Active Members: 999

Some weeks this forum (the English community) is quite lively, other weeks it looks like everyone has left. There's only so much to say about the 8 Series and a lot has been said before. Discussions usually live up when an interesting item/car is for sale, someone describes his experience with the E31 or a certain aspect of it, or someone has a problem and seeks help. I'd rather prefer a forum that does have periods of low activity but a lot of knowledge when requested, than a forum that is filled with off topic chatter and no one to reply the real questions...

A forum like bimmerforums.com manages to maintain a much more active 8 Series community, but that forum covers all BMW models drawing in crowds from the other models. Bimmerforums.com also keeps all 8 Series discussions in a single subforum which increases the impression of an active community. But perhaps most important is the fact that bimmerforums.com is open and public. The forum doesn't require registration to view content and the forums are crawled by web search engines. Even if you aren't looking for an 8 Series community, if you search for information about the 8 Series with Google, Bing, Yahoo,... you'll very likely end up at bimmerforums.com.

8er.org on the other hand is locked down. The forum is not crawled by web search engines and is thus nowhere to be found in search results. I guess that the majority of our members is, just like me, from the former clube31.com/clube31.net days when the forum was still open. I noticed that whenever a link to 8er.org is posted at bimmerforums.com there's a boost of (valid) registrations here. It's not that people do not want to join 8er.org - they just can't find it!

Zitat

The suggestion was to make this a club site, meaning that each member would be a club member in their respective country. You would pay 15-20 Euros a year to be a member of the UK e31 club, which was using this site as it's official site.

I don't mind people starting regional or country E31 clubs, but please don't fragment the forums even further!

Where would I belong if this would become the English club forum? Would I have to start a Belgian club and then get my own Belgian part of the forum with as members Pierre Goffinet and me. Now that's going to be a huge improvement in the liveliness of the forums!

Before the French club was founded there was already a French community here at 8er.org and its members had gathered a good deal of information about the 8 Series in French. When the French club was founded a second French subforum was created, only accessible to paying club members. Much to my dismay I noticed that a lot of valuable content was transferred from the free community to the paid club forum! Information that was previously available at no cost was suddenly put behind the paywall and the free community was left more or less as an empty shell - bait to lure newcomers in joining the paid club forum where the real information went to...

In my opinion that's just plain wrong. I'm a strong proponent of free and open information. Don't confuse that with being cheap and wanting everything for free. I support a fair amount of websites and projects through donations and paid memberships, including 8er.org. What happened at the French community is making people pay for content they provided voluntary themselves. Isn't that the opposite world?

Again, I don't mind people starting regional or country E31 clubs. Paid membership may be only natural for some of the services these clubs provide. But if you start locking away information behind the club doors you are not doing well for the world wide E31 community. In a recent thread fabrice (president of the French club) wrote "We also encourage people within the club to make tutorials only available for the club members". With all respect, but in what way is that helpful to the E31 community? You talk about a great international E31 community but all you will create are isolated islands...

E31 enthusiasts from the US may not feel much for membership of a UK club and vice versa, but they have no language barrier between them. US folks may be even less tempted to join a French club, but thanks to online translators like Bablefish and Google Translate they can read each other's content even when they don't speak the foreign language. Today's online translators may not be good enough to allow active participation in a community you don't speak the language of, but they allow you to understand what is being written. A tutorial in a language you don't know suddenly becomes useful.

The Internet broke country borders. Online translators broke language borders.

Why would anyone try to create new artificial borders?

I know that what I described above is absolutely not what you mean, Noggie, but it is what I see happening.

I have no interest in setting up and maintaining a Belgian E31 club, nor joining a Belgian E31 club if there was one. I'm not interested in attending meetings and I don't care about trumpery club accessories like t-shirts and badges. I'm here to learn and share knowledge. I do realize that others may think differently and do enjoy the benefits of club membership. Especially for (bigger) meetings and events a somewhat official club management everyone can trust to arrange things is a treat. If those clubs use 8er.org as discussion platform, it's fair a percentage of the membership fees goes to the web hosting. But if 8er.org needs funds to keep the site up and running, I don't think clubs with paid membership should be the one and only solution. Give people the possibility to donate, but don't take away information from those who don't want to pay. Let's not forget that several already donate their knowledge. Without their efforts this place would be worthless regardless of how well the finances are.

