Restricting Access To The Rides List

[Bill Edwards]

All The Fun Of The Fair is primarily a message forum. However, over the years it has grown into so much more. We have A Rides List with details and photos of over 3500 UK Rides, A Transport List, Funfair Reports Archive and loads more. As far as I am aware, the information we provide is unique online. Providing adequate hosting and storage requires funding which I am unable to finance solely on my own.  Fortunately Forum Supporter donations are currently covering our costs - however this assumes that our hosting/storage bill doesn't go any higher and supporter numbers don't drop. Forum Supporters have been discussed in the forum recently and this has had a positive effect and numbers are up - we are secure, for the time being at least.

 

I don't however want to be complacent and I've been discussing with the Forum Panel various methods of encouraging donations. One suggestion was to look at the benefits of donation (apart from the obvious one of keeping this unique resource available!). And I have now enhanced the benefits available to forum supporters (please see http://www.fun-fairs.co.uk/supporter-benefits/ for details)

 

Also discussed was making the Forum "Member Only", that is only accessible to those who do contribute financially. For various reasons, I don't want to implement this. However, if push comes to shove and the level of donations drops below our hosting and storage bills I WILL reconsider this option.

 

Another option discussed was restricting access to our biggest and most used feature - The Rides List - to paid subscriber only. I can see merit in this idea, but I still have reservations, primarily that the list was compiled and the information and photos supplied by a mixture of supporters and non-supporters and to exclude those who contributed to its success would be grossly unfair. I believe that it is important to balance who has access to the Rides List with those who have contributed to make it the success it is. I hope that I have achieved this with the following change in policy. 

 

Having considered all the advantages and disadvantages I have decided that access to the Rides List will eventually be restricted to Forum Supporters only, but this won't be done until it is necessary. I believe that by phasing in this restriction it will be fairer and I won't have to restrict access anymore than is necessary to achieve our aims.

 

Phase 1 - Has been completed. All new members to the forum will have unlimited access to all of the site except the Rides List - if they wish to access this additional feature they will need to support the forum financially (and with our lowest donation of just 20p a week it can hardly be described as expensive!)

 

Phase 2 - Is proving more difficult than I anticipated. If a member doesn't financially support the forum and has never contributed with content (that is has never posted) they will not be able to access the Rides List. I had a plugin to identify and move these members automatically, but it was unreliable, moving members who didn't fit the criteria. This is now a manual process and will take some time to complete.

 

Phase 3 - On 1st January 2018, the Rides List will further be restricted to the following:

1. Forum Supporters
2. Members who have contributed to the Rides List
3. Members who submit Funfair Reports

 

The software is able to automatically give Supporters Rides List access, so there is no work to do on this aspect. However, there is no way for the software to identify Rides List or Funfair Report contributors, so these members will have to be given access to the Rides List Manually.

 

If you are NOT a Forum Supporter, but have contributed to the Rides List or have submitted Funfair Reports I will have to manually give you access to the Rides List. Please drop me, @Bill Edwards or @Jamie Peters a PM indicating which Rides List Entry or Funfair Report you have contributed to and we will do the rest. I've announced this now so that I have time to allow all those members who should have access to be able to access the list when it's restricted in just over two months time. 

 

I hope that you understand why this change of policy has been thought necessary and hope that you feel as I do and the Forum Panel does, that by restricting access to Forum Supporters and Contributor's to The Rides List and Funfair reports that the policy is being implemented fairly. 

 

Many thanks for your continued support.

 

Bill

 

 

 

 

[Bill Edwards]

Very few members have asked for access to the Rides List when it is restricted in just over a week.

 

Please take the time to read my post above and if you want to access the Rides List and have either submitted photos or information to it, or you submit funfair reports, you will need to contact @Jamie Peters or myself, @Bill Edwards

[Guest]

Bill I can't access the rides list which I have contributed too....there are lots of my photos of Edwards waltzer on there if you need to confirm. 

[Jamie Peters]

 

On 10/21/2017 at 14:47, Bill Edwards said:

If you are NOT a Forum Supporter, but have contributed to the Rides List or have submitted Funfair Reports I will have to manually give you access to the Rides List. Please drop me, @Bill Edwards or @Jamie Peters a PM indicating which Rides List Entry or Funfair Report you have contributed to and we will do the rest. I've announced this now so that I have time to allow all those members who should have access to be able to access the list when it's restricted in just over two months time. 

 

18 minutes ago, Gary Butland said:

Bill I can't access the rides list which I have contributed too....there are lots of my photos of Edwards waltzer on there if you need to confirm. 

