anonymised likes

[mg4lotus]

@Bibs Hi Bibs

The "likes" seem to have become anonymised, or is it just me?

[cweeden]

Liked for testing purposes. 🙂 

I can see you 'liked' my post so if they were anonymised it must have been temporary. 👍

[mg4lotus]

I can see the number of likes but I can't see any names attributed to the likes

[Bibs]

#basicaccount

I'm working on ways to encourage more people to take our out Full Forum Membership, this is one of the examples I'm experimenting with to see what works. 👍

[DBG]

Was about to ask the same question. Glad I found the answer. 

[chipp]

Actually putting me off.

[Bibs]

Do shops asking you for money to take things home and use them put you off buying stuff?

We are providing a service which costs us real time and real money despite it being 'the internet', I've made a very, very small part of it available to those that pay the £2/month towards our upkeep as a thank you to them. The other option was to double the number of Google ads on the site, I'm sure this is the lesser evil of the choices.

 

[chipp]

No problem with that at all, just saying as feedback that the statement of basically taking away something to try and get subscriptions puts myself off a bit.

There are lots of sites that don't charge for you to have a read or look at some pictures, but if you want some 'perks' then there is a subcription.

And you're right about the ads, quite annoying when they take over the page virtually. 

Edited April 2, 2021 by chipp

[Bibs]

24 minutes ago, chipp said:

There are lots of sites that don't charge for you to have a read or look at some pictures, but if you want some 'perks' then there is a subcription.

That's pretty much what we're doing on TLF and have done for many years. I'm not complaining but this site has, as I've mentioned before, quite literally cost me seven figures to run based on the time it takes and lost revenue because of that from my other businesses. It's a bit better now with FFM's and advertisers but still doesn't mean I'm retiring young! We've always had a problem with attracting FFM's who are the life blood of the site in the 16+ years we've been online so I'm just looking at other options to make it better for those who do contribute.

Many other big clubs, AMOC, PCGB, JEC etc offer non-payers nothing, no access at all. You pay or you don't become a member, that's it. That's not a model I'd like to follow but their revenues, therefore staffing levels, events etc are huge so there is lots of merit to how they run things. They turnover millions and our FFM's generate about £7k a year - in fact a quick check shows both clubs have reserves of well over a £1m too! TLF is a very similar club but a very different model, we exceed them in several factors too but turnover and revenue are certainly very incomparable. 

[Dan E]

It’s the only money I have no problem departing with each year even Gold membership is a bloody bargain with the Valet Pro stuff and the certificate. 

[cweeden]

I read something on the site almost every day making it the cheapest magazine I get delivered. Without support a lot of good things simply disappear.

cheers

-Chris

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

This is not an orthodox car club though like AMOC, PCGB, JEC etc. It’s an internet only forum of like-minded Lotus enthusiasts. Those subscription car clubs involve dozens of volunteers and have far greater expenditure like (bi)monthly magazines, website costs, often stores of NOS spares, regular all year events, even race series etc. I have no problem with the TLF Google ads at the current free membership level. As for the anonymous likes, I find it a bit petty not knowing who chose to like my posts, but I don’t use that function myself anyway. Personally,  I don’t think missing out on this function would persuade many people to subscribe to FFM. Maybe it would make more sense to disable “likes” altogether for non FFM posts?

[C8RKH]

A lot of people will miss TLF if it goes. So rather than talking about likes or ads, maybe the question should be could you afford, and therefore be willing to pay the price of 1/2 pint of beer per month to help support the forum to be run properly?  Avg. Pint of beer is priced at £3.94).

If you could. Please do.

If you can't. Hopefully the ads want irritate too much.

Either way. Be happy.

[pete]

VFM  enough said

 

[Sparky]

I find it curious that people will part with tens of thousands of pounds for a Lotus, but won't stump up pennies for membership of TLF, arguably the best Lotus resource on the planet.  I am rather familiar with the amount of time, effort and money Bibs has put into this entity, and I will gladly pay my dues in recognition of this.

[jep]

Why wouldn't you pay for something you enjoy?

Add to that the knowledge that Bibs makes zip from this enterprise, I cannot fathom why anyone would choose not to contribute.

Justin 

 

[Bibs]

2 hours ago, LotusLeftLotusRight said:

Those subscription car clubs involve dozens of volunteers and have far greater expenditure like (bi)monthly magazines, website costs, often stores of NOS spares, regular all year events, even race series etc.