Ideally I see the 8er.org forum split in languages only, just because there isn't a single language everyone is fluent with. But all informational content should be available to everyone regardless of whether or not he or she is a supporting member. I don't even like the mandatory registration to view content we have right now. But then again, this is just my point of view...

Wow, Revtor....

Thanks, you just saved me an hour of typing... Could not put it better myself....

We have become fragmented now and with the loss of some info behind closed doors I can see no improvement...

I could have sworn I paid membership fees years ago come to think of it... No body said it was until the money ran out though...

Alex

Revtor.

First I would just like to say that I believe that your views is the same as many users have.

The payment was brought up at the meeting, and opinions shared, but no decision was made.
A sad truth is that in 5-8 years we run out of money, if the French and Spanish clubs contribute we may be able to keep going a few more years.
We have time to find a viable solution, but it has to be found, and the sooner the better.
I do not support paying for this site as a mandatory fee, but I will support donations.

To some people belonging to a club, having a membership card, or a sticker on the car is important.
In an attempt for this site/community to grow, making it an umbrella for national clubs is an option, and it has in may cases already begun as there currently is 3 clubs who use this site as their official site.

Sadly this puts us in another dilemma, if some pay for the site through a membership and others don't that is not fair.
But as you point out, from some countries there are so few users that having a club is meaningless, and one should not have to join a different countries club to get access.

As you also point out I believe that there are far to many sub forums here already, and I would like to see a huge reduction in sub forums.
We generally just need a "general" a "technical/DIY" and perhaps a "classifieds" for each language.

By splitting the forum to 4 languages, we cover most of the world.
English
German
French
Spanish

But then there is the fact that some forums are doubled up due to the club sites.
Personally I see no reason why the "general" part (of the club forums) could not be open for all, and they could lock the other sub forums for members only.

I would also like to see the "gold membership" return, but in this case what you pay would grant you access to all the club sites too.

This is a difficult situation, and we need to resolve it soon.
I believe that this is a democratic decision, and that the users have to be heard instead of the board making decisions based on what they believe is the best thing to do.

Zitat von schnitz850;95004

Wow, Revtor....

Thanks, you just saved me an hour of typing... Could not put it better myself....

We have become fragmented now and with the loss of some info behind closed doors I can see no improvement...

I could have sworn I paid membership fees years ago come to think of it... No body said it was until the money ran out though...

Alex

Alles anzeigen

The gold membership was a one time 100 euro payment, and you also became a member of the D-A-CH club, and you was a member until that money ran out.
The only cost the club has at the moment is the server costs and like I said, they will run out in about 5-8 years (8 at current cost, but if it increases it will be less).

If you have paid you have "Clubmitglied" under your name. and have access to pretty much all sub forums.
To me it looks like you have "registrierter Benutzer" under your name, and is currently not a full member.

And yes, we have become too fragmented.

Some things seem to require clarification here.

8er.org as it presents itself today came into existence by merging two sites: clube31.com/.org/.net and 8er.ch.
All contents that were available on the free clubE31.com/.org/.net site have remained free apart from the mentioned by Revtor french language contents (which effectively removed their user base).
This also includes stuff that a long time ago was behind bars and required "Gold/Platinum/whatever" membership status as mentioned above by Schnitz & Noggie. These memberships were introduced by the former host of clube31.com/.net/.org Philip Brulé who has long since left the building. I am sure that he, being a young student saw himself unable to provide funding and probably had his Dad swallow the bills before that. After his mysterious disappearing Jud Spencer/USA managed to take control of the website and forum and covered the cost for the website/forum privately. During that time and to my knowledge the former membership restrictions were removed and the "pay-per-view" content was opened to registered users.

8er.ch is the online site of a Swiss/Germany/Austrian 8-series club which was founded in late 2007 and right from the beginning set out to obtain the required funding by offering supporting memberships, henceforth called club membership. The club membership fee, to date, is 100 EUR (ca. 80GBP) as a one time payment and allows access to the club member´s area (generally German language). This way roughly one new club membership is required per month to ensure financial continuity of the site. This club membership is unrelated to the ancient clube31.com memberships which dated back a long time before 8er.ch was founded.

