[Steve_S]

I'm also strugling with "monetizing" my Forums. Iv'e read a few pages of this thread so please excuse me if the following points has already been discussed. Warning: this may seem heartless and my own members should not jump to conclusions. Business is business

The implication in this thread seems to be that you have to "give" them some new feature (via the hacks mentioned) inorder to get them to pay in an established board. I'm not entirely sure this would ever work.

-1 Why not "grandfather" your current member base and charge all new members? New members have the same features as the grandfathered user base.

-2 or - Why not just "turn the key" and move all current members to a restricted user group. They can read but can't post. After they pay they are moved back to the paid member group.

Obviously you would take some "flack" for this and would loose members but this would also lower your bandwidth costs and admin time.

-3 Some of you could even create a "cartel" of sorts so that if all the cool Forums in a given space did this at the same time the user base has no other option.

Thoughts ?