Reply to "What is YOUR opinion of free loading businesses?"

George,

This forum has been extremely helpful and valuable to me in my pursuit of rebuilding my Pcar. You and Debbie have done a great job making this forum easy to use, informative, interesting and maybe most important, civil. We all know how dysfunctional some forums can be.

As far as 'freeloading' businesses go I have not notice much of that. I’m sure you are much more sensitive to that than anyone. Not sure what can be done about that unless you change the forum format. I doubt that you want to become a forum hardball police person to enforce the rules.

IMHO, this forum, for the most part, should be left as is. Forums with multi-levels of membership are confusing for my simple mind. Strongly encouraging real business to financially support this forum is a good idea. Maybe they need a warning of some sort. Joules’ idea of a special section for supporting vendors makes sense. This forum is a valuable advertising resource for related business and they should contribute in some way.

IMHO, we all should show some support on some level. Everyone here can afford to make a voluntary donation once a year. I have no idea what the yearly expenses are to run the forum but some voluntary donation would surely help. Maybe a yearly fund drive like what Wikipedia does might ease the financial burden. It can be run until you reach the target amount. Just my 2 cents.

Personally, I would hate to see this forum drastically change or disappear. The financial burden should not be all yours. If it takes paid membership count me. PM sent for instruction on where to send my donation.