 

Gary, as Bill says above the process to give existing members access to the rides list isn't automatic, its manual, so if you didn't PM myself or Bill to get access you would have lost the ability to view the lists yesterday, along with any other contributors who didn't request access. I will update your profile now to give you access to the lists.

 

If there are any other members who haven't requested access please message myself or Bill and we can sort it out for you

[John Magnus]

Hi Bill

I have been restricted access to the ride lists, and I do put up Fair Reports from time to time, admittedly not for a while, but some times they have already been done by someone else,  my last one was March Cambridgeshire 16th-20th March 2017, dose that count to get access to the rides list.

[Roger Peatman]

19 minutes ago, John Magnus said:

Hi Bill

I have been restricted access to the ride lists, and I do put up Fair Reports from time to time, admittedly not for a while, but some times they have already been done by someone else,  my last one was March Cambridgeshire 16th-20th March 2017, dose that count to get access to the rides list.

 

John, - all you need to do is PM Jaimie or Bill and they will sort it out for you. - one of them will probably see your post and sort it anyway.

[John Magnus]

I sent Jamie a message yesterday, but got no reply. Have now sent one to Bill. Thanks

 

Edited January 3, 2018 by John Magnus

[Jamie Peters]

54 minutes ago, John Magnus said:

I sent Jamie a message yesterday, but got no reply. Have now sent one to Bill. Thanks

 

 

Hi John, are you sure you messaged me? I haven't got any messages from you but I have from other members asking for access? I'll check and upgrade your account now if Bill hasn't done it yet.

[John Magnus]

Hi Jamie

I probably done something wrong, somewhere with the message.

 

Thank you.

[Nick Attwell]

I fully agree with your current & potential aspects to this forum Bill

[John Medway]

The rides list is a big part of All the fun of the fair.Now its all the fun of being unfair. 

[Bill Edwards]

19 minutes ago, John Medway said:

The rides list is a big part of All the fun of the fair.Now its all the fun of being unfair. 

 

Please would you be so kind as to explain why it's unfair? 

[John Medway]

41 minutes ago, Bill Edwards said:

 

Please would you be so kind as to explain why it's unfair? 

 

No point nothing will change Rules will be Rules.

[Bill Edwards]

8 minutes ago, John Medway said:

 

No point nothing will change Rules will be Rules.

 

There is every point! This has been extensively discussed by the Forum Panel to ensure that it is as fair as possible. If you have another point of view, perhaps something we haven't considered/discussed then the decision can and will be looked at again.

[Paul McHaddan]

23 hours ago, John Medway said:

 

No point nothing will change Rules will be Rules.

 

Its not a case of rules will be rules...."Its a case of supporting the forum to help with the costs of running the forum"

 

Members don't have to pay anything but members are encouraged to help from as little as £5 a year!!!!!

 

You have members that pay nothing & don't add reports, photos, etc the list goes on so WHY should they have full access 

[Ron Wood]

How sad that only 120 Members out of a  possible 4868 contribute  financially  People are still trying to wiggle out of PAYING  a measly £5 a yr. Very Sad.

[Andy H]

Yet they are the first to cry foul when things are put in place to try and secure the forums future.

[Bill Edwards]

I am very grateful to those of you who have supported this change. I confess that the episode has been an eye opener for me. The Rides List is,  in my opinion a unique (at least online),  comprehensive, up to date, extremely well illustrated resource and a credit to all those members who have contributed to its success. 

 

The forum isn't run by a company, there are no share holders, there is no profit, what is donated covers the hosting and storage. Many, many months I've covered the short fall from my own pocket. Some months I'm up, most months I'm down and over the life of the forum I'm considerably out of pocket. 

 

Our lowest donation for access to the Rides list is £5 a year. That's under 10 pence per week. Compared to a magazine subscription, a go on a fairground ride, a pint or a cigarette it cannot be seen as expensive and certainly not "unfair" as has been said. 

 

The sole reason for the change was to ensure the future of the forum, so it was decided by the forum panel to charge for access to just this one part of the forum. And just in case anyone couldn't afford the fiver, but had contributed content, we added access to those who ask - with the specific object of being fair! Quite how a member to claim it is unfair that they can't access a feature they don't support financially and haven't contributed to I fail to see and so far no one has been willing to say how it is unfair. 

 

In the past it's been suggested that the process to donate was too difficult. I've simplified it - anyone who can post on the forum and operate our postal system can donate, so I don't belive that is still an issue. 

