QCDN Newsletter March 2006

S

Sculli

Guest
QCDN News
from QuetzalCoatl Daily News
Volume 2006, Issue No. 2
March 1, 2006

** March Contest Sponsor - GKWorld
** February Contest Winners
** March Contest Announcements! READ!
** QCDN Style Update
** QCDN Premium Membership
** QCDN Referral Program
** How to Unsubscribe

MARCH CONTEST SPONSOR - GKWORLD
The folks at GKWorld graciously agreed to sponsor the March QCDN
contests and provide a total purse of $140 in GKWorld gift certificates.
Be sure to check out the GKWorld web site at http://www.gkworld.com

FEBRUARY CONTEST WINNERS
Skaw won the February screenshot competition, while Dez and Mokk
were the two runners up. Congratulations and enjoy your Amazon gift
certificates!
See http://www.qcdn.org/showthread.php?t=22787 for details.

Rones was elected to QCDN Member of the Month January.
Congratulations to him as well. It was a very tight race between Rones
and Sabia, in the end Rones won by one vote! That's just to demonstrate
that every vote counts.
See http://www.qcdn.org/showthread.php?t=22783 for details.

MARCH CONTEST ANNOUNCEMENT
There is a new screenshot competition up and running.
The theme for this month is: Darkness!
Read the March 2006 Screenshot Competition for more details. This
month's prize is $50 for the winner, $25 for the second place, and
$15 for the third place, in form of GKWorld gift certificates.
See http://www.qcdn.org/showthread.php?t=23033 for details.

There is also a Member of the Month February competition going on.
The winner will receive a $50 GKWorld gift certificate.
See http://www.qcdn.org/showthread.php?t=23032 for details.

QCDN Style Update
As some of you may have noticed, the only available style at QCDN is the
Nightshift one. This is in preparation of a custom FFXI themed style that I
hope to implement before April 1st. It has not been designed yet. I will be
holding a style design competition at Sitepoint.com as soon as I raise the
$250 - $300 needed to get that done, hopefully before the X360 release
of FFXI.

QCDN Premium Membership
Some users have been asking for ways to financially contribute to QCDN.
Now you have that opportunity through QCDN Subscriptions.
There is a Junior and a Senior Premium membership. The difference is
mainly the amount for a one-year membership, as well as some slightly
different benefits.
See http://www.qcdn.org/payments.php for details.

QCDN Referral Program
In an effort to further promote QCDN I have activated the Referral option.
If you go to your User CP you will find a referral link. Each time someone
follows this link and registers as a new member, your referral count will
be incremented by one. At the end of the year the three users with the
most referrals will receive a special thank-you thingie. I haven't figured out
what that will be, it will also depend on the amount of referrals, but rest
assured that it will be something nice and useful.
See http://www.qcdn.org/usercp.php for details.

Keep in mind to not spam other boards, email lists, or anything like that
with your referral link. If I get complaints from other web site owners,
then I will be forced to ban the offending user from QCDN.
 
I like that you finally implemented a way to help out the boards directly, but I wish it was more of a life time thing, like Something Awfull.
 
The premium membership thing looks a bit interesting ^.^
 
Big boards like SA can do that. They have 73k+ members, if they get 5% of their membership to buy a lifetime subscription, they can run their board for over ten years off of that income alone. QCDN doesn't have the kind of membership to be able to support such a lifetime system.

Generally speaking the premium memberships are for those folks who feel strongly about QCDN, and who see the subscription amount in relation to other expenses they have in their life, rather than comparing it to the premium cost of other boards.

Take Alla for example, I am still a premium member there, even though I don't really use the site for anything at all anymore as I don't game anymore. I keep paying because I feel that they provided me with solid info when I needed it most, and before all the RMT people created pages such as somepage and whatnot. Alla stayed true to their word of not displaying RMT ads and not selling out to IGE and like.

I remember the days of Alla being small, but growing, me submitting EQ info to them, they helping me through EQ, later some SWG and FFXI, and I feel that I can afford to give them $30 a year even though I don't really use their service anymore. I could save those $30 and give it to the poor or something, sure, but honestly, Alla is more important to me than paying $30 into the Red Cross or the United Way and having it disappear in their huge administrative machine.

Anyway, I am just rambling at this point. I guess what I am saying is that QCDN is free to use, the premium membership doesn't nearly offer the benefits some other sites offer their premium members (i.e. Alla's equipment page), and I will certainly not think less of people who do not subscribe. I do appreciate every subscription, and the cash will be put to good use (new style, more contests, etc).
 
I didn't see it that way, thanks for the clarification. My friend also tells me that in SA you cant change any of your personal preferences (sig, avatar, title and such) without paying something like 5 dollars for it. With such a huge user base I can see how the owner can keep it running and make his living off it (which my friend tells me he does).

Anyway I'm just waiting for a time when I can go to the bank and get a debit card, then you'll have my slice of the pie.
 
Nitram said:
I didn't see it that way, thanks for the clarification.
Click to expand...
You still don't have to. ;) It's just one way of looking at it. I am sure there are plenty of people who think to themselves "WTF, $XX?!? I am not paying for that!", and that's cool too. The reason I didn't put the donations bin up earlier is that I wanted to do something for those who do donate. The userbars (coming really soon, really!) and the colored titles is something. Are those two things worth the cash? No way. But they are not meant to be "paid features", they are meant to be recognitions, so that those who do donate stand out of the crowd. ;)

It's unfortunate that vBulletin calls the whole thing subscription, and I could change that to donation somewhere. Subscription sort of implies value added services, and considering what little value added service premium members get, it does make it appear like a shitty deal.
 
Sculli said:
You still don't have to. ;) It's just one way of looking at it. I am sure there are plenty of people who think to themselves "WTF, $XX?!? I am not paying for that!", and that's cool too. The reason I didn't put the donations bin up earlier is that I wanted to do something for those who do donate. The userbars (coming really soon, really!) and the colored titles is something. Are those two things worth the cash? No way. But they are not meant to be "paid features", they are meant to be recognitions, so that those who do donate stand out of the crowd. ;)

It's unfortunate that vBulletin calls the whole thing subscription, and I could change that to donation somewhere. Subscription sort of implies value added services, and considering what little value added service premium members get, it does make it appear like a shitty deal.
Click to expand...

Thats really how I always saw it, as a way for you to show how much you appreciate the forum.
 
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