???? Why are people that haven't paid anything continually complaining about members HAVING to pay? umm.... If that were the case YOU would have had to pay, correct?
SNOWEST IS GETTING GREATY
- Thread starter m series
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for all the complaining that people are doing about how you have to pay to be a premium member, or that there is no traffic on here anymore. it's amazing that anyone is even left on here, unless of course the other sites aren't currently really doing a whole lot better right now either. or maybe people just have nothing better to do and just like to complain about change, but maybe they just should take a listen to a little Bob Dylan.
D
PLAIN AND SIMPLE
I am cheap, and i mean cheap.. when i go out to eat i get water because beer and pop cost extra.. i pinch pennies in every situation i have to spend money.. if i pay for something i pay bottom dollar.. if i dont think its worth it i improvise and make something work that is free... that being said i am a paid member, and it was $15 for a year. all of the knowledge i have gained off this site justifies the 15 dollars a year.. hell on some topics one post is worth the 15 dollars in the time and headache it saved me.. So if i (the cheapest man alive) will pay it i don't, understand why tons of you people are complaining about it.. how many times have you gone out and put a 20 in the poker machine just to see it dissappear in 3 minutes, or spend 15 bucks on 2 people in the drive thru at mcdonalds.. just buck up, and if you care enough to ***** about on here, then i guarantee it is worth 15 dollars out of your daily cheeseburger budget... THINK ABOUT IT :loco:
I am cheap, and i mean cheap.. when i go out to eat i get water because beer and pop cost extra.. i pinch pennies in every situation i have to spend money.. if i pay for something i pay bottom dollar.. if i dont think its worth it i improvise and make something work that is free... that being said i am a paid member, and it was $15 for a year. all of the knowledge i have gained off this site justifies the 15 dollars a year.. hell on some topics one post is worth the 15 dollars in the time and headache it saved me.. So if i (the cheapest man alive) will pay it i don't, understand why tons of you people are complaining about it.. how many times have you gone out and put a 20 in the poker machine just to see it dissappear in 3 minutes, or spend 15 bucks on 2 people in the drive thru at mcdonalds.. just buck up, and if you care enough to ***** about on here, then i guarantee it is worth 15 dollars out of your daily cheeseburger budget... THINK ABOUT IT :loco:
Dmill, it's your choice to pay, and quite simply, it's the choice of many others not to pay.
I'm not criticizing other members for giving them their money, I'm criticizing snowest for being incapable of running a forum like the thousands of others out there in a way that makes them money without having to charge the users.
I'm not criticizing other members for giving them their money, I'm criticizing snowest for being incapable of running a forum like the thousands of others out there in a way that makes them money without having to charge the users.
What a freebie you are! I paid $30 for the premium membership and it gives me some benefits such like 3 magazines (SnoWest, SledHead and Mod-Stock) and all access to the forums which are reserved for premium members. The basic membership used to give us all access to the forums until SnoWest changed their policy. Still, $30 for 3 years is pretty cheap! Let me break it down for you. $10 a year or 84 cents a month! There is such no "free" high speed internet service, so you still have to pay for the service. In the future, newspapers will charge readers to read their digital subscription. Again, everything is NOT free!
David
David
Really glad we had this talk, very enlightening.
the funny thing about you guys, you talk to us like we don't get it... we get it, we just disagree. The fact that YOU felt like wasting your money on a forum has no bearing on ME.
but hey, explain to us again how it's ONLY $.0011446 per hour, what a deal.
Oh, and for you, getting to advertise your business for only $30 is a killer deal, plus now that many of the more knowledgeable members have left... it might make you look like a valuable member of the community.
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Everyone gets your point as well. So now what?
So now what? Make some changes to get people back.
You'll never get them all, but not all of them left in a huff.
A bunch happened, the forum is dying a slow death, I feel that an effort should be made to stop the bleeding.
Like what? Please be specific.
I think that has been explained ad nauseam on the thread just below this one.
why haven't you paid ruffy??? It's only $10 a year, for the information you could get from this forum, it's a killer deal. It's really hard to believe that ANYONE wouldn't just instantly fork over their money as soon as possible.
