I hate rules, but...

[RKS Computer Solutions]

Dave, any of your planned mods available for uploading of VCF files so that interested members and the public can download them? Have been seeing quite a lot of visitors...

[duncan drennan]

Dave, any of your planned mods available for uploading of VCF files so that interested members and the public can download them? Have been seeing quite a lot of visitors...

I'm a bit confused...why? Would it not be better to just put contact info on your website? Also, quite a bit of info can be added by using the User CP

[Dave A]

Dave, any of your planned mods available for uploading of VCF files so that interested members and the public can download them? Have been seeing quite a lot of visitors...

A click-to-download icon in the postbit (member info area in the post) maybe?
An interesting idea. Technically not much of a challenge making it available - but can we take comments for and against.

For the record - the members profile list is not set as viewable to the public at the moment. It was getting hammered by bots...

[RKS Computer Solutions]

A click-to-download icon in the postbit (member info area in the post) maybe?
An interesting idea. Technically not much of a challenge making it available - but can we take comments for and against.

For the record - the members profile list is not set as viewable to the public at the moment. It was getting hammered by bots...

Cool... Here's the way I see it... Duncan has posted about being able to add information via the User CP... The vCard option there allows for the download of the user name and an email address...

My vCard, (attached to this post, in ZIP format), has the following information:

Company name -- My Name -- Phone nr -- Fax nr -- Email -- Website -- Company Slogan -- Company logo

That is a load more info than just a user name on the forum and an email addy as contact....

Thanks for the comment Snoopy!

[Ann Williams]

As Duncan has said a little previously in this conversation - a signature is like a business card... But we also need to remember that a business card is also a marketing tool. Having contributors able to market themselves a little bit gets them coming back and contributing more great stuff.

(And, Duncan, you really need to tell all of us a little bit more about your consulting work and what makes you special, in your signature - even a sentence...)

So, another 2c to toss into the fountain of ideas here...

Keep it very loose about what people can put in their signatures and let members have their freedom of expression. Basically keep the limitations that are made, based on technical considerations (no huge graphics & file sizes - this is a free forum and we are not paying for the space, so we should be mindful of abusing the priveledge of using this space.)

Cheers
A

Ps. More about this model of forum and at least covering the costs (not just through marketing) in a new thread.

[Dave A]

Ps. More about this model of forum and at least covering the costs (not just through marketing) in a new thread.

Something that's coming or did I miss something, Ann?

[Ann Williams]

Hi Dave, sorry about that... got sidetracked.

I thought it might be better on a new thread, but I may as well keep going.

The scenario: this is a free forum; you pay out of your own/business's pocket to host, build and maintain the forum; then the admin team and moderator's give a huge amount of their time, resources and expertise....

What about having a mechanism for users to make voluntary contributions towards the running of the forum? Once-off or regular if wanted. (It would certainly come in cheaper than us hiring a consultant to give us the info we can gain from regular use of this forum!)

I'm not sure how much of a mission this would be to organise as it would rather defeat the purpose if say the fees for a new bank account are more than any contributions made.

[Ann Williams]

Another way of 'paying' yourselves for a job well done is to give the administrators advertising space on the site to promote your businesses.

Obviously you don't want to fill the pages with advertising (or else you'll look like one of the news sites that have so much advertising that almost everyone skims right over everything), but you certainly could tell us a lot more about your businesses than is currently being said.

This is a topic that I handle in my electronic marketing workshop and I am always fascinated to see where a webmaster has managed to maintain the delicate balance between giving useful information and including a punt for their products. (As I have just done in this paragraph.)

One of the best SA examples I have seen is how the Ideate blog team manage to make their blog sell the products from their various businesses. They have found a really good balance... great postings and frequent references to their goodies!