R/C Tech Upgrade FAQ

[futureal]

Hi all,

I am going to use this thread to field comments and questions regarding our new software upgrade. There are going to be a number of changes to the site and how things work.

So, stay tuned to this thread!

[futureal]

One thing I forgot to mention in the announcement is that we will be adding a "Nitro Off-Road" forum and renaming the existing one to "Electric Off-Road." We'll try to move as many of the threads as we can (the more active ones) to the appropriate forum but that may take some time.

[swopemike]

Do you know what the subscription price will be?

[futureal]

The tentative plan is $2.99 a month with an annual discount. But that is not set in stone just yet.

It will be a recurring billing via Paypal, and the user can of course cancel at any time.

The annual "gift" will be given to all current subscribers at the time, as well as those who subscribed for more than half the year.

[Nova F1 Racer]

Cool.... I think it's a good idea for the upgrade and if people want to pay for more they can or if they don't they won't be forced too...

Is there a spell checker by any chance????

[timmay70]

Originally Posted by futureal

The tentative plan is $2.99 a month with an annual discount. But that is not set in stone just yet.

It will be a recurring billing via Paypal, and the user can of course cancel at any time.

The annual "gift" will be given to all current subscribers at the time, as well as those who subscribed for more than half the year.

Originally Posted by futureal

I know there are some who will be extremely unhappy about these changes, particularly the change to signatures. We have fielded a lot of feedback over the years about the length of signatures, and more recently about the commercial content of many signatures. As a result, only subscribed users will be able to add "markup" to their signatures, and there will be absolutely no commercial links allowed from anybody, subscribed or otherwise (no stores, auctions, sales, etc).

As the site continues to grow, we are trying our best to keep costs under control without force-feeding advertising to everybody. We're also trying to keep banner space affordable for many of the small-scale companies in the industry who can't afford more traditional (and expensive) forms of advertising.

A couple of questions regarding the previous...

What constitutes commercial content? The inclusion of sponsors, race announcements? Links to commercial threads on this forum? Just curious.

Also, I made the comment earlier in another thread about the future of this forum, and will ask again. Last time I got blasted by other readers and never really got a straight answer. Will I have the opportunity to pay for a 'premium' subscription that would allow me to opt out of extraneous advertising? I figure that IF I pay the extra for the forum, supporting the potential loss of a click through, I could opt out of the extras without hurting the forum.. Actually, you'd make out in the end, as I never really click banner ads anyway, and you'd be getting revenue.

Great forum, keep up the good work.

tim

[rmdhawaii]

Female Announcer:

"For just 10 cents a day, you can keep an R/C forum going. Won't you please help?"



You have my support. Running a successful forum like this must cost a small fortune - and given how much content that is stored and all the features we are provided with, 10 cents a day is next to nothing.

Thanks for providing us with such a great Web site.

Rainer

[futureal]

Originally Posted by Nova F1 Racer

Is there a spell checker by any chance????

There isn't a built-in one available for the forum to my knowledge, although I will add that to my list of things to look into. I know there are services I can integrate (usually for a cost and/or extra ads) but they seemed kind of clunky.

[futureal]

Originally Posted by timmay70

What constitutes commercial content? The inclusion of sponsors, race announcements? Links to commercial threads on this forum? Just curious.

Sponsors are fine, race announcements are fine. I should have said "retail" more than "commercial" I suppose. Links to elsewhere on this site are generally fine, though I'd prefer not to see "I am selling such-and-such, click here." When I scroll through threads these days I see a lot of links in sigs to things for sale, eBay auctions, peoples' online stores, and so on. It's not so much the links I mind, it's that some people--a minority, for sure--try to cram as much self-serving stuff in there as they can.

Also, I made the comment earlier in another thread about the future of this forum, and will ask again. Last time I got blasted by other readers and never really got a straight answer. Will I have the opportunity to pay for a 'premium' subscription that would allow me to opt out of extraneous advertising? I figure that IF I pay the extra for the forum, supporting the potential loss of a click through, I could opt out of the extras without hurting the forum.. Actually, you'd make out in the end, as I never really click banner ads anyway, and you'd be getting revenue.

