Michael
I Love YTtalk
Hey everyone,
This hasn't been an easy decision for us but after discussing things with the team I have decided to phase out the banner system we currently have for a few different reasons which I will mention below.
How it will be phased out
On the 10/9/2012 the banners will be fully removed but up until then I will take orders for banners, for example you could order for 1 month tonight and have it taken down when they go, or you could order a week or two weeks still.
A few days before the last week I will put up a notice on the forums that everyone can see informing them of this and to buy their last week of banner promotion with their current cash so everyone who is active is in the know about this.
The basis of the decision
The main basis of the decision is that I want the community here at YTtalk to become more community focussed and not have such a large focus on promotion and having the banners I think will always retain that direction and that isnt the direction I think is best for the site, its members and its future.
I want us to be all about helping one another grow, learning from each other, sharing our knowledge and expertise as we learn. We will still of course have the promotion forum to promote in which I feel is adequate for the forum and everyone here.
It is also hard for me to keep on top of the banners every day as each one requires me to edit the homepage code and I cannot share doing this with any of the staff. With the forum constantly growing it will eventually become unrealistic the amount of banners I would be putting up and taking down and I wouldn't be able to focus on other aspects of the site, I already struggle with it at present. The reality is that I cannot run the banners system on my own and that is the only way it can be ran.
I had discussed this once before in the suggestions forum quite a while back now but I believe it has become inevitable sadly and I will be sad to see it go but it is for the best all round.
The cash system
The cash system will be temporarily disabled on the date listed above, all cash you have earned will remain the same until we have a brand new system allowing for username changes to be bought with your forum cash and also premium memberships with access to premium member resources and whole load of other cool stuff.
Anything you have earned during your time here will remain as soon as we have the new system up and running but this will be a while off yet but at least you wont lose any of it. During that time no cash will be earned at all.
The decision to turn off the cash temporarily and retain your current amounts is so we dont end up with a completely pointless cash system that has zero value and is the best solution for the time being.
What do we hope will come of this
We hope that this will help make the community more community and networking focused rather than promotion focused. That was my aim of the site to begin with and will always remain my ultimate goal for the sites focus and direction.
After all the community which is the people here are the heartbeat of this place and you are what makes the site special. I believe its all about balancing the two and doing this will be for the better of the site and everyone here in the long run.
I think the extra benefits of doing this will help to make winning VOTM more valuable as being up there will be a better prize and the forum will load a whole lot more faster due to not needing to load more than 15 images each time on the homepage so you may notice a nice performance boost on the home page especially on mobile devices. You could choose to use your promo banner within your signature which technically gives you more exposure than on the homepage as you post regularly and others will of course view your posts.
Thanks for reading and I hope you understand
This hasn't been an easy decision for us but after discussing things with the team I have decided to phase out the banner system we currently have for a few different reasons which I will mention below.
How it will be phased out
On the 10/9/2012 the banners will be fully removed but up until then I will take orders for banners, for example you could order for 1 month tonight and have it taken down when they go, or you could order a week or two weeks still.
A few days before the last week I will put up a notice on the forums that everyone can see informing them of this and to buy their last week of banner promotion with their current cash so everyone who is active is in the know about this.
The basis of the decision
The main basis of the decision is that I want the community here at YTtalk to become more community focussed and not have such a large focus on promotion and having the banners I think will always retain that direction and that isnt the direction I think is best for the site, its members and its future.
I want us to be all about helping one another grow, learning from each other, sharing our knowledge and expertise as we learn. We will still of course have the promotion forum to promote in which I feel is adequate for the forum and everyone here.
It is also hard for me to keep on top of the banners every day as each one requires me to edit the homepage code and I cannot share doing this with any of the staff. With the forum constantly growing it will eventually become unrealistic the amount of banners I would be putting up and taking down and I wouldn't be able to focus on other aspects of the site, I already struggle with it at present. The reality is that I cannot run the banners system on my own and that is the only way it can be ran.
I had discussed this once before in the suggestions forum quite a while back now but I believe it has become inevitable sadly and I will be sad to see it go but it is for the best all round.
The cash system
The cash system will be temporarily disabled on the date listed above, all cash you have earned will remain the same until we have a brand new system allowing for username changes to be bought with your forum cash and also premium memberships with access to premium member resources and whole load of other cool stuff.
Anything you have earned during your time here will remain as soon as we have the new system up and running but this will be a while off yet but at least you wont lose any of it. During that time no cash will be earned at all.
The decision to turn off the cash temporarily and retain your current amounts is so we dont end up with a completely pointless cash system that has zero value and is the best solution for the time being.
What do we hope will come of this
We hope that this will help make the community more community and networking focused rather than promotion focused. That was my aim of the site to begin with and will always remain my ultimate goal for the sites focus and direction.
After all the community which is the people here are the heartbeat of this place and you are what makes the site special. I believe its all about balancing the two and doing this will be for the better of the site and everyone here in the long run.
I think the extra benefits of doing this will help to make winning VOTM more valuable as being up there will be a better prize and the forum will load a whole lot more faster due to not needing to load more than 15 images each time on the homepage so you may notice a nice performance boost on the home page especially on mobile devices. You could choose to use your promo banner within your signature which technically gives you more exposure than on the homepage as you post regularly and others will of course view your posts.
Thanks for reading and I hope you understand
