No Thanks Questioning Premium Membership

Why do Premiums get to change their custom member title? It used to be that everyone could change their title, if I'm not mistaken. Why do they get to edit their own title threads and not us?

I do agree with GIFs and Premium Council, though. Those DO make more sense. I'm also up for most of the ideas in this thread.

 

A lot of, if not most, of the current Premium benefits were decided a long time ago. Around when the site first became active (2005-2006). I personally don't know why it was instated, but it's always been that way. I think one of the older members could shed some light on that though.

As for editing your thread titles, I know Normies/Prems could a few seconds after the thead was generated by double clicking next to the thread while we were on vB, but I'm unsure as of now. :x

 

I just don't know the reason why they would limit what normal users can do without it being like "It's to save space!" or "It's just to make sure they'll be on this forum for a long time!" or "To make sure they're experienced!"

 

I think that's because you're a premium, LOL. :P Unconscious bias.

 

The thing is though, it's not really a limit set on Normal Members. The benefits Premiums (and Staff) get are additions to what Normal members have. It's a build up from the base.

Furthermore, I don't think usertitle changing for Normies is needed? With statuses, it's essentially pretty similar. This is also not including the fact that everyone got a share of some of the Premium benefits post Xenforo (avatar sizes), and even some Staff benefits (200x200 avatars and unlimited inbox, the latter of which was basically an Admin only feature).

 

...

 

Back in the days of yore when I was not on staff (so pre-June 2006... lol), we had different usertitles (it was like Bronze Member, Silver Member, Gold Member, etc), that was what I strove for. I wanted to get more posts so I could get a new title, and eventually ascend to what I considered the rank of the gods--VIP Member. It's sad to confess but that's probably what kept me posting so much. And this was completely before Premium membership was even enacted. The idea is, "ranking up" is supposed to be a bit of an incentive.

Adding the custom usertitles (and other Premium perks) has the same motive--to motivate you towards pursuing Premium membership. Maybe this is a situation of "you don't know what you've got until it's gone," but custom usertitles aren't really anything that fancy. I reset mine to Administrator ages ago and have had no inclination to change it since.

tl;dr version: get premium if you want one

 

There's a problem with this system, though. It's all about quantity over quality. You can have 7,000 small posts and still the person who has 100 giant posts deserves it more, IMO.

 

That's why Mods are able to delete posts and why the rules distinguish between spammy posts and legitimate posts. It's not "quantity over quality" because staff keeps an eye on posts and delete irrelevant ones, same for sections where posts don't count. It's not a perfect system, sure, but how are we going to judge who has not just ENOUGH posts, but enough GOOD posts? That would require a lot of work and discrimination from staff, as in an unbelievable and unreal amount, as well as not being concrete. Would you like staff to simply tell you: "just post good posts. We'll tell you when you've reached premium?" Or would you rather have a concrete "Make 1000 good posts. Then you'll be premium?" It's not "quantity over quality" and it's definitely not "small versus large" posts. It's simply "1000 legitimate posts."

 

I see... though I still think that some perks should belong to normal users, I do understand how this could work. Thanks!

 

Premium exists as a reward. A reward needs perks. Normal users do have perks and with the move to Xenforo, you guys even have some of the perks Premiums used to have, as well as some of the staff's.

 

No one can really change my opinion, but I get why it exists.

 

In addition to this, there are also the sections where posts do not count and, in the unique case of the RP section, where your post must be above a certain number of characters in order to count. We have right now the Synthesis Materials which reward you for the number of likes you're given--so if you're making quality posts, you'll be rewarded. We're also working on bringing back pins which provide more incentives. Maybe they won't give you upgrades like custom usertitles--that's something to strive for by posting--but it's not like there's nothing to motivate you to post other than Premium membership.

 

Now that I think about it, I want Premium! I agree with the staff though, It exist to set a goal. Without that goal, I'm not sure this site would be near as fun. It wouldn't be boring but... oh i think you get the idea. Plus Its gotta be REALLY satisfying when you finally reach 1,000 post. I'm going back to posting now.[DOUBLEPOST=1363052154][/DOUBLEPOST]Oops. sorry I just now realized that the last post here was in October.

 

I think that it's fine the way it is, if anything Premium hasn't got enough perks any more. The custom user-title is one of the few remaining benefits that makes me want premium. Everyone's got bigger avatars now, we have unlimited pm space and I just got a QT. I mean I'm happy as I'm unlikely to hit prem but normal members don't need more of the currently prem only perks. I wouldn't mind if the avatars went back if I'm completely honest.

 

Yeah i must agree with that. If anything the best part about being a premium is that you can get unlimited name changes other than that there isn't anything elsewhere you can benefit from it.
I'm suggesting that when you hit premium you can get like a little digital sprite emblem next to their username, avatar, or somewhere were people can see. Emblems like the heartless icon to a RECOM card, basically anything that has to do with KH. They can change the color to their likings, obtaing a new symbol from completing certain tasks (Like reaching a certain like number ) .
They could earn a golden and platium skin on their profile page by reaching 3.000 to 6,000 posts.
I dunno something like that.

 

There's discussion underway in the Premium section on revamping the Premium benefits now that we're getting our XenForo bearings. However, it has kind of halted. We'll hopefully be restarting it soon, so if regular users have input, I'll be happy to extend it to them once Premiums have been allowed to bandy ideas about.