New user title/color/banner idea.

Who suggested that LPA would be a pay-to-use forum? Whoever gave anyone that idea is an idiot. Even charging a 5$ lifetime membership fee would drop the traffic by at least half if not more.

I don't know who you're getting your hosting from, but to host a website which is mainly a forum with relatively no media transfers aside from the forum for 120$ a month is insane. It's nobody's fault the bill is that high but whoever is paying for the hosting.

On another note. Do not complain about hosting if you're going to plaster LPU, Best Buy and Suru links on the mainsite. We all know the amount of hits this site gets, and despite the slow news, it's high. Tell me that these links are here with nothing in return for the LPA.

 

LPA is hosted on a dedicated server. As far as I know that costs more than being hosted on a shared server. The reason LPA made the hop to a dedicated server was because of traffic. While on the subject I don't think LPA receives any sort of payment for those LPU/Suru links.

If you don't want to donate to LPA, so be it. No pressure. At least respect the staff's decisions. When we say we have no interest in adding a new user group, that doesn't mean, "Keep trying, we might change our minds." Rarely does it ever happen, it usually just annoys us. And even when another staff member does have a change of heart and makes a suggestion like I did with LPA VIP, what happens?

Yeah. Just stop it.

 

Afterthoughts:

Firstly, Chris, it's not necessarily important. It's just that lots of members in the past have done quite a few things for this site, and never were really thanked beside a simple long-forgotten credit in a news post. I'm sure it'd bring a smile to many people if Derek said "You know what? You helped out here quite a bit, and I want to thank you. Here's something special for your efforts." It's a simple title. It's sad that it's getting shot down, because it's so easy to do. It's really thoughtful, too. Then again, lots of us don't care, but no one does anyway - publically. I'd list out specific reasons why certain members deserve some show of extra appreciation for going beyond normal expectations, but it's far too much effort. I'm sure you'd agree.

Secondly, like Neil said - the pay-for-use bit is ridiculous. It would immediately flop the community, which generally seems to hold this site up. Otherwise it's just another LP news site. I somehow highly doubt you would ever do it because you know this too well. Pay-sites don't really seem to go so well in this age of the internet because everything is so open and social now.

Thirdly, while I've been gone, I've been hiding around on private torrent sites. You know, those with the resource intensive servers that get REALLY expensive. Sure, the admins are elitist pricks a lot of the time, but they know how to work everything out. They all have a donate button that they're not scared to display and ask, because members do understand. They also give certain members who help them out a lot special status. Granted, this is generally very rare, but this is only because the opportunities aren't there for most people. Note I never said that everyone [like most of the supermembers here] had to get this special Legend title here because of their presence, but I said for making the site what it is. Definition can vary how you'd like, you can be as strict as you want, but obviously if someone helps you with something, they deserve gratification. And lastly, while these sites have a donate buttons, they don't have ads at all.


Of course, I don't know why I'm bothering to argue this, because I know it's falling on deaf ears. But hey, it's worth an effort. An amount of the members on this site have helped get this site to where it is. How hard is it to give them a stupid little title? The whiners you argued against either aren't a problem (easily deterred by warning), and you know it. So what is it? Server costs? Ask for donations, or turn it into a pay site, or find a decent hosting plan. I'm sure you can figure out what's right.

 

If there's a single dedicated server being used to host the LPA and only the LPA, I have no sympathy for any of the bills. At peak traffic, LPA would never have needed a dedicated server, especially at the $100+ pricerange. That's absurd.

 

Tomi, we do listen. Just because we don't agree with every idea means we're ignoring our members.

I always assumed people were contributing because they wanted to, not because they expected to earn a little badge. Perhaps we're just growing up in different times nowadays. I'm pretty sure everyone on staff assumed members knew we appreciated them. We've tried to give back with contests and so forth. The community helped LPA become what it is today and I don't think any staff member would say otherwise. I don't know where this animosity is coming from though so I guess there's something I'm not seeing. But to my knowledge LPA has never pressured its members into donating and the staff has never discussed turning LPA into a pay-only site. The staff has, however, tried to be patient...

By the way Tomi, how does anything in your last post contribute to remedying this situation? You compared us to a torrent site, you're jumping to conclusions and you ended it by saying we don't listen to our members. Do you ever wonder why your posts may "fall on deaf ears"? There's no reason to respond to negativity with more negativity.

 

What the hell, why are Tomi and Neil's panties in a bunch? For Christ's sake, fucking grow up.

 

I agree, you guys need to just chill the fuck out. There's no point on continuing the argument if the staff have already given their feedback. It's a nice idea but at the end of the day it's the staff's decision and that's final.

Besides, it's not like they don't acknowledge our contributions to the site whether it be donating money or simply sticking around for x amount of years. Sometimes stuff like saying thanks for being here just goes without saying, after all a good forum community can't be a good forum community without long time members.

 

I agree. But the way they're going on about it, you'd think Derek and the rest of the staff posted a giant notice on the front of the site telling visitors that they had to pay $40 to see the rest of the site. Derek never said the site needs the donations to survive, because they've managed so far, but I've got to agree with him: Donations are a nice thing to have, especially from some of us members who've been here the longest. You're contributing to the site in more ways than one, and not just to get a stupid banner under your name. And on that note, they never ruled out adding more user titles to the database, just that they don't know how they'd implement them at the moment. They're not saying we'd have to pay for them, because that's absurd. The VIP title is the only one you really have to "pay for," and even then, there are loads of other ways to get the VIP title as it is. To sit there and say Derek's stupid for needing a dedicated server is absolutely ridiculous, especially considering they (Neil and Tomi — go figure that they're the two biggest "computer savvy" people on the site, you'd think they'd know more than they've let on in this thread) have absolutely no idea what kind of traffic this site gets daily.

Edit —
What's funny is how Tomi even agrees that the user titles are pretty much pointless and don't really mean anything, and yet he argued about it for, what, four posts? Seriously, if it's not that big of a deal, why the hell'd you go on about it like it would end your world if they didn't add another user group?

 

I said "safer", because "Legend" was causing some controversy. So honestly, there is no point getting worked up about it.

 

Alright, so reading all of that **Phew**
I still don't understand why extra member titles are being shot down?

If you just made ones for posts reaches, Hell you don't even have to change the color from blue, just change the title, then added NO NEW PRIVELEDGES, people would still love the idea, it doesn't hurt anyone's feelings as long as they aren't like "Supreme Member" You can just make them like Ultra, Mega, Alpha, Gamma, Beta.
Crap like that which doesn't hurt anything.

 

If you guys take a look at who's even close to getting to 30,000 posts, almost all of them are Admins/Mods or V.I.P. There are only two members that are still active that would really get the benefit of a new User Group anytime soon. Those members being Friskey and Chris (Not me. ). The next closest is Tomi who is 14,000 posts away and doesn't post anymore. I know that post count wasn't set in stone but that was the suggested post count so I decided to take a look at the top posters to see who would really benefit from this. It doesn't seem like too many would.

 

Maybe I'll figure something out next month, try to see if I can donate something, we're pretty short on money though but I'm guessing every little bit helps.