Bob,
no, the purpose and direction has not changed. However, the hosting of this website costs real money. If we had no paying members, we would not exist. (Additionally, lots of volunteer effort is put in by many people too, without which we would not exist either).
We do believe that we should offer paying members something extra over and above non-paying members. After all, otherwise why would they pay?
Paying members get Pagoda World, Pagoda Notes, and access to a few restricted areas on the Technical Manual. The restricted areas contain the tours, written up in the format of the Technical Manual. Noise has been removed. Things clarified. But essentially all of the information in the Technical Manual is available on the forum also, and always will be. It's just a little less structured, and less well organised. And you need to search for it. Luckily, with this new system, the search function is improved and does not crash out like the old system did. And indeed, no information is secret -- some of it is a little bit hard to find.
Actually, the example you quote (the Linkage Tour) is a bad example, as we're still waiting for high resolution pictures to be included in the manual and currently the Forum is the best place for it.
A better example are the coloured wiring diagrams. These were produced by a member and contributed to the group. They were mailed with an issue of Pagoda World... to paying members only. However, that was years ago. We decided to scan (with permission) and post the colour wiring diagrams in the Technical Manual -- but for paying members only. A black and white version however was made accessible to all. So actually, all the members benefit and have access, just the paying members a little more. But then again, they pay. And again, no information is withheld.
If you have suggestions on how we might make it interesting for people to pay us, yet share everything, I -- and I'm sure , the board -- are all ears. Why don't you run for a board position yourself ?
Peter
