[derek west]

all though ive shown on a few threads recently that i don't like free riders selling there wears with there first post or sneaking in things here and there. the real truth is that thats not true. the forum that numptyby pushed on here and the software mr free pushed are good for the forum, trouble is it don't get revenue for my B, and all though he's probably minted , he still has a business to run. sooooooooooooooooo, my question is!

would a joining fee make this forum better or drive people away?

would any of you guys leave if you were asked for an annual membership.

lets say £10 for the year.

i'd pay that, well worth the money but then would there be alot that wouldn't? making the forum members slowly disappear.
or would it get rid of the D-heads?
or would it just end up with guys like numptyby and free willy selling there wears.

anyway.............

discuss.

[richy27]

i would pay

[Mark Lawrence]

Me too. I'd pay it in a flash. It would get rid of people who only take and not give on this forum thats for sure. And Mr B would be a happy man

Mark

[Carpet Dawg]

Me too. But then there should be no paid adverts!

Forums like DigitalSpy charge people £5 i think once off to access thier forum. Stops the spammers.

Wonder out of the 89,1211 current members will still be here if it goes to paid only lol

Tony

[richy27]

i think the main issue on this forum is the fact there are very few controls on how to join. and i am sure some characters have multiple identities.

Personally the arguing and childish comments  go right over my head but i am sure if a member of joe public looked in on some threads they would be appalled. and in my opinion this is as unproffesional as bait and switch and whatever else does are industry harm.

[Paul Heath]

£10 to listen to you rants "d" is well worth it  Count me in

[mark joyce]

As a relatively new person on here I see the problem with what you are saying about people advertising their services but what is to stop them becoming members and posting Im sure a tenner would not deter them or do you want to make it an exclusive little club, where all every one does is brag about what machine they have and how much they earn.

  I would pay as I do on other sites however sitting and reading TM operators looking down on portys and giving snide remarks when a new person asks a question that is quite relevant for a new person to ask will drive away the users in the second year.
 
 In the time I have been coming here I have seen some stuff said that would not be said face to face however I am not saying everyone is like that as there is some great advice on here for the sole trader business man/woman

Im enjoying the site keep up the good stuff  

[Neil Williams]

I'm not in favor of the idea but if that's the way it was to go I would probably join.
Having said that and as this site is owned by Express Cleaning Supplies wouldn't it be a good idea to make it
(1) Sign up with real name, address and e-mail
(2) Make it £20
(3) For joining up you get a £20 voucher to use against products from ECS

So in effect it won't cost anything, you get rid of multiple accounts, and perhaps you'll get rid of some of the trash that appears on here. There's some reasoning behind why other sites refere to this one as Scream it Up and Thick it Up 

[mark joyce]

I'm not in favor of the idea but if that's the way it was to go I would probably join.
Having said that and as this site is owned by Express Cleaning Supplies wouldn't it be a good idea to make it
(1) Sign up with real name, address and e-mail
(2) Make it £20
(3) For joining up you get a £20 voucher to use against products from ECS

So in effect it won't cost anything, you get rid of multiple accounts, and perhaps you'll get rid of some of the trash that appears on here. There's some reasoning behind why other sites refere to this one as Scream it Up and Thick it Up 

good idea
I stumbeled on the site did not know it was owned by a cleaning supplies company

[Neil Williams]

good idea

That's me.....The Voice of Reason
But no-one ever listens

[derek west]

mark
your missing the point, the reason i raised the question was so people who come on here selling there wears! wares! would at least be contributing if they did advertise. like i said, i'm not anti selling on here, i'm just anti one rule for one and another rule for another.

a £10 fee would be freedom for all, the question is, would it make CIU betterer or worsererer.

neil
you should be in marketing running your own business you should.

seriously though. good food for thought the points you made.

[Mike Halliday]

I'm not in favor of the idea but if that's the way it was to go I would probably join.
Having said that and as this site is owned by Express Cleaning Supplies wouldn't it be a good idea to make it
(1) Sign up with real name, address and e-mail
(2) Make it £20
(3) For joining up you get a £20 voucher to use against products from ECS

So in effect it won't cost anything, you get rid of multiple accounts, and perhaps you'll get rid of some of the trash that appears on here. There's some reasoning behind why other sites refere to this one as Scream it Up and Thick it Up 

Neil i think the opposite would happen, the problem with the trash is they love the sound of there own voices, they would happily pay to have an audience, but the quality members would leave as they would not want to pay to listen to idiots talking crap.

I think a better idea would be like on www.truckmountforum.com who have a' thank you' system where member thank other members for posting helpful advice, but I would have an award scheme which gives an award for everyone who gets a 100 'thank yous' this would create a more helpful forum

[richy27]

good idea mike   

[mark joyce]

mark
your missing the point, the reason i raised the question was so people who come on here selling there wears! wares! would at least be contributing if they did advertise. like i said, i'm not anti selling on here, i'm just anti one rule for one and another rule for another.

a £10 fee would be freedom for all, the question is, would it make CIU betterer or worsererer.

no a free for all would just end up adverts  so worse

[David_Annable]

Hi

I'm only a poor Carpet Ceaner, it takes me a while to save up £10.

dave

[Mark Slaney]

  Why not use the subsciption to raise awareness of carpet cleaning. Major advertising and use clean it up as the hub. Have a nationwide database for people to find local based cleaners. You would only be able to join if you've been on an accredited course like the ncca, cleansmart, prochem. Don't need to exclude the people who haven't been on a course yet, they can just use the site as guests for advice or input.  

