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April 2, 2009
Park Slope Parents to Start Charging for Membership
The popular list serve Park Slope Parents (which is up to 13,000 members) announced yesterday that it plans to start charging $25 a year per household. Not surprisingly, a debate is raging on the list. We're curious to know what you think of that. Please take this super-quick survey we put together here to weigh in.
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Comments
I see "Park Slope Parents 2.0" popping up.
I'll jump.
Posted by: jasetheace at April 2, 2009 10:57 AM
That is crazy. Death nell for that site. If the Times couldn't pull it off, somehow I don't think PSP will.
Posted by: FatLenny at April 2, 2009 10:59 AM
LOL. These people are too much...
Posted by: jdoo at April 2, 2009 11:04 AM
I can't imagine how the fee will do anything other than kill the site.
Even if they have enough members willing to pay now, they won't bring in new members and the site will die out quickly.
They'd be better off setting up a real web site and selling advertising.
Why are people so dumb?
Posted by: northsloperenter at April 2, 2009 11:11 AM
If Wikipedia can get enough volunteers to run that site without charging, I don't see why PSP can't. This will just cause many new yahoo groups to form in response.
Posted by: oe at April 2, 2009 11:17 AM
Ah, but northslope, they don't want to be "commercial."
However, I agree. I wouldn't bother to pay for a membership. Then again, I don't live in Park Slope and probably shouldn't be a member anyways. (shhh!)
Posted by: Heather at April 2, 2009 11:21 AM
Membership fees for a website that is touted as something that offers guidance and community to parents, but is really not much more than a specialized Craigslist?
Hmmmm...
Posted by: Parklife at April 2, 2009 11:33 AM
Perhaps they learned that if you try to mug Park Slopers, they won't identify you to the cops!
Too soon?
Posted by: RaginCajun at April 2, 2009 11:39 AM
As a free resource it was good, as a paid resource, not so much.
Posted by: superlawyer at April 2, 2009 11:53 AM
brownstoner, now is your chance. Start a new park slope listserve and keep it free.
Posted by: slick at April 2, 2009 11:57 AM
I'm not a member of PSP, but I've often used the site for reviews and referrals of local vendors. It's a huge site but searchable and well organized. For comparison, the Bococa egroup, which has no real costs, is unmanageably large. I was receiving 10+ emails a day in which I had no interest before I quit it in self-defense.
Information may want to be free, but if it's in a USEFUL format, that costs knowledgeable time and therefore money. If any of us want any kind of reliable information services in the future, we are going to have to get used to paying for it online.
On the survey, I voted I would pay $25. (But then I was pu through to a promotional SurveyMonkey site and had to go back to Brownstoner my own little self. A bit rude.)
Posted by: Brooklyn Chicken at April 2, 2009 11:57 AM
"Information may want to be free, but if it's in a USEFUL format, that costs knowledgeable time and therefore money. If any of us want any kind of reliable information services in the future, we are going to have to get used to paying for it online."
The thing is, PSP's information comes from its users. If you reduce the user base, you reduce the value of the information.
If they go "subscription only", how long will it be before someone takes slick's advice and sets up a competing site?
Posted by: northsloperenter at April 2, 2009 12:19 PM
Eh. I've used it, found it helpful if you avoid the arguments, and don't get the hate that gets showered on PSP. But not useful enough to pay for it, especially considering that it'll reduce the user base. Good luck to them, though.
Posted by: basementalist at April 2, 2009 12:39 PM
Hard to see this site having any longevity with subscription. That's a whole week of coffee for the mommy mafia !
Posted by: 10thStreetReno at April 2, 2009 12:39 PM
I hope that a competing site will be set up, very often something comes out that is better than the original. And, even if it's not "better," it would be nice to see posts that are unfiltered and uncensored (PSP carefully screens posts). The useful information is found on the yahoo listserv, many PSPers don't even check the website (which is no great shakes by the way) because they find the info outdated or not useful. I'm on the fence about this one, on the one hand, it's annoying to pay for information that is freely given by other posters, on the other hand, PSP is saying that their founder and other moderators deserve to be paid for their countless hours of work done.
Posted by: tiptoe at April 2, 2009 1:05 PM
I'm on the e-mail list but have honestly been deleting them unread lately and was thinking of unsubscribing to keep my inbox cleaner.
If they want to get paid, they need to decide if they want to get paid RIGHT NOW (e.g., membership fees) or if they still want to be getting paid 5-10 years from now (e.g., create a site with a business model that doesn't choke itself to death).
Just my $0.02. I don't care much one way or the other as I never used the site much. I'm mostly just annoyed at stupid decisions regarding web sites in an abstract sense, as that's what I'm dealing with in my job lately...
Posted by: northsloperenter at April 2, 2009 1:19 PM
why pay for something you can get for free elsewhere?
Buncha tards in PS
Posted by: Xander Crews at April 2, 2009 4:01 PM
I am a member of the Park Slope classified listserv which is great. However, I wouldn't pay $25/year for it. 13,000 members x $25=325,000/year (not including paid advertisers) for a blog? Hopefully, this will just make our FREE Fort Greene babies and kids listservs more popular.
Posted by: chnewbie at April 2, 2009 6:18 PM
it's not a site you dummies
Posted by: noah at April 3, 2009 10:57 AM
Here's a splinter group!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theotherparkslopeparents/
Posted by: iheartbrooklynliving at April 7, 2009 7:57 PM
I also hope that this fee just strengthens my neighborhood group but I also enjoy PSP because it's so huge. Anyway, already found a splinter group. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theotherparkslopeparents/
Posted by: iheartbrooklynliving at April 7, 2009 8:21 PM
BREAKING NEWS—
The “original” group just posted that there is yet ANOTHER group!
The Free Park Slope Parents
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFREEParkSlopeParents/
To subscribe, send a blank message to: TheFREEParkSlopeParents-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Posted by: brokemother at April 9, 2009 12:37 PM
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