Contributing...

I noticed today, that non-Contributing members have reduced functionality in the board, and thats why I'd like to write something about contributing and making donations on commercial boards.
Before I start, please keep in mind that this is not an attack, this should be a remark to think of facts and everyone can come to his own conclusion and so do I. Also, please don't be picky on single sentences - I'll try to form objective and correct sentences so if you feel offended, please ask back if it was the fact that I meant or just bad formed sentence. Thanks in advance.

When I first saw the "Contributing Member" coin I was a little bit disappointed. I first thought that this would become another site trying to earn money with other ones knowledge. I read, that such members get their own subforum and at this point, it became quite OK for me. Such a sub forum is a place for presenting your own animals and so "breeders" can use it as a small commercial platform. It's quite OK to spend money for that!
What I dislike is the fact that many people state that we have to "help" this site cause Rich is the only one who's paying and we are only taking, taking, taking. Let's try to analyse this fact:
A board itself can be a great please to present yourself and your animals. When I visit this board, I see a "Sponsored by SerpenCo". I see subforums like the "SerpenCo Photogallery" and other subforums dealing with pricelists and so on. Since the kingsnake-story, where I'm really on Rich's site of the coin, Rich has some kind of god status in this forum and the name "SerpenCo" speaks for quality on this board. (I mean this in a positive way!)
To me - THAT is one of the best commercials that a company, so Rich, can have. And IMHO, that is quite OK.
But let's come back to the "we have to donate" topic. I personally don't see the reason that I spend money to Rich's commercial platform. The whole thing is a give and take. Rich gives money and time for the board and I gets, as I stated, a super-duper presentation of his company that will show up in the amount of animals he sells. We take Rich's traffic and Webspace and give him a living community with knowledge, photos and discussions about new stuff and so form the platform. Thats our give and take.

A different thing to me would be a site that hosted by a private person without selling animals and without commercials on the board (I see plenty of them here BTW.). That would be a situation where I'd also donate things or contribute to the site in the way Rich allows it here. I myself run and pay for a site with over 250 visitors everyday (NO board on the site!) and over 100 of them use my Calculator every single day - for Free! We do not sell animals over our site so everything I earn with it are people telling me that I did a good job and I also have to spend money for webspace and traffic. That I spend lot's of hours programming and so on even doesn't count in this calculation.

Example: I'm quite into the whole web thing and I can get the webspace to run this board for about 20$ per month. That would mean - selling 12 normals a year more because of the board would make no costs for such a board. I don't know the prices in the US, but that 20$ would include about 200GB Traffic and 30GB Webspace. If there is a huge difference to your prices, please tell me so that I can recalculate the thing. I just don't want to offend someone because I used wrong assumptions on costs!
What I mean in general with it is: If Rich sells one e.g. Lavender Motley more cause someone thinks he is a good source for animals because of this nice board - the money he spend into the board already paid off. Thats the way commercials work all over the world and BTW. is true for every "breeder" presenting his animals on this site, especially in the own contributing-member forums. Thats the point where I come back to what I wrote above why it is OK to pay for your own subforum.

So, the get the whole thing to an end. If someone wants to donate to a "commercial" board, that is quite OK. If someone gets a subforum for his donation to promote himself or his animals, that's more than OK - I think it's quite an aspect of fairness to pay then. If you should donate to get full functionality to spend your knowledge to a "commercial" board, thats not OK for me. I read the "we have to give something back to the board (and that means money!)" in every 5-10th thread know and slowly I feel pushed into a direction that I don't want. That gives me the feeling that I exploit Rich because I'm wasting his traffic and as I stated above, I don't think thats the only aspect.
...if people would donate money for using my calculator? :shrugs: In this case, they give NOTHING back to me!

I hope that I don't get replies like "if you don't like it, shut the f*ck up and go away". I really enjoy this board, the discussions and the members. I learned a lot here and hope that this will continue and that I can also give a small amount of my knowledge back to others here.

Greetings
Michael

Very good post Michael. Whilst your stand is going to be unpopular with some, you have raised some very good points about the purpose of a business site as opposed to a private one. As I've mentioned in a previous post, if a member wants to contribute financially, shouldn't they be allowed to choose how much money they contribute? I agree that giving financial members access to their own forum or chat room is a nice idea, but taking away access to features in the forum such as being able to advertise in the for sale section or edit your own posts is not a positive move for the site in my opinion.

