MSE yearly subscription to deter spammers and monies to be donated to charities.

PeteHerts

I love this site, the help it gives to us and the people who run it.
What I'm suggesting though is we start giving a little back that we save to aid charities and deter spammers.
I'd be happy to donate £1-£10 per annum for this and if people still want to open up accounts to spam (which I doubt at £1-£10 per time) then at least charities would benefit.
As I said it may not stop spammers but at least some good will come out of it.
I know there may be some people who have been on this site a while but cannot afford the subscriptions so for those I'm sure we'd be happy if they remand members so they could still get the benefits this site obviously gives.
I know this wouldn't be easy to do but I'm sure the pro's outweigh the cons.

Many thanks for reading.

Pete.

lauranurse

Interesting thought.

I used to belong to another forum, which charged £5 a year to be a member. It was a forum specifically dedicated to weight loss surgery, and I was happy to pay the £5 in order to benefit from other's experiences etc.

Anyway, after I went through with the operation, got through the first few months etc and was in a position to be able to offer help to new members who were considering/had just had weght loss surgery etc, my membership was due for renewal. And I thought to myself, why should I pay £5 just so I can help other people, when I no longer really need this forum. So I didnt renew. A bit selfish, but my choice.

So my thought on your suggestion is this - what about the people who join this forum mainly to offer other people advice? Would they still be happy to pay the membership fee, even though they arent really benefitting from it?

Then there are the people who genuinely cant afford it, this is a money saving forum after all! But I guess they could get round that by offering a reduction to people who contact them with a genuine reason for not being able to pay the fee?

Finally, there would be a high level of administration needed to carry this out. So therefore a greater cost to mse.

My question is, would it be worth it? Interesting to hear other views on this though!

PeteHerts

I'm pretty sure people giving advice would want to see the reactions and replies and in alot of cases learn themselves from this but I'd also like to the know the percentage of people who do not save at leave £10 a year from this site because I know I do so it pays for itself and charities will benefit.
As I said for people who couldn't afford the subscription and have been on this site a while then I for one would be happy if they didn't pay although that might be hard to tell who's being truthful and who's trying to pull the wool.
Maybe if the subscription was set at the higher end then the cost of managing this could come out of that with the rest going to charities.
Another idea would be for people who sign up to pay a small fee and once they reach a set amount of posts they get they're money back or opted not to and the money and the interest would again go to charities.

Edinburghlass_2

It has come up before and its not the line Martin ever wants to go down, however if users want to donate they can now donate to the MSE Charity Fund, which is very close to Martin's heart, obviously

Considering the huge number of posts/threads posted on MSE on a daily basis spam is really only a minuscule part and is usually quickly dealt with and to be honest if people stopped highlighting the threads by posting repeatedly on them then most of them would never even be read.

The majority of our new users sign up to MSE wanting help immediately no matter what subject they post on and for them to have to weigh up a possible cost to sign up will mean they will go elsewhere and that is certainly the last thing Martin and his team want.

PeteHerts

Ok with spammers would it not be a good idea to have some volunteer members who would vet the first 10 new posts made by people who have just signed up to check for spam and also check the posts have put into the correct sub forum because as it's been said new posters who genuinely want immediate help and if they haven't posted in the correct place then they will not get that immediate help.

BritBrat

If you see :spam:

Click

And report it.

PeteHerts

I wonder if the company who make Spam know we use the image of the tin