Premium Service [COMPLETED]

Premium Service!

Jcink Forum Hosting will always be primarily a free forum hosting service. We're not planning on changing that. And we're still going to be dedicated to bringing you as many free features as possible.

However, sometimes it just isn't possible to offer certain features for free due to abuse, system resources, or content restrictions based on our advertising service (Adsense).

Additionally, some users have expressed that although the pay-as-you-go ad removal is nice, they would rather pay a flat fee monthly than have to deal with ad credits.

This is why we're currently developing a premium service option. It's a monthly package with a set fee that makes your board ad-free, as well as provides additional benefits.

Benefits of having a premium board could include these features we're looking at finalizing. This is not a final list of what will be included, but here it is nonetheless:

- 2GB of media and data storage (attachment space).

More space for everything, self explanatory.

- Less restrictive Terms of Service

This has been a big draw for premium service. Because the forum will have no ads permanently, content intended for mature audiences will be permitted. It will be properly controllable via added Admin CP features such as being able to designate certain forums as 18+ and requiring to enter birthday information, etc to keep it all legal.

- Bulk email everyone from the forum itself unlocked

Because new boards can be made so easily, spam from the bulk mail system is a problem to give to free users. Users could still pay and spam, but it'll be a lot more controlled.

- Allow own Google Ads / advertising

This is already allowed if you purchase ad removal and will be allowed if you have premium as well, but we might make it possible to enter an adsense publisher ID number that will override ours and put yours where we normally run our advertising, if you so choose.

There will be only ONE premium package, with no restrictions on number of users online at one time or bandwidth limitations. Pricing is not finalized, so please don't ask about that right now.

Questions and comments should be posted in this development progress thread. We'd like to hear some things you think would be good features for a premium level service, or what you'd want to see.

** Note **

We've been hearing reports that some people are spreading that this is the "end of the free service." This is simply not true and in time it will make sense. We're not going to start piling new major upcoming features such as the Like system, the change poster / post as modification, status updates, etc into premium and expect users to start paying for everything. That is not what this is for. This package is for those who want to legitimately run a forum with less restrictions and enjoy a few bonus benefits of features that we can't easily provide for everyone for free rather than just not provide them at all.

The free service is, and always will be our focus. Premium is just an added extra feature for those who want more.

Would the '(Jcink.com Free Forum Hosting)' link at the bottom of the forums be removed on the paid service?

I like all that you proposed so far. This may be something I'd consider for my forum down the road once I get a better idea of the pricing.

QUOTE (Chazz871 @ Jan 10 2013, 03:02 PM)

Would the '(Jcink.com Free Forum Hosting)'  link at the bottom of the forums be removed on the paid service?    I like all that you proposed so far.  This may be something I'd consider for my forum down the road once I get a better idea of the pricing.

Since the ads would not be present you would be able to go to your System Settings where it has an option to remove that and do so without it causing any issues. Since the only repercussion now to turning that off is it increasing ad size, with no ads for it to increase in size then it will do nothing when you turn it off.

As for it automatically being turned off on the Premium Service I don't think that will be a default setting as most people do not care much about it saying that in the copyright and your URL gives away you're on Jcink Forum Hosting regardless.

Since you mentioned it, I might just remove it anyway if a board's in premium mode. If someone's paying for our premium service, they don't need to see our branding in the footer. (although if they're too cheap to buy a domain name, then... )

As nice as it would be to remove though, the invision power copyright line must always stay of course.

Can't you remove the Jcink Free Forum Hosting already?

Yeah you can in system settings with the larger ad penalty, but as pointed out if someone did that while using premium there would be no ad penalty.

QUOTE (GMaster479 @ Jan 10 2013, 04:16 PM)

Can't you remove the Jcink Free Forum Hosting already?

As already stated here, yes you can:

QUOTE (Crystal @ Jan 10 2013, 03:38 PM)

Since the ads would not be present you would be able to go to your System Settings where it has an option to remove that and do so without it causing any issues. Since the only repercussion now to turning that off is it increasing ad size, with no ads for it to increase in size then it will do nothing when you turn it off.

It causes an increase in ad size when you do, so when they have the automatic ad removal through premium removing it will cause nothing to happen, as was also stated.

Okay, because some people seem to not understand the point of this based on what I've been hearing, I updated the first post of this thread. I did not think it would cause as much of a stir as it did, but it has.

I'm literally in the process of trying to upgrade to a premium package with a few additional features for my site. This premium package would be my #1 choice, but I have to weigh it against timing. Is there a date this will become available to current members of the free service?

I'm looking to get this out as soon as possible, preferably mid-feb or sooner. I'm actively working on the billing system right now for it.

This is great news!! Thank you. I'll be waiting for this release.

I would really enjoy that ad feature, especially the being able to enable our own adsense thing to sell advertising space easily.


A Few Questions:

Would this be a one-time upgrade or a monthly fee?
Would there be a way to ensure less downtime/more protection from DDoS attacks with this service or is that something out of your control?
I don't mind maintenance downtime and stuff from storms, but the attacks are really frustrating some of my members.
Will there be any other features, like dice rollers or something added on as options?
Will it change current skins' coding at all and force us to re-skin, or simply an inner-workings kind of package?

1. It's a month to month plan.

2. No, that is not within our control. And it has only become a problem again in the last week or so after not happening since August, but it's really frustrating for us too being unable to do anything about it easily.

We're sort of in a tough situation with these last series of attacks right now and it will take some time to work on in the background. Nonetheless, will we always protect both free and premium boards equally when it comes to security.

3. We might add a few other things, though the list in the first post is really what we're looking at offering.

4. Nope, skins and the structure all stay the exact same.

1. Will there be a way to potentially purchase multiple months at once like cbox does for their premium features, like 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, et cetera?

2. Fair enough. Good luck with them. I'm glad to hear at least that the free boards will not be slighted in terms of security and such in favor of those who pay money, though. :3

3 & 4: Thanks!


EDIT: Can there be a feature soon or maybe with this upgrade for automatic receipts letting PM senders know when their message has been opened/read?

This post has been edited by Rosalieart: Jan 12 2013, 04:21 PM

1. Yes, you can pay in advance up to 3 months. (actually, maybe not, we'll see)

2. Thanks, the attacks are really annoying. But yeah, no, we are not going to slight free users in general anyway especially on anything important like security. The goal of Premium is to just give users a package with less content restrictions, and a few added extras to make the cost even more worthwhile beyond that. We wouldn't even be doing Premium because our focus is still mainly free service, but there's been so many requests for it in the last 6 months, it's hard to ignore.

As for the last bit though offtopic, yes we will work on that outside of premium, though I know there's a code to do that right now as well.