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I know this post is a little late but PayPal isn't a requirement - if you have a credit or debit card with a Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover logo on it, you should be able to use it. Maybe that helps? It's usually possible to get a MasterCard or Visa debit card that links to your bank account (and open a bank account if you don't already have one) even as a minor.

We accept credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, and money orders for commissions and subscriptions; and PayPal for one-off donations to the site. You can also contact me to work out alternate arrangements or get help with using one of the above.

My real name is not hard to find; it's not constructive to threaten me with "exposing" that we don't have resources assigned to MLP Forums - that is a rather plain, non-contentious fact. Starting drama will only waste a lot of time and mental energy. What would be constructive is volunteering to help out. There's been an ongoing search for a new MLPF lead developer since @Lavo left that post, which has not proven very fruitful so far. Its scope will be expanded soon but we had a few other channels to try first. A project's lead developer is normally supposed to be the person communicating with the general public about technical things and it's hard for that to happen when that person doesn't exist. Our volunteers are not a mindless "resource" that can be assigned to whatever tickles a manager's fancy, and Poniverse isn't a magical source of them. Volunteer developers typically sign up to contribute to projects that they have a significant personal stake in (ie. they have a dream to realize or are strongly motivated to work with a particular technology). Canterlot Avenue's technical staff volunteered very specifically for that project - it's wishful thinking, and ignorant of social dynamics, to suggest that they'd be working on MLPF if only I tore them out of Canterlot Avenue. One of the first tasks the new MLPF Lead Dev will get, assuming IP.Board doesn't scare them away, will be to go through the Feedback and Site Questions sections and learn what all the broken things are that need fixing. Their next task will be to get to work fixing them.

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.