Another question for you all. Who contributes more; a person who has nothing relevant or interesting to add to the conversation but pays their fees or a person who brings with them a whole lot of knowledge and insight and likes to help new members by answering questions but perhaps can't afford to be a financial contributor?

Just wanted to start off by saying that I love your calculator and I use it quite a bit. If you had a link (or if you do and I missed it, sorry) to contribute I probably would.

I never felt any pressure to contribute here. I decided to do it because I had gotten so much from the site that I wanted to give something back. If I had followed the pets stores advice, or even some advice I got on line, my snakes would be dead right now. What's the value of the information I got from here that saved their lives? Well $25 is a steal if you ask me!

You have some very good points, I just don't happen to agree with some of them. Reading your post made me think though, and sometimes around here we could use a little more thinking! :grin01:

I can see both side's of the coin, i have a free forum, because i can't afford dedicated webspace, but if i could i would get it. As it is, i have learnt a lot off here and $25 isn't a lot.....if you can afford it. I can't afford it. But if i could afford it the extra benefits like my own forum page on here wouldn't interest me as i have a forum, and as to the sale section, i don't (and probably won't) sell my snakes over the net, i might advertise them but not on here as theirs not enough people from the UK and I'm not prepared to ship.

Still i rate this site as my no 1 site for info and reference, and would like Rich and everyone else to keep up the good work, and I'd like to say thanks to everyone for the additional knowledge i have learnt.

Just my $.02

Yeah, I was a bit disappointed also, but that's life.

Michael said :

I hope that I don't get replies like "if you don't like it, shut the f*ck up and go away".

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I hope you don't hear anything like that...I'd be surprised if you did on these boards.

I contribute to boards that I enjoy visiting and learning from. I don't do it to get "extra" features or abilities. I think these boards are worth supporting just for the learning and sharing I get from the folks here. Heck to me CAV's humor is worth...it !

Seriously.....I may never have the knowledge on corns folks like yourself, Clint etc. forgot last week (smile). I appreciate what you share here. As to it being a commercial-business boards...I really don't think Rich hypes himself all that much here IMHO, if at all. This board is a lot more "community" to me than commercial.

Anyway just my thoughts.....

Gronk said:

I hope you don't hear anything like that...I'd be surprised if you did on these boards.

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Not on this one, yet It's just that some people answer critics with "we do it our way and if you don't like, you can go". Imho thats against having a subforum called "Discussion about the site".

I contribute to boards that I enjoy visiting and learning from. I don't do it to get "extra" features or abilities. I think these boards are worth supporting just for the learning and sharing I get from the folks here. Heck to me CAV's humor is worth...it !

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Good points so far. I did not contribute cause I also do not need the extra subforum, nor do I sell snakes. But I'll never contribute sites or forums that can balance their cost with commercial banners or their own "presentation" and so get it back through their business.

As to it being a commercial-business boards...I really don't think Rich hypes himself all that much here IMHO, if at all. This board is a lot more "community" to me than commercial.

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Is commercial a negative word in English? That wasn't meant that way! As I stated above, it's a positive thing that people see Rich as a person with good advises, stunning animals and hear many other people having good animals from him. But none the less, I think you agree with me that the SerpenCo Photo section, the direct link to SerpenCo.com and the "Sponsors BackOffice" is a very, very usefull part for Rich's business. Again, there is NOTHING wrong with it! But to me it means, that the things runs his business and is extra sponsored by banners and so I don't see a reason to contribute extra money to it.
Private boards without banners and just "cost" for the admin, no problems with contributing at all.

So, perhaps Rich could think of giving the contributers the extra benefit of a sub forum and open the rest of the functionality to the "community" again.

Greetings

I harbor no ill feelings for the changes that have come about there. I've been here since Rich developed it as an alternative to KS.

I like 'free'! Who doesn't?

I will subsribe when my budget allows and when I need to sell stuff!

Clint Boyer said:

I've been here since Rich developed it as an alternative to KS.

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Same here I was the 72nd person to sign up here and I got in on the second day of the forum.

Menhir said:

So, perhaps Rich could think of giving the contributers the extra benefit of a sub forum and open the rest of the functionality to the "community" again.

