Supporting Members

[Phiber]

A paid account. :)

25 measly beans gets you a little red star next to your username, a huge amount of PM storage, a photo gallery page onsite and a member number etched into history! ;)

I'd hit it.

[Phiber]

I'd be cool for it. 25 bucks isn't a huge amount; I've gained knowledge from here I would have never had otherwise. :)

[JuMpMaN6235]

id pay 10-15, maybe im cheap, or maybe i dont have a good enough job

[BlackElantraGT]

25 sounds a bit much. What would happen to the rest of the money? At 25 bucks a pop it wouldn't take that many members to keep this site up and running. Plus, I'm sure that whoever's paying for it right now either would have asked for our help already or gotten sponsors to help out with the cost of running it.

[Keyan]

I think 5 - 10 bucks is more reasonable. Would get more people to do it :)

And a photo-image center on-site for the supporters is great. I want to be able to upload my .mpg's somewhere.

[FordFasteRR]

I think 25 is perfect... also, it would be a requirement for applying for COTM ...

Makes it more exclusive :)

[NorthernYankee]

I think 25 is perfect... also, it would be a requirement for applying for COTM ...

Makes it more exclusive :)

To me that would be like a $25 bribe to be considered COTM...I feel $5-10 is more resonable...and just make it so that the sposorship lasts 1 year and then needs to be renewed each year.

--NY

[04GTboySC]

agree's 25 is a bit much :( 5-10 is reasonable

[Keyan]

COTM is already exclusive. You see how many people we had entering this month?
2??

There should be 3+ cars per month for choise of COTM and here we are WITHOUT having to pay with only 2.

I really think it should be 5-10 dollars, which gets you more membership rights, including a photo-center, bigger PM box and a little special title under your name :)



EDIT: Or even better, the more money you contribute, the more "exclusive" member options become available to you, like on www.somethingaweful.com :)

[JuMpMaN6235]

5-10 sounds good to me

[Phiber]

Gee, let's see if it'll post now.

If this site is on a host that's worth its salt, it costs MORE than 25 dollars a month.

Bandwidth is expensive.
The server space costs money.
Any optional pieces of software (or tools, if you will) sometimes cost more.
You've got the domain name to pay for.

I also have a feeling that those *****ing about the 25 dollars wouldn't donate even the 5 or 10.

Is that really all this site is worth to you? Five bucks? A hamburger and coke? I am suggesting a way to support, not give pity cash. ;)

[KeWLKaT]

I say: we pay a certain amount, 25$ for LIFE, instead of 5 per year. And on top of that, members who pay will get a cool little special decal of ElantraXD.com, which will also advertise it, and make us look more serious with our mods!

Then again, I might just be weird :P

[Robert1955]

Super, where do we send the money :) . I had asked Blue about helping out awhile ago but he said it was cool and he did not need anything but I think its a good idea and we should help support the site after all who here has NOT saved money or time, way more than $25 I would think, by visiting here. I know I have.

[CornbreadXD]

i have no problem with $20 or $25. There arn't too many places to get elantra specific info anyway so....pay up!

[Choking Hazard]

I'm down for 20 or so. But a window decal would be *****en.

[SuperGLS]

I have thought and thought and thought and thought about this over and over and over again, and I'm still thinking.

We've (the mods and me) have talked about it as well. I'm still thinking.

I appreciate the generosity though, we'll see.

[Leviathant]

How much bandwidth do you do a month? My site does 20-50gb a month in bandwidth, and I get by on $45/mo for hosting. People tell me I'm getting ripped off, but the service is solid so I'm happy. But if you're doing less than 20gb a month and are paying more than $15/mo, that's a rip job.

On my site, rather than have exclusive content, I've found the best thing to do is occasionaly straight out ask for some help in the form of donations. This doesn't cut off content through exclusivity, thus keeping the site popular, and the freeloaders aren't going to help anyway.

Think of it like public radio and public television. They get by, they put up quality content for free, without commercials, and occasionally ask you for money, knowing most people listening/watching won't pay, but that the people who understand the value of the programming will gladly help. It's like a little present to yourself -- if you support a website you like with a few bucks here and there, you're helping to ensure that site stays around a little while longer.

