Very unhappy with falconcrest.org!

[Benny JR]

Okay, so having just visited the site to see the Episode Guides, I am after discovering that you need to have a paid subscription just to view them! What a scam! I can understand them having that policy for viewing their videos and stuff, but just to have to pay to view synopsis is beyond rediculous! Especially for a fansite!

[jej2252]

Okay, so having just visited the site to see the Episode Guides, I am after discovering that you need to have a paid subscription just to view them! What a scam! I can understand them having that policy for viewing their videos and stuff, but just to have to pay to view synopsis is beyond rediculous! Especially for a fansite!

The subscription is very reasonable.

And it is a fan club!! Fan clubs normally charge for accessing their resources.

Nothing shocking here

[JROG]

Benny, just try tv.com. The synopses are just as good there, if not better.

DDD

[tjp]

Okay, so having just visited the site to see the Episode Guides, I am after discovering that you need to have a paid subscription just to view them! What a scam! I can understand them having that policy for viewing their videos and stuff, but just to have to pay to view synopsis is beyond rediculous! Especially for a fansite!

This is nothing but another ridiculous attempt to discredit the official "Falcon Crest" homepage.

First of all, it is not true that you have to have "a paid subscription" to read the program synopses.
Since the inception of the website and until now, the program synopses on the English version of the website have been free and accessible for everyone: http://www.falconcrest.org/english/m...sodes/synopses

If Benny JR looked at the German version of the site, it is correct that the program synopses are only available for the club members there. These German synopses were specifically written for our printed fan club newsletters where they were first published; they contain approximately 1 through 3 pages (A 4 format) and cover the episodes in detail, which is a privilege for our members.

It is childish and ridiculous to demand everything for free. But I guess it is useless to ask how a person like Benny JR, who loves spreading half-truths, expects a fan club to financially maintain a website without membership dues.

[BlackPython]

It's on you now, Benny.

What about an excuse?

[Benny JR]

This is nothing but another ridiculous attempt to discredit the official "Falcon Crest" homepage.

First of all, it is not true that you have to have "a paid subscription" to read the program synopses.
Since the inception of the website and until now, the program synopses on the English version of the website have been free and accessible for everyone: http://www.falconcrest.org/english/m...sodes/synopses

If Benny JR looked at the German version of the site, it is correct that the program synopses are only available for the club members there. These German synopses were specifically written for our printed fan club newsletters where they were first published; they contain approximately 1 through 3 pages (A 4 format) and cover the episodes in detail, which is a privilege for our members.

It is childish and ridiculous to demand everything for free. But I guess it is useless to ask how a person like Benny JR, who loves spreading half-truths, expects a fan club to financially maintain a website without membership dues.

First of all, since when have I 'demanded everything for free'? What have I demanded for free? Please list. Secondly, I definitely logged onto your English version of the site and it said I need to have a subscription to view these pages. If you like, I can try to post a cached version of the page and message that popped-up last night so you can see for yourself? Maybe someone has been tampering with your site or maybe there is a fault there, but whatever it is, it needs to be drawn to the attention of those in charge of the site. THAT'S YOU TJP! Oh, I'd also LOVE to know about these supposed half-truths I spread.

Also, it is expensive enough to use the internet and pay for the maintenance for using a computer without having to pay to view pages of a fan-site. A fan-site is just that, something created by a fan or fans, you cannot expect people to pay just to look at pages added, created and uploaded for fan use. It is beyond rediculous. You don't have to pay to view The Dallas Fanzine website, so why should we have to to view falconcrest.org?

It's a shame really, because I quite like falconcrest.org, it is a good website, but I just don't see why we should have to pay to view certain sections of it!

[Matthew Blaisdel]

[BlackPython]

Benny, the episodes synopses ARE FOR FREE at falconcrest.org:
http://www.falconcrest.org/english/m...sodes/synopses

Please try it again.

It's expensive to use the internet? Well, not in Germany.
And you have to pay a membership charge at most of fanpages, because they are expensive to make.

Did you make a donation for soapchat yet?

[tjp]

First of all, since when have I 'demanded everything for free'? What have I demanded for free? Please list.

Benny JR -- you gave the answer to your question yourself...

It's a shame really, (...) but I just don't see why we should have to pay to view certain sections of it!

If you like, I can try to post a cached version of the page and message that popped-up last night so you can see for yourself? Maybe someone has been tampering with your site or maybe there is a fault there, but whatever it is, it needs to be drawn to the attention of those in charge of the site.

I would be interested to see the window that allegedly popped up and demanded a user name and password for that particular section of the website.
It does not exist.

It is pretty obvious what is happening here. If you had been really concerned about somebody hacking into and tampering with the site, the appropriate way would have been to send an e-mail to the site administration rather than to start a discussion about your personal unhappiness about the website on the forum.

