Hello all, this is mainly for the admins. I think free speech alley, etc. should be open to all. I am a college student and cannot afford to pay money to the site. Thoughts?
There are a lot of students in the same boat, but there has to some incentive for people to keep contributing to this site. Every once and a while they will have a thread for sponsoring poor students like yourself. Stick around and get to know the softies of the forum.
If running a board were free, all the forums could be free . . . and they once were. But as the forum got bigger and added more features it had to migrate to bigger servers, administered professionally and that costs money. Rather than make it a pay board to get any access at all or to flood it with many huge advertisements that make it slow, Brett decided to make it a free board where contributors get extra privileges (like access to other forums, ability to see rep commenters, and other perks) in return for their contibutions to supporting the site. The free areas are there for all of us and folks like yourself that can't afford to contribute will always be welcome. In time, you will be able to afford the $2 a month contribution and enjoy the whole board. It's less than a longneck costs. You'll figure out a way! You'll probably beat Terry.
Dont go out to eat just one night when you normally would and that makes up the payment for a whole entire year.
Free admission to the Free Speech Alley? The conservatives will tell you to earn your way...:usaflagwa The liberals will try to get the government to pay your contribution...:grin: The independents...well, you already heard from Red. *I'll pay your way as long as you don't hang out with Mastermind. :hihi: Stick to the sports pages. Believe it or not, they're more civil...:lol: You've got many more years to drive yourself nuts with politics. Okay...okay, I'll take this back to the other board where it belongs! :thumb:
Come on, 20 bucks a year. Do you party on weekends as a poor college student? This is not a great expense. Less than half a tank of gas (or soon to be quarter tank) :shock:
If an LSU student ended up spending $20 to go out some night for several enjoyable hours, I don't think he'd look back at that as outrageous, and that was just for one night. $20 bucks at TF lasts a lot longer than one night, a lot longer than several enjoyable hours. In other words, I really do not believe $20 is significant enough to put a serious dent in anyone's pocket, especially not a college student. Even if we were talking about a bum living on the streets whose job is selling stuff he dug out of trashcans, I still wouldn't think $20 is unreasonable for updated membership at TF, especially since we offer limited access for free. I think Brett's system here is perfect... limited free access for anyone, and for those that like their experience here with the limited free access they get, $20 is a perfectly reasonable price for full access, even for a college student, even for a homeless bum, that wants more than the limited free access (which is still very enjoyable in its own right). The thing I'd be most considered about with the money thing, is trusting TF with my credit card number, IP address, etc... but I really do feel that we have a very trustworthy bunch of people running TF (and I have a very hard time giving out my personal info via the internet to people I've never met).
Not gonna get much better bang for your buck. You couldn't get 3 beers in the superdome with $20 bucks, or could get an entire year of TF. Plus, it helps this great place going for all the people that just read the free stuff.
