Benefits of Supporters Forum

and does everyone who applies get in?

[petra]

If this topic is already covered please point me to it if not, I'd love to get feedback from members of the WW Supporters forum on this topic.

[ken_b]

Here is an older thread on the subject:

How Good is the Supporters Forum? [webmasterworld.com]

[Zygoot]

I'm considering to subscribe but I wonder whether I can justify spending $149 to support Webmasterworld, and to get access to the Supporters forum.

Some people say that some information posted in that board is worth a lot more than just $149 but is that still true?

[trader]

Would also like to pay but hesitate (and probably will not) as I have little idea of its value vs the free forums. Reading marketing posts about how good it is does not even come close to a first hand look.

It would be great if they offered a time limit free trial for a day or so to test drive the paid forum.

A free trial would seem certain of getting many more paid members (if it's really shown to be worth it).

[AAnnAArchy]

If you given a trial, you could copy the whole forum, so what would be the point?

I've both been in the Supporter's forum and not been. I don't know if it's changed since I was last there. The supporter's forum is good because there's less noise, fewer super newbie questions and more comraderie. You're much more likely to form business relationships with people you meet there because it's a smaller group.

[Webwork]

I didn't pay for the "added benefits of the supporter's forum". I paid because I benefitted greatly from all the "free stuff". When I paid to be a member it wasn't a payment. It was a give back.

I contribute plenty by way of posting free legal insights. That's not enough. I do that as my contribution. In return I gain great non-legal insight. However, contributing my insights still doesn't pay the bills: bandwidth, servers, etc. Someone still has to cover those costs. Who is that going to be? Someone else? Them? The successful ones? The rich ones? Who? You?

I look forward to seeing you in the Supporter's Forum some day. Take ownership. It isn't a payment. It's something else. It's a statement. It's an acknowledgement. It's a thank-you note.

And yes, there are some great threads that get started in the Supporter's Forum.

[trader]

Webwork I was wondering why if you are a paid member you still post heavily in the the free forums too? Why not stick with the paid forum since it is said to be so good and prefessional? Just wondering and also asking if there are paid members who never post in the free forums, or do they post here even more than there?

Also, regarding AAnnAArchy saying we could copy all the posts rather than pay, that is far fetched. The vast amounts of time wasted copying it, plus not having access to the next days posts would be a much bigger loss than paying. I seriously doubt anyone would go to such lengths to copy all the posts and not pay, especially if it is really valuable to pay and join.

[Webwork]

Trader, I'm only a spokesperson for myself. I ponied up (paid) simply as an acknowledgment of the value I gained, to help cover the costs of operating WW. I guess I also contribute to the operational expense when I pay for attending PubConfs. It always seems to me that I get value for whatever my contribution is.

I post "out here" simply because I might do some good, because there's things to learn and share, because there's no "exclusivity" to WW, because each unique section of WW offers it's own unique insights, and so on. So, why not participate?

There are plenty of supporters that post "out here" infrequently. They are equally infrequent, with posting, in the Supporter's Forum. Like all of us, they gain value by reading and they do a lot of business in the back channels, including PubConfs, stickies, email, MSN and other get togethers. However, when such infrequent posters speak up their contribution is not a matter of volume. It's a matter of precision. When they "speak" I listen . . mostly. ;) Often, they choose to post in the Supporter's Forum. I'm not their spokesman so I can't say why they would choose that path, but I can make up reasons for it: More respect. Fewer noobs, so people "get it" when they are - or appear to be - cryptic. The SE 'gods' tend to speak in tongues and they don't quite "explain things" sometimes. Nobody presses them, for the most part, "back there" and IF someone dare question the cognosenti someone will often step in to help interpret what the oracle just said. ;)

Many savvy people post in the supporters forum. Why? It could be that through the self-selection process you end up with a mix that produces a more "adult" interaction: More signal, less noise. More stick to the point, less editorializing (except when we're on the subjects that I'm not allowed to discuss out here, under penalty of people coming to visit me with pitchforks and torches.) ;0)

You get to choose if and when you contribute to financing this place. It's not a right or wrong choice. It's whatever you make it. The reward you get for contributing is knowing that you made the choice to give something back and getting access to a forum, with somewhat different TOS, where you get to dialogue with other people who made the same choice. The Supporter's Forum is not about exclusion, though, it's self-selection. The demographics of the population of the Supporter's Forum may be a bit more successful, a bit more serious, a bit more kind to strangers. However, there's an ample amout of those qualities all over WW. It's not like there's a scacity of talent in the other forums. At least that's how it appears to me.

