This week TKP published 11 original pieces of content. 👏 That's a pair of film reviews, a Buzzketball preview, reflection on the Boston College defeat, and look ahead at the Pitt matchup. Even though the football season thus far has disappointed, it's not deterred the amount of quality coverage TKP has dedicated to it. Expect basketball season to be no different (well, from a coverage perspective at least).
Ultimately, I do not want TKP to move in the direction of other sites where most, if not all, of its content is only for TKPC members. I don't not want a restricted forum. However, TKPC needs to grow.
For those who haven't already stepped into the club, please consider and join The Key Players Club.
Forums:
DISCLAIMER: Forum topics may not have been written or edited by The Key Play staff.
Comments
"Don't even look at it...." - Nigel T.
Leg for highly appropriate GIF usage.
I can hear this gif.
Don't splash the pot.
Don't sugarcoat it.
TKP put out 11 quality articles this week while losing 3 TKPC members. Those of you who aren't a part of TKPC really need to heed some of these warnings about content possibly going behind a paywall in the future.
Join TKP or puppies die. 23 cents per day can save us all from becoming a paid website.
I swear, just because of McLachlan & her music alone, that commercial probably kills & harms more innocent animals than helps them.
Kleenex sure reaps the benefits of increased sales.
She looks a lot better than she used to..
I find her to be very attractive. She is like the anti-cheese.
if you throw up when you smell cheese, and sarah mclachlan is the anti-cheese, does it mean that when you throw up you smell sarah mclachlan? or would that make her the inverse cheese?
...you mean because God kills a puppy every time you masturbate?
WTF!?!?!
N-no!
That's not only disgusting but possibly one of the most disturbing things I've ever heard/read. Congrats.
More and more previously free content moves behind a paywall each year on the internet. In the digital information age this is a clear and understandable trend. Information is valuable, and people want/need (and deserve in many cases) to receive consideration in return for the value they provide.
I love and support Joe's fight to keep as much content free as he possibly can. It's admirable and his idea of what TKP should be is ultimately the most important. That said, I implore anyone reading this to continue to consider joining the TKPC, the limited premium content is worth it, but even without the premium content, show support to the site that many of you have been coming to and getting your fix of VT information and discussion for years now. This content takes time and effort, and almost all of it has been free for our enjoyment. It's a small price to pay to show Joe and his staff that we appreciate their hard work and effort producing content about the sports teams that we all love. Obviously, I only say this to those of you with the margin to afford TKPC.
I completely agree with all this. Here's my personal testimony: I started reading this site when my freshman roommate told me about it back in 2010 or 2011, but I was just a lurker up until two years ago once I had a big boy job for a while. I spend so much of my free time and lunch breaks on this site that it felt irresponsible to not pay for the enjoyment I get here from the great content and community.
Why I won't join TKPC:
In the last few weeks I've personally seen:
When the pay wall first came up, quite a bit of the reason I wouldn't join then is my finances couldn't support it. I likely still can't since I'm planning on cash flowing my return to college next semester but the recent attitudes and behavior I've seen on TKP has me hesitant to support the site financially because, quite frankly, it's embarrassing.
Yes, the money goes to supporting the site to ensure Joe can keep it running, but in the same breadth there are legitimate issues that aren't being addressed and until they are I can't, in good conscious, bring myself to support the site. My understanding is at least one TKPC member admitted to dropping their subscription for some of these same reasons and I can't be the only one who feels this way.
I don't buy into "safe places", but I do believe in common human decency. If and when the site looks like it's been cleaned up and is a constructive place again then I might reconsider my stance, but for now I'm afraid my answer is "no".
To all of you: the next time you get ready to post something, especially if you've been consuming a few adult beverages or if it's the "heat of the moment", and the next time you upvote or downvote a post, please stop and think:
Am I adding to the problem he just described or should I hold off first?
TL;DR, I want this place to succeed but there's some house cleaning we all need to do first. Myself included.
Sadly, human decency isn't all that common these days.
