Paid commendation as means of funding the forum?

[Bouzoo]

Is implementing something like reddit gold being considered? Many, many times have you, LMG and other admins pointed out that the forum is, in numbers, not profitable. A black hole actually. Having an option to commend/gild someone might reduce that, and the funds (obviously dependant on LMG and admins), might be used for investing in forum, for instance. Not talking about the LTT app, but something like better servers (resources) on host, if they are possible, better DDoS protection, or something completely different.  

 

Of course, I can see the obvious downsides coming with it. 

[79wjd]

Isn't this basically LTT Bronze, Silver, and Gold? 

[Bouzoo]

5 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Isn't this basically LTT Bronze, Silver, and Gold? 

Kind of yes, but the forum is still a black hole as I understand. That is monthly subscription, this might be like $1 as optional. 

I understand what you mean though. 

[DocSwag]

16 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Isn't this basically LTT Bronze, Silver, and Gold? 

Not exactly, I think what he's saying is that other people can basically give someone else bronze, silver, gold, or floatplane, as opposed to now where you can only buy it for yourself.

[Bouzoo]

Just now, DocSwag said:

Not exactly, I think what he's saying is that other people can basically give someone else bronze, silver, gold, or floatplane, as opposed to now where you can only buy it for yourself.

Not quite giving away different monthly subscriptions, more like an additional option for reputation. Or if you like, a wooden subscription thingy.

[PCGuy_5960]

IMO, they should rename the existing subscriptions:

• Gold Contributor -> Platinum Contributor
• Silver Contributor -> Gold Contributor
• Bronze Contributor -> Silver Contributor
• Bronze Contributor for $1/month

Or they could keep the existing ones and add a new subscription for $1/month (Contributor?). 

[colonel_mortis]

It was considered very seriously in the past, but there's barely any content on here that would justify gilding, so it would only be used very rarely, and wouldn't really make a difference to the forum income.

The forum infrastructure is sufficiently funded at the moment though - we've got plenty of overhead on the server, and haven't had unscheduled downtime for a while. I'm not aware of whether it operates at a loss for LMG though.

4 minutes ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

Bronze Contributor for $1/month

It's not viable to charge $1 for anything, because PayPal would take about half of it.

[PCGuy_5960]

Just now, colonel_mortis said:

It's not viable to charge $1 for anything, because PayPal would take about half of it.

$15/year? Would that be more viable?

[colonel_mortis]

1 minute ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

$15/year? Would that be more viable?

In terms of PayPal, yes, but I don't anticipate it being added any time soon.

If you want to support LMG, get Floatplane. If you want to support the forum, get one of the existing contributor levels.

[SilhouettePC]

1 hour ago, colonel_mortis said:

If you want to support LMG, get Floatplane. If you want to support the forum, get one of the existing contributor levels.

So does the money from Floatplane go to a different place than contributing?

Just curious for the future 

[colonel_mortis]

Just now, SilhouettePC said:

So does the money from Floatplane go to a different place than contributing?

Just curious for the future 

Not at the moment

[Syntaxvgm]

On 9/20/2017 at 9:19 AM, colonel_mortis said:

It was considered very seriously in the past, but there's barely any content on here that would justify gilding, so it would only be used very rarely, and wouldn't really make a difference to the forum income.

The forum infrastructure is sufficiently funded at the moment though - we've got plenty of overhead on the server, and haven't had unscheduled downtime for a while. I'm not aware of whether it operates at a loss for LMG though.

It's not viable to charge $1 for anything, because PayPal would take about half of it.

syntaxvgm stapled a 5$ bill to this post

 

I love reddit lol 

[nicolas2465]

^{I don't recall ever paying for a forum, and none of them shut down.  Why should anyone have to pay for LTT to keep a forum up.}

[Bouzoo]

13 hours ago, nicolas2465 said:

^{I don't recall ever paying for a forum, and none of them shut down.  Why should anyone have to pay for LTT to keep a forum up.}

It's called contributing, and most many people members here have no problem with that. Supporting the thing that you like. No one has to pay for anything, it's optional. 

[colonel_mortis]

49 minutes ago, nicolas2465 said:

^{I don't recall ever paying for a forum, and none of them shut down.  Why should anyone have to pay for LTT to keep a forum up.}

Running a forum has lots of costs (for example the forum software, the server, DDoS protection). No users are under any obligation to pay anything to use the site, but the users that do pay something allow the forum to keep running and stay up to date, without the site being covered in ads, making it better for everyone.

[LogicalDrm]

2 hours ago, nicolas2465 said:

^{I don't recall ever paying for a forum, and none of them shut down.  Why should anyone have to pay for LTT to keep a forum up.}

You don't pay for YT either and they still keep making videos. Why should you have to watch ads since they already seem to get all the moneys? Same thing.

[PlayStation 2]

1 hour ago, Name Taken said:

What about something like this but as an opt-in?

I could see that going very wary very quickly.

[themctipers]

2 hours ago, Name Taken said:

What about something like this but as an opt-in?

ill take ads over that.. i use ltt on my laptop and phone too much, and my laptop has a 32 bit CPU.

[themctipers]

Just now, Name Taken said:

Opt-in means off by default and you need to explicitly state that you want to participate.

yes, and thats why I said i'll take ads over that.

idk, i wanted to add to the conversation  

[Damascus]

On 9/20/2017 at 9:19 AM, colonel_mortis said:

It's not viable to charge $1 for anything, because PayPal would take about half of it.

Yep, my brother got $1.00 from a guy who liked his Warhammer TW mod and got 66 cents after the transaction 

[Bouzoo]

8 hours ago, Name Taken said:

What about something like this but as an opt-in?

I don't see that happening. I'm not sure if the forum supports it (I'm pretty sure it doesn't). 

[Teddy07]

On 20.9.2017 at 2:32 PM, Bouzoo said:

Is implementing something like reddit gold being considered?

1

They have so many used hardware lying around that it should not be any problem

[Bouzoo]

4 minutes ago, Teddy07 said:

They have so many used hardware lying around that it should not be any problem

I'm pretty sure the, don't have the time to do that nor do they want to go through all the hassle. They haven't sold any afaik when the forum was in "worse financial shape", if I may say so. I'm sure LMG has enough money to fund the forum without reselling used HW, but the initial post was not about that.