right I was thinking some people are reluctant to sign up straight away- perhaps there should be a way to give a “demo 1-on-1” or something so people can try before they buy
You should have learned French, because I proposed a free 1-on-1 to new members 
We are looking at a way to facilitate free one on one lessons for the “tire-kickers”.
I see- in the meantime is it ok if I post my availability for free “introductory” one-on-ones?
The issue is this yuriy. You can talk to whomever you want on skype outside the LingQ system. However, if someone signs up for a scheduled discussion with a tutor they are charged, whether the tutor bills LingQ or not.
We are going to make the accounting for tutoring services automatic. Within this new system we want to make it possible for learners to access tutors without getting charged, and without the tutors earning anything. This would be the free introductory lesson, a chance for the tutors to help LingQ and to introduce themselves to learners.
This will be voluntary on the part of the tutors. We will also have to make sure that any newcomer can only access a free session once. That is what we are working on.
ok but my question was if it was ok to bypass it for now and simply post in the lingq forums to get people to talk?
Of course yuriy. People are free to contact each other in our community.
I suppose students tend to choose tutors who are active: who participate at forum discussions, who create content for library, who learn some language here at LingQ.
There are several English tutors who offer conversations at convenient time for me, but I choose to speak with Helen and David, although the time they offer is not completely suitable.
I mean, it seems people not only afraid to sign up to 1-on-1 at all, but to sign up to 1-on-1 with unknown tutor.
If our times aren’t good for you Rasana, when would be better?
Yuriy if you want to advertise a free slot, maybe you could post the details on your wall of days and times, and post in the Russian forum to direct people to your wall?
In my experience, new students tend to sign up to group discussions called “introductions”. They also usually read my profile, activity scores, forum posts and sometimes even my blog before they sign up. It makes me less scary if they know some information beforehand I suppose.
Helen,
I would prefer some group discussions at 2 am GMT, or 3 pm GMT on Tuesday/Thursday.
But I understand that the first option is impossible to you at all