Regarding Dislike buttons, I'd say no. That would be easily weaponised. The triggered one is okay but I've been in a few forums where its introduction made the forum a nastier place.Add a dislike button and some new emojis, make it all exclusive to neogaf gold/patreon subs. Custom avatars and signatures?
Set up a Patreon and Affilliate links for gaming sites, whenever there's steam/epic/gog/greenmangaming deals make sure people have easy access to those links maybe a sticky? either way, you can make it mandatory to share those ref links, maybe even make a sticky in the gaming community with a weekly gaming deals thread, im sure many users will pop in to share stuff on sale/use the gaf reflink. Wario64 monetized his twitter account by sharing deals, no reason Neogaf can't make some money.
I'm not a fan of monetizing moderation things like bans and stuff, but maybe gold members/patreon supporters can get the benefit of disputing the ban/get a second chance like that thread we used to have? I wouldn't really like a system where you can buy "lives" or make it "p2w" but having the benefit of exposing your case/apologizing/making a compromise seems alright to me.
GAF Podcast/News roundup thread/video. Basically bite sized information one the biggest news of the week to try and drive more traffic instead of having all the news scattered around.
GAF buy in competitions of popular games, with prizes. say $5 entry and the winner gets a $100 psn/amazon/xbox gift card. Same with contests of content creation and other miscellaneous activities.
GAF Referral system, you can earn gold or in-forum rewards for referring new users that use your link or code to sign up on GAF, also new gold subscribers. We can come up with a set of perks to earn.
Marketplace fees? Currently there's not much activity in the marketplace but we could look into increasing that and then can offer maybe mediation services for a fee? Not sure if it can even be automated. OPT IN only, not mandatory.
Buy in raffles for game keys/physical goodies/ Neogaf merch etc
Console Warrior of the month award - patreon supporters and gold users vote on who has been the most dedicated console warrior during the month while also managing to escape a ban. The winner gets a turd emoji next to their profile and a 3 day ban as their prize. (LOL)
I'll post more ideas as they come.
Plus the aim should just be that every member is capable of having a mature discussion about any platform, even if they don’t own the platform. I’m not sure how segregating anything helps. Everyone knows who the offenders are on both sides, they hold grudges against their counterparts and constantly descend on similar threads (sales/first party discussion/concern threads etc). To be honest I’m sick of all of them but they know how to walk the line to avoid a ban. We also don’t see the number of warnings some of the worst offenders get. To be honest some people have 9 lives here, as they get many temporary bans before getting perma banned (if at all). How do you fix that problem? I have no idea to be honest, they all need to grow up a little bit.The issue is traffic. This site just doesn't get enough traffic to justify platform specific forums. Just look at the Communities section and how little activity there is.
When you’re making an archive nobody keeps EVERYTHING. So form a free committee from members to decide what 5-15% of all the database is actual history. Nobody needs threads upon threads of troll in-fighting, there’s no value to that, most of it is circular logic, worthless ad hominem and childish.Sure, it would save some money, but that would suck. There's a ton of internet history in the post database that should be preserved forever. Not worth the tradeoff. Shifting it to an archive would also be detrimental to organic traffic and so forth.
We really can’t do many of these suggestions with 300 daily members. We need more and new eyes on the forum, which means expanding to things like a podcast.The issue is traffic. This site just doesn't get enough traffic to justify platform specific forums. Just look at the Communities section and how little activity there is.
EviLore
- Affiliate Marketing
- I saw you said something about affiliating with GreenManGaming/Humble Bundle/et cetera. Affiliate marketing is definitely a good way to go.
- Multiple Subscription Tiers
- NeoGAF Bronze
- $1/month or $10/year
- Bronze Rank banner
- Bronze Member title
- NeoGAF Silver
- $3/month or $30/year
- Silver Rank banner
- Silver username and Silver Member title
- NeoGAF Gold
- $5/month or $50/year
- Gold Rank banner
- Gold username and Gold Member title
- Ad-free browsing
- Instant updates (beta)
- Custom profile cover
- Special achievement
- NeoGAF Platinum
- $10/month or $100/year
- Platinum Rank Banner
- Platinum Member title
- Username styling via CSS (can change own username color and effects)
- Ad-free browsing
- Instant updates (beta)
- Custom profile cover
- Special achievement
- Decreased time between PM/DM to 30 seconds.
- NeoGAF Diamond
- $15/month or $150/year
- Diamond Rank Banner
- Custom member title
- Defaults to Diamond Member title
- Username styling via CSS (can change own username color and effects)
- Member title styling via CSS (can change own member title color and effects)
- Ad-free browsing
- Instant updates (beta)
- Custom profile cover
- Special achievement
- Access to Politics Forum
- The user is not immune from warnings or bans, and the moderation team would still be allowed to (and also encouraged to) moderate far-left and far-right posts.
- If the user is banned from Politics Forum there will be no refund issued for their NeoGAF Diamond membership regardless of whether it was a monthly or yearly membership, or how much time was left in the membership
- Decreased time between PM/DM to 10 seconds.
- NeoGAF Store
- NeoGAF branded merchandise (such as coffee cups, hoodies, tumblers, key rings, et cetera) could be sold directly through a store page.
- Monthly/Bi-Monthly/Yearly competitions could be held to win free merchandise.
- Single Payment Services
- Change username for a one-time fee of $10. (Admin/mod would manually change this, and it must be an approved username.)
