New fee structure

A2OC

Moderator
Hello,

Many thanks for the positive response to our proposed membership changes; and a special thanks to all the new donors.

It's clear that there is a willingness to help contribute to the running of the club - 88% of you agreed based upon our poll. It's also clear that there is real desire to keep the forum free and open to all new members, paid or otherwise. As a result, we're introducing the following changes from this evening:

  • All forums remain free to view and post
  • Voluntary donations to cover our annual expenditure
  • Annual donation targets to encourage support and make members aware of our expenses
  • Minimum £10 annual donation to post in the Marketplace forums
  • All donors will receive additional PM allowance and larger avatar for a year
  • Donors will also receive an optional 'Donor' custom user title for the year
  • Suspension of any new discount card subscriptions

We hope that these changes will help us to cover the club expenditure whilst continuing to offer a free and open resource for all A2 owners.

As part of these changes, we will be strict towards members abusing the marketplace rules. This means that advertisements for sale items in the General forums or tagged onto another user's post will be removed. In addition we will introduce an Infraction system for users abusing the rules.

Thanks again for your continued support.

The A2OC team
 
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Hear, hear!!!
A very good solution all round, especially the marketplace restrictions. It works well on Edition38, so should here.

J
 
Larger Avater feature for club donors

One of the features / benefits that Ben enabled for club donors was a larger avatar for user profiles.

I've noticed that few people seem to have enabled this. I played around with my profile settings as I wasn't sure if this was an automatic thing - however I simply deleted my avatar then uploaded the same image from my computer and voila - it was a good bit bigger than before.

Have a go if you are interested in this option to go with your increased PM mailbox.
 
Good to see that the goal is reached.
But I don't think it is good to see such an goal.
Anyone who sees that the goal is reached could now just think "hurray, everybody paid for me, so I don't have to pay anymore".
Or am I doomsday-thinking?
 
Good to see that the goal is reached.
But I don't think it is good to see such an goal.
Anyone who sees that the goal is reached could now just think "hurray, everybody paid for me, so I don't have to pay anymore".
Or am I doomsday-thinking?

We spoke about this as a team and there were mixed opinions whether to turn off the goal bar or leave it on when the 100% was reached. My suggestion was to leave it on. A2OC is non profit making and we have more than covered this years costs, so yes - the generous donations given already do mean that we don't need any more for the present at least. No one anticipated the goal would be reached so quickly - the response has been amazing!

My view was that leaving the goal bar running as it stands is also a good visual reminder that we are reliant on donations under the current model and serves well to promote the generosity of those who have stuck a few quid in the pot.

Any donations given over and above this will still be gratefully received and we hope this gives people a feeling of being part of the club and supporting its future.

Time will tell if donations fall away now - and the donations bar will be reset to zero when Ben confirms the start of A2OC's financial year and we pay our hosting costs etc.

Another aspect to consider is that if donations continue to come in, we may not be required to run the annual donations campaign as was suggested in the consultation.

I think our committee is keen to ensure we always listen to the club members, so are there any other views as to leaving the goal bar on or off?
 
Looks like I need to find an Avatar!

Here`s to the future of the club and many thanks to the team that work so hard to make it what it is,

Many thanks :)
 
Not sure if anyone wants reminding but its only 10 weeks to Christmas and the new year, so how about a second goal bar for 2014. This would give us continuity and show our generous members we are in good shape for the year to come.

Cheers Spike

Sorry, as Shreddedmeat indicated, I can't count......... but I'll leave it at 10 because its a bit more attention grabbing.
 
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Not sure if anyone wants reminding but its only 10 weeks to Christmas and the new year, so how about a second goal bar for 2014. This would give us continuity and show our generous members we are in good shape for the year to come.

Cheers Spike

I make it 18 weeks or so - you had me worried there Spike! Like the 2nd bar idea though

Cheers
 
How long after donating does "Donor" appear.

Just asking, like......:rolleyes:

It appears when the PayPal donation is verified and your name appears on the donor list. If theres any problems use the 'contact us' section at the base of the page.
 
It appears when the PayPal donation is verified and your name appears on the donor list. If theres any problems use the 'contact us' section at the base of the page.

And when does it disappear again? After 1 year or so? That would be nice to remind me making another donation :rolleyes:
 
And when does it disappear again? After 1 year or so? That would be nice to remind me making another donation :rolleyes:

That's actually a very good idea and it'd probably serve as a good incentive if the Donor status stops after a year. Individuals are likely to notice their profile changing and react to this as positively as any campaign if we take stock of the opening reaction from members as a yardstick.

Let's leave this to one of our webmasters to advise if the VBulletin software can do this ( it maybe already does!) :D
 
Hi

We do plan on automatically removing a member's Donation title after a year. The software doesn't do this automatically (unlike the subscription system) but I will setup a daily reminder to manage this process.

Gonzo - as Murdo states, all donations are verified with Paypal prior to upgrading the member's details. Thanks for your support today.

Ben
 
Hi

We do plan on automatically removing a member's Donation title after a year. The software doesn't do this automatically (unlike the subscription system) but I will setup a daily reminder to manage this process.

Gonzo - as Murdo states, all donations are verified with Paypal prior to upgrading the member's details. Thanks for your support today.

Ben

If you donate twice in a year, where does this leave you? Was planning on chucking a few spare coppers in the pot from time to time!

Cheers
 
If you donate twice in a year, where does this leave you? Was planning on chucking a few spare coppers in the pot from time to time!

Hi,

That's very generous of you.

We will reset the donor title expiry based upon the last date that a donation was received. For marketplace access, we will keep a running total of donations for that member to date, and so long as the cumulative total since their last donation is greater than £10, then the member will retain their access for the remaining period.

For example, assume a member donates £5 in January 2013, and then another £5 in July 2013 - then the member will maintain their Donor title until July 2014. However, they will only have marketplace access from July 2013 to January 2014 - at which point they would need to donate another £5 to maintain their access.

This is about as fair as we can run the system without unnecessarily complex procedures.

Thanks again for everyone's generosity. It allows the club to continue providing a reliable web service and to invest in new facilities to keep the site as usable as possible for its members.

Ben
 
Is there any possibility if the donations keep coming that you may be able to renew hosting for 2 years or anything?
Some providers do provide some discounts for renewing for longer periods.
Is there any chance that the search function could be replaced with a google custom search box or similar? I find that if the search is a little obscure/imprecise that google targeted at the site gives pages of results where the A2OC search finds nothing...

The club is a fantastic resource and I am glad that the target has been met and hope that it carries on like this!

John
 
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