I ......

I think this really starts to work against the entire reason that Astromart became so popular to begin with... it is free If there are fees... might as well head on over to the other major auction site.

Free is a good thing

As I have stated elsewhere I am happy to pay $12 per year to participate. I advocate a fair and equitable Astromart for all. I am currently an Orange Featured Ad supporter and proud of it. I have been for some time.

Out of fairness I want to say that I for one am extremely disappointed with all of the users especially the Top Users who post numerous ads without so much as an Orange Featured Ad support level. Look at the names with disgust - http://www.astromart.com/users/topusers.asp. (or click on the Top Users List link on the left navigation) Charging everyone a fee is fair to all until you factor in these users who will likely still take advantage of the system. Orange should be the minimum. Once you use your 5 ads ante up again.

I say pay for use or there will continue to be abuse.

Kent Kramer

Let them browse all they want. But $1 a month to be a member IS very affordable for anybody.
G 8O

The forums are just as important as the classifieds. We learn and can interact just as we do at a local club meeting.

There are reviews of equipment, sky objects, etc. Much more valuable than a normal paper subscription.
I constantly find myself searching other sites and academic sites because of comments made on the forums. The flow of the forums as AM has it set up is very free flowing and comfortable. Other sites are, for a variety of reasons, cumbersome and uninviting.

The fee suggested ($12.00) is exceedingly fair (too low (IMHO). There should be fees for listings. If not, then at least a fee structure should be established for levels of use (frequency).

I'll stop here for now....

John

First, the things we agree on
1) $12/year is (too?) cheap
2) AM is well worth paying a fee for
3) Herb deserves to be rewarded for his efforts

But that being said, I'm very hesitant about charging for access to this site. I have only been in astronomy for about three years, and I have found that the astronomy online is very "closed-doors" compared to the rest of the online world. When I was looking for answers to my questions, I would google the question and start looking for the answers. This is how I found AM, and I stuck around because it was a place I knew I could consistantly find answers to my questions. If you start charging a fee for access, you kill off all the potential new users from the search engines. Building an online community by word-of-mouth may have worked before, but my generation expects to be able to explore the site before plunking down the credit card.

Since the question is being raised, I assume that this site is in need of revenue. That is fine, but make sure that you don't cut off the new users in the process. IMO, browsing the forums and classifieds are the two biggest attractions to this for new user. These activities should not be touched by fees. If advertising is not sufficient to support the site go ahead and charge for the right to post (and respond to?) classifieds, post to the forums, and read the articles.

Now why didn't I think of that
8O
Rick H

Anything that keeps A-mart working is great. I say charge an initial $20 to run ads. $2 bucks per ad (or whatever is needed), renew when your account hits zero (another $20). Set the site up to accept Paypal too.

Why? I think we want to continue to allow new people to wander in and see whats up.

I have been interested in amateur astronomy for a little over 3 years now. I have found that Astromart simply seems to be the only "up to date" place to find information about events and suppliers on line. I am not sure however that I would be willing to pay $12/yr. for access to this site, I would simply more likely give up amateur astronomy as a hobby.

I understand that bandwidth, servers and time spent maintaining the site are all expensive, and I don’t feel that anyone should work without being compensated. This said the current site is very nice (complex, many features). If the time and expense are too great for a site as large as this one maybe it would be better to focus on the "swap" side of the site and not focus so much on the other content.

I have tried to purchase items on a few occasions to only find out that they were sold within 10 minutes of the posting and the ad not yet removed and I have been frustrated that there isn’t a convenient way to pay securely online, but I have accepted this as all part of a "non-commercial" site.

Recently I haven’t had very much money for anything, and my involvement is more wish lists and getting to see what I might want if I had money. If I had to pay...I’d have to leave.

Thanks.