[jcroft]

Guys...

One big task I need to accomplish before we go live is figuring out how to handle member sponsorship in the new system (especially how to make sure previous donators get their credit in the new system).

vb3 has a new feature called "Paid Subscriptions." This let's you pay through the forums for special access -- could be special forums most people can't access, could be different uploading rights, could be lots of things.

What would you guys think of replacing the current donations system with a subscription system in which some of the more advanced features were available only to people who paid a small fee -- say like $10 for a lifetime subscription? I would, of course, consider all existing member sponsors and moderators as already "paid".

Would you go for this? If so, what sort of features could we offer only to paid members? I was thinking maybe uploading rights in the photo gallery -- maybe non-paid members can only upload a few pics of their car? What else might be possible?

If I can somehow take advantage of the built-in system, I can avoid the manual process of accepting a donation, opening up the control panel, searching for the user, adding them as paid, etc,etc. -- it would all be automatic, which would be great.

Any thoughts on this?

*ducks*

 

[marvins_dad]

:scared: <----you now have a smilie for *ducks*

I think that would be a much better way of doing it - lot less hands on for you in the future! :goodjob:

I would almost say - How-To's...but I don't really want to limit access to the wealth of information we will be supplying to the NB community.

Maybe it is an upload image hosting thing...however we are encouraging people to attach images now so we don't lose that information if someone decides to go away and take their server down.....

 

[jcroft]

Here are some other "features" i could offer to paid members. They are things that I think some people would pay for, but most people would not miss having...

- Unlimited private messages (maybe non-paid members can only store 50 or so?)
- Much larger attachment quota (I'm thinking no-paid members can attach 50MB of images, but paid members can attach 1GB?)
- Can be "invisible" on the forums (not show up in who's online)
- Can view and post profile pictures (since this is an all-new feature, we wouldn't be "taking it away" from non-paid members)
- Or, maybe, can upload 300x300 profile pictures, whereas non-paid can only do 100x100?
- Can see who left them reputation points
- Can use "e-mail to friend" feature
- Can use message tracking/deny read recepit requests in PM

 

[BUGINME]

I think it sounds great, but isn't $10 for life, a bit low, or was that just an example?? What was the average given during the "fund" drives???

 

[jcroft]

I think it sounds great, but isn't $10 for life, a bit low, or was that just an example?? What was the average given during the "fund" drives???

It was just an example, but it's probably close to what I'm really thinking of. It is a bit low, but my hope is that more DIFFERENT people will donate if the price is low and they get some features by doing it. The average given in the fund drives was probably around $15/person. But we have a handful of people who have donated five, six, seven times each and some of them have given $50 to $200 each time! I want that to stop! Those people have done their share -- I want everyone else to contribute. The problem with the fund drives is that I got the same 40 people or so donating every time. I'm hoping by making it cheap, I'll get a lot of people to just go ahead and pay as they join -- or very shortly after they join.

We're still getting for or five new users a day. That's like 120 a month. If even 10% of them took me up on the $10, that's $120/mo. That's plenty for us to do some basic things with, and if it encourages others to help out and forces the hand of the big spends to stop at $10, then it's cool with me.