Con.

Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons.

Wonder Who ?

Good choice John.

I met him in 1976 when he was at the ABC Peterborough. He visited our camera shop (Campkins in the Hereward Centre next door)as it turned out he was a keen photographer. Being a rock fan myself I had to admit I had no idea who he was back then. Very nice chap, shame he didn't bring the four seasons

We digress, but especially for JAK don't think twice, it's alright....

That's exactly what a website is like.
Mushrooms on top and a whole ecosytem and fungus body toiling away under the surface

Bernard

The PU site owners don't cite running costs as a reason to become a member. We members feel that we are helping in some small way with the costs of this site.
Other forums, such as PentaxForums have site supporters who contribute to the running costs. I assume they get some extra benefits from that too, but I don't know.

I ran a website and forum for a few years. It took up a lot of my time, and my husband's technical know how on occasion to keep it running. In the end it was more trouble than it was worth. We kept the domain name, (so it didn't end being a porno site or something) and the home page, but closed down the rest and use it for our own purposes now. Mostly hosting photos, but other stuff too.

It is to be hoped that you are not referring to Pentax User here. Mushrooms are the visible evidence of death and decay in the ecosystem, and the mushrooms themselves don't last very long.

Philip

Not for a forum they don't.

Again this isn't necessarily the case. I have unlimited bandwidth on my hosting package and there are no restrictions.


Although their are paid for packages like vBulletin, decent Forum software, like PhpBB3 is free and takes no time at all to upload to a hosting server and set up.

In terms of maintenance then there's pretty much none, unless you get hacked. The hosting company @ £10 a month takes care of backups and server maintenance.

Yes there's moderation, but in general for most forums this is done on a voluntary basis.

The running costs of the forum therefore are insignificant. And of course registration on this forum is free, as it should be.

If people want to pay for the added content on this site then that's upto them. I wouldn't call it a con.

What is a little annoying however is that in the list of "Latest News and Articles" in the right sidebar is that it isn't labelled whether the content is 'premium' until you click on it.

Oi! Smeggy, get your fingers in your pocket, it's only a few quid a year, that goes for the rest of you freeloaders too

But seriously, I have to manage both my own and the wifes website and it isn't easy, especially when you don't know what your doing

haha

but seriosuly ...

Forums cost peanuts to run and require next to no maintenance. That's why I also don't charge anyone to join my forum Smeggy's - btw Originally I had google ads running to offset some of the hosting costs, but frankly I got rid of th3em becuase they were annoying, and I was always recommending members get adblock+ to avoid them anyway.


The parts of this site that have an entrance free are separate to the forum ...


... and there's nothing I've seen in that side that is worth paying for. The same reasons I don't buy photography magazines.


And remember not everything is about 'money'. The best value from forums like mine, this forum, other photography forums and so on is the time individuals put into them posting interesting debates, helping others and generally making the community fun and/or interesting. The world would be a better place if we measured the value of more things by their human value rather than there Fiat Currency value.

Therefore no one who posts here regularly and puts as much into the forum as they take out is a freeloader

It's a small amount, heck I spend more on stamps each year and I don't do much posting (Royal Mail type that is).

To be a paid member and access the extra just seemed a good idea at the time. I'd been a free member for quite a while by then.

If a £10 fee keeps the commercial content down it's got to be worth it.

And I'm a tight Yorkshire man who wants value for money.

If I use a forum a lot, I like to subscribe - I feel a bit cheeky scouring the classifieds and asking a million dumb questions otherwise.

That said, isn't this a bit off-topic. If I'm buying a product I don't base my decision solely on the views of owners of that product - I look for independent reviews, or the views of owners of the product who also own a competitor's version.

Coming on PU and crying about having to pay for a review that wouldn't be the most useful is surely like trying to buy flights from the florist and complaining that their £20 bouquet doesn't have an in-flight meal.

The owners haven't been saying anything, but generally I can tell you that the service is very well received by most of us.

The thing that initially attracted me to Pentax Club was the offer of 20% discount on servicing. That still exists. The rest of it just got better and better over the years.

I do miss the printed magazine and agree it would be nice if Pentax Ricoh would support it to make it viable again.

Oh, really?

So why does Johnsons specify that you send in your PU number with your camera, so that when they quote you, you have no idea what the quote would have been without membership?

Given that my only experience of this is a phone quote (without mention of PU membership) for a lens service that was the same as their 'including discount' quote, once they had my lens and membership number, the thread title seems pretty appropriate to me.