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[RangerWickett]

Really, it's not like $25 is that much. I just spent $15 on dinner and dessert tonight. If I'd eaten ramen or just gone to my cafeteria earlier and splurged, I'd almost be to another community supporter account just by that.

Pick a bad habit of yours (mine is chocolate). Don't support that habit for just a little while, and save up $25. How hard is that? First, you wouldn't have to worry about us being frustrated with you. Second, you would have the good feeling because you're making Russ happy, and thus making all of Russ's friends happy. And Russ has lots of friends. It's so easy to spread so much joy in the world!

Hm. If I was feeling particularly snitty, I would start a thread asking for all the community supporters to announce that fact, and then I'd create another thread asking for all of the friends of Russ to announce themselves, and then I'd remind all the community supporters that they each have made all of the people in the other thread very happy.

 

[Darkness]

Psionicist, among these 140 (one-hundred and fourty!) Community Supporters, there's certainly at least one who'd probably be willing to do the odd Search for you if you ask them.

 

[chatdemon]

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.

What about the promise made when Eric turned the site over to Morrus that people who decided to help out and donate some money to help with the costs would not recieve any special privileges?

I remember reading that somewhere...

 

[Morrus]

What about the promise made when Eric turned the site over to Morrus that people who decided to help out and donate some money to help with the costs would not recieve any special privileges?

I remember reading that somewhere...

I don't.

When the boards changed hands, we had a very limited time to raise money and buy the messageboard software etc (a matter of days, in fact). So I passed the hat round and asked people to contribute what they could.

The only thing I said was that I'd be grateful for the help at the time, but that if it was given it was understood to be voluntary and that people should not expect to be owed anything in return for it (other than that I would use the money to buy the messageboard software etc.).

That was solely to protect myself from people coming back later after being edited, banned or whatever for profanity, pornography etc. and saying "Hey, I paid - I can do what I want". It certainly didn't exclude the possibilty of me giving someone privilages; it just ensured that people woud not expect them. Anyone who was not comfortable with that was advised not to donate anything. I remember it well, because I made a point of making that very clear indeed - it was an important issue given the circumstances.

Luckily for you, though, chatdemon, despite the fact that no such promise was made, nobody who donated to buy that software etc. got any special privilages, features or anything else. So, nothing for you to be upset about here.

I think you may be confusing two different things - the community supporter accounts came much later and were entirely unconnected with that initial whip-round; they were about server hosting when traffic increased to the point that it got very, very expensive.

 

[johnsemlak]

I'd like to add a positive spin to this thread and say that while I havn't opted to bay $25 to become an ENworld supporter (I might later), I find that I get much better value by supporting enworld in another way, by buying Natural 20 products.

I just spent $5 on Moon Elves (I presume ENworld gets some of that). For that, I get new prestige classes, weapons, armor, spells, etc. Very good value. I'm looking forward to my next purchase.

 

[Morrus]

I'd like to add a positive spin to this thread and say that while I havn't opted to bay $25 to become an ENworld supporter (I might later), I find that I get much better value by supporting enworld in another way, by buying Natural 20 products.

Actually, you support EN World in the best way - by helping out with the actual work. People like you, Blacksway, all the scoopers, all the mods and admins, all the people who maintain the reviews page/d20 guide and the staff reviewers are a pretty darn important part of what makes this site cool. Thank you!

(Apologies to anyone I missed, as there are bound to be some).

 

[Dinkeldog]

I'm eagerly anticipating Cyberzombie's Elements of Magic release from Natural 20.

 

[johnsemlak]

Actually, you support EN World in the best way - by helping out with the actual work. People like you, Blacksway, all the scoopers, all the mods and admins, all the people who maintain the reviews page/d20 guide and the staff reviewers are a pretty darn important part of what makes this site cool. Thank you!

(Apologies to anyone I missed, as there are bound to be some).

Well, I didn't want to toot my horn earlier, but it's always nice to receive gratitude for one's efforts. Of course I enjoy what I do so it's not really necessary.

My initial reaction to the post at the beginning of this thread was typical, and identical to those who have responded above. This site is the result of a lot of people's hard work. In general, it is an extremely useful and very efficiently-run site (compare it to just about any other RPG site-- I think you'd have to agree). Complaining about not being able to run searchs for free, even though the reasons are clearly stated, well, some people...

HOWEVER, I think I can understand that people who use this site a lot become used to the high standards that this site nearly always keeps, and as a result become frustrated when they run into problems (witness the people who posted rather rude complaints when the site when down a few weeks ago). It's easy to forget, when you become used to using a site like ENworld, that its a grassroots site and not supported by a conglomerate, because it's overall quality, despite some complaints people have, is very high. If someone posted similar comlaints about the WotC site, I'd be more sympethetic, because we nearly all shell out at least $30 for the PHB and perhaps much more for the DMG, MMI, MMII, S&F, modules, LGG, Dragon mag, etc. And in today's world, a company with a fan base like WotC is pretty much expected to maintain a decent website for its fans. Of course, even then, the complaint wouldn't necessarily be vaild, but it would be more acceptable.

The fact that people post such complaints as in this thread I think is a credit to ENworld and it's high standards and very professional quality, which make the ENworld site nearly indisinguishable from much more money-driven sites like wizards.com or espn.com or whatever (for those who what to disect that comparison, I said 'nearly' indistinguishable). It's nice to know that in today's world of mergers, conglomerates, and mega-corperations, that grass-roots volunteer organizations still exist and compare favorably to their competitors.

Finally, it is worth noting that ENworld is only one of many fine sites dedicated to providing resources for RPG players; many others do a fine job with perhaps even more limited resources. I can't name them all, but I use Mortality.net and dragonsfoot from time to time. Also, many d20 publisher companies and their sites are pretty much run by people from whom RPG stuff is a hobby.

 

[RangerWickett]

I want to point out a small, amusing tidbit of information, since you mentioned that buying Nat20 products supports ENWorld. In a sense that's true, but actually Russ keeps Nat20's funds separate from ENWorld, as I discovered to my dismay when he charged himself several hundred dollars for the banner ad space ENWorld had given Nat20.

You notice there aren't anymore Nat20 banner ads.






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