Dear All

We've had to make a few minor, and one fairly major change to Scoobynet.

Search
ScoobyNet continues to get busier and busier all the time. Unfortunately, the loads on the servers rise to match this and we regularly have to upgrade - which is costly. The shier volume of searches is hitting us hard currently, and is having a massive detrimental effect on the performance of the site.

We've HAD to switch it off, but read on.

ScoobyNet Plus Members
As ScoobyNet Plus Members contribute towards the costs of running ScoobyNet and therefore the upgrades, we are continuing to provide the search facility to ScoobyNet Plus members.

But we realise this may seem unfair to those who can't afford / justify the £18 per year or £2 per month.

So..

Upgrade Your Account
We have set up two new account upgrade levels "Supporting Member" and "Orange Club".

Supporting Member
For a £5 one off payment, you can say "I've been here a while, I'm planning to be here a while, and I'm getting some serious value out of it. Here's a fiver, and thanks for everything." It would be a great show of support, and we will be able to use this money to further invest in the site, and upgrade the hardware / services.

In addition to this, Supporting Members get the following benefits.

• Custom User Title (Change "Scooby Regular" to whatever you want - within reason!)
• Increase Private Message Storage to 50 Messages (double the 25 allowed on a basic free account)
• Use the ScoobyNet search facility
• Ability to Issue Infractions
• Upgraded blue username

This upgrade is really just to show you are willing to support scoobynet, and in return we give you some more features in return.

Orange Club
This upgrade is for people who want to show their support, but also get a much better array of features.

• Custom User Title (Change "Scooby Regular" to whatever you want - within reason!)
• ]Increase Private Message Storage to 100 Messages (four times the 25 allowed on a basic free account)
• Use the ScoobyNet search facility
• Signatures. Include a signature at the end of each of your posts
• Ability to Issue Infractions
• Upgraded orange username

-

Search Alternatives. If you feel you really don't want to spend the money on the above (maybe you've only been registered for a week, and want to try things out for another couple of weeks before making any commitment., maybe you've only ever posted three times, etc) then you can still search scoobynet by using google.

Simply enter "site:scoobynet.com " followed by your search terms. For example. If you were searching for "brake pads", you would enter "site:scoobynet.com brake pads".

-

Aside from search, it would be great if those who have been thinking "I'd like to support scoobynet, but to be honest, I just won't get a benefit out of ScoobyNet Plus Membership" would get behind this and show your support.

All the best, and thanks for all your support.

Simon, Shaun and the ScoobyNet Team

 

all good idea's , just a few suggestions.

1. Make this offer or change closer to payday
2. Be prepared for Mickywrx to be upset because you have given his bling colour username to someone else (might have to offer a different colour to keep him happy)
3. Stop spending all the cash on yachts...

but the biggest help I think, if the search was linked to the scoobypedia, so as that assest increases and becomes more complete, any searches would result in more defined and accurate/relevant hits.

 

Indeed, need bling blue in our lives

 

Good idea linking SN search to include ScoobyPedia too

Possibly if a technical search to make ScoobyPedia appear first in the search results

Good Ideas, and will help maintain the site and allow for upgrades etc

If you have the know how Swiss you can make your name blue anyway

How come some users have two plus membership badges, have they paid twice ?

How do we get a red username (I dont mean the Recieved infraction name either )


One question is full £18.00 Plus Membership still the highest membership, and when do we get Scoobynet Mugs

 

sonic

red is reserved for webmaster and senior admin (surely you know that by know )
bling blue username has been disabled

 

Where has it been disabled

I know about the red I was just being cheeky

 

where can we make the colour and name changes please ?

 

OK for the Hell of it, just paid the £10 for webby's yacht fund, where's the ORANGE BLING USERNAME?

P.S do I get a PM box of 200

 

LOL

Thanks a lot richie.

You need to go into your UserCP and click "Group Memberships" on the bottom left hand side, then select which of your many user groups you would like to be viewed as

You will also now have options for signatures and to change your user title

--

PS, I should point out as well that ScoobyNet Plus Members now have 200 PM storage limit.

 

Just paid the £5 to be a supporting member....and i dont even own a scoob .....YET!!!

 

Guys

Thanks a lot. There is a bit of a glitch with the system at present, so it may take a few minutes to update your account.

I can see people signing up though, so thanks so much for your support

 

Yes done mine as well - Can I get my joined date sorted at the same time please webby !

Richard

 

The futures bright, the futures orange

 

Thanks Richard

You have PM.

Simon

 

Cheers Simon, I feel all special now

(special need more like)

 

I don't have paypal - how else can I pay ? I have Korean Won if that's any good..

 

LOL

You can use most credit cards through the paypal interface

 

glitch now sorted, so it should all work automatically.

 

Thanks for that Simon

Richard

 

me=stupid sorted

 

I was about to renew my subscription for the ESC do we get the same benefits for spending the £5 on that or do we have to pay an extra £5

 

The £5 for the ESC badge is to pay for setting up and running of the forum / the support of scoobynet supporting ESC, so I'm afraid this is a seperate thing.

 

Booooo!


Fair enough

 

 

What happens to people who have previously showed commitment to SN and have been a PLUS member? Do they still have to pay the one time fee that in some ways they have previously covered?

 

Do Plus members get the additional options as per the Full Member and Orange Member options?

Interesting point about prior Plus memebrs by Luminous. We have supported in the past but, for whatever reason, no longer do so.

With regards to signatures, what are the limitations, for example, max number of characters/lines, and can bbcode and/or html be used, what about images, are they allowed in signatures?

 

Plus membership has different benefits to the full member account.

We're not asking for £100's here. We're talking about a one-off fiver, or tenner, to permanantly upgrade your account to a full status account, rather than the free one.

Its just saying "i've been around for a while. I've had loads of use out of scoobynet and I'll have loads more use out of it. thank you."

Plus membership still carries the additional benefits, for the time it is running, and will soon carry a few more as our next big project is to give more value back to scoobynet plus members, and in-fact, all supporting members.

Simon

 

in answer to markus' question :

The Full member account is different to plus membership, so it has different benefits. The full member account is not a subscription, it is a one time upgrade.

 

Simon,
Thanks for the reply. Just trying to work out wether it's worth punting up to a tenner on a full/orange membership, or to simply go for plus membership again, unless there is some special offer for prior plus members

Oh, and about the purple heading, it's a bit, well, LOUD, my eyes are starting to bleed

 

One more question. The title change, is that a one off thing, or can it be changed as many times as you wish (similar to what one can do with the "Location" profile field). One assumes the same rules apply to the title as to the Location and other fields.