RTOC Membership -11 or 12 months?

[Lowiepete]

Hello Folks,

I completely understand that RTOC needs its funds, but do you really need to
bully me into renewal after just 11 months of my annual membership? This is
a bit like my car where it throws a warning light on the dashboard despite
the fact there is absolutely _nothing_ wrong! This, Renault claims, is for
"safety reasons" - what total and utter BS!!!

Instead of encouraging me to renew, this is making me re-evaluate whether
or not I should rejoin. I wonder if I'm alone in feeling like this. Does RTOC
membership _have_ to be renewed _within_ the 12th month, or can anyone
enjoy a full 12 months before being harrassed for renewal by their computer?
I take the attitude that if "computer says no" - then so do I!!

Regards,
Steve

[Matt Cole]

Steve,

Greatest apology if the renewal email has caused offence. Im not sure what exactly the 'bullying' entails but it should not be invasive and certainly not intentional to offend.

I know Mick was trialing a new auto renew element of the website basically to make it easier for members to rejoin with out the hassle of going through the all the usual business.

I guess email reminders are part and parcel of all modern websites these days, but I imagine the option to switch it off should be made available.

On the other side of the coin, we certainly do need your support for the funds but more importantly as a member.

[francob80]

Is this post for real or you bored and trolling?

How can you find a renewal notice email offensive or "bullying"?

[R5MJH]

you do get a notice 1 month before at the top 1 month before that i set then it goes off and comes back 2 wks before then 1, i can change this but it will change for everyone, yours steve will not expire anywayz as your in a different group


if you wish to pay you can, id need to change you manually back

[Lowiepete]

If this follows you around every page no matter what, then it is nothing but
insistent. Insisting that payment is made _is_ a form of bullying. I'm sure that
this could be limited to just an entry page, though even then I'm not sure
that 30 days ahead is at all necessary. It takes up room at the top of the
screen, when I have pruned my browser back to a minimum to load as much
of the page I'm visiting as I can.

https://s5.postimg.cc/wenic9ign/rtocrenew.jpg

My renewal is _not_ due until next month, and I'm not unaware of it. I did not
say it was offensive, but just like the dashboard light reminding me of a service
that I have already booked, it _is_ totally unnecessary and distracting.

I'm not apologising for my stance. I've been involved with computers since
the early 1980s and always taken the view that they should serve to make
things more "user friendly". I see this as the complete opposite.

Regards,
Steve

[Alex]

The last I knew it was just a red banner at the top of the screen reminding members to renew and giving a full months notice. Some people forgot about renewing and found that they could no longer access the website, which was annoying for them and then they had to be re-set causing further delays.

What is the context of the reminder? an email? a red banner? If it's an email do you get more than 1 reminder?

I can't for the life of me believe you think any of the above constitutes bullying!

[Ian S]

As Alex said.

I don't recall anyone ever complaining about the renewal reminer banner at the top of the page to this extent, if at all.

No offence in the following remark intended, but perhaps you're suffering from some form of stress or something which has blown a very minor annoyance into an angry hatred that's eating you up! That's how your posts read.

A better approach than to accuse staff and the club of bullying or greed, which they're not doing, would have been to post, or PM, a polite message to ask if the reminder needs to take up all that space, be a whole month, why it's on many pages, or if it can be switched off by the member in the user control panel.

The answer is that vBulletin does it that size on it's own, and to reduce the space around the line would mean hiring a professional programmer to custom write some bespoke code to alter the default template, if that's even possible with this. Is it really a problem though as it scrolls up with the page as most pages need to be scrolled down to see what's there. That's not at all the same as a tool bar in the browser. I've no idea if it can be switched off. Never been asked that. Not every member looks at every page, many just at selected pages, so I presume it was felt that to ensure that the message was seen it needed to be on many pages. I don't recall having an involvement with that aspect of the previous website, nor this one which was copied over, I expect the designer of that originally had only best interested of the members in mind. And possibly reducing the amount of work for the staff who are all voluntary.

As far as it being one month, that seemed, and was deemed, necessary under the previous site as people needed a lot of time to rejoin, and many failed to do so in time even with a whole month of reminding, meaning a lot of staff time was wasted with manually renewing them. It was probably started with a one week reminder and extended.

The message is there to help members to avoid exipry, not to cajole, lever, bully them into forking out funds they don't want to pay!!! The second line about discounts could perhaps have been worded a bit better better by whoever wrote that eight, or whatever, years ago, but I expect they had the best intentions in mind, not the attutude problem of greed and bullying that you seemed to be concluding was behind this. That second line appears only on the Chat board as non members have access that and may be unaware that the shop offers members discounts.

As this new site does not have the fault with the renewals system that the old one suffered from we can remove that reminder and just let members take full responsibility. I personally think that in most cases people will only find out after expiry that they needed to renew and that will frustrate and even annoy some members who will have lost access and might not be in a position to immediately renew. So I think a one week expiry reminder banner should be provided and that's what I've asked Mick to do.

If there is a concensus that longer or shorter time would be better than that can be done.

Regards,

Ian

[R5MJH]

ok it only appears on forumhome page now and user cp only and gives 7 days notice now

also users like committee that get the message now wont as ive modified the table

[Ian S]

Well done Mick, top stuff as usual

[R5MJH]

Well done Mick, top stuff as usual

thx ian I really appreciate that i liked ya post too