misteraven Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 Going to open this one up as a thread. Anyhow, this has been a conversation with some members and moderators and thought I'd formalize it into a conversation. You older members remember when the Dirty Dozen was a paid VIP upgrade for 12oz. Besides being a little something extra to help support the forum, it allowed access to a private section that made it a cool place to connect with the people that were truly at the core of the community, as well as escape some of the noise and madness from the public sections. Though I personally don't feel that the forum at large has grown to the point that anybody would need to 'escape' the noise and madness, especially considering we now have a groups section that never previously existed, I have gotten a lot of questions about how to get back into VIP and a few moderators also hitting me up that members have asked. Anyhow, it's been an on again, off again conversation since I think there's other priorities, but since I just got hit up again, I thought I'd ask all you guys what you thought. My thought on the new, improved VIP is that I'd work up a forum specific graphic and print up tees to specifically celebrate the forum. Not necessarily like the reunion tee, but who knows... I haven't had time to think about it much and come up with a concept for it yet. Anyhow, we'd have the forum tee that could only be bought on the forum itself. The forum software does have a transaction feature we havent been using that allows for credit card and paypal payments, as well as triggers for things you can do on the forum with the way transactions are configured. So for example... if you buy a forum tee, you automatically get an account upgrade that changes the color of your username on the forum to show that you supported and then bumps you into a new account group that allows access to a new private forum and also gives you unlimited attachment / upload space. That's basically how the new VIP system would work. Nice thing about it (and hopefully not overly confusing) is that all of this would exist on the forum and not the 12oz shop. That way its a little more directional since there's a lot of new people that are into the tees and patches and stuff, but haven't crossed over to the forum. I am working (slowly) on a redevelopment of the 12ozProphet website that'll both better represent the brand, as well as better integrate the facets of what is 12ozProphet, but personally I find something kind of cool about the idea of a shop and a sort of underground market place that lives on the forum. Matter of fact, I was also exploring the idea of this 'underground marketplace' that would live on the forum as a place where I could put stuff for sale that I really didn't want to put on the shop officially. I still have a big storage with a ton of stuff left over from the 7th Heaven / Four The Hardway mailorder days like deadstock tees from brands we carried, lot of old graffiti supplies, posters, old books etc. I was also going to supplement that with stuff I've collected including doubles of old graff magazines, small artworks and other one offs, as well as maybe work with a few people to put together a curated assortment of stuff ranging from artwork to vintage spraypaint cans etc. Anyhow, getting off topic, but that's just a bit of what I was planning. That being said, I have a ton on my plate as I'm sure you guys have noticed. We're just about at the point of tipping the screenprinting company over and seeing more frequent work that is also getting bigger and bigger. There's a good many conversations that are in regards to huge corporate gigs that will have a dramatic effect on that side of the business, and in turn, facilitate a lot that I've been sitting on wanting to do with 12oz for lack of proper funding and resources. The forum is obviously an important and core facet of 12ozProphet and will also start to see some benefit as things loosen up and I have a bit more to work with. So thought I'd ask you guys about VIP and share a little of whats happening behind the scenes. Thoughts, questions, feedback? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kults Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 Personally don’t think it’s worth it. Only a handful of us post regularly to begin with. At this stage of the rebuilding process I just don’t see the value in further splitting up the community. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morton Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 I bought in about a decade ago and then let the subscription lapse without renewal. I enjoyed the more relaxed stance that people took with the firewall to the general public, but as use has gone down I am skeptical that there is enough traffic to justify breaking out the conversation. As an old Tinychat head I think that a self deleting chat room would be fun time killer which could operate on credentialed entry. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dirty_habiT Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 I think if it's a way of showing who has purchased things from the store that could be cool. Like a logo or a name color change would be nice for those that have supported the site. I don't know that a "paid private section" of the forum would make sense at this point though. Maybe when everyone on the planet is tired of these shit bag social media sites and they all return back to communities where they can share like interests it would make sense. But, with everyone using instagram and facebook to talk to people they don't know I think it'd be hard to put a price on private communications.... just for the time being. 12oz paid Tinder can make a come back at some point in the future I think. @morton- that's an excellent idea to have a chat room. One thing you want to be careful of though, and I know this from personal experience, is that if you give people a chat room the discussion typically moves off the forum onto the chat room. So I think a small scroll back limit (maybe 100 or so chat messages) and a self deleting history/no logs would be a great plan for a chat room. To keep it "cheap" enough to not pull people away from discussing things in the forum. It could be used for things like "hey shit birds, go check out this new post I made -> __link___".... you know that kind of thing. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
misteraven Posted February 12, 2020 Author Share Posted February 12, 2020 12 minutes ago, Dirty_habiT said: I don't know that a "paid private section" of the forum would make sense at this point though. Maybe when everyone on the planet is tired of these shit bag social media sites and they all return back to communities where they can share like interests it would make sense. But, with everyone using instagram and facebook to talk to people they don't know I think it'd be hard to put a price on private communications.... just for the time being. Yeah, I doubt many, if any, people are going to pay anything just to get into a private section with the way things are now and likely to be for the next while. But I would think that quite a few people will buy a forum tee since everyone seems to keep asking for them and the upside of buying that tee would be some extra access and privilege / features on the forum. Sort of round about way to VIP, but really its more a matter of if people want a forum tee and then me adding some extras that go along with it that I assume nobody is going to complain about since in reality they're spending money for a tee. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KILZ FILLZ Posted February 13, 2020 Share Posted February 13, 2020 On 2/12/2020 at 7:24 AM, misteraven said: My thought on the new, improved VIP is that I'd work up a forum specific graphic and print up tees to specifically celebrate the forum. Not necessarily like the reunion tee, but who knows... I haven't had time to think about it much and come up with a concept for it yet. Anyhow, we'd have the forum tee that could only be bought on the forum itself. The forum software does have a transaction feature we havent been using that allows for credit card and paypal payments, as well as triggers for things you can do on the forum with the way transactions are configured. Matter of fact, I was also exploring the idea of this 'underground marketplace' that would live on the forum as a place where I could put stuff for sale that I really didn't want to put on the shop officially. I still have a big storage with a ton of stuff left over from the 7th Heaven / Four The Hardway mailorder days like deadstock tees from brands we carried, lot of old graffiti supplies, posters, old books etc. I was also going to supplement that with stuff I've collected including doubles of old graff magazines, small artworks and other one offs, as well as maybe work with a few people to put together a curated assortment of stuff ranging from artwork to vintage spraypaint cans etc. Anyhow, getting off topic, but that's just a bit of what I was planning. Tees with prints of the old forum from Wayback Machine would be tight. The one with giants room stands out to me. deadstock Fosho 👌 👍 👌 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mercer Posted February 13, 2020 Share Posted February 13, 2020 I feel like the private groups are enough, I'd just make VIP a private group then invite all the VIP accounts if possible. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schnitzel Posted February 14, 2020 Share Posted February 14, 2020 On 2/13/2020 at 1:54 AM, misteraven said: Matter of fact, I was also exploring the idea of this 'underground marketplace' that would live on the forum as a place where I could put stuff for sale that I really didn't want to put on the shop officially. I still have a big storage with a ton of stuff left over from the 7th Heaven / Four The Hardway mailorder days like deadstock tees from brands we carried, lot of old graffiti supplies, posters, old books etc. I was also going to supplement that with stuff I've collected including doubles of old graff magazines, small artworks and other one offs, as well as maybe work with a few people to put together a curated assortment of stuff ranging from artwork to vintage spraypaint cans etc. Anyhow, getting off topic, but that's just a bit of what I was planning. if you're punting off old mags I'll be right in there. Love the old marketplace section idea. Think The VIP group is a great idea and saves the need to rebuild the VIP section for the time being.I always paid for VIP because the fees were a way to give back to 12oz which gave me 1000's of hours of entertainment for almost free. But strangely also think that as you're trying to rebuild the user base anything that divides users up is a no-no for incoming users. A vip section in a club is only cool when it's packed to the rafters otherwise it's a bit silly when it's empty 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KILZ FILLZ Posted February 15, 2020 Share Posted February 15, 2020 Hall of Fane section ‘read only’ for all but VIP members can post and bump threads Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moe Szyslak Posted February 16, 2020 Share Posted February 16, 2020 You should plus lemme get in there. 😁 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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