...the following email was sent to all members on 6/15/09 in case you missed it...

SUBJECT: Major Changes For ASF Buy-Sell-Trade Classified Ad Forums

Hello,

You are receiving this email because you have joined our website: http://www.AirsoftForum.com/board. If you don't like getting helpful news from us like the one you're reading right now, check the links below to unsubscribe your email address. Or you can simply send me a nasty reply and I will delete your account for you :-) lol

Just Kidding, but it does seems that every time I send you guys an email - I get 10 or 20 hate mails back about how I spam too much :-). Hopefully, those people will one day learn what email spamming really is. I do try however, to keep the emails from us informative and infrequent because of that though.

ANYWAY... the reason I am sending you this email is to let you know about a major rule change that has just happened with our Buy-Sell-Trade (BST) Classified Ad Forums.

If you don't buy and sell on our website and you don't plan to ever start, go ahead and delete this email now. Otherwise, keep reading and I will try to keep this as short as possible, I promise (unlike the last time eh?).

For those of you that have been on our website in the last few days, you probably heard all the fuss and controversy about our new BST rule and I hope to clear up some of the confusion about it with this email. For those of you that haven't been around in a while and are totally clueless, I'll tell you about it now if you have a minute...

Basically we decided to change the way "new topics" are allowed to be posted in the "Airsoft Items For Sale" category (a.k.a the "FS" forum). Previously all new topics in that forum could be posted by anyone at any time. Well... We have just neutered that and now there are only 2 ways to post new topics in the "Airsoft Items For Sale" category.

#1 You can continue posting items in the above mentioned forum FOR FREE if you can do a few extra things for us; if you can't or don't want to - you need to pay now. This will help us clean up a few problems and also help to better control member online buying & selling to make ASF a safer place and hopefully reduce some of the bad deals and people getting burned. (and yes, help us pay our server bill and grow this website).

#2 You can skip the "the extra stuff that we want you to do" buy purchasing an "Authorized Seller" membership and gain immediate access to post anything you want! Well almost anything, the previous rules still apply, but at least now, Authorized Sellers can sell NEW AIRSOFT ITEMS if they want - whereas previously that was off limits except by ASF Sponsors and Advertisers.

...After all the fuss about this the other night, I reduced the rate for a limited time and said that the next 100 people who paid for "Authorized Seller" access right now (or until 100 positions were filled), that those people could gain immediate access for the next 12 months for 50% off the normal new yearly price and pay only $4.95 for the entire year.

Some people complained and some had no problem with the new rules. The people that complained probably either didn't realize that it actually does cost money to run a server like this - that is getting over 430,000 unique visitors and more than 5,800,000 page views PER MONTH.

...That's 27,599,074 (27.5 MILLION HITS) last month (May 2009) - to put that into perspective for you if you like to use the words, "website hits"....

The people who didn't waste any time and quickly realized the massive traffic that we really are getting and sending to their classified ads, joined and paid the low yearly subscription right away.

That was about 3 days ago and as of right now (the time that I am sending this email), there are only about 52 available memberships at this low promotional rate of the $4.95 / yearly price - then after that, it goes back up to $9.95 per year (when all of those spots are gone).

If you do sell airsoft items here and you have had a positive experience in the past, you better take advantage of this promotional offer immediately because I can't guarantee how long this is going to last and I don't have any plans to reduce the "paid rate" again. If anything it will most likely be raised as I plan to double our current website traffic in the next 6 to 12 months. By the way, and as you probably already know - that costs money to manage, maintain and operate. (maybe you don't, but yeah it actually does).

Click here to read the new rule:
http://www.airsoftforum.com/board/Importan...ri-t152759.html

Click here to read all the fuss about it:
http://www.airsoftforum.com/board/Rule-Pay...al-t151971.html

Or Click here, to stop screwing around and take immediate action and join now before that 50% off promotional price is gone in the next few days or hours:

http://www.airsoftforum.com/board/index.ph...&CODE=index

PS, I forgot to tell you that the new "Authorized Sellers" member group can now 'open and close' their own topics, and 'get 5 days to go back and edit' their OP for corrections, 'external links in signatures' (to their SOA listing or free store front - not other websites), posts in BST 'counts towards total post count' now, etc.

So Don't hesitate because I promise you this wont wait for you. If you think the rule sucks and you want to boycot ASF, that's your loss. Meanwhile, everyone else can make a ton of cash selling THEIR items in our classifieds for the pennies it costs to be an "authorized seller".

To continue this discussion or let us know what you think, post a reply below

-admin

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Busiest Time: 2584 users were online on 2nd March 2009 - 02:07 PM

This post has been edited by admin: Jun 15 2009, 08:21 PM

how can I access this? I have tried the link but its billing me the whole price.

well then you would be the first out of 40 something people to "get billed the wrong price"... be sure to actually read the choices on the subscription page and to choose the right one, there are about 5 different plans to choose from. Once you choose the right one, let me know which one you did choose and or whether or not you want me to cancel one of them for you..

