New Menus?

Those are called forums, threads are within a forum.

They're gone now.

We'll soon have two optional subscribed groups...

Silver Subscribed users currently get the following benefits over Non Subscribed users... "Silver Subscribed" title under your rank to show your support, up to 200 Private Messages can be stored, and access to the private Silver Subscribed Forum. By the end of May the Non Subscribed users will loose posting permissions.

Rossa Subscribed users currently get the following benefits over Non Subscribed users... "Rossa Subscribed" title under your rank to show your support, up to 500 Private Messages can be stored, use of an approved signature, and access to the private Silver & Rossa Subscribed Forums. By the end of May the Non Subscribed users will loose posting permissions.

 

Before someone goes ape and I don't have to explain over again...

1) This will be a slow transition, any changes in direction for the benefit of the community will be made.

2) The non-subscribed usergroup, which everyone but me and moderators are part of right now will not loose any permissions for over two months.

3) Eventually more permissions will be added to the subscribed groups, there's really no reason to sign up for them in the short term unless you want more PM space, a signature, or you just want to support the site.

4) There will also be two new usergroups called Consultant and Sponsor. Both of those will have Silver Subscribed privileges, but it will be free. We're not going to loose any of our experts.

 

I made a mistake in my post. The Unsubscribed users will lose some permissions by end of May, not necessarily posting permissions.

Yes and no. There will be optional subscriptions. Unsubscribed users will have less permissions, but will still be part of the community. Moderators, Consultants, and Sponsors won't pay anything, but still have the additional permissions. So I wouldn't call it a pay site.

You can search to find the 12-18 month evolution of the discussion. However, to put it simply it's the economics of time and money. For every additional user I have X amount of additional work. The community has gone from a hobby to consuming me all the time. Subscriptions will always guarantee that the economics of time and money work out. If we go back to 100 users, then great, it will just require the original time I required as a hobby. If it still grows 800 users a month, then there will be the resources to bring in help, keep the quality of the site high, and to have added value to the users.

I corrected this above. I meant to say non-subscribers will have less permissions by end of May. As the site evolves I really can't tell you if that will include posting permissions. The strong demand from users for a subscribed site was to improve the quality and that could only happen by not allowing posting privileges.

Thanks,
rob