Alternatives like the above mentioned "donations" or as seen on other sites "pop-up-pay-per-click ads" do not cover the bills due to the low volume of traffic and the small community involved. The German E34 board with probably 10x as many members tried to find funding via donations and after initial "generosity" of a select few the donations stopped coming in but the bills still needed to be paid. Another large German forum is 7er.com catering for all BMW 7-series models. This, due to much higher traffic, is quite attractive for commercial advertisers and so you will not only receive content but also see ads wherever you go.
To make a club membership somehow attractive we decided to provide exclusive content when setting up 8er.ch and enable non-club members to see the topics in discussion but not more. This is not pure teasing but rather a glimpse of whether it might be worth it for a registered member of this site to become a supporting member. Much of this content was obtained by club members shelling out uncounted time and money making this available for other members and is without doubt the largest (if not the only) structured archive about everything 8-series related. If you feel annoyed having to see things happening there use the up-arrow on the very right of the forum overview and it is gone with the click of a button.

This 8er.ch structure was already in place before the merger between clube31.com/.net/.org and 8er.ch took place in August 2008. Ever since then the former clube31.com/.net/.org runs off the funds of 8er.ch - it does not cost more money because of that, so the decision was an easy one to take the financial & time load off the former sponsor Jud Spencer. To the users that knew clube31.com back then it may have seemed like some data went into hiding all of a sudden - fact is that there was no meaningful (aka none) German language content on that site and it only came into view upon bringing together those two sites.

What has changed then for users of the English language part of 8er.org vs. the former clube31.com site?
Nothing.
Revtor did and does cleaning and general housekeeping in this area as a service to all members. He also runs his own website E31wiki.org containing a number of excellent articles and is active in other forums too wherever he is needed. To name but a few you can find all of Gerry´s (8Tech) in detail writeups of numerous repairs and improvements, you will find a huge number of Timm´s repair advice here and on his own website. If you ever visited 8Coupe.com rest assured that this is also funded privately - received a first enquiry towards a donation a few days ago and recommended to rather support those in need by way of a donation to charity. (Thanks Burn!)
All this content, and this includes this part of the 8er.org forum is provided free of charge and responsibilities.

I for one know exactly that only counting that half fuel tank required to become a supporting member of 8er.ch has saved me thousands already. This is not counting in what fun there was to be had in the last near decade of 8er ownership and getting to know hundreds of 8er-owners personally and initially by way of this forum.

I hope that this clears some of the misunderstanding here - you reading this, commenting and being an active member of this community are just as important for the survival of the site as is the necessary funding. For now, Noggie mentioned this above, there are funds for a "few dry years" before we have to look into the depths of our own wallets again.

Cheers
Reinhard
Co-founder 8er.ch & 8er.org
Registrar 8Coupe.com
"Mad as a hatter" 8er fan

Great Post Reinhard, got things cleared up.
lot of my information comes through others, and is simply based on my memory.

And yes I was once a clube31.net user.
Also the English section has changed very little since then.

As said this forum has a vast level of expertise, and there is no doubt in my mind that this site is needed on the internet.

The site number one goal from the last board meeting is to grow, and the question is how?
Pay first, then access will hurt us more than gain us.
If I just bought an 8, came on this site and had to pay for it, I would go to i.e Bimmerforums and try there, and I'd say there is a 90% chance I get the right answer.
I do not question the split between what was originally 8.ch and clube31.net, My concern is how attractive this site will be if we end up with a bunch of locked "club sites".
The whole point of this site is to be international, what good will splitting it up and locking the different parts do?

Also since this site is very "hidden" on the internet most people are recruited through other owners they know.
How do we grow if no one know we exist?
And the first time you come to this site as a guest the site looks dead because you cant read any posts. You see plenty of sub forums, but when opened they are empty.
Who wants to join a "dead forum", let alone pay to become a member of one?

I would like to see the general discussion forums open for all to read as a teaser to sign up.
I would also like to see a little more off topic posts simply to keep the forums alive.
I also believe that the goal and challenges of this site should be posted for all members to see.

