As I look to grow UTVUnderground.com into a larger UTV industry entity I may look to having paid membership levels that will allow us to do more in terms of product giveaways and donations to fallen riders, members, and do other good deeds around the off road world. It will also be a way for us to continue growing as a site period! Thos paid membership levels may be able to be obtained by gaining more rep.
I for one do not think paid memberships is a good idea to make any site grow. Look at google and good porn sites. They both have one thing in common. They offer something others dont have and do it for free. Google voice is a great example who else offers this type of service let alone for free. I dont think following in every other forums footsteps with advanced paid memberships or even rep points will help this site grow. But to be clear Im not against rep points its just not a new idea. I think to get the underground to the next level their needs to be a reason every UTV owner visits the site take the traffic it creates and sell advertising to pay for it.
Im not sure what type of storage space or bandwidth you have but maybe something like a video section. Offer a prize for video of the month from members. One their is a fair amount built up start to sell commercial time in like 10 or 20 second spots for every 5 minutes of video people watch. Maybe build thread of the month with a prize. These are just dumb quick ideas but I guess really my only point is I wont pay to use a UTV site and I know Im not the only one.