Services of Monetary Value

[Shian]

If A4 had a "pay" for service, what kind of things would you pay for?

This could be anything between products or activation of features.

[Voluspa]

I'd pay for admin status, j/ks.

I don't think pay systems are good, unless say you pay and get access to anime episodes to download or something. Then I would be all for it!

[Shian]

I'd pay for admin status, j/ks.

I don't think pay systems are good, unless say you pay and get access to anime episodes to download or something. Then I would be all for it!

I'm very well aware of how people "feel" about pay systems.
I'm looking for a common interest in that people will be willing to part a small sum of money to gain something on A4.

[Oh Snap.]

When people click on the 'who's online' link at the bottom of the page you can see what each user is doing, 'viewing profile' etc.

I would pay exactly 5 Bison dollars (1B$ = £5) for mine to read 'being awesome/actually working/getting baked/not downloading midget porn' etc.

A custom 'wth is he doing' thing, if you will.

If that isn't possible increased sig/ava sizes (oh hell yeah I'm talking about 5meg giffs that crash dial up internets) are something I'd be semi interested in.

[Kewkehtsu]

May I be the first to ask why a 'pay for' service being considered now? Are you not getting enough in the way of donations or what?

Does this have to be a 'service' or can the be A4 merch?
You could make all sorts of useless A4 related crap revolving around member T-shirt designing contests and the like, then stamp an A4 logo on it.

[Mr. X & Mr. Y]

I have 2 questions: Why? What for?

[Oh Snap.]

What about paying to get users ip banned for life?

[Nikki]

I would like A4 Merch, like shirts and hats and such. That would be cool....

[Mr. X & Mr. Y]

What about paying to get users ip banned for life?

That would be great! But why not doing it for free?

[Shian]

That would be great! But why not doing it for free?

Well, say... if Icare paid me $500 to ban you, I'd do it in a heartbeat ;D

or... if he paid me a subscription fee of $2 a month to keep you banned for 30 days.

[Mr. X & Mr. Y]

Well, say... if Icare paid me $500 to ban you, I'd do it in a heartbeat ;D

or... if he paid me a subscription fee of $2 a month to keep you banned for 30 days.

Damn you!!! I knew it was about me. I pay in €. How about that?

[Shian]

Damn you!!! I knew it was about me. I pay in €. How about that?

If the conversion matches up to $2 =)

[Mr. X & Mr. Y]

If the conversion matches up to $2 =)

It's 1,5$ isn't that enough? You still earn...

[Geranium]

Hmmm, maybe the T-shirt or Hat idea, it would definitely help advertise the site too..but people could always pay money for having one of their ideas tried for a little while. Like say, 5$ for a sub-forum of your choice to exist for a week or something. =P

[Rayne]

Yeah, I agree with the A4 merch. I would definitely pay for a hat or a sweatshirt or something with the A4 logo on it. Also, what about A4 stationary? Though, that's probably a stupid idea.

[Gin Ichimaru]

I would like A4 Merch, like shirts and hats and such. That would be cool....


Yeah, I agree with the A4 merch. I would definitely pay for a hat or a sweatshirt or something with the A4 logo on it. Also, what about A4 stationary? Though, that's probably a stupid idea.
I think that would be neat to have a sort of shop section with customized products.
Maybe, something in the sense of what a donor would get, maybe exclusive access to a private board, larger PM box, more custom settings on a profile. Things of this nature.

Want to bring back the ancient discussion of adding a "Hentai" board? (See 2002 thread (http://anime-forums.com/showthread.php?t=68)).
Or image host service, but only available to paying members.

Hosting streams of "things" available to paying members perhaps.

Ill think more on this :P

[Kewkehtsu]

I think that would be neat to have a sort of shop section with customized products.
Maybe, something in the sense of what a donor would get, maybe exclusive access to a private board, larger PM box, more custom settings on a profile. Things of this nature.

Want to bring back the ancient discussion of adding a "Hentai" board? (See 2002 thread (http://anime-forums.com/showthread.php?t=68)).
Or image host service, but only available to paying members.

Hosting streams of "things" available to paying members perhaps.

Ill think more on this :P
I'd be up for a H board, but I'd only bother if it was one of several features for donating, I'm not just going to slap down a couple dollars to chat about Hentai on A4 when I can do that through any other website/board.

I'm still curious as to why the A4 staff is considering options towards monetary ends. Are we not making server bills or is this a side project?

[Ian the Korean]

I'd be up for a H board, but I'd only bother if it was one of several features for donating, I'm not just going to slap down a couple dollars to chat about Hentai on A4 when I can do that through any other website/board.

I'm still curious as to why the A4 staff is considering options towards monetary ends. Are we not making server bills or is this a side project?

A4s been in the red or close to it for a while. It gets brought up everytime someone whines about the sig or avatar limits in the req and suggestion forum.

[Kewkehtsu]

A4s been in the red or close to it for a while. It gets brought up everytime someone whines about the sig or avatar limits in the req and suggestion forum.

Is there a way to tell how much of a donation is needed per month to keep everything running smoothly? I might, possibly drop a few bucks here'n there.

Well with merch you'd obviously charge more than the making costs were, then you could funnel those few extra bucks of profit into the server monies. On some level I'm sure I wouldn't mind wearing/buying even a simple white shirt with logo(might want to come up with some sort of A4-tan or something similar to add with logo).

Call me lazy, but if I'm the average user and I hop on the forums and there's no large 'donate' button or section it's most likely to pass over my head that this site does indeed have operational costs, it's paid for by donations of the community and staff. Doing a forum search I run into a bunch of threads about donating but not really about what it gets ya, how to donate, etc.

Might I suggest adding additional perks to whatever currently might be standing for donaters. Ex. instantly recognized official A4 club regardless of how many members they have on their roster if they donate. I dunno.
I'm sure you've done stuff like that already.

[Ian the Korean]

I think it is/was a hundred or so a month? I don't remember, it's been ages since I've seen the figure so it may have changed given bandwidth usage and various upgrades and changes that've been made.

[Kewkehtsu]

There's nothing even in our FAQ section about donating.
I mean c'mon guys, if you want people to donate you should give them easy access info about it.

[Gin Ichimaru]

There's nothing even in our FAQ section about donating.
I mean c'mon guys, if you want people to donate you should give them easy access info about it.
Mmmm I recall at one point there was something on it, but we did change our donation process not too long ago, I recall. (possibly delusional however)

However, I agree we should have some form of cashflow coming into the site that isnt random like donations.
Seeing as Bryce is paying basically out of pocket for the site, and after a while it adds up.

[Se7en]

I won't pay a cent to browse and troll A4.

But I may donate some money if it is needed.

Time for the Elite to pitch some money in.

[Gin Ichimaru]

I won't pay a cent to browse and troll A4.

But I may donate some money if it is needed.

Time for the Elite to pitch some money in.
I wouldent brandish the word elite around here too loud.....you may get yelled at...>_>...
Anyway, its a neccicary evil to have some form of "optional" pay system with nice perks.
Besides, dedicated users will most likely buy, I cant imagine it being that much anyway.

[[Seeker]]

If I worked I would've donated 5$ a month.

[Ian the Korean]

There's nothing even in our FAQ section about donating.
I mean c'mon guys, if you want people to donate you should give them easy access info about it.

There's tons of stuff going on behind the scenes in regards to trying to get a donator deal set up but we gotta get bryce on board with it since he's the owner and all.

