You all voted for orange? That was the worst one!

Also, like premium, I fear that it will be a challenge to deliver on these rewards. The track record isn't great.

You may end up with more than enough donations to cover what you need, so it would be good to see any surplus funds put back into creating incentives for Contributors. Even if it's just a Christmas card lol. That way at least we know that this money isn't just lining Karuta's deep pockets.

I agree with this. In the discord, Kar said he'd outline the funding and if there were any surplus stuff that we could vote how to use it so I hope that sticks.

I'm going to work on getting a full transparency thing put on the site, listing every payment in and out at the end of every month, so you'll know exactly what everything is being used for.

I understand your concern about delivering on rewards, and all I can say is that we're going to put our full effort in to making your contributions worthwhile and we very much appreciate your trust.

...

Is it wrong that a part of me will do this for the pin alone?

People pay $5 a month to some Twitch people for emotes sooooo nah, not bad.

I like the idea... I wonder if the expectations for perks should be managed more heavily. Intent versus impact, too. How much influence does this buy "officially" VS. provable changes in decision making.

Will the investment lead the users to feel cheated when things don't go their way?

Will the incentives to keep cash flow cause staff to unintentionally show special deference to investors?

Bottom line: Is the customer always right? How do you mitigate these perverse incentives?

I would want a Teal name if I contributed, or else stay with Pink. Orange easily my least favourite color (along with brown, the subset).

If you became a contributor, there's an option to stay pink, officially, but still get all the perks of the contributor usergroup. A few people have chosen to do that already. You just have to let an admin know.

I do have a problem with access to the Premium section. That is something that people generally have had to earn with lots and lots of actual conversation with people on the site. Giving it to newbies with wallets doesn't seem right.

Big question leading from this: Does being a contributor give you priority with promotion to staff like being Premium does? Even if you contribute on your first day on the forum?

I actually kinda agree with this.

I'm not sure how I feel about the buying Prem stuff. Ideal would probably be to strip out some the Prem benefits from Contributor and then insert a new P&C group. But that might be a bit much. And depending on how the system handles usergroups, it could require manual assignment from admins.

Ultimately though I see Prem as a way of recognizing people who are committed to the site and added value to it. Which being a Contributor certainly does.

My main concern is actually that with the site being less active, Prem is harder to achieve and I don't want this to be the way you get Prem now. But that's just a new twist on an old problem with no easy answer.

This isn't the first concern I've heard about the Premium section access, and I definitely understand the reasoning behind it. I'm going to start a poll in the Contributor section on the topic and see how our current Contributors feel about it, since I don't want anyone who contributed solely for Premium section access (which I know is unlikely) to be disappointed.

To answer your other question, the short answer is no. Firstly, premiums aren't actually offered "priority" in terms of staff promotion, they're only actually given the opportunity to apply in the first place. Applications are only open to normal members during specified hiring sessions, whereas Premiums can apply whenever. We will be offering the opportunity to apply for staff whenever to Contributors, regardless of preexisting Premium status (unless you guys have any problems with that), but for now we won't be offering any addition priority to Contributors in terms of staff promotion.

Didn't see these, sorry.

I can't speak for how users will feel if things don't go their way. All I can say is that we will do our utmost to make every decision as democratic as possible, which I don't think can leave much room for complaint.

There will be absolutely no preference shown to contributors in terms of punishment for breaking of the rules. If any member on the site, contributor or not, feels that preference is being shown to someone based solely on their contributor status in terms of punishment, please come forward to myself or any other staff member that you trust and we will do what we can to address the issue.

In terms of being a Contributor to KH-Vids, the customer is not always right but they are always heard and considered. If anyone wants to become a Contributor purely because they want a certain situation to go their way, then I imagine they would be disappointed. We aren't giving Contributors the ability to dictate the running of the site and go unquestioned. We are giving our most dedicated members a more streamlined, organised platform to voice concerns and share ideas regarding the management of the site in a fair and democratic way that we hope will help to bring the site in the direction that our users want it to be.

We can keep your displayed usergroup as Premium while giving you the benefits of a Contributor, if you'd like.

That bold is exactly what I was asking about.

I assume that despite allowing applications from first day contributors, you will not hire people who are not part of the community. There would be outcry, to say the least. Therefore new contributors would be wasting their time by applying. The same logic would have been applied in the 2016 Hiring Session, where you said that "everyone" could apply.

If I am wrong in that assumption, then we definitely have problems with that. Users who have not talked to us, invested time with us, or understand us, cannot vote on policy that affects us, represent our interests, or enforce rules on us.

Either way, allowing them to apply without achieving the hard requirements of Premium is wasting someone's time. You limited applications to Premiums during normal sessions not just because of perks, but because Premiums have demonstrated investment in the community.

There should be a time requirement at the very least. Have to have been a user for over six months, or something like that.

Are you forgetting that I applied for staff as a normal member with only ~300 posts and basically no standing in the community except occasional antagonism? You're right that it's not often that we hire people that don't have a long investment in the community, but it does happen from time to time. I'm not against a time limit if you guys want to discuss it more, then put it to a vote.

I was surprised you got in at the time, so that is not a good example to prove your point, haha.

Where should such a vote be held?

Well all I'm saying is that sometimes we consider the content and presentation of someone's application and the skills they present more important than community aspects.

It should be held in the Contributor section. You can make a thread, or I'll make one if you like.