# So, you want your charter membership back ... **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [April 29, 2005, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731 "2005-04-29T16:21:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2005, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731/61 "2005-05-02T18:44:01Z")
> [@Cynical1](#): > > I sent an email to the referenced email address and it got kicked back as undeliverable. > I paid… > really I did… > I swear… Dunno why it kicked back, I did get your second email. Could you take a look at the information and get back to me? I added you to Jerry’s “to-do” list. your humble TubaDiva ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2005, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731/62 "2005-05-02T19:08:10Z")
I for one would like to take this opportunity to thank our Straight Dope Overlords for the mercy, restraint and benevolence they have showered upon the Teeming Millions; who, in their vast ignorance and inattentiveness, have disregarded their duty to The Overlords to take the pains to be reasonably well informed of the goings-on of the message board they have paid to be a member of. Thanks, **Ed.** Thanks, **Tuba.** Thanks, **Jerry.** You folks are Aces; the proverbial “bee’s knees.” ---
**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2005, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731/63 "2005-05-02T19:09:23Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > :rolleyes: > > On the last page. Post #44. That’s not a solution, that’s an out. We were discussing how the SDMB could make sure everyone was informed. Your way would give no-one an incentive to register on time and, as you see, is creating more work for the mods who work for (essentially) free the way it is. > [@](#): > > This is already the way that it works for regular members. It should be this way for charter members as well. Unless, of course, the SDMB is making it difficulet on purpose to try and get more money out of us. Now, there you have a valid point. But if their system works so that only the early payers get to retain status without all this confusion and extra work, then we’ll just have to deal with it. They are willing to bend over backwards to help you out this time, but I wouldn’t expect this kind of service in the future. ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2005, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731/64 "2005-05-02T19:28:14Z")
> [@Uncommon Sense](#): > > That’s not a solution, that’s an out. > > … > > Now, there you have a valid point. ? You make these two statements to me as if I have two seperate plans. I only have one, and I’ve been consistent in it. > [@](#): > > We were discussing how the SDMB could make sure everyone was informed. Your way would give no-one an incentive to register on time and, as you see, is creating more work for the mods who work for (essentially) free the way it is. How would it create more work? There would be no work for the mods if they do it the way I’m stating. (Which they’ve already said they would, BTW). This is the way it should have been from the beginning. It’s much easier this way. The incentive is that people wouldn’t be able to post. That certainly is more incentive than reminder emails that nobody is getting anyway. > [@](#): > > Now, there you have a valid point. But if their system works so that only the early payers get to retain status without all this confusion and extra work, then we’ll just have to deal with it. They are willing to bend over backwards to help you out this time, but I wouldn’t expect this kind of service in the future. But they wouldn’t need to bend over backwards fixing things if they just set it up right in the first place. The extra work is the result of the failed policy to begin with. They’ve already said the policy is to be changed for the next time around. Clearly, the way that it was done this time was a bad idea. I’m surprised that so many people are still defending it. ---
**Author:** ![Spiff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiff/32/9852_2.png) [@Spiff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiff)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2005, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731/65 "2005-05-02T20:01:54Z")
> [@continuity eror](#): > > It’s so weird that there’s three times as many charter members as regular members and yet it’s treated as an “elite” thing. Shouldn’t the members with the less frequent titles be the elite? I don’t know about all of the rest of you, but \*this \* Sneetch wants a star on his belly! ---
**Author:** ![Spiff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiff/32/9852_2.png) [@Spiff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiff)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2005, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731/66 "2005-05-02T20:11:29Z")
> [@Ed Zotti](#): > > For the record, we currently have 3,096 active subscribers Oh, and then I read this and thought, “Isn’t ‘Teeming Millions’ somewhat of an overstatement, then?” Now, “Teeming Thousands,” I could see… ---
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2005, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731/67 "2005-05-02T21:18:07Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > First of all a magazine has valid addresses for all of it’s customers. So, they know that everyone is being reached by the renewal reminder mailing. Secondly, if you don’t re-subscribe to a magazine the subscription will lapse. However, this doesn’t mean they will charge you a penalty for re-subscribing after the lapse date. A magazine that did this wouldn’t do this because they want to keep customers, not aggrevate them. Yeah, unless the subscriber moves during the subscription period and never sends a change of address - which is akin to changing your email after your initial registration without bothering to revise it in your profile. Whose fault is that? And magazines most certainly do offer incentives to current subscribes that are not offered to new ones. Once you lapse, you become a new account. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2005, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731/68 "2005-05-02T22:23:07Z")