Greetings

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Precisely.

Well let's look at some facts here.

(1) Editing capabilities: Contributors are getting something that I had decided to remove completely from everyone. After having people change their stories and sometimes editing out ENTIRE posts, I decided it was in everyone's best interests if I just remove that capability completely. But after some reflection, I felt it would be a nice perk for those people who did contribute, and the hope that those people would not engage in the petty hacking of text some folks did earlier here. As for editing in general, heck I PAID a programmer to install that spell checker here. That money came out of MY pocket. Remember the chat system I PAID to link in here? That cost me money as well. There are quite a few things that go on in the background that I have to pay for in order to get this site the way it is, and to keep it running as smoothly as possible.

(2) Posting For Sale ads here: I think I stated my reasons elsewhere about this. But in a nutshell, I just got tired of seeing people looking at my price list and then undercutting my prices on this website which I own and run. So in effect, they are competing against me on my own nickel. After seeing countless examples of this, my decision came down to either removing the FOR SALE section completely, or making it a perk of the Contributors. So in effect, contributors are paying $25 per year to advertise on this website. If the people who come here SOLELY to advertise their animals for sale think that the price is too high for them, then so be it. They can simply go elsewhere to advertise their animals.

(3) As for expenses in general, check into the prices for a dedicated high end server with managed admin services and see what you come up with. Sorry, I don't buy "cheap", I try to buy what's "best".

(4) This may be the most important one. SerpenCo is not going to be around forever. Next month I will be 55 years old and am feeling it. Last Winter I had a nerve problem in my neck/shoulder/arm that still lingers, and I can see the writing on the wall. I am not immortal. I am not superman. Sooner then I would hope, I will just not be able to continue the physical necessities of doing what I want to do with my corn snakes. So what do I do then? Quite frankly, when SerpenCo goes, so does this site because I will not have the ability to keep on paying the bills to keep it running. Not only "no reason" but no money for it either. Going to a fixed retirement income will put an end to having the money to pay for this sort of stuff.

So what are the alternatives? The one I am looking at is making this so that this site not only pays for itself, but maybe even slightly profitable so that I don't have to eat dog food because I don't have enough retirement money to be able to afford hamburger.

So there you go. The cards are on the table. If someone doesn't like this alternative, then put yourself in my shoes and think about what YOU might do with the same circumstances.

Menhir said:

Good points so far. I did not contribute cause I also do not need the extra subforum, nor do I sell snakes. But I'll never contribute sites or forums that can balance their cost with commercial banners or their own "presentation" and so get it back through their business.

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Rich is not making anyone contribute and I think you are over reacting. You don't need a sub forum, you don't sell snakes, so why are you complaining you can't get them for free? I think we have been spoiled. What you call "reduced functionality" is actually a service (referring specifically to the classifieds) that we should feel lucky we had for free for so long. You come off as posting classifieds here should be your god given right just for visiting this board?

If you take a good look through the classifieds, you will find that many people post there, and never post any where else in these forums. The come here to advertise animals very similar to what Rich is offering, at a reduced price and never contribute anything at all to this site. He is just trying to find a way to curb abuses. The same with the edit feature, he didn't take it away just so contributors could have a special privilege. Plain and simple, trolls were coming in and abusing the system and showed that having the "edit" feature wasn't working well. He figured contributing members are less likely to abuse this feature and left us alone. FYI, if you are worried about favoritism, when Rich found out about the spell check feature, he considered enabling it only to Contributors. I'm sure it's pretty hard to abuse a spell checker, but he changed his mind and gave it to everyone. You make it look like his sole purpose for "reducing functionality" is to get people to contribute. What he is really doing is taking away things that were being abused.

Look at the alternative, you can't edit there either, there is no chance in hell your post would have the time of day with any of the moderators there, and classifieds are $100 a year and honestly I don't even get a quarter as many responses to my ads over there as I do here. Even when I do get responses, it is from complete flakes.

Simply put, Rich is not going to run to the bank with all the money he "makes" from the classifieds. He puts untold hours in to this site and sure it gives him advertising, but I think the hours put in to actual advertising he gets is WAY out of balance. If he put the same kind of hours into a "paying" job, he could have enough money to buy all the advertising space in Reptiles magazine.

