No.
A few suggestions for the forum.
People need to stop being obnoxious twats, and the forum needs revenue (especially with the downfall of google ads.) So here are a few ideas to bring in revenue and help the site along. I've seen this work on another forum so well that it happens to be one of the most popular forum boards ON THE INTERNET.
Probation, Ban, Permaban.
Probates are the bans we have now (stop posting for a few days, and come back.) Bans would mean a person is banned until they openned up their wallet and dropped down $10 to be allowed to post again. If a person does so immediately after getting banned to continue his argument or talk about what a shithead the mod in question is, you can ban him again netting you more cash.
RPG 18+
This would be a special subforum with a 10$ admissions fee that allows people to post with a more... "Mature" audience, basically let them post their smut, and pay you for the pleasure (of pleasuring themselves.)
This may be down the line, but set up a little window to pay for title changes. Instead of having Contra do it, make the user pay to change their title (after they have made their first.) Same with avatars and signatures. You get one free, after that you need to pony up the dough. Micro-transactions and don't tell me people can't pay, because any-ole asshole can pick up a Visa pre-paid card and drop the money on a new title. Even set up gift cards, and the ability to give others new titles. (This would even cause self-moderation as people would not want to be bad posters and get horrific titles for their horrible posting.)
No.
No. That defeats the purpose of a ban, as any asshole with $10 to spend can just waltz right back in.Originally Posted by Turtlicious
If the suggestion of a "mature" subforum has been brought up and shot down before, and the idea of charging anyone to view a specific subforum never appealed to anyone, why would anyone approve of this idea?RPG 18+
This would be a special subforum with a 10$ admissions fee that allows people to post with a more... "Mature" audience, basically let them post their smut, and pay you for the pleasure (of pleasuring themselves.)
No.
Hell. No. I don't even think I need to elaborate on this one.This may be down the line, but set up a little window to pay for title changes. Instead of having Contra do it, make the user pay to change their title (after they have made their first.) Same with avatars and signatures. You get one free, after that you need to pony up the dough. Micro-transactions and don't tell me people can't pay, because any-ole asshole can pick up a Visa pre-paid card and drop the money on a new title. Even set up gift cards, and the ability to give others new titles. (This would even cause self-moderation as people would not want to be bad posters and get horrific titles for their horrible posting.)
Turt... just... no.
... *sigh*
I don't even know where to begin. Mature is practicly 1x1 pms, and, paying to get back would ruin the banning process. Why ban at all when you know they'll come back with ten dollars, just to terrorize free rps or something. It would tear the forum apart.
And, Turt.
Are you.... drunk?
I hope so.... just keep things like this in spam.
Yo, I'ma be gone for a bit. School is ending soon, so, I'll be free for the summer. In the meantime, I may or may not get online. If I find myself on more often, I'll erase the stuff in my sig. Anyway, just so you know, I'll be gone 2 weeks+
Turt, this is stupid, even for your standards. I doubt anyone would pay money to get back onto a site that they've been banned from. I know I sure wouldn't, and I bet neither would you.
The second idea is a bad idea for numerous reasons, all of which have been covered before.
The third one, Turt, you wouldn't even pay for that. Hell, I bet you wouldn't pay for any of these.
Last edited by The Australian; 01-05-2013 at 06:20 PM.
Pulled into war to serve a vision;
That's supposed to last a thousand years.
Part of a machine;
Unstoppable, as merciless as tidal waves.
You guys are close minded or poor. It doesn't trivalize it the asshole just gets banned again, until it costs him how ever much it takes to change his behavior. If he doesn't learn then it's a perma. This worked for other forums who now have humongous communities.
Name them.
Yo, I'ma be gone for a bit. School is ending soon, so, I'll be free for the summer. In the meantime, I may or may not get online. If I find myself on more often, I'll erase the stuff in my sig. Anyway, just so you know, I'll be gone 2 weeks+
Ad hominen in the first sentence. Nice way to prove your case, Turt.
No one is going to pay to be unbanned, they'll just leave and go to another forum where they don't have to pay for them.
Oh, and name those 'humongous communities.'
Pulled into war to serve a vision;
That's supposed to last a thousand years.
Part of a machine;
Unstoppable, as merciless as tidal waves.
"You must pay to get back in."
lolnope.
"You must pay to have a 'mature' RP."
Lolpm
Eh, these are fairly bad ideas overall. I'll respond to each thing individually because reasons.
Real funny coming from you of all people, with your recent behavior in Spam.
Which may be returning whenever the slow/overburdened Google Ads people get around to the request put in to review the revoked ads thing, or it's entirely possible for Mahz to find another way to go about getting ads that at least pay for the costs of the forum. So this kind of shenanigans probably isn't needed at all, but let's move onward anyway.
So basically wealthy people would be allowed to keep on being douchebags to their heart's content? Make the forum experiences for potentially hundreds of other users be shitty until the moderation team decides they've milked enough money out of the asshole to go ahead and slap them with a perma? That's ridiculous.
On the flip side, that means these kinds of bans (which I guarantee you would be rather frequent if they're a source of revenue) would essentially become permabans to anyone without disposable income. This would quite probably make it so people are effectively permabanned for breaking far fewer rules than in the current system. Kind of dumb.
Bringing payment into the banning thing at all is bad. It should be a way to punish people who break rules and make the forum a negative place, not for making money. That's what fucking ads are for, pursue those fully before pulling bullshit like this.
Eh. I personally would be fine with an adults only section. I wouldn't pay for one, but such a section would be fine by me. Not a great idea for a roleplaying site that's trying to curb the whole smut thing, but, y'know, that could be another option for a subforum. Make them have to apply to access the adult sections and put up some huge disclaimer saying it's 18+ content and the site is not liable for children seeing porn or whatever to avoid legal repercussions.
I can see plenty of reasons why the site management wouldn't want to have adult subforums though, so probably not going to the a thing. I'm against paid access to areas of a forum in general though, because like, come on, premium access on a forum? There are much better ways to make money enough to pay for the hosting costs of an internet site without having to resort to this.
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, that seems a little douchey. Avatars and signatures are the bread and butter customization options for forums, charging to change them is a kick in the dick. It'd be fine to open up fancy user titles like contest winners get as a purchase option. Hell, it would even be fine to remove custom user titles for everyone and make them only available to people who pay. They're a tiny little aesthetic thing that wouldn't cause a major uproar if they were removed.
Allowing people to change other people's titles would be a dick move though, especially if that person paid for their own title and then it gets changed by someone else being a tool. Not cool.
Basically, I think only minor aesthetic things should really be opened up to pay options. Maybe make alternate site color schemes and the like and allow people to pay to use them. Could even do something like make it so using gifs in your avatar or sig have to be paid for, but still leave free rein with still pics for non-paying users. Allow people to buy emoticon packs or something. Fonts, font colors, etc.
That's the secret to successfully making a profit on a free to use platform without pissing off the userbase: sell useless commodities that people will buy anyway to feel special (also selling shortcuts in progressing in the main platform, but that mostly applies to games and doesn't work for forums). For a great example of this, look at League of Legends, a free to play game that rakes in plenty of money. They sell aesthetic upgrades like character skins that serve no purpose other than to make you look special and unique and make tons of profit on it. That's the sort of thing I think would work to make the site not a sinkhole in Mahz's wallet, assuming he can't get ad revenue back, not the ban and subforum and restrictive nonsense that would annoy people.
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