Ad-Free Apolyton: THE POLL

[yaroslav]

Although I voted No, I'm changing my mind, because I was expecting to see at least 100$ or so at the suggested price, but 10-20$ are more confortable for me. But the thing is that I'll stuck in my new house in Madrid with dial-up for some month, so I don't want anything that could suppose more bandwith to download for me, until I'll install ADSL in my Madrid's house (2-3 months at least).

Some suggestion for the godies

1) Increased upload space.
2) The forwarding @apolyton.net could be great, as was suggested. It could be combined with antivirus scanning or something like that.
3) Priority in the case the server will be in high load.
4) What about a free very cheap goodie to be shipped to the register payer? I'm thinking in a CD with each 6 month with all the scens released for all the games, and things like that. Maybe some caffe cup or a t-shirt or somenthing like that.

[PLATO]

Originally posted by Sava
probably not because I'm a cheap bastard... ads are fine if it keeps the site free.

That's the option being discussed. Ads and free or no ads and subscription. Mark has repeatedly said the site will remain free.

[Bloody Monk]

Originally posted by PLATO


That's the option being discussed. Ads and free or no ads and subscription. Mark has repeatedly said the site will remain free.

Yep. Some of these responses are...well, they bring to mind dumb blonde jokes.

All together now, "They'll never take away our freedom!!!"

Monk

[alva]

the tax on beer is bad enough

Stay in for one night and they are able to pay.
Or go do some dishes at a restaurant and they will have money for Poly and it will pay the beer for the rest of the evening.

[Locutus]

1) Increased upload space.
2) The forwarding @apolyton.net could be great, as was suggested. It could be combined with antivirus scanning or something like that.
3) Priority in the case the server will be in high load.

I think 1 and 3 are particularly good suggestions (well, I don't need them myself but for other subscribers it would be ).

#2 seems to be popular but has a major downside: you'll probably only get loads and loads of spam on that address. Lord knows we (staff members) are drowning in it already

[Gatekeeper]

MarkG:

Hmm ... I'm using the MOO3 Light style. I have the banner ads across the top and bottom of the page, but no pop-ups in recent memory.

Gatekeeper

[Gatekeeper]

MarkG:

The $60 was a reference from another member's post as a *possible* subscription fee. Other ranges tossed around included a $20 to $40 range. Basically, folks are brainstorming, nothing more.

Gatekeeper

[DanQ]

All righty. It's time for some additional responses to some of the comments and inquiries made in this increasingly viewed thread...

dainbramage20: Tisk, tisk. Re-read what Markos and I have said in this thread. I also recommend using the forum Search function to find past discussions on this topic.

Zopperoni: Ah yes, the idea of email aliases. First, see Markos' note on this above. Additionally: if this does get implemented at some point, note that it they would not be "@apolyton.net" but rather "@apolyton.com". The .net variant is for site administrative and staff assignment only.

Jamski: I will be the billing contact and direct payment recipient in this system. I also manage all accounts payable and receivable for Apolyton; therefore, no monies are to be sent to Markos for the subscription service.

yaroslav: First: $100US as a month fee? Goodness no. At the *most* this would be a high-end cost for a lifetime subscription if we were to implement it. To reiterate, though, no price is yet set in stone even for start-up.

With regards to your suggestions...

Re #1: Increased upload space might be considered but not as an initial offering.
Re #2: Antivirus scanning would not be possible with an email alias account as mail sent to it would never 'rest' on the server providing the alias.
Re #3: While I'm not certain how feasible this would be to implement, I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea in the first place. The subscription service is targetted for extras and non-access as well as non-content related additions/permissions.
Re #4: Way too elaborate for now. If this option were to be revisited, it would not be in the form of a physical shipment to a provided postal address but rather an electronic shipment to a provided email address. Shipping costs would be way too prohibitive otherwise. Yes, this would limit what types of material could be distributed, but the limitation is a sound trade-off to the alternative.

Keep the discussion coming!

-----------
Dan; Apolyton CS

[The Slayer]

Why not just leave it like it is?. With the ads when you visit an external link?


If this come true, we the "poor" ones that can't be able to afford 25-30$ will be attacked with a ton of pop-ups?. What will be the pop up system for the "non-suscribers" ?

