Apologies but this is a repost from another thread that I posted it in, I thought it more apt here:
To my mind, the purpose of a forum is the free exchange of information. I am somewhat bothered by what I would call the new Terms of Service and variety of would-be content filtration that is in-place. Granted, I have yet to see any adverse affect from such items, but I have not tried to read over 30 posts (or whatever the number is that once exceeded you need a premium membership, really?) again, I have only heard about this. Rest assured that I am not currently willing, nor will I ever be willing to pay for a membership to a place that I believe should be where information is freely exchanged without restriction, not withstanding illegal activities / information of course. I do find it humerus though that you must first authenticate to view replies etc, as this will adversely affect the sites search engine index rating and rate!
To those that are stating "this is being done for financial reasons", I would say that it is most assuredly not due to the cost of hosting / hardware / connectivity. The software that runs this forum is Open Source (PHPbb) and thusly it is freely available for anyone, with the knowhow, to install and use. The cost of a server/connection to run even a sizable forum is minimal, compared to the monies that are being gathered for memberships, at best and can be handled for less than $100 a month! I know that I did read that the publisher would no longer house the forums within their infrastructure, however if this is indeed causing financial turmoil, then I can only assume that it is due to GROSS technological mis-management, and this gives me less comfort than simply thinking that I'm being jabbed for another dollar!
Having said this, perhaps a request out to the community that comprises this forum for small donations to maintain it would have been better received (I know it would have been by me!). Or even a request to some of the "sponsors"?
Apologies for the diatribe on a soap box routine, but thanks for listening!
J