 

I don't believe that we've got the policy wrong,  but as mentioned above, if there is an aspect we haven't considered, something you want us to consider then please let me or a forum panel member know and we will reconsider. Saying it is unfair without backing it up is pointless! 

 

9 hours ago, Ron Wood said:

Very Sad.

 

Well said! 

[Gary Witcomb]

14 hours ago, Ron Wood said:

How sad that only 120 Members out of a  possible 4868 contribute  financially  People are still trying to wiggle out of PAYING  a measly £5 a yr. Very Sad.

 

Yes but they pay (over 1000 members each organization) £15 to both the Fairground Socitey & FAGB at a drop of a hat

Don't get me wrong these are good organizations but for value of Money £5 per year to ATFOTF is nothing 

so as far as i'm concerned if you want the ride listing PAY UP!! or _ _ _ _  _ _

[Gary Witcomb]

29 minutes ago, David L said:

Just my thoughts on the matter, It's not unreasonable to ask for donations to help the upkeep of the site but I do feel that is literally all you are paying for but I can see the reasons why, one person should not have to foot the bill for something many people use but I feel that there is not enough going on on the forum in recent years to make a charge viable, its obvious to see that Facebook had a massive effect on the content posted to the forum, quite often days go by and there is nothing new to look over compared to a time when you could check the forum every half an hour and there would be something new to look at,  minus the rides list and reports everything else is basically available to view for free on Facebook if you know where to find it.

The information within the rides list is also available elsewhere, NFA numbers and individual machine histories etc, a cost to access it could only be to take advantage of how well organised the lists are on the forum and its ease of use and accessibility because that information to be fair isn't really owned by the forum or the panel who run it and therefor asking people to pay to see it feels slightly fraudulent to me,  all the photo's held there however are different, they are unique to the forum and therefor a charge to view them is acceptable. I think what i'm saying is a charge is simply to cover the convenience of having everything in one place and to cover what ever it costs to keep it there?

 

As a Forum Panel Member i fully support what we have introduced its was purely to ensure the continuing success of the Forum, it was not introduced lightly we discussed it at great length and i believe we came to the right conclusion for the long term benefit of the Forum We may not own the info you refer to but a lot of hard work goes on behind the Scenes to maintain / check / update them

 

I don't believe for one minute you can find ride listing as comprehensive any were else, the NFA no longer have them on there pages and were removed as they were becoming out of date & as for the info on Face Book you can gain some good info from there, but most of it is total rubbish with Hundred's of so called expert eagar to provide info from a Good Source

 

As for your remark "slightly fraudulent to me" the word Slightly is not get out, in fact its a low blow and offensive 

 

I cant speak for the other members of staff but a lot of work goes on behind the scenes that the general membership does not see but do benefit from 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bill Edwards]

5 minutes ago, David L said:

I feel its unfair to charge people to access info they submitted

But we aren't

 

As stated in my first post here, if you have contributed and ask for access you will be granted access! 

[Paul Needham]

 bills right, umpteen posts back it says that you need to ask even if you were/are a contributor because they need to make it accessible sort of by hand as the software  wont just do it automatically , of course david if your point was a matter of principle rather than speaking for yourself then I realise this wont help you,

I'm not aware the NFA still have the lists? all that excellent work by ian trowel et al gone to waste for the most ludicrous of reasons, 

I cant see why people cant put content on here and facebook too, don't you have to click about all over to see all the content? on facebook, whereas on here its all in one place and well run and overseen?

[Ian Woodall]

2 hours ago, Paul Needham said:

 bills right, umpteen posts back it says that you need to ask even if you were/are a contributor because they need to make it accessible sort of by hand as the software  wont just do it automatically , of course david if your point was a matter of principle rather than speaking for yourself then I realise this wont help you,

I'm not aware the NFA still have the lists? all that excellent work by ian trowel et al gone to waste for the most ludicrous of reasons, 

I cant see why people cant put content on here and facebook too, don't you have to click about all over to see all the content? on facebook, whereas on here its all in one place and well run and overseen?

 

At the time they deleted them, i had the ark and waltzer list which Bill copied, the lists are still on the web archive.

 

waltzer and ark list is here...

 

 

 

other lists are here.....

 

 

Edited January 15, 2018 by Ian Woodall

[Rob Anglesea]

Hi can anyone help from some reason I don’t have permission to view the rides list anymore?

[Ian Davies]

i got the same message....what hav we done wrong, wanted to look at Quasers thats all....