[Benny JR]

Benny, the episodes synopses ARE FOR FREE at falconcrest.org:
http://www.falconcrest.org/english/m...sodes/synopses

Please try it again.

It's expensive to use the internet? Well, not in Germany.
And you have to pay a membership charge at most of fanpages, because they are expensive to make.

Did you make a donation for soapchat yet?

Now here is something even weirder! I folowed that link you posted - and it works perfectly, but if I do it on an iTouch, it doesn't. The internet is expensive here. Can't make a donation for soapchat because I don't have access to a Credit or a Laser Card and you need one of those to pay using PayPal.

[tjp]

Now here is something even weirder! I folowed that link you posted - and it works perfectly, but if I do it on an iTouch, it doesn't.

I do not understand the problem your are having with your iTouch. We double-checked the source code for the programming of the site. Everything is in perfect order.

We pride ourselves on a fast and efficient user-friendly service and a well-structured website.
We double-checked with several browsers, including Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. There is no restriction to that site and its subsites, and we also never intended to make any synopsis on the English version of the website part of the members areas.

Please send a PM with a screen capture of the message you received on your iTouch. I would like to see what it looks like. Maybe this will clear up things in case there is a misunderstanding.

[Benny JR]

Please send a PM with a screen capture of the message you received on your iTouch. I would like to see what it looks like. Maybe this will clear up things in case there is a misunderstanding.

I'm on it. Will take a picture now and hopefully get all this sorted. Has anyone else here got an iTouch to see if this is a porblem on theirs?

[BlackPython]

Does it work now, Benny???

[Pamela Barnes]

Benny is not ridiculous for asking the question. The old fan club idea is dead and buried and was buried by the web. There is a whole way of thinking that the web should be free unless its costing someone a huge amount of money in postage.

The forum cost a fortune to maintain. The forums alone are expensive and they will get a great deal more traffic than the falcon crest website. Yet we ask for a donation occassionally. Its done out of love for TV, not to make a single penny.

[tjp]

Pamela, our fan club is not dead and buried, but pretty much alive.

As you state correctly, your forum costs a fortune to maintain. So does the Falcon Crest website. It is done out of love, too, but our club members contribute to some of the costs to maintain the website. So there is nothing wrong if our members get some privileged information in return. Our free content, by the way, is much larger than the members areas.

[Pamela Barnes]

Maybe you should change provider. I had a look at your stats and you are getting a tiny amount of traffic compared to UD, UD gets more than this forum but this forum gets significantly more far traffic than your site.

Costs should not be increased if you are not using excessive bandwidth, which you are not. You should be paying a small monthly flat fee.

So Im not sure what your overheads would be? The rest of the web manages it. UD is one of the busiest TV show sites on the web and Soapchat is listed as one of the top ranking forums. Its understandable they would cost a great deal, especially the forum due to the fact we have to pay for a dedicated server to manage the high volume of traffic.

If you want advise on a new host let me know. For the traffic you are getting you could easily use either a free prodiver or pay as little at $5 a month.

I really can't see the justification for your request that people pay. Unless you are charging for your own time.

When I say Fan clubs are dead Im talking in the old sense where people pay money, get sent a bit of tat through the post and feel they are getting something special. That no longer applys unless you are Madonna and get people to pay for the first listen to an exclusive track.

Obviously horses for courses but Benny is not an idiot for asking the question. He has every right to ask it without being insulted. Like you have the right to respond.

[tjp]

Pamela, maintenance costs are not just the costs for the provider, but also for the contents of the site, which is constantly updated, usually once a month.

Acquiring the materials we present on the website, including photos and scripts, as well as production documents for research purposes, such as shooting schedules and production reports, cost a lot of money. As you may have seen on the site, we started to establish a whole online library for our fan club members, which will include every script (some of them even in various drafts to illustrate the development of an episode) in the long run. That is one aspect of the special things our members get -- and the sites you mention, including this forum, do not offer that kind of in-depth background information, why it is obviously less expensive to maintain those.

[Pamela Barnes]

But are you not charging people to view interviews and episode guides?

What indepth information are you providing different to other sites?

[Luke]

Sometimes paying gets better quality material and cuts out the nutters and trolls who just want to cause trouble. I think in the future almost all net content will be via a payment.

[Pamela Barnes]

Sometimes paying gets better quality material and cuts out the nutters and trolls who just want to cause trouble. I think in the future almost all net content will be via a payment.

That will never happen, not in our life time. It goes aganist the whole ethos of the net. More sites may become corporate but they will be not paid access unless movies or ondemand content.

Quality isnt about paying, its about numbers. I have no issue with people paying for exclusive videos or music but not for an episode guide!!!!