When a site gives away too many freebies people take advantage and actually care LESS because they WILL find their material elsewhere. For them, its not about a community, its all about them.
Perhaps another incentive to posting would be to capitalize on the "power of 10" by restricting access to ALL the material (art, clips, stories, etc, but not posts themselves) until a sufficient ammount of posts have been accumulated by that user (and not just 10, and spamming, smiley posts, etc. do not count toward the required ammount).
Or perhaps as people keep posting, the more priveledges they get. Strictly for example, posts between 30-80 gets you access to stories, 90-100 gets you access to the artwork, and 100-120 gets you access to the clips and media.
We could also have giveaways and contests to reward intelligent posts, funny posts, helpful posts, and posts which deserve some kind of recognition by giving them earlier access to said material.
A points system could be put in place to keep track of this. Again, strictly for example, one star gets them an automatic boost to access to stories. If they are already at that post range, then its an automatic boost to art, and so on.
After accumulating so many stars, you get a boost to the next tier of priveledges.
This is very good incentive, and not only has users post, but post like they mean it, not just to get to the free stuff.
It may not be popular at first, and we may lose some, but I think its critical to uphold the attage of "if you want to recieve you've got to give."
TT is being taken advantage of, and thats not right.
The way you've been doing it, people have been taking advantage of the generousity. And maybe if there are some restrictions for a while or this proposed system is used or tried out, people will either get to stepping or get involved. We don't need excess baggage and dead weight that does nothing. Sure, it looks good for us to have 27,000 + members, but we really have far less than that, far less genuine members that is.
I know that if this was my site I'd choose efficiency, productivity, results, and the overall enjoyment and happiness of my members over tons and tons of accounts that aren't even active or only represent selfish people who offer nothing in return for the free services I would be rendering.
TT is treating this site at the level of a financial investment because it is one. Real money IS going into it. I don't see him being paid dividends for his investment. And there is plenty more we could all do to make his monotary expenditures worth every penny he's paying.
As for those simply too shy to come forward, or those that have stated their reasons, granted, you may very well be exceptions, but unless you are willing to come forward and be more active by your own free will with no cajoling or coaxing from us, I don't see why you would be above this system.
This is why it needs to be post based, since it would be too difficult to look into every account and find merit in it and the person behind it.
