Gear Swap & Capilene

While this change has been discussed for several months now, I guess it just recently took effect this weekend. The short of it being, that if someone is benefiting financially from BPL, they should also be investing in BPL. 40-50% of items listed are from non-members. Sorry, but I guess you'll just need to keep checking if anybody lists any (or become a member).

Unfortunately this also means we can't sell something to pay for membership.

I guess you can become a member and THEN recoup your investment. :)

I suspect the postings and traffic will just go to other sites

It will be interesting to see the drop in traffic for that forum

Restricting access tends not to be worth it imo … An im saying this as a member … Traffic exploited intelligently is valuable

It also gives less opportunity to buy used (not shiny new) gear i would think …

My last thread in that forum was a PIF.

No offense, but I don't understand how making a WTB post is "benefiting financially" from BPL. It's not like I'm making money. Granted the same gear on Ebay does tend to go for more in my opinion, so I do feel that I was able to find better deals on gear swap for used gear. Possibly only because Ebay listings see a larger potential buyer audience. I'm sad that I will have to take my transactions elsewhere I suppose :/

> Since when do you have to be a member to post in gear swap?
Perhaps a review of the finances showed that the cost of the server and network connection was a bit more than had been expected? Global Financial Crisis and all that…

At least, when you are a member and do sell something on BPL, you don't find a hand stretched out for a commission.

Cheers

I understand the why.

What irks me is that Ryan did not post a message announcing the change and explain how it works. Seems like changes just appear out of no where some times. Out of respect to the community I think any time changes are made to BPL, it should be announced officially.

It's to help pay for the excellent forum software used here.

Oh, right…

:) So what does forum software and a migration to it cost these days, anyway? I already know the answer, but I have the impression some who complain sure don't.

Don't get me wrong: this platform sucks. It's just silly to gripe simultaneously about that and a minor tax on commerce.

"Granted the same gear on Ebay does tend to go for more in my opinion, so I do feel that I was able to find better deals on gear swap for used gear."

Maybe take your anticipated savings, apply them to a membership, and then recoup from your Gear Swap transactions?

That works in theory, but i'm not constantly buying and selling gear. sometimes periods of time would go by when I wouldn't save money by not using Ebay, therefore wouldn't make up the difference. Besides, the same amount of money now is worth more to me than in the future. Sounds illogical but it's true.

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I have to agree with Eric C. that alot if traffic brings new potential members who buy then later join to benefit more from your community. How many will seek learning about BPL if there is no conduit to bring their attention?

Ryan,
The WTB threads are far fewer than FS threads, that is why I said they are benefiting financially. Unfortunately you lose in this case.

Non-members can REPLY to any thread so they can still buy gear. They just can't list an item for sale (unless they do it within a reply I guess) or that they are looking for an item as in Ryan's case.

It's just going to shift traffic away. Think about if a non-member wants to sell something, are they going to sign up just to do that? Usually the items are in high enough demand that selling them else where isn't a problem. I've sold stuff on the forums for lower prices just because I like the community and don't have the money to buy a subscription. I understand that doesn't help the site, but thought it was better than nothing. I also don't visit as much because I can't buy things. I know BPL has to do what they think is right to keep the site going so there aren't any hard feelings.

The reason I became a member was a direct result from being able to post WTB posts before I was a paying member. I was in the process of buying all new used gear and was checking and posting daily. This made me curious about other parts of the website and I realized I was missing out on some good articles. That is when I decided that I was using the site enough that a membership would be in my best interest.

I think that by requiring memberships to post WTB you are going to cut the flow of traffic on the swap section which is my favorite part of this website. I love trying new gear and selling, basically like renting equipment so I can try it all.

Not sure if I will renew my subscription if this is not corrected.

@ Erik Basil – The point is I can go out and buy a $15 a year domain name and set up the same type of forum that is here, minus the magazine stuff, and have ten times a better interface and software than this site offers. If I have to pay to use a portion of this site I should certainly at very least be able to embed a picture into my post without having to know HTML! And that's not even mentioning all the other editing features and extras that people have access to on other forums that are 100% free.

The reason I even come here is for the amount of traffic it gets. If there was another site with the same group of people that was %100 free, I'd go there. As far as the Gear Swap, I will not use it. I understand why they did it and I'm not looking for it to go back or anything. What's done is done, but I still don't agree that they should have done it.

The WTB threads are far fewer than FS threads, that is why I said they are benefiting financially. Unfortunately you lose in this case.

They had separate WTB/FS forums for a short while. Perhaps they should have kept them separate.

