unforum

[diszaster]

Uhm... the no advertising thing is killer, quite frankly.

Why not make the sponsorship thing ("This week sponsored by") bigger? Then it might be easier to sell sponsorship to some of the bigger production companies.... If the space was bigger, you could raise the bar to get into that space.

Maybe stick the bigger sponsorship thing in the hot upper-right corner. Or even a banner. (banners are yucky, nvm)

But... really, isn't that advertising too?

(edit: or possibly, still keep the small middle space for private individuals and their avs, but add a bigger space in the hot corner for bigger sponsors.)

[ladywyntir]

fundraiser with a little extra

[Caseys_Mom]

Instead of actual advertising, you could get a reseller account for webhosting. Ideally the PM's could then get their hosting plans from you, and you could earn the money for that.

[notgordian]

What about having more location-specific events popping up in the Social Interactions section, with suggested donations for attendance to go to Unfiction? ARGFest comes but once a year, and there are increasingly becoming ARG/transmedia-centric hubs of conversation (I'm thinking of NY, Toronto, and LA in particular, although there are a number of other growing hubs) with periodic meet-ups.

I was planning on seeing who would be interested in getting together in the Philadelphia area this fall, and would not be opposed to giving the fundraiser aspect a try.

[FilmEdge]

Re: fundraiser with a little extra

[October]

I second the yearly (or twice-yearly) fundraiser drive idea suggested upthread. The fund-raising event should be widely advertised here on the site so that people could be aware of it. An ARGN article on the fundraiser would also be helpful.

The "this week sponsored by" recognition is only for donations of $100 or more (as it should be), and I think some people might feel that if they can't afford to donate $100, their donation wouldn't help much. We know that's not true - every little bit helps. Because of this, I think a site-wide fundraising donation drive would be very helpful. Make everyone aware that even five bucks will help. Put the donor names or aliases (if they so choose) on a special recognition page regardless of the contribution amount during the fundraiser. I think you'll see a good turnout. We have a lot of members; even $5 from half of them would be a good thing for unFiction, and I think you would see even more than that from several.

I do want to point out that having a dinner or any activity of that sort would be counterproductive - organizing events costs money like whoa.

If we do a fundraiser, here are some "rewards" to consider, sorted by different levels of contribution.
-- Everyone gets their name on a contribution page, regardless of the size of the donation.
-- Contribution badges for our signatures would be a nice "thank you" and would cost nothing to make (I or anyone with some graphic arts experience could make them).
-- Order of the Trout recognition (with or without buttons - it would depend on cost) and maybe a special Order of the Trout gathering during ARGFest?
-- Put donors at a certain contribution level into a rotating "member of the day" recognition spot, perhaps? I am *not* suggesting that we do away with the "sponsored by" recognition - this is something that would be in addition to that.
-- We could also have a prize drawing at the end of the fundraiser: separate drawings for different levels of contribution, with prizes being historic swag (I have some to donate!), a drawing for a chance to win an invitation to a private ARGFest event during the 'Fest, etc.

We do something like this on another site that I belong to, and we gather in enough annually to support the site and two official annual events, as well as offering a small annual memorial scholarship. If you'd like some details about how this is organized, I'd be happy to get them for you!

(edited a million times because I keep thinking of stuff to add.)

[ljm]

[October]

The problem is that those games are someone else's IP - I mean, some PMs might give uF permission to do that, but we would definitely have to have permission from the creators before producing something to sell for uF that uses logos/images/content from a game.

[ljm]

I wasn't suggesting you use IG IP. If you look at the Super 8 t-shirt thread, almost all of the artwork is original and is suggestive of what's IG without taking the Rocket Poppeteers logo, for example. It was just an idea, apparently not a popular one. Just trying to help out!

[October]

I'm not trying to be discouraging to you. And I don't have any say in how the fundraising goes down, so don't mind me. Thank you for helping us brainstorm this!!

[Euchre]

I think the t-shirt idea is a good one, and is not easily compared with the uF branded items because game specific content is more compelling and ephemeral in most cases. You can always buy a uF shirt, but not so many would buy a Why So Serious fan art shirt now - but would have when the game was going on. I've also noticed that the idea to make shirts for both Super 8 and Flynn Lives have stalled, because there isn't a store to go ahead and set them up on. If uF hosted the shirts in its store, there could be a faster implementation of ideas and a better chance of actual product being made and sold, and would probably be more open. The Super 8 idea to make We Must Party shirts in part stalled because whoever decided to host the store was pretty much going to decide which design(s) were 'winners' and 'losers' by what they were willing to carry. A uF store could support user contributions with less concern over choosing one fan art design over another.

I'll work on more ideas, but I have some old ones to discuss with the Spacely one too.

[Rogi Ocnorb]

And, I'll apologize for my earlier post.
I just keyed in on the fact that you specifically mentioned the very site space had contracted through.

I might be guilted into donating more often if I saw the current state of affairs on some kind of health-o-meter that didn't take up too much space.

If we're just throwing stuff out there and since the idea of donations related to certain games has come up... Would it be feasible to change the background colors for active games using some kind of algorithm that considers received monies associated with the game against number of unique posters or total posts for said game? "Healthier" games get higher contrast ratios or more attractive hues. It might add a competitive aspect to the fora and would, if adopted, be kind of self sustaining.

Pretty silly, huh?

[Pixiestix]

If i am a pm, and you decide to create and SELL a shirt based on my content, i'd be pretty miffed, because this could go 1 of 2 ways. Either you could flat out rip me off {a la Todd Goldman} *OR* you could make the cheap fake concert tee shirts that no one would EVER dare wear in front of the band. Either way, tacky & rude.

Yes, i made a shirt to wear to my first argfest that yes was about the first arg i ever played. Did i offer to sell said shirt? no. Did i offer to make said shirt for anyone else? no. Do i think i could be sued for said shirt? no. Do i think if someone really wanted to they could sue you for selling a shirt made from their IP? yes, yes i do - and giving the profits to UF in my mind makes UF somehow liable. While i don't know the actual legal ramifications that could happen from this.... I can't say i'm real thrilled with the suggestion. [/0.02]

I can't say i'm too keen on PMs posting in character, because i like having out of game forums. even if these chars are paying for the right, suddenly the forums take on a new vibe. Plus, the same ones who try to break those rules now will continue to not pay and try to break the rules.

that said, i'd gladly pay a 1 time fee to keep my custom title {angry midget}. or I'd gladly pay a subscription price to use the forums within reason. I'd really love for sig's to become part of the subscription price {with the same sig rules that are already in place, and if you break the rules you don't get that money back}. It would cut down on sig spammers as a bonus {or at the very least give us money from them}.

[October]

Pixie, that was sort of my thought on the t-shirt thing - that even if a shirt doesn't directly use logos from the game, just the fact that it references the game means that it's using the creator's IP. This would be extremely problematic for uF, legally speaking.

As for PMs posting "in character" here - I hope that never happens. And even if it's allowed, I will never play a game by a PM who has to post here in that way in order to advance his/her game. This is a place where we discuss and dissect ARGs and collect information. I agree with Pixie - the whole nature of the forums would change if they moved from being OOG to being potentially IG. And I don't think it would be for the better. Not to mention that it would make enforcing the rule much more difficult - mods would have to actively remove posts from non-paying PMs that violated the rule, and they would have to keep track of who was paying, what game they belonged to, etc. It could be done - but that's more work for our volunteers who are already so busy.

I'm of the opinion that charging a subscription price for forum use would essentially kill unFiction. People would migrate somewhere else.

[Pixiestix]