Subscriptions

[Violet_Dawn]

Don't you guys think this is a bit exaggerated ?

Relic has had two smash hits in a row, and it has another two bestsellers in the pipeline. You're not exactly a poor company ...

After the relative duds of Homeworld II / Impossible Creatures you might have had a case, but now ?

Let's see, HW2 50e, DoW 50e, WA 30e, DC 30e, CoH 50e. That's 210 euro's right there : )

[Stormsong]

In case you haven't noticed, these forums are not owned nor run by Relic.

[vnL]

Just get the clicks on this site up by attracting lots of guests, then advertising will be enough to keep it on??

[Moe]

Please read the first post again.

The last time our advertising deal fell through, Delphy had to pay for the forums out of his own pocket, so the primary destination of the money we get from subscriptions will be a fallback fund so we can keep the forums running (for a while, anyway) even if for some reason we stop getting advertisement revenue. It will also go towards some of the monthly payments if we have to add some more oomph to the servers that run the forums.

[ceejayoz]

Also, we don't get paid on a per-click basis, so increasing clicks won't do anything.

[Retroboy]

Stormsong, you forgot "nor financed".

-- Retro

[Vicius]

Well i like this forum so here it goes a little help.

[Moe]

Thanks!

[Invictus]

I've also donated. I've got a certain loyalty to this forum, as RN was the first internet forum I joined. Couple that with the good people who are members here and I'm quite happy to do a little something to keep the place going if it hits dire straits.

[Vakarian]

I'll donate in the next month or so. It will most likely take me that long to figure out how paypal works anyway, i have never had much luck using it.

[El Russo]

I think when I donated a while back I submitted the charge to the 2006 list (possibly, according to Uber..). Would it be possible to move it over somehow and get that nice little green star?

-- Russo

[ionfish]

The green cross is for Child's Play donors, we'll be running it again this autumn as usual (see this GD thread for more details).

[Boifido]

Is there any way to subscribe and have ads enabled?

If I'm going to help, I want maximum effect so you can still get ad revenue

[Moe]

That's very nice of you, but not necessary. The ad revenue will not be affected if you choose to donate.

[kwok88]

when the childs play come back on i'll help out too in one go! got paypal so can i just give one donation for both?

and speaking of ads, i especially like the ubos foxy fans ad!

[Noble]

You won't be able to give one donation to both, the subscription service and the Child's Play donations are exclusive of each other. The subscription service money goes into the forum coffers to keep this place alive, the CP money goes to hospitals around the country (world?) to keep children alive.

[Dan Van Crone]

I still want to make love to you all.

Especially Fish.

[ionfish]

Just for the record.

hey, if i become a subscriber would i be able to get my old account unbanned?

i know having this account is against the rules yadda yadda yadda and risking this account being banned as well.. but really.. if i pay the cash to support the forums would it be alright?

The answer is no.

[Gorb]

I said back when I started I didn't have the money to donate. Now i do

Glad to know I'm helping keep the boards running.

[ÜberJumper]

Idea for more subsciption features. Decrease the amount of time allowed between Private Messages (it's set to 60 s right now). Trying to communicate some issues with Relic and users having technical problems is taking a bit of time.

Also, maybe time between searches?

[ionfish]

I did drop the time between searches down to 20s again Jumps, but it's not something that can be set on a per-usergroup basis. The same goes for the PM time limit. I'll consider dropping it across the board; it's at the level it is right now to reduce the ease with which bots can spam people, but since we haven't had any reports of that for quite a while (possibly because the spammers now care about PageRank a lot more than they do about individual targets) I'll drop it down to 30s, at least until we experience problems with it.

[ÜberJumper]

Thanks Ion! I did observe that the searches was shortened to 20seconds the other day.

[Splitstar]

Hey my lazy ass finally got around to doing it. Hope i didn't miss anything.

[fneep]

When I click on the link to the subscriptions section of the control panel, it is a blank screen. Did subscriptions accidently get removed in the great forum feature mashing of 2007 or somesuch?

[Salamander]

Its missing for me too. Tried it in both Internet Explorer and Firefox.

