What do you think of the is it normal gold membership?

Haha, I had to Google that word.

This comment has some good questions and critiques, so I think I'll use it as a springboard to discuss a few things that I feel I should share with all of you about IIN Gold and IIN in general.

First, I'll discuss what this money can do to benefit the site and why I decided to try this premium thing out...

I'm a web-developer/programmer/designer/etc. I think I'm pretty good at what I do. There are companies (FB, Google, various startups) that are trying to recruit me and would pay me quite well to work for them. It's a good time to have these skills. Everyone's hiring.

But, for the last couple of months I've decided to work on IIN full time for the first time ever. This has a very large opportunity cost in terms of lost salary. But, I love this site, and really want to find a way to be able to devote a lot more time to improving it and growing it. I felt it was starting to die in the absence of progress and I decided to eat into my savings and see what I could do if I went all in.

I hope many of you have noticed that the last couple months have brought lots of improvements to the site, and at a much faster pace than usual (notifications, better polls, easier post submission, comment editing, better threaded comments, comment permalinks, a hugely improved mobile site, streamlined design and navigation, posts needing love, most popular posts, nicer footer, improved page load times, and more...) Previously, I was only able to work on minor improvements during my free time and the site wasn't quite able to keep up with your demands. Large features were out of the question.

I want to be able to keep working on this thing full time, or at least part time, but the amount of money I get from ads barely makes up for sever and moderation costs, if at all. Unfortunately the content on IIN isn't the type of stuff that big brand advertisers want to be associated with. Merchandise is an option, but the numbers just don't seem to add up.

So, if I want to be able to keep working on the site, there has to be a new revenue stream that can bring in some money. IIN Gold seemed like the best solution and other similar sites, like Reddit and Fark, have tried the same thing and supposedly it has worked out well for the owners and for the users.

I tried to come up with a set of features that wouldn't detract from the current experience, but would only enhance it for paying members and would give them an extra bonus for helping to support the site. Building these new features took a lot of time and effort. If I still had a regular job, they never would have happened at all. IIN Gold basically needs to pay for their development. And, if it goes well I'll be able to keep adding features and generally improving things going forward, for both regular users and paying members.

I'd love to be able to do that. Otherwise I have to go get a regular job again, ugh, and IIN will suffer as a result.

So, at the risk of sharing too much, that's some of the background behind all this...

Second point of discussion... I knew the "move to the front of the line" feature would be the most controversial one, and I gave it a lot of thought before adding it. You're right to question it.

Let me explain why I think it's not going to detract from the experience of the non-gold members, and we can discuss further once you've read my piece.

1) The number of members that get IIN Gold will be relatively small. Just a small bunch out of the tens of thousands of members that we have.

2) The number of posts by those few Gold members will also be relatively small. Just a few a day, vs. well over a hundred in total. Most Gold members will be regulars that focus on commenting, PMing and the member chat. They'll def. ask questions, but not at huge volumes.

3) The nature of my moderator's schedules is that they tend to moderate posts in a couple of large chunks, a couple of times a day, usually after work (I can't afford to hire anyone full time). When this happens, they'll moderate the Gold posts and nearly all of the regular ones at roughly the same time. A few gold posts at the front of the line will only delay the others by a min. or two.

4) I periodically (and my moderators too sometimes) moderate a few posts here and there throughout the day when I have the time. This is where the Gold members will have an advantage and their posts have a good shot of going out faster. But, if not for this new policy, only a few regular posts would have gotten moderated instead. The vast majority would still have to wait for the large 'end of day' chunk by the moderators and their wait time will be essentially unchanged from what it used to be.

5) Before IIN Gold, a person got zero input on their post until it was moderated. No votes, no comments, nada. But, with the new system they will be able to get the benefit of comments and votes from all the IIN Gold members *immediately*. That's pretty cool, and definitely benefits regular members. Many of the gold members are already proving to be some of our most active, and most helpful members and I think that trend will continue.

6) IIN Gold members have already been asking if they can assist with the moderation duties now that they have access to the un-moderated posts. I definitely want to pursue this, and if we get enough people involved I think there will definitely be a way to solicit their feedback about new posts in a way that can help us to moderate them faster and more effectively.

So, I have a feeling that the average wait time will not change much at all, and hopefully the data will back that up in the days and weeks to come. If it turns out that it's way off, I'll def. consider changing this feature. But, I think the benefits will outweigh the drawbacks in the long run.

That's all I have to say for now... Thanks for reading.

thats how youtube is.

how did you know? 0.o

Uh oh, asked for suggestions by The Management, pressure is on. :P

I remember a while back I saw a post about how you lost your dude for mobile support, it would be awesome to see the app maintained again in the future.

I know reddit does flair and badges and stuff like that, could possibly be a fun addition?

Im struggling to think of anything else right now though. D:

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3oces2/

Ya I don't speak freaky deaky dutch.

^_^

haha no. it was purchased for me by the lovely lc.. she is such a sweetheart! i love her to bits!!