Trail Talk Plus

“My idea was never to take away the free TT. There would always be the free TT. You would only have to pay if you wanted an "Enhanced" version of TT. And for those wondering, no the site is financially sound.”

“As long as there is a choice, I wouldn't pay any fee.

If there were no choice, I'd pay whatever you decided to charge. Heck, I'd sell my kids to raise the money if I had to.”

“hey, Matt
yell at diggerboy for calling us dysfunctional.”

“What it really boils down to is how much is it worth to read the political arguments of stratdewd and phaedrus, the cut and pastes of vioLIN, the menus of jello fog, how many cases of beer bbinkley carries on his trips, the zany adventures of newgirl, the perils of maple leaf, the thoughts of Her Adorableness, the drunken rants of Crazy Mike, the philosphical sputterings of Marvin Gardens, what lizs is up to now, the strange hankerins of Creek Dancer, the improbable inventions of Stove Stomper, the ever popular minutes of the HMWHC, the stories of Sarabelle, treebeard's trip reports from New York City, the injury reports of Cpl Nasty, nowslimmer's pithy comments, snow nymph's reports from glaciers around California, the drivel of UpUrs, treebait's reports from the Maine woods, Psycho Squirrel's taunts, Twinkle Toes' boredom, the affairs of chili and MRSCHILI, Opie and Miss Opie, smileygirl, crazygurl, Sassafras, Birch, Tom Terrific, Wolf Eyes, Buddha Bear, Buddur, Gojo, Aero's droll remarks, ice tea's depredations on the English language, Dunadan's Haiku, Tilt's poetry, skullcap's observations, or Geobeet's pointed comments? Where else, I ask you?”

“Wow, Geo. That was a mouthful!

The ads don't bother me. And I probably wouldn't pay to post.”

“i'd sell Violin's kids to post here, too!”

“I'd HAVE viloins kids to be able to post here!”

“ditto. The ads don't bother me (although that suitcase one was a little annoying, LOL) and I wouldn't pay. :)”

“MAPLE!!! LMAO! :-D”

“You could take violin's kids to sell, shouldn't be difficult, I hear those amber alerts don't work anyhow”

“Funny you should offer maple. My wife said if I wanted anymore kids I'd have to find another woman to carry them.

Are you free from 4:00 to 4:03 this afternoon?”

“Twice huh?”

“Way to handle yerself Mapes!”

“LMFAO

your all sick pps!!

I think treebeard would have a major problem


he would be upset having to go through all the moods with me all over again!!”

“ha!!!”

“ok lts put it this way,

I would donat geo to have vmans kids!”

“no better yet, geo would wear a BUTT flap in public to be able to post here!”

“How much would you pay for me to start posting the IP address associated with each message? That would make troll detective work a lot easier.”

“Now THERE'S a GREAT IDEA!”

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmm”

“with all that money, you could afford to take the vacation of a lifetime!!”

“The ads never bothered me, but I'm using fast computers and connections. I suppose I'd pay to get rid of the ads if I were using dial-up. I kind of already pay my ISP for fast service so the advertisements downloading don't really impact me. If the free section was available and I could post, I don't see why I'd pay.

On the other hand, I certainly do enjoy most of TT and would donate if it meant TT was going to go away without some financial support. I guess it would sort of be like Public TV or radio. Consider this...what if every site you visited wanted a "donation"? Would you pay to view...or would you just stop going?

Lyra wants to be paid in J.Crew, Banana Republic and some other clothing company gift certificates. Was it the Gap or Eddie Bauer?”

“ha!! that would be interesting. i bet you could find a lot of people who would also pay you NOT to do that, matt!”

“J. Crew and The Gap merged.”

“I wouldn't pay for this torture.

Maybe you could use this as a selling point. For a small fee you can get rid of me.”

“What will it cost, Matt?”

“Eddie Bauer! puke city, dude! that would be Gap. i just bought a pair of pajama pants there for $10...who wants to reimburse me?
;-)”

“wait a min,

did Matt just threaten us with black mail?


WOW your good Matt!”

“no way, i like you, bacpac! but i'm not having your children.”

“DITO”

“It's not The Gap anymore, lyra. They merged with J. Crew.”

“WHAT? you mean the companies that own them did? i know they're still two separate stores, because i was in both of them last night, getting my fix on.”

“Well, as most TT'rs don't seem to mind the ads, why not get more ads and forget the "enhanced" idea.

Or you could raise money by selling pop-up TT'rs to the members. Just imagine......you could have Maple floating accross your screen in a kayak, lyra's monkeys leaping from corner to corner, Geobeets' Tarp Mahal flapping.

The possibilities are endless I tell ya.”

“New signs will go up soon. It will be called The Crap.”

“LMAO! i really don't want to know what some of you freaks would choose as your "pop-up."

and Geo, you had better by lying, because that would really screw up my world. i don't want J.Crew to get all Gappy!”

“Gotcha! MoooooooooooHaHaHaHa”

“TT is message board. There would have to be some pretty amazing added features to justify a charge for THAT service, wouldn't there, Matt? I mean, we are talking about a message board... They're free everywhere.

Plus: I think if you started charging, the board would become stagnant. New folk probably wouldn't buy a membership.

Just my two cents. I would pay until it got boring.”

“but you just paid your $.002”

“Posting troll IP addresses is just plain wrong, who would be next? Lurkers like me? I hike alone and I want to be by myself. The TT page is my only social life.”

“Matt,

I'd certainly donate to TT, but, like most people have stated here, a monthly fee prolly wouldn't go over too well.

I'm very surprised that you haven't hooked up with a B&M gear store to sell thier products, or do what Binks is doing. I know you have Latta, but that can only bring in so much. Why not try to sell gear, or, become the mapquest of trails. Sell the service of mapmaking for those who don't have GPS.

Also, and I know this is a whole new ball game, but Backpacker Mag doesn't have any direct competition, why not get some TT investors and launch a mag to go along with the site?

OK, brainstorming over, back to posting mindless drivel.”

“Good name!

I think matt was only joking about the IP addresses. I HOPE!”

“Good idea, BB. I'd love to see a TT Mag. I think it would go over very well. B'packer mag needs some competion. I'd help with that idea.”

“Sell T-shirts. I'd buy one.”

“Would there be a filter option?

It might be worth it not to have to wade through all the liberal conspiracy theories.”

“Matt - I like the idea about the IP address and I was going to suggest that but you beat me to it. Another good idea is to have a very good search engine available for some cost - there have been a number of times that I have wished for a good search engine for finding old postings on TT.”

“Wow, Geobeet, now you're confusing me with somebody else. Must be that age thing.
Just kidding!”

“Ya got me there. It was twigeater.

First thing that goes is your watchamacallit.

Second thing that goes is your other watchamacallit.”

“LOL, treebait/twigeater, kinda similar I guess... :)”

“Not to mention treebeard, but it's easy to keep track of that cookoff cheating low-down Yankee fan polecat.”

“I would not pay. Not that I don't love this site and all the people on it - but I still would not pay.

However, I would send a "donation".

Matt, do you have any grant support? What about charging outfitters, etc to advertise on your site (maybe that's what you do already?).

Do not make this a "country club" with dues paying. Remember, the "other site" is free.

There has to be a more creative approach - I'll see what I can brain storm...”