Reminder for New Members

odyd12

Administrator

Posts: 1,020

Date of registration: Jan 3rd 2013

Thanks: 117

Tuesday, April 2nd 2013, 11:44pm

Reminder for New Members

The forum and the site was just attacked. Someone try to unload things into a server. This is not cool. I cleaned 200 ids without a single post and until now I deleted over 2000 ids. The rules are straight forward. Post a single post, saying something about solar. No spam, no pumping, no bashing. Join conversation or just watch afterwards. It is rule of this board.
I will delete ids at random. Someone already suggested subscription, this will stop BS in a hurry, but I am not ready yet to cut people from the value of those boards. So sign up and follow rules.

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Dan

acshen

Beginner

Posts: 5

Date of registration: Apr 3rd 2013

Yesterday, 7:18am

ody12 if you look at the new member list it looks like a bot signed up a lot of accounts recently..

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odyd12

Administrator

Posts: 1,020

Date of registration: Jan 3rd 2013

Thanks: 117

Yesterday, 7:29am

I know, how this gets by the capcha, is beyond me.
I may end up moving the forum to subscription form with symbolic $5 per month or something just to stop it.
I delete accounts for lack of posts, but it is tedious work, over 2600 ids created but 70 people active.

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pg6solar

Beginner

Posts: 8

Yesterday, 7:48am

Quoted from "odyd12"

I may end up moving the forum to subscription form with symbolic $5 per month or something just to stop it.

I think its a good idea, Odyd. Once its done, maybe Hobo will finally join here as well.

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odyd12

Administrator

Posts: 1,020

Date of registration: Jan 3rd 2013

Thanks: 117

Yesterday, 7:59am

There is a risk that when you go to subscription format a lot of people will not join. I suppose $5 per month is not end of the world, but data sold here for $27 is not selling as it should considering there are so many savvy investors.
Just my view.
Perhaps we can hear more feedback?
I should add it is a fairly large Capex. I was looking at IP.Board

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sony1

Trainee

Posts: 65

Date of registration: Feb 11th 2013

Thanks: 2

Yesterday, 8:13am

Mabye a more difficult CAPTCHA will do.

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singular

Beginner

Posts: 23

Date of registration: Dec 7th 2012

Yesterday, 8:24am

odyd. I run an online art and photography community that has over 14,000 members. It becomes a challenge when very sophisticated bots get passed your security. Simple captchas are no longer used because they are essentally worthless in terms of stopping them. You may want to consider getting a custom security mod. I am sure there are plenty already out there for Burning Board. I would recommend getting an anti-bot question type of plugin to ensure that the user who is registering is human. It will get rid of your headaches. Trust me.

best of luck,

Joe

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solarcat

Beginner

Posts: 25

Date of registration: Mar 6th 2013

Thanks: 1

Yesterday, 8:37am

So right now the board is free to join. That means $0 revenue. And the reports are $27/a month, and people are not buying many. Maybe you can make it a $60/year subscription that includes 2 free monthly reports.

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odyd12

Administrator

Posts: 1,020

Date of registration: Jan 3rd 2013

Thanks: 117

Yesterday, 4:23pm

I cannot give the reports away as it is commission based earnings and data is not mine. I have to pay for each report sale to Solarzoom. So the return is $5 per sale after PayPal fees. Not much right?
However if the subscription to a board was $5 per month, which is peanuts, I could offer a full year for say $50 and sell reports commission free, which in return gave that much discount to a buyer from the forum, essentially giving me earnings of ten sold reports per that member.
Even with only 50 members I could do better. For all those who think things are free nothing is free. Yahoo forums are not free as ad income yahoo generates is in billions. If people here clicked Google ads and I had the traffic like Yahoo I could have many security measures which are outside of my reach. Finally paid subscription cleans any potential junk as people would not want lose money by being weird, spamming etc.
I am thinking about it at this point, so no worry, just looking for opinions.

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Pop2mollys

Professional

Posts: 617

Date of registration: Jan 15th 2013

Thanks: 49

Yesterday, 4:54pm

You already know I think you should have a monthly fee.... This forum is a wealth of knowledge and I have no issue paying a monthly fee. If it makes you feel better why dont you make a poll and see how many of the current members would agree to this.

