Few Members Posting

reading thread 82875 may hold the answer, make people welcome whatever the answers you may get (or post) and they will join ...... complain and they will sit back and not bother ..... or it's that time of the month lol

This post has been read by the moderation team and has been moderated due to a breach of The Moderation Complaints Rule .

Forum Moderation Team

Tezza,
I am a bit busy at work due to the pre christmas rush of people wanting their house approval done so they can do it over the christmas break :)

How did your recon on the Imbil track go after the Lake Boondooma weekend??


Cheers Kev

Why would you pay good money to join this site- heavy handed mods, poor layout of forum (threads listed in order of listing and not most recent posts), no breakdown of subjects so when a thread it pops off the first page it really gets the light of day again. And I haven't comment on the nannies you get here - though other forums do have their odd balls as well.

There is nothing on this forum that I can get elsewhere for free so why would you Pay.

Garry

This may be a silly question - I've only been on this site a few months and am not familiar with it all yet - but how can you tell whether or not someone is a member?

I notice some people have left their username as "member - joe blow", whereas mine is just Ayita5. I am a paid member, just that when I signed up and it suggested a name for me "member - blah blah", I deleted it and used Ayita5 instead.

Just wondering if the reason you thought they were not members is because their name didn't say "member" first?

If not, sorry for my silliness and nevermind! :)

Have a great Christmas break everyone, and a SAFE one!! :)

If you do a search you will get your answer, as this topic has been discussed many times before.

I tend to look at the member stat before posting. I dont bother with non members too much.

This post has been read by the moderation team and has been moderated due to a breach of The Inappropriate Rule .

Forum Moderation Team

If I wanted to get abused I would spend more time at home with my Mother in Law and her darling daughter.

Don't normally look at the forum mainly use other parts of the site which has answers to 90% of the questions I seek answers to.

Life's too short.

Cheers.

I sincerely hope that my life never becomes so devoid of meaning and substance, that the question of whether or not a forum poster is a "card carrying, paid-up member", is of any significance whatsoever... YMMV

;-))

Tezza, as a regular poster and contributor on here and being a non member, I think I'm qualified enough to comment on this.

For me, it's purely a cost vs. benefit calculation.

The benefits of being a member the way I see it, is that you can PM other members and post photos. That's about it. The member discounts on offer aren't the draw card...anyone with half decent negotiation skills or shopping savy will get the same, if not better deals without the membership card.

I can't justify taking the $$$$ away from the family budget for something that is essentially just a hobby/past time for me. In times when I have needed info, granted this forum has made my search easier, however, the information is out there, it just might take a little longer to find it.

Having said that... I've also contributed my fair share of useful infomation over the years.

In tough financial times, people spend where they find the best value for money. Perhaps it's time for the powers that be to ask themselves....is Exploroz membership giving it's members value for money?

Now...what the mods do with this post and how they take it is up to them. I understand that sometimes the truth hurts, but the flip side is that without subjective opinions, there is no catalyst for improvement.

If the mods really gave a hoot.... they'd be sending out electronic surveys to members and non members to gauge what keeps members returning and what can be improved, and what's preventing non members from taking the next step. Heck.... they already have their email addresses.

Fab.

Tezza, the simple answer is that you don't NEED to be a Member to use the Forum and we are happy with that. We certainly don't expect ALL site users to be Members, but of course if they find value in the Member Benefits then they will join.

The main point regarding the Forum and the volume of Members using it, is that most of the Member benefits are related to other parts of the site and systems, not the Forum. In fact, I was recently made aware that the majority of Members are NON Forum users. They either don't even look at it, but use Treks, Places, Road Conditions, etc or they are perfectly happy to just READ the Forum. If you look as the stats, this is evident anyway - many more people READ the Forum than Post into it and again, there's no problem with that provided we are meeting our aims to "enthuse, entertain, and inform".

Also, we deliberately tried to keep Membership separate from the Forum so that Forum usage was not restricted in any way - this helps everyone because the VOLUME of people using the Forum is the key to its success as a communication medium.

If you look through the list of Member Benefits - you'll note things like EOTrackMe services, Blogs, Member Profile Page (with increasingly new features), Member Message, Free GPS downloads etc are the main features. Plus the shop discounts, Member Money, free postage, Free Display Ad in Trader (worth $19.95) etc and Member Discount Card that may or may not be of additional interest.

For Members using the Forum, the main advantage is the link to their profile - making ease of Member-Member contact, the ability to create a Trip/Gathering page to organise a group convoy or social gathering, and promotion of anything they are selling in the Trader via the link at the bottom of their Forum post. At $60 to join, and $40 to renew for a whole year, its less than a tank of fuel so its up to the individual if they see that as good value for money.

As always, good to see you all discussing the pros/cons - its horses for course and often you have good suggestions that we can consider too. Cheers all!

Michelle

There is something I think that has not been covered in the replies so far.

There is a seasonal pattern to Exploroz. We are now at a quiet time of year.

A lot of members do trips between April and September. They come back and catch up, post stories and do blogs etc. Then not much to do until late summer or early autumn when new trips are close. This does not apply to everyone of course but it does apply to quite a few.

Flynnie

$60 bucks to join.... boo hoo, we have to pay FIFTY FIVE DOLLARS for a carton of xxxx GOLD cans and drive 200klms at that to get it .......
If the cost of it is a problem i would sell the computer, save heaps man ...

Wait for the wet season .... absolutly LIVE up-dates on road conditions as the rain falls, road closures and openings as they happen, practally LIVE condition reports .......... worth every cent.

and again if $60 bucks is a problem then you wont be able to afford to travel anyware anyway so really it aint the problem is it after all.... :-)

Hi Tezza

I joined as after reading the forum for a few nights I realised that all people who communicate through this medium have a genuine interest in this wonderful country.

I see no relevance whether someone is a member or not, but I do respect the wonderful effort that the team at ExploreOz put into this site, and I find that the small amount the membership cost me was more than worthwhile.

If we have information, and refuse to share it, then it is not information, it is self retained knowlledge, of no use to any but the person holding it. That is just the way I think anyway.

Cheers