[Gin Ichimaru]

There's tons of stuff going on behind the scenes in regards to trying to get a donator deal set up but we gotta get bryce on board with it since he's the owner and all.
Which has been a long time in the running too.

[Mr. X & Mr. Y]

Hmmm. Is this topic about donations or about something like A4's shop? I think I could donate but I'm not really into advertismenet stuff like T-shirts and others....

[Ian the Korean]

Hmmm. Is this topic about donations or about something like A4's shop? I think I could donate but I'm not really into advertismenet stuff like T-shirts and others....

I seriously doubt there'd be t-shirts or anything, that kind of merchandising isn't feasible on a small scale even with some of the make-your-own sorta styles.

There's not really much difference between a donation and a premium account if you think about it beyond the name, this is pretty much simply to get some ideas about what the userbase would expect in return for handing over some cash. Whether it's called donations or something else is kind of irrelevant at this point, although I could see us breaking it down into different categories depending on how much is given/paid and those categories having unique functions allowed.

For a completely hypothetical example; if someone is giving under 5 bucks, maybe they just get a donator custom title under their username, maybe at 5 bucks they get a larger in box and slightly larger avatar/sig requirements. Maybe at 10 or 15 or something, those requirements go up a bit more and they get to upload sigs directly on the A4 server. etc.

I'm pulling this completely out of my ass, so don't expect what I posted above to necessarily have anything to do with how it turns out; there might be some flat rate level of donations that once you exceed you get it all. I really don't know how it'll be handled. Again, The whole point of this thread though is just to get an idea of what you the user would like in return for or as a "gift" or however you want to see it in return for helping to cover some of it's expenses.

[Voluspa]

If the costs are running high, you could always drop back from a .com to a .org or something else.

I know many will be opposed to this, but it would drop the cost of the website substantially (depending upon what you go with).

[Shian]

@Tova
A4 has operated in the red for a long time now.
Technibble, Bryce's other site, has been fronting all of the money to keep A4 alive.
As it currently stands, A4 needs to generate at least $100 a month just to break even.
Anything more than that will either go towards upgrading the server.
Improving content and maybe so we can pay people who work hard on maintaining a free service for you guys.

The donators button went away and we're looking into other sources of avenue.
Adsense ads and the donators button did okay but it only does so much, especially when the majority of you guys don't donate or click links.

@Voluspa
The domain name means nothing.
Operation costs are based on bandwidth usage, memory and traffic.
Domain $20, a year
Everything else: pay as you need it... and we always need it.

[Mr. X & Mr. Y]

I seriously doubt there'd be t-shirts or anything, that kind of merchandising isn't feasible on a small scale even with some of the make-your-own sorta styles.

There's not really much difference between a donation and a premium account if you think about it beyond the name, this is pretty much simply to get some ideas about what the userbase would expect in return for handing over some cash. Whether it's called donations or something else is kind of irrelevant at this point, although I could see us breaking it down into different categories depending on how much is given/paid and those categories having unique functions allowed.

For a completely hypothetical example; if someone is giving under 5 bucks, maybe they just get a donator custom title under their username, maybe at 5 bucks they get a larger in box and slightly larger avatar/sig requirements. Maybe at 10 or 15 or something, those requirements go up a bit more and they get to upload sigs directly on the A4 server. etc.

I'm pulling this completely out of my ass, so don't expect what I posted above to necessarily have anything to do with how it turns out; there might be some flat rate level of donations that once you exceed you get it all. I really don't know how it'll be handled. Again, The whole point of this thread though is just to get an idea of what you the user would like in return for or as a "gift" or however you want to see it in return for helping to cover some of it's expenses.
Thanks for explanation.

The donators button went away and we're looking into other sources of avenue.
Adsense ads and the donators button did okay but it only does so much, especially when the majority of you guys don't donate or click links.
Links & ads are bothersome but donation button is good imo. Why did you put it away?

@Voluspa
The domain name means nothing.
Operation costs are based on bandwidth usage, memory and traffic.
Domain $20, a year
Everything else: pay as you need it... and we always need it.

I don't know, don't you pay for forum system as well? I think (if I'm not mistaken) you use Vbulletin and that system is paid(correct me if I'm wrong).
+ what were the other donation options? Only PayPal or were there another choices(SMS donation, Direct account input, other)

[Voluspa]

True, but that saving of $20 could be saved. Also (and I haven't looked into this all that much) but surely if you shop around their would be places that can be cut down on expenditure?

Also I know for one of my gaming clans, we sold some space to ads that generated revenue each time someone clicked on them. You could put one up and ask everyone to click it once daily....and waa laa instant money.

[Nikki]

They've tried adds and they don't work. Most people don't click on them enough.

I still think the hats and t-shirts would be cool, but not as an advertising perk. More of a neat way to say "Hey I am an anime junkie and I am proud of it!" If it does get people to come to the site, maybe they will buy a shirt or a hat or a sweater or what not as well.

Honestly, when I first came to this site, I didn't have any of my own money to donate. Being as most of the user base is under the age of 18 they may not have their own money to donate either. Yeah they can go, "Hey mom hey dad can I have your credit card to donate money to this site??" Most parents would say "NO!!" fearing it to be some sort of scam.

Personally I wouldn't care if I got any perks if I donated to the site. I would just like the option of doing so. Whether it be a donate button, merchandising, or whatever.

[Cold in Siberia]

Mm, from my experience from another forum: ordinary members of the board couldn't change their custom titles. In other words, we didn't have the Custom title thing and the Veteran-newbie-senior member text under it. Just one line, which could be changed either by mods or members, who donated money. That was a nice motivation, which worked fine. Since it's not an option here (is it?), you might offer bigger avatar size, although most of the users, I assume, are able to change the size of the files they use, since it's really easy.
About the T-shirts thing, the whole deal won't worth the money, the project will earn. Considering the geographical locations and all the processes required to actually produce/get somewhere the shirts and sell/deliver them to those several people, who'd like to buy them is simply too labour-intensive (and not profitable)
I'd say any of the mod features, like seeing invisible members.
I think Modified Profiles might work. No need for flashy animated annoying myspace-like things, just couple of advanced options.

[Shian]

Thanks for explanation.
Links & ads are bothersome but donation button is good imo. Why did you put it away?

I don't know, don't you pay for forum system as well? I think (if I'm not mistaken) you use Vbulletin and that system is paid(correct me if I'm wrong).
+ what were the other donation options? Only PayPal or were there another choices(SMS donation, Direct account input, other)
Paying for vBulletin is a one time deal.
Both Bryce and I have licenses.
Bryce's license is what A4 is on.
My license is what I test features and play around with upgrades on.

But you have to do a lot of business on the internet to know that the Donators Button and ad's are not the only source of income.
You also have to realize that the majority of the users on this forum are teenagers who don't have access to a credit card.
This isn't some plug in play code we can hack together and suddenly we have money.
There are a lot of variables in terms of real life scenarios that can drive money to A4 and unfortunately, our target audience don't always have access to money nor are they willing to click a link to purchase merchandise.


True, but that saving of $20 could be saved. Also (and I haven't looked into this all that much) but surely if you shop around their would be places that can be cut down on expenditure?

Also I know for one of my gaming clans, we sold some space to ads that generated revenue each time someone clicked on them. You could put one up and ask everyone to click it once daily....and waa laa instant money.
$20 isn't a lot when it comes to paying $1200 a year to keep the SERVER running for A4.
The domain name means NOTHING because we only have to pay a SMALL amount to keep the name and that name is what drives all the activity here.

If you were to search Anime Forum on Google, A4 comes up as #1.