The English section appears to be the number one forum for the UK, Nordic countries, and the former eastern European countries.
I think this section should be reasonably open to attract new users.
Due to the language barrier I see that there is a need for a German, French and Spanish section.

Not long ago we got our own Scandinavian section, and honestly there is not much happening there, most write in English or in the English section to reach out to as many as possible.
It's nice to have, but do we really need it, or do we really need 8 Scandinavian sub forums? I see the need for one or two

I would like to see less sub forums in the future, and a more open forum that people want to join.

Just my 50 cents - all that is refered about payment here is € 100,- !
Not every month or year like at your fitness or golf or football or tennis... club! One time only for a club that helps you to save hundreds or thousands of €, £ or $?
How many bucks does your BMW dealer take for one hour of wrenching? I'm lucky to have a dealer - not a stealer as many 8er drivers all arround the world, who makes fair prices when I don't have the time that my 8 needs every other day/week/month - and that I have the knowledge, mechanic skills and technical equipment to solve lot's of probs on my own. Do you?
Comparing the consumption of an 8 with the amount of money mentioned above, makes me wonder what this discussion is about!
Hm, the 50 cents nearly have become € 2,- now, but as Steffen from bimmerforums states: The price of cool ain't cheap!
Let me add a few words to this: But loving an 8 and beeing a "Clubmitglied" with acces to all forums on this board for € 100,- one-time is priceless!

P.S.: Amount of money I paid for tickets in 2011(8er specific, speed and distance only, no wrong parking) in €: 320,-

Just to clarify one point....

Whatever I paid to Phillipe back in the day to become a gold member...( I was also a TEAM member back then but hay ho....) does not mean a thing then....

Yes I am a bit bitter, It was only with Jud's help did I manage to organise the first huge gathering of 8's in this country 34 I recall at Gaydon. I have helped s much as I can, never asked for a thing but this forum Must be open to all with free (Or minimal €25/year) access to the wealth of knowledge and expertise on tap.

When I see a post on the front page and have genuine information to add but cannot I just said WTF and went back to Ebay....

It's worth the small change just for Gerry's posts.... Oh and the regularity at which my mate Stevep840/850/840!! changes his cars...

Rant over...

It's not about the money, even €100 is not much.
It about crossing that line, the principle.
If someone is to pay it needs to be worth it, it is an extremely simple mechanism behind this, what do I pay and what do I get in return.
If the return is not good enough, or in this case unknown no one will pay for that.
For existing users this is not really an issue, you know what you get.
The problem is to get new people pay to sign up, if you have to pay to sign up before you know if you will get any "value for that money" you will go elsewhere.

In Norway the BMW car club just made that mistake, they increased the members fee with 50% and lot's of people left, It's not about the money itself, it's about what you get for it.
Most here will agree that this site is worth paying for, but some will not, and new people will not. They will go to the free forums, bear with some off topic posts, the occasional feud and personal attacks, because it's free.
You probably have members in here that have not written a single post, and some that have written 10 in the past 5 years, would they pay... even €5?

This is the beauty of having something partly open, you get people in here, and if they want full access they pay.
That is why I'd like to see the General parts open, and the technical, classifieds ect can be locked if it comes to a membership fee.

I'd like to keep it free, the clubs can continue to pick up the bill, we can make a donation system, and we could hold lotteries ect. at the official meetings and whatever we made would go to running the site.

We have time on our side, with what is left today, small contributions from the clubs, a donation system and some sort of profit from the meetings and we may keep this site running for 20 years.
If we start now, when we still have several years before this becomes a pressing issue, we might just raise enough money in the next 5-8 years to keep it running for a few more years.
Lets start now, and think ahead, and not when the money has run out.

Zitat von schnitz850;95015

Whatever I paid to Phillipe back in the day to become a gold member...( I was also a TEAM member back then but hay ho....) does not mean a thing then....

Your support at that time kept clube31.com alive until funds ran out, until the owner decided otherwise, until Jud Spencer stepped in.
What you were promised back then is still available today, so from that point of view your "gold membership" still holds the same value today that it did in ancient times.
Look for (old) postings using Search-Advanced Search and extract all postings made by "8er.org". This "value added" content was made available to everyone in the last years of clube31.com since Jud decided to do so.
Martin and Christoph spent weeks to make sure every single bit of content of the old site survived the merger.

