Should HBT be PAY ONLY...?

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Should HBT be pay only?

  • YES

  • NO


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The Pol

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In light of the recent rash of obscenity by one or more NON members... should HBT be a pay to play site only?

Face it, if you cannot afford a membership here, you cannot afford to brew. What is to stop incessant spammers from blowing this place up? Ban them and they get a new user name and do it again. Charge them $30 to do it, and they wont do it, or not more than once!

What do you think?
 
i understand your sentiments but personally i would not have joined without the opportunity to learn about this great site first
 
I don't like the obscenities but i found this place and was able to participate as a non-paying member and eventually did become a member. I think if it was only pay for play the population would steadily decrease.
 
I think the membership is well worth the price but making the site pay only will keep a lot of potential members away. In the long run it will hurt the site.

I think blocking new accounts from posting pictures in threads for say 30 days will go a long way to prevent this kind of abuse while allowing new members to evaluate the site before deciding to upgrade if they choose.
 
As a paying member I think this site needs to be free for all who want brewing information. It does suck that a few rotten people can mess things up but that is why we have moderators.
 
This is the sort of discussion that I wanted to spark. Restrictions on accounts. My 6 year old daughter does NOT need to see a man with another mans hand up his arse when I am browsing this site!!!

Today was a disappointing day here.
 
I think the membership is well worth the price but making the site pay only will keep a lot of potential members away. In the long run it will hurt the site.

I think blocking new accounts from posting pictures in threads for say 30 days will go a long way to prevent this kind of abuse while allowing new members to evaluate the site before deciding to upgrade if they choose.

2nd this or require a minimum # of posts before being able to post pics. Otherwise they will just open the account and wait 30days.

If you require 100post before pics then they have to invest some time before they can try to disrupt the fun stuff on here.

I may not be a paying member but I try to get involved and offer ideas or support when necessary. I don't mind the adds and may try to click some on occasion to support TxBrew and the site.

my 2cents.
 
Hmmm. Pol how long did you surf here before you paid? I was here for almost a year before I paid up. I do like the idea of a 30 day before you can post picts. Or maybe a non paying member thread only, so they can only post in that thread to ask ?'s and maybe a limited PM capability so they can interact a little. But I do think a "Yes" or "No" is too cut and dry as well. Heck next your all going to be saying "should we ban people that don't spell well or use an apostrophe correctly” :D
 
No plans to make this pay only. In addition to a community I also see HBT as a form of interactive Library of knowledge which should be free. Premium Membership should be just a form of giving back to help keep the lights on and the wheels of progress moving.

I think some more hacks should be in place to stop attacks like this. I just implemented one so now you have to have 25 posts and be a member for 30 days in order to parse IMG's.
 
I don't want to be too exclusive. I joined when I was looking for help on a brewing question, and realized that I got way more than $15 of information in one day, so paid up right away.

(Yes, it was only $15 back then! It was a while ago, I guess).

I wouldn't want anybody to feel that they had to join, though. I think that maybe allowing only paying supporters to post pictures or embed videos may be an ok idea. Others could still post links to photo sites, so they could post pictures of their brewdays, or if they had questions on how things looked in their beer. Things are tough right now for so many people, and I don't want to make them feel a burden to pay up to be a part of such an awesome site.

I'm truly sorry that so many of us got an eyeful today.
 
In my opinion, HBT should decide if it is a Homebrew site or a soft core porn site.
What is with all of the nudity? If it is both, then pay only. If it is just homebrew it is fine the way it is.

Forrest
 
I think the membership is well worth the price but making the site pay only will keep a lot of potential members away. In the long run it will hurt the site.

I think blocking new accounts from posting pictures in threads for say 30 days will go a long way to prevent this kind of abuse while allowing new members to evaluate the site before deciding to upgrade if they choose.
That is a great idea.

I think the present way the forums are set up work pretty well.
 
For the record... I didnt say to ban anyone. Secondly I never said that I LIKE the idea for all members to have to pay. I agree, it would kill additional membership. I posted a poll...

I dont agree with having all members pay, but lets face it, this site is easy to jack in its current form. So, what CAN we do? Today was rediculous.
 
I would like to see limited access to boards and no pic uploading option to folks who are just checking it out before they come on here...

I am not a prude, but the stuff that was posted today was not my cup of tea. I am still learning in the beginner's forum and I was pretty pissed at the jerks who decided we needed to see the graphics early in the morning. Hell, DH thought I was surfing porn sites...

I was on here for a day or two before joining for the year. I saw all of the great info and decided that if the beginner forum was that good, the rest of the site must be great. So far, I haven't been disappointed and will probably pony up the lifetime membership when this year's membership expires!
 
For the record... I didnt say to ban anyone. Secondly I never said that I LIKE the idea for all members to have to pay. I agree, it would kill additional membership. I posted a poll...

I dont agree with having all members pay, but lets face it, this site is easy to jack in its current form. So, what CAN we do? Today was rediculous.

TxBrew is working right now on a couple of things that will help. We'll unveil it later, when in it's place.
 
I moved this out of the public eye so the trolls can't see it. They are just getting a rise out of all you eating up their attack.

I have implemented a hack so you have to be a member for 30 days and have 25 posts to have images parse to stop attacks like this.
 
It's a shame that the mods and Tx had to be waken up early to this sort of thing. I applaud you for quick action taken.

Well, I'm no prude either but that stuff was very um, unappetizing, to say the least. I'm going to have to wash my mouth out with beer to get rid of the bad taste it left in my mouth!
 
I voted yes, simply because the main reason I don't hang out here as much anymore is because there are way too many people here, and it's lost the community aspect it had when I joined. I don't give a FAHK about obscenity.

Then again, if it were pay-to-play from the get-go, you'd probably never be able to romance anyone to begin with. If I showed up and it said "sorry, you need to pay to be in this forum", and I had no idea what it was like, I'd never have joined. Maybe if you had a 6-month trial period. But the bottom line, in my mind, is that, while the 8 trillion users here are good for Tx's adwords checks, it has soured the experience, and I'd be in favor of doing something to cut out the riff-raff.
 
I was a non-paying member for a while, then I paid, then I let it lapse, then I paid again.
I can say for certain what will happen when my year is up, but right now, at this moment, if I had to pay today, I would not. (I have this "gift" that when I want something badly, I can usually use logic to talk myself out of things (purchases, etc.). Hey, that's one way to get rid of me. HAHAHA!!!

I just let my BYO mag subscription lapse in January. They had very few, maybe one article per mag that I had a little interest in, some issues had NOTHING at all. Very disappointing. I'll probably overpay at the counter for any issues I may have interest in, but they'll probably be few and far between.

OK, so why wouldn't I pay? Personally, I don't feel like I'm learning much. Sometimes I feel like I contribute almost daily and sometimes not. Other times I feel like more and more of my comments are just smart-a$$ replies to someone else's smart-a$$ comment ;), greeting a new member or wishing someone a HOPPY BEERTHDAY:mug:.

I know it's spring time, etc., so don't anyone start thinking I'm depressed or overcoming cabin fever...trust me, my mental health is fine...OK, maybe a second or third opinion should be required...:D I'm good.

Besides, everyone likes to try before you buy.
 
All I did was rack my Apfelwein.
What did I miss?!?!
 
So if you spot anyone asking please remind them you must be a member for 30 days and have 25 posts for images and videos to parse. I do this on another forum and people will help out others until they get there by quoting them so their images show up.

This should stop any attacks like that. Trolls seem to live in the moment and not plan attacks for months.
 
I used to mod a different board, and had a great list of IP blocks that got the banhammer. It was a constant arms race between the spammers and the developers. Eventually, we ended up making it so all new members had to verify through an outside email to get their account activated. It effectively stopped the spam. Its a smaller and more regional board, so it was easy to block whole IP blocks. Like anything from APNIC, LACNIC, RIPE, AFRINIC, etc.
 
In light of the recent rash of obscenity by one or more NON members... should HBT be a pay to play site only?

Face it, if you cannot afford a membership here, you cannot afford to brew.




At the risk of being accused of having it out for anyone,:)rolleyes:)I think that is a very narrow-minded, elitist statement.

With all of the start-up costs involved with home-brewing, along with the economy today, making the entire site pay only isn't fair to new brewers, who might not be able to afford the membership right off the bat, and/or those who want to check out the sight first.

I do think that anything beyond the basic Home Brew Forums SHOULD be membership only, however.
 
HBT's always been a very inclusive place. Limiting it to pay membership, besides absolutely decimating new membership (why not just go to the green board?), is antithetical to what HBT's always been about. Sure, there's a lot of new people here, but that doesn't have to be bad.

As to today's issue - which thankfully I missed - let's remember that we had the MOST issues with inappropriate pictures from someone who WAS a veteran, supporting member. Putting up absolutely disgusting images, linking to hardcore (w/o warning) within "work-safe" forums...
 
Count me in the column against this being a pay only site...face it, people can be trollish and have axes to grind whether or not they are paid members, and unless the mods and tx were able to track back who the troll/trolls were, it seemed they had axes to grind against Pol and Joemama, and the board.

The economy sucks right now and making this community, and it's knowledge restrictive really doesn't feel right to me...Even with what happened today...It could have easily BEEN a paying member who did this for all we know.

Honestly I wasn't sure if I was gonna be able to renew my membership when it lapsed...then all of a sudden someone anonymously decided to gift me with a lifetime...I still don't know who it was.

Making this a pay site from the get go, or even a "free trial" in this day and age just seems uncool....Plus I have a feeling that that would have the opposite affect on TX's pocketbook...most people spend time on here and then realize that they've got more than whatever the membership rate's worth of knowledge and feel the urge to give back to TX by joining...

There was talk in the past about not being able to create multiple aliases from the same computer address, or email address...THAT would make the trollishness more difficult.

Personally I think the 6 month timeframe before posting pictures is too excessive as well...I have been on forums were certain priveleges like that were allowed based on post count, but not with an added time frame...

I don't think it's fair that some noob who thinks his carboy is infected should be limited in being able to show the very people who can best help him a pic of it. I mean, a lot of people join and their very first post is about a problem with their beer, and we ask them to post a pic if it.....Maybe make it show a new poster has to wai 24 hours before being able to post pics if you have to have a time frame. That will at least keep some pissed off hothead from creating a fake account just to troll...

The biggest thing about today was that when it was happening I couldn't find a mod. I event went down to the main page where the "whos's online." BBut I couldn't spot a name in the mass of names, let alone if they were on or not.

I modded a froum, and was a member of another where there was a separate line at the bottom of the "who's online" box that listed the mod's who were online, that way you could click on one of their names to pm them...

Oh another thing tx, does there really have to be a 1 minute time restriction on reporting posts? I kept hitting that wall when I was trying to report all the trolls threads...he was creating them faster than the i minute block was allow me to report...

Anyway,

com2cents.jpg
 
with the amount of activity here, the ads probably bring in $3000 a year
 
Seem to be beating a dead horse here. No plans to make this a pay site. I have restricted image and video parsing to only established members. No need for the trolls to get the best of us. Put it to rest.
 
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