By Richard Nasr (Admin) (64.114.135.216) on Tuesday, September 25, 2001 - 02:19 pm:

Hello everyone,

I'm sure all of you were affected by the recent trouble on the web site. This was a result of exceeding my allowed data transfer (I'm allowed 2 Gigabytes/month and I exceeded 3 Gigabytes and I believe that I will be exceeding 4 Gigabytes soon). Because of this I have had to pay $40USD (which is about $60 CND) to get my site back up. In order to maintain the current amount of data trasfer that is going on currently (which will probably increase) I will have to pay $20USD every month. This is not good. I really cannot afford to pay $20USD per month. I have serveral options at my disposal. I can:
1) once again ask for another round of donations and keep the board free.
2) find another web host that has no data transfer limit (hard to do)
3) charge $5 per year membership fee for using the site. The board would be private and limited to only members.
4) Not allow posting of pictures on the board.

If you have any suggestions of which option is the best or if you have an alternative please post it on this thread. I need to resolve this quickly.

Thanks guys, I appreciate your input.

Richard

By Paul Krummenacker (12.145.208.12) on Tuesday, September 25, 2001 - 02:31 pm:

for one, I'd say if you could charge $10/year and allow the posting of pictures I'd be there.

I'm also ok if we have to lose the pictures.

maybe we could set it up like some of the other subscription web sites, you get a few tid bits for free, a few pictures, a few FAQ's and if you want more, then you've gotta pay.

For what I get out of this board, Its worth money to me.

By ddechon (12.78.125.148) on Tuesday, September 25, 2001 - 03:16 pm:

I wouldn't mind losing the pictures and paying a small fee. I think members should be encouraged to post links instead of pictures, and members should have their own website to post their pictures.

Darrell

By Ramon Milano (207.5.4.95) on Tuesday, September 25, 2001 - 03:48 pm:

I will pay with or without pictures. This site rules!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By KDBAKER (64.111.167.8) on Tuesday, September 25, 2001 - 04:14 pm:

I WOULD PAY AS WELL,I SENT MY INFO IN TO BECOME A MEMBER, BUT I HAVEN'T RECEIVED ANYTHING BACK.

By Richard Nasr (Admin) (64.114.135.227) on Tuesday, September 25, 2001 - 04:15 pm:

FYI ...
If a small fee is charged then we don't have to lose the pictures. However this fee is either on an honor system or forced by membership.
I think that it would have to be done by forced membership otherwise there would be some that pay and some that don't. With forced membership anybody would be able to view the posts but only paying members would be able to reply or post new messages.

By Paul Krummenacker (12.145.208.11) on Tuesday, September 25, 2001 - 04:24 pm:

I think the biggest question is what is the least amount of headache for you the Administrator, after all, it is YOUR site.

for payment, are you setup to take PayPal or do you just want good old hard cash?

Paul

By kelly (205.188.198.43) on Tuesday, September 25, 2001 - 05:09 pm:

give me your address and i will GLADLY pay to be a member of this awesome information goldmine!!!!

keep up the great work Richard.
kelly

By Todd (63.50.56.42) on Tuesday, September 25, 2001 - 07:30 pm:

I think the membership option is good. It will have the side effect of keeping out riff-raff (not mentioning any names Terminator). I felt kinda lost those few days without checking out the site.

By firrtree (209.102.127.123) on Tuesday, September 25, 2001 - 08:13 pm:

Richard, I love this site. I check in on it every week. I sent you $10 to get rid of those pesky popups; best money I ever spent. I don't mind contributing to this board at all. You shouldn't have to pay anything out of pocket. How did that last fundraiser go? I really don't mind paying voluntarily even if other users never do. I'm afraid if only members can post then the board wouldn't be as rich with opinions and ideas as it is now. I don't think I would mind if you did not allow posting of pictures, though,(as long as I can still see those beatiful cars built by 2low2go)

By Don (209.181.52.34) on Tuesday, September 25, 2001 - 08:28 pm:

I'm for the membership, it will drop the free loaders and anybody thats serious should be able to come up with 5 bucks. I will kick in the five on top of the last check cause this site is worth it. Thanks for all the work, Richard.

