Is there a case for a subscription forum? Discuss.
Actually, the pro's and con's are obvious, and would take up a whole subsection with very heated debate no doubt.
What is obvious to some, may not be obvious to others. I would be very surprised to find a heated debate - if there
was to be such a debate it would probably be between me and my wife (on one side) as we host it on the server that the company of which we're principals hires, at no charge and (on the other side) all of the members and guests who make use of the forum, and (unless we offered something spectacular) would probably prefer a free service.
It's a very interesting metric to look at our members and consider whether their contribution in terms of time here is net "give" or net "take" - are they getting more out than they're putting in, or vice versa? And while we remain subscription, donation and advertising free (apart from my "hosted by" link, which you might just consider an advert), I think most people who come here will say they get more than they give ... some give a huge amount (and THANK YOU) to them, but then they get a lot of pleasure back out.
Where a subscription [or other funding] could be considered would if "we" went off in a different direction or someone else did - and we're not necessarily looking at a forum there, or even purely web based stuff. Some very interesting community rail discussions can come up from that, and the thought that elements of what community rail has done to "put new life into local lines" (the
ACoRP▸ strap line) could usefully extend to smaller stations and services on mainer lines, to commuter flows including London, and indeed to long distance and regional services. It's all a network, and even the "local" line feeds the network. See my blog at
http://www.wellho.net/mouth/4371_Why-are-people-using-the-TransWilts-.html for a scatter map of where TransWilts traffic ends were on our 11 to 13 October survey, and if you're a TransWilts
CRP▸ supporting member on this forum, you can see that data plotted dy by day and against all
UK▸ stations - at
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=15130.0 . Actually, with my Community Rail hat on (at least until the end of this month), looking after some of the press and publicity aspects, there is
some funding to cover advertising and very occasional ancilliary payments. Further, we're putting up departure screens in one of our towns for trains and buses, and they are funded partly by an area board grant and partly by the Melksham Railway Development group - which made a profit of ^40 on the Santa train last month.
It's run by volunteers on a shoestring.
Would funding help with an improved server and software and programming.
It's run by volunteers for free. Not sure where the shoestring came from ;-)
Funding - "would it improve xxxx".
Server - for what we're doing, server is more than adequate. We would be unwise to replace the 150 we're currently travelling on, with seats for all and a comradely feeling, with a 180. Maintenenace requirements would go up, it would feel very empty at times, and the extra speed really wouldn't be used because limits are line speed and the time people take to read a page, not the speed of delivery.
Software - probably not. We run with open source software which is free at the point of distribution and for which we are not required to pay a license fee. Sounds curious - even more curious is that I earn my living from open source software - by training people on how to use it, for example. This week I'm giving a
Ruby Course (and adding some Cucumber), next week it's
Java and I've then got public and private
Python courses prior to the end of the month. I could envisage the need / desirability for something niche, and a consideration to pay in the future, but would be wary of doing so.
Programming - probably not. These days, unless you're starting something pretty radical there's not much need to write programs - rather you use some else's open source (which they will update in time for free for you, perhaps!) and limit your own coding to interesting extra bells and whistles.
Ironically, there are things you didn's mention that funding can / could buy.
Backups. Admin. Placement. Logos. Graphics. - Although even here on many areas we have members and supporters who enjoy doing the work for the pleasure rather than the money. For example, the graphics artwork for the Community Rail Partnership leaflet (
http://atrebatia.info/TWR_A4L-Winter.pdf ) was all done for us free of charge (my wife is rather good at this sort of thing), and the printing was sponsored for us by Wiltshire Council - but the distribution to 24,000 homes on this occasion via the local newspaper was paid at a rate advantageous to us (we have marvellous volunteers who deliver, but different methodologies help reach people in different ways, and we don't want to induce volunteering fatigue). Backup spending - we protect against some things on our server, but could gain from extra protections against other circumstances, and there's an admin overhead on this too potentially. And by "placement" I mean marketing to reach people we don't currently reach. When you look at it, 1600 members isn't relly very many when compared to the number of travellers on
FGW▸ trains each day, though it's so much more than our local rail user group with 100, (and more active too - they meet 4 times a year rather than all day, every day) - so perhaps some work on search engine placement (we can do that) and paid advertising would reach more people who would want to join. Again taking the CRP as an example - we've spent money on Facebook promotion - well less than 0.1p per passenger journey BUT we know this has informed people and brought custom.
As an occasional user, I find the debates fascinating and very informative.
Funding would then need a subscription secretary (voluntary or paid?)
I would be happy to contribute (funding-wise) just for the pleasure and information herein.
The purpose of a forum is to provide a debating platform which should be free for all.
I'm glad you find it such - and indeed if members didn't, they wouldn't be here.
This whole "free" business is an interesting one / on one hand you say it should be free and on the other you would be prepared to pay a subscription (and you rightly point out the can of worms this would bring). It would also bring an expectation of level of service (noting BobM's post following, but I dn't think that would be an issue - I believe we would be able to meet an uptime percentage that would make the rail industry jealous, and wellin excess of offered targets.
Free as in Freedom [to post] is another matter. No, you can't post pictures that are other's copyright without their permission, personal attacks on other members, adverts for products to enhance your manhood, pyramid schemes, details of how to defraud the railways or which chemicals are best to use to make vandalsim permanent. Yes, we have removed all of those in the past, but such posts are a tiny, tiny minority. We do want to encourage new users and having to pay to post your - one - question about why the train from Westbury stops so far our at the end of the platform at Swindon is going to be a real turn off.
Recently retired, I know nothing about programming (et al), sorry; not sure how I could be of any assistance.
Thank you to grahame, the mods and posters.
Oh I know how you can help. The way you are doing by asking questions, posting, keeping the forum alive. And perhaps extend that a little by adding in som enew posts to update us on what's happening around the railway in your area, and in connection with it. I think you're in Cornwall - that' s laong way from Wiltshire but we can listen and learn from each other - indeed we have huge time to look at, admire, and learn from the CRP activities and how they're organised and run in Devon and Cornwall.
However before we go down the subs/non subs route I think I would be good to have feedback from Graham and the mods for their view on how they think the forum environment could be improved.
Let's be honest, it's a lot more reliable that the subject matter it is set up to discuss
There's a degree of "it ain't bust, don't fix it". However - note from earlier in this long reply - comments about increasing membership and that would bring more active individual line boards and the chance of a few more special topic ones too. I would personally like to see a very much more active fares advise / ask questions section and indeed talking about extending and ne areas, ticket sales are interesting - based on the profit on commissions going to community support for rail. We bought the Santa train tickets from our local agent in Trowbridge - they had been selling Santa tickets too and that helps them / the local community. However, commissions on such sales have been slashed and I don't think this is a flyer any more. But watch this space.
A long answer there (and going off topic from the original post) ... hope it's a useful fill in. Many of the issues raised (probably "most" or even "all") have come up with the moderators / admins in the past , and on that basis I feel quite comfortable to comment here and know that I'll be pretty close to the general view.
A really good discussion to have ...
