As anyone who is a premium members knows, the "premium member only" forums are at a loss. Though they have interesting topics, not included in the main forums, no one posts in them. Some sections haven't had posts in 30+ days. I don't think any premium members would have a problem if these sections were made public, and the premium members of these forums were given other benefit instead.

Speaking to the community leaders: would this be a possibility?

Any comments are welcomed :)

I don't see it as an option.

IncognitoNetworks, I had a hunch that was the case. (I don't have access there).

IMO premium members will simply have to post some premium posts in those forums. That might sound harsh, but I said so because I have yet another hunch: that the premium members don't post there because they find it not worthwhile to do so. In other words, there are no potential customers to see their signatures. :)

*Bingo*!!!!!!

Dan gets this months prize :beer:

Tell him what he's won!

". . . and it's a new car!!" :buck:

Originally posted by ldcdc
. . . I have yet another hunch: that the premium members don't post there because they find it not worthwhile to do so. In other words, there are no potential customers to see their signatures. :)
hehe. You cynic you! :stickout:

Originally posted by ldcdc
I said so because I have yet another hunch: that the premium members don't post there because they find it not worthwhile to do so. In other words, there are no potential customers to see their signatures. :)

I would have to disagree ;). I wouldn't post there either but take a look at my signature (as of right now...). It's just not worth my time to post something that ten people will see. I'd much rather post on the public forums.

Originally posted by Lev
It's just not worth my time to post something that ten people will see. I'd much rather post on the public forums.

I think Dan's guess is probably true for a lot of people. What you wrote is probably another reason (or *the* reason for some people) why the premium forums don't get many posts. Premium members are simply people who have paid more to get some benefits; their opinions aren't worth any more (or less). There's no reason to post for only premium members when posts in the main forums can generate more energy.

Dennis, I understand that you want to offer a variety of benefits to premium members, but the premium members' forum isn't really a benefit, at least not from some members' point of view. To test its value, why don't you create forums with the same subject areas for the main forum and see who posts where?

Honestly, I don't see any worthwhile benefits to a premium membership other than reduced advertising rates. For those who advertise here, that's a big benefit. If I were advertising here, I'd become a premium member just for that and consider it well worthwhile. The other "benefits" look to me like padding to make the package look bigger than it is. Why not just focus on this one very good benefit and downgrade (make accessible to everyone) the ones that are actually limitations?

I'd like to hear what premium members think about this. I can't find the list of premium membership benefits (although I did read it at one point), so maybe I missed something.

Lois

Lois, www.webhostingtalk.com/premium.php :)

If i remember correctly, most of the premium forum topics are covered by the main forum topics already.

Originally posted by anon-e-mouse
Lois, www.webhostingtalk.com/premium.php :)

Yeah but if you don't advertise here (like most of us), the 'benefits' are kind of crappy. The best option is the t-shirt and mousepad, which the last rendition I saw of it is something I'd think twice about washing my car with. ;)

I dont see any worthwhile benefits of being "Premium". It seems most of WHT doesnt either :)

If you want a mousepad and t-shirt... go premium, otherwise dont. It isnt worth it for the discussion thats for sure :)

But it sure is worth it for the advertising discount!

I think most of the premie topics could be moved to the open area except for maybe 2 or 3, since like others said most get premie for ad discounts.

Even after your premium expires the discount still gets applied though.

*sniggers*

anon-e-mouse posted:
>> Lois, www.webhostingtalk.com/premium.php :)

Thanks. So that's what you look like. ;)

akashik wrote:
>> Yeah but if you don't advertise here (like most of us), the 'benefits' are kind of crappy. The best option is the t-shirt and mousepad, which the last rendition I saw of it is something I'd think twice about washing my car with.

Why put down a good benefit just because you aren't interested in it? As I said, IMO the real benefit is the advertisers' discount. The others are just extras. Nobody's going to become a premium member just for the mouse pad (sorry, Mouse), but if you advertise here, it would be useful to get a free mouse pad and T-shirt with the deal. If you don't like the T-shirt, you can send it to me. :)

I don't see any benefits to a special forum for premium members, though.

