Not being able to vote "Yes" twice for a subscription charge.

Member wise, I am still very new here, so what I say most likely won't even be looked at, but I did have a few thoughts on it.

I can recall, from a few years back, that Kevin Smith charged a one dollar lifetime fee for his forums. He did so, not to keep up the server or anything, but to keep out the idiots.


Anyways, as far as I know there are two "major" Satanic forums. There is LTTD and the COS bashing idiots whose name is an inverse of a Christian TV show. I did a Google search for Satanism forums and this is actually No. 3 on the list.

Now, I have been reading LTTD for a long time. I can remember reading them when I was 16, and it may have been possible that I even read it when I was 14-15. Can't remember if I did though.

This site has been integral in teaching me a lot. This site is integral to teaching newbies a lot too.

I can recall a couple years back, reading a lot of BS about the different forums and bickering going back and forth. When you're new to reading forums on Satanism, first impressions are important. To me, it just seemed like the satanic version of the East/West Coast rap BS. Sticking with the forums though, I got to see the quality that this site possessed over the others.

I was won over and have only bothered reading these forums since.

I think that the General Satanism needs to be free for people to get a feel for these forums. Not so much to participate in the discussions, but at least just to view.

The other threads are hit or miss, you're not really missing much if you can't view the humor, music and other sections. There are a lot of forums and sites, which are free, that allow discussion of those things, and I don't see anyone being won over to paying just for those sections.

The General Satanism one though, I think anyways, will be a big clincher in drawing people in. Without it, I think you're going to lose people to the other forums because they are free, for starters, and because people know what they are getting with those sites. I don't think that is a good thing. I just viewed one of the sites and it was filled with people who got banned here. Not to mention it talks a great lengths about BS, but if you're new to forums and Satanism, it may be hard to sort the BS from the gold without being able to compare and contrast.

The downside to leaving the General Satanism section open is you will end up with a lot of lurkers, but that is nothing new. The site is free and you still have lots of lurkers.


Personally, I think a good thing for drawing people in to pay money is maybe a "Best of" section. Give people a little taste of what the "downstairs" is like by adding locked topics that where quality threads when they where new to this section so people can see what they are missing.

I could dig paying a buck for that. As it stands, I voted no, but not because I am really opposed to it, just not sure at the moment.

Count me in. I'm all for it.

FC

Maybe the regular dialogues could be private to paying members. But at the discretion of the moderators, some of the discussions or threads could be made public by marking a posting or its thread visible. This difference could be hidden from the free users because they only see the dialogues that are made visible by the moderators. It could also be possible for the user to see threads that user initiated themselves since the user is part of the posting and the thread.

To the casual/free user, it appears to be a public forum. All threads made visible to the public by the moderators are visible to all. All users can post. The new thread is visible to the user that posted it. All new threads initiated by paying users are invisible to the free users unless a moderator makes the thread public.

Just as Questions about the Church of Satan do not allow replies by the non-priesthood, public threads that are visible to the free users do not permit the free users to reply to them (unless the thread was initiated by the free user).

It would give the forum the public and free face that has been so useful to many, but would also be kept from getting out of control because the free users will not be pulling everyone's chains all the time.

I believe moderators here also have a life of their own....

A reasonable user fee always has the advantage of weeding out the clowns that join (for free and only for free) any forum simply to piss off the actual users and moderator staff with innane or completly inapropriate comments and submitted content, Limiting their impact would at the very least save several moderators quite a few "buy the fucking bible and read the fucking bible" responses a month.

Even as a habitual lurker I cannot say i wouldn't pony up a few bucks towards cost of maintainance and operation, The content is well worth it.

You realize that idiots on forums are kinda the nature of the beast, right? LTTD is not the first or last forum to have to put up with idiots. The dollar fee isn't going to stop that. It will slow them down, sure, but it will hardly stop them.

I'm quite certain the phrase I used was "limiting impact" was it not?

Several of the other fourms i'm a part of are constiantly being bombarded with shit disurbers, the ones with the lowest incidents of such are the ones that require you to open the wallet a bit.

Magister,

I say charge a fee. Those that see value here will continue to see value and pay their fair share. Those that don't, won't. May the door hit them on their asses on the way out. I see it as a coarse filter to at least help remove the big chunks.

One advantage, I don't know if this has been mentioned, but I know some people when they are banned just register again, and again. I am guessing they won't do that when they have to pay for it, literally.

Also, I think it will weed out the not so serious members of the forum.

Strength and Stratification!

HS!

E.

Magister Ventrue's cyberspaces have made a huge contribution, first to the proper distribution of correct information about the Church of Satan and Satanism, but also to the promotion of Satanic aesthetics through his online support of the products and projects of other Satanists. Add to that the sheer entertainment we've all received over the years through our interaction here, and you've got quite the wonderful gift, gratis.

He's done us proud and if he moved on to other things entirely, we'd have no grounds for complaint.

And if he wants to charge the equivalent of a Grande Latte once a month for what you get here, just to keep himself out of a financial bind, we have nothing to whine about.

One of Magister Ventrue's strengths is that he's always been able to make changes rapidly when his projects called for it, and I'm sure he'll be ahead of the curve on this one, too. I, for one, will be happy and excited to stick around and see what he comes up with next.

In my opinion Magistra Nadramia's vote should be all that is needed. She IS the official on-line representative of the Church of Satan as well as High Priestess. Consider the source of the vote!

Please don't take this the wrong way, but are you on a sugar high? Your enthusiasm is almost blinding in its intensity. Before you crash maybe you would like to pay for the next decade of LttD fees up front?

I'm not big on subscriptions.

That's not to say I wouldn't pay for this board as I enjoy reading some of the posts here.

My question would be:

Any chance of a lifetime membership fee?

Ha!

As a matter of fact my girl friend's family has a "cookie weekend" where family members come over and bake cookies for 3 days then distributes them throughout the family. So yes I was on a sugar high from eating cookies and drinking coffee!