[Colin Day]

I'd pay £10 for this and "Clean Talk's" forums....

Worth every penny and a lot more!!!!

[Neil Williams]

 You would only be able to join if you've been on an accredited course like the ncca, cleansmart, prochem.

bye bye then cause that'll be me out

[derek west]

mark
your missing the point, the reason i raised the question was so people who come on here selling there wears! wares! would at least be contributing if they did advertise. like i said, i'm not anti selling on here, i'm just anti one rule for one and another rule for another.

a £10 fee would be freedom for all, the question is, would it make CIU betterer or worsererer.

no a free for all would just end up adverts  so worse

your probably right  mark, but we still watch itv

maybe the mods could just divert any adds to the new adds section.

[Mark Slaney]

  I do understand what your'e saying d but it you had a annual £10 fee you'd have all the problems come up again as we had when clean tried to launch. People accusing people of trying to make money out of it.
 
  If someone had a product to sell there could be another section where they would have to pay a small fee to advertise.

  You could set up an independent treasurer to handle the money.

  or just stick it all on a horse.
 

[wynne jones]

I was a lurker on here for a while and I'm sure a few would prefer me to going back to being one. What prompted me to start posting was the constant regurgitation of carpet cleaning twaddle that's been passed down from either some vested interest or someone who is totally clueless and never done it for real but saw it on a post a month before which was probably from someoene else who hasn't got a clue.

Quite often someone has a genuine thorny carpet cleaning problem and it just gets ignored. Then someone pipes up with a 'which is the most powerful porty thread'  : and it goes bananas.

It's human nature to want an easy life and it's easy to pretend there's this one guy running around with 10 false ids coming up with stuff that some would rather not hear, well that's too bad unless you want a forum which is pretty much dead which only comes alive when the mods plead with anybody to post anything. If the multple IDs was true any site owner would spot multiple IDs from  registrations and that would be that.

Take a look in the other sections of this forum there is plenty of banter. Or do you think us Carpet Cleaners are above that and our poo don't stink. Some people are really up their own backsides.

Sorry if this offends anyone.

[derek west]

no offence taken at all wynne but not sure what your point is, would a fee stop what your on about or make it worse?

[Carpet Dawg]

or was it just a rant  lol

[wynne jones]

Derek

I completely ignored your question and just wanted to rant on.

A fee would only see the demise of the forum.

It's like Google saying instead of doing adwords it's going to charge everyone a monthly fee.

To charge for a membership site an individual would have to see some VALUE. Whilst everyone brings something to this forum it is woefully short on 'real world' carpet cleaning expertise in my opinion. Why would an experienced carpet cleaner pay £10 for the privilege of sharing his hard earned knowledge with some new boy down the road after his customers?

What you would get (even worse than now) is a bunch of peope hoodwinking newbies with their latest snake oil chemical/poncy firewalking course or whatever and no one around to say hold on a minute that just not right!

 

 

[Steve Barnett (Carpet Care Plus)]

Yes I agree with all of that Wynne.

For every 100 or so posts (not threads) I read, I learn something of value - you have to filter out the crap and not get hung up on the daft questions and equally daft answers.

I'm more than happy to offer free advice if I think it's of value.

As far as multiple profiles are concerned - we took a big step 18 months ago when many posted their photos, but that seems to have fallen by the wayside now. I don't care that much about it - I know a lot of the guys on here and have met them. If someone wants to have a row with themselves using multiple profiles then good luck to them - I'm sure some effective medication will come onto the market soon.

[Tony Gill Carpet Smart]

That's not a picture of the Steve Barnett I have met far to old  lol

Tony

[derek west]

i personally enjoy the banter, watching the same person argue with them selves is hilarious, can't beat a good old arguement, i love the differing opinions, nice to see 2 sides to an arguement, life would be dull on here if we all agreed. we all pay our liscence fee and theres just as much poo on tele as there is on here. just cos someone doesn't agree with what i'm saying, doesn't mean there a numpty, and visa versa, i argue all the time in the pub but i still get my round in.

youve got some valid points there wynne, and who knows, you may be right. but personally i'd still pay a tenner.

[wynne jones]

This site makes money because of the NUMBERS. I subscribe to several online magazines and they keep sending me advertisers offers by email. One in particular I have tried to cancel several times and they just ignore it, why? because they just want to show the number of subscribers, like all the list companies we discussed in a recent thread.

If you charged £10 you would have some money but not very much and you would have hardly any advertisers or google display revenue because of the small numbers.

Now with every problem there's a solution so over to you Derek to make it work.

[derek west]

too tired, oh and this will cheer you up, you were right and i was wrong, my trucky froze up this morning, jammed solid
all though in my defence i did say -5 and i start to worry, it was minus 5 last night anyway all sorted and only lost 2 hours this morning, all custies were understanding so lesson learned, heater is in the van

[wynne jones]

No I'm sorry to hear that Derek but glad you got away with it.

Don't feel too bad, heard about another well respected TMer today who got caught out too last night.

Does this mean you will be getting a glide?