Possible change to the website

[tommy]

At the moment all new member registrations need to be approved by me in order to prevent spammers from joining and spamming the site. This is both time consuming and quite annoying that I have to do this and new members sometimes have to wait several days before they can utilize the forum fully.

Because of this I am considering to introduce a small fee in order to be able to post questions and to use the pm system. If I do this I can change the member registrations so I do not have to approve them. Instead access will be limited to reading until a subscription is paid. Once that is done access is granted automatically and immediately. This saves me time and new members get full access faster.

I know this will be risky as I am sure that many do not want to pay in order to use this service but frankly something need to be done because I am tired of spammers wasting my time.

The fee would be symbolic so I think anybody that benefits from this forum should be able to afford it.

Please vote in the poll and let me know what you think about this.

[glg]

what poll?

What's time consuming about it? Do you get a large number of spam registrations that you have to filter through?

[tommy]

The poll is now added.

It takes time to go through the registrations every day and verify which ones are legitimate. I sometimes get 25+ registrations a day.

[tommy]

I have added a couple subscriptions that will add a few extra privileges.

- For $25 a year you can have one image in your signature (400x30 pixels)
- For $10 a month you can have one animated image in your signature (400x30 pixels)
- For $10 for 6 months you can remove google ads.
- You can also donate $25, $50 or $100. Neither of these donations will result in extra privileges.

Go here to subscribe.

[n0064801]

I had the same problem with my discussion board. Everyday I would have 20 new drug advertisement posted. Anyway, I made the discussion board into a link off the main page instead. I haven't seen a post from a drug freak since. it seems they need the board to be the main page. Just a thought for you on this site. Maybe have an auto-redirect from another page. That may work.

[tommy]

I had the same problem with my discussion board. Everyday I would have 20 new drug advertisement posted. Anyway, I made the discussion board into a link off the main page instead. I haven't seen a post from a drug freak since. it seems they need the board to be the main page. Just a thought for you on this site. Maybe have an auto-redirect from another page. That may work.

I am not going to create a redirect page simply because it will only be a matter of time before spammers adjust to that. But thank you for the suggestion.

[tommy]

Well lots of views but it seems that nobody really cares enough about this site to bother posting what they think about what migth be in the future on ServiceCenter Resources. Maybe I should just give up and let the spammers win.

[calvincs]

As much as I would cringe having to pay, I can understand the need to come up with some solutions to help remove the spammers and keep the board clean. Ever thought about delegations to trustworthy moderators? In the past I’ve had a small hand full take time and come onto the board, review and either approve or deny either postings or registrations. In conjunction you could increase your ad space to bring in further finances, and if people chose to donate it would remove those ads for say up to a year. And for those who moderate, remove the ads. Ive seen many people do a combination of these two tactics with great success.
Thoughts?

[tommy]

As much as I would cringe having to pay, I can understand the need to come up with some solutions to help remove the spammers and keep the board clean. Ever thought about delegations to trustworthy moderators? In the past I’ve had a small hand full take time and come onto the board, review and either approve or deny either postings or registrations. In conjunction you could increase your ad space to bring in further finances, and if people chose to donate it would remove those ads for say up to a year. And for those who moderate, remove the ads. Ive seen many people do a combination of these two tactics with great success.
Thoughts?

As good an idea that is I refuse to give spammers the chance to even get their posts on my site even if it is removed quickly by moderators. The only way to prevent that currently is to manually approve all new registrations and that requires admin rigths.

As for goggle ads. It has been an option to make a donation to have them removed for a long long time (which nobody has done) but I do not want to increase the amount of ads from the current level because I hate sites that are over plastered with ads so I will not do it on my own.

[mateuszk]

Tommy,

what about some other solutions for the CMS SC-Resources uses:

• http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=176481
• http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=183917
• hey, this one is even funny in a way - could test the level of knowledge before signing up: http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=124828

?

Is this way any good in your opinion?

[tommy]

The fee would be symbolic so I think anybody that benefits from this forum should be able to afford it.

Come to think of it. Any user that benefits from this site should be able to expense the cost to employer. Afterall it would be a LOT cheaper than HP class training.


