I agree with the following members, and with their opinions.
roaldin said in part: "Imo the paddock should continue. I should add that the usual reason given for why the troll doesn’t get banned is because “they didn’t break a rule” - vindictive trolling should be deemed a breaking of the rules no matter how it is engineered."
Malcolm said: "Hope you keep the paddock."
Larry L. said in part: "The Paddock ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK. (my caps). Seems pretty self-explanatory to me: "Sensitive" individuals should avoid it like the plague."
Ian Anderson said: "I would keep the paddock in about the format it is, and move the divisive threads, like Politics, Guns, religion into the password protected section.
For me, I like the paddock just as it is.
I enjoy the Paddock because I visit it to learn about things others show me, and because I utilize it to SHARE picts and videos with others. Most of my compositions include some artistic touches. Many are humorous.
I love sharing art and humor with both friends and strangers. Knowing people enjoy most art and knowing they're smiling and laughing at my threads makes me feel good all over. I think my threads and posts counter the BS that goes on steadily in today's world. I would greatly miss the Paddock for the reasons expressed above.
As a business man, I have thought about, and attempted to understand what the owner's goal is. I can not easily reconcile what sometimes takes place with the forum. I do know something about web sites. All such sites are being constantly assessed by thousands of companies who determine how many hits a given web site gets per month, year, etc. Most of these companies also know what part of the world the hits come from. By so doing, they are then able to appraise the site and place a value on it. The number of hits also affects the price you can charge for other companies' advertisements.
Considering the above information, it would seem that having all the non members hit (visit) the site, even though they don't pay, would still raise the value of the site. The Paddock, for better or worse, accumulates 10s of thousands of hits per week, per month, etc. Therefore, eliminating the Paddock would lower the value of the main asset: the forum. I do not partake of the guns and politics and all that bad upsetting stuff. Don't have a clue why all the bad news each day is not enough torture for some, who must be more tortured by arguing with others.
I do believe that there should not be any free access to the GT40 cars for sale THREAD. The reason is that many nonmembers seek to learn about cars for sale. There are too many of them which gives the car seller the false idea that their car is really going to sell and must be loved by many. One example is Mike D; He's gotten over 9,000 views, but only a few comments, no offers, and no sales. It actually works to lessen the forum's credibility to use to sell one's car. Take away the non paying lookie lous' and the seller would have a more realistic outlook.
I can't help but think that even the non members should pay something for general access to the forum; Maybe that's $5 per year' Maybe more! But they should not be able to look at cars for sale unless they are paying members. My humble 2 cents worth, and the bill is in the mail. :laugh: