[Tazzzie]

You may or may not notice the new "Links" tab on our primary navigation bar.

I am just messing about with it right now (you guys have no access I think), I sort of see it as a "member directory" aka a member "yellow pages"
Kinda thinking I'd want a donation to a chariity for inclusion in the directory - IF you have less than xxx posts - otherwise, nominal charge, circa 3-5 euro, it might put the chancers off who would just login to put their names in the directory, thinking a similar route with the for sale section.

If anyone has any thoughts on this I'd like to hear them.

Thanks
Brian De Tazzzie

[Zx10 Rick]

Brian De Tazzzie, on 09 October 2010 - 10:01 PM, said:

You may or may not notice the new "Links" tab on our primary navigation bar.

I am just messing about with it right now (you guys have no access I think), I sort of see it as a "member directory" aka a member "yellow pages"
Kinda thinking I'd want a donation to a chariity for inclusion in the directory - IF you have less than xxx posts - otherwise, nominal charge, circa 3-5 euro, it might put the chancers off who would just login to put their names in the directory, thinking a similar route with the for sale section.

If anyone has any thoughts on this I'd like to hear them.

Thanks
Brian De Tazzzie

I think thats a good idea, generate a bit extra towards the upkeep of the site even..

[Tazzzie]

Zx10 Rick, on 09 October 2010 - 10:14 PM, said:

I think thats a good idea, generate a bit extra towards the upkeep of the site even..

Nothing to do with money for the site, there were issues regarding some members stealth advertising in sigs / profiles etc. This might be an opportunity for them to front up.

Maybe.

I have (I think) enabled members to see the test structure and the potential of the directory.
We will see how it goes.

[Zx10 Rick]

Brian De Tazzzie, on 09 October 2010 - 11:10 PM, said:

Nothing to do with money for the site, there were issues regarding some members stealth advertising in sigs / profiles etc. This might be an opportunity for them to front up.

Maybe.

I have (I think) enabled members to see the test structure and the potential of the directory.
We will see how it goes.

seems to work fine, just put in a link to see if it was operating, feel free to remove it..lol..

your idea in charging on the For Sale section was the part that I liked, lot of people seem to just join to sell their bikes. Why shouldnt the site get something back for the advertising? Fair enough if your already a regular member that contributes...

[jay46]

Zx10 Rick, on 09 October 2010 - 11:30 PM, said:

seems to work fine, just put in a link to see if it was operating, feel free to remove it..lol..

your idea in charging on the For Sale section was the part that I liked, lot of people seem to just join to sell their bikes. Why shouldnt the site get something back for the advertising? Fair enough if your already a regular member that contributes...

.........

[pawh]

Brian De Tazzzie, on 09 October 2010 - 11:10 PM, said:

Nothing to do with money for the site, there were issues regarding some members stealth advertising in sigs / profiles etc. This might be an opportunity for them to front up.

sounds like a good idea

Brian De Tazzzie, on 09 October 2010 - 11:10 PM, said:

Nothing to do with money for the site, there were issues regarding some members stealth advertising in sigs / profiles etc. This might be an opportunity for them to front up. good idea

[Iggy]

Jolly good idea. A few questions/suggestions ( if you have'nt thought of them already ).

1. Would this section be confined to members offering business services ? Would seem to me that a general member directory would be pointless as there is already a members' list plus profiles.
2. If so, would this mean the phasing out of the Business forum ? Again, if Business Forum remains, then would seem to be a duplication.
3. Assuming the above, would advertisers have the ability to edit / remove ads themselves rather than having to contact a mod to do so ?
4. Would more than one entry be allowed ?

If you go ahead with this, perhaps the following might be considered :

1. Tab Title change : Business Directory ?
2. Bi-monthly charge per ad : € 5 ?
3. Responsibility of advertiser to re-new ( Reminder sent )
4. If more than one entry per member allowed, limit ?

As a matter of fact, why even bother with this at all ? Simply use the current Business Forum as the platform and have two sub forums : Bike Related and General Services. Just adjust to facilitate the new ts& cs.
Also, as you intend donating income to charity, what does it matter whether you have xxx posts or not. If someone is advertising a business, pay up. Or using the forum to sell a bike or whatever, pay up.

This is slightly off topic. Rick referred to people joining just to sell a bike. And this brings me to a general observation regarding membership numbers.

On the forum home page, it states that membership is 5632.
The membership list has only 5446 recorded
Why the difference ?

Also, of the 5446, approx. 3140 members have never posted even once. Not even an intro.

Would it not be worth while culling a lot of these phanthom members ?

Just a few thoughts, Taz.

[Tazzzie]

Zx10 Rick, on 09 October 2010 - 11:30 PM, said:

seems to work fine, just put in a link to see if it was operating, feel free to remove it..lol..

Yeah, I noticed, I removed it

[Tazzzie]

Iggy, on 11 October 2010 - 06:30 AM, said:

Just a few thoughts, Taz.

Your kidding me, thats half a fecking book there

Points 1 and 2:

Regarding the "Links"
Not sure yet, but its not an advertisement system, we do have a thread somewhere thats lists members who have a profession and has offered discounts to IBF members, so I just sort of want to formalise that, and as I said, there were some who were being a bit cheeky with the links in the sigs etc, so there is no need to do that anymore really if we use the "Links" system.
It may or not be a good idea, but I thought there's be no harm in looking at it.

Regarding the "Business forum", for me that was never a good idea to let someone who is paying 20 euro a month for a banner basically talk up their products - what ever, when ever and no limit on the amount that was being talked up, so yeah, thats been cut back quite a bit. I think its simpler now, buy a banner for 20 quid a month and they get exposure that way.

Points 3 and 4:
I think dont apply with my answers above.

The whole thing of people joining to sell a bike, I am not 100% sure I have a problem with this. If a bike is decent and at a good price, then someone might get a bargain. Thats good for our members. Does it matter if I am buying the bike off a guy with 1 post, or 3,000 posts ? All I want is a good bike..... Also, if someone joins here, there is a chance that they will like what they see and stick around and take part.

I do know it gets up other peoples necks tho.

As for the membership numbers, I dont have a definitive answer for that one tbh. I suspect that there was a glitch in the matrix a few years back (before my time) and some records were misplaced. Not lost, but misplaced hence the conflicting numbers, also, we have about 150 banned members (mostly bots).
As for culling the members who haven't posted, a few of them will be long time lurkers, they are members I guess because they wanted to join at some point for some reason. I dont think we will be culling them, but if someone wanted to use an existing name and it was taken by someone who registered 3 years ago and hasn't been "seen online" in that time, I'd have no problem recycling the account to free up the name (I have done a mailer on this fairly recently)

I think that sums it up, if I missed anything, holler.

And I just noticed your stealth adverts in yer sig , time you took a banner big boy

[Tazzzie]

We need to revisit this in the future as things have moved on a little. We have a couple of items in the Links
Iggy did take a banner for a while (thanks) and also helped with the monthly specials (I REALLY appreciated the effort - thanks Ig)
Business forum has been cleaned.

IBF, work in progress, warts and all.
I do love it.