State of the SN - No BS
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Sounds like the best of both worlds!
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yes, I second this (if it's at all possible). I wasn't here when the original chat room was up, but I guess I'm kinda "old-fashioned" in that type of stuff, I used to use the hell out of AIM lol
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I subscribed for quite a few years, until the last big crash. At that point, I thought about it and realized that, as cheap as $7 a month or $60 a year or whatever it was happened to be, I wasn't really seeing a huge value returned for that money, compared to what I was able to get as an unpaid member. A "Donator" tag under my name isn't worth $7.
I don't use (or potentially don't even know about) any other subscriber-only features there may be.
I don't know what features I would think would be a good value add to convince me to subscribe again.
I mostly just come here to see the latest Steeler news, and BS in a few of the General or Politics threads (and a lot less of that lately than I used to). If I had to endure ads to do that, I don't think it would stop me from continuing as a non-subscribing member, nor convince me to kick in a few bucks to go ad-free.
I don't use (or potentially don't even know about) any other subscriber-only features there may be.
I don't know what features I would think would be a good value add to convince me to subscribe again.
I mostly just come here to see the latest Steeler news, and BS in a few of the General or Politics threads (and a lot less of that lately than I used to). If I had to endure ads to do that, I don't think it would stop me from continuing as a non-subscribing member, nor convince me to kick in a few bucks to go ad-free.
I don't look for measurable value from the board. I just like interacting with everyone and I realize this the board doesn't run for free, so I have no problem chipping in.
What about a SN regional meet up section. It would be nice to meet some twats on this site. Given having a little one that takes up most time on weekends, when I am free and can get out be nice to see if locals were getting together.
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So basically you want to use the site for free. Thank you for your input
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that ad-free idea when contributor is very interesting. With that kind of platform you are always generating incomes yet those who contribute don't have to be bothered by it and I can assure you (as a regular non-contributor) that I wouldn't visit it less if it had ads. It is totally comprehensible
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No, I'm saying that the value I get out of the board is not worth $7/month to me. There are any number of places people can go to find Steelers information or engage in discussion with other people on various subjects, and do it for free. If you want someone to pay you for that experience, you need to differentiate yourself, or offer them something they can't get elsewhere. And if you want people to pay or GTFO, then make it a subscriber-only site.
I have no problem if you want to support the site with ads, my usage is low enough any more that I wouldn't find it to be a nuisance.
Look, I have developed and run other websites. I know the costs and efforts involved. I'm not trying to dismiss it or trivialize it. Any honest feedback can have some value for you in terms of understanding what you can do to increase subscriptions. Rather than act like I'm an ******* for saying I don't see the value of paying, maybe you could tell me all the great exclusive features and benefits I would get for my money, and convince me why I need to re-subscribe?
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how about you give some ideas for benefits to those who contribute? This thread is open to opinions I think, so your experience my help the place
So, you're saying that maybe some features like whatever they are going to be getting from the association with Rudedog and Dejan should be "subscriber/donator only"? That would actually make sense. There's value in those associations and they shouldn't just be given away for free.
Maybe they should have a couple of volunteer staff writers on board also. Make their articles available to subscriber/donators only.
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We used to do it on draft day at Heinz. Now the league went and screwed up the schedule. I think Stlrs4Life (Dom) is still doing something on Saturday.
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You said that there's nothing that would make you want to contribute. And I don't have to convince anyone to contribute. Your $6 a month just isn't that important to me
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Look, many more people have been coming here for free than have been paid subscribers for many years. All I'm saying is that if you want more people to subscribe, you need to CONVINCE them why it's worth their dollars. I consider this site to be a form of entertainment, like the movies. If a movie studio wants me to buy a ticket, they need to convince me why I should spend my entertainment dollars on their movie and not some other movie, or a baseball game, or a video game, or one of the many other ways I can spend my time and money. Warner Bros. doesn't spend a lot of effort saying, "Hey, you can watch this movie for free just about anywhere, but what can we do to get you to buy a ticket anyway?" They show me trailers of exclusive new movies to make me want to see them.
If I have a choice to spend $60 for a year of access to this site, or a new Xbox game, I have to do a opportunity cost analysis in my head - which one will I get more enjoyment out of? Should I consider it by the number of hours of enjoyment I could derive from each option (20 hours from a video game vs. 100? hours participating on the message board?). Should I consider that I can resell the game when I'm done with it, but I don't stand a chance of getting any money back from SN? Should I base my decision on the intensity of enjoyment (a short but awesome video game experience) rather than value over time (a very modest level of entertainment from the forum over a longer period of time)?