After running this site for over 8 years I am really disapointed in the lack of interest in the furture of the forum. Since I posted this thread 175 members have been online! 6 have voted. From the 4 that actually posted here only one addressed my question.

I guess I need to actually put the change into effect in order to see who is really interested..........

[ben.carr@fedex.com]

TBH other similar sites make there money from just ads and by from partners.

Also, if the fees you are looking for were less.

I would pay about 10.00 a year for access. I would try to expense it, but there is no guaruntee.

If you want people to expense it, you would probably have to pick up some tech partners that large companies acknowledge. Also, if you are going that route you may need to charge alot more and some sort of compensation for quality answers provided. IE make this site a partnership between people who need questions answered and those providing answers.

To sum up, if it is to be a token fee, make it just that. A small fee to prevent bogus post from appearing. This should prevent some spam. OR you can change the nature of this site and try to charge a significant fee but introduce services that justify that cost.

[joshnerius]

I have a few thoughts I'd like to throw out there...

I personally have found the site useful from time to time, and do think that it's a nice resource to have in my back pocket. That said, I'm only here a few times every month or so, so I'd not be so hasty to say "no one cares". I quite honestly didn't even know this thread existed until I received an email about it today.

The problem with your poll is that you give users only two answers, neither of which are easy to just agree with. I truly believe that this is why you've had little response. Saying "No I will not support the future of ServiceCenter Resources" is just a bit extreme, so while I'd prefer not to pay for it, I'm not about to just say "good riddance" by selecting that option.

As far as expensing this to ones employer, that's easier said than done. I work for a (very) large corporation, and while this money is close to nothing compared to their normal training budgets, it's going to be next to impossible for me to get this through the necessary channels for them to pay for it, not to mention trying to explain why I need to pay to access an Internet forum. So that leaves me paying for anything out of my own pocket, something that's admittedly not the most attractive prospect given economic conditions, the need to cut back in other areas, etc.

Finally, some feedback about how this topic has been handled. Please be assured that I mean this in the most constructive way possible, but your responses are coming across as downright whiney. It would serve you well to be a bit more professional and patient about it. I fully understand the pressures of running a forum, I've gone through similar things on several occasions, but I think it's less likely that individuals are going to pay for something if they're concerned the site's owner is going to just throw in the towel.

In closing, just remember that a forum is only as good as its members, and if you push out enough users, the site will become useless for those that do decide to stay, which will lead to the forum's ultimate demise. There are many anti-spam techniques that can be used for forum management, and I think it would be worth pursuing other options instead of risking your user base.

[caldwek]

To me joshnerius has said it all...I don't think my employer would agree to pay for the subscription, even at the low price. It isn't something I would pay for myself, seeing that with the economy I personally may not be in the position to use it months from now. I, too, don't feel I could vote yes or no. I love this forum, and it has helped me. I also feel it is one of a kind, but paying for it may not be an option. I support your decision, but it doesn't mean I would subscribe.

[Nosnibor35]

As for goggle ads. It has been an option to make a donation to have them removed for a long long time (which nobody has done) but I do not want to increase the amount of ads from the current level because I hate sites that are over plastered with ads so I will not do it on my own.

I paid.

The Ads were driving me bonkers!

[FlygURL]

To me joshnerius has said it all... too

[DarkkMan]

Tommy,

Though I also cringe to pay for access, I totally understand your frustration and the fact that the spam makes this site much less functional.

I have to say that over the years I have gotten top notch support and knowledge from both yourself and the forum members here at SCR so even out of my own pocket, I would be willing to pay to keep access to this pool of knowledge.

I can't speak for the other members passing thru, but I have not really been online for a while as my job roll has changed from SC Implementer / Integrator into a BI Designer / Decision Support Analyst. HP locking out access to and SC/SM resources or binaries without a paid support contract doesn't help someone who works as a consultant such as myself, either.

Keep doing what you're doing as you are the premier forum for this subject on the internet (IMO) and losing SCR would be a sad situation all around.

