Debate #2 Open Thread

[DraftBoy]

The idea here is to keep the actual debate threads clean so that they candidates are the only ones posting in them. So with all three answers now posted and some rebutted, if you have a comment lets hear them here!


The Questions:

* As Zone President, what specific things would you do to encourage more posters to donate to the site?
* What specific things would you do to improve the No TOS Zone so that people enjoy it more?
* Would you make any changes to the features now offered to donors?

The Answers:

1. I think the biggest thing that could be done is to raise the overall standard of the zone so that members take pride in it and want to donate no matter what is offered as a perk. I think the way to do this is to crack down on trolls and spammers, and be vigilant in dealing with personal attacks. There was a time when you could post your opionion and you could debate it without being called names. We need to work to bring that atmosphere back.

2. Making the no TOS zone better is trickier. I don't believe in exclusive content because it leaves out a majority of the members. The only thing change that I would make in the no-tos is to maybe preview articles, etc. a day or too before they are sent to the main forums.

3. I feel that it wouldn't hurt to have more incentives to donating . I am against exclusive content, but perhaps we could offer a zonebuck bonus for each level of donation, maybe increased rep ability something like that. I know that it seemed like the tshirts, key chains and other premiums were pretty popular, perhaps it is time to bring them back. Other things that would not cost anything would be to bring back the zone lottery and give members a free ticket each month.

What I think it all boils down to is taking pride in the website that provides us with so much information, entertainment, and distraction from our real lives. We should be encouraging people to think about donating in those terms, however I don't wish for those that may not have the disposable income to punished for not doing so by limiting access to Bills information.

* As Zone President, what specific things would you do to encourage more posters to donate to the site?

This is a good question Being that I am a C.F.O of a multi-million dollar construction company, I am sure I could analyze the Billszone Financial records and come up with many suggestions to the staff.

First I would look at the amount of donating members and see what the average donation is. Once that is determined rather than have levels of donation have 1 level of donations to be a member. This could be paid monthly or if you pay for a year that would be the monthly rate x 11 so you would get a month free.
Also, if someone would like to donate more than the monthly or annual amount, I would have an option for a one time gift. Let’s say that someone wanted to donate $1,000 to the site, they could do this as a one time gift and get a years worth of access to the No-Tos as well as a thank you gift from the Zone.

Also, for first time donors they could check out the benefits for being a Zoner for $1, and then have the option of becoming a regular monthly or annual donor.
Another thing that could be done is to add a sticky bulletin to the top of each forum each week that state if you are not a donor here is what you missed this week. In it include all the benefits of being a donor along with some of the items I propose in the next answer.

I also believe that based on the financial information reviewed, I would look into marketing the zone with a thank you for donating gift, something small but with the Billszone Logo as was done in the past. I still have the keychain I received when I first donated and believe that was a classy touch, this may still be happening but if it isn’t I would look into the feasibility of reinstating it or adding more products to the welcome to donation gift.

* What specific things would you do to improve the No TOS Zone so that people enjoy it more?


There is something I believe that could not only make the No Tos better, but also discover new talent and utilize the talent we have already here on the Zone.
In the No-Tos, spurred on from this Election, have a Debate topic of the day. In the Off Season topics could include, The Draft, Free Agency, Politics, Social Topic of the Day, which woman is more beautiful, etc etc.

Here is how this would work similar to this style of debate two donors would volunteer to debate a topic with specific questions to answer, and then there would be a public vote after two rebuttals from each debater. There would be a public poll posted and to avoid the winner being the most popular zoner rather than the actual winner of the debate, the Moderator of the debate has a vote and an Admin of the site has a vote. Whoever has a majority with public counting as 1, Moderator as 1 and Admin as 1, will have an opportunity to write an article on the topic that will be posted on the front page.

Then in the aforementioned weekly sticky if you are not a donor this is what you missed, you could include excerpts of the debate as a benefit of being a member. The winner each week would go on until they lose.

I believe since this is a message board and part of the greatness of a message board is the spirit of exchange of ideas and intelligent debate this was spurn that on and also would provide the Zone with more great writers.

This type of contest would also spur on more people to donate if they have aspirations of writing for the site, or just writing aspirations in general. I also believe that if people read and see the proper ways to debate a topic it will inspire them to be more informed and better posters with less personal attacks when discussing a topic in the main forum.

* Would you make any changes to the features now offered to donors?


Being a donor is appreciating something so much that you give of your hard earned money to show that appreciation. I believe that this site offers so much to every member that there does not need to be any added benefit to just donors.

I believe when someone decides to donate to the site they are not looking for extra features that non donors have, I believe they are giving back to a community that has given so much to them in terms of information, laughter, friendships and a release from their everyday grind.

