Do new members now have to pay to post on Ausfish?

[Freeeedom]

A couple of months ago an old friend emailed me out of the blue to get a bit of help on fishing the Bribie passage. I gave him some help but suggested that he join Ausfish, telling him what a great site it was for getting and sharing information about every aspect of fishing, and that he could search past posts or ask questions which members would gladly answer.

Got an email from him late last week saying that the site was 'read only' to him as a new member and if he wanted to post he would have to pay a subscription. His response was the same as mine would have been. ( edited for good reason )

Is this right? And if so, how long has this been the case?

If it's true I now understand why the number of reports has slowed to a trickle lately.

Cheers Freeeedom

( remember the terms and rules when you signed up. This is a G rated forum and even using hash tags in stead of letters, easily spells out a word that we all know and should not be used for our younger readers to see. Further, this thread is being moved to the correct location. Cheers Phill )

[ozynorts]

Found this, might help.
http://www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/showthread.php?132852-Can-t-post-but-can-login
appears any member joining after 19 July 2008 has to pay to post.

[Kero]

I'm sure that my subscription costs have been far outweighed by the advice & help I've received from other members here.
I am happy to pay the 0.83 cents per month ($10/yr). I guess some just expect to be spoon fed all of their lives!

[SunnyCoastMark]

I would be thinking the fishing reports have slowed to a trickle because of the weather.

Also - if you are too cheap to fork out $10 per year for the benefit of being able to partake in an informative and helpful site like this - then you are to cheap to own a boat.

My 2c.

Mark

[pipifin]

Yeah happy to pay my 2.7 cents per day (even cheaper in a leap year)
My first post after paying saved me a couple of hundred on my motor :)

[Ausfish]

A couple of months ago an old friend emailed me out of the blue to get a bit of help on fishing the Bribie passage. I gave him some help but suggested that he join Ausfish, telling him what a great site it was for getting and sharing information about every aspect of fishing, and that he could search past posts or ask questions which members would gladly answer.

Got an email from him late last week saying that the site was 'read only' to him as a new member and if he wanted to post he would have to pay a subscription. His response was the same as mine would have been. ( edited for good reason )

Is this right? And if so, how long has this been the case?

If it's true I now understand why the number of reports has slowed to a trickle lately.

Cheers Freeeedom

( remember the terms and rules when you signed up. This is a G rated forum and even using hash tags in stead of letters, easily spells out a word that we all know and should not be used for our younger readers to see. Further, this thread is being moved to the correct location. Cheers Phill )

Sorry to hear your friend can not afford 2.7 cents a day to help him enjoy his fishing more. Must be a bit hard to not be bale to afford to buy fishing mags or subscriptions once you have paid thousands for a boat, tackle, etc, and not be able to find out how to enjoy it more.

If you can get your friend to send me an email I will shout him a subscription to help him enjoy this wonderful recreation even more.

At least he can read the 1,348,416 posts on here for free without having to pay, unlike fishing mags that you have to pay for, or read at the newsagent.

[bennykenny]

I would be thinking the fishing reports have slowed to a trickle because of the weather.

Also - if you are too cheap to fork out $10 per year for the benefit of being able to partake in an informative and helpful site like this - then you are to cheap to own a boat.

My 2c.

Mark
no mark, its your 2.7c

[Funchy]

Freedom, please don't get too pee'ed off at this mate. I pay my $10 a year as I joined after the cut off for free membership. There are other sites around (and I am a member on a couple of them) however the amount of info you can gain from this site is well worth it. Your posts, insights and advice alone is worth the ten bux I pay a year. You have helped me immensely with your reports as too others I am sure. Would hate to see you crack it and shoot through mate!!

[kingcray]

i dont even notice the payment come out its so small.
from memory you cant see any images before paying the fee. Its worth the 10 bucks just to see how ugly some of you blokes really are :):)

[netmaker]

i joined in april 08 so got a free membership but signed up for a $10 subscription anyway. figured the massage business must be slow and steve needed a few bob;) so i also pay for a mate each year for his birthday. steve has done a great job on creating the site which is enjoyed by so many. i am sure that working on it has cost him many, many hours of his life and $10 is so paltry...

considering all the ausfish stuff i have won and been given at m&gs i am still way ahead and then there is the mates i have made and great parties i have attended.

[Scott79]

Woops. Wrong info.

[hooknpull]

What's the difference between the $10 a year and the $30 for 6 months I'm paying at the moment?