DarkkMan

Toronto, Canada

[joshnerius]

As good an idea that is I refuse to give spammers the chance to even get their posts on my site even if it is removed quickly by moderators. The only way to prevent that currently is to manually approve all new registrations and that requires admin rigths.

While striving for 100% spam free forums at all times is great in concept, this is rarely a reality when running a forum. In a perfect world, spammers wouldn't exist, but you have to reach a tradeoff between "perfection" and successfully running your site while not driving away users.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss a suggestion like this...it's a proven solution used by many forums, and could help alleviate the current issues plaguing your site while keeping your community happy.

[Devotech]

I have to agree with joshnerius.
The poll is a little strict. My employer would most likely not pay for my access. I certainly would support your using more ads to cover costs.

I am not a regular reader, and this is my first post. Mostly I come here looking for advice from past posts. I enjoy the info from this site, as it has remained friendly to new posters, and has avoided the "elitist" attitude that some boards slowly acquire.

Tom

[faejon]

I also did not know about the poll till I got an email about it. This is a lookup reference for me not a come every day forum. I think this may be my first post. As far as your spammers are concerned it comes with the territory. Look on the forum for vBulletin or phpBB http://www.phpbb.com/support/ and find solutions to deal with the spammers. There are CAPTCHA and other ways besides charging your users money.

[tommy]

While striving for 100% spam free forums at all times is great in concept, this is rarely a reality when running a forum. In a perfect world, spammers wouldn't exist, but you have to reach a tradeoff between "perfection" and successfully running your site while not driving away users.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss a suggestion like this...it's a proven solution used by many forums, and could help alleviate the current issues plaguing your site while keeping your community happy.

Well I can tell you that because of the measures I take there has not been a single spam post for a long long time. But it is timeconsuming.

I know all about the use of moderators etc. I have been a moderator and am now admin on a major digital photography forum with 200.000+ members and a staff of 25.

[Golle]

I have to agree with joshnerius.

On top of that, I seriously doubt that having a paid subscription is the only way to get rid of spammers and that it is a guarantee against spammers. As said by other posters, there are other/better solutions for your problem.

That said, I hope the forum remains free of charge in which case I will continue to support it.

[tommy]

I also did not know about the poll till I got an email about it. This is a lookup reference for me not a come every day forum. I think this may be my first post. As far as your spammers are concerned it comes with the territory. Look on the forum for vBulletin or phpBB http://www.phpbb.com/support/ and find solutions to deal with the spammers. There are CAPTCHA and other ways besides charging your users money.

CAPCHA and ReCAPTCHA has been broken. Besides I use vBulletin not phpBB

[joaomenino]

Hi Tommy,

I'm a manager in a Portuguese company that works with all products of the old "Peregrine" suite.

We have a few colleagues registered/member of SC Resources and this forum has helped us a few times in the past.

For sure that we as a company will pay a small fee, but take in consideration that in our case we will not pay 5 or 6 memberships. Maybe you should consider more than one level of membership.

Cheers

[drjf4]

To me, DarkkMan has said it all - "I have gotten top notch support and knowledge from both yourself and the forum members" - this site has been much appreciated. There are some excellent techs weighing in here.

Tommy, let me know which way you decide to keep it going, but I definitely hope you keep it going.

[reina]

Tommy, i agree with joshnerius

[marauder]

I have to be honest, I have not logged onto this site for some time, but I see from the other threads that it is clearly still a present and relevant site. It would be remiss to be so reactive as to shut it down based on the results of a poll that has not be well advertised to your user base. As with previous posts, I only got the email today and have logged on immediately to see what it was about.

I was frankly shocked to see the reactions and I also agree with joshnerius who has well articulated the reactions of many of us.

Tommy, I suspect it it time to reflect and take stock. You have done a great job for a number of years and the value you have provided to SC resources world wide is probably immeasurable. Why did you put this site together and what has it provided? Spammers are like street Taggers (as opposed to Graffiti artists), they are simply destructive and provide unnecessary anxt (angst).

Keep it together man, its worth it...

[tommy]

I have to agree with joshnerius.
The poll is a little strict. My employer would most likely not pay for my access. I certainly would support your using more ads to cover costs.