What costs the most in operation is the server and the reason why we don't go to a random host is because A4 used to run on a host which we consistently used up the bandwidth for and taken down not only A4, but the neighborhood as well on that same server.

A4 is running on a dedicated server which Bryce pays to an individual.
A4 is basically capping out on the server resources.

So sure, we could cut costs, but that's actually the wrong way to do business because now the service quality drops. In having the community pay for services or merchandise, we can improve services and add more content.

adsense stuff, read my response to Mr. X.

--------------------------

I was willing to do an A4 merchandise kind of deal, but this brings up the issue of copyright. Anything we sell has to be 100% A4 and who ever provides us with the detail work has to understand that once they give us their work, it's no longer their property, it's ours.

That system can work on a pay to own service or a royalty service.
In either case, A4 still has to pay an artist to do the work or if it is in-house (by staff), we may want to offer them a royalty since it's their work on a professional level.

What a lot of the community doesn't realize is that even though this is a community on the internet, it is also a business. Bryce is making no profit on A4 what so ever and neither am I and I literally provided upgrade services that are normally valued between $1000-4000 for free.

----------------------------

Another thing that I toyed around with is the idea of affiliating with anime / manga companies such as Bandai, Sunrise, Funimation and Tokyo Pop so we can link you guys to their products or even provide streaming video services that are available only on A4.

The problem with that, too, is the bandwidth because streaming video pretty much rapes any bandwidth we have available and we can definitely tell you that anything involving increasing of avatars or data transfers in general will mean that the $1200 a year maintain cost will go up significantly. You could be looking at anything between $5000 to $10,000 in maintain costs just for an additional data.

[Johnny Couth]

I would charge people to use the PM feature, change their Custom Title, and add images to their signatures.

[catastrophe]

what type of ads are you thinking of shian? I know a few forums that put ads in between posts so that the likelyhood of someone clicking them is higher.

[{oroka}]

I would pay for unlimited avatar and signature file size (for animated gifs), flash signatures, and custom rank images. I think $2 per feature would be reasonable, and $5 for all 3 for a yearly subscription.

[darkandshadow]

Well, we already have the sugoi section for this (Donator/VIP),
but why not add a small-sub section for upcoming perks of
the board during upgrades? That way, donators or VIPs and
whatnot get first shots at testing these extra tidbits before
they go public.

I would suggest permit to downloading unlicensed content,
but I'm pretty sure the servers aren't big enough to handle
that.

[Johnny Couth]

I would say that a 10 dollar fee to use the PM service, 5 dollars to change the custom title every time and 10 dollars for the right to add images to the signature could bring in some money. Or it couldn't. I think a lot of the people on this forum are younger and don't have disposable income or bank accounts.

[Kewkehtsu]

I would say that a 10 dollar fee to use the PM service, 5 dollars to change the custom title every time and 10 dollars for the right to add images to the signature could bring in some money. Or it couldn't. I think a lot of the people on this forum are younger and don't have disposable income or bank accounts.
That'd be a quick way to piss off quite a few people.
I can see paying a small fee for pictures and custom titles, but not to use forum services like the ability to PM other users...

[Johnny Couth]

If you had more services you're just going to be adding more costs, why not just charge for services that already exist? It may piss some people off but tough if its what needs to be done for the forum. Like it would be hurting anyone to not be able to PM or have a big sig.

[darkandshadow]

Maybe so, however the users will just simply migrate to
another board with all of the features for free, thus
hindering A4 even further.

You need something that's legal, and enticing enough to
get money out of people's hands.

[Johnny Couth]

I don't think the majority are here to PM and make sigs.

[darkandshadow]

No, but it's been around for so long without purchase,
you'd be surprised how many people would complain if
they did have to "buy" those features.

[Kewkehtsu]

I don't think the majority are here to PM and make sigs.
No, but PMing is a fundamental part of communication between some forum members. Like Darkandshadow has explained: If such a feature were to suddenly require one to pay for it, I'd honestly leave... Not that that's a loss to anyone, but it seems ridiculous we'd have to pay for something like that.

[Johnny Couth]

Look, someones got to pay for the forum. We can all have whatever we want for free thats the point.

[darkandshadow]

Look, someones got to pay for the forum. We can all have whatever we want for free thats the point.

Welcome back to the beginning of the discussion.

Right now, it's being footed out of their own pockets
according to Cruel and Shian.

[Gin Ichimaru]

I agree, to have to pay for such a basic feature as the use of the PM system, I would stop coming here as well.
I liked the idea of having certain merchandise to buy, kind of like an animeforumsshop of sorts, thats something I would probably put some money into, not paying for features that are a basic aspect of a website like this. Especially a feature or features I have had normal and regular use of for years.
Also, if A4 got into the subtitling market and charged for access to the download of shows like other sites do, I think that would also do well.
The downside of that idea is the legal issues one could get into with that.

And yes, all of this is out of pocket by Bryce, and its quite expensive too. I dont blame them for wanting to add pay system.

Im interested to see how this works out though.

[darkandshadow]

Also, if A4 got into the subtitling market and charged for access to the download of shows like other sites do, I think that would also do well.
The downside of that idea is the legal issues one could get into with that.

A few downsides to that, first, going off of my idea for
downloadable content. Legal issues is definitely one, however
the other would be bandwidth raping.

Secondly, getting a hold of a subtitling team to constantly
work for a long while before they get recognized is a lot
of hard work and dedication, which is very sparse in pickings.
Plus, donations won't roll in for those for a long while so
it makes it that much harder...

[Johnny Couth]

I don't think subbing is realistic, this is a forum.

[KT Samurai]

I don't think subbing is realistic, this is a forum.

^This. Plus, yeah, it's illegal and A4 has distanced itself from such things. Subtitling for free distribution is one kind of illegal, turning a profit with those subtitled episodes is a whole other kind of illegal.

[Johnny Couth]

Just thought of something, I think its good. I'll add it to the list.



10 dollar one time fee to use the pm service
10 dollar one time fee to put images in the signature
5 dollars to change your custom title
5 dollars to change your avatar
20 dollars to change your account name

[Kewkehtsu]

Just thought of something, I think its good. I'll add it to the list.



10 dollar one time fee to use the pm service
10 dollar one time fee to put images in the signature
5 dollars to change your custom title
5 dollars to change your avatar
20 dollars to change your account name


This is why you're not allowed to decide pricing for jack...

I'm sorry, but I mentioned it awhile ago: You're asking for money when you haven't given the community a decent chance to donate. I still don't see a button/tab/sticky for donating much less any incentive to donate. If basic features are going to be charged for then you can bet many users are just going to migrate to a different site. And as mentioned previously, part of the deal here is that the average user here, is what, maybe 13?

[Johnny Couth]

I'm just making a suggestion. Yes some people would leave but it would be better to have less, paying, committed members then a bunch of people who just drain on the servers.

