Beyond3D Subscriptions

Rys

Graphics @ AMD
Moderator
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To help cover the cost of keeping the lights on I've enabled subscriptions via the forum software. Currently the only active one is a flat $10 option, which gives you the Subscriber badge on your account (you can hopefully see it on mine) and currently nothing else.

Access it through the Account Upgrades link in the dropdown that shows up if you click your name at the very top right of each forum page.

Once I know it works and it works reliably, I'll add another tier for recurring subscriptions and enable some subscriber-only features besides the badge.

Subscribing is 100% optional, happens through Paypal (you don't need a Paypal account), and the revenue will be used solely for forum and site maintenance purposes. Mostly hosting costs, but a small portion of the revenue will come to me to pay for my time.

Even if I'm the only person to ever subscribe, nothing will happen to the forums or site. I promised Wavey that while I was responsible I'd always look after this place, even if I had to pay for it out of my own pocket. Nothing changes there, so this isn't a "pay or the forums go away" thing.

Along with the ads, there's going to be more than enough to cover costs and put plenty aside for any future things. If I build up enough, I'm likely to funnel it into publishing again on the site, something I've been meaning to do for a long time, especially now I have contractual permission from my salary overlords to do so.

Anyway, feel free to kick the subscription tyres and give the site $10 if you want to support ongoing costs, and hopefully have me write a thing or two again.
 
Looks like it works, for at least two people. :D
 
Do the moderators get paid? This is a factor for me. They do a good job keeping this place from becoming a cess pool like other forums.
 
They don't, and it's difficult to do so while staying on the right side of taxes and employment law, especially because they're worldwide. I've thought about it a lot and discussed it with a couple of the mods, but there'd be no way to make it happen without burning through all of the site's income to make it legitimate and not get us into trouble.

Suggestions on alternative ways to say thank you to the mod team in more than just words are very welcome!
 
I use a XenForo Donations Manager addon for my site.

My community funds the hosting, all addons and recurring licensing for updates as well as funds for competition prizes. It works really well and they love having the top donors displayed. So you could have a "Thank the mods" goal which when (if? lol) it's met, it is distributed to the mods. I'm surprised by how much some of my folks donate and considering the average age and career status of many folks here you (and B3D) would probably do very well from it to at minimum maintain the site.
 
It's one time just now, but now that I know it works reliably I plan to add recurring subscriptions and some different one-off levels. If anyone wants to pay more or less than $10 and wants it to recur or not, PM me and I can set things up manually or use it as inspiration for future subscription setups.

Unfortunately I can't make it so you can pay what you want on the frequency you want to pay it, although I'll look into the Donations Manager add-on to see if that can help do something like that.
 
I've settled on a combination of the subscriptions and the donations as a way to fund things on the site and forums. I haven't yet enabled the donations, but I will do in the next maintenance window.

I have updated the subscription levels mentioned above, to add more tiers and enable some recurring ones too. Snappily named I know, you now have Red, Green, Blue and Alpha levels, both one-off and recurring for each name, with a range of monetary values. The only benefit of one over the other right now is at the Alpha tier, where you get a different badge against your name.

I'm working on disabling ads for all subscribers as a thank you for doing so, and a subscribers-only forum that will be used to discuss and vote on what we do in terms of publishing new articles when there's enough impetus and resources to do so.

If you want to make a contribution that's not modelled by the subscriptions that are there now, contact me privately and I'll enable whatever one-off or recurring tier that works for you.

There's been a good response to it so far, so I think it can work longer-term as a means to get back on the publishing horse.
 
If we reach a certain donation level will there be an option to disable the malicious advertisements?

:D:D:D
 
I plan to disable adverts for all recurring subscriber levels! It's the first code change I'll work on when I'm back from GDC.
 
It's too easy to not notice that Subscriptions exist. If I hadn't been here camping with a mauler I never would have seen this thread. You should at least mention it somewhere on the main forum page.
 
I plan to make it a more visible thing after the forum reorganisation, when I can justify it to the console folks as well as the more traditional readership.
 
Please Rys think again of making it more visible soon. I frequently haunt your halls, but haven't even noticed the subscription option until today. I strongly believe that quality work should be paid adequately and am happy to have an easy to use option now for doing so.

Suggestion: The jump between 10 and 50 Dollars might be a bit large for some. Might consider adding another tier in between? [I am aware I could spend 2× 10 Dollars as one-time payments only]
 
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BOLD RED CAPS LETTERS AND FLAME ICON !!!
(Agreed it should be obvious)
Also 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 could be better.
 
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