With regards to ads. Personally I hate sites that are over plastered with them so the amount of ads that are here now is the amount that I will tolerate. But they cannot even pay for three monts server cost.

[bbigbri77]

I admin a couple of forums and daily fight dozens of bogus registrations most created by scripts that rove the net looking for sites to plague - so I feel your pain. And these opensource tools like vbulletin are just hack-a-rific and managing spam is never a finite battle...

I'm seldom on this site and now my company is moving away from ServiceCenter altogether, but when I have been here I've needed big help and have always had the big help in spades - with downloads and all - saving me hundreds if not thousands in vendor costs. Are you all so cheap you wouldn't kick in a few bucks to keep this kind of help available? I can't find another site as useful. If the man needs to upgrade to prevent spam and having to waste hours fighting it, then that's reasonable to me.

It kills me how everyone wants something for nothing - are you guys seriously worried about expensing $10 lousy bucks? Good grief...

[jvantilburg]

I am an independent contractor who has been developing in ServiceCenter / HP Service Manager for over 15 years.

As there is no one who knows everything (certainly not me), this site is of great value to myself and others. I would have no problem with paying a fee to belong.

I appreciate your efforts to maintain this site and certainly hope it remains available as a resource, with or without a fee.

[marauder]

I agree... we have all paid more for far less rewarding sites in the search for information, especially info that directly relates to our work.

If this will truly help ease some pain, and assist in cleaning up the site, then it is a small price to pay. As already mentioned, I would gladly pay even for my very spurious use of this site.

Let us all know what the final outcome will be, I definitely will support a move to maintaining this site.

Cheers...

[tommy]

Let me make something clear.

When I said I was disapointed with the lack of intereset I was NOT referring to those that came online after I sent the email. I referred to the 175 other members that had been online after I started this thread.

[sgeisl1]

I'll gladly support the forum even if there's a fee, but I'd have to pay the fee out of my own pocket. Our company has had layoffs recently and there's no way that they would pay for it. I wouldn't blame you for charging a fee, though --a site like this is a lot of work and spammers can ruin it.

[fid509]

Hello,

I've been already quite some time on this forum now and even received the precious "senior member" title after numerous posts and over the years it became my preferred search-engine concerning SC questions.
I find it a shame that spammers are forcing you to start with fees but I like free stuff (like in software, beer, lunch, etc.). I know there is no such thing, but if I have to pay, chances are that I switch over to the HP forums.

[Catchinzs]

I wouldn't be opposed to a fee but it too would come out of my pocket. Expensing a web forum membership, regardless of it's perks, would be nearly impossible as we have support for all of our HP products.

[taneroo]

Tommy, I appreciated your efforts and making this site available. SC is increasingly becoming a smaller percentage of my time as other duties are being added to the plate, but I will pay for the privilege to access this great resource.

[LawrieMeek]

I am an independent contractor who has been developing in ServiceCenter / HP Service Manager for over 15 years.

As there is no one who knows everything (certainly not me), this site is of great value to myself and others. I would have no problem with paying a fee to belong.

I appreciate your efforts to maintain this site and certainly hope it remains available as a resource, with or without a fee.

Could not agree more. It is only a small fee and the help this site offers far exceeds the small sum being asked. Keep up the good work Tommy.

[waynek]

I have only just arrived, but how about antispam techniques?

http://blog.akismet.com/2006/06/12/phpbb/

[tommy]

I have only just arrived, but how about antispam techniques?

http://blog.akismet.com/2006/06/12/phpbb/

First that one is for phpBB

Second for that to work it requires the spammer to actually be able to post and I do not want that. I want to stop the spammer before being able to post anything. It is the process of weeding out the spammers that is timeconsuming.

[glg]

With regards to ads. Personally I hate sites that are over plastered with them so the amount of ads that are here now is the amount that I will tolerate. But they cannot even pay for three monts server cost.

What are you paying for hosting? As I said earlier, I run a forum that has a much higher membership and volume then this one. It runs just fine on a shared hosting account that costs a couple bucks a month.

[mateuszk]

Tommy,

SCR is a very good site, you sure put a lot of effort into maintaining it and it shows.
Thank you for that.