[felixr]

I KNOW ITS LONG BUT READ IT ANYWAY lol


i think leviathant has a good point, if you do a sort of "webathon" for the site for about 1 week, but make it from like a friday(payday) to friday(the other payday for bi weekly people like me) kind of deal you could appeal better to all of us including the freeloaders(all of us lol) that way, you can pay for your yearly costs in one pop. see, if you do a "paid membership" people will expect more. cause its like an unwritten contract: "ill pay you every year if you make this site run 100% perfect, AND you block whoever i tell you to block when i dont like the way the talk to me, AND you have to cater to my every whim and if you dont i want my money back" . . . with a "webathon" you are tugging at the heart strings, and the logic strings if you will. we already think this site deserves to stay up . . . we want it to, even in this thread we have seen it said already. why dont you make it to where we would feel less obligated to pay and less isolated if we didnt and ask us to show what we already know. that we would want to keep the site around and that it needs money to run. i KNOW many people here would at least give a dollar. it may not be 25 dollars times 1000 members, but it would be enough to cover the costs of running the place. profit, you're not gonna make. . . get over it now. but at LEAST you will make some money to pay to run this place.if everyone gave a dollar(which 98% of people would do) you would have enough money for the year . . maybe two years

oh and by the way, the webathon would elminitate the responsability of giving members more than they have now. which is enough. it eliminates the responsability/liability of having to give them more pm space, or a star by their name or stickers that cost YOU more money. im not saying eliminate the actual perks, im saying it would eliminate HAVING to do them as to no make people feel they are giving their money away. you already have us all feeling this place is deserving of our attention and money.if you introduce perks for paying, it becomes a liability . . it becomes a business. in other words, you cant say "so what" when i complain that i dont have enough pm space. with donations, we will remember that we get plenty as it is before hitting the "complaint button" yes, you'll have to have one of those too. lol i think you should do the XDwebathon, and start an advertising campaign for it right here on the site that lasts about 2 weeks maybe a month, to get people saying "ok gotta put at LEAST 2 bucks or something in the paypal account and send it off to xdwebathon", or the next time they get their change at the coffeeshop:"hey i could mail this to the xdwebathon" etc. etc. and to go back to the stickers and all that, you could take a percentage of every donation and have it go to the purchase of say500 stickers and send it off with a thank you card/email or something. basically, the money from the fundraiser would cover everything from the money for the site which would be taken first, then the stickers and thank you cards/emails. that way everyone's happy, everythings paid for and xd stays on for longer. and no one is expecting more than they already get. ok im done with my salespitch . . sorry . . im an entrepeneur and i get carried away sometimes with these things . . plus i was watching the apprentice on tivo last night . . . forget about it . . lol if you need any help though let me know

[Leviathant]

It'd be nice if Kspec did an Affiliates program like Amazon. That would probably solve any hosting cost woes right there.

I've done some pretty intense research into making a website at least self-sufficient, although coming from the bent of doing a music site. I could give reasons why other options will absolutely fail, but the winning combo for my site has been:

1) Vendor Affiliation - I get 5% from sales of Nine Inch Nails merchandise when I send people to Goodrock.com through a special link on my site. They're also the cheapest official merch vendor I know, so I don't feel scummy telling people to go to them for goods. I also have an Amazon.com affiliation, but this seems to only give me Amazon.com gift certificates, which I can't put towards hosting. These are largely irrelevant to EXD though, the equivalent would be getting a parts shop to hook you up with commission, and no one currently has facilities to do that from what I can tell. But for all the business drummed up for a handful of vendors whose names we see here, it'd be nice if they'd give a percentage of referred sales to EXD.

2) The Fund Drive. Every two years I do a Fund Drive. Both times it's netted me $1200, enough to pay for hosting for two years. I run a different kind of site though, with a lot of anonymous daily viewers... a message board fund drive is a different beast, one I haven't tangled with. I would think that rather than hundreds of small donations (I ask for $1 from each of my 90,000 regular viewers, and get $1200 from about 60 of them), you could embrace the Public Broadcasting thing a little more, and have different levels of donor status, and "gifts" -- nothing that would negate the value of the donation, but maybe someone who donates $10 gets an EXD sticker, $25 you get a CD-ROM with all the DIYs on it, $50 gets you a tshirt. Who knows.

The one forum I donated to that gave me access to a special forum was this third generation Accord (http://www.3geez.com) website. The site was very helpful to me, but the members-only forum was lame. Didn't matter, since I wasn't expecting much of it, but if it's going to be useless, why bother?

