Personal forums?

[Rich Z]

I've been thinking about trying something, both here and on FaunaClassifieds (when I get the upgrade in place). Would anyone be interested in their own personal forum? Basically it would be your own world, where you are the moderator with full rights to edit and delete stuff. You would not be able to create your own subforums, however.

I would want to charge a fee per year for this, as I want to have this all paying for itself (as well as the headaches it all gives me sometimes), but I'm not sure what would be a reasonable figure to charge. Perhaps I could also offer direct links to other's websites as well, which could either be immediate, or if your own forum really takes off and you decide to move on to your own forum based website yourself.

Basically it would look much like what you see in the Linked Forums section on this site. You can come up with your own descriptive text as a comeon to invite people in. The traffic is already here, so you get pretty much instant exposure.

What do you all think? Will something like this be of interest? Or will this detract from participation on this site too much?

[Flygning]

Are you saying you would charge everyone, or just those with their own space? I know if I had to pay to post here, I wouldn't be able to at all. A large chunk of my life would disappear.... ;)

[Rich Z]

Heck I thought I was pretty specific about it. Where did I go wrong?

The person who wanted their own personal forum would have to pay a fee. No one else. Basically this would be an alternative to having to get your own website hosted and set up a forum there.

Does that make it clearer?

[Flygning]

as I want to have this all paying for itself


Thought you meant the whole forum, not just the personal areas. Just checking :)

[CAV]

Rich, would this be similar to the ballistics guy's area on Arms Locker? ANy idea what you'd charge?

[Rich Z]

Gary - yes, exactly.

I'm thinking something on the order of $25 per year? :shrugs:

[CAV]

I'd be willing to play ball for that price. It would keep me from clogging up your corn forum with my "non-corn" herp adventures and other antics. ;)

[ChaosCat]

I think there's already a few forums out there that already provide personal forums. I'm not sure if they charge a fee or not, I know of one who does not.

[Quigs]

Any more thought on this one, Rich?

Quigs

[Cornfan]

I don't need a forum but I'd be interested in what you'd charge for advertising space.

[Rich Z]

Well, I did think I would get more of a response about the personal forums. How many people are interested in doing something like this? Like I said, I figure I would charge $25 per year.

I haven't said any more about it because I thought it was of little or no interest to everyone.

As for you request about banner ads, CornFan, I charge $25 per month is you set up a monthly subscription plan with PayPal, or otherwise it is $35 per month. A $10 setup fee applies. I have the info at http://www.FaunaClassifieds.com/bannerads.html, or you can click on that green banner in the lower right hand corner of the screen.

[Hurley]

Did you decide not to offer this, Rich?

Personally, I would be interested in setting up a personal forum for the Newsletter so I don't have clutter your other forums with discussions about it.

Perhaps one for the Cornsnake Morph Guide book as well.

[Rich Z]

Yes, I am willing to do this. I just haven't harped on it because I didn't want people to think I was trying to shove it down their throats. I figured I would just offer it and then wait and see who was motivated enough to follow up on it.

Heck, I think I can set it up on this site that it acts as an automated subscription plan. I'll take a look and get back to you. I'm trying to automate as many things as possible so I don't have to manually keep track of expiration dates and the such. And after all, this is the sort of thing that computers SHOULD do for us.... :)

[Hurley]

Wonderful, Rich. Let me know when you get it ready to go and I'll sign up.

:)

[Rich Z]

OK, I think I have the basic subscription plan all laid out and ready to be used.

The link to the subscription signup page is located at: http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/subscriptions.php?

You can also get there via your User CP link, where the link to the subscription page is located near the bottom of the menu bar on the left.

I have set up a common area forum which will be reserved for any and all people who participate in this program with their own person forum as well as anyone who would be interested in having just a direct link to their own website. I haven't set up the subscription code for this yet, but I would be charging $100 per year for the direct link. I'm sure most of you have noticed the ones I have already set up for my own sites, so that will give you an idea of what you would be getting. The common area forum will also be opened to those people who will be official Contributors, which is another program I am working on and hope to offer sometime in the near future.

I have had several people contribute donations to this site and there really has been no way for me to easily give them official public recognition for their kindness. So I am going to be setting up a program whereby they will get an icon displayed underneath their name in messages they post as well as having their member name highlighted in listings showing members names on this site. Along these same lines, there are some options that will become privileges to ONLY those people who are contributors here. I figure that it is only fair to give those people a bit extra for their digging into their pockets to help me out with the financial aspects of running these free sites.

So, that's it in a nutshell. I will post more when there is more to post. But Hurley if you want to go ahead with your forum, give it a whirl. You will just need to let me know what you want to have it titled as, and a short text description underneath the forum name as well. I will set it all up for you and you will be ready to roll.

BTW, you cannot create subforums off of your own forum. This would be a nice feature, however, it is not something that vBulletin allows. But you will be the moderator of your forum, which means you will have direct control over whatever is posted within it.

So, ready to see how this works out?

As for the direct links option, if anyone is interested in trying that one out, let me know and I will set up my end of it for you.

Thanks everyone. I'm trying to come up with ideas to make this place even more fun to be and to also put some money in a war chest so I can put some add-ons here that I would have to pay for out of my pocket otherwise. The chat room tie-in seems to be working pretty well, so maybe we can come up with some other ideas as well.

[Hurley]

Rich,

Thank you for setting this up.

My subscription for the newsletter forum has been submitted. I'll be sending you the text soon.

:santa:

[Rich Z]

OK, the two forums have been set up and I have set both yourself and serpwidgets as moderators to both forums.

Please let me know if something doesn't seem quite right in the setup.

Have fun!

Thanks!

[Hurley]

Cool, Rich, Thanks!

Everything seems to be working well so far.

:santa: