Alright. I did not mean to offend anyone with the post I made. Let me try and rephrase it, please bear in mind that my native language is not English, so my wording could be off. I know if you put words in the wrong order, your sentence suddenly become something entirely different than what you originally meant.
Okay. I should make clear that my goal here is to explain and understand, not pick a fight.
If a site that has helped and brought together a lot of people over a very long period of time, and functions way better than the developers own forums, plus you are allowed to discuss religion, politics and other serious topics is not enough of an incentive by itself. You will also get rid of the small ads that may or may not be annoying for you. If you do not want to help out with a minor fee, you still get all of these "perks".
People that was coming with "suggestions" as to what more you should get for supporting the site, are people that has not taken the step themselves. And it is always like this. Give people an opportunity to support, and they instantly "demand" more stuff for doing it. Why? The site will either way continue to be there for you, perhaps even more so if some of us supports it. What I am saying is this. Either you feel that you want to support the site for what it is/have done for you, or not. Don't come and demand more features so that you can "show off" that you got the money to spend. Maybe you would not care if the owner just shut down the website the next week? Be happy that it is here, and support it if you feel you have the extra cash for it. If you don't feel that you have the extra money, then you probably need it more yourself, is what I meant.
Please understand that this forum has a history, and some memories are long. There was a discussion about premium memberships years ago, when people offered donations, and this was met with a "thanks for offering, but it's not necessary." I'm curious at this point about what changed, as this seems a sudden reversal.
The impression I got from your post was that you consider those who aren't paying for the premium membership to be selfish. I sincerely hope that is a misunderstanding. There are more ways to support a site than by paying in money.
Some people here have a wide variety of interests and activities. I drop by the Civ II forums periodically, post in Off-Topic, was active in several social groups, and am involved in a few writing activities in the Arts & Entertainment forum here. Other people might play some version of Civ, be involved in modding, act as resource people for those of us having computer problems, take part in interactive storytelling games, and post in whatever Colosseum forums and threads they find interesting. These people are contributing content to this site, and in most cases they are part of the give-and-take that brings people back here every day.
What does this even have to do with anything that I wrote?
So because of a different exchange rate, you should get more perks? That does not make any sense.
Do you apply that logic to other products around your daily life? The milk is more expensive here than in Sweden, should I perhaps get in a glass bottle instead of carton? No.
I should have thought it to be obvious, unless your currency is worth so much more than the US dollar that you just didn't notice.
The exchange rate between the Canadian dollar and the American dollar is atrocious. Suffice to say that I'm not buying much in American funds these days.
Perks have nothing to do with the exchange rate itself, but in some cases it might induce someone (I'm speaking hypothetically here, not personally) to forego buying something else and putting the funds toward a CFC membership.
I never asked anyone to "explain" to me why they choose to support or not, or even if they are supporting it at all. I reacted to people wanting more than what was offered, even though it is completely your own choice to support or not, the only difference is that you get a badge and no ads. You still get the same help as anyone else. Do not compare me to some dumb person on another forum demanding to know if you even support the site.
I didn't say you asked for an explanation, nor would I compare you to the twit on TrekBBS - that was someone who was ragging on me for my dislike of the JJ Abrams movies and some of those people are extremely unreasonable, period.
My comment was meant as a statement of hope that paid memberships will not influence how people treat each other here.
The bottom line is. I do not think anyone is cheap for not supporting the site, there can be a whole number of different reasons for that. But don't come and demand more and more "special" stuff for supporting.
Again, please realize that this place has a history. People have always been free to make suggestions, which the staff either will consider, consider and implement, consider and decide not to implement, or dismiss immediately. This has involved things from a request for a particular smiley to installing or changing a feature, or a change in rules or policy. For example, the suggestion of a blog is not a new request. It's been around for many years. The suggestion of a "cheerleader smiley" predates my joining this site. None of these have been, or are, "demands."
Take your badge and be happy with that, or don't, and be happy with that as well.
I'm happy with my current badge, which was a gift from the admins to those of us who were moderators but are not now.
EDIT: Do you really think it is fairer and better to lock other people out from certain areas of this site just because they can't afford to donate? That is how you could interpret what you wrote, if you want to.
There are already parts of this forum that are off-limits to most people. I'm not sure where you got the idea that I'm advocating locking people out of certain areas based on their ability to pay. Yes, I take advantage of the Premium members' lounge perks at TrekBBS, but the overall culture/attitudes of that site are quite different from CFC.
You weren't here when we had social groups. They were a casualty of the migration, and while most were open to everyone, there were some that were invitation-only, accessible only by members and the staff. So we've already been exposed to the concept that there are some areas of a forum not accessible to everyone.