Resolved Shower thoughts

[Raine]

I may or may not have mentioned these elsewhere already, it's been more than like an hour so that's the same as a year at the moment. Anyway!


Thread anchors - these would be super useful for the Wolf/Mafia games, but they'd also be good for any type of mega thread or larger series discussion if we happen to do those. An example of what that might look like. And a post showing some commands and explanations.



Affiliate links - I'm not entirely sure what the requirements would be to even qualify or anything. But I reckon, if I'm posting a bunch of nonsense anyway, might it not be a decent idea to look into it? Could throw some into sales threads and release threads and whatnot to (potentially) help fund server upkeep. With disclaimer, obviously.


Data caps and bandwidth strain - I was thinking about this the other day, with some of the picture-heavy threads we have around. Do we know/can we see how and when things load? Like if I had, I don't know, a couple hundred smilies/images on a page/post or lots of YouTube/TikTok/etc videos, but they were in a spoiler tag. Would the device preload all that? Or would it wait until the spoiler tag is opened up and then retrieve the data?

 

[Mark]

Thread anchors is definitely something that could be useful, but I don’t know if there’s anything in the add-on section for that. That will be a @Crystal question, she’s the window shopper.

Personally, I don’t think we’re at a point where an affiliate program would be useful. You need hundreds of users before those things even start to produce anything worth cashing out. I entered into an affiliate program with EB Games back in the day… and they gave me a 7.5% cut of select products purchased through our affiliate code or link. Out of a dozen sales, a few of which were my own, I managed to make less than $50… which covered half of the license renewal for vB back in 2004 dollars.

In regards to the data caps or bandwidth usage, I think we’re at a point now where @Crystal is going to be assessing the totals that we’re consuming and from there… we may have to make adjustments down the line to accommodate more traffic so this server doesn’t choke like GW did. That’ll be a wait and see game at this point, but we all have enough experience at staying within limits that we will be able to make the necessary adjustments with minimal impact to the members.

 

[Crystal]

Thread anchors is definitely something that could be useful, but I don’t know if there’s anything in the add-on section for that. That will be a @Crystal question, she’s the window shopper.

It's something I can look into, but I will note that there are bookmarks to help take notes, as well, so that could work temporarily for the short term while we dig.

In regards to the data caps or bandwidth usage, I think we’re at a point now where @Crystal is going to be assessing the totals that we’re consuming and from there… we may have to make adjustments down the line to accommodate more traffic so this server doesn’t choke like GW did. That’ll be a wait and see game at this point, but we all have enough experience at staying within limits that we will be able to make the necessary adjustments with minimal impact to the members.

If we need to I can upgrade our plan to a larger package, I can't afford much more, but I think I could make do with a slightly larger plan.

 

[Mark]

It's something I can look into, but I will note that there are bookmarks to help take notes, as well, so that could work temporarily for the short term while we dig.

View attachment 1183

That looks like EXACTLY what @Warp is looking for.

If we need to I can upgrade our plan to a larger package, I can't afford much more, but I think I could make do with a slightly larger plan.

AluTube. I’m telling you. We got fuckin’ bills to pay. We can even have merch. AluTube Lube.

 

[Raine]

Personally, I don’t think we’re at a point where an affiliate program would be useful. You need hundreds of users before those things even start to produce anything worth cashing out. I entered into an affiliate program with EB Games back in the day… and they gave me a 7.5% cut of select products purchased through our affiliate code or link. Out of a dozen sales, a few of which were my own, I managed to make less than $50… which covered half of the license renewal for vB back in 2004 dollars.

That bad, huh? I figured it wouldn't amount to much, but yeah. Woof.

In regards to the data caps or bandwidth usage, I think we’re at a point now where @Crystal is going to be assessing the totals that we’re consuming and from there… we may have to make adjustments down the line to accommodate more traffic so this server doesn’t choke like GW did. That’ll be a wait and see game at this point, but we all have enough experience at staying within limits that we will be able to make the necessary adjustments with minimal impact to the members.

Oh hey, I vaguely remember this being a thing once upon a time!

The other end is important too, though. Like I don't want to do anything too fancy, mostly because I'm lazy, but whatever I do come up with I want to keep in mind that a lot of folks browse GWF through their phone. And so I was curious how creative I could get to skirt around any data caps folks might have. Not that I don't already use excessive amounts of spoiler tags for non-spoiler reasons.

It's something I can look into, but I will note that there are bookmarks to help take notes, as well, so that could work temporarily for the short term while we dig.

Yeah, that works short-term. But unfortunately that seems to be a private thing, whereas whatever they've done is visible to everyone. I suppose whipping up a table of contents with direct links isn't a horrible option either, though.

If we need to I can upgrade our plan to a larger package, I can't afford much more, but I think I could make do with a slightly larger plan.

The burden of success? Hopefully that's not an immediate concern. But, if it is, then mayhaps it's fundraising time.

 

[Crystal]

That bad, huh? I figured it wouldn't amount to much, but yeah. Woof.


Oh hey, I vaguely remember this being a thing once upon a time!

The other end is important too, though. Like I don't want to do anything too fancy, mostly because I'm lazy, but whatever I do come up with I want to keep in mind that a lot of folks browse GWF through their phone. And so I was curious how creative I could get to skirt around any data caps folks might have. Not that I don't already use excessive amounts of spoiler tags for non-spoiler reasons.


