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In light of this thread, I'm considering revisiting that rule and opening up some kind of user-to-user marketplace here. I have two possible approaches in mind right now - comments would be appreciated! making "for sale" threads a thing you can buy - ie. paying $10 (as an example - actual pricing might need more thought) to put up a thread in which you're allowed to sell something adding something resembling a proper marketplace, where you can post items for sale, arrange payment, and MLPF/Poniverse takes a small cut from the transaction (there's an IP.Board add-on for this, so I don't anticipate it being a strain on our troubled access to dev resources) @StormBlaze @Jon the Bronynerd ^

Note for everypony: I've allowed @Jon the Bronynerd to post this thread. Check out his auctions!

Hey @Mickey Adaptus, I appreciate that you want to support us financially and want to work with you to find a way to let you do that! I took a look at iDEAL and accepting it would require us to open a Netherlandsbank account, which is not a path I'd like to go down at this point. However, I assume you have a bank account since iDEAL works through online banking, which gives us some options: - cheques - a money order - prepaid VISA cards - opening a PayPal account (maybe?) - VISA or MasterCard debit card, if your bank offers them I'll follow up with you via PM to work out a solution!

A small correction: your customers can pay for a commission on MLP Forums via PayPal, credit/debit cards, or a money order, with no further effort on your part, Scribbler.

We're not in the financial position to start providing "free" ways to get perks normally reserved for subscribers. It would discourage those who can afford a subscription to avoid getting one and virtual currency is no good for paying Poniverse's (very real) bills. Objectively, the price attached to those perks is not very high - the price of two Starbucks coffees a month will get you most of them - so the few perks they do get will remain exclusive for the foreseeable future. You get a very complete user experience without them already. Note that if you have money in some form but can't use a payment card or PayPal to subscribe, we're able to make alternate payment arrangements as well. That said, there are some latent ideas for an achievement system floating around - that could encourage certain actions that benefit the community, and be plain fun, without conflating contributions to the community with contributions to its continued existence and development. I can't promise when or if that would happen, though - a forum admin may or may not have something more specific to say about this.

This sounds like the rest of us missed out on a lot of potential fun. How did joining staff get in the way of it happening?

The record ought to be set straight on the apparent understanding of MLP Forums as an "all-ages" or "family-friendly" site: MLP Forums has, at all points throughout its history, been a 13+ site. The considerations in catering to children vs. teenagers are comparable in significance to the considerations in catering to teenagers vs. adults, and serving children under 13 has never been one of this community's goals. Opening MLP Forums to all ages would be an almost equally "interesting" paradigm shift with just as many potential pitfalls - legalities aside, consider how you'd feel about discussing complex headcanon with 4-year-olds.

There aren't many pony fan sites much larger than MLP Forums (Equestria Daily, Fimfiction, and Derpibooru come to mind). I'll play devil's advocate and point out that Fimfiction and Derpibooru in particular have very large amounts of NSFW content on them - if you had these sites in mind when writing your post, they're evidence that it's possible to design a site to host both SFW and NSFW content, while keeping the latter kind of content completely isolated from those who don't care for it. deviantART, though not a pony-specific site, is also worth a mention as it hosts both 13+ and 18+ material while decidedly serving both age groups. Successfully designing a site in such a way (which I'm not suggesting is simple) broadens the number of interests it can serve (meaning, more users and activity, which benefits everyone) without negatively impacting the experience for anyone who only wants the SFW stuff.

Where did you see that we only take PayPal? MLP Forums also accepts credit/debit/prepaid cards, money orders, and cheques. Can you use any of those? All you need to send a money order is cash and a post office. It's unlikely you'll find an artist who accepts Steam games as payment since making money tends to be the reason one opens commissions in the first place. I'd be happy to discuss alternatives to PayPal via PM.

Payments being broken is a big issue. I'm following this up with you via PM. If anyone else is having payment issues, please PM me and Lavo.

I appreciate the suggestion but unfortunately, our bills don't stop coming once we've paid a certain number of them. I'd rather be upfront about that, so our donor/subscriber perks will continue being structured to encourage and reward recurring donors. Without recurring revenue, there won't be an MLP Forums for anyone to enjoy.

A longstanding tradition of Poniverse has been to give former staff most of the forum perks associated with a subscription as a token of appreciation for their service. This was accomplished by placing all former staff in the "Subscribers" group on MLP Forums. Over the years, however, the list of MLPF's subscribers grew very long as staff came and went. This had the side effect of making it look like we have about 10 times the financial support we actually do. In an effort to improve transparency, the subscriber list has been corrected to only list actual subscribers now; former staff continue to be distinguished by being in a new "Retired Staff" group. For those of you who've thought financially supporting Poniverse, I figured that having a better idea of how much support we already have may affect your decision. To those who already subscribe, thank you - I hope you appreciate this information as well. The more subscribers we have, the more ambitious we can get with things like picking server hardware, funding community events, and rep'ing our projects at conventions. And you get cool perks like a larger signature and a custom title, too! If you want to grab a subscription now, they start at $5 USD/month on the forum store.