It’s been every spring since the board went PtP. I can’t believe that after five years people are still being blind-sided by this. I just don’t get it.
And – if you didn’t get a notice, it’s because you’ve not removed the SDMB from your spam filter or your email on record is/was no longer current. Hell, I got a notice and as a former mod, I don’t even need to resubscribe.
Received to my registered SDMB email account on April 24, 2009:
Dear Frank,
Your access to the paid subscription “Straight Dope Board Charter Membership” is about to expire.
If you do not extend your subscription you will revert to Guest status. As a Guest you’ll be shown banner advertising and will lose some of the privileges of your current membership status.
In addition to the emails (which may have been filtered by spam filters, alas), haven’t there been announcements / notices up on the boards here? At least I’m pretty sure I spotted 'em. I re-upped back in February or March when I remembered it was Spring and thus time for a young choie’s fancy to turn to thoughts of paying the piper.
As far as “is it my responsibility to remember to renew” … who else’s should it be? Genuinely confused here. They’re offering a half-off membership deal plus the oh-so-important “charter” before our “members.” Makes total sense to me that it’s up to us to remember to renew or lose the privilege.
FWIW, I do think though that it’d behoove the SDMB to make an offer to the lapsed charter member folks. “Pay an additional $9.99 and get your “Charter” designation back!” The bucks will pay for the time spent opening the admin control panel, searching for the user’s account, and clicking the “charter member” checkbox. I’d bet y’all would make a hundred or so, easy. Every little bit helps, right?
Add me to the list of people who never got a notice, and according to all the viagra solicitations I’ve received the last 2 weeks, I have no spam filters on my email. I don’t see anything in my user cp that indicates the anniversary date of my membership and to expect people to remember it is silly.
Count me into the list of people who missed the window while I was away from my own computer for two weeks…I think I managed to log on under my user name once or twice that whole time, and unfortunately went straight to threads I wanted to read…instead of wasting my few minutes re-checking my subscription date. I got the email notice on the 24th, but just got back to my own computer today, so I didn’t see it. Pooh.
I could chime in and say I missed it too. But, I did something worse. I decided not to subscribe this year because I don’t post very often. THEN I was a “Guest” for one day and it felt so wrong. No title, no post count, no location. So here I am demoted to “Member” statis.
Add me to the group of people who never got a notice and had been a charter member since 2001. I’ve paid consistently even though I’m basically a lurker, and it makes me upset that there’s no way to retroactively at least change the titles especially for people who didn’t get the notification. I’m happy to admit my mistake and would pay to have my privileges renewed, as choie mentioned above.
The amusing thing about this whole situation is that, if I could have kept the half-price renewal and my title, I’d be re-upping immediately. I don’t see the ads on my computer, so my membership was just my way of donating money to the SDMB.
However, since I no longer have my title, and I can’t get the discount, I won’t be renewing. Because of this situation, the SDMB won’t be getting ANY money from me. It’s not that I’m withholding my money out of spite- it’s just that I was willing to donate seven bucks… the SDMB isn’t worth fifteen, at least in my eyes.
I didn’t get a reminder e-mail either; I did see the announcement that the deadline was coming up but that wasn’t enough of a kick to remind me to do it in time. Que sera, sera.
I don’t know exactly how the vB paid subscription system works, but from a cursory poking at the admin panel it looks like it’s user group driven. If so, wouldn’t it be possible for any admin to change someone’s user group back to Charter Member and have them keep their title and automatically get the lower rate next year? Obviously, they’d still have to pay the higher rate this year, but that’s not so bad, and this would be a partial fix that wouldn’t have to involve Jerry.
If this is in fact the case, I think it would be well worth it to let charter members keep their status for upcoming years.
No title, no post count, no location. So here I am demoted to “Member” statis.