You really need to get on that, it's well worth the money.
why haven't you paid ruffy??? It's only $10 a year, for the information you could get from this forum, it's a killer deal. It's really hard to believe that ANYONE wouldn't just instantly fork over their money as soon as possible.
You really need to get on that, it's well worth the money.
K
I think if SnoWest would have asked for donations they would have got a great response from the members, but what is done is done. The only thing i wish would be open posts is the riding area's sub forms, not only do those sub forums update conditions they could possibly avoid a tragedy, a lot of peeps update avi conditions on there and many recent posts cannot be read. Its always nice to be able to read comments or ask questions about a area before you venture out for a ride and i feel this one thing should always be free, the rest if i really want more than a basic membership i would probably pay. But the riding area's sub forums should always be open i would really hate to see someone lose a loved one because post 76 warned not to go there for one reason or another, not everyone is on here all the time and some of those people know they can check conditions on snowest before they go out but not any longer after post 75 you are on your own and i think thats pretty sad, just saying.
SnoWest DID ask for donations for 2 years, and got almost NONE at all.
People loved using the forum and not paying for it.
The SnowSafety Forum, where the Avalanche Reports live, has NO restrictions on reading/posting for free members. Its UNLIMITED.
People loved using the forum and not paying for it.
The SnowSafety Forum, where the Avalanche Reports live, has NO restrictions on reading/posting for free members. Its UNLIMITED.
K
Ok i wasn't aware of the donation thing or the unlimited avi section posts accept my appologies, but i always went to the riding area's sub forums for information before venturing out, there is a lot more to be aware of than just avi conditions out there and anywhere i want to go right now in my area's is filled right up. Its a great thing for clubs though at least i can still call, just wish they were still open Christopher they made things a little easier. Not trying to bash just thought that area was important in my eye's anyways i don't think certian things i would want to know will be posted in the section you speak of, but i do know there are other trustworthy resources for information as well i.e. Clubs, CAC, and others.
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A
I think I'm pretty representative of a lot of original Snowest members. I used to log in almost everyday on the old site. Then it switched to a pay site and I logged in and discovered I could only view X number of threads. That just pissed me off and I ddin't check other threads, I went to other sites. Now, I rarely come to Snowest. The last post I made a couple weeks ago, lingered around on the same first page of that forum for a week and even though it didn't get hardly any responses, it didn't drop out of site for a long time. That shows me that a lot of peope have left. Whatever, don't care because just like Classmates.com, as soon as you charge me for something I got for free, I'll move on to the next free site, like Myspace and then Facebook. I'm not sure why forum owners forget that we already pay a hefty fee to access their content through our ISP charges.
Anyway, see ya later. By next fall this place will be a hollow shell of itself.
Anyway, see ya later. By next fall this place will be a hollow shell of itself.
Gotta agree with you, I do remember when the donation button was up, and as the company that owns this site produces some magazines that I can't stand because of the amount of advertizing & how horribly blatent the pandering to those advertizers is, I decided that they would never see a penny of my money.
I have donated to other sites, just not this one.
If I was told that this site was no longer in the revenue stream of Harris pub, I'd likely pay, I just won't give those people my money.
Paying aside, or maybe quite the opposite, if an effort to gain "customers" back, paying or not, isn't made, the people that HAVE paid will have little to show for their money. If you get more of the non paying members back, it will bring in more paying members simply in terms of a percentage of people are likely to be willing to kick down to see a picture above their names & the few extra features. If the overall numbers don't increase, the paying numbers will decrease as well.
Christopher, you may not have been here for the many years that most of us have, but this is NOT what april looks like on this site. I don't care what numbers you try to show, it's VERY obvious to those of us that know this place that it is VERY low right now & will just continue to get lower as the months go by.
Another thing you may not be thinking about, when the next year starts, who do you think tells those new people about the site? The other users. When those users tell people that ask that they should head to bcr, thumpertalk, snow&mud, dootalk or any of the others, they'll only find out about this place through the negative threads on the other sites. I think there's a crucial part of this puzzle that has been missed.