As it stands right now I think the Twilight Zoners are probably the heaviest in terms of active donors. The reason being there is a direct benefit to them, a zone where they can rant and rave and in some cases still be private. There is no question that the main forum carries the Zone, but where is the direct benefit to those who just want to talk Bills football? I propose we develop a Bills forum in the No Tos specifically for Bills football talk, we promote it as such a place where you can talk about Bills Football Uncensored! The Bills forum is a giant resource and there is a lot more room for growth of donors there. I think anytime a news story breaks on WGR it would be worth while to note that donors have access to the online feed via Zone Radio, I’d be willing to be a lot of posters don’t know we have that option.


I personally have been brainstorming different ideas and games to bring to the No Tos. Oddly enough the ability to curse doesn’t really help in the development of new games. However thanks to the inspiration of YardRat, I will debut inside the Zoners Studio this Friday along with our second installment of the Zone Gossip Game.


I have thought quite a while as to how to make donating more worth while. I personally donate because my day would be lost without this place. The Zone is my home away from home. But how about implementing some kind of Zoner Rewards program where referrals to new posters can earn you points which can then in time can get you a little taste of the No Tos? This would help expand growth to the Zone plus give posters a little playtime in the donor forums hoping they get hooked. It’s a win-win situation. Finally, I think its important to make sure people know how important their donations are, this place is not cheap to run. And it really does run off the generosity of the zoners and the hard work of the Admin/Mod team.

[DraftBoy]

Ill start by saying that I think all the candidates gave good answers on this question and really addressed the whole question this time.

[RockStar36]

I thought all the answers were done well this time as well.

I personally think that if the main focus is cleaning up the BZ, the donations will follow.

[DraftBoy]

I thought all the answers were done well this time as well.

I personally think that if the main focus is cleaning up the BZ, the donations will follow.

I think we also need to bring in new members and if that means more diversity Im certainly not against that. I think we have the staff and membership base to be the best football site on the net, we just need to get our name out there more.

[BlackMetalNinja]

DB would it be possible to quote the 3 answers as well as the question in your first post in this thread to help keep people on topic? I know that makes for a very long post... but I think it'd be helpful.

[DraftBoy]

DB would it be possible to quote the 3 answers as well as the question in your first post in this thread to help keep people on topic? I know that makes for a very long post... but I think it'd be helpful.

yea no problem Ill add it now

and done!

[The King]

I cant reply to Playas reply because thats against the rules. But when he was talkin about looking into the Zones books, I truely feel that is beyond what the Pres will be doing here at the zone. Plus from what I imagine I would say the Billszone is in the black and is actually making money.

[BlackMetalNinja]

yea no problem Ill add it now

and done!

Thank you sir!

[DraftBoy]

I cant reply to Playas reply because thats against the rules. But when he was talkin about looking into the Zones books, I truely feel that is beyond what the Pres will be doing here at the zone. Plus from what I imagine I would say the Billszone is in the black and is actually making money.

I believe and Ill need another staff member to correct me on this but we dont make any money as a site. Everything we make I believe goes straight to our operating costs, we are a revenue neutral operation. But Im not 100% sure NBF and Eb would know better than I would on that.

[The King]

I believe and Ill need another staff member to correct me on this but we dont make any money as a site. Everything we make I believe goes straight to our operating costs, we are a revenue neutral operation. But Im not 100% sure NBF and Eb would know better than I would on that.

Im not saying anyone pockets money by any means but I think in terms of donors we are doing well.

[Devin]

I believe and Ill need another staff member to correct me on this but we dont make any money as a site. Everything we make I believe goes straight to our operating costs, we are a revenue neutral operation. But Im not 100% sure NBF and Eb would know better than I would on that.

youre correct.

[Gunzlingr]

I cant reply to Playas reply because thats against the rules. But when he was talkin about looking into the Zones books, I truely feel that is beyond what the Pres will be doing here at the zone. Plus from what I imagine I would say the Billszone is in the black and is actually making money.

I agree 100%.

As for the answers, I also feel that all 3 of us are on the same page - with the exception of Playa's examination of the books.

[DraftBoy]

Im not saying anyone pockets money by any means but I think in terms of donors we are doing well.

Oh I know what you're saying, and I didnt think you were saying that, Im just saying that everything we make, we send towards our operating costs. We dont keep any money on hand in a BZ bank account or something like that.

[BlackMetalNinja]

I'll agree that everybody for the most part did a good job answering the questions at hand.