And I need all the kindness that money can't buy. ;0)

[trader]

It is quite nice of you wanting to voluntarily contribute money but the forum owners made a business decision to run most of the forum as a free service (with some income from advertisers and other sources) so I feel little obligation to contribute money *unless* there was a proven real benefit to me. If that was the case I would quickly get the credit card out with no hesitation!

If the forum owners are worried about a lack of income or operating at a loss or small profit they could simply charge everyone for membership, or perhaps make the site more commercial with more banner ads and affiliate programs.

How do I know if the forum owner is wealthy? He may not even need extra money? I know absolutey nothing about the forum owner, not even positive who he is.

Always have a concern about making a contribution to anyone or any firm (including charitable organizations) without knowing the recipients true financial status. Reason is perhaps I am poorer financially than they are and need the money much more than they do!

I still do not understand why a short test drive of the paid forum is not available? As I said before *if* it's shown to be valuable I am sure I would join and many others too.

As a side note, several times I did a post asking for much needed help but got zero replies, even after followup posts. I am not complaining about that here but if I can judge the paid forum would likely get better responses I would join it immidiately but no way of knowing if that is so?

[Hawkgirl]

> (with some income from advertisers and other sources)

There is no advertising at WebmasterWorld. The only links you see are there during conference promotion time, when WebmasterWorld promotes the Search Conference [webmasterworld.com].

>charge everyone for membership

WebmasterWorld started free and will stay free for members.

> make the site more commercial with more banner ads and affiliate programs

That would go against the philosophy around here - no advertising! ;)

> Always have a concern about making a contribution to anyone or any firm (including charitable organizations) without knowing the recipients true financial status.

The Supporters' Forum was started as a sincere "thank you" to the people who contributed some money to the running of WebmasterWorld. Now many of our members use it as a pay-to-play forum - they want to spend a little quality time 'behind the scenes' with other folks in a forum that has a bit less noise than the free public forum.

Those who don't want to (or can't) contribute to WebmasterWorld are always welcome to participate in the majority of the board's forums.

>I still do not understand why a short test drive of the paid forum is not available?

Because unfortunately, people would abuse that privilege.

Thanks for being here, and being part of WebmasterWorld. And thanks for being concerned enough to want to talk about it.

There is a group of people who feel that they have gotten enough out of WebmasterWorld to want to contribute financially to the running of this site. To those people, as a thank you, the Supporters' Forum is there. We hope it serves as a valuable place for them, and a good way to say "Thanks" for the support.

There is never any pressure to contribute to WebmasterWorld. Like I said above, the free stuff will stay free. All that we hope for is that you come hang out a while, read, learn, and contribute whatever knowledge you can to keep WebmasterWorld the biggest, best, highest-quality forum out there.

[trader]

>>make the site more commercial with more banner ads and affiliate programs

>That would go against the philosophy around here - no advertising! ;)

--------------

Though it feels good going to sites with no advertising like this one, it's not really that big a negative to run ads, IMO.

Reason is after a while you tend to get immune to the ads and barely even notice them when visiting repeatedly. There is a popular extremely commercialized forum I visit with lots of flashing and bright color ads which I understand get an incredibly poor CTR as members ignore them.

I for one rarely even see the many ads and have never once clicked on one after thousands of visits to the site. Don't even consider the ads a nuisance because my mind automatically blocks them to the point they are basically invisble anyway.

Regarding the banners at top, I assumed wrongly they were regular ads. Did not know they were only from Conference participants as I never realy looked at them much. Ironically, that kind of proves my point that ads are mostly invisible.

