The Supporter Community

Aquacorde

Aquacorde

♫ following where my arrow goes ♫
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    Being supporters, most of us have something in common: we have all donated money to PC at one point or another. I realize some people have won their supporterships or been gifted them, but for the most part money has been paid into PC for you to be able to see this forum. That's really the only thing tying us together, is it not? The fact that there has been money given to this place that fosters many a friendship and so many more discussions.

    Or are their other things? Is there something else that you feel ties supporters together? Should there be more things? When you think about staff, as a group, you see a community within a community. Does it feel like that when you think of supporters? What makes or breaks it with this group, do you think?
     
    we're all supporters .. on PC

    ah I'm sorry I'll stop I've had too much caffeine today
     
    Well I don't know that there is anything else that ties us together, although a lot of us do frequent the same areas and stay away from a lot of the same as well...I do think there should be more things that tie us together as a group instead of just a bunch of people that have donated money. At the moment I don't really see us as a group of anything, since not many people even post in the supporters' little area and we don't go around acting like everyone has everyone's backs, we're still just a bunch of random people who payed money to be able to see a section that has hardly any activity.

    On another little side topic, this is why I want the supporter music video. We need something else to tie us together, like a big project that we all can work on together and make it mean something to us.
     
    I've personally never found a reason for supporters to be considered a community within a community myself. In a way, every member of PC is a supporter to the general cause, even if they've never donated. We can't be a community without everyone working together to make that so. I don't believe donating makes me very special so I don't feel any need to consider myself a part of a different community other than the general one.

    I give more than just my money to this community, I feel. So I don't find my money a good reason to be in a 'group' I guess.
     
    In most cases, those of us who donate actually keep ourselves active for a while and stick around. If you ask me, activity is one other thing that helps us tie into this group more. Of course, members that don't donate do keep themselves here and post around, but their number does seem to be lower at times. Even if you don't post, being a supporter might still help giving you some urge to log into this place once every day or two to see if something's interesting is happening. I've had nearly no intention of being a regular here last year, but somehow, that's what my supportership managed to do--it kept me coming back. If it weren't for this, I probably wouldn't have even considered it, haha. Aside from that, I can't really think of anything else.
     
    I do think that supporters should be given more access to stuff or be able to do more things than they've been able to do already. I think the current things accessible through the supporter ranks is a little meh in my opinion, but on the other hand I can't exactly put my finger on what else can be implemented so they feel their pay is justifiable (other than of course, donating to an amazing community.)
     
    I don't really see supporters as a community - but often staff isn't a community either, at least no more than PC members in general. The only reason it feels like more of a community is because there are less people.

    I mean I guess the staff chat more with each other than supporters, but that's not a perk you can give supporters, because we have a chat thread and people don't really use it that much. You have to have dedicated members to make it into a community, a lot of dedicated members, and I just don't think PC has many people dedicated to making the supporters into a community.
     
    Mario said:
    I've personally never found a reason for supporters to be considered a community within a community myself. In a way, every member of PC is a supporter to the general cause, even if they've never donated. We can't be a community without everyone working together to make that so. I don't believe donating makes me very special so I don't feel any need to consider myself a part of a different community other than the general one.

    I give more than just my money to this community, I feel. So I don't find my money a good reason to be in a 'group' I guess.
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    That's fair. But I mean, it's not really about the money, is it? It's more about things we have in common. What we have in common is that we liked PC enough to put money into it- clearly there's some dedication there. And we have access to things that regular members don't. More importantly, we have a forum exclusive to us. And that's the key feature that I'm wondering about. For people with a dedicated forum, there's a lack of communication via that forum, or anything interesting coming out of here oops. Really the thing about having a community within a community comes from me looking at many sections around here and seeing that they often have their own communities- or as many people put it, cliques- just based around common interest of regular activity. And despite being a group set apart, supporters don't have that.

    elheroeoscuro said:
    I do think that supporters should be given more access to stuff or be able to do more things than they've been able to do already. I think the current things accessible through the supporter ranks is a little meh in my opinion, but on the other hand I can't exactly put my finger on what else can be implemented so they feel their pay is justifiable (other than of course, donating to an amazing community.)
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    tbh I'm content with what we've got. The perks are apparently incentive for some people but like. I've seen so many discussion about what things supporters could be given that's a tier up from members but not taking everything that staff has. And there's not a lot PC as it is has to offer? We don't exactly produce content here.