As I said previously, I don't know what the benefits of being a subscriber are, other than A) the "Donator" tag, and B) being able to see who leaves you karma. Neither of those are features of this site that make me want to pay money for them. Are there other subscriber-only features? I have no idea. Maybe there are, and some of them would make it worth my while to subscribe. But I haven't found a list of those benefits, and the people that run the board don't seem to be eager to tell people WHY they should give money, just threatening to make the board go away if more people don't pay up.
I don't really have suggestions, or I would be happy to share them. This is not an easy proposition to monetize, for exactly the reasons I've just explained. Some might rationalize that $7/month is not a big deal. Others might have limited money that they can blow on things like this, and have to carefully choose what that money goes toward. Either way, you don't want to alienate anyone - you need to entice people to subscribe while making sure that existing subscribers don't feel like they're not getting something for their money that everyone else who doesn't subscribe also gets.
Having the site supported by ads and disabling ads for subscribers is something you can do in that vein, but it's been suggested already, so there's no added value in me suggesting it again. Are Dejan Kovacevic and RudeDog exclusive content to SN now? If so, and if I was a follower of their stuff (I know who DK is, never heard of RudeDog before), maybe that would be a reason to subscribe, but I can't say that I regularly consume any content they produce, or understand exactly what value they will contribute here. Are they going to provide exclusive content? How often - weekly, daily, multiple times throughout the day?
The problem with this kind of site is breaking out of the commodity mold. There are dozens of Steeler-related websites and message boards out there. Sure, some are better than others, but I can always find someplace to do for free what I'm being asked to pay for here... so either this place had better provide a significantly better experience (better forum platform, better performance, better content, better members), or people will bypass it for something free.
The message board platform is vBulletin, which is probably used by a significant portion of other forums, and not a point of distinction.
The content is not particularly a point of distinction, unless we're saying that some established sportswriters like DK are now going to make their stuff exclusively available here.
So the biggest asset SN has is the user community. But frankly, there are some here who have chased away people like TMC over the years. So it's ironic that someone would suggest having a "staff" writer, when guys like TMC and deljzc have practically been doing that for years and catch no end of **** for posting their amazingly well-informed opinions. Kudos to them and anyone else that is just trying to share some informed insight with the rest of us, but I would say that this board doesn't do a great job of cultivating those kinds of members - too many people are only interested in stroking their own egos by pretending they have the biggest dick in the internet chat room, but in reality they ARE the biggest dick in the internet chat room, and those people that have something to offer just go away.
You might ask, if I think this site is so lacking in value, why bother coming here? The answer is convenience. I know some of the people here after many years, I know what certain themes I can expect to find people posting on that I might have an interest in, and I have this site bookmarked. I can expect that important new Steelers news will be posted or linked almost as soon as it becomes available. Outside of football topics, I am less and less interested in putting up with the one-sided nature of P&R - I just don't enjoy having the same debates over and over again like I used to, which is why I've pretty much stopped going there, kind of along the lines of the people that have chased away some of the football people. But if I came here tomorrow and found a paywall, I would just find some other place to go to... unless someone convinced me that what was on the other side of the paywall was worth my money.
If I have a choice to spend $60 for a year of access to this site, or a new Xbox game, I have to do a opportunity cost analysis in my head - which one will I get more enjoyment out of? Should I consider it by the number of hours of enjoyment I could derive from each option (20 hours from a video game vs. 100? hours participating on the message board?). Should I consider that I can resell the game when I'm done with it, but I don't stand a chance of getting any money back from SN? Should I base my decision on the intensity of enjoyment (a short but awesome video game experience) rather than value over time (a very modest level of entertainment from the forum over a longer period of time)?
As I said previously, I don't know what the benefits of being a subscriber are, other than A) the "Donator" tag, and B) being able to see who leaves you karma. Neither of those are features of this site that make me want to pay money for them. Are there other subscriber-only features? I have no idea. Maybe there are, and some of them would make it worth my while to subscribe. But I haven't found a list of those benefits, and the people that run the board don't seem to be eager to tell people WHY they should give money, just threatening to make the board go away if more people don't pay up.
I don't really have suggestions, or I would be happy to share them. This is not an easy proposition to monetize, for exactly the reasons I've just explained. Some might rationalize that $7/month is not a big deal. Others might have limited money that they can blow on things like this, and have to carefully choose what that money goes toward. Either way, you don't want to alienate anyone - you need to entice people to subscribe while making sure that existing subscribers don't feel like they're not getting something for their money that everyone else who doesn't subscribe also gets.