Btw, I don't say these things out of spite or anger, I say them hoping that this site can or will return to the great knowledge base that it used to be. I'd rather work with than against, but the path that HP has chosen has some issues that need to be addressed & more effort needs to be given to show people that you actually give a crap about what goes on here.
First, let me say THANK YOU for a well written post, and for resisting the temptation to lash out. I greatly appreciate a civil conversation !!
Here are some numbers for you to chew on that we used in our determinations.
Average number of posts in a thread on SnoWest = 23.73
Average number of threads that have more than 75 posts = 9%
Average number of threads that have more than 100 posts = 4%
What this means.
Free Members can read 100% of the contents of 91% of all threads on SnoWest.
The much bantered about argument that people are leaving because they can't read any of the threads is just a Red Herring. The hard cold numbers prove otherwise. Could we increase the free allotment? Sure, we could push it to 100 posts per thread, and you know what, it would make ZERO difference.
We understand that people are cheap.
We get it.
Very few people are willing to pay for anything that they can find a way of obtaining for free.
We understand that.
What we have tried to do, and what we will continue to work on, is trying to find a "reasonable" medium between giving it all away, and charging for our services.
Will we be making more "Adjustments & Tweaks" as Spring/Summer rolls along?
Sure, you can count on it.
While I will agree that the forums seemed "quieter" in March, than in February, it wasn't because people stopped coming to SnoWest. Not Even.
New Members, March 2010 1,374
While some will argue this was a great season and there is plenty of snow and terrific riding still, by and by, from an industry perspective this was not a great year, we had poor snow, and what we had went away sooner than normal. And those events have a real impact on daily traffic on SnoWest.
But..
I have NOT been an admin on this site long enough to have the historical records to see the hard numbers on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis. That data just wasn't collected before I came, and there is no data at all from more than 2 years ago when they upgraded the whole system to vBulleten and lost MILLIONS of posts and over 40,000 Membership records!
If they were ever able to find those backup disks I could triple our post/thread count with all the material that was lost in the upgrade! (just makes me cringe).
Landings, Page Views, New Memberships, ect all remain strong.
What we need to work on is member participation/posting. The members ARE here, I can see them log in every day. I can see what they read and follow their path through the site. What your seeing is the fact that they are now reading far more than they are writing.
Our goal, as we move forward, will be to drawn them back out.
A good part of that will only happen after the "Prophets of Doom & Gloom" give their pronouncements of the death of SnoWest a rest.
We will get there.
We are patient.
And like all sledders, we are eternal optimists that the next season always has good things in store for us.
This will be a busy Spring/Summer as we prepare for next Fall.
Here are some numbers for you to chew on that we used in our determinations.
Average number of posts in a thread on SnoWest = 23.73
Average number of threads that have more than 75 posts = 9%
Average number of threads that have more than 100 posts = 4%
What this means.
Free Members can read 100% of the contents of 91% of all threads on SnoWest.
The much bantered about argument that people are leaving because they can't read any of the threads is just a Red Herring. The hard cold numbers prove otherwise. Could we increase the free allotment? Sure, we could push it to 100 posts per thread, and you know what, it would make ZERO difference.
We understand that people are cheap.
We get it.
Very few people are willing to pay for anything that they can find a way of obtaining for free.
We understand that.
What we have tried to do, and what we will continue to work on, is trying to find a "reasonable" medium between giving it all away, and charging for our services.
Will we be making more "Adjustments & Tweaks" as Spring/Summer rolls along?
Sure, you can count on it.
While I will agree that the forums seemed "quieter" in March, than in February, it wasn't because people stopped coming to SnoWest. Not Even.
New Members, March 2010 1,374
While some will argue this was a great season and there is plenty of snow and terrific riding still, by and by, from an industry perspective this was not a great year, we had poor snow, and what we had went away sooner than normal. And those events have a real impact on daily traffic on SnoWest.
But..
