Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

So should the forums be a free-for-all or should it be a requirement to pay the nominal subscription fee?

I have spent the last 10 months on the forum feeling guilty because I hadn't paid my membership and therefore was take-take-taking without paying my (let's face it) nominal annual premium. It expired April 2011, but I could never work out the Google thing and there was no answer at the TIPEC telephone number on the few occasions I tried.

I have now finally managed to work out how to get the Google thing working and have renewed my membership on-line. I have purchased the 2-year membership for £50. The reason for 2-years is to pay for the benefits I have had from the technical information, and for the enjoyment I have had on the forums since my last membership expired - I think that's fair.

Making paying the fee compulsory would certainly stop those who just join the forum to advertise something or to get free technical information - only to completely disappear after they have had what they wanted without ever contributing anything useful. There are plenty of free forums out there for people who don't want to pay to join a club and would rather freeload.

A good example - my squash club membership expired last October and my access to the website / forums was terminated. I'm not offended, the squash club needs to have an income to continue running, but seeing as I'm taking time out due to a recurring injury I haven't renewed. Why should I be allowed to 'partake of the forums' when I haven't paid my dues?

Shouldn't the same apply to TIPEC? The club has running expenses, the forum is a nice place to be, the depth of technical advice is excellent, and everybody knows that being part of it saves them far in excess of the nominal premium that they are asked to pay.

Of course this is my own opinion, and you are entitled to your own too, but I thought it needed saying and it would be interesting to hear others' views on the subject.

I've seen the pub analogy used to make different examples of this question..

If you had to pay to go into a pub to sample the beer- would you?
If you could go into the pub freely and find you like both the beer and the people inside, would you then be willing to pay a membership of said pub?

Forums can asssit a person in deciding if the do or don't like a club or association and I see it as a shop window or even marketing to some extent.
Admittedly there is a cost in a forum but I think most people now accept that its a necessary need for most organisation to have one, which is why I mentioned marketing.

garyw

Good point, I was going to put something in about having a 'free for a month but no adverts' access to the forums - like the second pub analogy, but I thought my posting was getting a bit long-winded!

For the record - I don't go into pubs because they charge much to much for their product. For example, £4 a pint round here for a Guinness, £6 for a large glass of wine. If Wetherspoons type places can do it at reasonable prices why can't all the pubs? But that's another topic altogether.....

Just when I thought I was going to have a quiet weekend

The cost of the forum in cash terms is very little, Jim Tarrant spends a great deal of time oiling the processors and without this good will the costs would be greater for sure.

For me the forum needs to be free to access to keep it alive and prevent it from going stale. It also makes it easy to administer for the admin team. I am delighted that you have paid your subs on the back of the help and support you have received. It is a question of conscience and I am happy to let people decide for themselves what they feel is the right thing to do.

We have the same view point with regards to the Annual Show in May. The show costs are covered with support from our Sponsors, so on that basis in these tough times we can put on a free to enter for all show.

We have just added PayPal to the list of payment options for those that do not want to use Google.

I am sure Jim Tarrant wouldn't mind the odd bottle of Red being sent his way by people who use the forum

I can see where you are coming from, however I do think there are also advantages to club members by keeping it free. As parts become harder to find the fact that people can advertise them for free here means we may sometimes get to see parts that would otherwise have been sold elsewhere and we may never see.

Also there are people who have never got round to paying their membership but who still seem to make a good contribution to the information and chat on the forum.

I must admit, I for one kept forgetting to sort out my membership, but it was continually coming on the forum that reminded me to get my act together, and there must be others that this has or will apply to. Also it gave me a chance in the first instance to establish that it was the kind of forum and club that I was looking for.

I have only just joined this site and during my registration I was not aware of any charge for membership. ( did i miss something)
During years online i have belonged to many forums, some free and others you pay for. Most of the free site have a more active forum, and as i see it if a forum isnt active what the point of a forum.
I would like to thank the moderators who moniter this site, as what i have seen so far they are doing a good job.
Cheers
Rodit

would be nice to think that the forum guided interested parties toward Tipec membership though

Rodit, this forum is the Forum of The Independent Porsche Enthusiasts Club, if you click on the logo top right then it'll take you to the rest of the site where you'll find a regions page & various other useful bits.
Membership of TIPEC is currently £50 for 2 years & gets you 6 great club mags per annum, plus lots of other discounts & benefits.
I'd suggest you look up your local region & if you can pop along for a meeting or two & introduce yourself. Local regions vary hugely but they are all a friendly Porsche loving bunch.

I do see the point of having a closed club forum to enjoy the benefits of the club ourselves, but the whole club would need to be on here and that's not going to happen. Some of the members in Scotland have enjoyed great benefits from the club, but have never been on the forum and never will be on the forum. So we would effectively close our doors to possible new members by making it members only.

I think the forum and the way people conduct themselves on here is a great advert for the club. As such it should be free to all. I think we should also use the other free mediums, such as Facebook, Twitter, Linked in and You Tube to point people towards the forum. But that takes resource and is a decision for the elected members to take.

The days Sean is cleaning cars at the national show for money to run the forum, then we make people pay.

the day we get involved with twoface book, twatter, linkedout and your tuber is the day I for one leave Tipec , never to reappear!!

Hi

A very interesting thread.....

Personally I am against Paid Forums in general, the reason being I like the freedom of the net, and being ancient I remember when ALL sites were free, including Forums....

As I run the Wizards of Nos Forum (also free) I am probably the only person here who realises how much work JIM puts into this forum...

To give you an idea.... on my Wizards forum (much smaller than here), I read EVERY post, which means logging in around 4 to 6 times a day (EVERY DAY X 365) ....then I do any needed work on the forum, such as banning Spammers , either by email or ip address, and deleting all their posts...then there is shifting threads to the correct forum and merging threads if needed.... etc etc etc....

The point being, that this Forum runs so smoothly that I KNOW how many hours Jim puts in here....and its MANY MANY hours per week....this sort of smoothness does not magically just happen lol....

I am not a paid member at the moment, but hopefully I contribute enough help to others to consider myself "good value" to the forum...

If there was a fee , I actually would pay it, particularly if say 50% of it went to Jim....sites like this , IF paid for commercially would cost Thousands a year...

But I would prefer it to stay free to encourage prospective Porsche owners (and Nitrous users lol) to come here for advice and help...

All the best Brett

I joined the Forum when I was thinking of buying a Porsche, to get some info from those in the know.

I then bought one , joined TIPEC and have had some great info from fellow members and those who are not in TIPEC.

I think it is great that it is open to all, and as has already been stated, it keeps it fresh and encourages prospective members and owners.

Not sure I'd want to hang out with those that vacate weatherspoons in majority....

I'm on the fence with that one, I've seen some forums almost stop due to members chatting on facebook rather than the forum, the forum became stale and then dies..
If a facebook page was open to everyone then Ok but they're not always and as friendships build on forums the facebook allows break aways and small group to go off and do their own thing..
As a tool to direct people to the club and the forum Yes, but a tricky balance from what I've seen.

garyw