- Change user title for a one-time fee of $10. (Admin/mod would manually change this, and it must be an approved user title.)
- Temporarily ban another member for 24 hours for a one-time $25 fee.
- Once a member has been banned this way they cannot be banned with this method again for at least 30 days.
- If the member who is banned this way has an existing subscription they should be credited for that day.
I don't know how easy some of these things (especially the store) would be to implement, but they certainly open the door for more monetization options. All of these are merely suggestions, and you could ignore, modify, or implement these features as you see fit. Best of luck!
Aren’t podcasts a bit old school?We really can’t do many of these suggestions with 300 daily members. We need more and new eyes on the forum, which means expanding to things like a podcast.
When I say podcast I’m talking about a weekly video show on YouTube and Rumble with clips of it on places like TikTok.Aren’t podcasts a bit old school?
We really can’t do many of these suggestions with 300 daily members. We need more and new eyes on the forum, which means expanding to things like a podcast.
Plus the aim should just be that every member is capable of having a mature discussion about any platform, even if they don’t own the platform. I’m not sure how segregating anything helps. Everyone knows who the offenders are on both sides, they hold grudges against their counterparts and constantly descend on similar threads (sales/first party discussion/concern threads etc). To be honest I’m sick of all of them but they know how to walk the line to avoid a ban. We also don’t see the number of warnings some of the worst offenders get. To be honest some people have 9 lives here, as they get many temporary bans before getting perma banned (if at all). How do you fix that problem? I have no idea to be honest, they all need to grow up a little bit.
Aren’t podcasts a bit old school?
How about we do a NeoGAF News on YouTube? We could have Ass of Can Whooping and Bo_Hazem as the two news anchors and they could round up the days news;
Which tit has been banned today? Stay tuned to find out.
Plus we have an exclusive in depth interview with NeoGAF cult hero ByranK.
Now on to today’s most popular thread, ‘who has the most poggers ass; Aloy or that man from Returnal?’
I think there’s potential.
We'll do a Q&A session to answer Gaf's burning questions such as;
Why is EviLore such a cunt
or
Why do green rats have such shit tastes in consoles
It'd be great
Aren’t podcasts a bit old school?
How about we do a NeoGAF News on YouTube? We could have Ass of Can Whooping and Bo_Hazem as the two news anchors and they could round up the days news;
Which tit has been banned today? Stay tuned to find out.
Plus we have an exclusive in depth interview with NeoGAF cult hero ByranK.
Now on to today’s most popular thread, ‘who has the most poggers ass; Aloy or that man from Returnal?’
I think there’s potential.
Shuteye, total Bullshit, he's off to Vegas with all the new cash.Almost 10am, better get a bit of shuteye. I’ll be back to continue the discussion. The responses have all been seriously heartwarming, thanks guys. Solid feedback and ideas coming in, too.
Go beyond the web, book with the best funny replies of the history neogaf related to the big moments of the gaming industry. A view of gaming history by neogaf posters
This and youtube shorts would probably be an easier way to reach new people.NeoGAF TikTok
Yup and it doesn’t really take much to do. Would be a great way to expand GAF and bring new people here. Once a YT channel gets to 1000 subs it can be monetized and then offer things like memberships.This and youtube shorts would probably be an easier way to reach new people.
Also needs 4000 hours watch time within the last 12 months.Once a YT channel gets to 1000 subs it can be monetized and then offer things like memberships.
That’s easy to get with long video podcasts though.Also needs 4000 hours watch time within the last 12 months.
I wouldn't even mind a reminder like the majority of sites are doing to let you know that you have ad block on and removing it would really help the site.The minimum we could all do is to turn off adblock.
You should do it for free. If I still had my site traffic I would.EviLore I run a Gaming Website with almost 10K Subscribers on YouTube. If your looking for maybe some advertising or get you sponsored we can discuss a few things if you are interested. Another option is to do a video for it that would be tailored for your needs/wants or I may also put up a NeoGaf banner on our site on the homepage for a rental monthly fee that links to the forum page.
I also run Google ads, Facebook and been quite successful at it. Let me know if your interested.
It sounds like alot of his costs is based around storage.It’s always been tough to monetize forums, but right now is about as tough as it’s ever been for GAF since we have a huge post history that requires a lot of server power to keep it all integrated
Sorry if I’m being a dumb dumb but would purging everything prior to 2021 help bring costs down?
How much does NeoGAF Gold contribute? But yes, add a way to donate.Give a way to people to make donations. Have a campaign once every year where you ask people to participate.
My bloody debit card was stolen today... can i have a list of your shopping purchases today, thank you very much.I will help you bear this burden, as long as it is yours to bear.
You have my debit card!
GAF directs a lot of traffic to storefronts and is a significant influence in many people's purchasing decisions, so it seems only fair that a GAF-owned affiliate code can get attached to links so that you get a cut too.We could put up some affiliate links that users could click on for, say, GreenManGaming, HumbleBundle, or other legitimate game vendors with affiliate programs. GAF would get a percentage of sales without any cost to users. Was something we did a long time ago.
GAF directs a lot of traffic to storefronts and is a significant influence in many people's purchasing decisions, so it seems only fair that a GAF-owned affiliate code can get attached to links so that you get a cut too.
Is there a way for Amazon links to be automatically recognized and parsed to include a GAF affiliate code as well?