In case you missed Lib Dem Voice’s April 1st joke:

Also available on YouTube here.

We told readers this morning:

We’re going behind a pay wall.

Just because it’s Rupert Murdoch leading the charge to put news behind pay walls, that doesn’t mean it’s automatically wrong. In fact, having been poring over the details we’re convinced here in Lib Dem Voice Towers that it’s the right move for us.

Why? Our hosting costs and the amount of time spent on moderation have been growing very sharply in the last 12 months. However, a very large part of that growth is caused by people who only come and visit the site once, never to return.

It’s nice when new people drop by, but they’re not the audience we are really after and the online equivalent of shouting “Vote Labour” as you walk past a Lib Dem canvasser is not what we want to achieve. We will be happier with a smaller, but more committed and more engaged audience.

A pay wall will also mean that we can much better authenticate commenters, ending the nonsense of Conservative activists trying to pass themselves off as unhappy Liberal Democrat members. It will also generate revenue that we can invest in expanding our very popular coverage of the activities of Conservative (and Labour) councillors around the country.

We are very aware that even a low fee will be hard for some activists to afford, so we have [geek alert] partnered up with Google to become one of the first UK users of their new photograph recognition software.

This will mean people can take photographs of themselves carrying out certain campaign activities, up load them to the pay wall system and have them automatically processed. A photograph of a “Winning here” stakeboard in your garden will, for example, get you 6 months access to the site.

Only teasing, of course. While we’re all volunteers on the LDV editorial team, the site does cost a modicum of money to run, so if you feel moved to make a donation, you can do it here.