Mante and Zentac:
This site was created by it's founders to seek and distribute information. It has altruistic beginnings, but it was decided that it was not fair to burden the ongoing running costs to them. A Committee was formed to take over the running costs of the site. We introduced membership fees to cover these costs and these were set at a level that we thought was appropriate.
For this membership you get a wealth of information other members have put together and other benefits. The commitee members determine what threads belong where based on the information they contain. It can be a quite a balancing act.
A quick look at the level of information provided in the members area, will show that a fair majority of the information provided is created by "contributing" members. These members show their enthusaism by both paying, contributing and for some managing the site.