Supporter Membership!

[Dazz]

Hey guys!

If you're interested, we've just implemented a new subscription service that will allow you to donate $5 a month for the privilege of having no ads on the site!

Check it out here!

Other benefits include a supporter banner under your name on your posts, and your name being in italics in the user list. You'll also receive our eternal gratitude! ALRIGHT!

So if you're interested in donating to us, go take a look! This applies across ALL Resource sites!

Enjoy!

--Dazz

[-¼-]

So much for not so much

[Dazz]

So much for not so much

I'm not sure I understand?


edit: I think what you mean is that you don't get much of a return on your $5 spent. The financial support of this site in this manner is voluntary, and we are not attempting to sell you the subscription. We see supporters as people willing to financially contribute to the site. If you don't want to contribute, you don't have to.

[Petie]

Just to add to what Dazz said, I'm going to quote myself replying to Kosheh in the other thread:

Kosheh, you're missing the point. We're not selling something here. This isn't a service you're buying or perks that can only be unlocked with real money. Not everyone wants to directly contribute to the site's costs, and that's fine. These sites have always been free and will continue to be free regardless of donations, AdBlock use, or anything else.

There are, however, people who do want to help out and have already done so without the promise of anything. The purpose here is to reward those people with a better experience, not lock away features behind a paywall and coerce money out of visitors. People who are willing to donate any amount of money on a regular basis will do so without perks - this is just a way to to show our appreciation for those people. The only reason these two concepts are even related are because donations are used to supplement income from ads and if people are paying directly, there is no reason to also show them ads.

Yes, if you look at this as purchasing a service, you're not getting much out of it, especially when removing the ads is technically possible for free if you don't care about the sites you're visiting. But if you have that view, this subscription isn't for you anyway. It's for the people who have expressed interest in helping with the server and bandwidth costs that go into running the site. Those who would have (and already have) donated without the promise of anything in return. It's a thank you, not a product, and the only reason the word "subscription" is used is because it's literally a subscription - it renews itself - so we have to call it what it is.

Don't take this the wrong way - I'm not saying you're wrong or not entitled to an opinion on the matter. As Dazz said, if you choose not to participate, that's fine. You can continue using the site exactly as you always have and that won't be changing.

[Kosheh]

ah cool, a topic closed and now i have to reply to two people.

Just to add to what Dazz said, I'm going to quote myself replying to Kosheh in the other thread:

Kosheh, you're missing the point. We're not selling something here. This isn't a service you're buying or perks that can only be unlocked with real money. Not everyone wants to directly contribute to the site's costs, and that's fine. These sites have always been free and will continue to be free regardless of donations, AdBlock use, or anything else.

There are, however, people who do want to help out and have already done so without the promise of anything. The purpose here is to reward those people with a better experience, not lock away features behind a paywall and coerce money out of visitors. People who are willing to donate any amount of money on a regular basis will do so without perks - this is just a way to to show our appreciation for those people. The only reason these two concepts are even related are because donations are used to supplement income from ads and if people are paying directly, there is no reason to also show them ads.

Yes, if you look at this as purchasing a service, you're not getting much out of it, especially when removing the ads is technically possible for free if you don't care about the sites you're visiting. But if you have that view, this subscription isn't for you anyway. It's for the people who have expressed interest in helping with the server and bandwidth costs that go into running the site. Those who would have (and already have) donated without the promise of anything in return. It's a thank you, not a product, and the only reason the word "subscription" is used is because it's literally a subscription - it renews itself - so we have to call it what it is.

Don't take this the wrong way - I'm not saying you're wrong or not entitled to an opinion on the matter. As Dazz said, if you choose not to participate, that's fine. You can continue using the site exactly as you always have and that won't be changing.

I get it. It's not really that hard. I wasn't saying "How DARE YOU" or pointing fingers. You do actually have perks for subscribing (albeit small ones), so you've delivered. You listened. My job is done

In that topic, I was suggesting "hey, it's nice you're doing that, but why not expand it to give additional perks to people". Literally the only reason I did so was because a user (I'm not gonna go digging for it) expressed disappointment with not being able to upload multiple sheets at a time, and suggested to Dazz some form of a "VGR Gold" subscription that allows frequent uploaders to upload things in larger quantities, to which Dazz personally replied.

I'm pretty sure you guys had no intention to sell anything. However, I just voiced that it would be a good opportunity to perhaps throw some perks such as the aforementioned one, as those who donate in turn could also possibly help the site further...
Like, really. If I were a dedicated ripper/modeler/whatever (If I were puggsoy, lol) I'd gladly pay $5 a month to have access to more upload slots at a time to upload my work (and it'll be limited to those who for sure care about the site and won't abuse the feature)

If you guys did actually want to "sell" that subscription (and in turn add extra perks) we honestly wouldn't think any lesser of the site or anything! In fact, if I got cool things for subscribing as a thank you I'd subscribe, too!

[Petie]

Fair enough, and I certainly see where you're coming from there. My (personal) issue with that plan is that, should I spend the time to develop such a feature, I wouldn't want to lock it away behind a pay wall. I feel that any new feature that improves the site should be available to everyone, not just a select group. It's that way of thinking that makes it difficult to justify any sort of "gold" account and limits perks to non-functional elements like ads.

I didn't really take your post as criticism though I'll admit I may have misunderstood your intentions a bit on that first read through. Your ideas aren't bad by any means - they would just wind up being incorporated into the overall feature set rather than being a premium perk if they were implemented.

I realize this mentality does make selling the subscriptions a little harder but I think it's the right way to go about things and this was never entirely about direct income anyway - it's just to give people a non-AdBlock method of removing ads that doesn't hurt the site in the process.

Edit: When referring to features here, I'm talking about things like multi-sheet uploads and tagging. Obviously, things like a forum icon or profile customization are non-functional as well and could be implemented.

[Dazz]

Additional, users have no "upload slots" - they can upload as many as they want. They just have to input the data one at a time, because the upload script would probably time out if they try to upload 5 50mb sheets... That feature just wouldn't function, and really, has no true purpose.

[Fawfulthegreat64]

I tried to subscribe (even though I use adblock, I still wanted to support the site) and the page says $10 a year rather than $5 a month (weird) and after I used my paypal to subscribe nothing changed on my profile or anything. Do I have to post or something? Also the subscription page was for some other site (I'm assuming it is the host for this site)

Can someone tell me what went wrong? I'll be happy to support the site if I know my money is actually going to this site and not another, which is what it seemed like. Thanks!
Edit: Here is what the subscription page looked like:

[Dazz]

Wow! After the forum upgrade we must have made a huge mistake and never updated the information!!

We've put it to subscribe to the right person now, and move people to the right group. Seriously sorry about that!

We need to change the information on that page still, but for now it processes correctly.