Part of it can be blamed on the anonymity of the internet. People (not necessarily people here but in general) are more likely to say and do things they wouldn't otherwise because they think they can get away with it.
There are other reasons I can't and won't get into because this isn't the time or place to do so.
I think that's what we like to call "keyboard warriors" lol
Yep, and I acknowledge they exist everywhere. Doesn't mean we can't be vigilant about them here, though :)
Yup. I've got a variety of reasons very similar to your own. Plus I'm currently unemployed.
Good luck on the job search.
You are 100% justified in what you said. You don't have to support financially, there has been some questionable takes recently, and some people are being less than courteous.
I will say that the overall tone and tenor of the community is still way better than any other fan site for VT on the internet. Joe and TKP have always erred on the side of letting discussion and community moderation flow naturally as opposed to being heavy handed. If you see something getting upvoted/downvoted and you disagree with it, say something. So many times people vote because they see one or two upvotes on something.
And finally, every time Joe makes a post like this, I make a reply to a comment like yours. There are legitimate concerns and reasons for people not to join TKPC. It is valuable to let Joe know what you are thinking, but if things go subscriber only, that's how the rock is gonna roll. Address your grievances when you see them, don't let them fester and build into a hill where you look down and say this behavior is unacceptable. Communities like this take work and it is an on going process.
I've tried, but one problem is there's no way that I can find contact moderators privately. I also pointed out the "ban people for thinking X about Y play" was against community guidelines and was initially down voted for doing so. It currently sets at 0 but it was initially down voted.
In addition, in the time it took me to make -this- post my post just went from +2 to +1. Why? What did I do that the post is worthy of a down vote? Or was it someone who simply doesn't like what I said and down voted it?
The other thing I'll say I didn't mention in my comment is it's best not to get too upset about variations on turkey legs within plus/minus one of what you previously saw. Some folks (myself this is almost always true) browse on mobile, and fat-finger votes is 100% a real problem for me. I'll add that I've found with crummy connections, sometimes you think a vote has registered (or hasn't) and it didn't (or did). I assume that's something to do with whatever back-end sequence that kicks off to log the vote being interrupted.
Honestly? I don't care about my legs in general, but the down voting trend lately has me paying a bit more attention to them of late out of concern for abuse. Hell, a few weeks ago I had a post almost blurred out pretty much because some people didn't like what I said. This was right after everything that happened with dcwilson40, and that's when I started paying a little more attention to them.
I don't think Joe will every do this, but I think seeing visibility of who down -voted or up-voted by scrolling over the leg count will help the issue of down voting just because.
I have no evidence, but I think we have many posters on here who see -22, catches there eye, and then down-vote it just because they want to see that guy go down in votes. Again, no proof or anything, but the way some posts are down voted to oblivion, I don't think its out of the realm.
I think the only people who need to see who up or down voted a post are the mods; the rest of us seeing it could inadvertently lead to its own mob mentality (particularly down-voting as "payback") and I don't want to see that happen, either.
Yea, see that is why I don't think Joe would do that for that reason.
My reasoning pretty much prevents a post being down voted to oblivion just because other people are doing it.
Riffing off of this: is there anyone besides VTGM and Joe who can edit others' posts, disable accounts, etc? Maybe adding another person with the "Moderator" tag and abilities would help even just from a visibility point of view.
edited in light of Lil Bobby Tables hitting me with my own level of pedantry
o/
I can edit my own posts.
This is tough for me because I think it's a multi-faceted issue. The first thought in my head is that all of your complaints are forum related, not related to the analysis/articles posted here which is ostensibly what your TKPC membership supports. That being said, I understand your mindset and really do agree that I wish folks would turn it down a notch (or five) at times, especially on game day. So that gets into the question of moderation. As we know, there's really only one mod here, and I believe he's a volunteer (not counting Joe, of course). Maybe the issue is we need more mods, as well as a clearly defined "gameday behavior" guideline. That of course brings up the concern of "over-moderation", but I do agree there is probably more room before we reach that state.
