Personal Forums

[Morrus]

Err, that doesnt answer my question. Though its good you guys are aware of that.

Currently are personal forums open to any community supporters, or only those who pay specifically for them.

ArthurQ, you don't need to ask this question. You just need to read the thread.

However, I'll answer it.

Currently, personal forums are not open to anyone at all.

 

[Gez]

Some thoughts:

I think it's a good idea. There will be people interested, that's for sure, and will be an even bigger incentive than the CS status.

The base cost should be low enough: if it's possible to set up an EZ board for $50, then $50 is a good starting point. Maybe even merely $40, or $30. But make each option cost a little extra.

• Public/Private? Options to have it password protected or open to anyone.
  Maybe a private forum (restricted to specific users, or password protected) could cost a little bit more. +$5, maybe. +10 if the forum is also hidden (not displayed in the list of forums to members who haven't access to it).
• Sub-forums: Allowed? Extra charge? Do you want a single forum or a "suite" of forums (like, for example, the Creature Catalog or T13K have here at present).
  The base price would give one forum. Any subforum would be an extra. $10 or $5 more per extra forum.
• Themes: Customisable? With/without EN World ad banners?
  MM thinks a custom theme should cost $20. Why not? Getting an ad-free forum would cost an extra, too.
• Terms/Conditions: Any suggested rules, guidelines? There are some things we don't want the forums used for (for example, a private forum used by a small clique to coordinate trolls on the main boards would be just mean)
  Rough guidelines. The personal forum should not be devoted to illegal content, it should be private if non-grandma-friendly, and it should not be allowed to affect the rest of EN World.

Other extras:
The possibility to attach files in that forum. (Reasonning? It takes more disk space.)
The possibility to allow HTML tags in posts, like <table>. (Reasonning? It can mess up things when used irresponsibly.)
The possibility for the forum creator and leader to have a bigger avatar. (Reasonning? It would affect, although a little, the rest of ENW.)

The basic idea is to propose a cheap, attractive service, but to incite people to pay for special perks.

 

[Buttercup]

Gez expressed in more detail the idea I was getting at above.

I think charging a base rate and then having a menu of a la carte items at additional (smallish, say $5 - $10) charge would work.

Personally, I'd pay for a private, passworded forum with file hosting. Possibly I'd pay for a custom theme too.

As soon as you decide, I'll be ponying up the cash.

 

[Morrus]

Well, there's some decent hosted forum management software in place now. it gives people complete admin control over their hosted forums, including:

• Unlimited number of forums in category
• Control over style, colours, logos, headers, footers
• Ability to assign co-admins or moderators
• Ability to set passwords to make forum private
• Ability to allow specific people access; ability to ban people

Unfortunately, what it doesn't do is allow me to limit these options on a per-user basis. This means that it will be hard to create "customised packages" as suggested above: the system allows you to have it all or nothing. A tricky problem.

 

[Morrus]

OK, folks.

I'm putting this feature on sale for a trial period only. That means that I'll let a few people buy it and then deactivate the product at RPGNow (as I'll be stuck with any hosted forums for a year - I'll leave it a while to see how it goes before reactivating it). So, it's first-come-first-served.

I'm not publicising this anywhere yet.

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=2620&SRC=EnWorld

At present the product isn't activated for sale (although you can view it) - it will be activated as soon as the RPGNow staff get to it.

Please note that, although the software includes certain features, you are not permitted to use all of them. While I can't limit them with permissions, I'll be keeping an eye on what you do to make sure you don't do something I've forbidden in the product listing and rules. These options (such as sub-forums, removing EN World's ad banners) may come later as additional features available for purchase.

Also important to note is that, although there are options in the Hoster Forum Control Panel for allowing specific people access to the forum, the only one which is active right now is a general password-protection.

 

[Morrus]

It's now active and available. I'll leave it there for a while, but remember that this is a trial and as such I'm limiting it to a small number of people - first come, first served!

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=2620&SRC=EnWorld

 

[BSF]

Should be interesting to see how this works out.

 

[Morrus]

Should be interesting to see how this works out.

I've got your email with the RPGNow receipt. Did you receive the automated email from RPGNow which should have given you instructions on how to create your forum? It should have gone out at the same time as the receipt, and contains a link you can use to create your forum.

 

[Macbeth]

Morrus, you private forum isn't so private, it looks like anybody can view it. I was just looking around the hosted forums page, and it looks like Eric's is the only on that is passworded. the other two (your's and the new one) are open to everybody. Just thought you might want to know, since it does say "A provate forum for Morrus's D&D group."

 

[Morrus]

Morrus, you private forum isn't so private, it looks like anybody can view it. I was just looking around the hosted forums page, and it looks like Eric's is the only on that is passworded. the other two (your's and the new one) are open to everybody. Just thought you might want to know, since it does say "A provate forum for Morrus's D&D group."

Yeah, I guess I should put a password on it.