My web host has a main forum and a resellers' forum. The main one is public and the resellers' one is for resellers only, I'm guessing so that resellers' clients can't see their posts. I appreciate that privacy, but as someone with shared accounts and a reseller account, I post in the reseller forum only when my questions are specifically about the reseller servers or accounts. For everything else, I prefer to post in the main forum, where more people can read the posts and take part. Premium members probably use the same reasoing at WHT.

Is there anything that premium members need to be able to discuss and have kept from the public?

Lois

In all honesty, while I agree that the premium member forums dont offer much value to make it worth the upgrade to premium, there are several other benefits offered.

Exclusive T-Shirt, Exclusive Mousepad - some people love these!

Advertising Discount on WebHostingTalk.com, Advertising Discount on iNET Network Sites - Huge benefit

WHT Insider Newsletter Subscription - Useful to some

Customizable WHT Skin - some people love this

Ability to hide any forum - I find this very useful
WYSIWYG Editor - useful to some
Ability to hide index page right column objects - some people might find this useful
Ability to turn off WHO'S ONLINE display at bottom - less clutter, loading time if you're on slow dial-up.

Premium Member Bar Under Name - This does nothing and I am personally against having this.

Larger PM Storage Box - Extremely useful to me. If sitepoint had a PM storage upgrade, I would upgrade in a jiffy.

Access to Premium Member Forum Section - not really useful as of right now. Though there is one particular forum that most host providers find/would find very profitable.

Newest Posts on WHT RSS Feed Access - Some people find this very useful.

PS: I lost my premium membership a while ago and haven't looked into renewing it.

Originally posted by Fahd
there are several other benefits offered.

Interesting. Your list shows that different things are valuable to different people. While I still think the advertising discount in itself makes a premium membership worthwhile to people who advertise here, the other offerings didn't do much for me. They did for you, though. :)

Premium Member Bar Under Name - This does nothing and I am personally against having this.

I wouldn't say that I'm "against" it, but I never saw the point of it except for people looking for ego boosters. Premium members are just people who pay more to get an advertising discount and who get some other benefits for the same price. Why should their posts get any special attention drawn to them?

Hmmm...maybe that's it. Are the links in the signatures of premium members noticed more or given more weight? Maybe that bar under the name is the reason some people want premium memberships. :)

Lois

Basically, what's the point of having separate premium forums, if no one uses them? There isn't a point to them, and I don't think anyone here would contest that fact. Every premium member I've seen has corroborated that the premium member forums are a waste of time. I submitted a question about affiliate programs weeks ago, and it has still not been answered :)

Dan's point about the signatures, valid or not, is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Regardless of the cause, the forums aren't used, making any benefit they were supposed to provide to premium members.

If some "benefit" is unilaterally held as pointless, useless, etc then why keep it around at all? I'm sure with all the lucrative promotions, forum hacks, and so forth, that some sort of "better" benefit could be thought up by iNET or the moderators. Thus far I've only used my premium member status, to hide the premium member forums from view :P

Any comments?

yeah honestly i was pretty dissapointed after i signed up for premium and found hardly any content in the premium forums. so really i see no point in making it premium only.

Thanks
- James

Dan's point about the signatures, valid or not, is irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
If I may better explain my point, which IMO is relevant to the discussion at hand:

The Premium Membership gives the Premium Members access to some hidden/special forums. iNET does not (AFAIK) state that those forums will fit certain needs or requirements, reach certain levels of usage or anything of that sort. The quality of those forums only reflects the average interest shown by the Premium Members. Nothing stops people from making that hidden section of WHT a real gem and fill it with high quality posts.

"Premium Membership" is a product and as long as you get what you were promised (in this case access to those forums), I don't really see why iNET should remove this benefit from their offer, or otherwise destroy it by making those forums public.

Im wondering if those bases could be made PUBLIC 'TO ONLY MEMBERS' ... Guests wouldnt be able to view them......