Perhaps Joe can enlist some of the regulars on this site he feels are suitable for a volunteer moderation purpose. If so, would that go a ways towards addressing your issues?
It would help, yes. But that being said, by financially supporting the site I'm also supporting the forums that go along with it. That includes the twenty vent threads for one game or the recent rash of down vote abuse that's been occurring.
I had to take a breath before responding to this because of how ignorant this whole post is. If it's a financial issue, fine. But this is the internet... you can't control what people say on it 100% of the time. If curse words or negative attitudes during a game affect you enough not to contribute to this great site, fine. But let's not blame people who are busting their ass to provide awesome content every week.
Outside of the Twitter account during game day (which has gotten a little better since I made a comment directly to the account a few weeks ago), I never blamed it on the contributors. But you can't separate the contributor portion of the site from the poster portion of the forums unless you just do away with the forums entirely, and I don't want to see that, either.
Seems like you just did blame it on the contributors?
That's your interpretation and you're welcome to it, but it's factually wrong. I listed some of my reasons and concerns and the only one that would imply contributors is the social media (re: Twitter) account.
If anything, my complaints are against us as a whole and how this place has turned the last few weeks. In my opinion, the site needs more active moderation or a way to privately contact moderators to look at something to see if it actually needs their attention, because the problems I've listed have been us as posters, not the contributor's posts about the basketball team or Nolley or fair analysis about the BC game.
So you're holding your financial contribution ransom, taking a hard-line "do as I say or else"?
Edit: I also find it funny you're basically saying "you need more moderators, and I'm not going to donate until that happens!" while we're being reminded constantly that this site needs more money in order to continue operating at its current pace, let alone bringing on more staff.
As an aside I'm also finding it curious that, after complaining about downvotes, I'm noticing the comment scores of replies to you in this thread tick downward every once in a while.
As fern is fond of saying, BINGO. Also funny, after stating he doesn't care about downvotes, he then proceeds to complain about receiving downvotes. Just an observation.
Until I had the one post almost blurred out a few weeks ago shortly after everything that happened with dcwilson40, and for no good reason (and I appreciate you standing up for me on that, Alum), I never even paid attention to them. Since then I've noticed a trend of downvoting people simply because you disagree with them. Yeah, it's made me a bit sensitive to it because every time I've noticed it it's felt like "I don't like what you said, downvote" and I probably need to chill a little. But isn't that also an abuse of their usage?
As for moderators, those can be done by trusted volunteers. Most of the fan sites I visit for non-athletic items are moderated by volunteers. Would I have time, and if I thought I were the right person, I would offer to step up but I don't think I'm the right person and I definitely don't have the time right now. Though anecdotal, they also tend to do a better job policing the place than some of the official fan site forums I've been to where the moderators are paid employees.
This kind of tone doesn't really help anything to me. All he did was state what's keeping him from contributing. Generally you hold something ransom if it isn't yours to begin with... "want it back? pay up!" kind of thing. I'd rather Tal voice what's keeping him from joining TKPC as some form of constructive feedback than for him to let it stew and never ever join because of frustrations that weren't ever voiced.
Listen man, I like your contributions around here with the stats and everything. I also understand where you are coming from. I just don't like the fact you are looping in an entire community with a couple of assholes who can't hold their liquor or are just here trolling.
Honestly? I don't like it, either but it's the way I've been feeling for a few weeks now.
I didn't intend to start an argument with my comments, but I felt it needed to be said; people are fine to disagree with me, but we really do need to do a better job of cleaning up house. Do I want to reward Joe, French, Henry and all the other contributors? You bet your ass I do! But right now I feel like that money would also be rewarding the bad actors as well and that unless we, as a community, change something a few bad actors could become a lot more.
I get everyone's frustrated with how the season has gone, but it feels like as the season's gone down hill so has the general posting of this site :(
Change rarely happens without financial support. It is easy to say you want something but getting something for free isn't likely.
You say we need to change some stuff. Ok. What are your ideas?
Let me get back to you on this. Right now my thoughts are all over the place and I feel like if I said anything it'd be a disjointed mess.