Piggy backing off of Bedard's point about having a specific Bills talk section of the No-TOS, I think this could be great. I've heard others mention that Fin Heaven has something along these lines already and that it's known there that if you want the real good, serious, people who know what they're talking about and aren't just looking for a fight discussions, that's where you go. I think we could pull the same off here. Lure some of our better Billszone posters in there to have some great Bills discussions and give the general board snippets of the talk in there, enticing them to subscribe.

Additionally, I think one big issue we have is that most people currently see donating as a way to gain access to the No-TOS forum. I think we could put more emphasis on the other benefits of being a donor, and most importantly as Bedard mentioned, the fact that this place exists in main part because of donations.

[BlackMetalNinja]

Oh I know what you're saying, and I didnt think you were saying that, Im just saying that everything we make, we send towards our operating costs. We dont keep any money on hand in a BZ bank account or something like that.

This goes to the point of adding the expenditure of giving out gifts to donors. It's another added expense, and while it may not be a whole lot, it's something. Most of us aren't looking for gifts, we're looking for things that make this place even better than it already is (honestly, many of us that donate just want to give back to this place for being a sort of virtual home away from home). I think the money that Playa wants to spend on these gifts could be better spent elsewhere personally.

[Michael82]

I think we also need to bring in new members and if that means more diversity Im certainly not against that. I think we have the staff and membership base to be the best football site on the net, we just need to get our name out there more.

Another key thng that we need before the members start flowing in is a couple more solid writers. We lack a bit on the original content and that ALWAYS draws people to the site. I'll admit that I myself slacked off this year, but if we can add a few more writers to the stable for gameday articles, postgame articles, and weekly columns, then we will see the traffic increase for sure IMO.

[DraftBoy]

I'll agree that everybody for the most part did a good job answering the questions at hand.

Piggy backing off of Bedard's point about having a specific Bills talk section of the No-TOS, I think this could be great. I've heard others mention that Fin Heaven has something along these lines already and that it's known there that if you want the real good, serious, people who know what they're talking about and aren't just looking for a fight discussions, that's where you go. I think we could pull the same off here. Lure some of our better Billszone posters in there to have some great Bills discussions and give the general board snippets of the talk in there, enticing them to subscribe.

Additionally, I think one big issue we have is that most people currently see donating as a way to gain access to the No-TOS forum. I think we could put more emphasis on the other benefits of being a donor, and most importantly as Bedard mentioned, the fact that this place exists in main part because of donations.

See I have a huge issue with a Bills Donor zone because of what happened at FH. Its donors board was a great place to talk shop but the regular board became pretty much crap and when the regular board is the first thing a potential new member sees, thats not a good impression. Either that or you run the risk of having a Donor Bills board where there is No-Tos and its essentially a huge smack zone but of Bills fans v. Bills fans.

[Devin]

I'll agree that everybody for the most part did a good job answering the questions at hand.

Piggy backing off of Bedard's point about having a specific Bills talk section of the No-TOS, I think this could be great. I've heard others mention that Fin Heaven has something along these lines already and that it's known there that if you want the real good, serious, people who know what they're talking about and aren't just looking for a fight discussions, that's where you go. I think we could pull the same off here. Lure some of our better Billszone posters in there to have some great Bills discussions and give the general board snippets of the talk in there, enticing them to subscribe.

Additionally, I think one big issue we have is that most people currently see donating as a way to gain access to the No-TOS forum. I think we could put more emphasis on the other benefits of being a donor, and most importantly as Bedard mentioned, the fact that this place exists in main part because of donations.

I think everyone is pretty well aware that donations keep this place going.

As far as a no-tos BZ this has been killed countless times. The fear in general, and I am saying in general but there are plenty of reasons, is that all you are doing is diverting traffic away from the Bills forums.

While donations are great this site is not a "pay to play" site. Bills fans, or any football fan for that matter, should not have to pay to get good football talk. We as a staff, and imo for the most part we do a great job, simply must stay on top of that main forum.

Lets not get it twisted, while no-tos and TZ....etc are all a lot of fun we are a Bills football fan site. Bills football talk will always come first. A lot of time was spent developing the NFL forums, the draft forums....etc.

Subdividing furthur and adding in basically "uncensored Bills talk" may add a few donations here and there, but ultimatley you will just be taking donors out the main forum.

[RockStar36]

I think there should be a little incentive or gift for donating. No-TOS isn't really all it's cracked up to be IMO. The point should be stressed that without donations the site will crash and burn. There could be a little side benefit to Zone outings for donations. Like when we paid the cover at Brunners, have an extra dollar or two go towards Zone donations.

I also think Playa looking into the books is a ludicrious idea.

[DraftBoy]

I am curious to know why looking at how the donations are coming in, or where they are coming from is such a bad idea exactly? This was Playa's own idea and Im not sold on it either way, but I am curious why some think its such a bad idea. What are the reasons behind it?