Other than that mag, we're there. I won't include the race series as they are usually run for a large profit but to be fair, with nearly 1m visitors per year and 5m odd pages served annually, I'd imagine our website costs are significantly higher. I bet their events aren't free either and are run as a profit maker

We're no different apart from you don't get a pen, key ring and tax disc holder in the post (and the mag but we're an online club). The only difference people are used to paying for those club memberships and they're used to getting TLF for free. Those entities were set up to make money (as was Club Lotus which isn't free) from the get-go and TLF wasn't. 

2 hours ago, LotusLeftLotusRight said:

Personally,  I don’t think missing out on this function would persuade many people to subscribe to FFM.

What would? Would love to know. 

TLF isn't about to disappear or go under, but more revenue would make for a better club. One day I hope to be able to employ people to arrange events, write news, make videos, run our socials better etc (we literally are the biggest single marque car club in the world on facebook for example), all things which would benefit members but we've nowhere near enough income for that.

[Barrykearley]

1 hour ago, Bibs said:

TLF isn't about to disappear or go under, but more revenue would make for a better club. One day I hope to be able to employ people to arrange events, write news, make videos, run our socials better etc

Would absolutely love to see another Brooklands type event - more than happy to pay as well.

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

OK, here’s my opinion. I am not a member of an orthodox car club. I contribute to two forums, TLF and PH. I do not subscribe to either. I am 100% happy for both sites to show me adverts to fund them. I have no idea how this income compares to the £2 per month TLF subscription for ad-free access, but assume it’s much lower.

The additional features available to FFMs are of little interest to me. For example I have never owned an Esprit, so don’t need access to the parts manual and I don’t use the TLF shop. This means that basic membership is all I require.

Nevertheless, I have been wondering whether I would pay the £24 p.a. if this was a closed group subscription only ad-free forum and I think I would. I fully appreciate the on-going hard work, enthusiasm and investment made by Bibs, so will now put my money where my mouth is and take out FFM.

[C8RKH]

@LotusLeftLotusRight- is there a reason you don't use the shop?

I've used it several times for spares/parts/etc from Lotus and that has paid my FFM fee many times over.

Just a thought as I think the shop is an under used facility as it has the same access to Lotus as Deroure. Just a bit cheaper each time.

[Hornsey Boy]

15 hours ago, Sparky said:

I find it curious that people will part with tens of thousands of pounds for a Lotus, but won't stump up pennies for membership of TLF, arguably the best Lotus resource on the planet.  I am rather familiar with the amount of time, effort and money Bibs has put into this entity, and I will gladly pay my dues in recognition of this.

Thanks @Bibs for all your efforts, and I totally agree with @Sparky My Gold membership costs have been paid back many, many times over with all the support and knowledge provided on this forum in helping to keep my cars on the road. 

 

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

Hmm, I’ve tried to order FFM and input my credit card details. The order has been confirmed (#4623), but is still showing as “pending” in My Orders, with an option to pay now or cancel invoice. I don’t want to press pay now if it means I will be charged twice. Do I just need to wait a bit, or do I need to press pay now?

[Bibs]

It's showing as pending here so click 'pay now' and you'll all be good, you'll only be charged once and thank you 

[Chillidoggy]

I found TLF to be a very useful resource when I first bought my Esprit. The knowledge base here is extensive whatever the model and as a general rule, whatever technical issue you might have can be solved here without the kind of misguided, crackpot responses that I read every day from the village idiots on some Facebook groups.

As time has progressed, my experience and knowledge of my Esprit has grown to an extent I never envisaged (neither did my battered wallet), and inevitably I have become far more of a net contributor. I'm sure this is also the case with many other members who frequent, and monitor these pages as they tinker with, and rebuild their cars, and provide advice to those who ask for it.

I'm well aware of the efforts and sacrifices Bibs makes to keep TLF operational, so I have no problem in supporting the forum, and neither should anyone else who benefits from it.

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

8 minutes ago, Bibs said:

It's showing as pending here so click 'pay now' and you'll all be good, you'll only be charged once and thank you 

That took me back to the credit card details page. I re-entered them and pressed pay again, but it’s still showing only as pending. I did notice that it took a long time to process the payment, over 30 seconds. I’ll try on another device.