Zitat von Noggie;95028

If someone is to pay it needs to be worth it, it is an extremely simple mechanism behind this, what do I pay and what do I get in return.

We have to accept the fact that opinions may differ here
To me the question is simple to answer. A single answer to a technical question may save you ten times the amount of any supporting fee, even if a regular payment was required. I am sure you know what is meant by that. It touches the intrinsic values of a community filled to the brim with experts that for their own joy share their knowledge and assist where they can.
No community - no help. You pay elsewhere.
Further above the dreadful "Check the archives" was mentioned as if this was the regular case here.
Now please, go and "Check the archives" for yourself who in this forum was the last one to utter such seemingly unfriendly words?

Zitat

If the return is not good enough, or in this case unknown no one will pay for that.

Over the course of 4 and a half years 130 8er owners have decided to support this board by way of a club membership - as far as I am concerned this is a long way from "no one". Many of those would not give a bird´s dropping about what else they might receive in return. They did it for their very own reasons and some certainly only because they felt grateful for the help that was provided before.

Zitat

...and new people will not

10 new supporting members found in 2011 so I have heard. Most of the costs for the site are covered, remainder from savings account. All is well.

Zitat

... the occasional feud and personal attacks, because it's free.

As far as I am concerned this is an 8-series forum. I have nothing against a hearty laugh but the signal to noise ratio needs to be in favor of what this is all about, else I can go and see my "friends" on facebook.

Zitat

You probably have members in here that have not written a single post, and some that have written 10 in the past 5 years, would they pay... even €5?

Yes. One of my dearest friends is a reader only. He never questioned the necessity of support for something that helps him keeping his flotilla of 5 8ers alive and on the road be it for an "added value" archive or not.

Zitat

This is the beauty of having something partly open, you get people in here, and if they want full access they pay.

This forum is open to everyone that manages to write his name and address clearly in the registration form. It is not open to the world to see and join in just to come for a mudslinging contest or troll around. To me this is the beauty of this private forum. Apart from that: privacy bears value in itself. I have seen 8er fans come and go, those that managed to come to 8er.org seem to be the ones that have come to stay.
Has every 8er owner using the forums registered his car on 8Coupe.com? No. It is widely visible, it is free, it has information not available elsewhere, it is open to the public, so why not? I am still missing around 90% of all 8er owners...

When founding 8er.ch and 8er.org the vision was to create something that would weather the times to come and not wither away once the user base diminishes. Even if you were the only one left you´d always come to a place where you can smell and feel the 8er in every tiny corner not just the musk and stale smell of long forgotten quarrels about whose is bigger.

Zitat

We have time on our side...

Yes we have. There is no need to overly dramatize things here.

Whoever wishes to support this community for it being there can do so and although this is nothing that is truly needed will even receive a pass to the largest 8er library in existence.

All 8er fans that feel comfortable using this site for their 8er related or unrelated needs will always be able to do so without a single penny/cent required and can rest assured that others are just waiting for a difficult question to come up

Cheers
Reinhard

As I am not being even the last hole of shrill pipe '' common idiom in Turkish '' I have little to write here about but I need to say what I feel from the someone elses eyes like the one you are talking about to draw atention and money in some way.

As a beginning, being visible on the internet definitely helps to grow up, no question but I am not the one to decide how much might be seen.

We are very small community here ( not more than 5 ) and just two of them is willing to read and write here. So local club thing doesn' t work for us like some other places.


We have very big BMW forum site here and sharing something there makes more sound if it comes to enjoy, there is no language problem as I still can' t express my feelings as I want when I compare to read and understand in English. But I usually don't share about 8 things there and it' s not because I might not get the correct response, it is because knowledge, age and experience level of this forum make me feel that I am in the right place as I'm driving right car.

I have never joined any forum to get my problem solved or asked something. In some forums my first post was maybe a year after my join date. I am more like reader than writer in the foreign forums because of language and I really enjoy reading about technical issues and learn something from them and share somewhere else like here when in time. Of course I ask for help or just opinion when I need but I like to share some experience of me if it may help to the others even if they may know much more than me. This is life and sharing.

