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ArcticMyst Security by Avery

Just an idea

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iskor12

iskor12

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At AR15.com there are different levels of paid membership and I think that we could incorporate something similar. Check this out
AR15.Com Memberships
(For Dealer and Industry options, please see the Advertising section)

Click HERE to sign up for a free USER account.


Become a TEAM MEMBER and help support the site!
This simple and meaningful contribution allows us to continue to maintain and operate the site now and into the future. In an effort to bring value to contributing members, we have tried to come up with a number of useful and cost efficient services as a way to thank you. Only together can we shoulder the burden and enjoy it for years to come! Please take a minute to look through what a membership contribution gets you and consider helping to ensure the site's future.


BRONZE Membership - $24 a Year
SEARCH & CUSTOM FORUM RESOURCES
- Resource intensive custom features such as search, my active topics, and more!
- Forum search engine which allows you UNLIMITTED searches on authors or topics which have not been archived.
- My Active Topics page, which tracks discussions you are a part of over a period of days.

ARCHIVE SERVER ACCESS
- Highly flexible search engine. (Search multiple keywords, through post bodies, and more!)
- Ability to search ALL topics which have been archived since the board was created!

SPELLCHECK SERVICES
With rising costs, a spell checking service will continue for Team Members.
- Online spell check for forum posts, instant messages, and more!

SIGNATURE PICTURE AND AR15.Com TEAM MEMBER TITLE
- You will be able to create your own signature/avatar (gif or jpg) with the simple restriction on size (and appropriateness) and upload it to the photo sever.Will show up in forum posts and other sections of the site!

MEMBER ONLY GENERAL DISCUSSION
A Team Member forum, Moderator Free!, exists for members to have a place to fall back for private discussions free from Trolls and trouble. (The same quality rules will apply!) This area is used to inform you of membership additions, changes, and specials!

SKINS
As a team member, you will have access to the basic site skins. Don't like the way the site looks in gray, change it on the fly whenever you like!

- If there is a need/request for further Forums, they will be created as well.

RIFLE GIVEAWAYS
We're giving away rifles as our thanks to you each and every year! The goal is at LEAST one give away a year, our hope is to be able to do more! Typically the bulk of toys we give out are open to Bronze team members and up!

OTHER GIVEAWAYS
Not only will we give out AT LEAST one rifle every year, but we'll also plan other giveaways during the year on items ranging from shirts and hats, to coats, windbreakers, shooting gear, optics, and firearms!

DISCOUNT ON MERCHANDISE
We are working with a number of high quality vendors for Licensed AR15.Com Merchandise. These vendors include well known names such as Galati and Columbia River Knife and Tool.

- Those who wish to create AR15.Com items, may ONLY do so with written permission.
- Members will receive a price break at the AR15.Com store on products marked for team discount. We try to keep prices low for everyone, so a number of items will not be discounted further.

FUTURE ADDITIONS WHEN NEEDED
Member input will be important to us in deciding future additions or modifications. New tools, information, site areas, sites, etc will all be available for discussion! Send us your ideas...


GOLD Membership - $60 a Year
(All Bronze Membership functionality is included!)

AR15.com EMAIL ADDRESS
A FULLY FUNCTIONAL email service! You will get a pop3 account on mail.ar15.com and will be able to access email through either your email client or through a web client. We've made this THE email account to have! It includes:
- [YOURNICK]@ar15.com
- Spam Mail Filtering
- AntiVirus Protection
- Full Web Client ( mail.ar15.com )
- 10 MEGS of disk space for large file transfers

PHOTO GALLERY SERVER
Members will be able to create virtual photo "Galleries" online and upload pictures to them.

- Public or Private albums for keeping pictures from prying eyes, or for sharing with others!
- 10 MEGS of disk space for image storing
- Unlimited galleries
- Simple user tools to create, edit, move, and delete pictures or galleries URLs to images right in your albums for easy linking
- Open linking to other sites for sharing, use on EBAY, etc (If abused, individual linking right will be removed!)

GIVEAWAY BONUS
You will receive a chance at prizes set aside for Gold+ team members, in addition to the Bronze+ prize pool.


PLATINUM Membership - $100 a Year
(All Bronze + Gold Membership functionality is included!)

UPGRADED MAILBOX
An upgrade of disk space to 50 MEGS!

UPGRADED PHOTO GALLERY
An upgrade of disk space to 50 MEGS!

GIVEAWAY BONUS
You will have a chance to walk away with prizes from the Bronze+, Gold+, as well as Platinum give aways. The platinum prize pool is the smallest, but with the best odds and we will do our best to ensure at least one firearm is given at this level as well as the other team levels.


To Purchase Memberships, Please Visit The AR15.Com Store!
Click to expand...

Now instead of gun give aways we could have laser pointer give aways....
Tell me what you guys think. I think that this would be a great way to support this forum.
 