Edit 1: I'll probably do more as I think of things and have more time to think about this, but for starters I do think a few more moderators to help Joe and Guitarman would help. As I mentioned above, they don't have to be "Staff", either; trusted volunteers work just fine.
I also think there should be some way to flag a post for moderators to look at it like I've seen on php forums. Of course that might require some way for the forums to privately contact them and I don't know if this particular style of site is capable of that; I know php is, but php has its own set of problems.
Without requiring more staff, it wouldn't hurt for more people to step up and say "this is against community guidelines". In fact, two of the guidelines are "don't start a new topic to rant" and "Don't start duplicate threads" yet how many rant threads do we end up with after a loss lately???
Edit for grammar.
It wouldn't. Let's all do better.
It's a good idea in theory but calling out community guidelines violations other than blatant trolling or political posts will usually draw accusations of post policing and derail the thread even more. It's a double edged sword.
Go figure, post policing on a board that prides itself on being community moderated being construed as a negative thing
Tell me about it. It's a mad mad mad mad world.
Great in theory, tough in execution. Some of the most active and highest legged individuals (which I am using as a poor proxy for "trusted"), can be some of the most controversial. It's comfortable having VTGM but he has a life and obligations so he's stretched pretty thin.
Like a report function? Those posts that are truly report worthy are usually nuked to the ground.
Part of it is a leg grab. People want to be first because it gets more visibility. Part of it is people are upset and want answers. They tend to be a little sauced after games and some people thing they have new info that requires a new thread. Don't let it eat you up. Click on threads you want to leave and have that back button ready if you find it unproductive.
For the most part, yes... But on the other hand, stuff that is generally NSFW and probably does need to be nuked tends to go green, especially the more risque it goes, Not that it happens a lot, but when it does, the community doesn't take care of it on its own.
A report function would also help for duplicate threads. I mean, generally we do a decent job of letting them die on their own but then we have instances like the rant threads.
I also get deleting them also screws with the negative legs as well as the positive ones but I'm open to suggestions myself, since I know there are technical and logistical challenges with any solution.
I'll keep thinking on more this weekend as time permits, though.
For that, a merge function would be more efficient.
even a simple "lock" wherein further commenting is disabled would help mitigate this.
I can actually lock threads. I only use it rarely, because (1) obvious duplicates just get deleted and (2) I err on the side of not stifling discussion. I locked dcwilson's thread from a few weeks back because it was a shitshow that no one wanted to keep seeing on the top of the tracker, but I can't tell you the last one before it that I locked.
Having been an admin on a play-by-post game before, merge would be a moderator function while report would be accessible to everyone. I also know that in PHP functions can be revoked from individuals if they start abusing them, though something tells me that wouldn't be possible here without revoking it from everyone.
What, you don't think dcwilson40 should be a moderator? ;^)
This is nit picky, but since you decided to include language as one of the reasons you won't join TKPC, you probably shouldn't use the word "ass". Personally I don't see it as a negative word, but other people do. Those who live in glass houses...
I appreciate you taking the time to voice your complaints/concerns. That said, I disagree with some of the points you have made:
This is pretty uncommon, and rarely happens with more than a downvote or two when it does. It is extremely uncommon in comparison to actual self-moderated upvote/downvote systems like Reddit, where opinions very often do lead to mass downvoting. The only places where I've seen a lot of downvoting are some of the more aggressive post-game threads after losses, which I agree have been ridiculous lately. After the GT loss we had three separate "vent" threads going, and naturally we had the same conversations going on in three different threads.
I personally think that the community offers a lot of solid analysis, and that most of the "rabble rousing" is done by a few vocal posters, and is not necessarily representative of the community at-large. In fact, I think a lot of your complaints fall under this umbrella. I don't know the active number of weekly posters on this site, but I would assume it's quite large, given that we have lots of non-TKPC members and have 657 current TKPC members. I think the negativity, aggression, and debate inciting behavior (of the unhealthy variety) represents a very small percentage of total weekly viewers/posters. I can only think of a few people off the top of my head who have been notably negative and posting a lot in recent weeks.
