Back when this was Scribblit, twocorpses claimed there would never be a permanent account sale and that EC accounts were the closest thing to permanent that there would ever be. So I assume from this post that now that the website is under new ownership, that policy has changed?

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You assume correctly. While I respect Lyn's thinking in that matter, the fact remains that if Inksome is to remain viable, we need more money in our coffers than we currently have. And while I will be searching for additional funding options (i.e. loans and VC funding) for IS, we will still need money in the mean time.

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This makes me VERY happy! Yay!

I'm throwing in my vote here for Inksome merchandising in the future. T-shirts, coffee mugs, mousepads, stickers, buttons, etc. I don't know about other people but I'd buy those, definitely. Also, it would give people something tactile, a physical representation of where their money went, to assuage the fears of those who worry about paying for things like paid or permanent accounts. I don't know how viable an option it is at this junction however.

As for the roleplaying thing, I'll look around for a beta group for you. It would best suit a game that hasn't started yet and would like its members to have the abbreviated community names. I'm in three games and three private communities on this server, but none of them really go for the xxx_username thing. Although I would love to help try out every other option. Can you guarantee that messing with coding for the beta community won't spontaneously make entries or comments vanish or would people have to keep backing up the community? That would be a great concern as well, I think.

I can always look to see if there are any people looking to move from other servers who'd like to try it as well.

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Yes, I can make that guarantee. And I'll look into the merchandising.

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yeah i would definitely buy a t-shirt with the panda+squid logo XD too cute hehe

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just thought i would let you know, i got an error while trying to post a comment on this page. i think it was because i was logged in on another page, but logged out on the one I was commenting in. i've never experienced an error in that situation before, so it might be a problem you may want to look into.

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I'm confused. if you were logged out, why would it be an error for Kit to look into? Unless I'm understanding wrong, isn't it because you have two different pages open, logged in on one but not the other? That doesn't seem like an Inksome error, but a user one. O_o

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I was just curious about something..I know for buying extra userpics, you have to purchase it for the same duration as your paid account time, so how does that work with perm. accounts?

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You know, I never thought of that.

*ponders*
*clanking sounds come from staff_kit's head*
*smoke pours from his ears*

Permanent accounts can go up to 500 pics, also permanent, for an extra $100.

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* A reserved block of usernames with the comm's abbreviation. Every username created with that group's XXX will be a character in your game.

Question about this... will there be any restrictions on what the abbreviation can be? If a roleplaying group wanted to reserve, say, the letters CAT, presumably that would prevent people from registering names like catherine or cat_macros or other similar names. Is it just a case of first-come first-served, or would they be required to pick combinations that aren't likely to be in demand? If the former, what would happen to any already-created journals beginning with those letters?

(I'm mostly just curious about this, not being much of a roleplayer myself, so feel free to just say "hell, I don't know".)

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Well, the reserved usernames will be required to have the underscore in, like "xxx_foo". So catherine is safe. As for names like cat_macros, I'll handle that on a case by case basis. In the case of cat_macros, for example, I think it's pretty obvious that username isn't part of any ongoing RP game.

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Thanks for all you do. Some of the new features sound cool, even from a non-roleplayer perspective.

I know DreamWidth is also building features into the LJ code. Are you still interested in possibly using their implementation when it's released, or is Inksome going in a different direction?

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At the present time, I'm still interested in moving IS onto the DW code when it is released. I may have to backport some of our features, but hopefully not that many. :)

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Just as someone who is still sort of lingering on LJ and use it a bit more than IS, I have to respectfully disagree with the price set for permanent accounts and am reminded of when IJ had perms available at $40 apiece.

I know you need to make money off them but it's very reminiscent to LJ's own permanent account sales. :\

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It's reminiscent of LJ's perm account sales because it's done for the same purpose: to raise a relatively large amount of money in a short time. To be perfectly frank, Inksome has no savings to speak of, and for the past few months, I've been making up the difference between our hosting bill and what we've received in paid account sales out of my own pocket. My aim in having this permanent account sale, then, is to build up some capital so that Inksome has a financial cushion to make up the difference.

At the present time, Inksome has no loans, no venture capital funding, no angel investors. There's only me, and I am by no means a wealthy man.

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Hi, I am new and haven't gotten a journal yet, I don't understand how you can ask people for money if the site doesn't work that well. A couple of the links don't even work on the main page. http://www.inksome.com/contributors.bml

And where is the "about inksome" link? I would like to know more about this company before I get a journal. Thanks.

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http://www.inksome.com/sitemap.bml

I mean most of the links don't even work. I am leery about getting a journal on this site now.

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why are you having trouble understanding this? if you make prices cheaper more will sell. do you want to sell one permanent account at $150 or 10 at $40?

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Think of it this way. At the current price, a permanent account is almost the same price as six years of paid time. At $40, a permanent account is the same price as thirteen months of paid time. $40 permanent accounts severely devalue regular paid accounts to the point where Inksome can't survive.

I'm not trying to make a profit here. I'm trying to keep Inksome alive by some means other than my own pocket.

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I just have a suggestion that'll probably get shot down, but you reinforce the need for money to stabilize the site so I thought I'd mention it. While I understand completely the focus you're trying to have without advertisements on the site, I don't see a great pull for people to join-- unlike Livejournal, you require invites & paid time to join, which detours roleplayers. Especially ones who can't afford the deal you've listed.

While I understand having no desire to EVER host advertisements, you might want to consider a period of time for free/ basic users to join for free and use accounts that host advertisements discreetly simply to create funding for the site. It's my theory that users will come for the promise of roleplaying, if not journals as well (as some may be initially apprehensive to a new site that isn't allowing free-journals without invites and the like,) and check things out. Say you allowed registration for accounts hosting paid advertisements, which would allow roleplay games to be hosted-- thus users would traffic here for that, and sign up perhaps for Personal Journals of their own, which they buy time for.

The ads can be lifted once financial stability is achieved. And a userbase is established.

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I appreciate your suggestion. But I promised to keep Inksome free of third party ads, and I intend to keep that promise.

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Keep in mind, guys, that LJ is run by a giant corporation, has been passed through several in fact, and they have a lot more money.

Inksome! is a site that a tiny group of three or four people have started from their own homes, free of ads, and the reason the prices are high now is so that they can make the site go somewhere sooner than later.

You have to understand that they're making the site for us and that all the money you give them goes toward making sure the site can become better. They want to think as a user who make this site great for other users. They aren't big business people or suits or anything. They just want to make a site with no ads where people can join up and roleplay and have lots of icons. They're giving you more icons right away than paid accounts on LJ even do. So if you can spare it, just think of it as an investment in the future of something that you think looks promising. I think IS is promising, and if I did have the money, I would gladly buy a permanent account. (I might in the future, if IS holds out.)

I've been planning a multi-fandom RPG that I would be willing to host on here.

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