Edit: What Felixr said, yo. :)

[JacksonJ]

www.Probetalk.com has donating members, and as well has sponsered links that helps pay for the site and upkeep.

[Phiber]

:) These are all awesome ideas. I definatly understand about paying for rock solid server performance and minimal downtime. I'd like to see more PM space. :)

[XTRAWLD]

These are really good ideas. Felixr, you brought up a great point involving getting donations and worrying about it turning into a "business." Keep the ideas and suggestions coming!

[SuperGLS]

Well, lately I've been thinking...

A $10 donation could get you:

Special User Title
Space for 100 PM's instead of 50
Members Gallery where you can upload pics (I don't know how many yet, thinking 10 MB's worth)

Anybody have thoughts on this?

[Keyan]

Sounds good..:)
And the user title would be cool if it doesn't override the custom one...such as:

SuperGLS
Administrator
Supporting Member


And supporting member can have that cool glow effect, lol.

[2004ElantraGLS]

You can count me for $10. Let me know when it goes into effect and I'll pay up.

[Keyan]

Oh, and the supporting member thing should only last lets say 6 months...

Because gotta admit super, if everyone does it in the first month, you'll have problems a couple months down the line, haha

[SuperGLS]

I was thinking the $10 would go for a year (rounded up to the nearest month).

[KeWLKaT]

I'm in.

[VTElantra]

Aleromod.com does a V.I.P membership which I piad $25.00 for which only got me 2 small decals and more space for loading images and a photogallery. I paid $10.00 dollars on eztechhelp.com for a V.I.P membership which comes with the same benefits except no decals. I say you have verying degrease of paid membership. the lowest being you get like a little decal and at the highest a full size window banner or something, with more image hosting space and all that good stuff.

[KeWLKaT]

man, i would kill to get some black elantraxd.com stickers with white surrounding...

[SuperGLS]

Any other thoughts? Or more importantly, would anyone else be interested in this?

[Holu]

I'd be willing to go 10 to 15. If decals or something was included i'd definetly go for 25 or so.

[rckozma]

You know I am in.

[02xdGLS]

i'll definitely pay. i mean, 25 IS kinda stiff but hey, if one less fancy dinner at a restaurant will let me keep exd.com alive, i'm in. 10/15 would be better though :D

[GodisintheTV]

dont be cheap, 25$ is nothing im 20 and live on my own and id pay that in a second **** i love this site, id pay 30 i cant believe you guys are *****ing about $25 show some respect :)

[SuperGLS]

dont be cheap, 25$ is nothing im 20 and live on my own and id pay that in a second **** i love this site, id pay 30 i cant believe you guys are *****ing about $25 show some respect :)

Haha, thanks for the kind words. I'm cheap too though, I don't see myself paying that much, and I wouldn't ask for $30.

I'm going to look into getting more EXD sticker/decals made. There is a place next to work, hopefully tomorrow I won't be as busy as I have been so far this week.

More thoughts everyone? And, like I always say, I love the input and ideas.

[Steve]

It'd be in for whatever supporting member cost was decided on. I would have done very little to my car without the knowledge and parts network this site provides.

[sed]

Id pay for the same exact thing. If you need money just ask.

shawn :)

[Gun5]

im in $10 :D whats the paypal account? ;)

[subvibe99]

I would be willing to give $10-$25 a year for membership. The window decal idea would be great for advertising. I think there could be diff. catagories of donations like PBS does. Donate $5 to be a member. Donate $10 and get the window decal. Donate the full $25 and get cards and decal or somethings. That way you can drop a card in people's wind shields to get more local people to join (in your home areas that is) It'll make it easier to get the word out and get local clubs growing. Just my 2cents of course - Subvibe

[SuperGLS]

Sunvibe, I have a whole bunch of business cards available, as well as some shirts and a small amount of decals right now. Check the link in my signature.

I went to two places today to see if I could get more decals made, both places didn't do that kind of work, but, one place suggested a place to go to, so hopefully I'll sneak away from work to get some lunch and see if this place can do it (it's right near the Taco Bell).

[subvibe99]

SuperGLS, what could you do 50 cards for just by themselves? I'm moving back to my hometown in MA and would love to have something local. I'm really looking forward to taking my XD to the X-treme.