Log in

View Full Version : bananas.org AD


Blake09
09-07-2010, 07:07 PM
I was looking around the fourm offline when I saw an ad like this:

Join Bananas.org Today!
Are you a banana plant enthusiast? Then we hope you will join the community. You will gain access to post, create threads, private message, upload images, join groups and more.

Bananas.org is owned and operated by fellow banana plant enthusiasts. We strive to offer a non-commercial community to learn and share information. For a limited time, receive all three issues from Volume 1 of Bananas Magazine with your upgraded yearly membership.

http://www.bananas.org/gallery/watermark.php?file=36412&size=1 (http://www.bananas.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=36412&ppuser=5852)

http://www.bananas.org/gallery/watermark.php?file=36411&size=1 (http://www.bananas.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=36411&ppuser=5852)



------------------------------
Just to let you know in my opinion this isnt far for some old members not to get aneything and the new members to be getting a free copy of all three issues from Volume 1 of Bananas Magazine . What is a upgraded membership, what does it do? Does it cost?

By the way, I love how the ad looks, like the AeAe banana fruit. It is well described and to the point :) Oh the middle book has a cool picture of tog tan:rolleyes:...... (in memory).......


:ukkibannana:



.

MediaHound
09-08-2010, 06:48 AM
Yes, for $5 they get those issues. You can also: http://www.bananas.org/payments.php

Randy4ut
09-08-2010, 07:01 AM
And to think we had to pay either $20 or $25 to get them!!!! Cannot understand what is going on here...

MediaHound
09-08-2010, 09:19 AM
Sure, let me clarify. Memberships on Bananas.org are now $5 per year as of a few months ago.
The magazines are right now given as complimentary for a limited time to new subscribing members.
That is what Blake09 noticed.

We also plan to offer even more giveaways and promos as well in the future in varying degree to the still grandfathered members, to subscribing paid members, as well as to attract new members.
This change to membership fees facilitates the ability to provide more value to the membership base.

When we made the change to a paid membership, existing active members were grandfathered in, without the need to subscribe to a membership plan.

Dalmatiansoap
09-08-2010, 10:01 AM
So in general that means that U cannot register to the site for free any more?

MediaHound
09-08-2010, 10:37 AM
That is correct, new members cannot post in the forums or upload pictures, private message, etc., without a paid membership.

This has been redacted. Memberships are free now.

Randy4ut
09-08-2010, 11:13 AM
I had heard there was now a required membership fee to join this site, but did not believe it. I always thought this was a site where folks that loved bananas and other tropical, or tropical looking plants could come, share and disseminate information with one another. With the economy the way it is I truly do not understand why someone would join and not go to another forum that they could get the same value from. I know the money is not that much, but still... I am sorry to see this happen here...

DoctorSteve
09-08-2010, 12:26 PM
I have gotten my membership worth of info from bananas.org.

the flying dutchman
09-08-2010, 01:15 PM
Its not strange at all Randy, it's the future of the Internet. Information
has always been worth a certain amount of money, wether it be in a newspaper, a book, on television or as in the old days by just telling someone things they want to know.
You are totally free to buy that information or not, you can buy an expensive book on a subject but also a cheap one with less information.
Same with websites, you can go for the best or one of a lesser quality,
its all up to you.
The better the website the higher the costs are and that is not only software but also manhours.


Ron...

The Hollyberry Lady
09-08-2010, 01:59 PM
I think it's polite, courteous, & a nice gesture to your already existing members, to not require them to pay.



http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo193/hollyberrylady08/2nd%20album/149069.gif



However...



I think charging will also weed out the not-so-serious people from joining, who are not really gardeners and who are logged on for an entirely different reason than what is intended here.



If paying 5 measly bucks a year would "facilitate the ability to provide more value to the membership base"...than why the heck not?! :confused:



I sure enjoy it here and have learned so much.



Thanks Jarred!



: )

stumpy4700
09-08-2010, 02:53 PM
Well said Sherry, That said, I agree it has been well worth $5 for all the information and friendships I've gain over the years. Thanks Jarred.

DoctorSteve
09-08-2010, 03:42 PM
Its not strange at all Randy, it's the future of the Internet. Information
has always been worth a certain amount of money, wether it be in a newspaper, a book, on television or as in the old days by just telling someone things they want to know.
You are totally free to buy that information or not, you can buy an expensive book on a subject but also a cheap one with less information.
Same with websites, you can go for the best or one of a lesser quality,
its all up to you.
The better the website the higher the costs are and that is not only software but also manhours.


Ron...

you shold read: Free the future of a radical new price. You can download it free.

harveyc
09-08-2010, 07:01 PM
I had proposed 2-3 years ago that we should all pay to help Jarred maintain this great forum. I know he's been generating some revenue from ads but he has still paid quite a bit to host this site and spent a great deal of time to give it all the bells and whistles. I don't know of any other forum that is as well run as this site. I appreciate the gesture of grandfathering us old guys, Jarred. If I had to pay $5, I gladly would as long as I still had an interest in bananas.

turtile
09-08-2010, 09:42 PM
Its not strange at all Randy, it's the future of the Internet. Information
has always been worth a certain amount of money, wether it be in a newspaper, a book, on television or as in the old days by just telling someone things they want to know.
You are totally free to buy that information or not, you can buy an expensive book on a subject but also a cheap one with less information.
Same with websites, you can go for the best or one of a lesser quality,
its all up to you.
The better the website the higher the costs are and that is not only software but also manhours.


