- I'll open a PO box and ask for checks/money orders if you want to upgrade your account to privileged status. The fee will be a one time $20. I will not accept credit cards unless enough people ask. - The only differences will be not seeing the 503 page, not seeing ads, and the ability to search more than two tags at a time. - Privileged accounts will still have their uploads subject to moderation. - Moderators will be able to promote anyone to privileged or contributor status.
None of this will be going into effect anytime soon; I'm waiting to hear back from some sponsors and a potential server migration. You'll probably hear updates two or three weeks from now.
albert said: I've been toying with the idea of using CCBill to accept credit card payments. There are some huge setup fees but after that it's $30/month + 15% of transactions.
If I did move to a for-pay subscription model, I would probably do the following things:
- Eliminate ads for everyone - One time fee to upgrade to privileged status (probably $20) - Reveal loli/shota posts to everyone - Limit anonymous users/basic accounts to: (1) the first 10 pages; (2) two-tag searches; (3) 100 favorites - Anonymous users/basic accounts would still be subject to 503 pages
I would perhaps do the following:
- Require privileged account to post comments/forum posts (intelligence filter) and remove the throttling
Thoughts?
I'm a little confused about the $30/month thing. Do YOU have to pay that $30 per month?
Anyway, I feel like that isn't a good idea. If you're running low on cash by all means go for it. It just sounds like it'll turn into a shitfest. This might not be the best comparison, but I played counterstrike on a single server for awhile and the owner of the server only gave admin to those he thought were intelligent enough to handle the position.
He later was strapped for cash and made it $20 for admin. Everyone payed for it but the community was filled with shitty admins who banned without or for shitty reasons. I know you aren't giving out mod powers but the community could go down the shitter.
But hell...he made money. And money is the most important thing on this planet amirite?
I rarely do searches of more than two tags, and I could easily just save my favorites rather than use the favorites list (or comedy option make my own pool lol).
It seems like a minor inconvenience compared to ads + no loli. You should just make it so non-privs can see everything except konpaku_youmu. I could do without a favorites list but the prices not worth paying for Youmu Konpaku are next to none.
homeless_homo said: I'm a little confused about the $30/month thing. Do YOU have to pay that $30 per month?
Anyway, I feel like that isn't a good idea. If you're running low on cash by all means go for it. It just sounds like it'll turn into a shitfest. This might not be the best comparison, but I played counterstrike on a single server for awhile and the owner of the server only gave admin to those he thought were intelligent enough to handle the position.
He later was strapped for cash and made it $20 for admin. Everyone payed for it but the community was filled with shitty admins who banned without or for shitty reasons. I know you aren't giving out mod powers but the community could go down the shitter.
But hell...he made money. And money is the most important thing on this planet amirite?
He isn't giving away admin rights to people, though. I can't imagine the quality of the site would go down any. Making a lot of privileged accounts and only slightly shitting on anonymous/basic accounts(while giving them access to loli/shota!) sounds fine.
Plus I assume this will make money to upgrade the server/s to avoid handing out so many 503 errors to anonymous/basic accounts thereby keeping them pretty viable despite the favorites and first 10 pages thing.
Well, I can see some people having a "Why should I contribute, I paid 20 bucks for this stuff" mentality, but if it makes them stop begging for priv then it's probably worth it.
This is somewhat disappointing. Honestly, I don't think this is a good idea. I'm personally fine with the ads, and no-loli is actually a plus for me, I hate it. Besides, I don't want this place to turn into another paysite where you have to fork over the cash in order to see anything decent.
I'd be fine if you went with only limiting non-priv users to 100 favorites and/or two-tag searches, I rarely use either (although three tags seems more reasonable). But as for the rest, I feel that is going too far. Especially in regards to forum posts/comments. While we all hate ignorant users, having money doesn't necessarily denote intelligence.
This probably isn't an option, but one idea I'd suggest is somehow finding a way for users to make willing donations rather than payments. If no online company would support it, you could always rent a P.O box and post the address somewhere on the site. Given the sheer number of users who frequent and love Danbooru, I'm sure many would be more than willing to donate. I've seen admins of much obscurer sites that have been amazed at the amount of dedication users show to them though donations.
My concerns are mostly of the paranoid nature. Paying for content means there's a money trail. A money trail would be bad for users from places where loli is illegal. How does CCBill work? I guess I'll go look it up.
I don't have a problem with this so long as nobody is ever able to "buy" acceptance of their posts, or their shitty behavior. Buying privileged shouldn't stop you from getting banned, and it definitely shouldn't let you upload images without moderation. Unmoderated uploads need to be earned, not bought.
Dunno if I'd limit those who don't pay any more than they currently are, though. I think you'd get a bunch of people paying just to access the loli/remove ads/remove 503.
I also like the idea better about voluntary donations, especially seeing as I had asked about it in the throttling thread. I know I would donate, I've been using the site for years.
I'm sure there are enough users with a similar mentality to easily keep the server costs down or taken care of completely.
