More suggestions for the DM to consider…

I’ve caused a bit of a stir but that’s all right. Regardless if the notes are negative of positive, the good thing is people are talking and paying attention to what is going on with our online communitiy. There are many people who left supporting notes, while others took offense to some of the comments I made and watned a bit of a clarification, which I did provide in another entry for. But since my entries have been generating a lot of interest and debate, I’ve decided to post another helpful entry to keep that ball rolling cause talking about the issue is a good thing for everyone.

One thing a lot of people have been talking about when it comes to the subscriptions is that they wanted more for their money as opposed to the same old same old. Personally, I’m quite satisfied with what I get for the money I’ve been paying over and wouldn’t care if any more upgrades are made to the OD+ subscription. I’ve told a lot of people that the block feature alone is worth paying the fee, but the chapters and other fun stuff is cool too. But I can see where some people are coming from when they would like to have new stuff offered to OD+ people. At minimum, they want something new and interesting to play with to keep things fresh and happening. On that note, I have a few suggestions of what the DM can do to make the OD+ subscription a little more inviting. I have a few suggestions that would help generate more income without having to make too many changes to the site.

Suggetion # 1: The Return Of Editor’s Choice

I don’t know about you, but when I first got here… there was a really, really cool feature called “Editor’s Choice” where the DM would pick one diary and make it the site’s choice for the month. This gave someone a chance to be in the spotlight for being a standout diary and it resulted in a flood of attention and notes for the person in question. I never had the honor to make that cut myself, but from people who had that chance… it was quite an honor and also gave people a chance to meet good diaries that are on the site. It was a good feature and I think picking one person a month from the OD+ litter, kind of like a diary of the month feature… would make things a little better here. It was a feature from OD’s past that I know a lot of people miss and just a little effort to bring it back would bring some big time props to those who subscribe.

Suggestion # 2: Make Reader’s Choice OD+ Exclusive

Reader’s choice is a good feature, but I think it should be exclusive to OD+ members. The right to pick entries for special consideration has been used and abused too much and with 400,000 members on the site, something never stays that long and disappears from the list in less than a day sometimes. Restricting this feature to OD+ members only would slow down how fast that list updates and allow picked entries to stay on the list and get noticed more often. OD+ members will have the right to nominate FOD entries, this change would mean that FOD wouldn’t be able to use it.

Suggestion # 3: Increase character limits for notes

This has always been a big gripe for people who love to leave notes but have to split them into smaller pieces to fit the 400 character limit on notes. I think if someone is willing to fork over money for their account, they should have larger character limits. Maybe increase OD+ notes to 600 characters or even 800. Just that kind of shift would make a lot of people happy for something I think would be simple to change. This change would be welcome by a lot of members, and might even sway a few to sign up cause no one likes to have to split their thoughts up into five or six separate notes…

Suggestion # 4: Restrict HTML to OD+ only

On free dairys, HTML should be restricted to the bare minimums. I’m talking about bold, italics and links only. No larger fonts, no fancy codes or menus. Just the bare buns. So if someone wants to have a custom background, or a different cursor and all that other hip html stuff… then pay up.

Suggestion #5: Exclusive Access to Administrators

The DM has already made this suggestion for those who are paying for the lifetime membership and I think it’s a great idea. I think that paying members should have access to either a link or an email address that will allow them to get their complaints or comments heard by the DM faster than those made by FOD. If you’re a paying member and are paying for the right to use the site, then your complaints deserve to be at the front of the line and taken care of ASAP. It’s just makes perfect sense, cause if OD+ complaints are not heard and dealt with quickly, that could result in a loss of income for the site. All other complaints/comments would be dealt with as soon as possible as time permits with no promises or guarentees.

Suggestion #6: Moderators

I cannot repeat myself enough with it comes to this suggestion. The DM is only one man and I know he can’t do everything all the time. The man has a life and he shouldn’t be asked or forced to spend all of it infront of a computer trying to fix everyone’s OD problems. This would cost Open Diary no money, because the DM would have dozens of volunteers who would jump at a chance to make the site safe of harassment and online flaming. Open Diary is like a community but the site has over 400,000 people and in a town this big… the Sheriff needs to get himself some Deputies to help ease the burden. This way complaints of rule voilations and system abuse or online harassment are dealt with swiftly and the those who are being naughty will be driven out of Dodge. Online Chat Boards reap the benefits of having online moderators and it’s high time OD did the same so that the DM doesn’t have to do all the work. After all, he’s a man… not a machine.

I know that some of these suggestions are going to be met with a little hostility, but you have to consider the fact that these suggestions are alternates to making the site pay only. These are my ideas to keep the status quo for as long as possible and to make OD+ more inviting for those who want more. I think they are responable suggestions and I for one hopes that the DM will give them due consideration.

Peter