[Kouketsu]

Here's a somewhat more realistic version of a tiered yearly subscription approach sans pricing that I proposed somewhere before that essentially relies on the vBulletin features we've disabled and been keeping from you guys for awhile now. Note, it's far from complete as it could be, but I'd more so like to gauge its feasibility:


Bronze Level Subscribers get:

Access to their own photo album with a maximum of 15 images uploaded at a time (See here (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?249460-vBulletin-3-7-First-Look!&p=1450769&viewfull=1#post1450769) for an example of this)
Access to the subscriber forum

Silver Level Subscribers get:

Access to their own photo album with a maximum of 25 images
Access to the subscriber forum
Access to their own blog (Demo here (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/entry.php?2402-vBulletin-4-0-Gold-Release))
Increased PM box size to 250 messages

Gold Level Subscribers get:

Photo album with maximum of 50 images
Access to the regular subscriber forum and the uber-leet 'premium' subscriber forum
Access to their own blog
More post-related things? (At the time I first posted this I suggested ability to embed flash/Youtube videos but the latter has since been made available to everyone)
Increased PM box size to 500 messages

Platinum Level subscribers get:

Photo album with unlimited images
Access to both regular and premium subscriber forums
Access to their own blog
Increased PM box size to 1000 messages
Anything else Gold gets, Platinum gets, too
Early access to new features before anyone else sees them



Just one possibility for how something could work using yearly subscriptions (Which usually work better than monthly fees or one-time fees), although surely there are many more things that could be added which I'm missing or just better ways to assemble such a thing.

[Gamma]

I like Johnny's ideas and Kouketsu's breakdown. I also very much like the idea of A4 merch. My SCA household has a cafepress shop and it brings in a little money. With the scale of A4, a cafepress shop would bring in even more money. I would absolutely buy A4 postage stamps. (which you can now do at cafepress) ^^

Oh, that would be a good idea for an event. Design A4 merch.

[Oh Snap.]

Here's a somewhat more realistic version of a tiered yearly subscription approach sans pricing that I proposed somewhere before that essentially relies on the vBulletin features we've disabled and been keeping from you guys for awhile now. Note, it's far from complete as it could be, but I'd more so like to gauge its feasibility:


Bronze Level Subscribers get:

Access to their own photo album with a maximum of 15 images uploaded at a time (See here (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?249460-vBulletin-3-7-First-Look%21&p=1450769&viewfull=1#post1450769) for an example of this)
Access to the subscriber forum


Silver Level Subscribers get:

Access to their own photo album with a maximum of 25 images
Access to the subscriber forum
Access to their own blog (Demo here (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/entry.php?2402-vBulletin-4-0-Gold-Release))
Increased PM box size to 250 messages


Gold Level Subscribers get:

Photo album with maximum of 50 images
Access to the regular subscriber forum and the uber-leet 'premium' subscriber forum
Access to their own blog
More post-related things? (At the time I first posted this I suggested ability to embed flash/Youtube videos but the latter has since been made available to everyone)
Increased PM box size to 500 messages


Platinum Level subscribers get:

Photo album with unlimited images
Access to both regular and premium subscriber forums
Access to their own blog
Increased PM box size to 1000 messages
Anything else Gold gets, Platinum gets, too
Early access to new features before anyone else sees them




Just one possibility for how something could work using yearly subscriptions (Which usually work better than monthly fees or one-time fees), although surely there are many more things that could be added which I'm missing or just better ways to assemble such a thing.

You can give these out as prizes for the various competitions and 'popularity contests' (yeah especially the popularity contests. definitely those).

Once the 'winners' have this and start lording it over the 'regular users' with their distinct lack of fancy titles and priviledges then it could get people to go 'wait....why don't I have a fancy official metallic sounding title? I demands me a title! Where the **** does daddy keep his credit card.....' etc etc

The monies wil be rolling in.

But seriously, given the avarage age here maybe the question being asked here should be 'how can we get people to donate without a credit card?'

Forget the merch and the shipping/actually making it headache it entails. I'm sure people here can spare a few bucks a year if only they had a means of getting it to the owners.

[darkandshadow]

I like Johnny's ideas and Kouketsu's breakdown. I also very much like the idea of A4 merch. My SCA household has a cafepress shop and it brings in a little money. With the scale of A4, a cafepress shop would bring in even more money. I would absolutely buy A4 postage stamps. (which you can now do at cafepress) ^^

Oh, that would be a good idea for an event. Design A4 merch.

If the work is original and you don't mind having the
"business" of A4 own the rights to your image...well,
then it's a go.


Once the 'winners' have this and start lording it over the 'regular users' with their distinct lack of fancy titles and priviledges then it could get people to go 'wait....why don't I have a fancy official metallic sounding title? I demands me a title! Where the **** does daddy keep his credit card.....' etc etc

The monies wil be rolling in.

But seriously, given the avarage age here maybe the question being asked here should be 'how can we get people to donate without a credit card?'


Haven't you been whining all this time?
Nah, just messing.

But in all seriousness, the only other way without
using credit card online is Western Union styles
money operators, which in the end costs more than
doing credit online.

Besides, elitism is something that even having the
title "veteran" can promote to a negative cause as
proven with some members time ago.

As long as there is rank, you run the risk as such.

[Johnny Couth]

I like the blog idea for the people that will buy it. Everyone will want their own A4 blog.

[{oroka}]

You cant start charging people for features they already get for free, and they get for free at every forum in the tubes. I can tell you now, if I have to pay $25 to use PMs and Avatars, I will just go somewhere else.


Extra features you dont normally get are where the $ is at. Maybe image attachments for local hosting of sigs and avatars? How about throwing up some banners, and you can pay to not see them? That one is a win win. Things like flash sigs and avatars, title banners... advertise them selfs. New members will be asking how to get cool avatars and sigs like member XYZ, and they will be told to pony up some moolah. Maybe some vet members could donate time to making simple flash sigs that could be sold to help support A4... make that GFX group work for its existence. How about a $1 custom avatar and a $2 custom sig service? I would donate some time to help make that happen.

I think blogs are a dumb idea... what are people going to post in a blog that they dont post here already? 'Today on A4, I posted in the General forum, and a bit in the Fun and Games forum. I had a grilled cheese for lunch... I burned it a bit, but the ketchup covered the burned taste.'

[Johnny Couth]

Well if all the people who couldn't free load anymore left and the people who cared about A4 enough to pay stayed this forum would be in a much better place. Could always trim the fat.

[{oroka}]

Yeah, but it is that huge crowd of free loading that fills A4 with posts worth reading. If there are only 30-40 people who are willing to pay to use the A4... people will get sick of it really fast.

As stated, most members dont have their own disposable income they can use online, and that is the majority of the members.

Perhaps access to a premium section for members as suggested already. That will keep A4 full, and the crap freeloaders out of the country club pool.

Th_aBzrV37M

[darkandshadow]

Yeah, but it is that huge crowd of free loading that fills A4 with posts worth reading. If there are only 30-40 people who are willing to pay to use the A4... people will get sick of it really fast.

As stated, most members dont have their own disposable income they can use online, and that is the majority of the members.

Perhaps access to a premium section for members as suggested already. That will keep A4 full, and the crap freeloaders out of the country club pool.



There's already a premium section, it's just that nobody
really uses it too much...

[KT Samurai]

We do indeed have something of a "premium" section. It's either ill-conceived or just unpopular right now, though.

[{oroka}]

Now, I guess that is an issue that will have to be covered, but why dont I know it exists? Any new pay features will be moot if no one knows it is being offered.

[Oh Snap.]

Yeah what the **** is this sh1t? Soviet Russia? I mean, theres people reading this post....for free! And I for one refuse to subsidize their time wasting.

This will be my last post. In this thread.

[KT Samurai]

We'll have to watch out for what Icare is talking about, too. Some things just need to be free because, hey, every other forum on the planet lets people do 'em for free. We could also opt for enhancements on things that everyone gets anyway, like larger signature/avatar dimensions.

[AoX]

What oroka and KT said. Really, going from the norm (of other forums) would probably only work to a negative prospect. What we have at this moment can remain as is, but future additions (blogs, space, size etc) is always possibilities to be explored.

[Shadow Fox]

Maybe if we had a special "Download" section where we could keep special stuff like pictures,AMV'S, or something of that sort that you could get by a small donation and stuff. Or make up a special Hidden forum where only those who pay a fee can access. Anyone else would not even be able to see such a forum and thus be unaware of where its at unless they pay for it.

Maybe make up Anime-Forums.com T Shirts of Various Sizes and Sell those for like $10.00 a pop. Make them black and have a big art contest to have something written or designed for it. Maybe a nice picture or design on the back and our name on the front. I would defiantly buy something like that.

[{oroka}]

So, when can I buy my double platinum premium membership?

Problem with all this goodness is that it is going to require a fair amount of work for a purple named god somewhere... and those gods have real lives with real life stuff to do.

[{oroka}]

Double post.

How about a unmoderated flame forum for premium members? Or a mature forum? That last one would be a stretch... and age restricted, but we are accumulating a lot of members who are of age now. Or a general unmoderated forum. Not saying that a unmoderated forum would be solely for smut and debauchery, but a 'Post your fave nudie anime chick thread would be pretty cool or a 'Shannon Apple is stupid because...' thread (just an example, Shannon is a cool chick-mod-person). There would be limits, and it would be lightly moderated, but warnings in there would be pretty sever if you break a rule in a nearly rule-free forum (ie no loli, no copyrighted stuff, anything that could get A4 in trouble legally). That would be worth money.

Another thought, as each member who buys premium memberships would have to have each element added to their user by a mod or most likely an admin, you could offer individual items, or as discounted packs. Say like, Larger signature limit, $3, Flash Signatures $3, larger avatar $3, or get the Sig & Avatar Pack that includes all 3 for $7. If you buy the uber double platinum pack that includes all the options, you get some super awesome bonus thing that can only be obtained in the Uber pack (mod for a week maybe?)

And how about a incentive program for people who donate to a paid signature/avatar option. Say someone pays $3 for a matching sig/avatar, and a member who is part a 'support team' makes the sig/avatar. The volunteer member should get a 50 cent credit towards A4 services. They build up enough credit, they can get better member packages.

[Kewkehtsu]

A one time $10-$15 donation for access to a hentai board. There you go.

[Gamma]

Well that would certainly make Clayton happy, but he can't very well support the whole forum, can he?

The problem with a flame forum, Oroka, is that it is in direct violation of the rules of the entire forum. What would make it different?

[Shannon Apple]

LOL don't like the idea of giving people who donate mod status for a week. Big No No and potential hazard. We gave Kyuu mod for a day as part of an event and he abused it left right and centre. Was fun, but we wouldn't want that on a regular basis. Although rotating mods may one day return. None of that should ever be open to just anyone who donates.

I like the idea of larger signature allowance (by filesize, not visual size)
Perhaps a larger avatar filesize
Hidden forum for only donators. No spam restrictions with postcount switched on (just like sugoi)
Perhaps some little graphic under the avatar.
Options for the user profile, perhaps the ability to upload a user pic, a blog, or extra options for blogging, customizable profile, etc

Flame forum...do not like. People can do that in F&G if they don't get serious with it, and so long as they keep the language within the rules and it's clear that no one is upset. I can't see people here actually making that work. They'd be crying to mods in no time. I almost guarantee it.

Adult section...kinda wouldn't work since donations would be open to all between 13-80. This is a family forum and we can't really alienate the larger part of the membership who are under 18. Oh, and I'll be honest here. I certainly wouldn't want to moderate it...I can just imagine the nerd talk. >.> (Use google for all your needs)

[Kewkehtsu]

Well that would certainly make Clayton happy, but he can't very well support the whole forum, can he?

The problem with a flame forum, Oroka, is that it is in direct violation of the rules of the entire forum. What would make it different?

I completely understand that one time donations don't pay the bills unless you have a significantly large userbase with disposable income, which we obviously do not have. Most of the users here are either too young to donate in the sense that mom and dad don't want them "throwing money" away, or you have the users that are older who have financial responsibilities who might donate every now and again, but not enough with our current user base to keep everything out of the red. It's a hard issue because most kids these days are just used to not paying for things (music, movies, forums, etc) so it's hard to justify the services such a forum like ours provides. You could also factor in the current economy and that some of us have enough financial issues of our own.

On more than one occasion I've offered to give a donation, despite my current situation, but from what I've seen there's been no real effort to provide members an easy avenue to make donations. I even toyed around with a game idea in in which I'd offer up 3 different cash donations as a prize that would be put in the winners' names.

And if I can be honest: When I first joined, I really thought this place was awesome, but now that I've been around the block and have kinda gotten out of anime there's not a whole lot around here to warrant me to go out of my way to donate, especially with my current financial situation.

I understand that personally, I haven't been the greatest member but when the CE section is a rehash of web articles I already read everyday, PLD is full of socially inept children who don't want to take a risk and live their life, and GE is full of random crap there's really not a whole lot that makes me want to donate here. I like to hop on here and talk to some of the users I've become friends with, troll a thread here and there, occasionally try to have a decent debate/conversation but really if A4 just disappeared it wouldn't be that big of a deal for me. I know that's probably a dick thing to say, especially in a thread about keeping the forums financially afloat.

I think your best course of action is that donates should receive larger sigs, avis and similar forum stuff, but gimping current forum features and making your users pay for them seems kind of obnoxious.

I could go on for a bit, but I've got a broomball game to go play :P

[Shannon Apple]

Grrrr. No one said anything about taking away existing features Tova. Could have saved you the 5 mins it took to type that if you read staff posts.

We have discussed this in our staff forums before. One thing we made clear was that anything the regular users already have won't be taken away. I don't see anywhere in this thread where a member of staff suggested making people pay for stuff they can already do. lol

[FROIDBUSTER]

I would match peoples crap H-donations if it meant it canceled them out so they couldn't post that cartoon porn garbage. So that would generate lots of revenue because they'd have to pay two or three times before I decided to stop.

[{oroka}]

The problem with a flame forum, Oroka, is that it is in direct violation of the rules of the entire forum. What would make it different?

Yeah, they pay money. A sig larger than 330x500 is in violation of the forum rules (except Sugoi members). Bend the rules for paying members. Only in that specific pay forum. If they take it outside of there, warnings, suspensions, and bans get handed out.

A unlimited unmoderated forum would have some rules... like if you cant stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. They should know what they are paying for. As for a 'Adult' forum, make the rule that it is not part of any packages, and you must pay for it with a paypal account that is in your name, as paypal does not allow people under 18 to have accounts.

Just because it makes some people squirmish, does not mean it is a no-go for everyone else. Like that chick with the gun to her head on the forum banner... reply to that is to change the forum skin. You dont like the adult forum, dont pay for admission, you wont have to read it.



I would match peoples crap H-donations if it meant it canceled them out so they couldn't post that cartoon porn garbage. So that would generate lots of revenue because they'd have to pay two or three times before I decided to stop.

How about paying to remove avatars you dont like, for example a hard gay guy in front of a rainbow? (not that I care bout that, just a opposing pov)

[Shannon Apple]

Because we should all just man up, right?

[Opace]

Money for bigger signature sizes - Absolutely fine as long as its not really annoying.
Money for bigger avatars - Even better suggestion as people really are used to bigger sized ones in other forums, big enough for better gifs. In fact, I would like to see some really well made gifs. out there for those willing to pay for it.

