SimonH

Good work Simon: I won't repeat what I said on the "Google ads" thread but suffice it to say that your proposed plans sound like just the job.
Good luck with it: I'm not an IT person but I imagine it's going to be a lot of work to get the new Scoobynet up and running. I think all the hard work will be well worth it though

PS. Looking forward to the "Ignore" feature. I reckon that would've cut the Google thread down from 20 pages to about 3 for me

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

I also signed up for SN+ yesterday.

I like your proposed changes Simon well done for it.

I also really like the idea of weeding out usernames, I personally have 3 registered but only use this one.

clear out the username DB and only have one user one name then we will really see how many users SN has.

CraigH

Theo,

That was kinda what I was trying to say in my post, but you obviously have a better grasp of english than me

ex-webby

Theo

Very good point, and an interesting one also.

I would dearly love to spend the time I currently spend on here differently. I have (for many months - probably more than a year) regularly thought about posting again under my name rather than webmaster.. but always I log on and see something that needs attention.

I must admit, that this new focus has given me a glimmer of a buzz for the potential of a bit of the "good old days" element to return, and I sincerely hope that this happens so that I can once again enjoy something that I've spent almost every spare hour I've had in the last 2 years "battling".

I look forward to bringing my regular username back to life soon

All the best

Simon

PS. Thank you again to everyone who is signing up to plus membership.. this has shown me that there really is a desire to support scoobynet within the true community.

flat4

i agree with most of what's been said, so i'll keep it short

SN+ needs a 3 level pricing structure (gold, silver & bronze?) for people like me who don't buy anything from the shop but would like to have all the other SN+ features, then down to a base level for access to the forums etc.


kev










[Edited by flat4 - 1/23/2004 2:59:11 PM]

ex-webby

flat4

Thank you.

How about, having a menu of services, all of which are low in price, but plus members get everything FOC?

Cheers

Simon

ex-webby

usernames..

I'm personally against deleting usernames, as it's difficult to know whether someone wants them or not.. and a lot of hassle and admin to manage any system to find out.

How about an addition to the stats.. something like Registered Members, and Current Members .. being people who have posted or viewed the board in the last 2 months??

Cheers

Simon

DavidBrown

I disagree.

There are plenty of people out there who visit this site infrequent enough to make it not worth paying for, yet still have some gems of information that they could post. If you made them whip out their credit card to post some useful reply, I suspect they wouldn't bother, and the content of this site would suffer as a result.. Yes, your signal-to-noise would go up, but your signal total would go down, which is counterproductive.

There are also people who would stumble across this site for the first time, and not appreciate it's value immediately, and walk away simply because they have to pay to use it, where otherwise they would have stayed.

I think the advertising route is the only real solution, and Simon is working on ways to deliver that in the best way for both parties.

I do find it odd that people who haven't contributed a penny feel like Simon should pander to them.. what does he owe them ?

While there are contributors who are of value to the community in general, they aren't directly of value to the business (and when things cost significant amounts to run, they need to be viewed as a business).. being a valued contributor doesn't pay the bills.

Fatman

Every username has a registered email address, right? Why not just mail every 'username' and ask for them to be reconfirmed. Any unconfirmed username would then be 'deleted', say X months later (3, maybe 6 months?). That would give plenty of time to avoid unwanted deletions. Besides, you could actually just flag accounts as 'quasi-dead'. That way the username would 'appear' to have been deleted, but would be easy to resurrect if it was a mistakenly deleted. Then, a little later, all non-disputed and inactive accounts could genuinely be deleted from the dB.

Yes - regardless of how many 'tiers' of membership there are, there should be a menu describing what is available to each tier. Good idea.

[Edited by Fatman - 1/23/2004 3:14:50 PM]

BT52b

Got to be careful with pricing.
If there is no core free forum then although a large majority of current people will pay up and stay, I suspect you'll find that new people will be harder to come by.

There is a natural turnover of people leaving and new people arriving. And like David says, a lot of people may only use the site sporadically so not want to bother paying.

Mark

[Edited by BT52b - 1/23/2004 3:15:17 PM]

SteveV-WRX

Simon

Just my take on the subject from my own experiences and what I can take from the above posts.

