quote:Originally posted by Baldyman
quote:Originally posted by Nottingham Nick
quote:Originally posted by Alex V
quote:Originally posted by Nottingham Nick
I normally wouldn't respond to posters who have made >50 posts and haven't taken out a membership, [;)] but will make an exception here.
Nick
Absolutely not needed, poor form [V][V][V][V][V]
Alex
I fail to see why, but at the risk of dragging the thread completely off topic, feel I ought to respond.
I was merely stating a fact, I have spent hours and hours of my time over the past few years trying to help people on this site.
I (and many, many other site regulars) answer question after question to do with flying with Virgin and anything else that comes up. It is really nice when people show gratitude by becoming a member of the site and helping Pete pay the not insubstantial running costs of the site.
If people don't want to do this, then fine I don't have a problem with that. It is free country, and I try and help everyone without prejudice.
However, it is usually my personal choice to stop offering advice after a certain number of posts. That doesn't mean that the other very helpful V-Flyers will do the same, or that there is a limit on the number of posts non-members can make. It is just my way .
If that upsets anyone, then I don't think that is my concern.
Yes, it was an unsubtle hint, but as I say - Pete pays a lot of money to keep the site going.
Anyway, back on topic, I am glad VS have come through and you have a seat on the original flight. [;)]
Nick
Narikin has posted some extremely useful information for anyone booking a partner reward flight. Advice was sought, yet at the same time, Narikin provides a significant piece of advice for anyone with a partner reward booking. The post provides useful content to the forum which is supposed to be a fun and informative resource for people with a common interest to collaborate. Forcing people to become paid members restricts content.
Everyone appreciates those that run the site and the contributors. Restricting people from using the site has the knock on effect of reducing the volume of advertising click through, which could be a valuable source of income rather than charging members. Open up the site and more income might be generated.
Amazon Web Services costs a few dollars a month to run a site like this, so that might be worth a look.
I would have thought that posters and those running the site are doing it because they enjoy it, it's not supposed to be a chore.
I don't think you will find a moderator here that will say it is a chore at all, compared to most forums this one is pretty easy to 'police', except for the occasional storm in a tea cup and the odd ego driven post it is pretty smooth sailing, I spend the vast majority of my mod time cleaning up HTML.
For the first few years the site did try and go the ad route, simply put it didn't work, when the topic of switching to a fee based system came up it was debated at length, i'm not talking about a couple of hours, it was more like months of us all going back and forth about it.
The problem at the time was of course server and bandwidth costs, some of the bills that were coming in were frankly scary, the advertising revenue did not even come close to covering it, however due to donations and Pete coming out of his own pocket the site stayed up.
Yes going to the fee based system has cut the number of people posting, however this had had the effect of reducing server loads so the site is quicker, a couple of years ago the site would crash on a daily basis, something that in reality just can't happen. It has also allowed the site to run at a pretty much break even position, which is better than losing money I think everyone will agree.
Now recently there was a change to allow anyone to post in the general discussion, all that is asked is that you register which of course is free. This move was to encourage new members to post and with a little luck to contribute towards the up keep of the site.
Nobody is going to make anyone pay, but every now and again a reminder will be put out there, you can choose to ignore it, that's ok, nobody will get offended if you do [:D]