Hidden script category for higher level users only?

[Doc1977]

An internet Forum lives through its users. Like many of the other replying people above i see the potential of a multi level Membership with higher Areas …but i see the potential as rather negative then positive.

If we would install this principles here, soon there would be no new script in the “basic” membership area i assume. Everybody who steps by will eventually leave again and tell others that this is a dead place. Others who stay long enough to understand this multi-level membership will not necessarily contribute helpfull things but only spam the channels to reach the whatever goal of raisiing membership level.

So in the End i don´t think that it is helpfull. Yeah, there are people just stepping by, harvesting the downloadable stuff and leaving again. so what ? that is the net, let them…

[hornkorn25]

I know it’s a bit off-topic now, but…

@Slibowitz

Then I get to think “Why am I even doing this?”

@Slibowitz

you could have also leave like at least. It’s just one more click and it means a lot to me.

@Slibowitz

But I am trying to change my mindset a bit on these. I am thinking I am also doing it for me. I will use the script as well and I like the video. Nobody else would make it or not like I want it to be, so I do it myself. And mind as well, release it so other people can enjoy it as well.

I feel like those are really important statements here.
This dilemma keeps going through my mind often as well, especially when roaming these forums. Even though I’m personally still sorta holding out on creating & sharing scripts myself (…possibly even because of this exact dilemma).

The whole “like” social feature is such double-edged sword. If you look it up and read about the whole psychology behind it… how it messes with your dopamine reception and the way we perceive our own happiness - it’s just kinda sickening, tbh.
Giving and receiving gratefulness is such an essential human social trait - but “transferring” it anonymously via a button-click somehow negates it to some kind of general purpose commodity/currency (depending if you give or receive) which morphs the process of being grateful into a rather anti-social thing, if you catch my drift.
…You can tell it really weirds me out - Maybe I’ve just played too much Death Stranding, haha (shout out to that amazin game) - a future where “likes” are the only remaining currency.

Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say is:
On the internet our regular value-system somehow just doesn’t work straight - It becomes kinda lifeless and surface-level only.
I just think that’s probably something important to keep in mind when discussing the member values of an online community.

[defucilis]

It’s hard to communicate a full opinion and be concise! I feel like I didn’t transmit enough of what I feel about this in my other post.

---

Two Issues

I think there are two very separate issues being discussed in this thread. One is about community health, user participation, site growth, etc. The other seems to be about a lack of respect that lurking users have for content creators. Stuff like “it kinda feels like if majority don’t give a damn about me why should I care about them” (that post has been deleted now).

I think that the first topic is very valid and worth discussing - encouraging users to be more active and create scripts of their own helps to grow and strengthen the community, making the entire thing more enjoyable and productive for everybody. I don’t think that the second topic is valid or worth discussing.

Internet Culture

I’m pretty new to scripting, but I’ve spent basically my entire adult working life creating free stuff for the internet because I enjoy it. The internet operates according to the 1% rule - that for online communities, 1% of the users create 99% of the content. Smaller, newer communities tend to have a higher creator:consumer ratio, but as the community grows, we should expect to see a higher proportion of lurkers and consumers, rather than a lower proportion. A related concept is The Eternal September, which refers to how the beautiful core of online communities tends not to survive mainstream adoption.

This is why sites like YouTube and PornHub make views their primary metric of a piece of content’s success. Engagement is very variable, and generally limited to a small subset of engaged users, but views are universally applicable to core community members and the “99%” alike.

It’s our job as the early community members to foster an environment and culture that encourages participation, but ultimately (and especially due to the adult nature of the site) you can’t force people to participate in an online community. If you do, they will simply go and get their content elsewhere - this is how we could end up with siterip torrents where people can download thousands of scripts in a .zip file and never even come to the site at all. It’s possible to create gated online communities like private torrent sites and whatnot, but these exist explicitly to limit growth for privacy, secrecy or legal reasons.

The Loss of a Leader

I think most people in this thread have been discussing site/community health and engagement. Husky was talking about respect. Which I think is why he bailed from this really productive discussion and has deleted all his posts and scripts - everyone’s been talking about solutions to a different problem from what he’s actually upset about. It’s obviously his decision to make, but ultimately removing all of his great work from the site only harms it, which is a huge shame. He was talking about making an OpenFunScripter video tutorial, which I also assume he isn’t going to make now.

It sucks because I’m sure he enjoys scripting, otherwise he wouldn’t have made so many great scripts. I suspect he began to feel pressure to keep scripting due to his reputation, and slowly that pressure turned to resentment - he probably just needed to take an extended break from scripting for others to remind himself why he got started in the first place…

I’m hopeful that he’ll get the break that he probably needed now and will come back one day soon!