Money for a 18+ board - No, no, no, no, and no in every aspect. So many requests for that have been made over the years for this and it has always been a simple "no." If want to discuss 18+ material, do that somewhere else. A4's aim has always been a clean environment for anime discussion, not piracy links or hentai.


http://www.anime-forums.com/images/statusicon/forum_new.gif No Hentai. Ever.


Money for a flaming forum - No. Sugoi is different as it has its spam-rule lifted, a relatively harmless thing. But flaming isn't relatively harmless, no one wants to read about themselves being flamed. Even if it was hidden only to those given permission, it would still give a headache to the mods when word gets out someone outside it was being flamed endlessly.

[{oroka}]

What makes me giggle is how when people like an idea, even if it is against the rules, they are all for it, but when they dont like the idea, they start going on about how it is against the rules.

How about getting rid of the General forum and Fun 7 Games? They are not anime, if I wanted to discuss non-anime topics, do it somewhere else. Funny thing is, they are the 2 most popular forums at A4, not even anime.


Opace: For some reason I am visualizing you as a 14-15 year old kid whos mommy gives stern warnings about looking at bad websites on his/her hello kitty themed PC. That is just what I am visualizing ;) Im not a dick, I just sound like one, ask Gamma ;) Green names are fun targets lately.

[Shannon Apple]

This forum has always been family friendly and people joined because of that. Personally, I do not want to be associated with the type of forum that has those kind of sub sections, even if they are subscribe only. That's what drew me to A4 in the first place, I can view this forum at work, at university and wherever and not be embarrassed that I might enjoy a little anime now and then. Several people here will agree with me. There are plenty of forums out there for the kind of thing you're suggesting.

I think A4 can come up with plenty of ways to pay for itself without lowering it's standards like a $5 hooker. One of those could be advertising and link exchange, where an annual subscription allows you some sort of advertising space for the year.

I am totally against the idea because it's exactly that kind of thing that gives anime fans a bad name and I cannot ever see A4 endorsing that image.

[Opace]

1) Care to give some examples of how people go "all for ideas even though they break forum rules"? Sugoi? If you read my post, I said it was a relatively harmless thing to remove since it only increases post count (not like people in Sugoi even post in it anyway). Once they start flaming in Sugoi, they're gone. A flaming forum is harmful and is essentially negative; why should we introduce a forum for people to throw mud at users for donation incentives?

2) Yes, I do know the GNAD and the FaG forums are the most popular on A4. It's inevitable that people like those forums better due to the nature of our rules. The rule "No links to copyrighted digital material such as full anime episodes, manga scans, Mp3's..." just cripples our active membership of lot of anime fans out there because they want a site to view the content and the same site to discuss it simultaneously. We can't offer the former, so they either won't become active members of A4's anime community or just go over to the GNAD side of things. It's the inevitable truth.

3) If you want a hentai board on an anime forum, then go find another forum to discuss that sort of material. That should be easy since there are thousands out there. Just because they are doing it doesn't mean we should do it. A4 has always been a family-friendly place where anyone can view it where ever with no "NSFW" material that may pop up. I also don't see a reason to lower our standards to accommodate discussion of pornographic material for money.

The reason why this forum is still up and running even though it makes negative income is because Bryce still wants to keep it a clean and safe environment to discuss anime. It the policy ever changes, then I wouldn't be here at all. Not because you think I'm a 15 year old girl that seems to dislike all sexually explicit material, but because I didn't join A4 for that purpose.

[{oroka}]

There is a hard limit on sig/avatar size, but everyone is all gung-ho for that. The nice thing about having a website is that you can make it do whatever you want... nothing is locked in stone. Slight edit on one like of code, A4 becomes the dirtiest anime forum in the tubes.

Try not to get too hot or bothered. As for the 15 year old girl thing, no, it is the '~Exempt of Exotic Emotions~', and the cutsey pootsey sig and avatar with the pink name. I do know you are about 15 and a male. I have powers. I didnt join A4 for smut, but it would probably help keep A4 a little closer to the black than the red. Im just surprised how staunchly some people are against even the idea.

Shannon, you have $5 hookers in Ireland?



Now, another issue. What are the chances of getting a admin to make any of these changes? Seems they cant find time to do a quick fix on the page banners, let alone set-up all this stuff.

[Shannon Apple]

Haha! I laugh at all the people who have a cutesy old fashioned view of Ireland.

Anyway, yes on that.. not happening anyway. I know our admin (Knuckles) would never allow it since it's something he was always against. Might as well just go ahead and associate ourselves with that 4chan pit.

Oh yes, and admins have lives. School, work and all that you know. It's not easy getting stuff done when you've got assignments and such. This thread was for picking user brains to see what they'd like to see as well as some of the stuff that was already being planned.

[Opace]

Apparently I get too hot and bothered trying to debunk your arguments for flaming forum and a hentai board. Mhm.. maybe I should try actually getting hot and bothered; I wonder what people would call me then.

As for the admin issue, they are extremely busy at the moment. Currently, I would say there are only 2 admins that are remotely active, but they are also extremely busy. I don't personally see any urgent reason to change them at the moment.

[{oroka}]

Mhm.. maybe I should try actually getting hot and bothered; I wonder what people would call me then.

Scary. Scary B McScarriton.

[Kewkehtsu]

This forum has always been family friendly and people joined because of that. Personally, I do not want to be associated with the type of forum that has those kind of sub sections, even if they are subscribe only. That's what drew me to A4 in the first place, I can view this forum at work, at university and wherever and not be embarrassed that I might enjoy a little anime now and then. Several people here will agree with me. There are plenty of forums out there for the kind of thing you're suggesting.

I think A4 can come up with plenty of ways to pay for itself without lowering it's standards like a $5 hooker. One of those could be advertising and link exchange, where an annual subscription allows you some sort of advertising space for the year.

I am totally against the idea because it's exactly that kind of thing that gives anime fans a bad name and I cannot ever see A4 endorsing that image.

Sorry but I'll have to call bullsh*t on that.
There have been numerous threads that I personally wouldn't consider family friendly in the least, such as this one by thread title:
"Gay boy f*cker"
http://www.anime-forums.com/showthread.php?t=102359&highlight=desk

My expirience in the A4 IRC channel has been anything but "family friendly" with several users spouting racist remarks, swearing and lewd conversations propagating the channel. Of course there's the plenty of one liner comments that litter random threads about female moderator X or Y and so on. I mean we're talking about $5 dollar hookers just in this thread :P

Sure it's all in "fun" but you can't claim this is a "family friendly" board. Maybe it's more "Family friendly" than some of the other boards out there littered with hentai, but I wouldn't say this place is all that "family friendly."

I like how a hentai board is dismissed immediately for being smut, it's not like you could hide it from the general population and limit access to it for those who donate and are of a certain age. I personally don't care much for porn, but I have no problem if someone wants to pay a few dollars for access to a board I might not ever see. Porn doesn't corrupt youth, as much as this likes to be propagated, it's ridiculous beurocratic systems and a lack of understanding or willingness to treat others as adults that corrupts youth. I could care less if we got a hentai board, I just think it's funny that you're basically begging for ideas to raise money and yet you would dismiss an idea based off of some archaic concept of "morality"/"smut."

and No, I'm not trying to argue with every point someone tries to make in this thread :P

[Opace]

Sorry but I'll have to call bullsh*t on that.
There have been numerous threads that I personally wouldn't consider family friendly in the least, such as this one by thread title:
"Gay boy f*cker"
http://www.anime-forums.com/showthread.php?t=102359&highlight=desk

My expirience in the A4 IRC channel has been anything but "family friendly" with several users spouting racist remarks, swearing and lewd conversations propagating the channel. Of course there's the plenty of one liner comments that litter random threads about female moderator X or Y and so on. I mean we're talking about $5 dollar hookers just in this thread :P

Sure it's all in "fun" but you can't claim this is a "family friendly" board. Maybe it's more "Family friendly" than some of the other boards out there littered with hentai, but I wouldn't say this place is all that "family friendly."