Edit: I mean...$30 a month isn't that bad...I pay that in World of Warcraft and City of Villians alone...
Kayako said: no-loli is actually a plus for me, I hate it.
This isn't really a valid complaint since you can just blacklist loli. I think I have it blacklisted in fact!
Anyway, I don't really understand why this can't live in conjuction with the system we have now, ads and all. Of course, I also don't know how much those ads actually pay for.
EDIT: Also with jxh said--the paid membership should still have to go through moderation as though it was a non-privileged account. Basically it should be a separate category from privileged.
surasshu said: EDIT: Also with jxh said--the paid membership should still have to go through moderation as though it was a non-privileged account. Basically it should be a separate category from privileged.
And I think people should still be able to get 'free' upgrades to privileged via invites like they do now, based on merit. The paid accounts should be for people who want the privileges without doing the work.
$30 a month is incredibly steep for something that essentially functions as "find pictures and look at them".
There's no community to interact with outside of IRC (comments and forum posts irrelevant to the site are banned), original content submitted by contributors is frowned upon. Not to mention that for as long as the proper tagging, rating, sourcing and parenting of pictures is based on the discretion of the users, there would be the probability of a picture becoming completely unsearchable due to entirely wrong things being attached to it.
I'd probably just pay $10.
Anyway, if this change happens, will former privileged accounts retain their status? If we're all wiped, do our favorites remain or will everything I've ever favorited be cut down to my 100 most recent? Will the revenue from subscriptions offset the ad revenue from however many users are ostracized from the site?
I think I like the voluntary donation thing more; iirc I handed Saguratus some cash for his go-nowhere site believing he would make something of it. I'm sure there's more people (including me) who would willingly contribute to a project that actually has ongoing development and strong user support. Oh, but the idea of the fee for privileged status is great thinking.
Using payment to gain privileged status instead of merit? (ಠ_ಠ). I can understand that by offering incentives to those who would donate. You're trying to ease strain on the server (and your budget).
Heh, I kinda think it's amusing how people misunderstood the $30/mo as what you'd have to pay for the site when it explicitly says "one time fee to upgrade to privileged status (probably $20)" But maybe it's because I ran a business and know about those credit handling companies (who are crooks imo)
It's like, you automatically gotta assume that people who can't read already don't meet the intelligence minimum. Not that I'm trying to be mean, I just find it kinda funny when on the topic of weeding out some of the dumbdumbs by way of pay because we got some prime examples already in this thread.
I do worry a little about paying into privileged accounts. Correct me if i'm wrong, but privileged uploads don't need to be approved by moderators right? With some of the nasty pics, ugly pics, and inappropriate pics being uploaded from time to time, i can't help but imagine that a lot more pics could slide under the radar. I figure mostly crappy fanarts or self promoting images mostly, since i figure someone might flag the really nasty weird and inappropriate stuff for deletion. If this were to happen at all, i think instead of buying into privileged, maybe you should make a separate usergroup that's like privileged, but only on the using side, and not on the contributing side?
I'd prefer there not be such strict restrictions on non privileged accounts in the future, but if that's what happens, that's what happens. I think voluntary contribution would probably work, at the least, i dunno how dire the financial situation is, but a test run wouldn't be a bad idea before deciding to go for a "pay or get a severely gimped danbooru" route. It honestly could go either way, if it's voluntary, there's bound to be some zealous users who donate a lot of money, and a lot of users who might donate 1 or 2 dollars, rather than a set one time fee, where nobody will feel the need to go above and beyond, or not give any at all because it's above the amount their willing to part with. I always see paypal buttons everywhere afterall.
jxh2154 said: And I think people should still be able to get 'free' upgrades to privileged via invites like they do now, based on merit.
Multi said: I think instead of buying into privileged, maybe you should make a separate usergroup that's like privileged, but only on the using side, and not on the contributing side?
I was going to suggest these two things, so instead I will second them.
And I agree that a one-time fee could be any amount you'd like to support the site, with a minimum. That's the setup joesondo.org has (they have a minumum of $5, but can go up to $50 I believe, and of course you can donate as many times as you want). Donating unlocks a fast video stream for any live MMA event, and they seem to be able to pay for everything with those donations.
Multi said: Heh, I kinda think it's amusing how people misunderstood the $30/mo as what you'd have to pay for the site when it explicitly says "one time fee to upgrade to privileged status (probably $20)"
If we're arguing semantics, it WAS stated that he'd move to a subscription model, and as far as I know the term 'subscription' when used in this sense generally implies consecutive payments.
It's good to know that there $30 isn't necessarily the fee we'll have to pay, but with no further updates so far (on the forum) we don't really know yet. If people were expected to pay $20 only once for unlimited access to Danbooru, that would be fantastic.. But I have a reason to doubt that's what albert had in mind.
I don't particularly like the idea of limiting favorites for regular users. I browse them a lot to find good pictures, and down to 100 I don't think they would be as useful. If there has to be a limit, maybe 1000 instead?
