Jim Rosenthal
Supporter
Ron, I think you are justified in asking for input about how to support the costs of the Forum. My .02, FWIW:
There are several things to gain from hanging out on the forum: enjoyment, making friends, knowledge, and possibly selling something. To keep things simple, I suggest you have two kinds of memberships: corporate, which would be any company with GT40s or products related to them, and individual. The reason for the difference is that the corporate members have the potential to make money from their presence on the Forum, where the individual members have less chance. I will admit this gets a little fuzzy when you look at folks who don't sell or build complete cars, but offer valuable and unique services- for example RBT, or Wealden Engineering, to name only two of many. Maybe anyone should be able to join as an individual, but folks wanting to do business or make sales etc should join as corporate members.
Personally, I would like to see the individual membership be voluntary. I guess it comes down to an issue of will there be enough money from a combination of corporate memberships and voluntary individual memberships to keep the Forum afloat. I suspect there would be. The cost to me of theoretically giving a free ride to anyone is more than offset by the moral value I place on free speech, even if it ain't exactly free and even if it costs me a few dollars. It's worth it to me, even if you count the PYMWYMI factor. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif Not to mention the TANSTAAFL factor as well. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
There are several things to gain from hanging out on the forum: enjoyment, making friends, knowledge, and possibly selling something. To keep things simple, I suggest you have two kinds of memberships: corporate, which would be any company with GT40s or products related to them, and individual. The reason for the difference is that the corporate members have the potential to make money from their presence on the Forum, where the individual members have less chance. I will admit this gets a little fuzzy when you look at folks who don't sell or build complete cars, but offer valuable and unique services- for example RBT, or Wealden Engineering, to name only two of many. Maybe anyone should be able to join as an individual, but folks wanting to do business or make sales etc should join as corporate members.
Personally, I would like to see the individual membership be voluntary. I guess it comes down to an issue of will there be enough money from a combination of corporate memberships and voluntary individual memberships to keep the Forum afloat. I suspect there would be. The cost to me of theoretically giving a free ride to anyone is more than offset by the moral value I place on free speech, even if it ain't exactly free and even if it costs me a few dollars. It's worth it to me, even if you count the PYMWYMI factor. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif Not to mention the TANSTAAFL factor as well. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif