TOPIC: So paid membership AND sponsors now?

I\'ve been around this forum almost 4 years. Lurked for about 6 months before registering. I can personally attest to the honesty & integrity of SO & moderators of this site. Mods and other members have messaged me responding to my inquiries and taken time out of their lives to help me. Information here is invaluable. I will, as pathetic as this might sound to alot of you, admit that this forum helped save my life at one point. S.O. has been very generous with his time and money keeping the site afloat. I will admit, I would not have to the patience to deal with the shit SO and mods deal with on here. When people are willing to pay to travel to a different country and pay up to $3k for a procedure, then bitch about donating to the very site that probably gave them all the invaluable info to begin with I say this:

To the \"numerous members who wish not to be publicly involved with this discussion\"- Go start your own fucking site and pay for it yourself with your own time and money

To everyone who has show support for SO and the moderators, thank you. SO (besides being the owner) and the moderators, have no need to be here. We are here to have a community where honest information is available. Many, many of you are not aware of the beginnings of this forum and the deceit, corruption and harm that led to its inception. We all have a desire to make sure that this forum is the place where that does not occur. Personally, I have no other reason to be here.

To those of you who question the integrity of this forum, you are free to not visit. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and making you type in the URL. Simple as that.
And on the integrity issue, if you really think that is an issue, why would SO or any of the mod team allow this thread to exist? We could have easily deleted it as soon as it was posted.

But I know for a certain fact that many, many men (including some that have posted in this very thread) have utilized this forum to gain information and have taken the step to have a procedure. Yet, they do not see any reason to donate to keep this forum alive. I fully support SO in his decisions. This is his site, after all. He seeks and allows input from the moderators, but if he decided to pull the plug tomorrow, that is his call. Let me ask you, where would you turn then? What other forum has the wealth of information and member support as this one? I actually encourage you to start your own site. Pay for it out of your own pocket. Make your own rules. Deal with the crap that goes on behind the scenes. Please, go ahead. I am pretty certain that you would not have the dedication and determination to have the site last a year, much less the length of time this one has been around.

I am sick to death of the entitlement attitude the abounds.

Of course a few people paying to keep this site going and a bunch of people freeloading isn\'t acceptable.

Just throwing it out there.
I don\'t see what would be so bad about having minimal pop-up ads for things like pumps and extenders, cheap viagra etc. These are all products that are used for real medical problems, like peyronie\'s disease and erectile dysfunction, and people get prescriptions for them from real doctors. As an aside they are also used in this community. Basically I\'m just saying it would be ethical to advertise these products. In contrast to having a popup for an Elist implant.

That would be MY preferred method to dealing with the current situation. I have no idea if that would generate sufficient returns for SO. But I bet it would help.
I have no interest in enlarging my Dick. Just a few minutes ago I was on a peyronies forum, and a guy referenced Elist and how it looked good. All the ......positive reviews. I wanted to show them what that dude \"Basque\" ended up like, even after Gelman fixed him up. But couldn\'t because the \"progress reports\" subforum is private.

I know I\'m not a prominent member here, so my opinion doesn\'t matter. But I do believe $100 is quite over the top. There are almost 8500 members here, if you charged $10 lifetime membership, that\'s $85 000. That would pay for this place until the day we can manufacture an 8\" Cock in our own kitchen. And I think you would make more money that way as more people are going to go for that.

I know of a much smaller forum that has been successful for 15 years with a small lifetime membership and a single sponsor, no popups. Now, if this is to generate an income, that\'s different. And nothing wrong with that.
I hope that all came off as constructive, as that was my intention.

Sidelined wrote: There are almost 8500 members here, if you charged $10 lifetime membership, that\'s $85 000. That would pay for this place until the day we can manufacture an 8\" Cock in our own kitchen.

Thus the point of repeatedly asking (begging) for donations. Yet people continued to use the forum without helping to support it and expecting it to always be there.

You did make some good constructive points, sidelined.

I know at one point SO made it to where if you posted in patient progress and 2 pages and pictures your membership was free.

So to those 6 guys who can\'t or won\'t pay, why didn\'t you take advantage of his free offer while it was available before the paid membership took effect.

If you were lurking for so long you would have seen that said........

Just my 2 cents...
And oh by the way I\'ve had no procedures of any kind and I donated back in December and again in January $100 was well worth the damn info I got here.

So why you whining about 50 bucks when you got 100\'s of posts and 1000\'s of pages for free
BEFORE YOU SPENT MONEY ON YOUR Dick!!

ALL that knowledge, insight, progress reports for free. Any of you 6 could have started progress reports prior but didnt, now you whine..... I don\'t get it.

You didn\'t want to contribute then for everyone to benefit, but you complain when you can\'t partake for free....

Thanks to the mods, SO and the contributing members, your collective insight and comments helped me in my decision against Phalloplasty

lakingsfan35 wrote: Thanks to the mods, SO and the contributing members, your collective insight and comments helped me in my decision against Phalloplasty

This is a huge part of what this forum is about, too. There is no vested interest in steering and coaxing people to have a procedure. Unlike other \"forums\" that are aligned with a doctor, there are no commissions, no referral fees, no nothing. If this site was set up in that way, this would be a done deal. However, then there would not be the open exchange of information.

Thanks for the support, LA.

\" How are you even complaining about this?\"

I\'ll tell you how. There will always be people who just complain. I\'m also a business owner and over the years I\'ve learned that, it doesn\'t matter how good, how cheap or how valuable your services, there will always be complainers. Serious respect and thanks to S.O. and the moderators. Critiquing this site is not wrong, in fact, it\'s a very good thing, because that\'s how you get better. But this one is very ridiculous. If you are a grown adult, there\'s no reason you shouldn\'t be able to afford this site. Even a paperboy could afford this site. The only critique I would have is that doctors like Dr. C, who have benefited greatly from this site, should definitely provide a discount to members. This is just common sense. S.O. has plenty of leverage to make that happen. Dr. Oates is a good example, as he has provided a considerable discount to members from this board.

dprice wrote: My opinion is that you are keeping out ALOT of people that have had the procedure done lately, Myself included - along with about 5 people I know personally. Out of the 6 of us- no one can add their progress reports. This forumn I believe was intended to provide information to people who have had a procedure and to those who have not. I would be happy to provide my results and many complications so that others would be aware of what to expect..
However the thoughts of myself and others I have talked to are such that 1. why would we pay to tell others about our personal experiences with Girth enhancements, especially when everyone just wants to see Pictures of our penises. This is not a porn site- it\'s designed to help people make educated decisions about the procedure. 2. By charging people money - you are eliminating ALOT of people that may be willing to share their experiences with the forumn. If you look at the statistics - Dr.C does about 2+ new procedures a day...

Hm. You can start a journal and post your pictures and get feedback and questions answered - for free - and then you get free membership from it.

And if you are a reader, you can read for free.

And if you want to read and see the progress pictures, then you can pay a few dollars that are *nothing* compared to a penis procedure.

Also i think it\'s great only people who pay can see my penis.

Seriously.

Am i missing something?

Commercial accounts means accounts where it is clearly seeable that they sell something because they are marked? Sounds good to me.