Monday Evening Zoom meeting
and other administrative notes
I plan to have a Zoom meeting with paid subscribers on Monday evening, October 23, at 8 PM New York time. I will decide on the topic, and whether or not to have the meeting, earlier that day, because things are so fluid.
Speaking of the payment issue, I have a problem in that the comment section has become very heavily used and difficult to moderate. That is somewhat scary to me.
One option is to restrict comments to paid subscribers only. That would reduce my work load. But it would punish some people who have useful comments but who do not wish to pay. Worse, it would cut me off from dissenting commenters, leaving me in a bubble. So I would like another solution, if you can suggest one.
Maybe just turn on paid subscribers only on your posts about “the current thing.” I imagine those are the ones drawing in different readership and strong opinions. You might lose a few good comments, but it would probably be worth it overall.
Here's another suggestion: price discrimination and supply & demand. Identify the non-subscribers whose comments you value for whatever reason and offer them a discounted price (for a while); then limit comments to full or discounted subscribers. From time to time, if the comments become too much of a closed bubble or limited in other ways, re-open comments to nonsubscribers to identify new recruits worthy of discounts. Akin to a "farm system" to keep the major league team well stocked.
Some subscribers might try to game the system but, given Scott Gibb's reply (i.e., even a full subscription is not that expensive), I doubt it's worth many people's time to play games.