New Years Announcement - Important Info...

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WoodiE

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Well lets get this thing started! First I'd like to say once again Happy New Years and thanks for one hell of a year in 04. As some of you already know 04 was a huge year for RCNT in a lot of ways and I'm sure 2005 will be just as big if not bigger!

Ok well lets get down to business shall we? To kick this off I'd first like to welcome our new staff members for 2005 as well as changes within the staff. First our changes within the staff:

FastEddy will be my new co-admin on the site. He'll be helping me on a few of the day to day admin tasks as well as take of any serious problems when I'm not around. I'm sure this comes as no surprise to anyone as Eddy has been a major contributor to the site in many ways and really knows his stuff when it comes to R/C/'s... ok well minus racing :D

Now on to our new additions to the RCNT Staff. As the contributors already know as there has been a vote going on for the past day or two to determine which members will take the seat. However with Eddy moving to the admin spot I've decided to add a third member into the staff. The way the site's been growing lately I don't think it will hurt to have any extra pair of helping hands. Anyways the new moderators are:

Candyman, Jon2, and Rolex - All three of these members have been outstanding members since day one, all of them have helped other when they could and when they couldn't always tried to point others in the right direction. All three of these members will be a great assist to the staff and I'm glad to have them aboard. Welcome guys!

Ok now on to the site changes. I don't think I got nearly the amount of PM's in all the time the sites been up like the amount I've been getting here in the last 3-4 days, all wanting to know what kind of changes are coming. Well here we go...

As of now the contributors group and forum is no more. Instead it is being replaced by paid subscriptions which will be broken down in three groups as listed below each with their own privileges.

Level 1 (Get your avatar) - Display your own custom avatar or one of RCNT's custom avatars, special supporting member icon, and increased PM storage (80) [ $2.00 a month or $20 a year ] Sign Up

Level 2 (Get your Avatar and Custom title) - Display your own custom avatar or one of RCNT's custom avatars, custom titles, special supporting member icon, increased PM storage (100), and access to the RCNT Gallery! [ $4.00 a month or $40 a year ] Sign Up

Level 3 (Supporting Member) - Features include the ability to post in the Supporting Members forum, increased storage (attachments, avatars and private messages (150)), special supporting member icon, upload images to the gallery, custom user titles, signatures, and more... [ $5.00 a month or $50 a year ] Sign Up

What else changes? Well all regular members will no long be able to have their own signatures or avatars, as well as the ability to upload images to the RCNT gallery. Now you must be a member of at least the level 2 group or higher. The Level 3 is really the contributors re-done with a few improvements as well as their free give aways and perks - one of which, all previous members part of the contributors group will have one free month of the level 3 membership - as always, staff will also have the level 3 membership as well.

Other changes planned are re-doing the RCNT Gallery. Right now we've got a lot of different categories to upload images. We will be re-doing the gallery so it only has about 3-4 categories. We also hope to make it titles, and descriptions required fields thus making it easier to search for images when needed. The links page may also be hit up for changes as well, it's not a very active page and I've considered either ditching it all together or replacing it with a much easier and faster system.

Since we're on the subject of systems I'd like to go into why the site has made the changes above. In the last few months RCNT has only been getting slower and slower. The down side it RCNT will only do just that the longer we stay on our current setup. I've had our host and have hired other people to come in and modify and beef up any setting they could to make the site run better. The changes helped and worked for about a month, now as you can see we're right back at square one. The only next logical step we can make now is to move RCNT so it's on it's very own web server. Doing so will allow RCNT to have full system resources without having to share with a bunch of other sites. In doing so this should speed up RCNT a LOT, however the problem is RCNT has no real means of income minus the few bucks we get every few months from a few members that make it a point to donate a little. However a few bucks doesn't come close to paying the nearly $150 month web hosting bill required to run RCNT. Thus if the site isn't making money we've got to come up with ways to make money for the site.

Many members have requested avatars and custom titles from the time they've signed up here only to be denied until they reach 500 or 1000 posts. Now members have a chance to not only help RCNT but also receive their avatar or custom title right away and only for very little money each month. The hardcore members that not only want to make sure RCNT is here tomorrow but also show off with their custom avatars, titles, sigs and their R/Cs in the gallery can for just a few bucks more a month.

So what doesn't change? The purpose of the site, since day one RCNT was been here to allow people to come and share ideas and knowledge about R/C's without any kind of biased ideas being pushed down their throats, as well as provide R/C hobbist a place to kick back and shot the poop with each other. To this day RCNT has remained just that, in fact I see just about everyday someone calling this place a second home or even family. I can assure you this feeling of community, family, or whatever you want to call it will not change. Along with that the content of the site will not change, I do not believe in making someone pay to find out why their engine will not start, or why they can't pop a wheelie :) In short everything will remain the exact same as they are now, the only difference is the extras such as avatars, sigs, titles, and the gallery will all be a subscription based fee, all of which will be going to keep this site up and running.