By dennis singley (65.101.0.212) on Tuesday, September 25, 2001 - 09:46 pm:

no problem, i'll kick in for a membership! dennis

By errol (205.188.200.202) on Tuesday, September 25, 2001 - 10:40 pm:

I'd pay 15.00 a month to get rid of those damn pop-ups and keep them gone!! Plus, I think the pics are essential for keeping us going through the disheartning times!! So many times I've looked at Justins' cars and got a rush of enthusiasim to get 'the job' done! Keep the pictures, It's good for reference and sales also. Richard, I'm sending you the funds now! errol

By go4mo (24.69.255.202) on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 12:42 am:

i'll give you the cash and i expect nothing special in return.
i disagree with membership.
other sites i hit that require that are a pain in the butt, and i don't go back.
part of what is so cool about this site is it is easy to access, and accessibility and quality information help those mildly interested become full fledged first gen addicts!

more folks need to be out there saving these little beauties!!
my 2cents
mo

By Anonymous (211.24.28.219) on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 06:06 am:

hi. i don't mind to pay but, i have a problem. i live outsite U.S and Canada, so how can i pay you and i don't have a credit card.. can i pay you with snail mail?

By Sash (Sash) (63.224.254.189) on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 08:46 am:

I too would be more than happy to pay for this site. I would be dead in the water with my recent swap without this site. My energy level grows daily due to this site. I also would pay $10 to $15 a month to keep it going. Keep up the good work Richard!!!

By 2low2go (24.69.255.202) on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 08:47 am:

I'm all for it!! What ever it takes to keep the page up and running, let me know.

Justin

By tedshred (63.224.195.169) on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 09:15 am:

Pictures are a MUST!

I would be willing to pay ten bucks a year easy for access to the wealth of information and cost-saving tips you guys share daily.

By Farfignugen (12.110.136.90) on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 10:11 am:

Pictures are important, but I like ddechon's suggestion. Its really not that hard to post a link to an external site where you keep pictures. But if too many people don't want that, then I'm very willing to fork in a few dollars. One further thought, can you split up the site onto 2 different web hosts??? perhaps we can store pictures separate from the rest with another web host, and that way keep under the 1 or 2 Gigabyte limit per web host. I agree that if we were to limit access to members, we would really be discouraging new ones from joining the club. Its always the case that a private club never really grows.

By Richard Nasr (Admin) (208.181.231.85) on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 10:11 am:

Ok this is how I think it will go. I would like to keep the board open so that new users can try it out. However I know that I need to enforce some type of fairness with those who pay and those who don't. So this is what will happen. I will ask each of you to pay a membership fee of $10 min via PayPal or international money order(you can give more if you like ;) ). PayPal is preferred but if you don't have a Credit Card then just use the International Money Order. With the money I will upgrade to the deluxe version of this discussion board and also upgrade my hosting capabilities.
On the deluxe version of the discussion board members can add themselves.
I will keep track of who has paid and who hasn't. When a member adds himself (if he has not paid) I will let him post for free for a month. If at that time he wants to remain a member he can pay the $10 annual fee.

How does this sound? I believe that it still promotes site growth but doesn't force people to pay just to try out the site.

By Paul Krummenacker (12.145.208.11) on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 10:14 am:

sounds great! so what email address should we use to send you funds via paypal?

By 2low2go (207.107.254.186) on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 10:15 am:

Excellent idea!! give us address so we can start to send the money!!

By Richard Nasr (Admin) (64.114.135.243) on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 12:57 pm:

Ok.. my email address for paypal is nasr@intergate.bc.ca

By Daniel Andersen (208.50.80.71) on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 01:31 pm:

well i dont know but i could pay the $10 but i would have to give cash since i am only 16 and my parents dont like to do things over the internet
but we'll see what i can do

By Don (209.181.52.44) on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 05:26 pm:

Daniel even a 16 year old can go buy a money order.

By Zippy (Zippy) (152.163.201.188) on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 08:14 pm:

Richard, I like your plan. I believe it is very important to make sure there is a mechanism for non-members to get use of the site. Otherwise, membership will dwindle and we will miss out on the opportunity to meet all the new firstgenners. Got to keep the cars running. On the other hand I could do with out the same five questions over and over. I want to have pics on the site. I don't have a web page to refer to for postings. P.S. Try to see if people who have already donated substantial amounts can recieve an honary first years membership.