This is sort of a touchy subject for some, for sure. It's kind of a double-edged thing. I don't expect subscription revenue to support the site, in fact I suspect we'll probably get about 100 helpful people and that's about it. I could be very wrong, but that's my gut feeling. If we do make ads an opt-out type of thing for subscribers, it really risks upsetting the advertisers who by and large support the site. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't be here.

On the flip side, I am not completely opposed to it either. I suspect there will be so few subscribers that it won't particularly impact the ads themselves. I would need to re-code the new templates based on usergroup selection which would be a somewhat lengthy task.

In other words, I won't say yes but I won't say no either. Let me give it some thought and see how things flesh out in the first few weeks here.

Regarding the clicking of ads, I'm actually a firm believer that the most "value" in a web advertisement is from people seeing it, not necessarily from clicking on it. An RC company will spend $1000 a month for a page in a magazine that is often nothing more than a logo and a photo of a product. They hope that 30 or 40 or 50 thousand people will see their logo and remember it the next time they are at a store and making a buying decision. The focus on web banners is always conversions on the click-through to retail stores, which is certainly valuable... but I think a greater value just comes from getting a company some exposure.

[Wolverini]

I would like to be in the group of people that were the first to say "thank you". RCTech.net has been a great place for not just socialization but also a place that many of us buy/sell things in this hobby. The consistant work from moderators is never fully appreciated but to those that give a damn it's priceless. (Ads to sell us phones and such)

As a buyer/seller one thing comes to mind right off the bat. Many buyers/sellers link a set of words like "RCTech Feedback" to easily take a viewer to his/her feedback. In the world of RCTech that is invaluable to most users. New guys to the site and/or the internet are effortlessly taken to comments about that user. To eliminate that 'feature' seems like it may create some caos in your mailbox. I can accept that any change for the good may cause colateral damage in some areas but this particular 'feature' has always been a convenient way to help us in our online dealings with other people we know only by an RCTech username. The "warning" system is a SMOKING GREAT idea! As well as the 'rating' system similar to sleeze-bay's. For us in the hobby that know of both ebay and 'Tech we chose 'Tech first EVERY time and THEN we move to the slums of the net. My only concern is that "IF" there is a way to preserve this one ability then it might be something to concider. If it involves coding/recoding a 'plugin' to vbulletin then screw it. It just might be something noteworthy to add to the buy/sell agreement that it's 'Tech's advice to include such a link in the ad/request.

Anything that helps RCTech has my support. As soon as I see a way to pay you for the internet environment you've provided me then you can consider my contribution paid in full (or monthly/annually as you determine). I want to personally thank you once again for providing this site and making it what it is today. NOTHING on the internet comes close to what RCTech.net has become. You should be proud and "for all that you do...this Bud is for you".

Wolverini

[vtl1180ny]

Originally Posted by Nova F1 Racer

Is there a spell checker by any chance????

Use Firefox, problem solved, it has one built into the browser and it doesn't suck like IE does...

[futureal]

Originally Posted by Wolverini

As a buyer/seller one thing comes to mind right off the bat. Many buyers/sellers link a set of words like "RCTech Feedback" to easily take a viewer to his/her feedback. In the world of RCTech that is invaluable to most users. New guys to the site and/or the internet are effortlessly taken to comments about that user. To eliminate that 'feature' seems like it may create some caos in your mailbox.

We will now have a built in feedback section on a per-user basis, and a link to your feedback rating will appear under your name when you post. It's a more "formal" rating system, basically, rather than just a link to a thread.

I may see if I can track down some moderators who are willing to help port over old feedback to this new system if that is possible, so that people can maintain their existing stuff. Or perhaps a profile link field where they can enter a link to their existing RC Tech feedback.

Thanks!

[more$thanbrains]

we have to pay for r/ctech with paypal

i dont have paypal

am i SOL

[James]

love the proposed changes, and more than happy to contribute...

Totally want an r/c tech t-shirt! hehe

wonder if it's possible for paying supporters to have no ads when on the site? I know i support some other forums that have this kind of setup. If not, no big deal.... ads keep the site going!

James

[futureal]

I will be looking for alternate ways to pay. One option was to sell subscription blocks via Ampdraw, which has full CC processing capabilities. We will definitely not be exclusive to Paypal, it's just the easiest way to get it going in the short term.