IPFreely wrote:I think most posters can agree that this message board has gone downhill since memberships became free. How about creating two "Civil Aviation" forums -- one for paid members to have serious discussions, and a free kiddie forum for the others, posters with 2 or more accounts, etc.? This model works well with other message boards.
Firstly we do not allow any user to hold more than one account. Anyone found to be in violation of this will be issued with a temporary ban on their primary account and any subsequent accounts will permanently banned.
Secondly you can not come to a reasonable conclusion that those who have joined the site with a free membership are less likely to participate in a serious discussion versus that of a paid membership. There has been many users who have joint the site on a free membership who have participated in serious discussions. While the moderators are for a paid membership structure (including myself) our motive for it is more to do with preventing users having multiple accounts and getting rid of those who constantly try and spam the forums.
Just because a split level approach (paid vs free) works on other forums does not mean we should follow suit. In my personal life I have my own business, a franchise in one of the biggest franchise groups in the home services industry in Australia. One thing that keeps us on top is that when we bring in something new it has to be from reinventing ourselves not copying what someone else does. The same applies to a.net, for us to be at the top we have to constantly reinvent ourselves and think of new things, I just don’t think because it works well elsewhere the same will necessarily apply here.