To be able to post a classified in an area with such a high traffic of excellent customer base is a valuable thing. It is a valuable thing that was being abused. I think $25 a year to have access to it and to help out the site in a very small way is absolutely nothing to complain about.

So there you go. The cards are on the table. If someone doesn't like this alternative, then put yourself in my shoes and think about what YOU might do with the same circumstances.

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Given the circumstances i would probabley do the same if i were 30 years older, and for me anyway, if it was a choice between paying $25 a year to keep this place going or losing it, i know i would pay because it is the best place on the internet for corn snake infomation, care and breeding developments.

Like i said earlier though i can't afford it now, but as and when i can i will contribute (probabley next year or the year after).

carol said:

Rich is not making anyone contribute and I think you are over reacting.

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Thats not what I wrote - or did I? Please tell me where?!?
I wrote that it got more and more that I read in many threads of new members and in signatures that we HAVE TO CONTRIBUTE to give THE SITE SOMETHING BACK. Sorry, if my knowledge is not enough...
Thats a fact that makes me feel that I'm pushed into a situation that everyone with this little coin gives and that I'm exploiting. To be honest - not a good feeling so far. I ask myself - did anyone copying our photos, reading our textes and using my calculator feel that he had to give me something back? I never had the feeling people should give me something back...

If you take a good look through the classifieds, you will find that many people post there, and never post any where else in these forums. [...]The same with the edit feature, he didn't take it away just so contributors could have a special privilege. Plain and simple, trolls were coming in and abusing the system and showed that having the "edit" feature wasn't working well. He figured contributing members are less likely to abuse this feature and left us alone.

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Sorry, that are facts on every board on this planet. I'm active on many boards, smaller ones and bigger ones and none of them tried to solve that problems by letting the "good" people pay and giving the rest less "rights".

If he put the same kind of hours into a "paying" job, he could have enough money to buy all the advertising space in Reptiles magazine.

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Sorry again, but I think thats not a good argument at all. Let's take the whole Freeware Software thing. Many programmers investigate half of their lives to produce software that everyone can use for free. Take all the Linux stuff as an example or the browser "Firefox" that I'm using while typing this - everything for free. You will find "Donation" buttons on their sites cause these people do have the same costs for webspace and downloads just like Rich - but in the end, none of them uses the freeware programs as a commercial platform. I tried to make that difference clear in my previous postings.

So, what you are arguing is that Rich does it for money and not the idealistic background in running a platform for people that are enthusiastic for the same hobby that he is? After I read the whole KS thing, I thought that having these board was exactly such an idealistic thing without dealing with money as a reason to [bleep] someones name and all that stuff. The more I'm wondering for what I have to pay - wrong word, contribute - today.

I just can speak for myself, but it is still great fun for me to invest many time in running/designing/working on "the best" German cornsnake site and giving that content to the people for free. BTW. I also have to pay my bills and so far, not much snakes have been sold because of the calculator and some money would also be really cool for a student.
I'm way too idealistic for this world I think.

Carol, the points you made about money, time, trolls and so on are definitely not wrong. I myself just come to a different solution for that than selling contributor coins - so please don't take that as an offense.

@Rich
When I see your arguments it is clear that both "sides" of the coin have their arguments and money is one. But on the other hand - we could calculate what you'd normally had to pay for advertising SerpenCo in an equivalent board. Are you quite sure, that it would be much less, not regarding the "god mode" you got here? My dad had his own business for a long time and I think I'm not a newbie when it comes to costs for advertising and getting a good "name" as a business.
The costs you have with the server and so on - it's bad that you have to pay for all that stuff. I'm thinking of myself that can administrate and program the whole server myself. But, have you ever tried to find someone in this community that would do that for you, e.g. also for free?
I bet there are quite a few dumb people like me out there, investing their time just because they like their hobby and keep the board online.

I still feel that the coin divides into a 2 class membership and still, I'm a blue collar I think. The internet and all that boards were build on people giving us freeware and communities working together to keep their platform alive and healthy. Thats why it still scares me that paying members have a different class than others not regarding their knowledge or commitment (money excluded) to the community.

