Subscription levels dropping

[renau1g]

But traffic's fine, and increasing. It's just organized a little differently, which I guess can be odd to someone used to mainly looking at General RPG Discussion.

Enworld.org Site Info

Very cool site. I was amazed that India is the 2nd largest country by web traffic here.

 

[Minicol]

I really rather the annual amount rather than an annoying monthly fee.

That said, if people would give me xps... all these years of membership, and only level 2 ????

Admin here. While I understand and sympathize, we utterly detest xp whoring. It's the one thing we'll give negative xp for to balance it out, because we really don't want to see it. Don't do it, please. Shoot me a PM with any questions. ~ PCat

 

[Morrus]

Enworld.org Site Info

Very cool site. I was amazed that India is the 2nd largest country by web traffic here.

Alexa's not very accurate at all. It relies on people using the Alexa toolbar. The number of people on EN World who use it is so low that I have been able to make the Alexa's opinion of traffic here go up and down by as much as 50% simply by installing and uninstalling the toolbar on my own browser. Indeed, I can double pageviews and the like instantly by simply reducing the number of posts per page (that's the usual reason a website owner will have a low number of threads/page, posts/page and the like - means people have to look at more pages for the same content).

What that probably means is that there are three people in India who use EN World and have the Alexa toolbar. They then use that as a very innacurate sample to try to predict the actual traffic.

Google Analytics is where it's at! Plus vBulletin's own records of threads and posts made, people online, and the like.

Although this phrase on Alexa is amusing: "Compared with internet averages, its users are disproportionately low-income, and they are disproportionately childless men under the age of 45 who have attended college and browse from school and home. "

Alexa tells you a lot more about who uses Alexa toolbars than it tells you about a website.

 

[Shazman]

I don't subscribe because all of the "content" is 4E and pdf's. I can't afford to blow through ink cartridges to print out the adventures, and I don't drag my laptop to gaming sessions, so pdf adventures are useless to me. I also am not too pleased as how this site has changed in the past few years. Around 4E's release, the moderation was clearly pro-4E/pro-WotC (probably because of all the 4E advertisements on the site). It was ridiculous how one sided the moderation was. Saying anything bad about 4E or WotC, even if it was a legitimate complaint was likely to get the thread closed or a temporary ban. It's slightly better now, but anytime an interesting thread comes up like the recent "What can WotC do to bring back the diesenchated" it gets clogged up with 4E/WotC fanboys trying to shout down people with legitimate critisims of 4E and WotC, and then eventually gets locked. This place ins't as much fun as it used to be.

 

[renau1g]

Just for a correction here Shazman, I searched that thread (via that handy Search function... *plug, plug*) for your posts. Not a one was relating to what WotC could do to bring back the disenchanted, but rather bashing the company or those that played it.

"That pretty much sums up WotC's way of doing things. They definitely believe in a scorched earth, fire the audience mentality. Maybe they will fire too many and learn their lesson."


Mod Edit: Closed threads are closed for good reason. We ask you to NOT drag their issues around into other threads. This does nothing to answer Morrus' question, so let us not go down this line of discussion. Thanks, all.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Saying anything bad about 4E or WotC, even if it was a legitimate complaint was likely to get the thread closed or a temporary ban. Anytime an interesting thread comes up it gets clogged up with 4E/WotC fanboys trying to shout down people with legitimate critisims of 4E and WotC, and then eventually gets locked.

I'm not discounting your feelings here, because your feelings are your own and can definately influence your enjoyment of this site. But why is your opinion a "legimate complaint" while others' opinions are "fanboys trying to shout down people?" Maybe it would help us all to remember that this is a forum to share opinions and that painting those with opposing opinions as "fanboys" doesn't help anyone's enjoyment of this site.

 

[Morrus]

OK, we're not going to turn this thread into an edition war or an argument; self-fufilling prophecies may be fun at times, but they're not particularly helpful here. This is neither a free-soapbox zone nor do the usual rules not apply. Stay on topic, please folks. Thanks.

 

[jimmifett]

I love the site, and would love to subscribe, but can't justify to my wife a monthly subscription even in good times. It's a lot easier for me to plunk $36 on a whim and say "it lasts all year Baby" than have a recurring line item to justify each month.

As someone who develops backends for such sites, I can attest that the costs involved in processing CC transactions is not fun. $3 with paypal is at the slightly non-sucky part of the fee curve, and it's a lot better than a lot of other options for not getting TPK'd by fees.

 

[Kobold Boots]

I can probably help by advising why I haven't subscribed simply by running down the list of things on the subscribe ad bar.

- Access exclusive content - What content exactly?
- More PM space - I'm no where near my current limit.
- Search Features - I've been here a month and haven't needed them yet.
- Custom Title/Avatar - Useless to the function of the site, its aesthetics.
- Disable Ads - Why would I want to eliminate one of the more useful parts of the site by doing that? I find out about stuff through them.

- Campaign content - Assuming that's the exclusive content, I write my own stuff or can download stuff. It's my experience that anything put on any site is available via torrents in a month.

Why would I subscribe - It comes down to utility

- Are you going to host a campaign site for me?
- Are you going to keep my gamers seeking gamers ads in preferential places?
- Are you going to put me in touch with people who could write custom modules for me when I'm knackered for time (DM outsourcing lol)
- Are you going to send me an email that contains links to threads similar to things I've posted about such that I can come here when something focused happens?

See, I'm a guy with a ridiculous schedule and odd bits of free time that aren't predictable. My gaming time and family time is sacrosanct, so I'm going to look at any service that lowers my prep time in any way or helps me stay organized as worth subscribing for.

Cause truthfully, I don't have time to enjoy all the fluff. Sad really.

Thanks for the thread.
KB

 

[Morrus]

Just to clarify again, folks - with apologies. But I am looking for a specific piece of information here - it's why people have been cancelling in the last three months in particular.

I realise that "why I haven't subscribed" is in the same subject area (and that may well be a thread at some other point - takeup levels are perfectly fine, so it's not as pressing a concern as the recent spate of cancellations), but what I really need to pin down here is what's prompting these cancellations.

If we would stay on topic, that would really help. Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly interested in your stories of why you didn't subscribe, what you thought the moderation here 3 years ago was like, and so on, but it's far more important right now that I get that specific bit of information.

Thanks - I hope that didn't come across too abrupt. It's just that I need to pin down that particular thing right now.