So spam should be down to the mods. Have a problem with a certain member? Tell a mod, problem solved. Using a system to 'charge' people for using emotes is kind of ridiculous really when the fundamental problem could be easily solved without including a stupid gimmick.
Also a money system to increase posts has never truly worked. When the system first came back in 2013, it actually encouraged a lot of ****posting and one liners with some users explicitly stating they posted to earn money or gain access to the SB (when the SB had a post limit on it). This was one of the reasons when I was staff why we didn't want a money system because it seemed kind of redundant. Maybe it's because I just don't really care about the forum anymore, but now I have no problem with the money system existing. However you start putting a price on everything then it literally becomes a limiting burden to what should be a trivial gimmick placed in the corner of the forum.
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While we're on the topic of prices for certain things. I haven't been able to post a blog because I'm a poor bastard. But I also don't feel like posting tons either because most threads that exist (bar the BotW ones) I feel like I've posted in before over the years. So should I just post **** to get blog access or just sit forever without something that's always been quite a big part of ZD?
*by the way this was meant to be overexaggerated to prove a point. I don't think blogs should have a price like that, especially for members who have been active over the years and maybe just don't post as much anymore but still want to be a part of the community which blogs are a big part of
Now that the ZI/ZD thing is all official like, I'd feel like I should comment on this even as all final decisions come down to Jimmy himself - and based on the brief time I have seen him work behind the scenes this year, I can tell he knows what he is doing. I trust his judgement.
For starters, I dislike the coin system. One of the biggest reason I dislike it is because of a principal at ZI, where literally no one is above another. Sure, I am a paid staff member at technically "the head of ZI", but reality is, my opinion and viewpoint for new things at ZI isn't above the staff, and our staff opinions aren't above the fans. A coin/point system sort of makes for a public showing of "have and have nots", which does, arbitrarily, create a divide between new members and old. But I also respect it has been a system here for a long time, so I don't want to disrupt it. Just publicing voicing that I am against it.
So that being said, it should no surprise I am against using for emotes when the primary reason given for using it is spam. Regardless of if you think past current, and future modes can properly deal with spam, reality is there hasn't been a emote related spam report in a long time, meaning that a vast majority of the users don't actually think there is a emote spam problem going on in the first place. The last thing that should happen is a change to emotes in order to appeal to a small amount of the users - which appears to be one or two users.
I also do think blogs are way too pricey to get. I can definitely agree with some sort of barrier to getting one, but the barrier to entry I feel is too high. Not sure if that opinion will change anything, but it might be worth re-evaluating.
Once we get a new influx of members from ZI, I think though that the feeling of not wanting to post may change. Even as you might have posted in basically all the threads you wanted too already, typically conversations include back and forth - as in, you want to post more than once or twice in those given threads. It's possible that a new influx of members will help encourage you to want to do just that.