Somehow, I can’t work up much sympathy for you whiners, as I not only took care of this matter in February, I started [a thread about it](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=302076&highlight=renewing) to encourage others. What, you missed that, too? Tough subbies. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Watcher\_of\_the\_Skies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/45deac/32.png) [@Watcher\_of\_the\_Skies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Watcher_of_the_Skies)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2005, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731/69 "2005-05-03T05:12:31Z")
I’d like to publicly thank **TubaDiva** for putting up with my whiny disgruntledness as she assisted me back to the ranks of the subscribed. Although I think the spanking of the charter members who missed the renewal deadline is absurd, I’d like to suggest that an automatic renewal option be considered to eliminate such aggravation in the future. Those who sign up could have their annual renewals automatically billed to their credit card and charter members would not have to lose their discount for being too busy to even know that a deadline was passing. ---
**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2005, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731/70 "2005-05-03T12:35:36Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > The extra work is the result of the failed policy to begin with. They’ve already said the policy is to be changed for the next time around. Clearly, the way that it was done this time was a bad idea. I’m surprised that so many people are still defending it. Shoot, hell! Thanks for being patient with me, I did NOT understand the following exchange the first time, being of thick skull and all. [Quote= Ed Zotti] 1. Next year, pending further discussion with Jerry, we’ve going to have the subscription deadline be some limited number of days AFTER the subscription expiration date. Nothing like discovering you can’t post to convince you to get your rear in gear. [/quote] > [@Debaser](#): > > This is exactly the way that it should work. It’s tough enough to get people to pay for a message board when most of them are free these days. Trying to force all the users to pre-pay before their subscriptions run out isn’t a good idea. Punishing those users who don’t pre-pay ahead of time is an even worse idea. > > It should be a simple process: When a membership runs out, the person loses the ability to post. Then they pay up the fee and are a member once more. No punishement fees or pre-pay reminders should be required at all. I have no idea why they would be. It just makes the process overly complicated and results in hard feelings from people left out. > > I’d like to see the number of users on the SDMB grow, not shrink over time. This is a bad way to go about it. I hope that going forward this pre-subscription idea will not be used. I agree, now quit whining. 😉 I first thought you were dreaming up an impossible (undoable) solution, but if the system can be setup to work this way, then that would be the simplest and less fractious way. _shakes hand with **Debaser** _ ---
**Author:** ![CaveMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cavemike/32/16379_2.png) [@CaveMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaveMike)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2005, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731/71 "2005-05-03T14:37:35Z")
> [@TubaDiva](#): > > Jerry has/is going to spend hours doing this, and so have/will I, just to get this fixed. It doesn’t seem like a good use of Jerry’s time to fix up individual user titles especially when that time could be spent resolving some of the board issues that affect everyone (time-stamp, automatic page reloads, etc.). If the Charter Member title is important, wouldn’t it be better to just revert back to every paying member is a Charter Member? That would only take a few minutes and everyone would be happy. ---
**Author:** ![jdavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f6c823/32.png) [@jdavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jdavis)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2005, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731/72 "2005-05-03T14:40:45Z")
Hmmmm…seeing that this is the stickied thread I will post future updates here and refer to them in the non-stickied ATMB thread on Charter Member reinstatement. Here is what I just posted to that thread: If your Charter Member status has not been reapplied it is because I’m still in the process of doing so. I had to work on Saturday and spent some time making my way through the list of earliest re-subscribers. I will list those I have changed back to Charter Member status at the end this post. I did not work Sunday and I took off Monday so I’m sure there is a backlog of subscribers who made the Monday at noon deadline to renew their Charter Member status. I will start getting to that backlog today. It may take me a while because it is not an immediate process and I have to fit it in amongst my other responsibilities. I do promise it will be done and that I will post to the end of this thread when I believe it is finished. In the interim I’ll post occasional updates. Thanks, Jerry Edit: Current list of Member to Charter Member status changes will be near the end of this thread. ---
