LuLa moving to membership basis

[jsiva]

Thanks Kevin, a great example of listening to concerns and taking positive action.

$12 per year is more than fair and the B/S should be a paid for service.   Keeping the forum free is so much in the spirit of forums!  Happy to sign up.

[Jeremy Roussak]

Thank you for you comments.  Michael, Chris and I have been following the topic all day.  We have heard you and we will keep the forum as a FREE portion of the Luminous-Landscape site.  The rest of the site will be part of the membership site.  The exception is the For Sale topic.  If you wish to post there you will need to be a member.  Thanks for the feedback.

That's wonderful, Kevin - a very acceptable compromise.

Jeremy

[eronald]

Free forum access and paid for the for sale seems like fair to me. In the forum the users contribute the value. I go straight to the forum and don't use the main site much. When I get there it's usually because of a google hit on an article.

At $12 a year I wouldn't mind much if the forum would be paid as well, but I don't think it would lead to any increase in "quality", I think it's a larger risk that there would be less people visiting, less content, and also less quality content. The quality content often is a result of someone asking a question, and if there's only paid subscriptions I think there would be less of those questions, and perhaps more of us self-proclaimed experts arguing

But well, when it comes to forum "trolls" I don't really think there is a problem here. I do see that some are very passionate about certain brands or have fixed ideas that X is better than Y and then you get easily upset, but that doesn't disturb me. I've been in "troll-free" forums too, meaning that everyone had the same ideas about everything, and if someone had a different idea they shut up. If that is the alternative I rather have some "trolling". It's after-all those threads that get the most posts, people like to argue, and as long it's civilized I'm fine with that.

What a wonderful defense of *free* speech 

Edmund

[Otto Phocus]

But well, when it comes to forum "trolls" I don't really think there is a problem here. I do see that some are very passionate about certain brands or have fixed ideas that X is better than Y and then you get easily upset, but that doesn't disturb me. I've been in "troll-free" forums too, meaning that everyone had the same ideas about everything, and if someone had a different idea they shut up. If that is the alternative I rather have some "trolling". It's after-all those threads that get the most posts, people like to argue, and as long it's civilized I'm fine with that.

Others may have a different definition of a "troll".  To many, a troll is not just someone who disagrees with some one else, but is more defined with how they disagree (personal attacks, derailments, and such).  A troll wants to disrupt, not just disagree.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Others may have a different definition of a "troll".  To many, a troll is not just someone who disagrees with some one else, but is more defined with how they disagree (personal attacks, derailments, and such).  A troll wants to disrupt, not just disagree.

Which would make you a troll, as you just disrupted and derailed a thread on membership by debating definitions

[pixjohn]

 There was another forum that the same thing happened To years ago, moving to a paid subscription.  The form had no content after the paid subscription and everybody bolted from, that is how  I ended up at this form.

[digitaldog]

What a wonderful defense of *free* speech 

OT but necessary: As Linda Holmes of NPR wrote in 2010, “The First Amendment doesn’t guarantee that speaking your mind will have no economic consequences. … Because the ‘free’ in that concept means ‘free from government interference,’ not ‘free from consequences.’ ”

[eronald]

OT but necessary: As Linda Holmes of NPR wrote in 2010, “The First Amendment doesn’t guarantee that speaking your mind will have no economic consequences. … Because the ‘free’ in that concept means ‘free from government interference,’ not ‘free from consequences.’ ”

Americans usually believe in free speech - for themselves. I lived in a US-sponsored dictatorship for many years (Portugal), where every newspaper carried a box saying "approved by the censor" on the front page. It was very important WE should not have free speech, so that freedom would prevail over communism THERE. There was also a nice secret police called the PIDE to prevent people getting bad ideas like a need for elections, because elections are you know, communist. You can find this pattern in a lot of countries where a dictator who was "our bastard" was installed in place of a hostile democracy, Iran or Chile being typical examples. Indonesia saw about 250 000 people killed in the name of anti-communism.  Portugal, where I lived was an interesting case, because the US expected the régime to fight soviet-sponsored and Cuba-trained insurgencies in Angola and Mozambique; in the end the portuguese military disagreed with this losing proposition, preferring to mutiny and call for elections.

I'm not saying communism was any better - but US sponsored dictatorships were nasty and brutal. Believe me, I know one can live without free speech, and I learnt first hand that the US will go to considerable lengths to suppress free speech in their allies while calling for it elsewhere. I don't see many articles about the need for elections and free speech and the ceasing of summary executions in Saudi Arabia in the US press, while the lack of freedoms in Russia or North Korea makes CNN every day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_killings_of_1965–66

Edmund

[rolleiflexpages]

My take: charging money for reading articles on the website, fine.

But it is actually the contributors who should be paid for enabling the forum discussions to thrive. Without them, no active forum.

Wrong set of priorities.

If you're like me, you have a bookmark straight to this subforum and may have missed the notice on the LuLa homepage.  On the 30th of this month, LuLa is becoming a subscription based site.  Membership is cheap at a buck a month.  The up side to this is you will also now have access to all of the videos and articles that were only previously available at a much higher cost subscription.

Here's the notice

I didn't see any posts about this at first glance, but sorry if it's been covered already.