@Joslyn, you're mistaken.
Although you might be able to find a URL you like for $15, you can't set up a site like this without greater investment–even if you used a freeware forum software–because there are other costs and expenses. These include:

–bandwidth (hosting), which will come at a higher price once you get some traffic and/or begin hosting photo images and files;

–a content management system (CMS), which is what you see as "the home page" but is actually a shell and indexing system that surrounds and…may be intercoursed with, the whole site;

–time, to program, to moderate, to anti-hack, to de-spam and to comply with a variety of accounting and verification protocols that begin the moment you decide to accept money for anything (not counting the old school, under the radar, "bros, we need some donations for the server's yearly fee" that small sites can do);

–and then, if due to time or other misfortune, you find your forums to be successful but mired in a CMS and/or BBS software that isn't updated or updateable, you'll have to migrate all the databases and data into new, different, potentially incompatible but much nicer software. This will come at the cost of time, heartache, stress, money ranging from a little to obscenity and will likely require you to redesign the site's CMS.

So, it's not **quite** tossing down fifteen bucks and ~BING!~ out pops a wonderful site that has lots of people coming to it. In fact, for a site that, like this one, is mired in an old CMS and lousy BBS software, it's not like that at all.

But hey: pretty much everyone here is an internet lover. You go girl! Make that new site and include the free classifieds section. You know we'll all check it out, because we will! Maybe that would create some incentive for the millionaires owning this site to put down their cigars (on that gilded ti stand over there at the side of the tee box) and make a better pen for the golden goose? I'll help, too: when you reach 30k monthly uniques, zap me a screenshot of the Analytics and I'll buy a banner ad for $10/month. I put my money where my mouth is. I might even post a classified ad.

Now, @ the millionaires: do what you want with your Classifieds, but please become aware that the longer you wait to push the Agony Button, the worse and more expensive it will be to update and de-lame the site.

Trust me, I know these things.

My big point is if Hammock Forums can do it so can BPL, the $15 comment was for emphasis. In a seriousness if I thought I could start my own site and let everyone know about it without incurring the wrath of BPL for telling people on the only place I know everyone goes, I would. Heck, maybe I'll try it anyway and just hope everyone finds it.

Don't talk about. Do it. We have an on the web forum. Post it there.

I'm not profiting from BPL.com. I'm profiting from exchanging my gear with other members. Using this logic pretty much anyone could charge me for doing anything relating to swapping gear. Maybe my internet company should add a little fee for using it for "profit", and post office giving me an additional tax for mailing out goods….

Restricting access to an internet forum seems pretty 1990's and a seriously poor management decision. These restrictions have nothing to do with actual cost incurred and to me and maybe others, speak to serious and pressing financial needs on the part of BPL.com.

I invest alot of time in BPL.com partly to builds up a history that lets me trade with others, but now because of its changes, even if membership was free, I have less confidence in this platform and its management and I think it might be better to focus on another forum.

Is that BPL can't figure out what perks to offer in exchange for $$, compounded by a lack of transparency in the decision-making process. Other sites manage to offer things that members are willing to pay for: more storage space, more customization options, access to off-topic forums, access to extra features such as larger message limits on PM storage, no ads. Please note the bolded terms, b/c the things that these sites offer to paying members are perks that make being on the site more pleasant, but don't affect the fundamental experience you visit the site to have. Requiring payment for something that's a primary reason people use the site seems to make sense economically, but practically users tend to resent it (see also: the NYT's difficulty in monetizing their online edition). Since gear is, for better or worse, a fundamental part of the experience of being an UL backpacker, the gear swap forum doesn't qualify as an "extra," in my opinion.

I haven't been here since the begining and I don't know what BPL's original business plan was, but I do know I've been and continue to be a paying member at various other sites. I pony up b/c I'm getting something I want and (1) I want to support that so I can keep getting it, and (2) I'm spending enough time on the site that I want the extra features to make the experience more fun. At the time I joined BPL the only extras I noticed were the discounts in the gear shop and article access. Now the gear shop is gone, so that leaves only the articles. If not enough people are willing to pay for those to keep the ship afloat, then BPL needs to come up with new extras. In other words, give more to paying members, not take away established site features from non-paying members. Incentivize. Carrot, not stick.

And while I'm typing, I might as well also point out a problem with word choice. Several very established posters are not subscribers. At other sites, they would simply be "members" instead of "paying members," or "premium members," or "contributors." Here they are "guests." Applying that term to the likes of Bob Gross or Eugene or any of the other familiar, knowledgeable faces here borders on insulting. A guest is someone who visits and leaves. A member is someone who's a part of something bigger. If BPL wants users to invest in the site, they should start by calling people who register to use the forums, "members." Words do matter, especially online where they are the primary means of communicating. People are much more likely to pay for something they feel like they're a part of.