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I have donated in the past, and in response to this post several days ago, chose to donate again at the annual Blue level.
Looking at the "additional perks" I am wondering if a minor tweak may be a good idea, both because it will add a little more value for those of us at the Blue level, and because it may result in more Blue level supporters.
Here is the breakdown of benefits for annual Blue and annual Red supporters:
Supporting Member - Blue (yearly)
- -Almost no ads (in Discussion and Groups sections)
- -Supporting Member badge
- -Honorable mention on Supporting Members page
- -Access to keyword notifications feature
- -Extra time to edit first post in thread
- -Can join extra Groups (6 instead of 4)
- -Can own/manage 2 Groups (instead of 1)
Supporting Member - Red (yearly)
- -Almost no ads (in Discussion and Groups sections)
- -Supporting Member badge
- -Honorable mention on Supporting Members page
- -Access to keyword notifications feature
- -Extra time to edit all posts in threads (infinite for 1st post in thread, 12 hours for other posts)
- -Can join extra Groups (6 instead of 4)
- -Can own/mange 3 Groups (instead of 1)
- -Extra signature links and characters (3 links instead of 1 link, 350 characters instead of 256 characters, 4 lines instead of 3
- -Increased gallery storage quota and upload limit (1gb instead of 50mb and 10 item upload instead of 5)
- -10% discount on one TMC Connect event (requires the yearly subscription)
I don't know about the majority of members, but the stuff about groups, managing groups, etc. doesn't mean much to me.
Having some extra time to edit the first post in a thread is of some benefit, but it would be really nice to, like the Red supporting members, have at least some extra time to edit --ALL-- posts. (In my case I sometimes see a typo after the editing window has closed, and hate that I can't fix it.) Unless I am mistaken, the editing window is also significantly shorter since the site redesign.
I understand the need to maintain a difference between Red and Blue supporting members, but that wouldn't preclude you from allowing Blue members the ability to edit all posts for somewhat longer than we can now. As an example, you could allow Red supporting members to edit all posts for 24 hours, and Blue supporting members could get 12 hours. Or you could leave the 12 hours the Red supporters get now, and increase the editing time for Blue members to 6 hours.
I think doing either of the above would be a nice little bonus for your Blue supporting members, and it very well may also increase the number of Blue supporting members. I honestly don't think doing something like that would result in some who would have been Red supporters opting for Blue. And even if that happens a little bit, I think it would be more than made up for in Blue supporters that otherwise would have donated less or not at all.
Thanks for considering this suggestion!