In the near future, if you want to start another tedious flame war of MFDB vs FF35, you're going to have to put your money where your big fat mouth is.

CB

[Gigi]

Good news is they adjusted: Forums free, paying membership for articles, reviews. Makes sense to me. 

[digitaldog]

Americans usually believe in free speech - for themselves.

Exactly, and many American's don't understand what free speech, as defined by our constitution actually implies (hence my post). Try yelling fire in a theater these days, see how far "free speech" gets you.


Back OT, it appears Chris, Michael and Kevin have figured this all out pretty well and while I have every intention of signing up and think the fee is super reasonable, I'm happy to see the forums will be free to others. Good call guys!

[eronald]

Michael and co built up this site, and they can do whatever they want with it, I wish them the best of luck.
In fact this is a good occasion for me to say "Thank you for the free lunch".


The free forums are a good idea, and will allow the existing community to persist.

Edmund

Exactly, and many American's don't understand what free speech, as defined by our constitution actually implies (hence my post). Try yelling fire in a theater these days, see how far "free speech" gets you.


Back OT, it appears Chris, Michael and Kevin have figured this all out pretty well and while I have every intention of signing up and think the fee is super reasonable, I'm happy to see the forums will be free to others. Good call guys!

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

For those who think their contribution is so valuable that they deserve to be paid for it (instead the other way around), here is the advice: post it in your own blog and see how much traction it is going to get you.

[eronald]

For those who think their contribution is so valuable that they deserve to be paid for it (instead the other way around), here is the advice: post it in your own blog and see how much traction it is going to get you.

Well actually I was writing for Ziff when they went into chapter 11 - you know, this minor problem of monetizing content on the web when Google is grabbing all the advertising money. Which is why I understand Michael's problem and am not going to shout about it if he tries to make money as a publisher. However, Slobodan, I do think there is something wrong with the Huffington Post model: Professional writers are getting a really bad deal on the interwebs. Photographers expect to get paid for their work, why should writers be expected to do it for free?

Edmund

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Hi Edmund,

Not sure why you are replying to what I wrote, as I didn't have you in mind, nor do I see any connection between what you wrote in this thread and my post above. Perhaps because Theodoros deleted his post I was replying to? I usually quote what I am replying to, but this time I assumed that it will be clear, given that I posted it immediately after his post. My bad. Also, I was referring to forum posts, not columns or articles.

Btw, what is the HuffPost model?

[eronald]

Hi Edmund,

Not sure why you are replying to what I wrote, as I do not see any connection between what you wrote in this thread and my post above. Perhaps because Theodoros deleted his post I was replying to? I usually qoute what I am replying to, but this time I assumed that it will be clear, given that I posted it immediately after his post. My bad. Also, I we referring to forum posts, not columns or articles.

Btw, what is the HuffPost model?

Google is your friend

Edmund

[digitaldog]

Btw, what is the HuffPost model?

I suspect http://www.huffingtonpost.com

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

I know what the Huffington Post is, just not sure what model Edmund is referring to. So I followed his advice and googled it (emphasis mine):

...The Huffington Post has “built a blog-empire on the backs of thousands of citizen journalists.”... “To grasp The Huffington Post’s business model,” wrote the Los Angeles Times’s Tim Rutten, “picture a galley rowed by slaves and commanded by pirates.”... The fact is, however, that sentiments like Mr. Rutten’s reflect a misunderstanding of The Huffington Post’s business model. Although The Huffington Post does not pay those who volunteer to write blogs for it, this content represents only a small share of its traffic. And, to put it bluntly, many of those blog posts aren’t worth very much.

The whole article here: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/the-economics-of-blogging-and-the-huffington-post/?_r=0

[Chris Livsey]

Interesting discussion on this yesterday "The Media Show" a BBC radio slot.
Many publishers are moving to social media sites (Huffingto Post speaker was on) and Apple News etc as that is where the young audience is getting news and following links, web home pages are slowly dying. One speaker likened it to traditional newsprint: Like print output our site is still there but as the users die off so will it, strange to be talking like that of a medium that still feels, to me at least, new. Their long term horizon was 2/3 years !!
I read the privacy document on the Apple News App, well some of it, I have not signed up.

The "Daily Mirror" (Part of the Murdoch empire) tabloid UK paper was behind a paywall, the only way to go, no alternative, they said last year or so. No longer.

I understand the response from the owners here to making the Forum section free to user, the response from the user base was clear. What I think will happen is those users who value that section are appeased but the majority of them will not sign up to pay.
I understand the imperative to generate a return but it's the value placed on new content, what is there now will still be free from the archive sites if you know where to look, so its only going to be new content, and the videos, available to subscribers, and tenuous "special offers".

The web democratised access and publishing now it's heading back to large monopolies who don't need a paywall to thrive.
I wish the site well.

PS Will removing posts now remove them from the web archives?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... I'm also all against your tone of belittling anyone's offerings...

James,

I appreciate you took the time to address me personally and my tone and viewpoints, and since you raised a number of interesting points, the significance of which goes well beyond yours truly, I would love to address them (you knew I would).

But before that, I would need to understand better what you meant by what I quoted above. Which offerings are we talking about and how am I belittling them?