Guest Level Accounts

[james]

Title:
Guest Level Accounts

Area:
accounts

Summary:
Creating a cheaper, minimal-perk account which still supports DW.

Description:
I've heard interest from folks who would like to be able to support DW and participate in conversations on communities and journals here, but without having to maintain an entire "presence" here, but with more benefits than just a free-level account. Specifically, the ability to track comments and have replies to comments mailed to them.

$35 a year can be a lot for someone who sees themselves as just commenting on other journals, but a minimal amount of paid-account would enable them to comment and keep copies of their comments via email, and keep track of conversations. But even a $15 a year account could be bare bones, and yet let them interact with others on DW.

I have no idea of how the coding works, so I don't know if it's an easy thing to do, or hard, or if being emailed copies of comments is a high-burden sort of benefit.

Poll #7080 Guest Level Accounts

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 57

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
17 (29.8%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
5 (8.8%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
14 (24.6%)

(I have no opinion)
19 (33.3%)

(Other: please comment)
2 (3.5%)

Comments

[denise]

That isn't very practial, because doing a-la-carte things like that doesn't take into account the fact that different paid account features cost us different amounts to offer, and are "priced" based on the idea that not everyone will use all of the features adn not everyone will use the features to their full extent. (The message i wrote about this a long time ago, to the pre-beta mailing lists, is no longer available, but you can still find a cached version of it on the Wayback Machine.)

But I can totally see, and make a case for, a "commenting lite" type account for people who don't want to maintain an actual journal here but still want to either a) support the site or b) get access to certain of the (commenting-related) paid features. I just don't know if it's a compelling case or not.

[instantramen]

I'm honestly having trouble finding a case more compelling than "paid accounts are already as cheap as they're getting for a company this size", but I thought I'd throw it out there in case someone else had ideas for making it work.