I like how a hentai board is dismissed immediately for being smut, it's not like you could hide it from the general population and limit access to it for those who donate and are of a certain age. I personally don't care much for porn, but I have no problem if someone wants to pay a few dollars for access to a board I might not ever see. Porn doesn't corrupt youth, as much as this likes to be propagated, it's ridiculous beurocratic systems and a lack of understanding or willingness to treat others as adults that corrupts youth. I could care less if we got a hentai board, I just think it's funny that you're basically begging for ideas to raise money and yet you would dismiss an idea based off of some archaic concept of "morality"/"smut."

and No, I'm not trying to argue with every point someone tries to make in this thread :P

What Shannon meant by "family friendly" is that we aim to be as family friendly as possible. Of course, even the staff their own opinion as to what fits into this definition and what isn't. We often agree on most queries raised in the Mod forum, but there are conflict of opinions at times. Also, we cannot be everywhere; we are humans with a busy schedule as well. That's why we ask everyone to report a post that is seen as breaking the rules, we can't be everywhere to moderate it. So yes, there are a few threads or posts that contain material that can break this image of "family friendly", but the majority is quite clean.

I'm not actually quite sure what our policy is about the A4 Chat IRC, but very, very few moderators actually go into the IRC anymore as far as I know. It is very hard to control the amount of profanity that goes in there, and we can't be held accountable for it.

It doesn't matter whether you or anyone else thinks that a hentai board will corrupt any minds or not, but our policy forbids it. We're not dismissing the idea of a hentai board because it's immoral/smut/whatever, we just don't want to go into that area. Again, if you want access to that kind of material go somewhere else for it. However, don't expect A4 to have anything to do with it whether it raises money or not.

Last time I checked, we're not begging for ideas to raise money. Is it wrong of us to ask for feedback as to what users would like to pay to have extra "allowances"? If they are willing to pay for X and Y, it'll help contribute towards paying for A4's running costs. If they don't want to pay for anything extra, then no worries at all. Actually I'll just quote Shannon's post:


Grrrr. No one said anything about taking away existing features Tova. Could have saved you the 5 mins it took to type that if you read staff posts.

We have discussed this in our staff forums before. One thing we made clear was that anything the regular users already have won't be taken away. I don't see anywhere in this thread where a member of staff suggested making people pay for stuff they can already do. lol

[AoX]

On the IRC case, attempts were made to make it abide to A4 rules. It failed horribly and most gave up. I haven't been there for months, so I can't say how it is now however. What happens there has no connection to A4 as far as I know.

And the rest has been expanded upon. The policy forbids it and we even know the admins wouldn't allow it.

[Shannon Apple]

Tova you are a really annoying person at times. We don't need a h-board to bring money to this site. Many smaller and upcoming sites would jump at the chance to pay for advertising space here, with link exchange, and that's something we've been looking at.

This is not about a sudden urgency to go raking in the dough. If things were that desperate, A4 would be long gone. Sure we are thinking of ways to make A4 pay for itself so Knuckles doesn't have to fork out for it's upkeep every year. But we were giving the users a chance to have their say on extra features they might like to see. One thing we never brought up in staff forums, and won't be considering, is an adult board. It has long been made clear, over the seven years this forum exists, that it will never happen. The owner of this site has said so himself.

End of story.


Oh, and on A4 chat. It is indeed a separate entity to A4 despite what people say and it's not owned by A4. I don't moderate it. We tried to civilize it, but that'll never happen.

[darkandshadow]

I'm up for the blog thing, or having access to test out
features and such.
Also, larger avatars/signatures never hurt (in face, is
most offered)

Not sure where to take it from there (idea wise).

And I agree that we should not have an h-board.

[Ian the Korean]

Can't really understand why anyone would want an h-board really; are you in favor simply unable to find hentai on your own? Hit up one of the 'booru sites if 4chan isn't satisfying you I guess? I mean, those sites have such a better selection than anything you'd get contributed by the userbase here. They're entirely dedicated to porn and are easily searchable in order to find what you're looking for. On here, no one uses the tag system anyway, so it'd be a nightmare actually trying to find what you were looking for and have probably tens if not hundreds of thousands of contributors.

Also, we yet again get into the legality problems with porn that you have with posting fansubs and whatnot, due to intellectual property rights etc. I can pretty much guarantee none of you would have permission to post artists work here; and it'd be even more blatantly illegal to post hentai videos or doujins.

So even if you don't want to buy into the morality argument about the site being family friendly, there's perfectly valid reasons to avoid adding pornographic content.

[Aozora]

I can understand why someone would want a H-board and that it might get some traffic. However it would remain horribly underused, especially if access would only be for donators. There are dozens of free to register boards completely dedicated for hentai, doujins and other kinds of porn. Most people would rather register to one of those than come here seeking for hentai. Not to even mention some adult tracker sites which hosts terabytes worth of free stuff to download.

Also I don't understand why someone would want a private "donation" forum. What's the point? What kind of things this forum would offer that normal forums wouldn't? The userbase on donation forums would obviously be smaller than on normal forums so there would have to be something there to attract people.

I liked Kouketsus breakdown on the previous page. Blog and photo albums might attract some people at least. Any sort of hosting features are always good. Perhaps give them a limited amount of space to host anything they want to rather than simply pictures.

One thing I thought of that might be a good donation feature, public profile customization. If possible give users the ability to customize their profiles to some degree. From a list of themes, or an ability to put backgrounds in their profile, or if possible some way of totally customize it with custom coding?

Also I think a long time ago there was a feature to change your usernaeme inthe profile right? How about bringing that back to donators? It wouldn't do much harm.

[KT Samurai]

I'd rather not see profile customization, especially if it involves altering the colors and background and such. MySpace and shown me that people cannot be trusted with that kind of thing, they choose colors and themes that sap the blood from my eyes.

I'm much more interested in features that allow users to do things we don't normally allow, like spamming for example. If you give a forum some of your money you should be able to post damn near anything you want (that adheres to our rules and regulations). Donators could almost be immune to the "spam" infraction and I'd be pretty cool with that.

[Ian the Korean]

I'd rather not see profile customization, especially if it involves altering the colors and background and such. MySpace and shown me that people cannot be trusted with that kind of thing, they choose colors and themes that sap the blood from my eyes.

I'm much more interested in features that allow users to do things we don't normally allow, like spamming for example. If you give a forum some of your money you should be able to post damn near anything you want (that adheres to our rules and regulations). Donators could almost be immune to the "spam" infraction and I'd be pretty cool with that.

Really? I'm not down with donators getting a free pass on shitposting wherever they please. Why should people who have disposable incomes be allowed to ruin any thread on the forum just because they tossed a few bucks to the site owner?

Then again, I don't think the infraction systems worked out too well anyway and would just assume scrap it and hand out bans and "probations" for shorter intervals, say 6-12 hours for minor stuff.

[Shannon Apple]

I totally agree with Ian

Let them have Sugoi for that, or a similar forum for spamming with postcount switched on. Things would be out of control if they could do that in general. Allow people to pay to turn the place into a complete garbage can? No thanks!

