Search

[Psionicist]

Hello there.

There are currently 140 community supporter, times $25 per account makes a whoppin' $3500. That's one fine looking server/fee/whatever.

My point is, everything works just fine right now, the server is stable (I appreciate that), Morrus has lots of money to burn on hot hardware (and things like that). Isn't it a good idea to enable the search function for the public right now? Or at least in the rules/house rules forums? I just hate when I cannot find what I'm looking for, like old prestige classes, rules discussions and so on. No way I will browse trough thousands of pages with threads just to find what I'm looking for.

And no, I will not pay those $25 for a community support account. I think the search function is one of those things that you should be able to use for free.

Anyone with me?

 

[EricNoah]

Morrus has lots of money to burn

Morrus will have to correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the impression that this is just about as far from the truth as you could get.

How he might feel about a test run (maybe turn on searching for a short while to test how it goes), I don't know.

 

[Psionicist]

Re: Re: Search

How he might feel about a test run (maybe turn on searching for a short while to test how it goes), I don't know.

That is a good idea, and a bad Idea. The good idea is that you can search the forums (Woot!). The bad idea is that everyone will try out the "new" search and therefor put a massive ammount of load on the server, just because they can and want to search, like the when the Poll feature was introduced with vBulletin. I can remember there were a whole lots of polls back in January when it was new and "cool". There are not so many polls right now. The point is that a test run might be a bad idea unless you try it out for a month or so.

 

[Knight Otu]

Re: Re: Re: Search

The bad idea is that everyone will try out the "new" search and therefor put a massive ammount of load on the server, just because they can and want to search, like the when the Poll feature was introduced with vBulletin.

And where would be the difference if Search is truly turned on again?

On the topic at hand, I don't really need search. The sorting options can simulate that fine enough for my purposes.

Besides, I didn't pay for it with either of my two accounts (though I think about doing it when I get a paying job), so I don't deserve it.

 

[Piratecat]

Let's dispel a few myths.

Morrus runs this site (and Natural 20 Press) as his primary job. He does so for free, letting people who want to help repay the community to donate, all voluntarily. I imagine that you haven't tried to run a business yet, but $3500 doesn't go a long way, especially when you consider that we just doubled bandwidth for a substantial increase in bandwidth costs per month. Money to burn? You, my friend, are kidding yourself.

If you don't wish to contribute, that's your decision and that's fine, but please don't complain that you should get the rights of a Community Supporter when you've made the decision not to become one. To be frank, I don't have a lot of patience for that.

Search isn't going to be turned on for folks that aren't Community Supporters, as far as I know. It wouldn't be fair to the folks that have already donated to help the site! They deserve a reward for their kindness and generosity, and that's one of the easiest ones to deliver.

So if you think that the only point of becoming a Community Supporter is to pay for search, then you may have missed the point a little, and I'm sorry about that.

 

[Morrus]

Hello there.

There are currently 140 community supporter, times $25 per account makes a whoppin' $3500. That's one fine looking server/fee/whatever.

It was 3.5 months of server fees until I dropped 2 out of the 3 servers a month ago. It went very quickly.

Morrus has lots of money to burn on hot hardware (and things like that).

No I haven't. Please stop presenting things as fact when you have no idea about my finances.

And no, I will not pay those $25 for a community support account. I think the search function is one of those things that you should be able to use for free.
[/B]

Why - is there something in the Swedish constitution that says that Morrus must give things to Psionicist for free? If you don't want to donate, that's cool, but please don'y try to imply that you're having some kind of right denied to you.

Search isn't going to be turned on for folks that aren't Community Supporters, as far as I know. It wouldn't be fair to the folks that have already donated to help the site! They deserve a reward for their kindness and generosity, and that's one of the easiest ones to deliver.

Perfectly put, PC!

So if you think that the only point of becoming a Community Supporter is to pay for search, then you may have missed the point a little, and I'm sorry about that.

Again, I couldn't have said it better myself. The Community Supporter accounts aren't about paying for a service; they're about voluntarrily putting something into the community. Psionicist, as PC says, the point seems to have gone entirely over your head.

 

[Psionicist]

Re: Re: Search

Again, I couldn't have said it better myself. The Community Supporter accounts aren't about paying for a service; they're about voluntarrily putting something into the community. Psionicist, as PC says, the point seems to have gone entirely over your head.

Fine, then I cannot see any problem whatsoever. If you are "voluntarrily putting something into the community", and not paying for the search-feature, then I don't think there should be any problems for the community supporters if you enabled search for the public, because you just told me you do not spend those money on search, but into the community.

And no, I do not try to be a smart-ass, I just think this is very odd. If you want to donate money to ENW it's fine with me. I would If I had more money. And if the point is about donating money to support the community, then I can hardly see the problem with enabling search.

 

[Piratecat]

Hmmm. You don't seem to understand. We made a promise to the folks who were kind enough to donate, offering them incentives for doing so. We're not going to take those incentives away because of complaints from people who have decided not to participate, for whatever the reason.

Please understand, neither complaining or asking politely is going to change this policy. It's something that Russ feels strongly about, and I agree with him completely.

 

[alsih2o]

And no, I will not pay those $25 for a community support account. I think the search function is one of those things that you should be able to use for free.

seems to me anyone can come here and already get a lot for free.

are you not getting enough value for you freeness?

i don't see you changing anyone heres mind about the issue, but it wouldn't have hurt your reception on the issue if you had mentioned how much you appreciate some of the ideas, information and services provided to you for free.

as a community supporter i can tell you that i didn't send in my money so i could search, i searched out so much stuff that i realized i should pay

 

[HellHound]

Honestly...

*I* did buy my community supporter membership for the Search function.

(I hate Paypal... ever since they closed my last account when it still had money in it, I refused to use them. I finally broke with this promise in order to pay here actually.)

My main reason for not paying for community supporter status initially is that I am trying to strong arm a few of the other publishers to chip in with me to pay for Russ to make it to GenCon next year on OUR bill instead of his own. Considering HOW MUCH he has done for the smaller d20 publishers, we all owe him this. SO I figured that the money spent there to support Russ would balance out against the money I wasn't spending on the community supporter feature.

But then I needed to search the boards for comments on a few of my books to make it into the errata as well as into the adcopy for the upcoming Necromancer's Legacy.

And thus, Community Supporter status was purchased.