Quote:
Originally Posted by photon
No worries, I know your intent was just to discuss it.
Things like this usually have to be well thought out and planned as well; going into it quickly can end up with bad decisions and bad blood, I've seen forums fracture and disintegrate over forum donation drives.
You have to make sure you are doing the right thing tech wise.. you don't want to go to the well too many times and burn out the goodwill of your userbase. You have to be careful that you don't fragment and stratify your user base (i.e. giving sponsers a special star on their name, and then sponsors deride non-sponsors, feel their opinion is worth more, or feel they are above being banned).
Any system has to be administrated and maintained, with guidelines to follow for specific circumstances, and that takes time and effort, and unless the membership fees are going to pay a salary that means volunteers.. trust is a big issue too when talking about money.
And is that even in the Vision(tm)? Free, flat, open, is easy to maintain, everything else adds complexity.
None of these are unanswerable question or insurmountable obstacles, but the cost of the answers and solutions (in time and $$ and effort and will and dedication) have to be evaluated with the overall vision, and if the slowness only happens a few days every year and once every 5 years when a core player gets traded midseason then that has to enter into the decision too.
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I was going to suggest an implementation of something a long these lines.
I would suspect that you could get away with some very casual goodies for users that donate. Things such as a personal user title or maybe slightly larger avatar/signature space could probably pass without giving most posters a false sense of superiority.