Ears and Eggs

Ears and Eggs

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Well I do like the idea of a rifle give away, but other than that I am not too sure. I'm never too keen on ideas that make people with more money to spare more prestigious. It kinda starts segregating members along lines that are irrelevant. The one thing I could suggest in terms of this would be to have an option, like on many sites, to have a payed subscription that would remove all advertising to those who pay a certain amount each month, other than that I think it's not a great idea to start getting money involved in the forum like that.
 
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nikokapo

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My opinion: No. Absolutely not. The moment you start billing users to browse the forum (or special areas of it), you have lost your forum. I know it has worked on some other forums, but having to pay to enter a website is terrible, especially when this forum has been all about openness.
 
DakotaDaNative

DakotaDaNative

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it would only work if there was a really casual way to pay 2 or 5 bucks now and then like for the stickied "special" parts of the forum. to some people it might seem like a rip off or something like that. soooo no for the billing.
 
GoRdOn_B

GoRdOn_B

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I dont really like the idea much of a pay website.. not that i could afford it either. i dont think that what cold said is such a bad idea about having the "ads" removed for a subscription. but clicking on the ads also helps. (i was once a member of a private "legitimate software" forum that was purely paid for on adsence.) so maybe if anyone cant afford to send real money to the site they could at least click an ad even once a day. im sure that would really help, but dont really see many + sides to the subscription. I really do see a downside to paying for the photo hosting on LPF though. I have seen bandwidth exceeded on imageshack (which is way bigger than what we would ever pay for) on FLM's white fusion pics among other things, I could imagine how slow the site would be with all the traffic on those linked images.

Really all i see with a subscription is not paying to post or read, say... the tutorials section, just the archived stuff. but to use the search button and access the vets area along with 10 megs of image space? (hypothetically)

I think we could pull more revenue to pay for the site by using using imageshack or photobucket for hosting as well as getting a free gmail account * Basically not hogging up server resources that are provided elsewhere for free.. and actually clicking on the ads instead of blocking them out. I think that would contribute as well.
*Just my 2¢
 
iskor12

iskor12

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I think that you guys might not understand how their site is setup. Anyone can be a member for free. You can post just like anyone else can. They just have higher membership levels that will allow you to do more things....including a email account.

It's not intended for someone who pays for a membership to have more respect than those who don't. Also since you would be a paying member of the forum, you would have more of a say so as to how this forum runs. I also think that it would be a nice idea to have a forum section for paying members only.

In the end, it's mainly just a way to help support the forum. Me personally, if we where to have something like this, I would only be in a lower bracket for membership because I can't afford much. I just think that it would be a neat idea....that's all.

Also/.///I think it would be a bad idea to follow their guidlines......What works for their website most likely won't work for us. Rewrite the rules to make it fit this site. It's just a suggestion...that's all. Personally, I could see many of us who would want to be a "Team Member"....
 
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HIMNL9

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^ LOL :D

Sorry, really, but .....

I think this forum is helpful just cause anyone can be here and learn freely ..... can't really see the helpfulness of a "pay only members" section ..... like, excluding from some of the info all those can't afford the subscription quote ? ..... :thinking: :undecided:

And about the support to the forum ..... well, how can i say this ? ..... IF i had enough money, i will be glad to buy the server and left c0ld use it for free ..... unfortunately, my bank account in the last months is gone in the red zone so much times, that i was just able to pay all the legalized robbery (taxes and bills) that i had ..... til now, at least, cause for the next round i think i can't reach also just that :p
 
lasersbee

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The Forum is doing financially fine by last count... as the Admin had stated.

The Haves and Have Nots would just get separated a little further IMO..
We already have a section for the members that have invested time and
effort to Post and help members... You know.... The Vets section..

I'm convinced that any feature that the members here think we need and
could be implemented by the Administration will usually be worked out with
out needing to make a Membership hierarchy payment....

Some members on the Forum have a hard enough time just paying for Laser
parts for their hobby..


Jerry
 
rpaloalto

rpaloalto

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I have to agree, that this doesn't sound like a good idea, at least for this forum anyways.

It would be very discouraging, to new members who often come here for some simple buying advice or build help. Every now and then, a few of them become strong, long term contributing members. I doubt this would continue to happen if we had a class system setup.
You would find them just moving on, after they got what they needed.

Also it could cause Cold more issues. If one of the so called paying gold members turned out to be a darkarmyof1. How would he go about banning a thief if he payed his $60 membership fee for the year?
 
iskor12

iskor12

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To ALL:::All of you have very valid points. Like I said...it was just an idea. :)
 
c0ldshadow

c0ldshadow

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interesting idea but would hoensstly prob never do it b/c of most reasons listed above

forum is in better shape financially, donations always aprpeciated to cover hosting cost, and estimated tax cost, and more than that -- amount of time needed to maintain server & firewall=) *ideally* would be awesome to recv 242/month in donations as that is price of hosting, but if not its not end of the world. i think best to keep things 100% voluntary and no pressure=)

enjoy forum all going 2 sleep for now

peace
-ave
 
Crazy Jay

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I'm with everyone else. This forum doesn't really need any new features other than maybe a link to laserchat on the front page. Or even support for SWF files so I don't have to convert my animations to crappy gif format.
 
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