Why was my account deleted simply because I didnt agree with the fee to sell online, theres no for that and it was very unneccesary, I had important messages that have to do with selling some guns online I would like to know why my account was deleted?!

Um, maybe it was deleted because I am SO tired of dealing with people who don't read before posting negative, inaccurate comments because they simply like spouting off at the mouth without actually knowing what their talking about??

Did you miss the part about there NOT BEING ANY FEE if you want to help us out and also use SOA?

There are 2 ways to sell your items here, both free and paid methods to become an authorized seller ECHO, ECHO, ECHO - how may times do I have to say that before people read and understand it? and you wonder why I get irritated and lame as.z responses form people who don't read? Please read the effen post or replies above

PS, let me get this straight, you ""had important messages that have to do with selling some guns online "" and yet you're having a problem paying $4.95 a year for something that is helping you generate money? And either you didn't read the part about SOA being free or you don't want to help us out - which is it?

This post has been edited by admin: Jun 17 2009, 03:18 PM

so, I know I probably didnt catch this or something and im about to look stupid, can I still do a few things for the site in exchange for posting in the FS forum?

yes

I just want to sell my stuff online without having to pay anything

awesome! thanks

well good luck with that.

For 6 years, 2003-2009, we have always provided free classifieds here for our members, but due to the massive amounts of traffic that we get and the very large size of this website and server requirements that it takes to maintain and support a website of this size, we can no longer provide it for free.

I don't think it unreasonable to ask for members to contribute a little bit of what they earn here by using our resources; especially when many of those members are making a ton of cash selling here.

As I have said repeatedly, the tiny amount we are charging is nothing compared to what you would pay on ebay or your local news paper. And for the record, we've had about 75 members pay ($4.95 a year) for immediate access in the last 7 days to sell here in the classified ads area and about 20 members who are willing to help us with the SportsOnlyAuction.com website (SOA) and continue selling here for free.

Just to be clear, if a member is willing to help us out and do what we ask in terms of using the SOA website (in addition to the ASF website), we will allow that member to continue selling here for fee. SOA is an easy to use system and if you are following the rules about that and linking your ASF FS topics to your SOA listings, I think you will eventually really like there (if for some strange reason you don't already).

...but as far as your statement, "I just want to sell my stuff online without having to pay anything" goes, all I can say is... So would everyone else. But the obvious answer is that it's not possible forever and for everyone.

You can always try craigslist if you're too lazy, stubborn, or _____ to post here for free by following the new rules. You might ask yourself though... "Does craigslist get 450,000 HIGHLY target people PER MONTH visiting your city and your craigslist listing.... (who are only looking for airsoft items) ??

It's against the rules to sell gun related items on craigs. I've tried.

I guess one could always use airsoft classifieds, but that's just a ton of scammers.

What would one have to do in addition to using SOA to sell items on here for free?

http://www.airsoftforum.com/board/Importan...ri-t152759.html

To anyone who thinks that paying $5 to sell on here is crazy...

http://www.airsoftforum.com/board/glock-Sale-t152719.html

I'm not advertising my own page here at all (everything is already sold!), I just want you guys to take a second.

I paid my $5 a few weeks ago thinking what the heck I'm on here a lot why not

Within 2 weeks of that I've sold over $500 worth of stuff to several different people on here, who are probably delighted to get a deal on some stuff that's not so easy to find anywhere else.

FYI - $5 is nothing to cry about paypal probably made $40 off the sales that were made possible by airsoftforum.com
The united states post office got $50 worth of my business that I'd never have needed were it not for this site too.

So think about that before you guys go to complain about a measley $5 to keep this ship afloat.

This post has been edited by grantywanty: Jun 25 2009, 01:22 PM

OUTSTANDING! glad to hear it grantywanty and thanks for posting your experience.

quick question, will there be emails sent to all members who paid, reminding them so they can renew their authorized seller status when their year is up

This is an excellent deal. I paid double that to have unlimited ads for a year on airsoftretreat.com and I get many more hits here. You would pay 4 x that much to sell 1 AEG on EBay

$5 is a STEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL (I would have paid double that easy)

Snatch those spots up and honestly if you think $5 is too much then you are probably should not be selling anything online

Dan / xghostmakerx

This post has been edited by xghostmakerx: Jul 15 2009, 04:20 PM

Ive only made one transaction over the BST threads, but despite that I still found it worth the $5 to become a seller. Look at it this way, a meal at a fast food joint will run you likely OVER five dollars but I doubt many of you have any qualms with shelling out for that.