In wrapping this up I would like to take a quick moment to highlight another very special member - Mayhem! Mayhem has done a large amount of work for RCNT, most of which goes by without anyone really even noticing yet he still continues to do it anyway. The work that I'm talking about is the work and time Mayhem speeds surfing the internet for any and all R/C related news only to come back and post it on the front page of RCNT. If it wasn't for Mayhem we wouldn't have half the news we have on the front page right now. Along with the front page Mayhem has also helped within the forum and behind the forum when ever I needed him to test something for me. Mayhem your work does NOT get over looked by the staff and I can assure you that and we thank you and in an effort to thank you you will be given a free level 3 membership for as long as you'd like one. Again Thank you!

For just the last minute comments I would like to bring the following to you attention:

- ALL signatures and avatars will be deleted by the end of this weekend. In order to start with a clean slate I will be executing a few commands that clears ALL signatures and avatars regardless if you are a level 1 2 3 or even staff. With that said, backup your sig and avatar if you plan on signing up for one of the supporting levels, because as of this weekend they will be deleted.

- Also all regular members that have uploaded images to the gallery, do not worry your images will not be deleted at this time. While I can not promise you what will happen in the future I can say as of now they will remain on the site, you just won't be able to edit or add anymore.

With that I'd like to thank you for your attention and again thank you for a great year and hopefully many great years to follow!


-Michael

[ Reserved spot for forgotten announcements as I'm sure I've forgotten something. ]
 
Welcome you three. I'm glad we have you guys added on to the RCNT Staff. You'll do a wonderful job.
 
For $50 I better get some damn stickers with that subscription. J/K! Welcome new staff. can't wait to see what comes of 05'
 
Welcome to the new staff Congrats gentelmen....
good things are happening here..

YA! 50$ were are the stickers LOL :jk:
 
ZANDOR said:
Welcome to the new staff Congrats gentelmen....
good things are happening here..

YA! 50$ were are the stickers LOL :jk:

Decals, and banners both are in the works as always contributors/level 3 members will have first dibs on these items.


-Michael
 
That is awesome news Woodie. I am excited at all the changes that RCNT is going to be making. I am also very proud to have been added to the RCNT Staff.There is nothing more I find on this site more pleasing than to be able to help a fellow member. I hope to enrich as many of you with advice and at the same time share my experiences with you as well. I definietly call this my family away from home as I spend most of my time here.

May this site always get stonger, bigger and be the best place to be for RC enthusiasts new and experienced!

Onward with RCNT in 2005!!!

Jon

I almost forgot, Congrats Ed on the Promotion. You deserve it.
 
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$50 is a small price to pay for a great site I enjoy being a part of.

Ed, congrats on your promotion. I know you will do a great job as always.

Congrats to the 3 new mods as well. Hope your new responsibilities do not detract from you enjoyment of the site.
 
My fiddy bucks will be sent tomarrow....but I want a new pony To!!!
 
Congrats to the additions to the RCNT Staff. You will have some money shortly WoodiE.
 
WoodiE, it's a joy to be a member of this site, and an absolute honor to be chosen to join the staff.
As great as this place has been so far, it looks like it will even get better.
2005 should be a great year for all of us here.
As WoodiE mentioned, this place certainly becomes a home we can kick back and relax in, and in the time I've been here, many of the members do indeed seem like family.
My most sincere congratulations to FastEddy. He's the man, who on day one of my membership, made me feel that I was in a good place.
With Candyman and jon2 aboard, it will only get better.
I'm looking forward to seeing this site grow in the coming year.
Thanks to all of you.
 
I'll be shootin' to get the Level 3.
 
congrats on the new possitions Candyman, Jon2, and Rolex, Eddy congrats on the promotion.
Woodie you have a great site here and a small yearly fee is no problem, I'm in as you already know, thanks for giving us a great place to hang out at.
 
Great forum, you guys walk on water, yadda... yadda...

Just checking, is there a 'permissable' image to use if I wanted to print on a label and affix to my vehicles?
 
Thanks a lot guys. And congratulations to jon, Rolex and Eddy. I'm just happy to be able to help this place grow more. I came here almost on day one for the same reason all the initial members came...looking for a better way to do this. And with a lot of hard work, WoodiE and staff have built a great site. But I can see that it's slowing down a lot and I think the push to get a dedicated server will only make thing a ton better. I think this will be a great year. More members. More knowlege. And a lot more fun....
 
Congrats FastEddy. He does have a way of making folks feel welcome. :cheers:

Candyman, Rolex and Jon. You guys are always there to help folks and pitch in when you can. I can't think of more deserving folks.

Woddy, good luck with the new subscription system. I would really like to see 40+ people signup. There isn't any reason you should have to pay $200 a month for us to have fun.
 
FastEddy, Candyman, Jon2, and Rolex,

Congrats to all 4 of you! What an asset all of you have become to this site.

Now on the seriuos side... boys, can you quit playing with your ban-sticks long enough help a couple of us guys out!

Nice work!
-Strech
 
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