Jerry
no disrespect as we talked about this many times and I can still see problems with whats going to happen.
the veteran members will leave again due to too many people seeing what they only want a few to see.
Veteran members don't want there secrets let out, as they are worried about competition, these is nothing you can do that Will make them happy. some people don't mind sharing info, others only mind it to a few and yet others only will read it and never share a thing. whats going to happen is the ones that only like to share to a few will thing the private sub forums are great until the number of people get high then they will disappear again. its a clique so to speak.
your going to have members putting themselves against other members , etc.
Charging people to read a forum, for pleasure or hints and tips etc. will get old after the first few months of payments, even if they are veteran members that post in them. I mean seriously would you pay x amount of dollars to read replies on a month old thread? especially with times being tough like they are for most. and if you really want the answer people can do a goggle search and find a million answers to the question. not to mention someone can build a tacklemaking forum and be up and running in a few hours free verse's paying you know where that will go.
the members you have now will pay for the first few months just out of curiosity then they will quit and membership will die down might take 3 months might take a year but it will happen.
what you have in allot of forums right now is people showing off there work and then not explaining how they did it, or people showing off there work just to have others buy there products ie self advertising for example, "check out this new paint job I did" "look at these new baits I made" they put a picture up with no explanation on how it was done, not to mention they don't help others. this wont change in the private forums it will be the same thing like now. this wont change and I guarantee you the people that do it wont pay for more than 3 months.
The individuals that want to learn and are just starting or are making baits for themselves are the ones that add allot to the forum, more so then the "veterans" these guys are the ones that are showing a bait not to sell it but because its something they created with the help of the guys here at TU, or there just proud of what they done. they have no monetary interest in selling there baits. not to mention some of the creative ways they have come up with in making baits.
a forum of this type is made up of 2 groups of people
sellers and people that just do it for fun and have no interest in selling.
The sellers especially the ones that help people I don't think would mind paying a donation, the ones that don't help people or only do it privately won't pay a dime. they might for a month or 2 but after that they will still continue to come on and just post "hey check out this new bait we have" and never saying a word if someone asks how they did it.
so now lets say you split the sellers up and the hobbyist up into 2 separate groups. problem there lies with competition, do you really think seller "A" is going to post so seller "B" can copy his routine or make them faster by using his routine? not on your life.
heres and example lets say guy a wants to make molds and asks me all the details on how to do it aside from 20+ years of programming and machining experience it would be kinda cutting my own throat to tell someone a way I program or run a program, set-up the machine what speeds and feeds etc. its tricks of the trade that keep people in business.
I have a commercial job that I get over 250 bucks and hour for, its nothing special actually really simple but only really simple because in 20 years I learned a few tricks, no one else in the valley will mess with them. I can set it up on any cnc lathe with standard tooling at any machine shop and make the same amount of money. so now my customer gets a new buyer he sends out the job to someone else for allot less money the job is 45 days late with 50% scrap. I get the call to do them again ship the job in a week no problems. now I have the new buyer telling me to call this other guy up ad tell him how I am running them so the new guy can run them. If I do that I loose 3k of easy work.
while some people might not understand how business work you pay for experience. a business has hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in equipment, and experience if we give that to someone else your out of business.
people are in business to make money not help the competition take your business.
anyone can pour a bait and sell it, only a few will do better than others cause they have the knowhow in order to do so.
you can bet zoom doesn't tell berkely how to make there production faster its going to be no difference here. allot of successful bait business are very secretive, unless you work for or are best friends with some major companies you wont see how they do there process. I keep my front door lock at our place, we dont let salesmen in even my friends don't come to my shop walk in cusomters have to make an appointment. and April meets them at the door or covers my desk up. My best friend doesn't see the custom baits I am making for people. all this because a few times people have walked in and low and behold a major bait manufacturer got ahold of one of my customers designs through someone that walked into the shop and told a friend what he saw, and a few times I expained the process to friends only to see them come out with one of my customers baits.
