Lab Forums way ahead

stressed · Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 7:59 pm Post subject: New members point of view

Hi there

Having recently joined the site as a new member I thought it might be helpful to post an observation with reference to membership fees.

Having "fallen" into this website having searched for general information on labs, I had access to all information that I was looking for - At that point not really interested in "off topic conversations" and found pretty much an answer to most of my questions.

Having read previous posts on this thread where somebody has suggested restricting access - this could be seen as an answer to encouraging more people to join and parting with their hard earned cash - Unfortunately as you pointed out this wouldn't work because restricting the forum would restrict the search engine "spiders" and not produce traffic.

However, I have to be honest, although now I have joined and happily paid my £10.00 fee I didn't realise this was even a requirement to view certain forum topics until the other day! I thought that the subscription tab at the top was to subscribe to a newsletter or something!! I think it would be a great idea to have more "click to join" or "join now" buttons scattered around the website......On posts even.....in bright red... to give new members a little push!! I don't know how long it would have taken me to figure it out if I hadn't read a certain thread by accident and learning about subscribing!! Although it has to be said that I more often than not have BLONDE MOMENTS!! Well I'm still sticking to blonde moments rather than senior ones!