[Freeeedom]

It's not the money, of course, it's the principle! When you turn up for the church working bee to give up your time and energy for free, you don't expected to be slugged $10 or you're not allowed to help.
Cheers Freeeedom

[Shawn 66]

It's not the money, of course, it's the principle! When you turn up for the church working bee to give up your time and energy for free, you don't expected to be slugged $10 or you're not allowed to help.
Cheers Freeeedom
Sorry Mate ,
Must say you lost me with that analogy .
Shawn

[Ausfish]

What's the difference between the $10 a year and the $30 for 6 months I'm paying at the moment?

The six monthly membership gives you

Access to the premium members forums
(The Bilge, GPS, Politics, Sport, etc.)
Less ads
No video popups
No 728 x 90 top banner
No 160 x 600 side banner
You will only see the banners at the top and through the forums. This may decrease as well as more people take up Premium Membership
Option to view forum without the left hand side ad box

More message storage, 500 PM's can be stored
More gallery images, 10 galleries with up to 20 pics per gallery


Hope that helps

[PixieAU]

$10 per annum for such an active forum a this is great value. If it wasn't active and didn't have all the great contributors then it might not be the same.

I reckon some of the regular reporters shouldn't have to pay because it's their content which makes the site what it is. But I also reckon they'll be the ones that are first to pay!

[Freeeedom]

Sorry Mate ,
Must say you lost me with that analogy .
Shawn

Many community organisations rely on the work of volunteers to keep them afloat. Ausfish is in the same category. Steve Brown says that there are over 1.3 million posts on Ausfish that can be read for free. That's fantastic - they represent an enormous body of knowledge and skills compiled over a very long time - and many of them are mine. But all of those posts were put up on the website by members voluntarily. Their motivation, in most cases (certainly mine) was to help fellow anglers who might not have as much experience fishing for certain species or new locations or trying new techniques etc.

When a new member joins and wishes to make a post he/she is saying 'can I add something to your knowledge base?' If you say to a volunteer who wishes to make a contribution 'Yes, but only if you pay us' many will simply say 'Up yours' - or words to that effect, as my mate did. I would also expect (although I have no evidence except my own point of view on this one) that the more experienced the member is, the less likely he/she is to pay to contribute.

An organisation which actively discourages the voluntary contributions of its members will inevitably be poorer as a result.

Cheers Freeeedom

[Ausfish]

This is not a community organisation, it is a privately owned and funded online community. Although community organisations do rely on the work of volunteers but they do need to do a lot of fund raising to stay open, so it is slightly similar in that respect.

People are given a choice, bit like going into a newsagency and buying a fishing mag, you have a look and decide if you want to, except here you can read over 1.4 million posts for free not just the current issue.

As i said, if your friend needs a free subscription so he can ask the questions that he wanted to ask then I am more than happy to shout him a free subscription to do so. Or you could post up the questions for him.

I have been running and paying for this website for around 19 years and have put in many tens of thousands of dollars out of my back pocket to keep it running. The decision was made to make it a subscription site in order to keep it running and also to stop the spammers and scammers and keyboard cowboys that have ruined many other sites.

Yes the contribution by members has helped this site grow to the most popular fishing site in Australia and I am thankful to all the members for their contribution, but without turning the site into a subscription site it would not be here today for all to enjoy as my money tree died a long time ago :-)

[Freeeedom]

No problem with that. Ausfish is a business and as such it has to make money. If it did not it would not exist. You have invested your own money into building the site and good luck to you. How you choose to run it is, of course your prerogative - I hope it continues to be successful.
Cheers Freeeedom

[myusernam]

has there been some sort of change in the last few days? I can't view classifieds anymore. seems odd. Would have thought the whole purpose of classifieds is wides dissemination.
I would have thought a better idea would be to charge for classifides, but keep the forum free, keeping the site relevant with lots of traffic.

[Triple]

has there been some sort of change in the last few days? I can't view classifieds anymore. seems odd.

http://www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/showthread.php?200629-Forum-outage

[Steeler]

$ 10.00 well spent just watching NAGG and Deckie go at it in the politics section LOL.

[Ausfish]

Yes, classifieds are still off line while we try to work out what caused the outage, a few other small parts of the forum still offline while we fault find. Not an easy task with such a large forum/database.

Hope to have everything up and running again soon.

Probably change the classifieds in the next few days as it is running on an old script and may do a few updates that it will not be compatible with. Will see how it works out in a few days.