Roger

By Jim (24.129.68.173) on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 08:59 pm:

Keep it open to the public.
That's how I noticed it was so good.
I'll bet there are enough of us
willing to pay 10.00 that you will
be OK.
I find I use Paypal a lot.

By the way-looking for a 1200 (cheap, of course)
in southeastern or eastern US
miniac6@mail.com

By go4mo (24.69.255.202) on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 10:57 pm:

richard ..
i'll give you cash ..
i'm in vancover..
where can we hook up?
maybe you are free on sunday .. see the "vancouverites unite!' thread ..
mo

By Richard Nasr (Admin) (208.181.231.92) on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 11:55 pm:

With the new Discussion software that I will be upgrading to I can create discussion topics for members and non-members. So those who are members will have unrestricted access to the board while the non-members will still have access to the board but perhaps not for some limited dicussion threads and other key features.

If enough people donate and the overwhelming desire is to keep the board free I will do that. But I find it hard to believe that everyone will put in their part if there is no motivation... I'm scared that the brunt of the support will rest on a few commited givers and that would just be unfair. But this is your board more than mine and I will do what the majority wishes.

I thank you people that already gave a while back.. however your money was already spent in full for the first upgrade. I don't want to look like a money grubbing person. I don't recieve anything as far as money goes from this site. All the resources I get (and more from my own pocket) and much of my spare time goes into keeping this site running (my wife reminds me of that all too much ;) ) This is a new round of financing that is essential to improve the quality of this board and keep it up and running.

By tedshred (63.224.195.169) on Thursday, September 27, 2001 - 08:34 am:

Richard, you should never feel like a money-grabber, that is, unless you skip town to Vegas or something.

The time and energy you put into this site are enormous, and you are not taken for granted. There will always be those that do not send any money, which is fine with me because the information here is so valuable that anyone smart enough to restore an old civic will be smart enough to realize how important this network is to the health and happiness of our little cars, and therefore will send some money.

I'm glad the pop-ups are gone.

You might make it public as to who has paid and who has not by placing a "funding" category under Utilities. This light pressure will flush out more funds, and make those that do support feel proud. Just an idea with this.

By ddechon (12.91.125.230) on Thursday, September 27, 2001 - 08:41 am:

When I click on the first gen discussion board, it takes a long time to load. There are so many discussion topics that I have to wait. However I don't usually want to see all the topics. I only check out the topics that were posted in the last few days. I often stop the web-page from loading because it takes too long.

Is it possible to archive some of the topics? It would reduce loading time and ruduce the amount of memory transfered to each member. Instead of having 4 discussion pages maybe you could make 6 to reduce unnecessary transfering.

Darrell

By Richard Nasr (Admin) (64.114.135.216) on Thursday, September 27, 2001 - 01:34 pm:

Darrell,

With the new software that I will be upgrading to I will be able to archive the old posts so that you don't have to load them all up.

Richard

By Nikolaj (213.197.5.100) on Monday, October 01, 2001 - 02:12 am:

Richard, I have once written down your account specs, but can't find them. Could you give them once more for those that have to use the international money order?? I have never used it so I'll have to get down to the bank.
Ten bucks a year is cheap for us, and I wouldn't mind if you would be left with some money... so you can make things good with the wife! Just wanna say that we all thank you daily for this site. Your idea is the best, I need those pics, sometimes for motivation, at other times to get how things work. And if it was a pay(in)-site, lots of us probably would've never come back!

By HondaKid (208.160.214.66) on Monday, October 01, 2001 - 07:03 am:

Also there is a YAHOO Groups for CIVIC 1200 to post pictures.

I am glad to give to keep the Board going.
This is what got me back into Civic 1200's in the first place.
Matt, Todd and Richard.
I still wish to be part of a great group of friends!!!

HondaKid

By Jacob (128.193.54.84) on Monday, October 01, 2001 - 10:31 am:

I like having pics on the site. I'll throw some money at ya to keep it going. $5-$10-$15. Within reason I'm there. Very helpful (to say the least) site, and very modivating also.