[Potassium]

I'm with Ixnay on this one. If it were a one-time fee, I'd be all for it. Or even something like, $10-$20/yr, but nothing more than that, really.

[mrmitchell]

Dan-mark, could you please remove those "Admin" badges? They're distracting

If this come true, we the "poor" ones that can't be able to afford 25-30$ will be attacked with a ton of pop-ups?.

As I understand, the system will go as:
-Nonsubscribers have no change.
-Subscribers recieve no ads.

So, AFAIK, the number of popups won't increase for nonsubscribers. But then again I'm only a Shadow Administrator.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by mrmitchell
Dan-mark, could you please remove those "Admin" badges? They're distracting

I agree... when did they make them? Didn't notice them before today


Oh, and why didn't you write their names the other way around... Danmark is how danes write Denmark

[Rasbelin]

ADG

Maybe because the banks in Denmark for some reason don't have that activation code you need to activate the paypal account... I have asked around, but nobody I know has been able to get that code...

As of 12th February, you have been a customer of Paypal Europe Ltd, which is the Britain based company running the non US operations of PayPal. This means that there has been some small changes. Already prior to that, there was only two ways for Danish residents to add funds to their PayPal accounts - either from a bank account in USA or with a credit card. This was, and still is, very clearly stated on the PayPal website. If you want to have a validated account, you'll need to use a credit card for that. The new European operations will soon hopefully provide new services like bank transactions from European banks. However no news on that yet.

And it shouldn't be impossible to send 25 USD with an unverified account, AFAIK.

Dan

First of all, thanks very much for finally taking this issue seriously and preparing to take action! I'm sure I'll be subscribing myself to this service, when it eventually rolls out.

(2a) Increased avatar size

Great! Looks like one of my previous suggestions has been noted. 120x120 px would be sweet.

As for payment methods, I would be suggesting the following ones:

- PayPal (accepts credit cards, US bank accounts and more to come - some may also have conducted business on e.g. eBay, so they could have funds from such transactions too)
- NoChex (accepts credits cards and British debit cards - the British equivalent for PayPal)
- money orders, cheques, SWIFT cheques (for all those who can't use online payment systems)
- bank transactions (secure and easy way to pay for all those who don't prefer the other methods)

Don't even concider accepting cash! It's very unsecure and it would just cause you trouble.

Providing all these methods would make the service very flexible and convinient for users around the World.

[gwillybj]

Although I selected "Yes, If the price is right", I can't say with certainty I'd actually do it, so count me as a "definite maybe"?

I don't like pop-ups, but I don't block them (here). The only one I ever clicked is the "visitor survey" because I think that's a good idea. Otherwise, I just close them after a couple of seconds, to allow them to "count". I especially don't like the pop-ups with misleading messages or blatantly-false window titles. I'm not bothered as much by the ones that have the decency to tell the truth about themselves. imho, advertisers who use pop-ups are far too desperate for attention for me to view them as being worthy of my time. I'm much more likely to click a banner ad (and have done so several times here), simply because it's sitting there quietly winking at me instead of shov(el)ing its in my face.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Rasbelin
ADG

Maybe because the banks in Denmark for some reason don't have that activation code you need to activate the paypal account... I have asked around, but nobody I know has been able to get that code...

As of 12th February, you have been a customer of Paypal Europe Ltd, which is the Britain based company running the non US operations of PayPal. This means that there has been some small changes. Already prior to that, there was only two ways for Danish residents to add funds to their PayPal accounts - either from a bank account in USA or with a credit card. This was, and still is, very clearly stated on the PayPal website. If you want to have a validated account, you'll need to use a credit card for that. The new European operations will soon hopefully provide new services like bank transactions from European banks. However no news on that yet.

Well... I haven't followed up with the news about this. But the problem I (and all danes I've heard of) have is when you register a CC they withdraw $1.95, and on the account-papers there should be 4 numbers attached to that withdraw... the problem is: Those numbers are non-existsant...
But maybe their new Europe part can help this... I hope so...

Originally posted by Rasbelin
And it shouldn't be impossible to send 25 USD with an unverified account, AFAIK.

In that case I wouldn't mind putting those $25 I have into Apolyton instead...