This forum is different from bimmers or such else but this difference is not only being 8 forum instead of 8 section inside, it is because of quality of posts and wise and noble words used in and endless knowledge on 8 as well. And I want it to live forever.

Having said that;
If someone has some gain from this forum more than me he/she wants it to live more than I want and does more than me to ensure this including paying for bills I respect this.
If someone tells me that I will get more than what I have here now by paying some money, no I'm not interested, I don't need to see more.
If sameone tells me I needed to pay money to continue to be a part of this world, no thanks it is not something necceary in my life.
If I've been told that I saved couple of euros by this forum and I must not hessitate to pay some of them as a response to keep this site alive or I am getting cheeper help than local BMW service, no I don't think that way as I was ready to pay a lot when I bought my 8 and I have almost my own full capacity service here in Türkiye and this will easily and cheaply help me couple of years more until BMW completely stop producing spare parts of 8.

BUT I like this community and like to be part of it although I am far away from attending meetings and not having chance to meet any of you in person and chatting about, and again I want it to be here even with bigger member profile in the future.

So if someone tells me that they needed my help to ensure that I would have what I expected in the future from this forum by paying some money than I'm in because this is something different.

Regards
Deniz

Reinhard.

It was too difficult to quote so I will just simply comment on it here.

By "If the return is not good enough, or in this case unknown no one will pay for that.", I meant new people signing up.
And the fact that IF we in the future require money to sign up, most people will go somewhere else, because they don't know what this site can offer.
The people that are here now see the value of this site, and will probably be willing to support the site to keep it alive.

10 new supporting members in 2011, yes, and I was one of them... should have done it years ago.
However there is very little information on this site that it is even possible to support, if it was, then maybe there would be even more people supporting.

"lets not over dramatize things"
True, but there is nothing wrong with looking ahead and plan to avoid future issues, than wait until the issue arise.
Like I said it was mentioned at the board leader meeting last year, and I'm sure it will be brought up this year too, and I believe it it a good thing to discuss this before that meeting to get input from the members.

I'm not wanting a full range of OT posts and meaningless threads.
Threads like "I just washed my car today",
"was at the beach and took some pictures",
"had 3 e31's in my driveway today",
"some local e31 owners met for pizza today",
"just got a new car(not an 8)"
ect would be nice, and not just "I have a problem with....." threads (not saying that is the case today).

People making "project threads" on their cars would also be nice to see.
I just hope people are not afraid of posting things that are not directly related to their e31.

"search the archives" is not very commonly used her, and I simply hope that it never will be, even if the archives on here is a gold mine of information.

Ok, as one of the "language challenged" here, let me say my 2cents...

There are 2 main questions: How to make this forum bigger, with a lot of useful info thatt serves a lot of 8ers, and how to keep it realisable from a financial point of view.

And in finding the balance between both concepts is the goal.

So on one side I think (as some of you) the forum, and the knowledge, has to be as many available for everybody as possible. And has also to be available for Google and other finders to find us and help us spread this site.

So I would like to see this site open for everybody, and as easy to acess as possible. Also for the available info in here, which could be organised in a much more simpler way. I agree in having few sub-forums, otherwise to find a given post becomes an impossible matter! I know this will be a difficult one, but one we have to face.

This lefts the financial question to answer, then. For me it's clearly not fair that only the D-A-CH club members finance that site. Nor that we ask for a "mandatory" fee to acess some parts of the forum for everybody.

Then we have also to answer another question: what's more valuable for an 8er: me paying 100€ for becoming a "Clubmigtlied" (whatever it means :)) or Gerry or Revtor, or anybody else, putting an outstanding post abut how to solve some problem on the car?

Nevertheless, as Noggie has explained, the 8ers in the different countries are organising as Clubs. Lover's clubs. Clubs that requiere a (low) fee to become members, but have few costs to attend. So What is the purpose of those clubs, other than help the members to gather other members and help eachother to better know his 8? And what is the purpose of this forum?

So maybe we have to count on the Clubs to keep this forum running. Each club pays a yearly fee, taking in acocount how many members has. That means we would have to find a formula to the D-A-CH club members, that have already payed for some years, so they can have as a club a grace period or somethin, just an idea.

And the Clubs, supported by the aficionados, make this task a part of their reason to be.

