I have some changes to the message board to announce. These involve our Premium Memberships. Currently anyone can read and post on the message board, but we are changing this so that all Travel Forums are still available to everyone, but some of our other, more community-oriented forums are for Premium Members only.

Premium Membership Fees

The Premium membership fees will increase January 1, 2007. The member level will be $30/year ($50/year for contributor level).

With Premium membership you get Private Messaging, Email digests, access to Slow Photos (for uploading and storing photos), and access to certain extra forums (see below). With the contributor level, you can run your blog on slowtrav.

Thank you to everyone who supports Slow Travel by having a Premium Membership. The little green star to the right of your member name indicates that you are a premium member.

Click to become a Premium Member

New Forums and Chats for Premium Members Only

Starting November 15, the following forums will be for Premium members only. No one else will be able to read or post on these forums.

Everything Else
Food/Drink/Recipes
House Trades

The "For Sale" and "Wanted to Buy" threads will move from the Everything About Travel forum to their own forum, in the Premium Members only section.

The weekly chats and book club chats will be for Premium members only. The travel chats that Brenda has been running, with guest speakers, will still be available for everyone.

-------------------------

We feel that the community has grown and it is a good time to make these changes. The Premium Members only forums will not be indexed by the search engines or visible to non-community members, making them more private. I will put them in a separate category - set apart from the other forums and clearly designated as Premium Members Only.

Thanks!!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Pauline,

How do you know if you are a premium member already? I can't remember.

Ginger

There are a few ways:

1. The little green star that appears to the right of your member name when you post show you are a Premium Member.

2. If you can do Private Messaging, you are a Premium Member.

3. Look in your Profile, under Groups. Click GO > PERSONAL ZONE > GROUPS - and you will see if you are in a Premium Member group.

(you are)

Thanks Pauline - Just the push I needed to get my bum off the couch, get my credit card, and type in the appropriate information. I'm now a premium member...waahhooooo!!! I love this site. Thanks for all your hard work.

-Mary

I don't have a credit card. Guess I'm not part of your target demographic.

Too bad, as I thought I'd done a lot of research and contributed useful material to those forums.

I do find it perfectly normal that the house trades should be a premium forum. If I were doing a house trade, I'd get a friend with a credit card to pay for it.

I am wondering if general read-only access would keep tempting people to take up premium membership.
Any links into these forums will not work for ordinary members or lurkers, but I doubt if there are many of these links.

lagatta,

If you send me money I'll charge your membership for you. Just an option if you need it.

That is sweet, teachick, but I could also get a friend here to do it. I'm hurt by the general principle.

I think it is normal that service posts such as house trades, buying, selling etc should be "payant", but find it odd that blabla forums should suddenly become members' only. It makes me very sad.

I value this forum and Pauline's hard word and tact, but I read a lot of valuable sites and certainly could never afford to join them all. I have a very slender budget, and travel is a priority (sweetie across pond, and not only that!). Oh well.

Most forums are still open to everyone, and asking questions and answering them are both still free on the travel forums.

I don't think it is asking too much to have a membership to access boards that most people don't check out anyway. And certainly the blog and photo feature is worth spending thirty bucks a year on. Palma's recipes were worth thirty bucks, alone!

Sometimes people forget that the internet is not 'free'. There are real costs involved in maintaining a sight like SlowTrav.

Let's not loose sight of the fact that this web site is huge, time consuming to run, and Pauline pays software vendors real money for access to the software that runs all the special extra features.

I wouldn't dream of expecting her to absorb the cost of my personal 'addiction'!

If you mean me, some people have worked in the media for decades, and are well aware of the time, money and effort it takes.

But websites depend on content, and people going to the trouble to provide content - in the case of travel sites (here, Lonely Planet, and others) I've gone to a lot of trouble to research things for travellers not only to Montréal but also to other places where I've lived - places I know well but which require an update.

If my input isn't valued, well, that means I'll go elsewhere.

If I had more money I'd certainly join several sites I use to get fuller access, but it is always hurtful when access one enjoyed in the past gets cut off. That is the prerogative of the site. But it really hurts, and hurts more to feel so little support from fellow slowtravellers.

But such is life.

There are no perfect fits. Obviously, the median member on this site pays more in incidentals than I make in a year; conversely, on Lonely Planet I'm an old fuddy duddy who wants a comfy bed! Was hoping that a common interest, not only in "travel" in the abstract, but in the environmentally and culturally valuable concept of slow travel (once again, thanks to Pauline for her pioneering work), hoping it would smooth such barriers.

Pauline,
This makes sense to me. The Italy forum with 163581 posts is still free, which is a valuable travel tool for anyone who wants to use it.
The Everything Else forum with 23252 posts and the Food & Drink forum with 14936 posts are both high traffic areas. The chat and photo gallery are definately worth the payment.
I would like to suggest that the photo gallery remain for Premium Members only even during ST contests, as I know this was opened up for anyone during the 2005 contest.
Thanks so much for providing this site for us! J.

lagatta, I don't believe that there was any intent at all to cause hurt for you, or any other slowtraveller, when this was announced.

I very much appreciate your input and advice here, and I would find it a sadness if your voice is not heard here...I also understand about tight budgets and all, because I am not so far removed from that part of my life as to forget it.

For me, I choose to participate and pay for membership on this site only, because it fits me the best. I like the family feeling I get here, and the stupendous wealth of assistance, advice and archival material that Pauline and all of the members so generously provide for me to feed from, when I'm planning a trip.