Game threads and post-game threads have been particularly rough lately, but this is not unique to our fanbase, nor this website. In fact, TKP is probably one of the more tame VT message boards. I don't believe you will be able to find any VT (or any team who cares about their football team, for that matter) message board that doesn't have this kind of behavior.
The rub here is that it is very easy to not participate in game threads, or check post-game threads. If you don't enjoy it, you don't have to participate.
I want to double down again on the fact that these legitimate issues are representative of a very small percentage of the viewers/posters on this board. Several TKPC members have dropped their subscription just because the team is playing poorly, which has nothing to do with the quality of content that the staff here is producing.
This talk of "in good conscious" strikes me as pretty self-righteous as well. This website does NOT get into nasty political drivel. I can't remember a single time where racist, or other bigoted opinions have ever been espoused by the community without being swiftly self-moderated with proper downvotes, and these occurrences have been extremely uncommon in my active years of participating on TKP. I am struggling to figure out what is calling your conscious into question, is it people arguing about college football? Saying coaches should be fired or criticised? People using curse words in game threads? I just don't think there is anything serious enough to warrant a comment about your "good conscious." From my perspective, you have tunnel-visioned onto a small part of this board that is negative. I don't think you will find any sports team, or any institution that generates a great deal of passion (politics, religion, etc) that doesn't contain these bad apples in varying proportions. It's simply not worth getting hung up about the small, vocal minority.
The content of this website is the most important and valuable aspect of the website. The comment sections can be completely ignored, and has no effect on the quality of the content itself. If you want to support this website, it should be decided on your valuation of the content and value being produced by the website, not the individual posters that you don't agree with in the comment sections or game threads.
I wish I could give you 1,000 legs for that second to last paragraph
To the first four points. Those are all related to the community at large, and it's really hard to wrangle a herd of Internet users. For the most part, most patrons treat TKP like its local sports bar. They cheers who they're seated next to and do what they can to ensure their favorite watering hole still stays in business. There are obviously assholes who don't respect the joint and they're showed the door.
As far as Twitter goes, I tweet from @thekeyplay and the tone of that account has never been one of:
That's worked for me, because other than Bitter, whole stole his handle, (joking, Andy!), it has more followers than any other outlet. In reflection, there are times where I wish I didn't die on some hills, but you know what, it's Twitter.
Overall, you put a ton of effort into sharing reasons why you won't support TKP, and I sincerely appreciate the feedback. Perhaps you should think about why you should, since you're a frequent poster here.
My other takeaway after reading your response, and other's feedback, I feel less and less inclined to make sure most of the content, and the forum is available for all.
I appreciate you sharing.
And I sincerely appreciate the time you took to respond back to me, Joe.
I do want to see this place succeed and I do want to see this community become an even better place. I also apologize for misinterpreting the TKP account for more than what it is, but as a consumer if I see "AndyBitterVT" or "The Key Play" or "VT Football(blue checkmark)" my initial instinct is this is meant to be a more business account -- and, yeah, let's not get started on the VT Football Twitter account at the moment because we all know its problems >.>
As I said in an above post, I want this place to succeed. If that means the day comes that I have to pony up or leave, then I'll evaluate everything at that time and make the decision that's best for me as a consumer. In the meantime, I'll do my best to make this as quality of a site as I can.
For me, the bottom line is that TKP does a great job of content creation. Not content curation, but creation. If you read the articles, shouldn't you be willing to contribute to their creation? If you are reading those articles and not contributing, isn't that the definition of
free·load·er
/ˈfrēˌlōdər/
noun
INFORMAL
a person who takes advantage of others' generosity without giving anything in return.
*emphasis on willing - obviously not talking about those not able
Except, members, like myself, are not actually free. We give our demographics out for free, which can be sold to marketers, and leveraged for advertising opportunities here, etc. So, yeah, the basic economic premise for free members, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Add in whatever data is also gathered from Google Analytics, and there should be a lot of data that can be sold for profit.