What do you think?

Alex

You have a good point.

Thing is, there are just a few countries with actual clubs, and not all of them charge a members fee.
And as Revtor pointed out earlier, there are 2-3 Belgian users on the forum, making a club does not make sense.
This is the situation in most countries, maybe less than 10 active users, having country clubs make no sense to most.

If this site is supposed to be an "umbrella corporation" for e31 clubs I really don't see that as possible. There are too many users that will never have a local club to join, not to mention that someone will have to take the initiative in each country to start a club.
You cannot tell someone to "make a club" in their countries.
In Norway me and Huldra66 has started to create a community, and we have done so because we want to, we are not an official club, and the thought was that this was to be free, but we would know where to find others, and be able to seek help in our own language.

So do we accept that the established clubs take the cost of running this site, and let users from countries with no clubs use the site for free?
At the moment I think that may be the best solution as this site has users that are club members, and some that are simply individuals, and that is why I think a donation system may be worth having, so that the individuals who wish to can support the site.

Reinhard, I hope you didn't take my post as an offense towards the 8er.org organization. I was just venting my thoughts and you know I have strong opinions over certain matters. I do however realize that some of my ideas may be idealistic but not realistic.

Let there be no doubt about that I would encourage everyone to support 8er.org. In fact, even without additional content or services I think this site deserves support if only to keep the source of its knowledge (the users) in one place. The English community at 8er.org benefits hugely from the German community and I'm not talking about the free ride we get on the servers... There has been a massive flow of information towards the English community after the clube31.com and 8er.ch merger thanks to people like you, Reinhard. I'm afraid that if 8er.org would cease to exist, we'd all go separate ways and that would be a great loss.

Zitat von Noggie;95028

That is why I'd like to see the General parts open, and the technical, classifieds ect can be locked if it comes to a membership fee.

But putting the classifieds section behind the paywall also means items for sale will reach less potential buyers. In other words, you pay to get less chance upon selling. I don't think the sellers would appreciate that.

Making the technical section part of the paid membership is not a good idea either in my opinion. For the English community non-members would just post their requests for advise over at bimmerforums.com and they would get good answers too because most of us are member there as well. Besides, if you are looking for technical advise it's not very inviting to pay for access to a forum/section you could not even preview. For all you know after subscribing you are the membership fee lighter and no answer richer. That's not a good motivation. People should pay because they respect the website and its members and wish to keep it alive. These people are to be found amongst the forum's residents - the furniture if you will. Not amongst newcomers or mayflies. But does that mean the latter do not deserve information?

To put it bluntly, in my opinion supporting members should pay to keep things free for the others. That may sound awfully unfair at first sight, but if every online community would start locking away their content behind paywalls things would get very expensive if you need information.

I think there are some other things to consider as well...
We have here (regardless of the language used) a very friendly community.
The quality of the posts are high and the tone is very civilized. This, unfortunately is rather unique in todays world wide web.
Pushing the doors wide open and letting everyone in would inevitably degrade the forums quality.
A couple of years ago we had our share of the accusing, flaming, banning type of E31 community here in Germany. I'm not too keen on going that road again...

There is also a legal aspect (at least here in Germany). We have hordes of lawyers, who are greasing the net to find copyright protected content and make lots of money trough this. As long as most of our content is invisible for the ordinary Joes, we can post whatever we like (Pages out of magazines, car ads, etc). Opening these sections to everyone, might bring us many problems.

There are other, larger 8 series communities on the net in different languages but most of them are quite noisy places. Why do we need to replicate that sort of experience here?

The 8 series are slowly becoming a real classic sports coupe and as owning one becomes more and more difficult, it attracts more of the real enthusiast (like we are).
Keeping this enjoyable platform for these enthusiast is what I find important.
(Please don't misunderstand me: I don't mean some exclusive, luxury, best of the best, look how much I earn type of club here.)
The words might be improper in this context, but I risk them anyway: I would opt for quality over quantity regarding future user base increase.

I understand the problem with the current "paying without seeing" concept but there might be solutions to that. Giving an interested guest a limited time (say a month) membership for a small fee would allow a look behind the fence and help with his/her decision of joining the forum our not.
The help which is offered by the countless experts here is invaluable. Therefore I find a 100 Euro one time payment more than justified, especially if one plans to keep the car for many years. Other clubs charge similar amount of money but each year.
A combination of a smaller fixed amount and an optional donation part would be also possible.

