Important: Please Read! Changes Are Coming!

[Mark]

Go to it, Morrus! Best of luck with all the work involved in making this place better. I think you are right to tier the sig abilties, including being able to turn them off only as the highest tier. I'd stay away from the allowing people to change one anothers avatar or custom titles since that invites the type of confrontation (essentially name calling through words and pics) which usually is the most difficult of moderation duties. The posrep-only system seems to do well enough allowing people to express when another EN Worlder is being helpful around the boards and the lack of negrep has proven to avoid pettiness and the same type of confrontation that I've already mentioned. Keep up the good work and I look forward to seeing the additional changes. Thanks!

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Unsure of the capabilities to do so, but thinking about the wonderful free stuff subscribers now have access to, would it make sense to have the heroic $3 subscibers have limited access (e.g. 1 download per month) versus unlimited access to Paragon subscribers? Obviously that would partly depend upon how much content is added each month.

I also like the idea of delayed access to new content for heroic tier subscribers.

You mentioned increased XP power for subscribers (although I don't seem to have more than my 1 point - I'll have to check the thread in Meta to see what's up there), but one thing that I've seen complanits about is the XP to 50 people before you can rep somebody a second time; could that limit be lowered for subscribers?

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

One more idea - a personal peeve of mine - could subscribers have the power to shut off "Share Facebook,Twitter and Digg this" tools at the top of a thread? I never use them and, as I complained about once before in Meta, the Digg tool always seems to be the biggest hangup for thread loading.

I know this is unlikely, but it annoys me enough that I would consider paragon tier subscription to kill it and speed up the page loads.

 

[jbear]

Absolutely! We've traditionally always tried to thank those who help out with CSA accounts. It's a system I'm very much in favour of (and it helps those who are unable to purchase subscriptions).

The problem is the amounts of money we're talking is so low - a subscription isn't really worth much - that it feels almost insulting to offer one in exchange for more than an hour or two's work. So as a formal "payment" system, I don't think it's appropriate; but as a "thank you for helping out" goodwill gesture, it's the least I can do.

It's a you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. In no way insulting. Give me a few ideas you want sketched out and I'll see what I can do. It will give me a focus/motivation to pick up my pencils and ink which are somewhat dusty of late.

 

[vagabundo]

I would be a sad panda if my sig was gone completely, esp being a subscriber. I wouldnt mind if it was limited in some fashion.

I don't think i could sign up for anything more that the 2 Euro sub; the sub currently flies under my wifes credit card scanning radar.

I would like to see something for PDAs/Mobiles; a low bandwidth version of the site.

Anyway, keep up the good work. I do like supporting enworld, the extra goodies are just gravy for me.

 

[TheYeti1775]

That'll be the other 249,000 people who visit each month!

My first question would be is that a quarter million unique vistors and not bots?
Cause if it is than the state of our hobby is doing quite well if a fan site can pull in a quarter million unique vistors.
Especially considering looking at the stat block saying the most users online at one time was 4,029 on April 8, 2009 around 12:04PM. 30 days of that with each one of them being unique would only net you about 120 thousand in a month.

I would start it small. Additional skins, avatar use, sig sizes/linking.
The plan and desire to move forward is solid enough. You will always have detractors from it. Including me. But I'll at least give you a honest opinion on the move.
Though if you ever offer something I can't find elsewhere, you might earn the $$ out of my wallet.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Just found it.[Forum Jump is] a great feature.

It's a great feature in a silly place.

Think about it ... am I going to want to jump to my next forum before or after I'm done reading the current forum? And if I'm done reading the last thread on the current forum, am I at the top of the page or the bottom?

Forum Jump should be at both the top and bottom, or if only in one place, at the bottom.

Regarding .sigs, I enjoy reasonable .sigs. But I despise long, rainbow-colored, animated GIFed .sigs. The idea that creating long, rainbow-colored, animated GIFed .sigs is a desirable thing -- something someone would and should pay money for -- is stunningly ridiculous.

Call me old, but these .sigs are the internet equivalent of wearing your pants sagging around your knees. Pull your damned pants up, people.

 

[Umbran]

I think it's worth you spending some time to describe all of this in more detail, Morrus: I understand that you have some additional functionality planned, but it sounds like you're revealing bits and pieces of it and that we're not really seeing the big picture. Without that big picture, I think it's easy for us to get mired in some of the details you have mentioned, and (perhaps) to blow them out of proportion WRT possible plans that you're considering.

Giving out details of a plan comes across as a promise, and that's not usually something application providers want to do. If he reveals the plan, but some technical limitation leads to a compromise such that he deviates from the plan, he can (and probably will) be accused of "lying" or trying to mislead folks for PR and advertising benefit.

Take a look at WotC, and the virtual tabletop. Bad scene, because they ended up not delivering on a plan they made public. If they never made it public, there'd have been little fallout from not making good on the plan.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Take a look at WotC, and the virtual tabletop. Bad scene, because they ended up not delivering on a plan they made public. If they never made it public, there'd have been little fallout from not making good on the plan.

That's because there's a difference between "this is what's going to happen," and "this is what we're going to try to make happen."

The former is a promise, and the latter isn't. Considering that it's plain English, the distinction would only be lost on ... well, honestly, who cares who it would be lost on?

 

[Morrus]

Especially considering looking at the stat block saying the most users online at one time was 4,029 on April 8, 2009 around 12:04PM. 30 days of that with each one of

That's not 4000 users per day, it's 4000 users at one time. That day saw tens of thousands of users.

4000 visitors on one day would be a very slow day indeed.