I read this site cause I enjoy it, sure I have an ad on it and have customers that have come from it, if the ad was gone tomorrow I would still be reading and helping those who need it, I have been on this site since the very beginning my only concern is that it will drive people away, will I continue to be here heck yeah even if its only you and I.
I am on over 20 sites regularly I own over 6 successful forums, none have to do with tacklemaking only one has to do with fishing( aside from my del-mart site). My Arizona bass fishing site only a few people know I am the guy thats makes the molds. I have never advertised on my own site or any of the sites I own. the fishing forum I help everyone that has a problem with an outboard motor( cause thats what I am good at
) I don't do bass boat work anymore and haven't for the last 3 years.
I am not trying to say its just me but there are lots of guys that will help people even though they don't make money off it or they do. some people are just helpful others are not.
there has to be another way rather than charging people and have special groups. you know I will support you in anyway I can. and when typing I came up with a few will tell you about those later privately.
the
tackle scout is a fantastic idea and we talked about this for ever I am glad to see your going to finally do it. its cheaper and easier for a person to sell there baits on this then to make a website and pay hosting every month. also having a bunch of guys selling baits in a mall setting will give the customer something to look at like colors sizes etc all in one area.
also you might want to consider charging for x amount of space in the gallery, this will give people something and they get to show there baits off. they would have to pay other hosting companies to host pictures so why not pay TU.
this one is touchy but let the mods use there own judgement, sellers who come on just to show a bait off that they did and don't help anyone or answer the questions people have on how they made it just delete there post if they get pissed so what its not like they have anything to offer other than promoteing there own business anyhow. so who benifits?
battle of the baits is cool always was
Lure swaps are cool and even better the way your going to handle them.
put a donation button up, its a great way to help pay for the website. BBC does it and its pretty succesful.
this one I do have a problem with and I will try to explain.
Quote:
We will also moderate all new member posts to prevent repetitive questions being posted, instead we will privately point them to the correct thread/resource without cluttering up the forum/s.
We will also activate a "help ticket system" for members so everyone can get personal assistance to any possible site problems or questions
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its been my experience that very few fishermen are computer literate let alone forum setting literate. so people are going to ask the same question over and over, why not answer them it doesn't take but a few seconds and it really ain't no bother. while you might think its clutter there are allot of things that get said in a conversation like this via replies maybe something that would have never come up in a search ?
and if you really think about it you would have 0 posts anymore. cause everything has already been covered.
We have the same problem on my fishing site. we have a few guys that tell the guy to do a search, will heck he doesn't know how in the first place.
it would be kinda like you asking your buddy for a so and so's phone number and he tells you to look it up yourself.
My opinion and my opinion only its being a tad rude to people. besides if people help people they will stick around longer and might have something to offer in the future, if someone gets a rude tone or they think its being rude there gone and not coming back.
I realize that your trying to make it organized or make it appear more organized but this one might not be a good idea.
and lastly
you might want to change your poll answers a little it might make people feel cheap. while I will continue to support tu like I have been, I just disagree with some of the things like I have mentioned in my novel
Delw
, I'm confused. Alot has been said already giving alot to be thought about. I might be wrong, but; I get the feeling that a mod or mods want to quit their day jobs and run the site full time. Nothing wrong with that, good american ingenuity. I don't know how long I have been on TU but it has been before the current site ownership and I must say it has constantly improved. I make baits as a hobby and don't sell them, so the site has been very helpful to me as a novice, and I say novice because I certainly don't have the talent others have. I have not come close to contributing as much as others to the site due to not knowing any more myself, than had already been posted. I am not going to vote on this at this time, I don't know what my ultimate decision will be. If you go with charging for the site, I would suggest you offer one month free to new people or at least a very minimal charge. This will draw in people that would otherwise move on instead of paying the suggested monthly fee for a look see. IMO. There are only two sites that I look at reularly, TU being one of them, it probably would be hard for me to walk away from this site. Oh yeah, almost forgot, social security starts next month, will there be senior citizen discounts?
