Axis & Allies .org 2015 Support Drive

[Panther]

Bought my golden Matilda seconds ago  :-)

Thank You!

[djensen]

I decided to put the participants front and center on the post this year.

[John Brown]

I just purchased a gold patron badge. I will send you my e-mail and username. :-)

Thanks,

John

[John Brown]

Thanks for getting my badge to me. :-)

John

[LHoffman]

Just went with Bronze David. Email sent.

Thanks for all the hard work.

• LHoff

[Young Grasshopper]

Not much time left to get your 2015 support badge, and there’s a lot of every day names missing from this year’s list of supporters. Lets help David keep our favorite website running by purchasing a support badge before Christmas… what do you say?

[djensen]

This year we have the lowest participation when costs have gone up the most. Since July, it has cost an extra $15-$25/month to operate the site. This is bandwidth for storing/retrieving TripleA files from Amazon S3 storage. Next year DNS hosting will go from $10/month to just under $25/month.

[CWO Marc]

@djensen:

This year we have the lowest participation when costs have gone up the most. Since July, it has cost an extra $15-$25/month to operate the site. This is bandwidth for storing/retrieving TripleA files from Amazon S3 storage. Next year DNS hosting will go from $10/month to just under $25/month.

Here’s an idea that might potentially bring in a little extra cash.  Have you considered creating a supplementary badge category in 2016 – like, let’s say, a pale grey Platinum patron category that would cost $100?  It wouldn’t prevent anyone from buying the existing $10 Bronze, $25 Silver or $50 Gold badges if they prefer, but it would be an extra option for the folks who’d be willing to toss in some additional money to support the site.

[djensen]

Another thing worth noting is that Google advertising revenue was down 35% from January 2014 through July 2015. This is compared to 2013. As of July it appears that revenue is back to “normal”.

[Young Grasshopper]

There should be triple A support badges for each year and not just one and done, if triple A is costly, the triple A players should be supporting.

[djensen]

@Young:

There should be triple A support badges for each year and not just one and done, if triple A is costly, the triple A players should be supporting.

Only problem is badge overload, we already have sooo many badges.

[Young Grasshopper]

@djensen:

@Young:

There should be triple A support badges for each year and not just one and done, if triple A is costly, the triple A players should be supporting.

Only problem is badge overload, we already have sooo many badges.

You could condense 3 badges of the same colour into 1 badge, you could use a fighter silhouette with purple colour, and call it ACE with the years of support on it… like this

ACE 10/11/12
ACE 13/14/15

[CWO Marc]

@Young:

@djensen:

@Young:

There should be triple A support badges for each year and not just one and done, if triple A is costly, the triple A players should be supporting.

Only problem is badge overload, we already have sooo many badges.

You could condense 3 badges of the same colour into 1 badge, you could use a fighter silhouette with purple colour, and call it ACE with the years of support on it… like this

ACE 10/11/12
ACE 13/14/15 Â

I’ve very torn on this issue.  On the one hand I’d like to keep all my existing badges as they are, both as a clear record of past support and because I like the year-specific tank icons that decorate them.  On the other hand, I can see the problem of multiple badges eventually getting out of hand and making the badge clusters of long-term supporters look like the layered rows of medals on the full-dress uniform of a Soviet Field Marshal.  And on a purely technical point, note that pilots acquire ace status after five victories, not three.

So I don’t know what a good solution would be.  Here’s a question: would there be a way to make badges clickable?  If so, perhaps the badges that show up in our forum posts could be limited to one clickable badge per category (Patron, TripleA Donor, etc.), suitably colour-coded and labeled and icon-decorated but not dated; clicking on any badge would take you to a person’s Summary page, where the person’s complete list of year-dated badges (with year-specific tank icons) would be displayed (as is already currently the case).  Space wouldn’t be a problem there: the badges could go on for pages and pages on the Summary page, without them cluttering up the messages we post on the forums.

I suppose that the same two-part arrangement (summary badges in the posts, full badges on the Summary page) could be used even if the post badges can’t be made clickable.  It wouldn’t work as well as the clickable method, but I’d be happy to go along with that option nonetheless, since I’d be less happy about having my existing badges amalgamated.

[Panther]

@Young:

There should be triple A support badges for each year and not just one and done, if triple A is costly, the triple A players should be supporting.

AFAIK the TripleA donation drive was initiated by Veqryn. The donation for the TripleA-badge was to support his efforts and costs.
DJensen supported that by giving a badge for this.

I always understood that paying for the annual badge included a “thank you” for the possibiltiy to play by forum using TripleA.

[djensen]

Wow, thanks everybody. We just went over the $2k mark demolishing the previous record. It really means a lot to me that so many people are willing to chip in to not only keep the site running but to also help make it even better.

Happy Holidays and Merry New Year!

[djensen]

Also, I did actually manage to start the process of bringing up the new forums. It’s a work in progress but it will officially live here: http://forums.axisandallies.org/

[Young Grasshopper]

Great to hear, and glad to see that so many stepped up around the holidays no less.