About a free test drive being abused by some. I really do not see that as much of a factor. See my prior post as to why anyone would spend vast amounts of time and copy all the posts just to avoid paying the small membership fee. Plus it could be programmed so that only 1 free visit it permitted based on both the members name and also IP addresses.

[edited by: trader at 6:46 pm (utc) on April 18, 2005]

[oddsod]

Don't sign up if you don't want to. There's no trial and I'd rather it stayed that way. People who are expecting to pay $149 and get at least a minimum of $149 worth of returns (adjusted for interest depending on when the returns are achieved) are probably not on the right wavelength to join SF anyway.

Here's one kicker: Experienced Webmasterworld members follow other member's threads. Find someone you think is worth reading then regularly check his profile for his last few threads and read them. There's an awful lot to be learned that way. There are a few members I "track". These members tend to be supporters. If you aren't in the club you don't get to read all their threads and you miss some of their best ones.

[ncw164x]

I have been visiting webmasterworld since it started and have been a member of the supporters forum for 3 years, in that time I have gained much much more than $447 could buy and that's "Friendship and Knowledge" friendship through the webmasterworld conferences and knowledge gained from the forums both the free and supporters forum

So when someone can't make their mind up if spending $149 per year is worth it, in my opinion you need to re access your approach to the web because the first thing you should be doing is booking your flight and tickets for the next webmasterworld conference, the second one is joining the supporters forum giving back just a little of what you have gained, and believe me you will always gain from this place...

Always remember if you give a little you will gain a lot, if you give nothing you get nothing in return.

[lawman]

Do any of the Supporter's threads listed on WW homepage look like they might be of pecuniary value to you?

[trader]

Great idea Lawman. Never even though about looking at that aspect. Will do so tonight. Thanks to everyone who posted back to me with comments. A lot of what you had to say seems valid.

P.S. Just tried looking at those threads listed. Problem is there were only 3 on the home page tonight so it will take a number of days for me to see examples of the subjects being discussed. It went back 2 weeks but since those are highlighted threads there may have been a lot more than 3, right? How do they get to be highlighted anyway, just wondering.

[Hawkgirl]

Any thread that the admins and mods think is "homepage worthy" gets put there. Generally, the thread has to be high-quality, with good, relevant information that would be beneficial for lots of people.

[wheel]

It's possible that the threads in the supporters' forum are of better quality/lesser noise than the public stuff, I dunno. I tend to post in the free forums, but read the supporters forum (mostly because I feel a bit out of my depth sometimes in the supporters forum). But I do know that there are threads in there that are worth the membership cost and the flight to the conference alone.

Hawkgirl, you should bump the link development thread by chrisnrae as one example :). That thread appeared the day I decided to move from ppc into seo and came here to read about link development. And that thread alone took me from 0 to reasonably competent in 5 minutes. The culmination of that was getting listed in the serps on some reasonably competitive financial services terms.

I get $149 out of the forum, I don't begrudge paying it for the supporters forum, and I don't want to miss any of the classic posts that happen here occassionally. Some are in the public, some in private. You're missing the ones in public. (in short, there's no secret society in the private forum, it's just another area of the site - but you're missing out in one area of the site by not being members).

I can understand if this is a hobby, but if you're serious about this business, it's hard to justify not paying to become a member in what is likely to be one of the strongest tools in your arsenal. Or whatever mixed metaphor you want to use :).

[fredhead]

There is a tip in the email newsletter open rate thread. The tip made me $1950 yesterday on one newsletter.

If I were the admins, I would also most make the entire Google world division as subscriber only.

[sonny]

If you were a professional investor, you might subscribe to the "Wall Street Journal"; If you were a professional landscaper, you might order "Landscape Monthly".

I don't look at it as $149 for the added benefit of the supporter's forum. I look at it, rather selfishly, as keeping the doors opened to a resource that no magazine, newspaper, library book, or any other forum can match for the amount of info readily available.

I don't like forums with ads, text links, popups plastered all over, but the bills do have to get paid, therefore, I will continue to support WWW in it's never ending quest for truth, justice and the webmaster way!