Greetings

Menhir said:

I still feel that the coin divides into a 2 class membership and still, I'm a blue collar I think. The internet and all that boards were build on people giving us freeware and communities working together to keep their platform alive and healthy. Thats why it still scares me that paying members have a different class than others not regarding their knowledge or commitment (money excluded) to the community.

Greetings

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I have to say that I'm really feeling that too, especially from one member in particular who seem to be relishing the fact that he gets extra privileges and is rolling in it as if he's done something he should be really proud of.

As I stated earlier, I clicked the link to 'pay my way' on this site and was unpleasantly surprised to see that there was only one 'unit' of payment and I couldn't just donate $10 to the site because I really enjoy it and want to give a bit.

I think people who use their 'coin' as some kind of power or status need a good wallop on the head IMHO!

Rich, what say you give people the 'extra perks' for contributing but make it a silent system, so that you contribute anonymously because you want to support the site, not because you want to wield your 'status' as I have witnessed.

Actually, there is a link at the right side of the screen that will let you donate any amount you want.

OK this must be a new feature since I looked for a way to give to the site.

Hmm, that button has been there for quite some time...at least as long or longer than the contributor icons to my recollection.

princess said:

I have to say that I'm really feeling that too, especially from one member in particular who seem to be relishing the fact that he gets extra privileges and is rolling in it as if he's done something he should be really proud of.

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Said individual also has very little actual experience with the animals but a burning desire to be accepted. It seems that this argument comes down to the actions of a lone member.

I can only speak for myself but I didn't pony up funds for the ability to edit a post or post a sale add. Simply put, I like posting pics of my animals and adventures. Instead of taking advantage of Rich's server space, I thought the considerate thing to do was pay for a SERVICE that I was USING. I even paid a second sum to have my own forum. Again, I'm paying Rich for a service. I could careless if Rich disabled the icon; that's not why I donated. Also, the functions you mentioned weren't even a perk when I donated. Oh yeah, I've only posted ONE sales add in the more than two years I've been a member here and didn't even get a serious offer.

What I don't understand is why two members that admittedly won't benefit either way are complaining about a function that they admittedly will never use. Again, only speaking for myself, I don't see the validity in your "complaints". Capitalism is alive and well IMO. :shrugs:

CAV said:

Simply put, I like posting pics of my animals and adventures. Instead of taking advantage of Rich's server space, I thought the considerate thing to do was pay for a SERVICE that I was USING. I even paid a second sum to have my own forum. Again, I'm paying Rich for a service.

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Excactly what I stated that it's ok to pay for that. You use the boards Webspace to upload pics, I used my own. You have your own subforum, I don't have. It's quite understandable that you should/can/want to pay for that. That wasn't the point I tried to criticize.

What I don't understand is why two members that admittedly won't benefit either way are complaining about a function that they admittedly will never use.

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That's nice and easy but ignores the difference between letting people pay for a service or hiding the will to benefit from the board behind a "help the board to stay alive" message. Rich stated that he'd like the board to be slightly profitable and if he likes to do so, that's quite ok for me - I like it that he is honest enough to make that clear.
What I dislike is that fact, that since the whole thing started it got more and more into threads with newbies and signatures with the intention "we have to help this board because we have to give something back". And excactly the feeling that is transported by this statement is different to what you describe as paying for service and what Rich describes as "being slightly profitable".
Don't you think?

And with that feeling already in my head - and be sure, I may be one of the only ones talking about it here, but my mail account tells me that more people feel so - I'm kind of dissappointed that next to NOT having the coin and therefore exploiting RichZ, I'm starting to have less rights and functionality than the "coin" people have.

That could be a good way to start a fight - coin people against non-coin people :santa: I switch my Nick to Che Coinvara - anyone willing to climb through the bushy jungle with me?

Back to topic, wouldn't it be a better idea to describe the "contributor" thing as an extra SERVICE that people can buy. This service could include an own subforum and the ability to sell animals. Rich also runs the FaunaClassifieds and so it wouldn't be against human logic that he can't give everyone the possibility to sell his animals here for free - I see that point and that would be fully ok to me. That way, we could stop that "do I have to pay to be a good user, no matter how much knowledge I donate" way of thinking.

...my 0.02$

P.S.: What would the community do if tomorrow all genetic geeks include a donation button saying "pay us our time or we don't answer genetic questions completely anymore, you just get slightly reduced answers"?