(bolding mine) Ah, that’s the piece I was missing. That makes sense.
Thanks for explaining, and apologies if I gave anyone the impression that the admins had any say in not helping out the Charters. 
Actually I should have said this:
All expired Charter Member subscriptions are removed from the Charter Member section. If the former Charter Member resubscribed the entry is placed on the Member side. If the former Charter Member did not resubscribe the entry is placed on the Guest side.
That’s the process; I should have been more specific in my initial post. Sorry.
Something in this direction is under discussion upstairs but there is as of yet no policy and no action that can be reported on. All I can do is tell you to stay tuned.
What was my Charter Member Expiration date? How am I supposed to know this date, the email was sent on May 31 and didn’t have an expiration date on it. How much time did you give people??
Information about your subscription is available to you in the User Control Panel; click on “User CP” in the blue band at the top of most every SDMB page. Then click on “Paid Subscriptions” to check your status.
This year the notices went out two days before the subscriptions expired. And there was no grace period after expiration granted either – Jerry explained this after the system upgrade, it was published in About This Message Board and I do believe also mentioned in announcements that were in every forum.
There is a somewhat chiding tone to this and many of your other posts on this topic (and other mods/admins as well) that I really don’t think is warranted. You are after all directing the quoted post at someone (Rusalka) who apparently re-upped immediately upon seeing the first notice about it. Two days’ notice via email and a week (was it even a full week?) of announcements on the boards is pretty slim for a subscription that can never be renewed, ever, no matter what the circumstances, no matter how narrowly you missed the resub date, never, EVER, EVER, NEVER.
I saw the announcement on the boards and re-upped, but if I’d happened to be on vacation that week, I would have missed it and been SOL. Yes, I suppose that everyone should memorize their SDMB charter membership resub date and then this wouldn’t be a problem, but I don’t think it would kill anyone to give a little more notice next time, either.
Not meant to be chiding, not at all. I’m answering people’s questions as best I can. I’m also well aware it’s not the answers people would like to hear – and there’s nothing I can do to improve on that.
I am in no way intending to give attitude to anyone. The choices made in respect to subscriptions were not made by me or any other staffer on this board; however, we are having to live with the consequences. I don’t know what else to tell you and I don’t know what else to do.
Well, in that case, let me direct my prior post at whoever is in charge of making these decisions, and respectfully suggest that next time around, a couple of weeks worth of notice would be appreciated. Perhaps I was reading more into your messages than was there, TubaDiva. Sorry; I know this time of year must be a major pain in the ass.
Thanks, I hope they can make a few more tweaks to at least make the Dope into a more viable asset for sales if CL fails like it looks like they will. This seems like a simple one.
If you guys need help, you know you will have no shortage of long time members willing to do so. (Though I must withdraw any previous offers of my own, I got caught up in a different project.)
This last part has got to be 100% true. I feel sorry for TubaDiva as it sounds like the notices did go out too late to be useful and she cannot do anything to fix that part.
Quite honestly, I think the whole, “you lost it forever!” is the one thing that gets me. Why the board can’t offer an “early bird!” type of deal like most businesses – even if it isn’t “Charter Membership”, but a discount subscription each year, I have no idea.
THAT, to me, is what I always found insanely stupid.
You give the vB system more credit than it deserves.
It’s a basic subscription function and that’s with a system upgrade – it was even less useful last time around. (What we used before was a hack of the Chicago Reader’s classified ad payment system and it didn’t run through vB at all except to credit the subscription at the end of it.) There’s nothing in the system that allows discounts for early subscriptions or any discounts at all, really – it’s HERE’s the subscription, this is how much it is. Not much beyond that.
I remember when my subscription expired a few years ago and I was out of the country I had one of the Mods email me and explain all of this and why they couldn’t put the Charter Member back as a status. I thought it was odd, since on other boards I’ve been on they seemingly give titles at random (I remember all kinds of silly titles on one board I was on).
C’est la vie…I’m used to it by now and it’s really not that big a deal. I’ll definitely have to check when my own subscription comes back up though if they aren’t sending out notices.
-XT
Y’know, you can have multiple Usergroups with different subscription levels that still use the “Charter Member” usertitle. vBulletin doesn’t care if you repeat user titles in different usergroups. The usergroups need unique names on the backend, but usertitles can be duplicated.
In other words, “usertitles” (that little bit of text beneath our usernames) are arbitrary. They can be blank. They can have boldface. They can consist of images. And yes, they can be duplicates, so that people in the usergroups “Charter Members” and the brand new group secretly called “Forgetful Types” can all proudly display the usertitle “Charter Member” beneath their usernames, and we wouldn’t know the difference. Permissions can differ for these groups; maybe the never-lapsed Charter members get more PM space, and maybe they have the permission to resubscribe at the $9.95 rate; maybe Forgetful Types can only reusbscribe at the $14.95 rate.
The Reader script would just need to be updated to add the new subscription/usergroup type. That’s the part where Jerry, or whoever, would need to be involved.
But it’s not impossible or even very difficult. And creating a new usergroup as above is a fifteen minute job that any admin can handle. If Creative Loafing gives the okay, that is. <-- a not insignificant issue, certainly.
(I do have to giggle a bit at Leander’s suggestion that this place should be earning $10K a month in subscriptions. I mean … in this climate? With a non-monthly subscription fee? I don’t know how that would be possible. Does even a site like SomethingAwful earn that much in new subscriptions? Seems highly doubtful.)
Outlook sent my expire notice directly to my Junk E-Mail folder while I was on vacation even though thread subscription notices made it through just fine. Damn you Microsoft!! :mad: 
You didn’t test outlook and the expire notice by sending a similar notice from some other email address prior to your expiration date so you would know whether outlook might re-direct your notice???
I think you’ve missed the point. They need to fundamentally change their business model and find other ways of bringing in subs and revenue. If that means monthly subs so be it. If that means offering titles for fees so be it. How about Gold subs with added benefits? Or a special section to communicate with Cecil? Newsletter, merchandise, member ads…?
There are a lot of ways they could make money on this site, but sadly all suggestions are ignored and no one seems to be doing anything to really make a difference. If I was trying to run a protifable online business and I saw no significant changes or substantial increases in revenue, I would have to wonder what the hell was going on.
Two caveats:
- I don’t check SDMB often and rarely post (obviously ->)
- I’ve had two glasses of wine on an empty stomach
That said: What’s the problem?!?
I have a mental bit to re-up “early spring-ish” to give SDMB money. And when I do, IN MY BRAIN, the results looks like this:
Straight Dope Board Charter Membership 03-22-2004 05-20-2010
I didn’t receive a warning/bill/suggestion-I-pay-up.
I’d already paid 'cause I’m trying to support an independent Voice Of Reason. Not for the “charter member” title, but the (forgive me for being optimistic!) idea that SDMB makes a difference.