This thread seems to collect views and ideas regarding the future of this site, so I hope you don't mind my somewhat different opinion regarding openness.

Cheers,
Steve

Steve.... to hear your, and others opinions was the general idea.
I too like the fact that we are somewhat closed, but I don't think it should be so closed that you need to know someone to actually know the site exist.
I also like the quality over quantity but.
What I see however is the fact that many of us have in time met in person, and the community is small, so in some ways you end up with a group of actual friends, and that should hopefully generate some slightly off topic threads in here.

Personally I'd like to keep things just as they are, with a few adjustments to the forum structure.
And quite possibly a "chat room".

The money issue was brought up at the board leader meeting last year, and it will come back in the future.

At the moment we should probably keep things the way they are, and let people have their free ride. But I would like to let people know they have the option of becoming a supporting member, or to give donations.

Revtor.
Just as a comment to your quote. I hope this site will never become a pay site, but if it did, my suggestion that you quoted was purely based that scenario. If this site had become a pay site, the general forum should still be open to make people join.

Hi guys,
I'm a longtime lurker on various E31 forums, and a lurker on here for some (lesser) time also.
I have not the experience of this forum to comment meaningfully on the very broad subjects touched upon in this thread, but I would quickly say:

The civility and maturity of this board is such a (positive) characteristic of this forum that I have so far felt compelled to stay in the shadows. I certainly wouldn't want this forum to change - better that i change, or at least, that i temper my usual enthusiasm to discuss all manner of E31 trivia and limit my occasional posts.
After all, I can discuss the trivia on other E31 forums.

I'm stating the obvious maybe, and have no solution to the longterm issues discussed here re: funding etc, but wish to say hello and hope that it doesn't change much. Now that I have introduced myself, perhaps i will try to participate a little more on the day-to-day threads, because as someone else has pointed out, every forum needs new blood/ activity and a sense of traffic, just hopefully "not too much" maybe in this case. But for sure I think my zest for the topics (being a new 8er) and enthisiasm in communicating will do its small part to helping this place continue to exist.

I think what i'm saying is - new users must be encouraged, it adds vitality, but also i think everyone recognises, with too many new users all the time, you risk changing the character of this place too much, and that really would be a shame. So - there is no easy solution to that conundrum, but new members who are mindful of the existing character must be encouraged, as much as possible.

My name is Burn, I'm from London, I have a dakargelb II 1998 840ci, I've spoken with Reinhard a few times via email regarding some small matters and speak with many forum members on the uk bimmer forum, but i'll endeavour to keep my posts here more thoughtful than on others.

ITs nice to finally say hello here, and hope this thread was not the totally least appropriate thread to announce myself!

kind regards to you all,
Burn

I beleive most of the sensitive people in the 8 world who see the value of this community will support sooner or later and this will guarantie maybe another 8 years or so. And they will be the desirved ones no doubt. Even this topic itself has switched on some lights.

Hey everyone - greetings from Oregon USA.

Permit me to share a few observations:

First, I want to encourage everyone to keep the conversations going. The diversity of opinion is good to hear and only can help improve the community.

Second, I believe the 8er will continue to be an important part of BMW's history moving forward which will trickle down to various 8er communities-of-interest.

Third, people like Reinhard, Revtor, Fredi, Christoph, Martin, Noogie, Steve, and others (you know who you are), are what makes a community strong and interesting. Without your participation and efforts, the 8er community is poorer in spirit.

Fourth, accessing information - free or subscription - is a never-ending discussion unless the community comes together and understands the levels of data access and at what costs to support and access it.

And lastly, as was pointed out, Bimmerforums (and before that Roadfly), gets a lot more traffic because of the broad coverage of all BMW models. As a newbie myself in 1999, I used Roadfly's E31 forum to learn about the E31 before buying 3 E31's by the end of 2000. I understand the reasoning here for public access. For 8er.org, I also understand why it's set up the way it is today. Both are valid points of view.

It's good to see the postings - I wish you all a great 2012!