Honestly, I have no idea what our user demographics are used for. There is no transparency there. We do know about the collaborative partnerships with the Campus Emporium, but as far as where our information has been shopped otherwise, I have no clue, and most people do not either.
Personally, the way things are headed marketing-wise, the more transparency the better.
That's correct, TKP runs in the red to account for non-TKPC members.
There's a privacy policy in the footer. The only reason that's there is for third-party ads.
TKPC members don't receive third-party ads.
And to be blunt, even as a power user, the traffic you create pays for an iota of TKP's server bill (the same with any other individual user). TKP isn't Facebook, re-selling your data every which way, it's many orders of magnitude below scale there.
Just wondering... have you ever read It's Meltdown Time? Because the language and behavior on TKP is nothing compared to some other fan bases.
Never heard of it, but I have made the mistake of going to the Riot forums once and play Blizzard games and I'm thankful we're nowhere close to that level of bad.
Do you subscribe to any publication, such as a magazine or a newspaper? If so, do you read every article in them? Do you subscribe to cable, satellite, Netflix, etc.? If so, do you watch every show that is available?
My guess is no. You choose what you want to read or watch based upon the headline, subject matter, genre, etc. The same choices to read or not read, engage or not engage, apply here on TKP.
I graduated a long time ago and for most of my adult life I have lived far from Blacksburg, and therefore don't have a local paper or news source that provides me any information on VT. I subscribe to TKP because of it's in-depth coverage of VT and VT sports, primarily football that I really can't get anywhere else. It's by far the best site out there for what I am looking for. I enjoy reading about recruiting hits (and misses...sigh), player profiles, Hokies in the Pro's, and the excellent articles written by Joe, French, Alex, Henry, Pierson, Brian, and the rest of the outstanding TKP staff. It helps me feel connected to my alma mater, and makes me more knowledgeable about everything that is going on at Tech. I don't post much because I don't feel I have much to add to most topics, and I couldn't give a rat's ass about turkey legs. However, I'm passionate about TKP and what Joe provides for all of us.
While I understand and appreciate the TKP community's right and desire to contribute and opine on numerous topics, I don't read threads on fishing, beer, TV shows, video games, or in particular, post-game vents. That's not what I come here for, so I choose not to read them.
So, if you don't like vent or other threads, don't read them. But, just because you don't like all of the content, threads, or even some of the individual members, that shouldn't keep you from contributing to TKP. If you're waiting for a site or community where you will like everything and everybody, well, you're going to have a long wait.
Let's go, TKP! Let's go, Hokies! It's game day...
THIS ^^^^^ SO MUCH THIS!!!!
* Don't subscribe to any magazines or news sites.
* Don't have cable or satellite. Nor do I have Netflix, Hulu, etc. I don't even watch TV. If we're playing and it's a home game, I'm there if I'm not sick. If I'm not there or it's an away game/bowl game, I listen to it on my 30+ year old radio.
I get your analogy, but this has nothing to do with liking people; it has everything to do with the attitudes that have cropped up lately. Attitudes that, frankly, would embarrass me if someone I knew came here for the first time and said "you're a part of that?!" Attitudes and actions that do need to be cleaned up some. Attitudes and behaviors that have been destructive rather than constructive.
Clearly it's not everyone doing it, but there's truth in the saying "a few bad apples spoil the bunch."
I'm sorry but if you're afraid of your friends judging you because of comments sections on the internet then either you need new friends or you need to reevaluate your own perspective. Or if you want you're unwilling to do either you can just preface your intro to TKP with "Hey this site has great content but, like all places on the internet, the comments section can get pretty awful. So just ignore that part"
But seriously, everyone who spends any time on the internet knows that comments sections are rubbish. They won't judge you for other people being jerks. I promise.
I respect your decision not to contribute financially. But I just want to point out a couple things.
1. Every single item you take issue with relates directly to comment sections and has literally nothing to do with the content. Comment sections on the internet are terrible. Everywhere. To be fair, TKP comments are probably among the most civil in all of the internet. So it's silly to hold such a high standard there.