I, like I believe a lot of other's do would possibly benefit from a three tier scheme as discussed somewhere above.

the SN+ membership with all of the ususal benefits and the extras you are talking about implementing, (usual £25)
a SN standard membership, allowing you to post in all/nearly all of the forums, free advertising and some of the benefits as you see fit, (£5/£10)
and a basic user of the site, who can use some specific forums and opt, as you said, to pay for services on a pay as you go basis for anything extra.

this way it would allow, those that specifically come on here for something specific to manage themselves.

anyway i'd just like to give my support to the positive changes to an already ace BBS and hope that everyone else will see that things nead to change to move on.

Steve

ex-webby

Fatman

What would your suggestion of member deletion actually solve? (genuine question)

All the best

Simon

SiDHEaD

Simon:

Another suggestion for software tweak if I may - although this is not applicable should the software be changed.

When you add a reply to say a 5 page thread, or subscribe to a thread etc it would be a lot better if you were taken to your post or the last page etc rather than back to the first page. This may save a little on bandwidth as people wont be going back to page 1 and then clicking on the page they wanted to be on


Andy

ex-webby

SiDHEaD

Thanks for the feature request. We need to try to keep this on-topic though if you don't mind. I do agree however that the feature you suggest would be far nicer to use.

All the best

Simon

jcullen

I'm sure it's already been said but how about,

1) you can only post in the for sale section if u r a member.
2) for sale section desperatly needs more categories, ie, cars/parts etc.
3) cheaper s/n membership for those that don't want/need the sn+ shop. which would entail not having to look at these bloomin google ads!

tks James

Fatman

The idea is to thin-out the number of usernames in the dB. The long-term aim is to remove the 'junk' data that isn't needed. The worst case scenario is that you delete data/usernames that should not have been deleted. So, to avoid that we use a 'soft' approach of rendering accounts inactive without actually deleting their dB entry.

1/ Create a new field in Users 'CandidateForDeletion'. Set all values to True. Create a new field 'ActiveUser' set all values to True.
2/ Mail all usernames to ask them to verify they want to keep their username alive. Provide a URL in the mail to a page on SN to flag their account as CandidateForDeletion = False if they want to keep the username. Default action (no reply) means the account remains a candidate for deletion.
3/ X months later, any usernames who were contacted and still have CandidateForDeletion = True have their ActiveUser flag set to False. Thereby (with alteration to login mechanism) that Username can no longer be used on SN. If someone 'complains' in the meantime, and their account should have been retained - just flip the CandidateForDeletion flag.
4/ Y months later, all usernames with CandidateForDeletion = True and ActiveUser = False are genuinely deleted from the dB.

An alternative stragegy would be to either move usernames from an active Username table to an archive username table, then move them back if a username was 'deleted' in error. Or, just delete usernames without a fallback and hope the right ones were chosen

CraigH

How about having a good, bad, ugly secion for comments on dealers, so the classic snet witchunt doesn't get started in general etc.

ex-webby

Fatman

Thanks for putting all the thought in to the process, etc.

What I mean is.. What actual benefit would there be in removing the usernames / thinning the database?

Cheers

Simon

OllyK

Hi Simon

My comments FWIIW

1) To have subscription only is likely to be a mistake. People are unlikely to fork out the cash upfront without having been able to have a good look about first. Kind of like buying a car without having been to look at it. It may be fine to have to subscribe to POST messages however, so outsiders can lurk and see the value they will be getting by paying for membership.

2) I suspect the for sale forum would be a lucative enterprise if it is well organised and offers a value added service. If it remains much as it is but people have to pay then I doubt you will get much trade. The only problem you have here is the investment up front to see a return.

3) I work in the software industry and from bitter experience I can say that removing features / functionality (Muppet Show) that users are using and happy with, results in resentment unless (and sometimes even if) they are presented with an alternative. Unless an area is causing significant problems in terms of cost and or management then I would think long and hard about removing anything.

4) I am inclined to say go easy on the moderation, you stand the risk of being accused of running a "police state". OK you own / run the BBS and you can set the rules as you see fit, but it is the user that makes it a community, you provide the venue! I think personal moderation is a better way forward, i.e. being able to select to ignore posts from certain users. This results in the users moderating each other such that those that really are not getting in to the spirit of the community are ignored by so many that they have little or no interaction and so will end up drifting away or changing their attitude.

5) Finally the Google adverts - eek! I am no fan of them and would rather they were not there but appreciate why you are having to do it. It may just have been nice to have warned people a little while ahead that this is what you were planning as this may hav resulted in fewer WTF type posts appearing as people would have know to expect it. I would be interested to see the results of the Google advertising, I appreciate that you are under no obligation to post how sucessful they are (and if they are not I suspect they will just disapear), but it would be interesting to know how many Scoobynet Plus memberships would be required per quarter to generate the same level of income.

