Membership fees for Forum access
 

For quite some time, I've considered making this Forum available only to those who pay a nominal annual fee. The fees would help defray some of the costs of maintenance, hosting and keeping this Forum at a high quality.

Free membership would be a benefit for all Stroke of Genius main site members and moderators. Consideration would be given to hardship cases and students.

Please take the poll and give your opinion. You are also free to offer your suggestions.

Hi Cynthia -

Just bouncing around the concept and looking for some clarification on how the fee would potentially work... Would the fee be required to access the forum at all (as in to just read postings)?, or would the fee be required only of those who want to actively participate/post?

Fee to be able to read?
On the one hand, it'd be nice to know that my clients couldn't stumble upon some ignorant :o sounding question I may have posted (who me?)! On the other hand, if I hadn't been able to browse around a bit before jumping in, I wouldn't have known just how amazing this site is! How would potential new members know what was here?

Fee only to be able to post?
Would some be more inclined to only read rather than actively participate?

Just curious about what you're envisioning... and how it might affect the dynamics of the forum community? I do see this forum as a valuable resource and don't think it's unreasonable that you consider charging a fee.

I'd certainly be willing to pay a hefty fee -- after all, this site has quite literally launched my career. However, I think the amount of participation from others could drop off dramatically, reducing its value to everyone. It would still be worth quite a few bucks to me, though, even if just to access the archives!

Terri,

I'm not quite sure yet, but I considered a lower fee just to be able to read and a higher fee to have posting privileges.

Also, from what I see in the stats, it seems there are far more people reading than there are registered members.

Over the existence of the Forum, the storage requirements have become huge and everyone who accesses a page, contributes to the total monthly bandwidth.


Michele,

You said that less people participating would lessen the value. That may or may not be.

However, you wouldn't believe the number of people who apply, submit their info and two images for approval, get approved and then never bother to get involved. This ends up being a disappointing expenditure of time and energy on the part of the Board and myself. Charging a fee would discourage this type of thing and help to free up some of my time for more valuable activities.

Also, as a moderator and SOG member, you would get free membership, but I appreciate your wonderful validation and all your contributions as a volunteer moderator.

At the moment (and for some number of years) I have continued memberships in organizations and groups whose meetings I just can never seem to make, whose programs aren't relevant to portrait painting, or whose competitions tend toward non-representational emphasis. I spend almost $200 a year for these, and believe me, the information I can learn on the Forum is worth ten times the value of any of these other memberships.

I also look at the number of books I end up buying, and only a very few are those I would read a second time.

I would happily drop one or two memberships, or one or two art books, in favor of the Forum fee, regardless of whether it's read-only or posting participation.

Personally, I think all Internet forums should be free, regardless of topic. The Internet was intended as a free space, and even after rampant commercialization, most education and edifying spaces are still free. Yippee.

Surely there are many benefits to being a participant, and I am not disparaging that in any way. Also, I recognize that there are loads of tasks involved in the upkeep of membership and maintenance.

Aside from those facets, there are many benefits to you to be derived from free access, including the credibility it brings your organization, to prove that such luminaries trust you enough to spend a lot of their free time conversing around here. Anyone can find that out on their own, without an initial contact with you directly. Additionally, since many of the Forum folks are also in your galleries, hits to this Forum will inevitably lead to the galleries, and to your home page.

I don't think it's a good idea. And if you still don't believe me, do a google search on my name and read the article I wrote (in favor) on the subject, right before my company went belly up.

Sure, I'm happy when I can find the information I want without having to pay. But, if it's information that's really important and valuable to me, I don't begrudge paying because I know the amount of work it takes to put together and maintain a web site. For ages, the people who created this Forum software keep telling me I need to upgrade to the most current version. I've not done it through many upgrades simply because I can't seem to find the time to reapply all the customizations I did to make the Forum look like my main site.

I'm not sure that what the Internet was originally intended as is so important at this point since it's evolved so much beyond that. It's original intended use was for the government.

I don't think you have any idea how much work.

No doubt having this Forum brings some additional credibility over what was already there. But, many people knew and respected me already because of my years managing a portrait artist. And, many more came to know me through my attendance at the portrait society shows.

