Voluntary Forum Subscription & Development Update #2

It's time for another development update.

Login Changes

We have had a few people who have found themselves regularly being logged out. While this is a generally an issue at the user's end a quick fix is to tick the 'Stay Logged In' checkbox. With this in mind, this option is now on by default.

If you are on a public computer make sure you either untick this or remember to log out when you have finished

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Subscriptions

Premium subscriptions are now active. Subscribing is totally voluntary but helps cover both the setup costs of this forum and the continued running and development costs so any help is greatly appreciated

We have 3 packages

• Yearly Premium User (Non-Recurring) - £10 a year
  
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How to Subscribe?

1. Click your username found at the top of the forum
2. Select Account Upgrades
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How to pay?

Unfortunately, we can only take automatic payments via Paypal, you can use a Debit/Credit card without creating a Paypal account if you don't have or don't want a PayPal account.

If you really can't use Paypal we have a coupon system in place. If you contact Karl he can discuss with you other payment options and upon receiving payment he will be able to issue you a coupon code

Gifting a Subscription

If there is a forum member who doesn't have a premium membership and you feel they deserve it you can buy them a subscription. You can do this by

1. Go to the Account Upgrade page
2. Scroll down to the Upgrade coupons section
3. Here you will see a 'Purchase Gift Coupon for Upgrade' option
4. In the drop-down select the membership (You can only gift Non-Recurring subscriptions)
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Redeeming a coupon

If you have received an upgrade coupon you can redeem it as follows

1. Go to the Account Upgrade Page
2. Scroll to the Upgrade Coupons Section
3. Enter your code in the Coupon Key Section
4. Click Save
5. You will now see a 'Free Upgrades Using Upgrade Coupon' Option
6. This will show the Upgrade you are entitled to
7. Click Purchase
8. Confirm you wish to purchase
9. The Account will now be Upgraded

Benefits of subscribing

At the moment the benefits are as follows

• A Supporter Badge Shown under your name
• Removal of all ads

We have further benefits in the works which will announce later once we have them locked down


Donations

Premium members can also make a voluntary donation. You receive no extra benefits for this other than knowing you are helping the site out. Donation options appear on the Account Upgrade page when you have an active membership.

Donation amounts are currently set at

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• £10
• £20

You can donate as many times you like so if the exact amount you wish to donate isn't available just donate multiple times until you reach your desired amount. If the demand seems to be there for other amounts we will add them later.

If you can't afford £10 but wish to help we suggest signing up for the monthly sub at £1 a month, then making the donation you require before canceling the subscription


Adverts

We are now running banner adverts for those who can't subscribe. How many and where these adverts are dependant on your account status

Guests
3 Ads per page. 1 at the top of the page, 1 at the bottom and then 1 in the sidebar or after the first post on a thread

Regular Members
2 Ads per page. 1 at the top and 1 at the bottom

Contributing member
1 Per page at the bottom. This usergroup is what most of you active users will be in. When you reach a set number of posts so ad value to this forum you are automatically moved to this gorup. We aren't discolising this figure but its easy to reach

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Anyway, that's all for now. I did hope to be able to announce another new feature but its not ready to go live yet so will be included in the next update (sometime next week most likely)

 

I have an experiment running between a type we were running called matched content vs 3 ads that take up the same space to see if the matched content one is really good use for the space (it seems to underperform but it might just be the location on the page). I forgot to check on mobile though as the ads display different and they are taking up more room than matched content on mobile which I think is what you are seeing. I've moved the test back to just 1 ad until I can look at it tomorrow as I clearly need to use non-responsive ads for mobile devices to ensure it’s taking up the same space (as otherwise it’s throwing off the a/b test results)

 

Bit of both. Clicks obviously pay much more than views though.

 

Some of that may be inventory based. We are running ads at a 70% fill rate rather than the full 100% (as by being more selective we get better quality higher paying ads which means more income than running 100% but getting Lowe quality ones). There are also times where we may not even get the full 70% as the site (or even you the user) don’t meet the profile for the available inventory. In both cases if there isn’t an ad available that ad spot doesn’t load.

 

Outside of my A/B test which for some users switched on the single ad for three ads (Which the point was to get a comparison for screen real estate vs income, I couldn’t get a responsive single ad that would be the same height as the matched content so I needed to stack to get the same real estate) if you are a verified member you are only getting a single ad. If you haven’t reached that promotion level or aren’t logged in you get more. Everything but the one single has that usergroup in the exception list

 

Are they next to each other? Sometimes the ads will stack a couple into one ad slot

 

Weird. For people not logged in we do have one under the sticky threads but not for verified members. When I log into one of my test accounts with the same usergroup as you I only get the bottom one