The thing is, I really don't see how this effort stacks up against the "real value" of the site which, as you know, is the knowledge all of us share.
Take some site statistics, have you noticed how much time some members spend answering the questions? (myself not included, sorry for that).

So, you want to be rewarded for running the site. Cool, I second that.
Would you be willing to share some of the revenue with the "knowledge suppliers" (yourself included) though?

[tommy]

What are you paying for hosting? As I said earlier, I run a forum that has a much higher membership and volume then this one. It runs just fine on a shared hosting account that costs a couple bucks a month.

I know that there are hosting that cost less but in my opinion you also get less support and there are heavy restrictions on bandwidth etc. I do not believe any of the hosting providers that claim unlimited bandwidth and storage. It is pure bs. Unlimited is never free and seldom cheap.

So, you want to be rewarded for running the site. Cool, I second that.
Would you be willing to share some of the revenue with the "knowledge suppliers" (yourself included) though?

Any money I get would go to the server cost.

[gracemely]

Tommy - I visit frequently and search the forums. All things aside, if you can offer an option to mail in payment I'd be happy to donate to the cause. I wouldn't have a problem waiting for the increased access.

G

[Maggie]

Hi Tommy and others,

Long time, no read!
I hardly remember how to spell ServiceCenter, but as a frequent user and a big fan of this forum years ago, I felt I had to login again an reply. I have not read all the reply's completely, so I might have missed something, or repeat what other already said... if so, I appologize.
Here's my thought about this issue.


You state:
"Because of this I am considering to introduce a small fee in order to be able to post questions and to use the pm system. If I do this I can change the member registrations so I do not have to approve them. Instead access will be limited to reading until a subscription is paid. Once that is done access is granted automatically and immediately. This saves me time and new members get full access faster."

I fully understand your problem... but after reading your story I expected to see some symbolic 1 dollar option purely for the two reasons you say you started this, being:
1- you dont want to spend time going through (bogus) registrations etc
2- it would be faster for the person registrating because they dont have to wait for you having time to approve their request.

But then I see amounts of money I dont understand given the reasons you claim you do this for (saving time bij automating things). Or an extra fee for adding a animated picture etc.? Is this still about saving time and making registrations faster?

If this is really only about the automation of being able to subcribe without you having to approve it, I'ld say: a one dollar fee (or whatever minimum there is...).

Still a big fan though, keep up the good work!

ciao,
Maggie


p.s. after posting this I see my avatar has gone... how much for that?

[tommy]

Tommy - I visit frequently and search the forums. All things aside, if you can offer an option to mail in payment I'd be happy to donate to the cause. I wouldn't have a problem waiting for the increased access.

G

If this happens the only way I could accept payment would be through Paypal. With the amount involved fee's would eat it all up if I were to accept checks and such.

[tommy]

But then I see amounts of money I dont understand given the reasons you claim you do this for (saving time bij automating things). Or an extra fee for adding a animated picture etc.? Is this still about saving time and making registrations faster?

I added those to test the system and that is just because I know on other forums some are interested in paying to have a bigger avatar, a custum title etc. Those would help to cover the server cost.

[Maggie]

No problem Tommy, but that is another issue... how to pay for the server cost. This is about how to avoid the spammers etc, making you to find a solution that is saving you (and the registrating person) time. Unfortunatly it looks as if paying for acces is the only option. That is what I replied to.
Please keep the two issues seperate, to keep the discussion "pure"

[tommy]

Since I have tried many of the anti-spam solutiuons suggested I feel that the only way to keep the spammer completely and have fast registration is to introduce a payment fee. A spammer is NOT going to pay a fee to spam when there are thousands of other forums where they can do it for free.

Currently no spammers ever get to post their crap but thats because I verify each new registration manually. But that means some member actually get to wait several days if I am not around or even weeks when I am on vacation abroad.

[Maggie]

So, why not a one dollar fee?

[tommy]

So, why not a one dollar fee?

Judging from the reactions it does not matter if it is one dollar or 10 most are not going to pay eitherway so it will probably not happen.