[ionfish]

We've temporarily disabled subscriptions while we sort some things out, they should be back before too long. I'll post here with an update once they're back. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[Incarnate]

It seems the subscriptions are back up.

Please add my donation to the staff beer, pie and cake fund.

Merry Xmas to ye all

[ionfish]

Yes, we are indeed taking subscriptions again. I may replace this (rather long) thread with a new one in the new year when we plan to do another subscriptions drive.

[Ira Aduro]

Here's a little Christmas gift to you all.

*subscribes*

*curses the dollars slump*

[ionfish]

With much appreciation towards these donors for their generosity, the red badges are finally being removed today (this only affects seven people; everyone else has subscribed). We'll be setting up a new subscription drive in the spring once the majority of current subscriptions are nearly over.

[Retroboy]

How's the war chest? Is advertising not bringing in enough money over time?

Hope this doesn't sound like a lack of trust on our part, but I think if the main goal of our dollar contributions is to provide a security blanket of finance for server operations and risk reduction so the forums can keep running, it would be nice to be at least a little public with this information.

-- Retro

[Homdax]

/me brings out blank check - awaiting amount...

Retro, lets buy'em out, shall we

[ionfish]

That's reasonable enough. I'll get back to this thread later in the day with some details.

Later that day...

Basically, we've spent any surplus we've had this year (that is, any money we've made over and above that necessary to pay for the server and keep the forums running) paying back Delphy, who paid for the server out of his own pocket when we lost all our adverts. So we don't have anything in the kitty right now, which obviously I'd like to rectify in the new year.

On the other hand, adverts currently bring in around $500 every month, which means we don't have problems paying for the server (baseline cost ~$270 a month) on a month-to-month basis. The issues are more with unforeseen future costs: bandwidth overages, where it'll cost us for each GB over our limit we go; server moves (less likely, generally more predictable); increased server capacity (given the various ongoing performance issues); simple cost increases.

My hope for the coming year, financially, is pretty much what it was last year: clear our debts and start putting together a war chest for the inevitable rainy day. Subscriptions are a big part of this, and people subscribing at the current level or beyond would be a big help in easing my mind about the forums' financial future.

[Scrap Iron]

Contribution has been submitted. Thanks to all staff for volunteering their time to run such a great gaming forum.

[Valkeller]

You will have my subscription this year aswell, as soon as april comes. (and that's scary enough very soon.. time really goes fast)

Don't really use the PM box thing, but hey the no advert thing is nice..

[ionfish]

As is the warm fuzzy feeling...

[Ra owa]

Just a quick question:

Does the donation/subscription run from the date you make the payment for 12 months, or is there a set 12 month period, like the tax year or whatever?

[Worf]

From the day you make the payment for 12 months.

[Cable]

On the subject of dats I'll be needing to renew mine soon.

[Ra owa]

woot, little star ftw!

keep up the good work guys

[malairt]

As one is once more gainfully employed, please have some money. It's a regular pleasure dropping by here.

edit: jeez, that was a quick update!

[ionfish]

It all happens automagically. We have specially-trained pixies.

[darkelf]

aka junior mods

[GeoffS]

Or Soul .

Anyway, have some money guys!

[Captain Pierce]

Could there be a way to let people know when their subscription has run out? OK, admittedly I am an idiot and didn't even realize until I logged back in tonite and noticed that I had ads again, and then did some research, that the term "subscription" suggested that it would run out at some point , but could the pixies maybe PM or email subscribers a week or two prior to expiration and suggest a renewal?

[Moe]

There actually is, I got an automated email message stating that my subscription was about to run out, along with a renewal link.

[reki]

Steele, check that your profile email is current and that it isn't in being caught by your junk mail filters. I got a message too.

[mailpup]

How far in advance does the warning message get sent? Although I renewed on my own three days before my old subscription expired on April 25, 2008, I didn't receive an automated message either. My email address is current and nothing was filtered.

[ionfish]

It probably sends it when it runs out. The system's not that smart.

[Corsix]

I got my notice a few days before it expired.