Premium membership / benefits?

[lannen]

I started a thread concerning the possibility of a paid premium membership that would eliminate the banner and pop-up advertising as one of the benefits.

The CF administration appears willing to consider this possibility.
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I think $25 is a fair amount.

I would like a section that has live chat for premium members to discuss topics and such with each other real-time.

I would like to be able to plug a product/invention/website where I may have a financial interest without becoming a Vendor.

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What would you like to see as a benefit of becoming a premium member?

[dacust]

I would NOT like to see premium benefits that will separate the members. A NO-AD membership, sure if people really want to pay for that.

I'd hate to see a premium membership start, and the the new cool features only come available to paying members. Seems there would be an incentive to start pushing everyone to become paying members.

Myself, I don't see what the big deal is. I don't see any ads. None. But if there are people who want to pay $25 to remove ads that you can remove yourself for free, I got no problem with that.

[martinworswick]

Originally Posted by dacust

Myself, I don't see what the big deal is. I don't see any ads. None. But if there are people who want to pay $25 to remove ads that you can remove yourself for free, I got no problem with that.

dacust,

don't you see the guy who waves everytime you open a page? it's really irritating!!!

how do you remove them yourself? i'd love to know.

i never noticed any before this one!

[Nauticatarcher]

use Mozilla Firefox, and block ads with adblocker

[Tellie]

I don't get any pop ups. I use AVG it seems to take care of it. I'm no computor expert but if you're willing to cough up $25, buy some software that will take care of your problems. Sailing is expensive enough as it is. This board is one of those small pleasures where I don't have to break out more boat bucks. No personal offense meant Lannen, but if you push this "Pay to play" I for one will resist and fight against it.

[Pblais]

i never noticed any before this one!

It's new and it's Google. we always had them they just only recently started flashing. We don't usually get major corporate ads it seems Kellogg's is spending big bucks. They pay for each ad "impression". They pay for them in millions of impressions per the price. We used to get several boating related ads including regional ads based on your IP. I used to see a Virginia Beach sail boat / power boat timeshare ad quite a bit and you may have noticed ads from your local area. It's possible to convert your IP address to a regional location and then target ads to you that are local at least to the regional level.

Not all the ad blockers can block all the ads.

[Ram]

i dont get the ads- i vote no!

[Pblais]

At this point we are not taking votes or conducting polls. Andy said he would consider a pay with no ads idea but I don't see there being anything more on the table just now. We still have brand new features installed that are still getting into use by only some members.

Right now there are only the admin features and a few vendor features that are not available to all members that are registered (free as always). New versions of our hosting software may permit even more features as we go ahead. Most all the features we have originate from the hosting software.

[scotte]

I'm in the "as long as it doesn't mean features/forums/posts get moved to pay-only, I'm OK with it" camp.

I've seen sites where content that was in public areas has gotten moved to a private paid-members-only area. I can pretty much guarantee if you go that route there will be a lot of really angry folks - I know a lot of people (including myself) search this forum regularly as system-of-record for lots of great technical articles. If those threads get moved into "premium" content, that would not be a good thing.

It can be a bit of a slippery slope to have "premium" features, so just consider the affect this will have on all the people using it the way it is for so long.

As far as the ads go, AdBlock Plus solves this entirely - in fact until seeing this thread I forgot this site has big annoying ads. I can't believe anyone would pay money to a single site when they can block ads at a global level for free, but hey there's nothing wrong with capitalism!

Now, on the other hand, if you did this via an online Yacht Club and were able to negotiate yacht club reciprocals that helped members out in some meaningful ways while cruising, I'd probably be all over that, if it helped in areas where I am/plan to go...

[Tropic Cat]

I think the other Sailing forums are competition enough to keep this one free. Actually I just ignore the ads as I'm sure most of the visitors here do.

[Janet H]

Originally Posted by Tropic Cat

I think the other Sailing forums are competition enough to keep this one free. Actually I just ignore the ads as I'm sure most of the visitors here do.

I'm not really sure how this topic got traction. There are no plans to charge for access to Cruisers Forum. None.

There has been a proposal for a paid membership that would remove ads and as pointed out you can do that for free right now by loading Mozilla's Firefox browser and their adblock plugin.

[Pblais]

Registration removes all the in line ads that google generates based on key words in the post. Since all of you are registered it's easy to forget what users that visit without registering see since they can't post and so we don't know who they are.

Registration leaves the banner ad near the top of the page and that is it. For a really fun experience don't log in and see how it is. The banner never used to be a big deal but now with the waving guiy they can be rather anoying.

So as it stands now registration removes the inline google ads. We have no premium content so everyone can access it all free and you don't have to even be registered. Adding a premium fee to remove one banner ad does not seem like anything that would generate much money.

[Unicorn Dreams]

I don't really see what the big deal about one little ad at the top of the page. Have never seen the so-called little guy waving. Have never seen any pop ups either.

[MV]

Originally Posted by martinworswick

dacust,

don't you see the guy who waves everytime you open a page? it's really irritating!!!

how do you remove them yourself? i'd love to know.

i never noticed any before this one!

Disable your plug-ins or disable Java Script while you are on this site. That is what I do.

That hand thing was infuriating me -- we are biologically wired to track sharp and fast movements, so there is NO getting around the attention getting factor.

[Kanani]

I would not be interested in paying for a "Premium" membership.