**Author:** ![brownie55](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f14d63/32.png) [@brownie55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brownie55)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2005, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731/73 "2005-05-03T15:07:43Z")
What I am having trouble with is that these people that caused all the extra work not only get to be charter member again, but have their discount reinstated next year. New subs get no special title, and have to pay extra. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2005, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731/74 "2005-05-03T20:31:09Z")
> [@brownie55](#): > > What I am having trouble with is that these people that caused all the extra work not only get to be charter member again, but have their discount reinstated next year. New subs get no special title, and have to pay extra. Because we asked politley? Because we’re paying customers? While The Straight Dope Message Board isn’t a business per se, it does have an interest in keeping the paying customers satisfied. Because a lot of those people have been around for a long time, and have contributed to the Straight Dope over the years? I’ve been with them since AOL, and I easily recognize seven people from that list who’ve been around for _years_, at a minimum. The one’s I don’t recognize could easily have been around as long, if not longer, and have changed their usernames, or I just never ran into them in the various threads on the board. But since the admins. aren’t discriminating, but making the changes of all who qualify and ask, “seniority” (for want of a better word) is not a factor. There are plenty of “old timers” who originally “Hemmed-and-Hawed” over subscribing initially, and are now simply “Members” instead of “Charter Members.” If you _were_ a charter member, but let it lapse (like I did) for one reason or another (in my case, stoopidity), you can get it back. If you were never a charter member, what’s the difference? The bottom line is that most of us asked (well, I begged, whined, rolled-over, and generally made a nuisance of myself until they threw me a table scrap), and asked _nicely,_ for a dispensation; which was granted. This is not the first time (nor will it be the last, I reckon) the Admins. have shown magnanimity for those who ask it; remember that, for someday it may be _you_ doing the asking ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2005, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731/75 "2005-05-03T22:01:47Z")
Well, they certainly got me to come crawling back. It’s funny, when I first found out my charter membership had lapsed, I thought, “_Dang, I missed the deadline. Oh well. No big deal, I guess. Perhaps at some future date I will resubscribe to the SDMB._” Then I visited the boards a few days later, and discovered that there had been a _second_ opportunity to regain charter status, but–BUT-- I had apparently missed that deadline too! Suddenly, regaining charter membership became incredibly important. “_Aaugh! I missed it yet again! But wait…they haven’t taken the link down from the Straight Dope front page yet…maybe there’s still hope! Perhaps if I pay the $14.95 to renew my membership immediately! The cumulative missed chances are burning a hole in my brain!_” I suspect that there’s an important psychological principle at work here. Other than the fact that I’m an idiot, I mean. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2005, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731/76 "2005-05-03T22:31:16Z")
> [@jdavis](#): > > da\_pope I thought da\_pope was supposed to be infallible. 😕 Guess he’s still getting used to the job. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2005, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731/77 "2005-05-03T23:01:25Z")
So I paid via paypal on the 27th, but of course the check did not clear until just recently…Is there any chance in hell that I could have my Charter Membership reinstated? ☹☹☹ pweese! ---
**Author:** ![Naz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e99b99/32.png) [@Naz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Naz)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2005, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731/78 "2005-05-04T05:01:52Z")
I’m posting this to see if I’m still a Charter Member or not. I’ve been in the middle of a cross-country move and have not had access to a computer. I paid up on the 28th, but I don’t know if my title was lost to the ether or not. If it was, I hopefully await reinstatement with the rest of the shlubs. ---
**Author:** ![Powers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Powers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Powers)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2005, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731/79 "2005-05-04T13:00:35Z")
Heck, I don’t even post here and I still remembered to resubscribe. =) The notice at the top of the Straight Dope Main Page every day was what did it, for the record. Powers &8^] ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2005, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731/80 "2005-05-04T15:35:04Z")
pool: I’ll make sure Jerry knows about your situation; there’s always a lag when payments are made witih PayPal, but we count the date you made the payment, so you got in under the wire, even if it took a few days to process. Jerry will get to you as he can. Naz: I’ll look at your situation and see what I can do. For all the rest of you who got in late: I’ll try my best, but no promises. Ed and Jerry may well stick to the “noon CDT Monday deadline.” I hope they let you slide in, but it’s up to them. Jerry’s worked his butt off to fix things for our folks, this is on top of all the other tasks that more than fill his work time. I can’t thank him enough for his kindness and consideration. your humble TubaDiva [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-you-want-your-charter-membership-back/301731.md?page=5)