I had no idea new users had to pay. There's no doubt that will put a lot of people off.

I think I can remember paying the fee, joined a few years back

Posted By: Cliff PopeI joined in 2008. This is the first I have ever heard about a fee. Everything appears to work fully though.

I joined in 2010 and paid the fiver. One of the best fivers ever spent. Great value for money !!

And yes some of the forum attributes can be a bit of a pain - I just live with them.

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: bot de paille</cite>Its advertised that forum participation is 5pounds a year subsciption, which probably put off a lot of forum participation, unfortunately.</blockquote>

Put off by a £5 a year subscription (yes, a year!) -what!! I don't ever remember paying a fee but would happily pay £5.

Few potential new users are going to look at a forum running on ancient software, with a small number of regular posters, a scattering of posts every day, and decide to shell out £5 to participate. It's not the amount, it's the friction, as said above. And until you actually post yourself, you don't really know what you're going to get back out of it. In the case of this forum, potentially quite a lot - but you don't know that until you've tried!
If there are running costs to be met, surely it's better to have a "server fund" fueled by donations by regular users, with requests being made when it needs topped up. That's quite a common arrangement.

Posted By: djhI think the point of the £5 is to dissuade spammers, and since I can't remember ever seeing spam on here, it seems to work.

I'd agree with this.

I do vaguely remember paying something but it must be 15 years ago, I'd suggest so it must have been a one off.

You get what you pay for, and the advice here is generally worth the fiver.

[edit] checked and it was Oct 21st 2011 - seems longer ago than that.

Re spam and advertising, posters get warned then posts deleted

Sorry, in error.

Posted By: Peter_in_Hungary

Posted By: Jeff BAm I mistaken or isn't it possible anymore for anyone to dip into the GBF without being a member? i.e. can read but not contribute? That way anyone who is uncertain could see the scope of the forum and the quality of the replies before committing to membership.

Anyone can dip into the forum without being a member, I do frequently without logging in i.e. read only - so as far as the forum is concerned I could be anybody . However if you want to comment or start a new thread or ask a question you need to log in which requires membership.

OK, thanks for confirming that.

I was lurking for a while, signed up and paid just over a year ago thinking I had lots to ask but never got round to it. Ii can't remember if I renewed the subscription or if it renewed automatically but I'm fairly sure it was a yearly payment.

Only recently made my first post and its been worth the £10 for the advice received. I can see it putting off some people but the bigger issue is it might put people off sticking around once their project is underway/complete (if they ever are?!) - which would be a shame as I'm sure there's always knowledge/experience gained that could be passed on.

That being said it obviously costs money to run and I'd rather have something like this, a bit dated as it is, than hand more data over to the big tech companies. Some other forum's I've been a member of are free to use but have a optional subscription component - sometimes unlocking extra features or giving access to members only discounts (e.g one car forum had done a deal giving 10% discount at Halfords)

Still does with some. I think Green Building Store still give a discount to AECB members.

A better solution for the forum might be jar tipping.

If Keith was to post how much was needed to keep the servers up, as at funding goal each year.

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: Nick Parsons</cite>b de p said 'A better solution for the forum might be jar tipping.'

Not familiar with the phrase, but yes, why not ask for donations? I have benefited from the forum for ?14 years or so, so I owe it something! Sounds as if a few of us feel the same. Keith? What do you think?</blockquote>

Its quite common on community servers. The admin sets a goal based on server and admin costs.

Users then donate towards that goal , and your name goes on a list on the side of the forum to show who had donated.Which is a good incentive.

Its lowers the barrier/friction to participation.

Happy to pay £5 a year and do.

Would be horrendous if the archive of posts was lost, I think the back up and archive should be 1st question, 2nd question and 3rd of any future plans, discussion. Facebook doesn't do it for me.

As more people green their homes this archive is a massive contribution for new build and renovations.

"How easy it is, to write a lengthy and detailed reply and then accidentally lose all of it in the stroke of a keypress."

This has always irritated me, since I first started using the web (and backspace was the key for navigating back; if the field you're typing in loses focus and you hit that it was good bye to your text- hitting forward just brought you back to a new blank email page)

I once watched a friend sending an email on hotmail, having laboriously typed out with two fingers his weighty tome and attached a huge file, he hit send and was told the file was too big to be sent without paying 20 quid to upgrade. "Wait, don't pay" I said "I can make that file smaller easily". "No way" he replied "it's taken me an hour to write all that and I'll be mad if I lose it; I'm paying the 20 quid rather than risk losing the text"

Browsers should have a password protected "list of everything you've typed into every field in the last X days" facility, instantly updated as soon as the text field changes

Actually, at even the lowest level you can run keylogging software that records every keystroke you make if you want to have such a backup to compensate for terrible forum software. You f you've edited a post piecemealnitll be a bit of jogging to recover it but perhaps better than nothing

Does irk me; being a software engineer I could solve the problem in tens of different ways - just too darn busy with everything else in my life to fix everything I find wrong or irksome within cyberspace! :)