I brought this up in another thread but it got buried in the crush of posts, so I decided to make it into a separate thread.

I think that FT would greatly benefit from having positive ID of all posters. This would eliminate the possibility of someone using multiple ID's to make unacceptable posts and then disappearing.

I suggest that Randy institute a policy whereby nobody can post unless he has bought a one-year internet subscription to Inside Flyer. This would only be required of him one time, would cost $12, and would have to be paid for with the person's own credit card. He would have to supply his billing address and telephone number.

True, there would be minor drop off in posters but I don't think most FTers would have a problem forking over $12.

It would also help offset Randy's cost in keeping FT alive. There are very few advertisements on these pages and I doubt that they are a great source of income for him.

Your thoughts?

I agree that there needs to be some time of positive ID system.

However, I am afraid that the $12 fee to post (I KNOW.... you get a magazine... but many, including me... do not find that magazine helpful... as the info is usually dated when the magazine arrives) will cause many people not to register.

I might suggest that people have to pay $1 or $2 to register... and that Randy send them a luggage tag or two for that cost.

That way, the price is minimal, we get a positive ID, and the person gets something for the small "donation".

There have been many threads on raising money for Randy and this site. He has resisted all attempts... I have a feeling this site is not meant to be a money maker.

Just a different thought on how to support your suggestion of positive IDs.

William

William, that is not a bad improvement on my idea

How about if we carry it one step further and allow ANY purchase made from Randy -- as long as a credit card was involved with billing address and telephone number.

That way, people could chose between the magazine, the tags, or whatever they would prefer from the store.

Incidentally, anyone who already is getting the magazine would not be required to buy it again.

I was always for something like that.

How about paying 12-15 bucks for your FT handle and posting rights and getting 1000 Starpoints or airline miles in a programm of your choice just as if you subscribed to inside flyer.

Then no mailing of goods (e.g.luggage tags) would be necessary and we had a good incentive.

Wonderful idea, Flamboyant 1!

Any of the above sound like a good idea to me.

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-alan in sitges, home of the new, improved Si-Re-Do

flamboyant 1's idee is excellent. Let me expand on it a little...

Well, if I was managing a site like this, the fee mentioned by flamboyant 1 would become a yearly subscription fee, and it would still not preclude losing posting rights if someone clearly violates the rules.

I'd probably make the site (at least partially, parts could be viewable without registration as a "teaser") viewable only upon registration. For the registration, I would demand a "real" e-mail address (I'd exclude free e-mail services like Hotmail etc.). Then, I would allow registered, but non-paying users to browse the site for 30 days. After these 30 days, they either have to get a subscription or they lose their viewing rights.

You would have posting rights only after your subscription payment is received.

Less traffic, but I would set the pricing to what the market can bear , so that the contribution would be sufficient on the one hand, and the positive identification of all active posters would be a positive side effect. New visitors would not be precluded from "getting into it" - the initial registration process for viewing would have to be very simple. Just enter your legit e-mail address, click on verification link in the e-mail you receive, done.

Additionally, for special fees, you could introduce different member rankings and rights later (edit, search, special titles). Your title/rights would reflect how much you have given to support the cost of running the service. Peer pressure works wonders...

The payments received should be sufficient to at least support the following two things:

- Redesign (urgently needed, imo)
- Better board software (more stable for sure, and possibly more functions - if you pay)


These ideas are only spontaneous ones from the top of my head, so please feel free to criticize/add your ideas/modify .

I think member rankings/etc./different levels of paid services could also be bundled nicely with promotions in cooperation with travel partners such as airline/hotel companies...

A site like this has a lot of potential, I would say.

One thing would always have to be clear to all cooperation partners/advertisers, and that is a bit similar to the situation a newspaper is in with its advertisers:

There will be no censoring on behalf of cooperation partners or advertisers regarding what people talk about - no deleting of discussion of targeted promotions, etc.

Perhaps the payments received by the participants might even help to decrease pressure from said companies to push their agenda through and make this site a marketing and customer service tool for them where they would start to feel free to think they can censor members' postings - unfortunately, we have recently seen such tendencies already.

To clarify, even though I would preclude "free" e-mail addresses such as Hotmail etc. from being used for registration, they could be used by the users as their contact address in their profile - other users would not get to see the "main" e-mail address used for registration.

All the above replies seem to overlook one small reality.

The more users and vistors to FT, the better for Randy.

Paying even 1c to register would deter a pretty large slab of lurkers and new sign ups - IMHO.

www.MoreMiles.org for instance has strict entry criteria for new posters. However it is a tiny board. For Randy's staff to duplicate that on a board this size would require him to employ several staff simply to verify it all, at a scary real $$$$ cost.

A real email address (no Yahoo/Hotmail) would be a positive start I agree, but the trolls would surely work around that one too?

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~ Glen ~ sipping bubbly from a UA 747-400 exit row 15 near you SOON!

You would have a somewhat more sophisticated system - as I said:

Part 1 of the site: Viewable without registration - as a teaser
Part 2 of the site (the majority of the rest): Viewable only with registration, and only for 30 days
Part 3 (after 30 days, and perhaps certain "premium" parts of the site - and posting rights): Only after payment of subscription fee

This way, the same amount of people would still see part of the site. You would just slowly suck them into registering - and paying.


This would be true if Randy made the majority of the money to cover the cost of running this site from banner pageviews and/or click-throughs. I might be wrong, but that is not my impression. At the big portals, everyone used to think "the more eyeballs, the better, we will worry about monetization later". That view has changed significantly.

I have no problem with lurkers viewing the site for as long as they want without registering.

The point here is to get rid of anonymous posters, using multiple ID's, who feel free to cause whatever problems they want anytime they get to an internet cafe.

I don't see all that many ads on the forum so I doubt that Randy would lose much in the way of revenues if he had a somewhat lower number of posters -- and this would be more than made up by the fees to be charged (which he would decide).

One thing to keep in mind is demographics. Airlines, hotels, etc., are looking for people on the high end of the income scale. I doubt that very many of these would be put off by a minor charge.

One reason that I would make registration even for viewing at least part of the site a requirement is that it would allow you to slowly build a profile of the user, which would in turn make the user more valuable as an advertising target over time. Anyway, this is just a side aspect that distracts a little from Dovster's goal when he started the thread, I guess, so I will leave it at that.

Banners are relatively new on FT IIRC? The 'staircase' ones especially so.

The huge critical mass of FT is I understand a valuable asset to Randy's fairly large core business. He or staff can consult to airlines or Hotels etc and KNOW backwards the issues their users have. New ideas can be bounced off this audience. Concepts can be floated. Press can and often do can draw from it.

A large FT makes all the above easier and more effective. IMO.

Randy has posted before IIRC that new staff to his core business he sits in front of a computer and has them spend a day or so surfing here just to get a "feel" how Frequent flyers think and act.

ANY kind of a fee or restriction or registration really drives down participation I feel on ANY website. The idea on paper seems to have merit, but it is Randy of course that needs to be convinced, and be very interested in his thoughts if he cares to share.

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~ Glen ~ sipping bubbly from a UA 747-400 exit row 15 near you SOON!

I have to go with Ozstamps on this one. The paperwork and staff involved in verifying ID's on a site like this would be horrific. In cases of flagrant rules violations there have always been enough techies on this board to trace back to who the poster is.

As for me - though a lot of you know who I am and have my "real" email address I sure would not want all that spam going to my work account that the email harvest programs pull from here.

Jan