Having the site supported by ads and disabling ads for subscribers is something you can do in that vein, but it's been suggested already, so there's no added value in me suggesting it again. Are Dejan Kovacevic and RudeDog exclusive content to SN now? If so, and if I was a follower of their stuff (I know who DK is, never heard of RudeDog before), maybe that would be a reason to subscribe, but I can't say that I regularly consume any content they produce, or understand exactly what value they will contribute here. Are they going to provide exclusive content? How often - weekly, daily, multiple times throughout the day?
The problem with this kind of site is breaking out of the commodity mold. There are dozens of Steeler-related websites and message boards out there. Sure, some are better than others, but I can always find someplace to do for free what I'm being asked to pay for here... so either this place had better provide a significantly better experience (better forum platform, better performance, better content, better members), or people will bypass it for something free.
The message board platform is vBulletin, which is probably used by a significant portion of other forums, and not a point of distinction.
The content is not particularly a point of distinction, unless we're saying that some established sportswriters like DK are now going to make their stuff exclusively available here.
So the biggest asset SN has is the user community. But frankly, there are some here who have chased away people like TMC over the years. So it's ironic that someone would suggest having a "staff" writer, when guys like TMC and deljzc have practically been doing that for years and catch no end of **** for posting their amazingly well-informed opinions. Kudos to them and anyone else that is just trying to share some informed insight with the rest of us, but I would say that this board doesn't do a great job of cultivating those kinds of members - too many people are only interested in stroking their own egos by pretending they have the biggest dick in the internet chat room, but in reality they ARE the biggest dick in the internet chat room, and those people that have something to offer just go away.
You might ask, if I think this site is so lacking in value, why bother coming here? The answer is convenience. I know some of the people here after many years, I know what certain themes I can expect to find people posting on that I might have an interest in, and I have this site bookmarked. I can expect that important new Steelers news will be posted or linked almost as soon as it becomes available. Outside of football topics, I am less and less interested in putting up with the one-sided nature of P&R - I just don't enjoy having the same debates over and over again like I used to, which is why I've pretty much stopped going there, kind of along the lines of the people that have chased away some of the football people. But if I came here tomorrow and found a paywall, I would just find some other place to go to... unless someone convinced me that what was on the other side of the paywall was worth my money.
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No, I said I don't know what you do or could offer that would make me want to contribute. That doesn't mean I'll never contribute again, just that I haven't heard anyone mention anything yet.
It's the new American way...why should I pay for anything when someone else will pay and I can piggyback off of them.
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Except I've said repeatedly that I'll be the last to complain if they want to take the site ad-supported, and make disabling the ads a feature for subscribers. They're free to use any revenue stream they can find, but if they don't want people to access the site for free, lock it down, don't ***** about people not paying for it.
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Look, we know that contributors vs non isn't much different. Contributors get access too avatars, more PM messages, and you're able to see who gave you karma. I am actively trying to come up with some other stuff. In the future were going to be giving away some autographed items and even tickets are on the table. But what is going to happen is nonsubscribers are going to get knocked down a peg or two soon. Whether its post limitations or forum limitations there are changes coming.
Yeah but many cant get there and are in other areas. I know cope, And a couple others (and ED) live out my way. My mustang forum has a section like this. Makes it easy for non Heinz field people to maybe meet at a local pub. Just tossing ideas out there.
More boobs is always good too. I know supe supports this.
I get what you are saying Jupiter, now let me help you... let me helppppp you
I will be your convince why to contribute........
for each person that contributes the site stays running....... and maybe down the road they make a application to further the easy access......
if they don't have enough money to keep it afloat, and they decide to shut it down, do you have the better Steeler site to go too?
perhaps if there was a better one you would already be there
sure there is some that have left and it went cold for awhile
but they are trying to turn it around
you could be a team player and help stabilize Steelernations future
I could care less about what they offer me
I think the cause is a good enough one to contribute
if I didn't I wouldn't have
...
but I do think the non contributors should
1 be locked out on game day
2 have to put up with ads, just because some don't want to help with the sites growth and stability
I will be your convince why to contribute........
for each person that contributes the site stays running....... and maybe down the road they make a application to further the easy access......
if they don't have enough money to keep it afloat, and they decide to shut it down, do you have the better Steeler site to go too?
perhaps if there was a better one you would already be there
sure there is some that have left and it went cold for awhile
but they are trying to turn it around
you could be a team player and help stabilize Steelernations future
I could care less about what they offer me
I think the cause is a good enough one to contribute
if I didn't I wouldn't have
...
but I do think the non contributors should
1 be locked out on game day
2 have to put up with ads, just because some don't want to help with the sites growth and stability
well, if the site is not worth your entertainment dollars, I'd suggest taking your 2.2 posts per day elsewhere.
Well, that escalated quickly .... kinda reminded me of:
****** ark. Lol