I have NOT been an admin on this site long enough to have the historical records to see the hard numbers on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis. That data just wasn't collected before I came, and there is no data at all from more than 2 years ago when they upgraded the whole system to vBulleten and lost MILLIONS of posts and over 40,000 Membership records!
If they were ever able to find those backup disks I could triple our post/thread count with all the material that was lost in the upgrade! (just makes me cringe).
Landings, Page Views, New Memberships, ect all remain strong.
What we need to work on is member participation/posting. The members ARE here, I can see them log in every day. I can see what they read and follow their path through the site. What your seeing is the fact that they are now reading far more than they are writing.
Our goal, as we move forward, will be to drawn them back out.
A good part of that will only happen after the "Prophets of Doom & Gloom" give their pronouncements of the death of SnoWest a rest.
We will get there.
We are patient.
And like all sledders, we are eternal optimists that the next season always has good things in store for us.
This will be a busy Spring/Summer as we prepare for next Fall.
Christopher, I see what your saying,but since I am one of those in that 4 %(I am a post whore)the problem is as I see it, the peeps who stayed(and most of the new members), are not talking nor will they...For as long as I have been on here from oct thru may there has almost every single day been 500 new thread post a day..I spent hrs every night going thru the new post before I could even think about making new post myself..since we went pay that has dropped by at least half..and it hasnt stopped going down..last summer was way busier then we are now...and it shouldnt be that way..alot of people bought alot of new sleds last year..those peeps should have been here in droves looking for setups, clutching gearing, suspensions...mods..but they arnt..this clutching thread(http://www.snowestonline.com/forum/showthread.php?t=128754) hasnt had a post in over 2 months..yet it used to get hit constantly(268 post, 11775 veiws by 754 members)now days it is lucky to get veiwed 1-3 times a day by members, 3 months ago it got veiwed by 15-20 a day....and this thread contains some excellent info on polaris clutching, and there are many threads just like this all over snowest...I hate to say this christopher, but if you cant get knowledgeable peeps in here and posting good info this is going to keep going down even worse then it is now, somehow you have to bring in the knowledge again..the problem is most of those with real valuable knowledge are also those who are of a rowdier crowd...they enjoy life, and they give that info out only when they are enjoying life..if they arent having fun..they arent going to open up and share as much...just what I have noticed...
if that wasn't all true, I would not still be here. If I felt it was SO limited that I could not glean the information that I felt was useful or that I couldn't give information, we would not be having this conversation.
My point is that however you see it, the slowdown is VERY significant & noticeable. I'll be honest I don't know WHAT would bring a lot of people back, but some kind of genuine effort that makes people feel that there is something worth paying for, or some reason to return would make a big difference I think. You talked about webinars, industry insiders, information that wouldn't be available elsewhere...when the pay thing started, but (to my perspective) we've seen all the negatives, but none of the legitimate enhancement that makes snowest something that isn't very easily replaced with just any other forum.
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Yes I did, and it IS coming.
The next major step for SnoWest is going to be the upgrade from V3 to V4 of vBulleten. This is a MAJOR software change for us and is going to take some time to get implemented properly so we do NOT loose any threads or posts or member accounts or ect..
Once we have the platform upgraded to V4, then there will be a series of discussion with all of the Premium Members on a long list of upgrade Modules, Events, New Forums, ect.. I will speak with them and get their input as we being rebuilding the forums, for next fall. This will be happening all over the course of the Spring and summer. The Premium Members will have a lot of input on how we re-shape the forums for next season. They took a stand on behalf of SnoWest in spite of all the ridicule some of them had to endure.
There is a HUGE amount of work ahead of us over the next 6 months.
And all the while we will be working to get more of our current members to be more active and participatory at the same time.
We have plenty of "hot bodies" on the forum every day.
We just need to convince them to come out of the shadows and start posting without fear of retaliation. And make NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT, that is the #1 reason why so many of our members will not post in public. I get the PMs from them telling me so. They are afraid of being attacked/beaten up by other long standing members for opening their mouth.
There is still a WEALTH of knowledge and experience here on SnoWest.
We just have to bring it out.
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