Freeloaders !

[Naranja_Al]

Speaking from personal experience, I joined WSCC before buying my car which I ultimately bought from an old member who is no longer a member. The car was advertised in the Cars for Sale section of the forum and I did find it before joining.

 

I have found the forum an invaluable source of knowledge. I’d like to say it has saved me money, but the reality looking at other people’s cars and their upgrades has simply made me spend more! 🤣

 

There needs to be certain sections of the forum that remain ‘public’ and those that need to remain for members only. Striking that balance is the key for me.

 

[Captain Colonial]

Good Lord, a man goes away for a few hours and…!

 

I’ll try to reply as best I can.

 

1) Bear in mind I’m not a committee member and don’t make policy decisions any longer.  I help with technical things backstage on odd occasions as I’m retired.  That’s it.

 

3 hours ago, maurici said:

And forced long old paying members to re-join and have to pay for information that they generated in the basis of being free for all.  And while probably is perfectly legal, the morality of having to keep paying in the future just to have access to your own build tread is really obscure. Sorry Scott our first interaction after re-joining is a rant... but I can't shake the feeling I had when I wanted to recover the shopping list for my MNR wishbones and I couldn't do so... 

I hope you are well tho... I almost always liked you. 😛

 

 

2) I refer the Right Honourable Member to the Guidelines we all agreed to when we joined, specifically the last paragraph:

 

”Content Reuse

The Club owns all forum content and reserves the exclusive right to retain, use, re-use and re-publish in part, or whole, material including text and photos, submitted to and hosted by the forum, for the benefit of its members in perpetuity. Such uses may include reposts, links to posts and publication of same in the Club's official magazine.  Material posted to forum areas which are available exclusively to club members (such as in Tech Talk or FAQs) may not be disseminated, copied or shared by members outside the club, to other websites or to social media platforms.”

 

However, if a member leaves the club and wishes a copy of their build thread, all they need do is contact the committee and a copy will be made available to them.

 

(I’m fine thank you and hope you are the same.  I almost always liked you too and never found you to be boring or lacking an opinion - which is a good thing overall.)

 

3) I’m not a committee member.

 

2 hours ago, dvd8n said:

I totally agree with this, but there's no harm in reviewing the balance between paid and free forum areas.

 

4) Agreed.

 

5) Did I say I’m not a committee member?

 

2 hours ago, dvd8n said:

Is that true?  I thought that I'd gone through the typical "will I fit" discussion here before I bought westy and joined, but I may be misremembering...

5) You’re not misremembering.  I was trying to be brief, but people can join for free as a Trial Club Member for up to 60 days or 50 posts (whichever comes first) to see if the club is a good fit.

 

6) In case you missed it, I’m not a committee member.

 

 

[Mark Stanton]

Vote Captain C for president 🤣

[Captain Colonial]

5 minutes ago, Mark Stanton said:

Vote Captain C for president 🤣

I thought you were my friend! 😬

[Kingster]

1 hour ago, Captain Colonial said:

I thought you were my friend! 😬

No that’s @maurici 🤣

[MR.C]

i payed for membership of WSCC ,forum is a small bonus.

If someone gets views from the  back door good on 'em.

 

[dvd8n]

3 hours ago, Captain Colonial said:

people can join for free as a Trial Club Member for up to 60 days or 50 posts (whichever comes first) to see if the club is a good fit

 

That sounds right

 

David

 

PS Had you thought of being a committee member?

[Captain Colonial]

1 minute ago, dvd8n said:

PS Had you thought of being a committee member?

[Kit Car Electronics and Essex AO]

If the forum is going to attract traders and sponsors then it needs to be somewhat open, since there are very few new builds progressing and a limited market of potential customers otherwise - I used to get contacted by people from all over the world that had stumbled on threads here in 'tech talk' - those contacts stopped completely when we went to 'member viewing', so it's definitely a tricky balance to strike.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

If you ask in a reasonably adult manner, we have a mechanism where we can make your own previously posted build thread available for you as a lapsed member to view, download, copy etc. We’ve done it a few times for ex members.

 

However, if you start your requests with verbal attacks, abuse against the club etc, then we may not read far enough through the message to find out you were asking for a favour! 

 

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

And as Scott pointed out, you have no read or write access to virtually all the forums technical resources as a none paid member. Though you will get to see a little more as a trial member, when first signing up, this has a thirty day limit.

 

We have a balancing act to perform, between protecting the Clubs content, all held on our own server, which cost the club actual money, and at the same time, holding back the curtain just enough for potential new members to get an idea of what they’re missing.

 

This is also why on our social media pages, like Facebook, we have a very strict no technical posts policy, I am genuinely sorry to those Club members I know we have occasionally upset when we’ve caught them up in that, but it’s there for a very good reason.

 

Our technical pages and responses here on the forum are essentially peer reviewed by a broad, and very knowledgeable club membership. So if you get an answer here to a tech question, you can be so much more confident in the answer.

[Steve G.]

I've been a member of the club for around a year and the only contact I have had with the club is through the forum and magazine. Unless I pay the extra for future magazines the forum will be the only benefit I get from club membership.  It makes me think things should stay as they are and why should others get that for nothing. 

But, how many members regularly use the forum ? I've seen many forums shut down since Facebook became popular and those that remain and seem busy are free to all. 

With limited magazine subscribers and lower form use doesn't this limit the effectiveness for sponsors to advertise?

I realise there are many benefits to being a member of the club but for various reasons I've not been able to make use of them this year.

[Julie Hall - WSCC AO Representative]

11 hours ago, Steve G. said:

With limited magazine subscribers

 

Every single member receives the magazine, it is whether it is received in a digital format or a paper copy that is a choice. 

11 hours ago, Steve G. said:

limit the effectiveness for sponsors to advertise

 

on the digital magazine, QR codes and links can be provided to take the member straight to their website, this could be seen as more effective

[tex]

On 21/11/2024 at 11:07, joolz said:

You're a registered trader same as me, so you know how much we are paying for our memberships so I understand what you're saying and agree 90%. The other 10% of me thinks we need to allow *some* free forum use otherwise everyone will just move to facebook.

Facebook atm is full of hackers, I got hit the other day with multi pop ups on my mobile device I couldn't stop. Took quite an effort to get rid.. I've heard of a few people who have similar (no not off my friends lists) 😁