Just a thought

Originally posted by ldcdc
. . . reach certain levels of usage . . . I think that's a lot of it. There really aren't a lot of Premium Members. So, it's like any new forum with few members. Given time, it could become a wealth of information and tools.

I have an enhanced membership at a different forum (yes, there are forums beyond WHT :eek: ) and they work quite similar. Because there is less of a member base, there is less posting in them. In fact, there is 'much' less posting in them.

I would pay the fees if they gave access to the 'tossed' threads forum, I am sure you coud spend the day going through that forum getting some pretty good laughs.

I would also pay if I was going to advertise it is a pretty hot deal.

The new mousepad and shirt look awful compared to the old ones, why not keep it simple and just put a nice WHT logo on it, I would be interested in something like that but would feel odd walking around with a rabid looking mouse on my back (no offense to the mouse :))

Originally posted by ldcdc

"Premium Membership" is a product and as long as you get what you were promised (in this case access to those forums)...

What iNET did or didn't give us, is not the issue. iNET did hold up on their end and gave us access to premium forums. What I am proposing is an improvement upon the pre-existing benefits offered to premium members.

Originally posted by ldcdc
I don't really see why iNET should remove this benefit from their offer, or otherwise destroy it by making those forums public.

There is no benefit that those forums provide. Any premium member will agree with you on that. Of the 8 premium forum sections, only one post is made in them every 3-4 days. When a post is made, 9/10 it's someone asking "When will I be getting my T-Shirt & Mousepad?" For the reasons aforementioned (no purpose, no one uses them, no one values them, etc), the right thing to do, would be to replace them with something actually beneficial.

Originally posted by SoftWareRevue
So, it's like any new forum with few members. Given time, it could become a wealth of information and tools


It may eventually happen, though I doubt it will. The premium member forums aren't like any other forums, they require people to pay money in order to access the forums. With this monetary restriction, it is only common sense that you will not be able to generate the user base that normal free forums can. The premium member upgrade has been around for almost a year and by all indications, the usage of the premium member forums is slowing down, rather than speeding up. Reasoning that something will begin to work in the future, though it has no indication of doing so, in my opinion, is poor logic.

Making the premium member forums public and replacing it something else, will benefit regular users of WHT and premium members as well. I doubt any premium member has any real attachment to those forums, nor is there any real neccessity to keeping them private, so why not go ahead?

Originally posted by ldcdc
>> Nothing stops people from making that hidden section of WHT a real gem and fill it with high quality posts.

I'm curious what qualities premium members have other than an interest in the advertising discount that gives them the potential over us riff-raff to produce high-quality posts. ;)

>> "Premium Membership" is a product and as long as you get what you were promised (in this case access to those forums), I don't really see why iNET should remove this benefit from their offer, or otherwise destroy it by making those forums public.

I agree that iNET shouldn't remove a benefit or reduce its quality. They're offering premium memberships, and they want to make them as good as possible. But this particular benefit isn't working as hoped, so this is a good time to consider alternatives.

Let's say, for example, that this forum is made up of soccer players. The soccer player forum premium membership offers special seats at games or something like that, so some people sign up for the premium membership. They're happy with the premium seats, but when they go into the special soccer field for premium members only, there are only one or two other people there, or often no one else. If they're lucky, they can kick the soccer ball around with another person, but they want to play soccer with enough people to have a game with.

One of the premium members suggests opening the premium soccer field up to the public so that they can have real soccer games. It isn't allowed, however, because the company offering the premium memberships doesn't want to "remove" this "benefit."

The premium soccer field would've been great if enough people had wanted to play soccer there. But these soccer players don't want to wait to see if enough interested people will show up in a year or 2 to play soccer. They want to play soccer now.

Originally posted by IncognitoNetworks
>> iNET did hold up on their end and gave us access to premium forums. What I am proposing is an improvement upon the pre-existing benefits offered to premium members.