Anyway - keep up the good work, don't take things too much to heart, I appreciate it is easy to get overly defensive when you feel that something you work very hard is getting attacked, but it is human nature, we have our little comfort zones and if something comes along and changes it (for the better or worse) people can and will get stroppy! Let it pass over and glow in the praise from the others

ex-webby

Craig

That can get dangerous from a legal standpoint, but I'll discuss it with our lawyers and see if there is a clever way we can do it.

Cheers

Simon

ScoobyDoo555

Whilst I enjoy a good larf reading some of the Muppets' posts, I also appreciate what is being said about the vast amount of bandwidth resource being used to faciltiate it.

Is there anyway putting the Muppett show into Scoobychat, as it's own room? Does this make any difference to the bandwidth?

What about a 1 month trial-period for newbies? Limited access? 1st hint of messing about and "Goodbye"

Also agree with the amount of forums -maybe amalgamate some ...

A whole forum for bugs/feature requests? Why? Surely a "bugs/features@scoobynet.co.uk" email would address that...

The For Sale section does have it's problems, but one of the good things about it is that it is free....

I do agree though that it should be split up. Maybe not as in-dpeth as previously suggested, but trying to return to the "Subaru" nature of the site, how about just "Subaru Cars", "Subaru Parts" and "Misc". It has always caused a raised eyebrow why a Subaru site should be providing a forum for flogging other 2nd hand marques. Isn't that what Autotrader's for?
Also, why would a Subaru owner want to buy a Golf or Vauxhall etc? Kinda defeats the point of visting a Subaru site.....

The "Wanted" forum go vanish too - when placing and ad, have a pull-down menu stating "Wanted" or " For Sale"....


Just my 2p

Dan [/i]

[Edited by ScoobyDoo555 - 1/23/2004 4:01:19 PM]

Fatman

If you're considering changing the business model, then what's the value in having unreliable data? Presumably the number of eyeballs is important from a marketing, valuation and advertising perspective? If I were in your/Shaun's position, I would want to know. Besides, I hate having junk data lying about in my databases!

ex-webby

Fatman

Thank you. I understand your reasons. I don't personally see it as important enough to spend the time on it (and putting up with the potential negatives already described), but as it would only benefit shaun and I, I hope nobody will mind.

---

Muppet Show. The bandwidth used is absolutely tiny.

All the best

Simon

Mr Leigh

The original Scoobynet I think it will be great to get back to the roots of a car based site and make it a community again.

TopBanana

Simon, I'm glad you've now taken the decision to address the s/n ratio as it was starting to get out of hand. Have you seen how slashdot works? It would save a lot of time if I could a) browse at +2 or search at +5 (only the best posts)

Cheeky Jim

Not sure if this has been mentioned before with regards to the for sale section.

Is there anyway of subletting space on Ebay or bringing in similar auction type software. This would make the categorisation or sale items easier, plus allowing some type of revenue generation for SNET in terms of listing fees etc. The fact that ebay has 'buy it now' features could also allow sellers who don't want an auction and dont want to negotiate on price to simply name a price.

Just a thought.

Jamie

Mr.Cookie

Simon

Forgive me if i'm wrong but would avatars not increase the bandwidth problem, as for the likes of myself i get a full page refresh every time.

Someone has already mentioned a donate via paypal type button, i visit several sites where this happens and they seem to get enough donations to warrent keeping sites alive without using other forms of revenue generating.

Si

Fatman

It's already been suggested that if avatars were introduced, that everyone (SN+ or otherwise) would be able to switch them off. i.e. they would never be sent in the page which the browser requests.

ex-webby

jlang

thank you.. that looks very interesting indeed.. I'll take a good look at it.

Cheeky Jim.. another clever and "outside the box" suggestion, thank you.. I'll investigate.

All the best

Simon

PS. Thank you AGAIN, for all the Plus membership signups that keep coming in (I'll stop mentioning them now!!) and again for all of the positive and constructive support in this thread. It feels so nice to be a part of this discussion.

BT52b

"That can get dangerous from a legal standpoint, but I'll discuss it with our lawyers and see if there is a clever way we can do it."

Do it the Side-Show-Bob way:
The following is a list of people I will NOT murder today.....

Just have a list of good and don't mention the um, not good.

Mark