Hello, StarboundRPers! I've decided that the forum advertisements were more harmful than good. I no longer care about the income, and only want to provide a quality environment for all to roleplay in. So to help reach that goal and focus less on money and more on quality, we're switching to a completely donation supported model. That's right - no more forum advertisements. However, if you still wish to support the site via advertisements, you can optionally enable them in your account preferences panel. By turning off ads and making them optional, not only do we improve the forum browsing experience for all, we also get to offer them to people who still want to help. I also realized that switching to a donation-only model of funding comes with it's own set of consequences. I know some of you are likely uncomfortable with the idea of donating, worrying if your money will truly be spent to keep the server alive and not on an expensive forum design or other costs. Let me assure you that all donations go into a single paypal account whose sole purpose is to automatically pay for the server every month. Any other fees and costs that I pay come out of my personal bank account and are made of my own accord, as I realize that it was wrong of me to expect any donations to cover those kinds of costs. Instead - I aim to limit my spending, and any purchases I do make outside the server to help the community will be made at my own expense and not anyone else. I hope that moving forward with this approach, we can deliver a clean and better roleplaying experience for all. Thanks for reading. As always, I'm here for any questions or concerns.
I would love to donate but I barely have any money and no paypal right now, when I get enough money I'll most likely donate~ <3
This is not at all in response to you Crossed Swords, I just want to put in that one does not actually need a Paypal account to donate. I can totally understand that one can't afford to donate but don't let the lack of a Paypal account stop you. All you need is a credit card.
No, I just don't like ads and felt that it would be healthier to have them disabled by default. You can turn them back on if you'd like.
The ads help a little. They're nothing to call home about. I want them to be disabled for guests by default, as I believe that a website without ads presents itself better to guests than a website with ads. The focus is now on quality and growth, and I'm hoping that people will be less likely to be turned away now that the ads are gone.
As long as there's an option to have them on if you want to, I'm happy about this. While they might not help much, they still help without anyone needing to do anything except have them on so I guess it's worth it.
But from what I hear we get something around 10 apps a day, don't we have a stable amount of growth? With that growth, we could probably start amassing funds to upgrade the server again. Considering most sites, like Facebook and most gaming sites use Ads, I think it'd be all right if the forum had some. Most people really don't care, and with the custom theme it looks pretty enough.
We do get apps, but not every app is approved. Although I couldn't say how many we get exactly per day, as I do not know for certain. The ad income was not very substantial. It was getting a little over half the server costs, but Google only allows you to withdraw at a minimum threshold of $100, and so I'd have to wait a couple months before I could withdraw the funds. Ultimately, I think we're better off without ads. It's a better user experience and people still have the choice to support if they want it. Perhaps if we get huge, (10,000+ people browsing the forums), then I'll turn them back on (and have an option to disable them as well) since that amount of traffic would actually generate revenue that's worth their ugliness.
Turned on. Nobody can stand in the way of my love/hate relationship with Ads-kun. It is truly the most dramatic and complex of affairs. ...Really though I think they're just screwing with me now. ...like...i don't understand. is this like. a tooth-brushing simulator? for multicultural babies? power rangers babysitting i mean really what?