Ron...

I think a lot of people don't realize how much it costs to run a forum of this size. Right now, there are over 300 people viewing the site. In order to for this to happen, you have to pay for a powerful internet connection which can upload all of the data at a good speed. On top of that, you need a powerful system to store and process all of the data.

Kevin
09-08-2010, 11:21 PM
Yeah, I saw that add too, and was wondering what it was about. I always assumed that this was a free forum and didn't really know what the International Banana Society was, apart from the forum. If you are a member of the society, what benefits do you get?

When was this $5 fee implemented? I'm still fairly new here, but I guess I was grandfathered without knowing it. Thanks. I have to say, though, I wasn't really serious about bananas when I started, but just joined so I could learn more. I probably wouldn't have joined if I had to pay.

On another forum I am a free member of, they hold plant auctions an/or sales, and donations, and the money goes to the webmaster to maintain the site. This seems to be a better way to go, so that anyone can join, and if they really like the site, they will want to give, rather than are forced to. Say a person has a huge pile of banana plants that they need to divide, or maybe someone is taking pups from one of their plants they are bringing inside for the winter - how about sell them, and any money that is collected goes to Jarred?

Just my 2 cents.

Richard
09-08-2010, 11:52 PM
No need to guess at operational costs ... check them out here:
Web Hosting Services | Network Solutions (http://www.networksolutions.com/web-hosting/index.jsp)

turtile
09-09-2010, 06:14 AM
No need to guess at operational costs ... check them out here:
Web Hosting Services | Network Solutions (http://www.networksolutions.com/web-hosting/index.jsp)

That would be the operational cost of a site running a small business with little traffic. The unlimited isn't really unlimited and the bandwidth and storage claims are just marketing. They don't even run server grade systems.

Bananas.org uses at least a VPS or dedicated server not run-of-the-mill shared hosting.

hammer
09-09-2010, 09:15 AM
I have no problem with with the cost. it takes a lot to make this ship a float i think maybe since people are paying to join maybe they will stay around longer. some times it seems like they drop like flies and then we get new ones and they leave.

Jack Daw
09-09-2010, 09:22 AM
Do you accept banana bucks as payment? If so, what's the exchange rate. :P :ha::ha::ha:

Richard
09-09-2010, 10:08 AM
That would be the operational cost of a site running a small business with little traffic. The unlimited isn't really unlimited and the bandwidth and storage claims are just marketing. They don't even run server grade systems.

That could be true for the low-end product. My site is hosted by their large Unix package, for which I have a direct (unix) log-in. The particular machine it is hosted on is a 64 CPU Sun server with a full set of IO modules. I'm very picky about computing platforms, having worked over a decade as a computational scientist at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (http://www.sdsc.edu/).

I'm not suggesting the Bananas.org change their hosting service, but just pointing out the current market prices for high-end service providers.

the flying dutchman
09-09-2010, 11:12 AM
That could be true for the low-end product. My site is hosted by their large Unix package, for which I have a direct (unix) log-in. The particular machine it is hosted on is a 64 CPU Sun server with a full set of IO modules. I'm very picky about computing platforms, having worked over a decade as a computational scientist at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (http://www.sdsc.edu/).

I'm not suggesting the Bananas.org change their hosting service, but just pointing out the current market prices for high-end service providers.

We have been busy in the same business then Richard. I have worked a
decade on IBM Mainframes as a Security-Software specialist.
I have worked for all the major Banks in Holland and other large companies. I still remember you had to put switches on the right IPL(Initial Program Load Adress) in order to start the huge machines. That was in the beginning when Assembler and Cobol were the programming languages and OS and Multiple Virtual Storage the first Operating systems.



Ron..

Bananaman88
09-11-2010, 08:26 PM
I've been really busy this summer and somehow missed the announcement about a membership fee as well. I must say that the amount of good info available on here, not to mention the friendships made, is well worth $5 a year, in my opinion. Jarred has done (and continues to do) a phenomenal job with this site, along with the moderators. Sure, five bucks may disuade some from joining but others may realize that this is quite the bargain!

Dalmatiansoap
01-28-2011, 03:04 PM
Admins, is this "fee" still on?

MediaHound
01-28-2011, 03:08 PM
Hi Ante, yes, it is.

MediaHound
04-13-2012, 10:39 AM
The fee has been removed. On with the spammers, lol.

laserlight
04-16-2012, 12:50 AM
I've been trying to post and I can't. It says I need to pay for a subscription.

Edit: Oops. It's working now. =D

Darkman
04-16-2012, 09:57 PM
Jared,

This is something that I have always wondered about but never pursued or asked. Unless I'm wrong when I joined I thought it said that I would get the first three magazines for free however to my knowledge I did not. Should I have received them or did I join a lower tier that did not qualify?

My other thought was that they were online and that is how I was to view them. Is the magazine still published?

If this has been already addressed I'm sorry.