Yeah, that. :)

Lois

But these soccer players don't want to wait to see if enough interested people will show up in a year or 2 to play soccer. They want to play soccer now.They may play as much soccer as they want in the already existing public areas, and play it now. ;)

If you want to have certain private forums (one, two, or three of them) become public because they are really needed by WHT's open community, I can understand your position and perhaps even support the idea. However, if you want iNET to remove a feature of the Premium Membership, I can only disagree. As long as they provide what they promise, there's nothing wrong with the product.

Originally posted by ldcdc
They may play as much soccer as they want in the already existing public areas, and play it now. ;)

The issue here is the lack of (or non-existent) "benefit" gained from the premium member forums. Thus, our ability to post in public areas is beside the point and not pertinent to this discussion.

Originally posted by ldcdc
As long as they provide what they promise, there's nothing wrong with the product.

I don't see the logic in that. I'll bring another analogy into this discussion: a car tire company sells tires to consumers, which turn out to explode after 50 miles of use. The company provided what they promised, a car tire, and nothing more. Is there something wrong with the product? Certainly there is, it doesn't work.

Same with the premium member forums. We were provided with the service we paid for, but from the aforementioned points, it doesn't work either. Granted premium member forums are not the same as car tires, the analogy holds true. There is reason to replace the car tires and the premium member forums, with something that "works" better.

There is everything to gain and nothing to lose, so why not take advantage of that?

We can continue like this forever. :) You have your opinion, I have mine... It is obvious we can't/don't want to find common ground on this matter.

Weird, there is only one thread I see there started by you Elliot, and it wasn't even started in there, it had to be moved there. If you aren't going to contribute to the forum, then don't complain if nobody uses them.

Originally posted by anon-e-mouse
Weird, there is only one thread I see there started by you Elliot, and it wasn't even started in there, it had to be moved there. If you aren't going to contribute to the forum, then don't complain if nobody uses them.

Check the top forum section, I posted a thread asking about methods to promote affiliate programs. Do your homework :P

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=386153

As you can see no one has replied to it.

Originally posted by ldcdc
We can continue like this forever. :) You have your opinion, I have mine... It is obvious we can't/don't want to find common ground on this matter.

I was begining to think the same thing. As goes the cheesy saying: we can agree to disagree :P

Originally posted by IncognitoNetworks
Check the top forum section, I posted a thread asking about methods to promote affiliate programs. Do your homework :P.
I think a lot (including me) have all but the Subscribers Club forum turned off ;) I will rephrase, in the most commonly used forum, you have one thread :)

Oh ok, no problem :)

I will would buy an annual plan within 24 hours of WHT Premium giving access to the tossed threads forum! :) I am serious.

If WHT wants the continued income from the premium members, perhaps they should listen to our requests? I purchased a semi-annual plan to give myself ample time to test out the Premium membership and also receive the mouse pad. Personally, I won't be renewing my membership here at WHT. iNet (and the community leaders here), seem to turn down any request by any member. I have already noticed a downgrade in this forum's quality over my short period of a few months here. To iNet and the Community Leaders I give a small piece of advice: Listen to the people that pay money to this establishment. The Premium Forums don't work for several reasons:

1. There aren't enough premium members. Why? Because the rewards aren't all that great.

2. Many of the premium forums are repeats of forums available to the public.

3. When members do post, other members do not respond. Personally, I don't like waiting two weeks for a quality answer when I can have it in a matter of minutes on the public forums.

Many of the features provided as part of the Premium package are less than desirable. Look at the WHT Premium Member Newsletter, for example. It consists solely of links to Premium-member articles featured on HostingTech. I enjoy reading those articles, but don't you think there should be more in the WHT newsletter than links to HostingTech articles?

I really enjoy WebHosting Talk, but some of the goings on here are starting to become ridiculous. Personally, I'd like to see Ryan Elledge and the rest of the iNet execs around here more often -- I should be able to contact them with questions or concerns if I like. WHT is iNet's biggest moneymaker, you figure they'd care about it a bit more.

Originally posted by WarpFactor
>> 2. Many of the premium forums are repeats of forums available to the public.

If you'd like to have premium forums on specific topic areas, what are those topics?

