I saw that and made a small contribution as I have benifitted greatly from the help available and would like to continue to get advice.

If this is leading up to a paywall introduction, then Morton's can stuff it. If, as JasonB says, many users contribute nothing, fair enough – charge them. Just reserve free use for those ( like me ) who have a subscription as a benefit of same. Been taking ME for 60+ years and MEW from no. 1. Most of those 60 years managed without internet's recent invention so won't miss the Forum enough to feel the need to pay for it on top of two expensive subscriptions.

There is no forum on earth that I would pay to read, I'm happy to give my knowledge free to people who need it on here but I can live without it.

Tony

Nothing is ever free. Many sites are paid for by advertising you have to watch or your data is sold to whoever will pay for it. When mytimemedia owned tis they ran the site and presumably picked up the tab if the advertising revenue fell short of the running cost or made a profit if they could. The main restrictions that people fall foul of are posts that recommend suppliers who do not support the forum which makes sense if you are a supplier funding a forum that promotes your competitors for free. I pay a number of subscriptions to various things that interest me. It would be interesting to know how much the donation box is trying to raise so an average donation could be quantified. Sites like Wikipedia are free to all but funded by voluntary donations from people who value its existence rather than expose themselves to advertisers editorial pressure. If the users of this forum enjoy it enough to fund it then the rules could probably be changed. A bit more information on the donation scheme would be helpful , things like what happens if the members should by some miracle be generous and overfund the forum, is the money ringfenced to meet future costs?

Mike

Donation requests have been normal on various motorbike forums I have frequented over the years. Purely optional. A couple have closed down over the years, so it can happen if the owners figure the return is not worth the effort. Never seen any that go to a purely pay-to-use model. Seems like there are always other free forums so it would not work.

PAUL KEMP:Dont forget there are people like me who are not subscribers but regular purchasers of the magazine. The reason is pure laziness but my local newsagent stocks it, I see it everytime I go there and it is just too easy to buy a copy on the spot. There must be many like me or the publishers would not bother with retail sales. Even though I am a non-subscriber I make a lot of use of the forum, buy stuff from forum advertisers and have ,hopefully, contributed some forum articles that people have found useful.

Would I pay for the forum if I had to? Good question but as a retiree on the pension, I would have to think about affording a subscription plus a forum fee. I guess then I would have to take out a subscription which would also come into it.

Paul I don't look at Traction Talks "off Topic" section but assume it is much like our "tea room" and that is where 99% of the censorship takes place and most of that is due to political posts.

I can't remember the last time I took down a link to a third party on here but must be several months ago at least. When that rule was added I was doing several a week but it seems forum members have learnt not to do it and the forum still seems to be functioning as it should.

Many forums including this one do have subscriber only sections/content, TT has parts you can't access without donating. In the early days of this forum items were uploaded that are only accessible to subscribers which are still that way so no real change although there has not been much added lately with restrictions.

Hi, advertising on the forum has been mentioned above, however two of the major suppliers stopped advertising here at about the same time the donation box appeared. It probably would have been prudent for some sort of statement about donations before or at the time the box first appeared.

Regards Nick.

Quite, I have every issue and have replaced a number over the years when the wife has "tidied up". I have always purchased the magazine from a newsagent and latterly enjoyed delivery along with the daily newspapers. The Newsagent covers a significant number of the outlying villages over eight miles from his premises.

Most members have fond memories of past times when virtually every village had a shop and local filling stations were commonplace. Classic car and motorcycle magazines hanker after the "good old days" and then encourage readers to subscribe thereby contributing to the destruction of the local infrastructure.

Robert Butler

I am with Tony on this one, my knowledge was given to me freely and I reciprocate this,

Regards

Gray,

Please correct me if I am wrong but Morton’s is a multi million pound publishing business, do they really need to beg for donations.

Also interesting that the other two titles that Mortons took over don't seem to be asking for donations, one uses this forum software, the other uses the new one so can't be to cover cost of keeping the old software going.