What did you do with the real KT? D:

[Oh Snap.]

How about ripping off something awful and allowing people to put stuff in peoples sigs etc in exchange for monies?

For example temporarily changing Shadow Fox name to Dumb Fox. Or puting 'addicted to the new thread button' for Rayallen? Or changing peoples custom title to something like 'Arrogant, Immature Trolling Ass Wipe'.

Sensitivity doesn't pay the bills biatcheez.

[Foxyknoxicle]

If at all possible, I'd rather people didn't have the option of bigger sigs or avatars. I know money is tight, but the largest sized signature is already quite large and if it were any bigger it would become more of a distraction.

I'd be down for A4 merchandise, although it may not be the most practical source of income.

How about affiliating with online anime stores? There's an old link to an Amazon.com (http://www.anime-forums.com/showthread.php?t=39898) store, although amazon doesn't ship to Canada (not to mention, the link is dead). I'd be willing to purchase a lot of anime junk (art, blu-rays, dvd's, etc.) from a store if I knew A4 was getting a commission. The affiliation could also possibly attract some traffic from A4 in the form of a link on their site. Building on the idea of attracting users: the store could have links to series discussions, reviews, or recommendations hosted here on A4. After all, recommendations could persuade a person to buy more stuff from the store. Ok, that's a bit far-fetched, but it could happen. I just think an affiliation with an anime store would have a lot of upside.

[Opace]

"Larger size signature" isn't the actual visual size of it (i.e. X pixel by Y pixel) but it's filesize. Of course, this gives those who "purchase" this extra allowance a chance to create annoying, flash signatures but Mods will simply crack down on those, not like a lot of people make flash signatures anyway. The same deal with avatars.

As for the affiliations, those old ones might have broken down already and making new ones would take too much time for the admins I would think, something they don't have readily. I wasn't here back when those old affiliations were introduced so I wouldn't know how effective it was.

[{oroka}]

I would be all over flash sigs. You dont see many forums that allow flash sigs. In fact, the only other forum I seen flash sigs allowed was MY old forum. That is cause I am awesome.

You could use 'A4 Bucks' as prizes in contests too. That way the winning member could chose what options they want to buy.

Any how about a commission system? If a member buys a package, and someone referred them, the referrer should get a small commission. This would give members incentive to bring more members into the premium section.

[AoX]

Opposed to bigger sig space and flash. The space is already big as is and flash would be UGH. Especially since they also can include sound.

Somewhat bigger avatar and filesize for sig/ava though, that's a given.

[Shannon Apple]

Ugh, Flash sigs are just annoying as hell. When not made by people who know what they are doing visually, they are just ahhhhh! ...and sound on sigs? gah. Can you imagine a whole thread full of those.

We meant a bigger filesize space not visual space. Currently all sigs must be under 100kb. We could raise that for donators only. This might allow for some better quality signatures and animated gifs and such.

[Gamma]

Everyone calm down. This is just a litmus test of things we want to think about. So arguments aside...

It seems the two most popular suggestions are bigger avs/sigs and an A4 shop. I also think these are the two most plausible suggestions.

I'd like to throw out the idea of a shoutbox. This has been suggested many times before and most of the staff didn't like the idea. But what if we add it for a one time pay feature? $5 one time fee to get access and see the shoutbox. Could this be done, admin people? I'm just asking if the forum has that capability.

[mummified in bong water]

Just for a little insight, on another forum, $5 =

-5 display name changes within 30 days from control panel

-ability to lock/delete a thread you've created

-access to a special donor/uploader section. probably wouldn't really be anything here, but on the other forum, basically it's anything goes (well, the whole forum is, since everyone ignores the rules, but yeah), and generally any private torrent tracker invites are offered up there first.

-access to an arcade section, just with those little flash games you see around. keeps score of users and assigns "trophies" to top scorers of games and whatnot.

[Ian the Korean]

Flash sigs are almost certainly a big no no since flash presents numerous security risks.

[{oroka}]

Ugh, Flash sigs are just annoying as hell. When not made by people who know what they are doing visually, they are just ahhhhh! ...and sound on sigs? gah. Can you imagine a whole thread full of those.


That is why you either have a limit of no audio, or a mandatory play button. There would be strict guides on what you can do with a flash sig. In theory, a flash sig size could be unlimited, as you can have a basic load screen that looks like a normal sig, then a play button to load the big part of the sig. So, you get the best of both worlds.

As for security risks... not really, not in a online webpage environment, especially if it is hosted elsewhere.

[Kewkehtsu]

Tova you are a really annoying person at times. We don't need a h-board to bring money to this site. Many smaller and upcoming sites would jump at the chance to pay for advertising space here, with link exchange, and that's something we've been looking at.

This is not about a sudden urgency to go raking in the dough. If things were that desperate, A4 would be long gone. Sure we are thinking of ways to make A4 pay for itself so Knuckles doesn't have to fork out for it's upkeep every year. But we were giving the users a chance to have their say on extra features they might like to see. One thing we never brought up in staff forums, and won't be considering, is an adult board. It has long been made clear, over the seven years this forum exists, that it will never happen. The owner of this site has said so himself.

End of story.


Oh, and on A4 chat. It is indeed a separate entity to A4 despite what people say and it's not owned by A4. I don't moderate it. We tried to civilize it, but that'll never happen.

I apologize,
I noticed several stickies in relation to A4 chat here on the boards, that and the similarities in the abbreviations A4 (chat) and A4 (forums) kinda threw me off. Also, if I recall correctly(it's been since what, last summer since I dropped by there?), several forum mods here are/were also mods on A4 IRC(could be wrong), so surely you can understand my confusion.

I understand your position on an adult board. It seems like some sort of donator only board along with various expansions in terms of user/profile customization are the most reasonable/popular ideas currently.

While I personally despise advertising, I've noticed that many boards I used to visit have gone to a "advertisements for non-members" policy, this way you can recover a little of the costs to keep this place running while placing an incentive for non-members to join. That might be a possibility if it hasn't already been considered.

If there were more people willing you could sponsor some type of donation drive with a few incentives to give out to top donators. With the money spent on merch to give out, and such a seemingly small potential donation crowd I'm not sure if that'd do much, but it's an idea.

You could also try expanding the user base by linking to other popular anime sites, more users might mean a greater potential donation crowd.

I dunno, but maybe you could see if you could get some sort of ad deal with some large anime distributors, make a little money for the forum while promoting the sale of legal anime.

You could also try making an A4 blog, even if you really don't get much in the ways of followers there is potential to make a little ad/link money.

At this point I'm really just spouting ideas/options.

[Prince of Thieves]

I'd be up for a H board, but I'd only bother if it was one of several features for donating, I'm not just going to slap down a couple dollars to chat about Hentai on A4 when I can do that through any other website/board.

I'm still curious as to why the A4 staff is considering options towards monetary ends. Are we not making server bills or is this a side project?
First off, don't do this. When you bring hentai in, you get soo many more creepers than there already is. I would leave if it turned to that.

Anyways, I want to "here here" some suggestions.
I think a donate button would be smart. If I saw that and could use paypal, I would most likely donate. Also any type of sweet t-shirts would be awesome. They would have to be legit though.

This goes along with a question I had. I still think this forum is the best and just most clean cut out of all of them out there. However, to be honest it feels like it is on the decline. (maybe A4 moves with the economy or something) Anyways, I would love to personally help to get the word out or something like that. Also maybe consolidating some threads and sub threads would keep the threads remaining more active and interesting.

Let me know, XD!

P.S I hate shout boxes...