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Klothilde

Intermediate

Posts: 408

Date of registration: Nov 19th 2012

Thanks: 48

Yesterday, 5:11pm

As always I do not agree. The one thing that attracts people and traffic to this site is the rich content that gets created spontaneously by people who find themselves here. If you charge either for viewing or for generating this content than you cut the very driver that generates your traffic. Not a good idea...

I would stick to supplementary offers like the export data. Try generating more traffic and getting more people to buy the data. A few months down the line you can try increasing the price. I think people who are interested in this data are willing to pay more than what you charge right now...

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sony1

PV-Opt

Beginner

Posts: 10

Date of registration: Dec 14th 2012

Yesterday, 5:49pm

I vote for a monthly fee of $5. Hope we can get at least 100 register users. The service here is way better than Yahoo board.

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pg6solar

Beginner

Posts: 8

Yesterday, 5:54pm

Quoted from "Klothilde"

... The one thing that attracts people and traffic to this site is the rich content that gets created spontaneously by people who find themselves here. If you charge either for viewing or for generating this content than you cut the very driver that generates your traffic. Not a good idea...

Agree.

Quoted from "Klothilde"

I would stick to supplementary offers like the export data. Try generating more traffic and getting more people to buy the data. A few months down the line you can try increasing the price. I think people who are interested in this data are willing to pay more than what you charge right now...

And agree again.

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odyd12

Administrator

Posts: 1,020

Date of registration: Jan 3rd 2013

Thanks: 117

Yesterday, 6:33pm

Should SolarPVInvestor Forums Go Private and have Member Fees?

A total of 18 Votes have been submitted.

39%

I am ok with $5 monthly fee (7)

61%

No, keep it free (11)

Let's make a poll.
I am not making any moves at this point, so let's not too worry.
The quality work done here is available for public eyes and sure this brings traffic.
My initial effort is too stop spam ids and protect the content of this community and the site. However when quality increases so does the value. Some of the detail presented here is a brokerage research if not better quality. Many will argue better.
Let's see what people think and continue the discussion.

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odyd12

Administrator

Posts: 1,020

Date of registration: Jan 3rd 2013

Thanks: 117

Yesterday, 6:36pm

Quoted from "singular"

I would recommend getting an anti-bot question type of plugin to ensure that the user who is registering is human. It will get rid of your headaches. Trust me.

I checked but found nothing of this type. I changed the original captcha for recaptcha but I see ids just coming in like before.

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Bodhi

Beginner

Posts: 28

Date of registration: Feb 13th 2013

Thanks: 3

Yesterday, 6:58pm

Why the heck would bots want to invade your site dydo?
I don't get it.....

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odyd12

Administrator

Posts: 1,020

Date of registration: Jan 3rd 2013

Thanks: 117

Yesterday, 7:40pm

Why people steal or paint graffiti? Why homeless get beat up? Mostly for fun, need, evil?
I have three rings of security on CMS run on the site, and still someone every day tries to log on to it with fake id and passwords. It is a daily routine for everyone. Yahoo get hundreds if not thousands attacks a day.

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acshen

Beginner

Posts: 5

Date of registration: Apr 3rd 2013

Yesterday, 8:37pm

My honest opinion on the $5 fee - I wouldn't pay it. But I'm a new member and I haven't been using the boards for that long.

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odyd12

Administrator

Posts: 1,020

Date of registration: Jan 3rd 2013

Thanks: 117

Yesterday, 10:53pm

singular I got the question set up now. See what will happen.

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odyd12

Administrator

Posts: 1,020

Date of registration: Jan 3rd 2013

Thanks: 117

Today, 6:43am

singular, you may have resolved the issue. I bought this plugin and thus far nobody has signed since pg6 ( I cleared all suspicious ids.)
Let's keep the forum free, but do not forget revenue yahoo gets from clicking those ads, works here the same and all, please buy reports. Best month this month so far, thank you all for your patronage.