    Champion Lunis said:
    I agree with this. I feel like the supporter class was a lot better before the new changes. Well at least being able to name change every 3 months. I would feel hte pay is more justifiable if I could do a custom user title. I know my step up can but then I seen its still very restrictive which is no fun at all. Unless you are platinum but how the heck does that even happen,XD. This is just a rant that came to mind when reading your post,sorry if didn't contribute to anything. User titles user titles user titles! ( yes, I am tad bit obsessed, XD)
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    You do? I honestly think what we have now is much better. And really not that different either? We were tiered before, with minimal perks added per tier. Usertitles are absolutely brand-new to after the changes; would you rather they still be inaccessible to all but staff? You can even still win competitions and such for usertitles. And I mean... Crystal's really aren't that restrictive.

    I still think it's weird that people pay exclusively for perks rather than, you know, giving to PC and just happening to have perks associated with that. But this thread is not about perks at all tbh.
     
    Anna said:
    tbh I'm content with what we've got. The perks are apparently incentive for some people but like. I've seen so many discussion about what things supporters could be given that's a tier up from members but not taking everything that staff has. And there's not a lot PC as it is has to offer? We don't exactly produce content here.

    You do? I honestly think what we have now is much better. And really not that different either? We were tiered before, with minimal perks added per tier. Usertitles are absolutely brand-new to after the changes; would you rather they still be inaccessible to all but staff? You can even still win competitions and such for usertitles. And I mean... Crystal's really aren't that restrictive.

    I still think it's weird that people pay exclusively for perks rather than, you know, giving to PC and just happening to have perks associated with that. But this thread is not about perks at all tbh.
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    I think you're definitely right about supporters being sort of a "middle ground" between members and staff, by having a lot more perks than normal members but also not taking too many perks of staff at the same time.

    I'm also really happy at the color-based system, especially given the good stuff the higher tiers get like now being able to have customizable usertitles which was previously only available to staff. Crystals may not be able to do much other than colors, fonts and bold/italics but it is still very diverse enough to be creative with. The previous system wasn't bad either, but it didn't have much to to make the individual tiers distinctive.

    I was once someone who got jealous of the cool perks supporters have but you know, now that I look back on the two years of supportership that I've been in I actually feel really glad to have gotten such a great gift because I don't think I would have been as active as I am now and I would not have been able to hang out in a secret hangout here.

    I love the supporters for the little bit they do in helping PC with maintaining its hosting costs and as a result they get good things in return for donating that little bit of money. That is why I have always enjoyed PC more than any other forum I've visited. We may not chat as much as staff do, but we have a larger community than the staff do and we still do our own things, like occasional theme collabs (even if it's been a while since the last one).
     
    This was a pretty interesting read, and raises a few questions. (at least with myself)

    But uh, on the above; no- I don't see supporters as a community within a community. Mostly because my vision is blurred by my intense dislike for labels and status being used in social settings to distinguish people from one another. I didn't even donate to see this forum, I just like the grey letters my name gets to be in for donating. Yey. That and I don't want PC to stop bein' great and go under. Like the last forum I was on. :c

    So no, I don't see supporters as a separate community, or a subsection easily distinguishable from the mainstay of PC. To me it's just a factoid about any individual member wether they are or are not a supporter.
     
    I don't really differentiate much between supporters and non-supporters really. The only difference is that supporters have earned access to other areas of PC and certain privileges through donations etc.

    So I don't really see us as a min-community, rather we're just members of the community with a few extra privileges.

    Edit: Terrible post is terrible. I need sleep.
     
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