this develops.

good luck

[admin]

Originally Posted by FC Domains

Firstly I haven't been using the forum for a year, I've been contributing.

Secondly, if a low volume board like this costs more that £100 per year to run, there's something very wrong. (My main server only costs £700 a year for 3TB of bandwidth.)

This was a bad idea. A load of good will has gone down the pan. People are suspecting fingers in the pie and how many people have actually paid? Was it worth it?

I didn't say it costs a £100 a year to run, it's for time spent not just hosting.

I accept that a forum is nothing without the valuable contributions from it's members and we have always tried to run a fair and honest board within the boundaries of we consider acceptable to make it a happy and productive place to be.

Fingers in pies? Our negotiations with Sedo were to try to bring something of benefit to members in return for a membership fee - if that wasn't available we would be slated even more.

Conspiracy theories? We introduced the Domain Trader Rating system recently to encourage more domain sales between members (saving you all Sedo fees), I doubt a Sedo owned board would do that and from what we have seen it is starting to work.

The goodwill you mention has to cut both ways, if people were donating regularly we wouldn't have had to look for another way to bring some revenue in.

[aqls]

ok, thanks for asking . . .

I think forcing it upon us without notice was mistake 1.

including sedo as part of the "attraction" was mistake 2.

You offer more on this forum as yourself than sedo, and we are here because of what you offer not because of what the parking companies offer.

Continuing that theme.
If you gave something more of tangible value (no I'm not saying what you already giv . . yaddah) like those ov names and like the names you find before you reg them. i.e. real quality stuff that someone would bite your hand off for.
Run towards. Leave their wife and homes for.

and you provide quality info that you find out i.e. inside tricks on operating the dac, offer software that we can use, all the things of real value, that you or anyone doesn't want anyone else to have or know about.

Where we can discuss things without the presence of sedo, nominet, google or any other "controller".

And, while I don't regard it as a main attraction, that we can discuss domain names that we have in private.

Then noone would expect to give it away for free.

Then we'd pay £100 per month.

We get the opportunity to make real money. You get subscription revenue. A bit like a high level share tipping service with inside info. But the tipster isn't allowed to trade. The better your info the better your revenue.

You decide whether your main focus is getting domains for yourself or your forum.

You've already created a specific gathering place in which to entice us.

If its you trying to get names and us trying to get names, then you're not really providing us much of a service except the gathering place for the competition.

Just an idea.

Don't get me wrong. What you've done with this forum is nothing short of fantastic and monetising forum traffic is an age old conundrum that only very few have succeeded with.

So what I'm suggesting is unproven and open to discussion and nothing more, but I hope it adds a bit of value to the decision process.

-aqls-

[rob]

Lists have always been 'free' yet encouraged to donate. Only yesterday was a domain posted on its own and regged without a word of thanks or donation as far as I know.

The Sedo bit is a promotion along side Acorn , however I do not see it as any more suspect than that.

I see myself as a USER of this forum and dont think I should be the one to be rewarded for my posts as it has put me in touch with domain deals and people which might not have occured otherwise.

For the Nth time, if people do not wish to become a 'paid up member' then dont.

I would encourage people to view it as a yearly donation to keep the forum running and by that I do not just mean the simple server costs - time to keep the forum software upto date, time spent fiddling with mods, providing user support, moderating, taking the flak legal when idiots decide to accuse people of cheating ( ) , promoting the forum etc.

Possibly most of all it will mean the forum gives Admin a decent enough revenue stream so it is worthwhile to put the effort in, rather than sell up to a 3rd party :s