2. Turkey legs are fun and all but they don't matter. They're like points from "Whose Line is it Anyway"
I agree that people "shouldn't" down vote comments simply for disagreeing but in the grand scheme of things it's a pretty trivial thing to get upset over. Sure, there are gonna be jerks in every community (online or otherwise) but if you let them upset you for being jerks you're getting mad at something silly for no good reason. In my experience TKP has self moderated really well so I think the system, as a whole, works as intended, even if you have some jerks who don't follow the rules.
3. This is my last and most important point. The reasons you give make absolutely no sense. Here's why. You're upset about the comments section. Regardless of whether you join TKPC you will still always be able to see the comments. You clearly still choose to partake in the comments even though you don't contribute towards the content. If you don't like the comments sections you're welcome to never read them. Becoming a TKPC member doesn't mean that you are forced to read the comments. They don't get emailed to you or texted or anything. Trust me, I know.
What you're paying for is the content, not the comments. Claiming that you don't want to pay for content because you don't like the comments section is like saying that you don't want to watch basketball because the football team sucks.
I mean sure, that's fine. Do you. But it doesn't make any sense.
Me personally, I can do without the original pieces, or do with less. If there wasn't any original pieces, I would still come to TKP fwiw.
I usually just read the topics created by the posters here. Usually our community posters can post creative topics/questions/polls/articles/opinions/analysis that creates enough traction for other posters to contribute to topics.
Now there are some topics such as mayo, Emma Watson, 20+ vent threads after every loss that I could do without but that's just me. Everybody is different on here on what they like and don't like.
Long story, short... The original pieces doesn't turn the dial enough for me enough to pony up the money. If they all go away, I wouldn't lose sleep, but again, thats just me. I will continue to buy TKP gear though to support the site.
No Emma Watson?
lol I just don't get the fascination. I could find other women who are just as attractive if not more and have the gifs attached to them.
Again, don't get me wrong, she is easy on the eyes, but I don't get the whole hoopla about her.
I dont see what the big deal is either...but I like my women a little thicker...
As soon as I get a checking account, the first thing it will be used for is for a TKPC membership
You have my word
Through my master's course, that I have recently been heavily involved in, there is a huge opportunity for this site to contribute directly to the success of the overall football program. I just learned about it.
I think TKP should strongly look at Pay What You Want Pricing that is linked directly to the Hokie Club.
In this price model, more times then not, it has been found that people will pay more than the actual asking price ($80.00/year). I am sure more people would pay even more money if it were tied directly to the Hokie club.
How companies can make more money by allowing you to 'pay as you want'
When Does Pay What You Want Pricing Work?
Radiohead- Adopting Pay What You Want Pricing Strategy
Also if you offered a monthly price compared to a one time only price, I would be more inclined to join. The year-long subscription should be cheaper than a monthly service, but you would more then likely get more customers that way.
Just to add, you don't necessarily have to go full blown PWYW. That's just a suggestion.
I think it would really drive sales, if a Hokie club membership was offered with a subscription.
Since you are essentially a freemium model, the month subscription should definitely be an option though. Your missing out on part of your user demographics, college kids with little money to spend!
TKP was basically PWYW for a long time. You could donate via paypal and there was zero premium content behind a paywall. Joe has outlined his reasons for moving away from that pretty thoroughly multiple times, but the gist of it is that if they want to be able to consistently provide great content, they need more of a consistent revenue stream.
I understand. Thus why I said it doesn't have to be a PWYW.
Though from what you're describing, and I cannot remember this far back myself, you didn't have a "Charity" to add on to get entice people to do it. So, it was bound to fail the first time around.
All I am saying is that TKP has a very unique ability to get more people to join it's premium service if you were to team up with the Hokie Club.
People who joined would not only be keeping TKP alive but at the same time feel like they are contributing to what everyone in this community of service wants, the success of the Athletic Program.
That is a really fantastic thing, that I know could get accomplished, and it would be a great way to sell the subscription side. Join the KeyPlayersClub and become a Hokie Club member at the same time, improving 2 things that you love. That is a huge value proposition that will net more money.
