[TrekRPGNet] Your input requested

There are members from all over the world on this board. If you make allowances for one country, you really ought to make allowances for them all.

Since I'm pretty sure that's a logistical nightmare, it makes sense to me to simply pick one currency (presumably US$) and leave it up to the end-user whether they want to pony up the membership costs.

You want all the perks that comes with a membership? Pay for it. If you're content to come here and enjoy the free bits of the site, do that. :)

I'm also thinking one membership fee is far better than a scale, but that's just me and my desire for simplicity. The difference between $10 a year and $20 is pretty negligible, esp. when you stretch it out over the year.

That's about .03 cents to .06 cents a day. This site is, IMO, worth way more at it stands now. Add the various features we're talking about here, plus the possibility of some good fanmade product available for download regularly, and the value shoots through the roof.

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Originally posted by Tobian
It seems to me that since everyone is going to lose out on Pizza money, that maybe the 'monthly prize' could be a Pizza delivered to your home.. it solves two birds with one stone - gives you the chance of getting Pizza and solves the issue of what to give people as a prize (and's pretty cheap LOL)

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"Hi, I'd like to place a delivery order. My phone number? Well, see, I'm actually calling from another country right now…"

:D

I did a little research on vBulletin's forums and here's what can be fiddled with for subscriptions. Please note, I don't advocate all of these; this is simply a list of what the software can control via an automated subscription/membership interface.

Key items that I believe users would be interested in I have underlined.

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Usergroup Options:

• Special "User Title" (i.e. - Donator, Subscriber, Loved Person)
• Special "Username HTML Markup" (i.e. - bold, italics, colors)
• Viewable on Show Groups
• Can set self to invisible mode
• Can use custom titles
• Can use signatures
• Can upload attachments
• Larger attachment limit
• Can upload custom avatars
• Larger custom avatar limits (height, width, filesize)
• Can upload profile pictures
• Larger profile picture limits (height, width, filesize)
• Can use private messages (Max stored messages of 0 will disable for others)
• Larger private message storage
• Can view who's online

Forums:

• Special forums that only subscribers can see
• Special forums that only subscribers can post to (others can view)

Calendars:

• Special calendars that only subscribers can see
• Special calendars that only subscribers can post to (others can view)

Avatars / Post Icons:

• Special avatar categories that only subscribers can use
• Special post icon categories that only subscribers can use

User Ranks:

• Only subscribers can have user ranks
• Special user ranks that only subscribers get

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Hopefully this can help generate some additional ideas.

Perhaps I should have added a smiley at the end of that huh! :D

Consider me one of the lurkers here - I haven't posted in almost a year now. I made it a habit to visit the forums every few weeks during the Decipher heyday, but between planning my wedding and then preparing for an unexpected baby, I stopped coming last May. After all, I figured, I had the 2 core books but didn't have anyone to play with - I didn't have to stay caught up.

In January, I finally decided to try to come back and slog through the backlog of posts, maybe find out about some of the new books. During this period, the whole Decipher mess came to a head. Speaking as someone who, way back when, tried to preorder FASA's Ground Forces Manual and was looking forward to LUG's Through a Glass Darkly, the whole thing causes my stomach to knot.

Personally, Dan, I truly appreciate all the work that has been put into keeping these forums up and running. But if Decipher finally truly drops the ball, I'm not sure that it would be worth it for me to stay. As others have said, too much of the Trek discussion ends up coming back to whether B&B are in fact the Antichrist, and, between not having a gaming group and not owning any of the last few books, a lot of the gaming discussion ends up being kind of useless to me.

However, it would be different if, as some have suggested, there were definite product produced. I subscribe to Pyramid, in part because there are concrete things like playtesting files to peruse. If you were allowed to make high-quality netbooks and other material to maintain support in the game, then it might be worth my paying to gain early access.

But whatever your decision, thank you for your work and good luck figuring out your options.

If you do go down this road Don, would it be worth incorporating ICON and FASA material back into the site? It might make it more globally appealing if you made TrekRPG net the "one stop shop for Trek RPGs". Though that said, it might step on Owen Oulton's toes, so I don't know.

Perhaps you could invite Owen onboard to handle some of the workload? He's done a bang up job with Memory Icon. Of course, that's assuming he'd be interested.

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Originally posted by Capt Daniel Hunter
If you do go down this road Don, would it be worth incorporating ICON and FASA material back into the site? It might make it more globally appealing if you made TrekRPG net the "one stop shop for Trek RPGs". Though that said, it might step on Owen Oulton's toes, so I don't know.

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Baby steps. I haven't thought that far ahead. :) I wouldn't renege on our original agreement, if nothing else than to keep my word. However, were a merge to be mutually agreed upon, I could facilitate that; the software backend can handle the material. I also have bandwidth aplenty to host netbooks, be they for Coda, Icon, or whatnot.

I've never hosted FASA material. I thought Dan Stack had his own FASA site?

I am not sure how much you know of PayPal, but if you used them for collection service they take care of exchange rates of foreign currency for you. They put in what you want for a fee in U.S $ and it shows them what that would be in their currency. Likewise they could put in what they can spend on membership and it would show them what that would be in U.S dollars.

Made my first international payment a month or two ago. It was too easy.

I'm also a fan of Ravenloft, and I don't know if you know of the former official website run by the fans(www.kargatane.com). Anyways, I'd hate to see this site disappear as well.

Thanks tons, Don, for both your investments of time and money.

I'm one of the many who would be willing to spend money on a quality site for Star Trek. Even though I only use CODA, I think including ICON and FASA is a great idea for anyone who wants to at least read through for the ideas.

All the options you listed are appealing, Don. Whatever you believe is suitable, I'm sure most of the regulars will stand behind you.

:cool:

Oh, and PayPal is a great idea.

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Originally posted by redwood973
I am not sure how much you know of PayPal, but if you used them for collection service they take care of exchange rates of foreign currency for you. They put in what you want for a fee in U.S $ and it shows them what that would be in their currency. Likewise they could put in what they can spend on membership and it would show them what that would be in U.S dollars.

Made my first international payment a month or two ago. It was too easy.

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I have never used PayPal so I might be wrong here, but it is a credit card payment system only, right? If so then not only am I paying $34 CDN (on a good day) but also riding the 18% interest double donkey.

Does PayPal have multiple ways to pay?

You can pay directly from a bank acct or via credit card with PayPal.

If the cost wasn't outrageous, I'd pay for this site. Great community, I spend a lot of time here. Wouldn't be happy to see it go under because of cash.

I agree that this place is worth saving. Despite all our little arguements over politics or Enterprise, it is still as bastion of civility compared to ENWorld or any other boards I have visited (not to say that there are not other civilized boards).

As I said earlier my only worry about the charge for product is that it would put Don in copyright violation with the Trek/Decipher folks.

Now that said, there must be a way around this little blip. Any copyright lawyers amoung us?

I concur with redwood973: PayPal is definitely the way to go. Why reinvent the warp drive? :)

I'd be willing :)

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Originally posted by AslanC
Now that said, there must be a way around this little blip. Any copyright lawyers amoung us?

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As I stated, the materials remain free. As long as that remains true, shouldn't be any problems.