The number of Forum members who are also my clients on the main site are actually very few - maybe 10% of the membership and most of those are not actively posting. Though I have gotten a few new clients from the Forum, the number is small compared to the amount of time put into creating and maintaining it.

Please give me a direct address if you would like me to read this.

Cynthia,

I find that these type questions can be more easily addressed when there is a well defined "statement of purpose" or "mission statement."

What may be a unique aspect of your situation is that your mission statement may be very different than mine, as it relates to our involvement in this forum.

More and more there are times, while surfing the net, that I come across sites that requires me to whip my credit card and pay a fee for entry or membership (and no, not just that blondes under sixty site). There may well be some wealth of knowlege just on the other side of the gate, but, how would I know? My tendency is to say "have a nice day."

When I became a member of the forum, as best I can recall, all I did was type my name and give a few other innocuous details about myself. It required no interview, no vetting of my work, no time expended on anyone's part. I would ask today, what was wrong with that method? Who are we trying to keep out and why?

The question "why are we here" is not that complicated for most of the participants of this forum. The question "why are you here" may be more difficult to answer. I think if you had a firmer grip on that answer you might be better equipped to answer the question you have posed here. I would offer two words: synergy and altruism.

Well, Cynthia, it sounds like you've made up your mind already, and are kind of ticked off about it to boot, so I don't know what else I can say.

Yet, that's never stopped me before, so here I go again:

Instead of paying for whole access, you might consider creating a 2-tier model. Part would be free, and value-added services would be for pay. You could probably get a lot more than $30/year for some of the best parts of this site, and you would have a larger stream of people interested because they weren't turned away at the front door. Critiques I think are incredibly valuable. Steven does them for free, I'm guessing (bless his heart), but a $40 fee for a critique by a panel of "experts" sounds fair to me. Of course, you'd have to pay the experts too.

Online, there aren't nearly as many demos as I wish there were. I think lots of us wish there were more demos. A live demo or workshop would be a for-fee event that could either be in a forum topic, or in a live webcast. A topic of ample, well-done demos is something I would be happy to pay for as subscription.

There are some things I can never seem to get my hands on - Richard Schmid's book, Daniel Greene's videos, Peggy's videos. A kind of lending library would be something I would pay for.

You could add more portal-type services, links to more books, supplies, etc. Try CommissionJunction.com. You'll get commissions on those sales.

Also, I think you might just ask for contributions. It seems like lots of people would be inclined to give it to you.

I'm not sure what part of your business model this Forum would be... I can see it as a marketing expense, and then you'd have to assess its effectiveness for you. But as a private paid-for service, I don't think it would add anything to your brand identity, and would continue to be expensive and time-consuming to run. It might make sense to sell it off to someone and have them host and manage it with a revenue strategy. Or it might (heavens no) make sense to shut it down, and have a group of artists restart one as a co-op.

Thanks
Lisa

Mike,
Prospective new members would be given a free trial period.

You say "no time expended on anyone's part" - but that's not true. All forums require overseeing and maintenance - questions have to be answered from members - how to log on, how to post an image, trying to make sure no members are tearing each other apart and so on.

The focus of the Forum has always been traditional portraiture only and was never intended to be open to everyone who wanted to be a painter of faces and figures in any style. This keeps the Forum in alignment with the main site. It was never intended as a stand-alone thing for everyone, but instead an offshoot of the main site. "If you like want you see on our main site and that's aligned with your pursuits as an artist, then join our Forum."

Over time as the membership grew and especially since the critiques area opened, time demands have increased significantly, but the number of qualified members who are active and can give a good critique has not really increased correspondingly. Additionally, the level of accomplishment of new applicants is all over the place, often the artist needing simple basics, which is beyond the scope of this Forum. It was just becoming too much to handle to let everyone join who wanted to, so the Board decided to require approval for new members.

You also don't know that there are tons of artist who have applied, submitted their two images and been approved and never posted a single time. Each of those approvals cost myself and the Board time and energy. I doubt that anyone would apply and not participate if they had to pay a feee.

But, the original concept I had for the Forum is that it would be a place for those who are members of the main site to come and communicate about their art and career - it was mostly intended as a benefit for them. I decided to also open it to non-members since, in general, I have an interest in helping portrait painters. Little did I dream that there would be far more Forum joinees who are not SOG main site members. I also never counted on the amount of work, bandwidth and storage space involved.