Yeah, that works short-term. But unfortunately that seems to be a private thing, whereas whatever they've done is visible to everyone. I suppose whipping up a table of contents with direct links isn't a horrible option either, though.

View attachment 1185

Yeah, I'm looking for a proper solution, I feel like there's something out there we can use, but this is the short term self-made ToC, lol

The burden of success? Hopefully that's not an immediate concern. But, if it is, then mayhaps it's fundraising time.

We're not there yet, thankfully, but if GWF keeps on being a success, and it will, we might reach that point

 

[Crystal]

Ok, let's see if these custom BBCodes can work:

We've got the new anchor bbcode, so you can use:

[anchor="introduction"]1.A) Introduction[/anchor]

to create the anchor.

And then:

[anchorlink="introduction"]1.A) Introduction[/anchorlink]

To link to it in the ToC list.

 

[Crystal]

Just tested in the Testing Grounds thread, these codes do work, so you can make a valid ToC if you want to using these.

 

[Cole]

Affiliate links - I'm not entirely sure what the requirements would be to even qualify or anything. But I reckon, if I'm posting a bunch of nonsense anyway, might it not be a decent idea to look into it? Could throw some into sales threads and release threads and whatnot to (potentially) help fund server upkeep. With disclaimer, obviously.

I am going to put a hard no on an affiliate program of any kind.

they're evil and they only stand to divide the community. we have a donation option, which is always "never required but always helpful" no one has to donate to be here, but can if they choose.

if people were interested, we could find a way to set it up so thst you can create a RECURRING DONATION every month, as long as every one was aware there is ZERO additional benefit. no secret forum, no priority posting or any thing.

just for people that choose to support.

 

[shortkut]

I am going to put a hard no on an affiliate program of any kind.

they're evil and they only stand to divide the community. we have a donation option, which is always "never required but always helpful" no one has to donate to be here, but can if they choose.

if people were interested, we could find a way to set it up so thst you can create a RECURRING DONATION every month, as long as every one was aware there is ZERO additional benefit. no secret forum, no priority posting or any thing.

just for people that choose to support.

I agree with this

 

[Mark]

I am going to put a hard no on an affiliate program of any kind.

they're evil and they only stand to divide the community. we have a donation option, which is always "never required but always helpful" no one has to donate to be here, but can if they choose.

if people were interested, we could find a way to set it up so thst you can create a RECURRING DONATION every month, as long as every one was aware there is ZERO additional benefit. no secret forum, no priority posting or any thing.

just for people that choose to support.

This is the other problem I didn’t even bother touching on because the initial point I made shit on the idea from an administrative standpoint… when I had entered into the affiliate program, I was required to have a top and bottom banner ad, a search box that allowed users to directly search from EB’s marketplace, and other requirements and restrictions, such as content and other affiliations… official or not.

So, say you have an affiliation with MicroCenter, you have their ads, direct links to their products, etc. Some member comes in and links to a NewEgg product, suddenly you find yourself in the predicament of do you moderate the thread to stay within the contract with the affiliate because you know that a non-competitor clause exists in the terms, or do you let it fly and take your chances? That’s a position we don’t want to find ourselves in, because then we have the corporate world controlling our content. Beyond that… members don’t like to feel like they’re having products shilled to them to keep the lights on. As soon as any of us see ads of any kind, we immediately associate it to a website maximizing profit over the end-user experiences. Most affiliate programs REQUIRE some degree of active advertisement to participate… whether it’s banner ads, hover-over links inserted into the body of posts like we saw at GW for a while, or… the bane of everyone’s existence… pop-ups and following ads.

 

[Crystal]

Zero ads. There will never be, at any point, advertisements on this forum. I have considered, much further down the road, allowing for sponsorships, ie: a site can pay to sponsor a category with nothing but a direct link to their main page listed as the sponsor for the category AND AN ACTIVE MENTION IN THE TERMS that they cannot dictate the content or direction of our content.

That, however, would be a long way down the road and probably still not happen. I did think of using the premium member option, but as we talked about, that then creates the sensation of needing to add extras just to make it worthwhile, so it feels disingenuous to even consider either of these options. GWF will NEVER restrict access to content behind any kind of paywall. That's something I'm absolutely certain of.

 

[Mark]

I’d say that settles that, then.

Anchors away.

Fuck ads.

We GONNA go fast.

There are your answers, @Warp.

 

[Raine]

This is the other problem I didn’t even bother touching on because the initial point I made shit on the idea from an administrative standpoint… when I had entered into the affiliate program, I was required to have a top and bottom banner ad, a search box that allowed users to directly search from EB’s marketplace, and other requirements and restrictions, such as content and other affiliations… official or not.

Ick. Yeah, I'm not super surprised or anything, but if it requires all that then nuke the idea from orbit.

Will definitely play around with the anchors. Thanks!

 

[Mark]

Ick. Yeah, I'm not super surprised or anything, but if it requires all that then nuke the idea from orbit.

Will definitely play around with the anchors. Thanks!

Yeah, it’s not as minimalistic as placing a link and cashing a check. If that were the case, most sites would look like NASCAR vehicles with sponsors everywhere. That’s why if you browse a clickbait site, for example, you’ll see so many overlapping ads and sponsored content. The pay is absolutely horrible and in order to make any kind of contribution… you need multiple ad sources and multiple ad placements with the most obnoxious and intrusive being the highest-grossing.

But… since your questions have been answered, we can at least keep this resolved and move on to the next.