Now, how this subscription model doesn't have a pay per month, will drive me crazy until it changes. Give people options. You are basically leaving money on the table. It's the standard business model of the Web 2.0.
At TKP's price point and scale, a monthly price point isn't a predicable enough model. I've never preached to folks they should pay for TKP over other discrensionable purchase, but at this point, it's the cost of a video game, or couch cushion money (23 cents per day). Again, everyone's finances are different, but as far as discrensionary income goes, it doesn't break the bank.
As far as partnering with the Hokie Club, I have two thoughts:
1. As an organization, they can't even tie their shoes right. It doesn't scream, 'good partner'. Also, they may not have any interest to work with TKP.
2. While TKP is staffed by a bunch of Hokies, we try to follow best reporting practices, and a partnership with the Hokie Club would be a conflict of interest.
There are a lot of things TKP could do. One of the guidining principles for me is KISS. I have a full time job that's sometimes occupies 60 hours a week. Then I have TKP. And I also have a family. I don't have the time to deploy and test. TKPC is a simple model with a simple price structure partially for that reason.
Personally, I bust my butt to make sure there's content, up to date tech stack, and other parts in working order. Other contributors do too. As I said above, I'm blinking less and less at the thought to go full on with TKPC because it's worked well elsewhere.
I appreciate your thoughts.
Amen. As has been said before, the price of TKPC is less than that of an overpriced craptastic cup of Starbucks.
Wait - you launched TKP in week 10 of 2007?
That was my first thought as well upon reading the title.
Joe, I've told you this personally via email, so you know...when I get money, you'll get money. This season especially, I really miss my key.
Here, from one whiskey drinker to another....
Can that volume knob get any Fuller?
I thought at first you meant TKP was turning 11 and that I was really getting old. That being said join up and party hard. It is only two less cases of beer a year or one less bottle of good whiskey (or 69 cases of flavored water for those weirdos of you who cling to Natty Ice...)
Who is drinking Natty Ice? Now we are officially getting into the gross end of cheap beer.
Natty Ice, Natty Light, Busch, Busch Light, Busch Ice, Keystone, Keystone Light, Keystone Ice, PBR
Its all garbage that will make you feel like garbage in the morning
I have to disagree with all of these except the ones that end with Ice. Ice beers are inherently gross.
The ones that begin with ice are pretty good, mainly Icehouse
I think the last time I had one of those it was ducktaped to my hands.
Must've been your lucky day!
I don't like the taste of alcohol at all, plus some personal reasons I won't drink, so I'm half wrong to all of you anyway!
Trust me, you were already there.
I want to drink with you someday man. I've always said the best kind of beer is free beer. The second best kind of beer is cold beer.
Papa always told me the best beer is the next one.
And any time man. I'm always down for a cold one.
Yesterday I drank a Bud Select (it was a funeral, go judge someone else) and then a little later drank a Diet Coke... they tasted EXACTLY the same. No joke. I had my brother-in-law confirm this. I think this confirms we're in The Matrix.
Also, I'm sticking to craft beer forever now.
Gonna re-up when I am able. Wish I knew more when that would be.
I was thinking, at the BC game, that we couldn't figure out what the penalties were, while at the game.
For instance we knew there was a personal foul called but didn't know Cunningham punched the guy.
An idea for a regular feature could be to document fouls so that the attendees at the game could find out what the heck happened.
Wouldn't need to be a columnist, could be a reader here.
Did anyone run into any issues when signing up yesterday or... did no one actually decide to? Had a bunch of new TKP account registrations comes through, but no new TKPC members which has me suspect there might be a bug in the system.
After reading through many of the comments here, I keep seeing the ability of the community to downvote a post as a bone of contention. While I believe that downvoting a post has its place, I also wonder if there may be a better way? For example, what if there is some cost to us individually in order to downvote: downvote a post and lose one of your accumulated legs? For those that really care about leg count, they might think twice before joining in the herd mentality of downvotes.