I have read a few other travel sites and message boards, but I've not read them continuously, like I do Slowtrav. Because I'm frugal with my $$$ as well, I decided this one site worked for me and therefore I've had no trouble paying my membership to help with the upkeep and maintenance of the site.

Hopefully, we'll continue to see you here with your good information and advice, lagatta!

"In his later years Pablo Picasso was not allowed to roam an art gallery unattended, for he had previously been discovered in the act of trying to improve on one of his old masterpieces." I love this quote so much...it tells me that even the great Picasso was always tweaking his works, never content with what he had created!
Brenda

A benefit of making these two forums for premium members only is that it makes them "safer". They will not be indexed by the search engines, lurkers will not be able to read them. I think we will be able to chat a little more freely knowing that everything we say does NOT end up on Google and cannot be read by anyone who happens upon the site while surfing the net.

The main travel forums, the most highly used, will always be available to everyone - paying members, non-paying members, lurkers. And, after all, travel is what this site is about.

Some people pay by check instead of by credit card - we have a way of manually tracking these memberships.

I have to agree with Pauline's decision to make the forums noted premium member only options. It really is where the regulars hang out and I like the idea of my private business being just a wee bit more private...

I don't belong to any other travel sites and to me Slow Travel is so much more than just a travel site. I love giving and receiving travel advice, no doubt, but I have come to so fully appreciate the everything else forum because it is there I can talk about personal things going on in my life, get a little silly and have some fun, and connect to other people that have gradually become part of the fabric of my life. I am actually quite humbled to be part of such a lively and diverse group of fellow travelers.

I guess what I'm saying is I'm happy to pay. I'm fairly broke right now as I've taken time off of work to do the yoga training, so I have to pick and choose where I spend my cash. I can only speak for myself when I say I get so much back from everyone here that the cost of a premium membership is nothing more to me that a small token of my gratitude and appreciation.

I also happen to kind of adore Pauline and Steve.


Oh, and I respect the choices that other people might make in this matter.

well i do post in 3 other sites plus this one. The others are free and this one cost a bit of money. But its a choice you make:I do find this site very friendly and informative and wont mind paying the small fee for premium membership,which i would not pay in the other sites if ask.
I do appreciate the input lagatta does and wish she reconsider and stay with us. As I would love to have another frenchie raciné here!!!lol!

Mods, a question:
am I allowed to pay with someone else's cc? (mine expires/expired in 11/06 and I will not have a new one til the end of the month). In that case, what should I write in the Billing info area?

Lagatta - please don't feel you don't have support. You have mine. I empathise entirely. You have obviously worked very hard helping others and now feel that your voluntary contributions were not valued. I am sure they were but now you are excluded from certain sections on the basis of budget.

For me too, I have to rationalise and weigh up expenditure on the 'do I really need something basis' because I can't just indulge in every little thing - they all add up and budgets are budgets. I can live without those forums (to which I hope I made useful contributions) so I am not going for Premium Membership.

Pauline says:

quote:

A benefit of making these two forums for premium members only is that it makes them "safer". They will not be indexed by the search engines, lurkers will not be able to read them. I think we will be able to chat a little more freely knowing that everything we say does NOT end up on Google and cannot be read by anyone who happens upon the site while surfing the net.

Pauline, this hits the nail on its proverbial head for me...I am extremely careful as to what I post on the message board. Details such as the exact time and date details of trips before I leave for those trips, the names of my family and friends...such as referring to my grandson as the grandboy, rather than by his name...so this will allow me the feeling of a little more personal 'safety' while posting on the internet.

When I see how many people are viewing as compared to how many people are posting as members, it gives me pause when I think about having too much personal information floating around out there in the esthers of the internet Universe.

Here on Slowtrav, I feel like we are a family, and I've met some of you darling ST people...I am honoured to call you my friends. That family feeling does create a feeling of safety for me while posting back and forth about our individual lives on Everything Else, for example.

It was another ST member, Italian Connection, who brought to my attention early on in my membership with Slowtrav the need to be circumspect with personal posts and information, and I've been forever grateful for that heads-up, because it taught me to have a little bit of discretion in my posts.

So, to come back home from my usual tangential conversational format, with this safety issue in mind, that will explain why I'm comfortable with the new designation that Pauline has made. Hopefully, the warmth and the support received from this incredible Slowtrav community of friends and family will be enough to encourage people to support the new policy...and pay the big bucks!

lagatta, I hope that some of this verbal meandering of mine here might help to explain that my support for this new policy is in no way meant to show a lack of support for you or a lack of appreciation for your wonderful posts and advice. Rather it is meant to show my support for a policy that gives me a better feeling about some of my posts now being made in an atmosphere of greater personal safety.

Holy talkative! I do go on and on, don't I?

"Home is where you hang your @." ~ Author Unknown

What Brenda said!

Goes for me, too. (Only I get to say it in a whole lot fewer words! Thanks, Brenda.)

Pauline, I was wondering about the GTG forum. I can see that we might not want to restrict it only to paid members, but for the security reasons mentioned above, is there some way to make it available only to registered ST members, whether paid or not, and not make it Google-searchable? Or maybe this has already been done and I just don't know it.

I am definitely with people who say that ST premium membership is worth every cent!

- Roz

Giulia, I think you can use a credit card that expires in 11/06 for all of November. Give it a try and if it does not work, email me. I will set you as a Premium Member and you can pay when your new card comes in.