This. Why does Machina-AX and the likes always have the good ideas xD

More than likely that hasn't got anything to do with it. More than likely..=P

Not a good idea in my opinion.

I couldn't justify spending that much money on a site when I've always accessed it for free, its already monitised by ads anyway.

One option you could have is say a 5 dolllar annual fee, which if paid removes ads from the site or something? I mean if you're going to get people to pay you're really going to need to provide some kind of incentive to do so. Otherwise people will just go back to lurking.

Absolutely not.

Why should I have to pay to post here? For god's sake, NeoGAF is free, and they're bloody tyrants!

A donate button would be great, though. I'm sure lots of people would be willing to donate. And maybe you could pay some money to be ad-free.

No. I'm not paying to post in forums. Several sites has lost me completely due to this.

I would stop coming here if I had to pay to post. However, I am all for a donation button to donate to the website. So long as it's not stuck in the middle of plain sight. Something like that just screams out,

"We're too poor to run our own website. Give us money!".

If you want a donation button, put it off somewhere so you don't have to look at it on a constant basis. But know that it is on the website, that way if someone absolutely wants to donate. They definitely can, if they don't. Then at least they don't feel constantly pressured to donate or made feel guilty if they choose not to donate.

That's my 2 cents on the topic. You'll get the other 4.98 if a donation button sorta appears somewhere out of sight.

No way this should happen. The personal bank/credit card details could be stolen and used to commit fraud.
This would cause an outrage if $5 was paid to post on this site.
Posting on this site should remain free to anyone.

People, stop making this argument. It is stupid and flawed.

the thread should have ended there :p