Important change to Buy/Sell & Trade forum, please read.....

[Doug]

It has been suggested in the past that perhaps it would be a good idea to make the Buy/Sell & Trade section for member's eyes only, with the ultimate goal being to entice more guests and registered users to become real members (that is, donating members). I toyed with this idea for a while but ultimately decided that the reduction in people's ability to post or view for sale topics would hurt the section's usefulness.

With the lack of steady membership income over the last year (excluding the raffle for a moment which allowed me to upgrade my toolset and backup capabilities), it has become increasingly hard for me to pay for site finances, and I have tried to not only mitigate expenditure by watching bandwidth charges and adjusting as needed, but implemented google ads (which are pretty much useless unless you click on them, which, 'ahem, no one does!:) ). It occurred to me that although minimal, it may make financial sense to open up the posting and reply capability of the for sale section ONLY to donating members. All guests and non members can still view ads, which i feel is a good compromise between leaving it as is and fully locking the section down. Perhaps it may only entice a few people per month to join, but when we are getting only 2-3 members a month renewing or joining, a few is exactly double what we currently see - thats 100% growth!

I know there will be temporary complications as a result of this change, such as non donating users that have already placed ads and need to make changes, or if there are ongoing conversations within posts currently going on. I realize there can sometimes been time constraints on these conversations, so I am offering these two options - take your discussion to the personal message format, or if necessary, contact a moderator or myself to make changes to postings (ie "sold" or a "new price"). To be fair, I will allow all ads that are currently posted by non-members to remain.

I apologize for those that have issues as a result of this change, but perhaps this is the nudge you need to take the plunge and join the gang for real. There is detailed member information here: http://www.r1150r.net/contact.html and this link is also readily available via the "Support the site!" link at the top of r1150r.net, should you wish to contribute.

Thanks for everyone's support over the years, and for all of those that graciously decide to join as a result of this plea for funds. The site can not continue without your support and although money has been tight in the past, we've always managed to find a way to break through and grow as a result of the member's generosity.

Cheers everyone,
-Doug

[CycleRob]

Good idea. There should be more desirable privileges for paying members and less conveniences like BBCode, img and url.

How will you prevent non members from sending the seller a PM for info or to purchase the parts? Even if you remove the PM icon, they'll do it on Off Topic or elsewhere.

[Doug]

I cant. The change is primarily designed to not allow non members to post, but still allow members to have a wide audience to sell their stuff.

[snowprick]

Some forums use a member only area for sales. Can we not do the same?

[Doug]

We could do that, but I decided against it. We have maybe only 10% of the viewers here who are members. That means that 90% of the people coming to the site wont see the ads. I think from a sales perspective, its a bad idea. If someone wants to sells something, thats when they need to be a member.

[OU812]

We could do that, but I decided against it. We have maybe only 10% of the viewers here who are members. That means that 90% of the people coming to the site wont see the ads. I think from a sales perspective, its a bad idea. If someone wants to sells something, thats when they need to be a member.

I concur.

[Dan-A]

KLR560.net charges $25.00 to post a bike for sale.

[OU812]

KLR560.net charges $25.00 to post a bike for sale.

Glad i don't go there..

[Dan-A]

That's why I sold mine on Craig's List.

[f4tweet]

I paid in the blink of an eye. If you ride one of these bikes, $25 is really chump change.

[OU812]

If I had one, maybe.