Young Writers Society

I've gotten a couple inquiries regarding this, and I've discussed it with the mods of Big Brother since, but how would people feel if there was an option to get rid of the ads through donating to YWS? The way it'd work is removing the ads for one month would be $5, for three months $10, for six months $20, and for a year $40. Of course, this would really just be a "thank you for donating" type of deal.

Previous donations would be taken into account and doubled. So if you donated $10 at any point prior to this post, that'd be counted as $20, which would mean six months of no ads. Any donation over $50 (prior to this post) would be treated as a lifetime of no ads.

As part of this, any person who has donated to YWS would receive recognition through a supporter badge (a bit longer and thinner than the current badges, and situated below one's avatar). The badge would be permanent, and would even have "levels" on it. So someone who donated $5 would be a "Lvl. 1 Supporter" and someone who donated $50 would be a "Lvl. 10 Supporter."

Beyond that, nothing else special. This would be a supporter rewards type program, rather than any sort of premium membership where only premium members get certain features or obtain access to certain areas. In fact, I wouldn't even be part of it!

Sound good?

I think it sounds like an awesome idea, Nate. I'll try hard to see if I can donate -- I don't know if I would be able to, but I hope others do.

Can we donate and still have ads? (I love them far too much for my own good...)

While I like the idea of donors having the option of turning off adds, I'm not too keen on the notion of a donors badge, especially one with levels. I've seen things like that become a way of forming further hierarchies in on-line communities so I'm a little apprehensive

With regards to adblock, I have it turned off on a bunch of sites so they can get the ad revenue. Often if I'm on a site and have forgotten there's an image place-holder in the space where the ads would normally be seen that says something along the lines of "please disable adblock to support us!", for me it acts as a reminder, or makes me feel a tad guilty on sites where I juts don't care enough. Might it be worth putting in something like that, or would most people have it disabled already?

As one who forgot to disable my adblock on YWS until earlier today, I do think having a placeholder image would be a good idea.

And I do like the donations idea, though I'm torn on the badges. On the one hand, nice bit of recognition. On the other hand, not everyone who wants to donate can donate.

Kyllorac wrote: On badges: not everyone who wants to donate can donate.

That.

But the rest of it is all okay!

I think badges are a good idea because they don't just serve as recognition, they serve as a reminder that it is possible to donate - someone might see the badge and not know what it is and then when they investigate they will realise that they are able to donate to YWS when they otherwise might not have known. I'm all for it.

A quick interesting note about the ads: blending the ad into the header results in much more revenue than in contrasting it against the header. That is, several days ago, the background for the banner ad (for text links) was white. This contrasted heavily against the header, and also resulted in less revenue. After blending the banner ad into the header (as it is now), revenue shot up. Over the next few days, I'm going to experiment some more by seeing what happens when only text links are set to appear.


On Pro Accounts

The Pro Accounts / Supporter Rewards should be making an appearance toward the end of February. Due to user feedback, I will not be including levels in the supporter badges. However, the supporter badges will come in different colors. Thus, green would denote someone who has donated $5 to $24.99 to YWS. Blue would be $25 to $49.99. Purple is $50 to $74.99. Red is $75 to $99.99, and gold is $100+. Again, this is just a way to thank someone for providing financial support to YWS. Keep in mind that we already have multiple programs to thank someone for providing content support (such as by reviewing).

Once again, no features will only be available to Pro Accounts. This ain't Writing.com where you have to pay just to post more than 5 literary items, and even then you still have to put up with their excessive advertising.

With the above being said, none of this is set in stone. Indeed, it may not even happen as I am looking into a possible alternative that would instead involve companies sponsoring YWS for a month at a time.