Upcoming Changes

Art Andrews

Community Founder
Community Staff
We will be making a number of significant changes within the next few weeks. Just want to give you a heads up on them:

1. Addition of an ALL Star Wars costuming Forum. We are still working on the details, but we want to make sure those of your working on Star Wars costumes that aren't directly covered by our existing forums have a place to show off and discuss your work.

2. Stepped Membership. We will implement a new member structure that will limit new members ability to see/post at the Sarlacc Pit and the Cargo Hold. It will also limit a new member's ability to create a new thread, giving them time to see who we are and how we work before giving them access to bombard us with questions that have been answered repeatedly in the past.

3.Affiliate programs. This is a little ways off, but we want TDH to be self sustaining and there is nothing I want more than to remove the need for donations.

4. Consolidated look. We are working to further unify and consolidate our look to help give a more professional appearance to the site.

5. Updated reference gallery.

I think that covers it through the end of this year. As always, if you have any suggestions on how we can improve TDH's look, feel, usefulness, please let us know.

D
 
I can see all these things as being big steps forward for TDH, and I applaude the efforts that go into making this the best costuming community and one of the best overall communities online.

A few questions/comments though:

How long until a new member can post in the sarlacc pit? I view the Sarlacc pit as a way of immersing yourself in the community, getting your name out there and getting to know the membership on a friendly basis rather than a "down to business" basis.

The wiki will help tremendously with this, but will not being able to start a new thread to ask a question lend itself to old threads being reserected from the dead and is that even really a bad thing if it's pertinent info.

What exactly are we thinking with the affiliate programs? Banner ads and popups? I hope not. Or is it more if you buy something from somewhere and mention TDH then TDH gets a kickback.

I'm excited about the updated reference gallery and the all Star Wars costume section!

TDH sure has come a long way and the best part is that it is still moving forward!
 
5. Updated reference gallery.

When the ROTJ Fett (and Jango Fett) was in sweden i took some high rez as well as RAW pictures of the two armors. I'd be more than happy to share them if someone is willing to host the images.

The pictures range from 7 - 10 MB per pic.
 
How long until a new member can post in the sarlacc pit? I view the Sarlacc pit as a way of immersing yourself in the community, getting your name out there and getting to know the membership on a friendly basis rather than a "down to business" basis.

The structure we are setting up will work as follows:

When does a new member get full access?
In short, after being a member for MORE than 14 days and making more than 9 posts.
A member with less and 14 days of membership and less than 5 posts is considered a "new member" and has the most restrictions. Once a new member has 5 or more posts AND has been here MORE than 14 days, they will be automatically promoted from a new member to an “intermediate member.” Once they have 10 or more posts AND have been here MORE than 14 days, they will be automatically promoted from intermediate member to “full member” and will have full access to the board.

What can/can’t a “New Member” do?
  • CAN create new thread and post in a Welcome/introductory forum.
  • CAN reply in forums but cannot create new threads.
  • CANNOT view the Cargo Hold.
  • CANNOT view the Sarlacc Pit.
What can/can’t I do as a “Intermediate Member?”
  • CAN create new thread and post in a Welcome/introductory forum.
  • CAN reply in forums but cannot create new threads.
  • CAN reply in the Cargo Hold but cannot create new threads.
  • CAN view the Sarlacc Pit but CANNOT post.

The wiki will help tremendously with this, but will not being able to start a new thread to ask a question lend itself to old threads being reserected from the dead and is that even really a bad thing if it's pertinent info.

It is possible. We have tried to make the New Member and Intermediate Member time periods relatively short. Our purpose behind creating a stepped membership is three-fold:
  • Give new members time and opportunity to learn and adjust to TDH's culture.
  • Encourage members to participate and reward them for their participation. We currently have over 2000 members with a 0 post count.
  • Ensure our members are here for the right reasons. Members who have nothing to contribute towards the hobby will not be able to simply post randomly because they will not immediately haev access to the Off-Topic forum.

What exactly are we thinking with the affiliate programs? Banner ads and popups? I hope not. Or is it more if you buy something from somewhere and mention TDH then TDH gets a kickback.

Yes, this will most likely involve ad banners, but only from vendors that we feel would benefit our members, such as EFX, OPX, Sideshow, etc. You won't be seeing ads for Hertz or hostingdude here. And no popups. We have no interest in funding TDH activities by torturing our members with irritating ads, but we must find a way for TDH to become a self sustaining entity. While I can't begin to thank all of our members for their very generous donations, we do not want to rely on donations in the future. Nor do we want to create a "pay for" membership service. We know that some will not welcome this change. We have put it off as long as we could because we didn't want it either. However, TDH is not free, but we always want it to be free to our members. This means we have to find a way to pay for it and we feel adding affiliate programs will be a good way to do that!
 
When the ROTJ Fett (and Jango Fett) was in sweden i took some high rez as well as RAW pictures of the two armors. I'd be more than happy to share them if someone is willing to host the images.

The pictures range from 7 - 10 MB per pic.

Your contributions would be greatly appreciated!
 
GREAT!

If I may - Im a regular on kvraudio.com and their banners pay for the site with not too much intrusion. Also when a notification mail comes in it usually has an advert BELOW the notification link. This might be a way to sell the idea to interested parties as the more notifications that go out, the more their stuff is advertised and we can ignore it as its below the link :)

Dave
 
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