Reading on from other discussions I've raised elsewhere, and address the the problem of people not paying, I'd like to ask one question and make a suggestion.

a) It was mentioned that many non-paying members asked for paying members to contact them thereby circumventing the need to pay and posting 100s or even 1,000s of photos and messages. 

Rather than make a rule, did anyone ever ask them directly if they wanted to pay and what was their response?

b) Thinking the situation through, I'd like to suggest an alternative way to make this site more far popular and pay ... and it's not rocket science. It's so obvious, it's a marketing device used by almost ever bar and club in the country some or all of the time.

And it is ...
Free Full Membership for Women (and make men pay)
Of course, it's wonderfully sexist ... so I'm going to dismiss that objection straight away ... or at least no more sexist than offering to buy a woman a drink. The logic behind is as simple as every "happy hour", "ladies' night", or club opening everywhere.

It's primal. People aren't joining because they want a free blog page. Fill a venue with available women and it will be overflowing with paying men in no time.

The clue is in the sex balance of the membership which at present is, what, 75:25 (m:f). You need that to be at least to be 50:50.

(I'm not sure about your claims of sever load etc. Surely you must be on an unlimited hosting package and a shared server anyway. However, if that is a genuine concern, then you could always just limit free chat to, say, Mon-Thur when the load is quite and keep the venue busy all through the week).                                                                                                                                                                             

We have our own servers running things by the way, we don't rent or hire servers from anywhere else but have everything "in house".

Free access for women won't work.  Why?  Because any guy could create a profile selecting "female" to get free access and then contact everyone using that female profile.

The ratio of male to female is very, very good.  1:3 female to male ratio is exceptional for the motorcycling community (when you go out to a bike rally or ride-out do you see such a high percentage of women?).  We do target advertising mostly at women though to be honest which is why we have such a high representation of women.  Also, when you look at the ACTIVE profiles (people who have logged in for example in the last 30 days) you would see that women are even more active than the guys (my theory is they all just like to talk a lot haha)                                                                                                                                                                             

Sigh, are people *really* that weird and scabby?

Oh, I forgot ... it's the internet ... of course they are. They expect everything for free, because Facebook can afford to, and have no idea how much work it takes to keep all those "free" websites running.

At least, I suspect, you don't have a open backdoor to GCHQ or the NSA here like they do, do you? Oh ... Microsoft-IIS/6.0. The site runs on a Microsoft server, therefore you probably do!

• What about being able to buy batches of replies rather than weekly/monthly passes?

Again, another option also reflected in the real world in discussions over bus/underground fares.

For example, someone can buy a batch of 25 replies and they last until they run out?

Would that encourage more participation?  

3 to 1* may be good, but 300 to 100 is every better!

I mean, say someone wants to send just one reply ... or even just polite acknowledgement/apologies. It's a bit much to pay a Fiver just to do so.

Yes, I appreciate, £5 for a shag to find true love or a valuable friendship is not a lot to pay ... but how are people to know if Mr Right is come along that week?

(* Any woman interested in a threesome, please PM me off forum ... oh, damn, it's the other way around!)                                                                                                                                                                              

Your a compleat TWAT get a feckin life you moron
                                                                                                                                                                             

I never did like the idea of folk who intentionally hide their identity, say by not posting a photo (and the ones who`s pic is 10-15 years old too by the way)   must be something inherently "your using too much of my air" about them.   or, as I`m cursed with a catholic up bringing, and the lack of vocabulary which accompanies it,   What JP said!                                                                                                                                                                             

The thing I dont understand harley-rider. Is why you dont have your own successful web site? After all you have all these"cannot fail.tried and trusted ideas"                                                                                                                                                                              

i believe it is now illegal to charge different membership rates according to sex. although i do feel harley boy may just be playing devils advocate.
                                                                                                                                                                             

I don't care who's solicitor he is, he is a troll.                                                                                                                                                                             

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

  £5 for a shag? And (s)he calls us scabby! The tight arse                                                                                                                                                                              

> oldyeti

> I never did like the idea of folk who intentionally hide their identity

And your mother named you "Old Yeti"? Yup, all typical responses; anonymity, Well, what have you done?" etc.

FFS people, stop being so defensive. 

The owner points out how much it costs to run this site and wants to make it better. Is it a crime to start brainstorming how to attract more paying members ... or members that can actually write back to you?

You have a bar or a social club with a quiet night, what do you do? You do something different or special. You have a business with some quiet months ... you have some special offers.

Have I experience in the above, yes, of course. It's not rocket science. In business, to not listen to customer feedback and tune it to suit, is suicidal.

Anyone going to argue against that?

... And, in my book, the only people that use stuff like "LOL" are teenage girls. As fondly as I remember then from my own teenages, I certainly didn't join this website to chit-chat with a balding, overweight, middle aged man pretending to be one, Mr jpharley.

If I was looking for that I could have gone on Craiglists for nothing ... but if you run a gloryhole at the weekends, do let me know the address.                                                                                                                                                                              

  We use LOL a lot on here, cos we usually do Laugh Out Loud.                                                                                                                                                                               

Usually we laugh loudest at 6' viking scots stock ninja's who, as you pointed out in another thread Sandi, try to change things before actually using the site and fathoming out how to navigate their way around, and then have the audacity to start pontificating on how it could be done 'better'.

And all of my postings are done without the aid of a spell checker, grammer and spelling haven't been too shabby for a guy who only got mediocre CSE's when he left high school. My old head master would be proud.                                                                                                                                                                             

@Harley whaterver,
no, my mother did not name me, the NICNAME, used as a moniker here,
though from your response, yours must have had a poor expectation of your bike choice, sorry to hear that.
 
as I understand it, the folk on here or in life who know me , use a name they feel appropriate,
you neither know me, or for that matter my mother, and hiding your personal appearance is a little different to using a nic name.
 
I believe in chatting to folk I like, and similarly NOT with folk, who in my opinion are shallow, and not a little offensive.
some folk do not deserve to breathe my air.                                                                                                                                                                             

Having read a number of Harley-riders posts I think the guy is actually winding us up.
No one can be as bothered about the payment terms and details of social networking sites as he 'pretends' to be.
No one can be as socially inept as he 'pretends' to be.
No one would spend the sort of money that a Harley costs and come across as this tight.
If he is genuine? and he wants to meet people, even the opposite sex, I would say, he's got a lot of work to do!                                                                                                                                                                             

Colin, it is suspected by me that he is a banned member from a while back who just has an axe to grind, he's not here to do anything except stir up old animosities. The only reason I got stuck into this thread and the others he started was because I was bored and want to break the monotony. Other than that, he is a faceless troll who knows if his real identity were to come out, he would have nowhere to vent his spleen, his subs just wouldn't have been accepted.

(my theory is they all just like to talk a lot haha) errr who you  been talking to  then,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,  not me  matt shy quirt and retiring me 
but i do yous a dic i mean spell checker it dosnt  always work thou 

                                                                                                                                                                             

Hahaha you may have a valid hypothesis there k,it did liven things up for a while though.lol                                                                                                                                                                             

lol i dont mind having it free ever