As many of you know, I have never liked having a membership fee for the website. And, since membership fee renewals are just about ready to roll around, I'm beginning to feel the pangs of guilt again.
As always, before any changes are made, I'd like to hear your opinions on the subject. Please keep in mind that IF we do go ahead and get rid of the membership fee, a few things will change.
1. We will have to move back to a shared server. This means that the website will definitely be much slower than what we are accustomed to now. The gallery will most definitely take longer to load and we may also experience time out periods - depending on what type of server we're placed on and how many other websites are on the server.
2. We would probably need to get rid of server intensive applications such as the chatroom and the arcade and whatever else the web host would deem as a resource hog.
3. Information that we currently keep private for 'Shack Plus Members' (ie. Swap addresses and such) would no longer be as private. They would be accessible to anyone who registers on the website. We could, however, start a hierarchy system where you have to have so many posts before you can view/be placed on the member list.
4. The swap board and 'for sale' boards will be available to anyone who registers for an account. While I can still ban individuals who do not comply with the swap/selling guidelines, we do lose some of the safety net that we currently have established.
5. Due to bandwidth restrictions, we may have to put a limit on the number of photos a member can upload to the gallery per day.
6. The templates would most likely have to go as well. While they don't take very much space on the server, the bandwidth to download them is considerable. When you move to a shared server, they put a cap on your bandwidth consumption.
Good golly, after writing out that list, it doesn't seem like such a good idea to even consider moving back to a shared server, does it?! Perhaps asking for $10 a year isn't as bad as it sounds to me. Perhaps I just tend to over think things way too much and am just interfering with a system that is already working great for us....
But it's not what I think that matters. The question is WHAT DO YOU THINK? Your opinions and concerns mean a great deal to me and to the other staff members.
And, as always, majority rules so if you have an opinion, speak up!
PS. This is a public poll. Results will be publicly displayed for everyone to see.