Recently I've been thinking about implementing some sort of way for rewarding people who donate, as a way to give more people an incentive to donate which would in turn help out with hosting costs.
The way I thought this might work is that people would get certain additional features if they donated either a certain amount per month, or permanently if they donated a slightly larger amount (I don't yet know which, or if both, of these options would be best). I also don't know what dollar amounts would be ideal.
Some features I thought donators might get: - Ability to download all the images of any search result in a .zip file - Ability to delete own pictures and comments - Ability to upload a picture directly to the site without having it go through the moderation queue. (This would probably have a limit of X images per month; images against the upload rules would still be deleted after the fact. The purpose of this would be so donators can have some of their pictures appear on the site without waiting, not so they can upload whatever they want.) - Image ratings and Girl of the Week votes would count for double the weight of normal users - Ability to rate own images - Ability to see every rating (and the member who gave it) on each image - Ability to see the pictures in the current image queue (the collection of images that people have uploaded that have yet to be rejected or approved by site staff) and to save pictures from it. (The queue gets about 300-400 uploads a day on average, I'd say.) - Ability to lock (close) the discussion on one's own images, and also the ability to delete other users' comments on one's own images. Useful when comments get out of hand. - Ability to host female-muscle related images on GWM so that you could post them on forums and other sites (you could use this to replace imagevenue, etc.) - View a slideshow of your favorites
This list is of course neither complete nor are the things in it certain to happen.
There are two things this would NOT entail: - Taking away features from regular members that we currently have - Restriction of any content to donators only that is currently available to all members.
I want to hear your feedback on this- especially on the specific ideas for features I outlined above, as well as suggestions for additional features. Good ideas for features are ones that are impractical to give to all users, but are cool when only a small subset has them (like the above).
I do want to emphasize, though, that this is not an attempt to start turning this into a subscription site. Rather, this is a way to encourage people to donate by rewarding people who do so by giving them certain advantages/privileges when using various site features.
I think it's a great idea to give additional features to members who donate. Girls With Muscle is one of my favourite sites. I made my first donation today. I would be happy to donate regularly, especially if it meant that I received extra features.
Here's an idea...how about graphs containing cool information about the pictures? Such as a "stats" link for each pic that contains graphs showing viewing trends (# of times each pic is clicked each day, week, etc), rating trends (like the rise/fall of rating over time), Website statistics (photo submissions by week, etc), and other cool ones. This could be implemented with FusionCharts, a free flash-based charting solution. I suspect some of this information would be interesting to see from this point of view.
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The way I thought this might work is that people would get certain additional features if they donated either a certain amount per month, or permanently if they donated a slightly larger amount (I don't yet know which, or if both, of these options would be best). I also don't know what dollar amounts would be ideal.
Some features I thought donators might get:
- Ability to download all the images of any search result in a .zip file
- Ability to delete own pictures and comments
- Ability to upload a picture directly to the site without having it go through the moderation queue. (This would probably have a limit of X images per month; images against the upload rules would still be deleted after the fact. The purpose of this would be so donators can have some of their pictures appear on the site without waiting, not so they can upload whatever they want.)
- Image ratings and Girl of the Week votes would count for double the weight of normal users
- Ability to rate own images
- Ability to see every rating (and the member who gave it) on each image
- Ability to see the pictures in the current image queue (the collection of images that people have uploaded that have yet to be rejected or approved by site staff) and to save pictures from it. (The queue gets about 300-400 uploads a day on average, I'd say.)
- Ability to lock (close) the discussion on one's own images, and also the ability to delete other users' comments on one's own images. Useful when comments get out of hand.
- Ability to host female-muscle related images on GWM so that you could post them on forums and other sites (you could use this to replace imagevenue, etc.)
- View a slideshow of your favorites
This list is of course neither complete nor are the things in it certain to happen.
There are two things this would NOT entail:
- Taking away features from regular members that we currently have
- Restriction of any content to donators only that is currently available to all members.
I want to hear your feedback on this- especially on the specific ideas for features I outlined above, as well as suggestions for additional features. Good ideas for features are ones that are impractical to give to all users, but are cool when only a small subset has them (like the above).
I do want to emphasize, though, that this is not an attempt to start turning this into a subscription site. Rather, this is a way to encourage people to donate by rewarding people who do so by giving them certain advantages/privileges when using various site features.