>> Look at the WHT Premium Member Newsletter, for example. It consists solely of links to Premium-member articles featured on HostingTech. I enjoy reading those articles, but don't you think there should be more in the WHT newsletter than links to HostingTech articles?

What kind of material would you like to see in the newsletter in addition to article links?

It's a lot easier to respond to complaints when you know exactly what the complainants would like. Your other comments had specific suggestions, so maybe you have specific suggestions for these points too?

Lois

The only premium member forum that is used regularly and I believe should stay is the Subscriber's Club. It gives premium members a place to talk without having so many of the worthless members posting items such as "great idea!," "really?," or "that's cool!" The point I'm try to convey here is that iNet and the Community Leaders refuse to listen to our suggestions. The forums are empty -- they serve no purpose and are not a resource at all. As I said before, why would I ask the premium member community a question and wait weeks for a quality response when I can post to the general public and have one within minutes?

As for the newsletter, some other possible items might include:

1. Recent happenings at WHT -- plans for the future, new features, general WHT-related news, et cetera. After all, this is supposed to be the WHT newsletter, isn't it?

2. Special contests for premium members? I noticed in the last article someone had won a Plasma TV by entering some contest. Perhaps create some Premium-member only contests?

3. Monthly freebies for WHT Premium Members? Give additional discounts to certain properties of iNet's as far as advertising goes? Perhaps give a monthly coupon for a discounted purchase in every newsletter?

These are just a few ideas. I want this community to be the best it can be -- in my honest opinion, WHT makes use of a small fraction of it's capabilities. If only iNet would take our advice and make good use of it ...

WarpFactor, those sound like excellent ideas to me.

You gave me an idea. What about a membership somewhere between free and premium that included all of the above except the advertising discount? The more benefits offered, the better, but I still doubt that anyone would go for the full package unless they wanted the advertising discount, which is the main value IMO. With an in-between membership, people who don't plan to advertise at WHT could get some premium benefits without paying the price that includes a discount they wouldn't use. And more people would be involved as WHT something-more members, which would be good for iNet and the premium forums. :)

Lois

If the objective of posting a question or asking for help in a forum is to get as many good answers as possible... then why would anyone post into the premium only forums?

By doing so, they will simply restrict themselves to answers from premium members only... including many highly valuable community members who are NOT premium members.

Thus.. the premium-only forums will never become a valuable source of discussion when compared to the rest of the free community. I've never seen the premium forums, but I suspect the vast majority of posts are "one sided" threads (not real discussions) or very brief discussions from two or three people maximum.

The "premium-member only" community model simply doesn't work unless the ENTIRE community consists of premium-members.

That being said, if inet want's to have a bunch of empty "premium only" forums, then that's certainly their choice. But if anyone is sucker enough to spend even $1 to get access to them, then ... well.. there's a suck born every minute. I'd rather buy a coke.

Premium does have one benefit--you can throw around ideas and know that they won't be spidered by Google. However, if there are no members there to respond..

*sigh* the only way i'd buy a premium membership is if I could have reading access to the "thrown topics" forum. :P

Yep, we know iNET doesn't have WHT for the money if they don't give premium members access to "tossed threads", because that would be a cash cow.

yeah yeah I'm a newbie, but just wanted to give my two cents.

When I joined I wondered what this Premium Member bar meant and couldn't find anything about it on the site (I didn't look very hard, mind you). Reading this post I found the list of features and to be honest I don't see anything that would compel me to purchase a subscription.

Just a suggestion:

Why not sell the mousemats and t-shirts to the public? I have no interest myself but there seems to be a few people who like/want them. I mean, you'd make a fair bit of money from people who don't want advertiser discounts and access to quiet forums, and just want a t-shirt/mouse.

As for the premium forums, I don't have access to them so I have no opinion, but are there really any special forums where you can post anything that is not postable on the public forums? If not why not just post it to a public forum and don't renew your subscription? Seems like the sensible approach to me!

So now that my little rant is over, feel free to abuse me with newbie fire! :cartman: