Forum Usage By Non-Members

Recently some of these non-members have been registering and posting queries about machines that are, perhaps, a little too new to qualify as "old lawn mowers"

I think that issue pivots on definition: what exactly is meant by "old" as far as the OLMC is concerned? For some people "old" means anything that their father owned. For others "old" may simply mean no longer manufactured.

Perhaps a leaf can be taken from the car clubs, with their categories of antique, vintage, classic, based on years of manufacture?

should we somehow restrict access and participation to people who are willing to support the club by becoming full paying members?

That's an issue faced by clubs of all types which also operate a forum. I don't think it's practical to restrict access to paid-up members only, however, on one mower site I'm a member of, there's an annual subscription charge for downloading documents such as owner and service manuals. Once subscribed, you get access to a particular download area on the forum.

Also, I don't think forcing people to join a club simply to ask questions, or to read the comments of others, is a good idea. I think it's best that people join up because they want to, not because they feel they have to.

One thing Admin might perhaps like to consider is placing a badge/logo of some sort against the forum member names of club members, which is done on some sites. Problem there is administering the currency of the badges when memberships lapse, etc.

Personally I think that the idea of limiting the free membership period is worthy of consideration, it has been used by another forum that I am a member of as a way of reducing the shear volume of folk signing up as members for the purpose of resolving a particular problem with a machine but have no intention or interest in the club. Whilst we are happy to help where we can and live in hope that some of the folk we help will come on board as full members there comes a time when the the system could become overloaded with registered members who no longer contribute to the forum or the club.

Re the thorny old question of what is an old mower I have stated in the past that we are not all in the happy position of owning the wonderful old mowers as featured in the club logo. but we do find ourselves as the guardians of machines that were perhaps new since the 1950s that makes them well over sixty years old! even a machine from the 1970s can be 45 years old.

As far as I know we have not reached the stage where we have been asked to advise on a warranty problem on a new machine - yet.

One observation though - Take away the input from non club members from the forum what are you left with?

I am biased of course as I am much more interested in pre-war machines but I have always taken the view that the Club is for the benefit of the members and to coin a phrase ' there is no such thing as a free lunch '. Much time and effort goes into maintaining the site and answering the questions and it does not seem unreasonable for people to pay for the service ie join the Club.

I appreciate that what constitutes an old lawnmower is a somewhat tricky point, personally I think that the '60's is more than young enough to be talking about, that might be partly due to my age. One might suggest a cut off date of 1971, the year, I think, that Ransomes pulled out of the domestic market.

I believe I am not alone in getting rather ' turned off ' by the number of queries relating to machines in which I have absolutely no interest. It's all very nice providing a service to the wider public but do we want to run the risk of boring too many members and find that they are not renewing their subscriptions.

If you take away the input from non members what you are left with is (hopefully) relevant core material from enthusiastic members of the Club, which is what you want.

Not sure about Ransomes "pulling out of the domestic market" in 1971. How do you define domestic. We were selling Marquises to domestic customers into the early 90s and also the red painted, Mountfield badged versions of the same machine . Also I'm fairly sure that the Ransomes Twenty Four was still available into the 80s

While forum posts concerning not so old machines may not be in the spirit of tha Club, take them away and the majority of the traditional paid up Club members may as well  not exist if forum contributions are the yard stick..

We  shouldn't forget that today's not so old mowers are tomorrow's old ones! 

While forum posts concerning not so old machines may not be in the spirit of tha Club, take them away and the majority of the traditional paid up Club members may as well  not exist if forum contributions are the yard stick..

I think you're right going by the response to this thread alone. Only 4 replies and 33 views to date.

Admin, do you have stats showing the number of forum posts by Club members vs those who are not Club members?

Getting back to my original point about definition of 'old', I note on the OLMC membership renewal form the classifications under areas of interest:

• Pre-1920
• 1900-1920
• 1920-1945
• Post-1945

Post-1945 is a very wide category!

Post-1945 is a very wide category!

It may not be to the liking of members whose interests are limited to the earlier machines but as time marches on the post 1945 category grows larger every year and as a result there is probably a greater number of machines available to be collected for preservation than the older mowers.

Re the number of responses to this thread it seems to reflect the amount interest there is among OLC members for the forum. Here is an ideal opportunity for members to voice there opinion on a subject that should be of interest to them and apart from those who have taken the effort to respond we have silence.

I wonder what the response would be if the original question about folk registering here for free advice and basically taking advantage of the cub were to be asked in the open forum? Bearing in mind that many of the forum members are not OLC members so cannot see the thread where is currently posted, 

I would add that it is correctly posted in the members area as at the moment it is a matter for club members to discuss. 

as time marches on the post 1945 category grows larger every year and as a result there is probably a greater number of machines available to be collected for preservation than the older mowers.

I think that's a very good point. I mentioned earlier about car clubs categorizing old vehicles according to their age, and of course every year more car makes and models become candidates for the "classic" category.

My own interest in Atcos relates to the mid to late 1950s, when I was a boy operating my father's 14 inch. Prior to that he had a Pope push mower. I have a small collection of Atcos from that era and I also have a 1926 Standard -- the latter because I just like it, and one became available 15 minutes from my house.

So, using the car club system, I have a vintage Atco and several classic ones. I don't have any antique mowers.

Just repeating my question from post #6 above:

Admin, do you have stats showing the number of forum posts by Club members vs those who are not Club members?

Sorry, no stats.