[Teasey]

Does anyone else feel like the scripts that are behind a paywall are similar to what we are talking about? It feels like that is the next step up from what we offer as being members to this site. I have no problem with people wanting to get paid for their work, they have a right to do such, I just know that my scripting is not up to that standard yet. However, people have to jump to another site to take advantage of it but are piggybacking off the eros website. I just found this site called script axis the other day and I have noticed a few of my files are being posted there. I know it routes back to eroscripts but I am sure the owner of the site gets something out of it. Advertisement revenue potential?

[M0SAIC]

I have nothing but appreciation and respect for the contributors in this community and the loss of Husky really stings.

I had no idea how passionately he felt about the situation.

It is pretty clear that we need to have this discussion if we are to prevent/recover from any similar situations in the future.

@Teasey

Does anyone else feel like the scripts that are behind a paywall are similar to what we are talking about?

It is a little different from what is being recommended in this topic. The site is a group of scripters but not all scripters are part of RealSync.

It sounds like the feature we are discussing isn’t even really an option on Discourse anyways If I am hearing @hugecat right. That is a shame because it sounds like we stand to benefit from having tiers of access to the content on this site.

[defucilis]

@Teasey
Haha ScriptAxis is my site! I’m not getting any advertising revenue or data out of it, it exists entirely to help the community, although right now it’s still in very early Beta, which is why it’s still a little stealth-mode.
There’s a long post about it on EroScripts if you want to know more about my motivation / thinking behind the site

I actually wonder if there’s some role ScriptAxis could play in all of this, since I wrote the site myself I could create any kind of restriction features that we might want.

---

@M0SAIC:
It is possible to restrict content to certain tiers by having the posts exist in separate categories. For example, it could be something like all scripts exist in the ‘open’ category for a month, and then are automatically moved to some kind of ‘archive’ category that’s only accessible to TL2 or higher members.

If something like that were to happen I would think that the requirements for TL2 would need to be lowered slightly (especially the whole ‘visit for 15 days total’ thing), and there would need to be some very hard to ignore messaging in the site interface somehow to make sure users understand that by doing a few simple things they’ll have access to a far larger library of scripts. I’m sure many users don’t know how to do basic stuff like check their messages, and they probably wouldn’t click a stickied topic either…

[hornkorn25]

@defucilis

Husky was talking about respect. Which I think is why he bailed from this really productive discussion and has deleted all his posts and scripts

Jesus, I didn’t even realise this was happening while I was typing my other comment above - I wish he had brought his troubles out more clearly… That makes me truly sad

[anon39026496]

I just feel like everyone that creates an account should have access to the entire forum. It doesn’t really make sense to do anything else. I thought the whole point of the forum was the easiest access out of anywhere for interactive script content. I think we all want first time users to come here and find things easily instead of ending up on Pornhub with an interaction that is not synced to par at best.

[Laze44]

This could be a good idea and motivate the community to come together or it could totally fail and just make people move to another community, implementation would probably be the deciding factor.

[Lucifie]

@defucilis

The internet operates according to the 1% rule - that for online communities, 1% of the users create 99% of the content. Smaller, newer communities tend to have a higher creator:consumer ratio, but as the community grows, we should expect to see a higher proportion of lurkers and consumers, rather than a lower proportion.

I should just accept the internet as it is. To be honest, on other sites I am also a lurker and don’t contribute. I can’t be an active member on every site as I just don’t have the time to be everywhere. So maybe those lurkers on our site are active somewhere else and create something we or others like. Who knows…

I realy like if people sharing their work for free no matter on which website. Thats also why I don’t wan’t money for my own app or scripts. It’s just my way to give the internet something back.

---

I am sad to see Husky leaving

[hornkorn25]

@Teasey

Does anyone else feel like the scripts that are behind a paywall are similar to what we are talking about?

Honestly, as I’m beginning to wrap my head around this… - If this community is so completely open-minded about the decision/option to either share creations for free or to sell them for a price, why is there even a discussion about additionally restricting the free content?..
Why not just sell your creation then, if you want to “get” something out of it?..

I’m sorry - I probably shouldn’t be this judgemental, as I haven’t even shared script creations myself!
I just suddenly began to wonder…
I mean there basically already exists that option to restrict your content to a group of “more appreciative users”, right?

[M0SAIC]

The main themes I am hearing are as follows:

Leave all free scripts complete open access as long as they are a member of the community

We all want to see more scripter meaning more content

Scripting is easier now than ever all it takes is the desire to learn and improve your process.

I agree that any other option other than leaving the free content completely open is the best choice for the growth of the community.

The topic will continue to be monitored and we will make the move the community wants to make.

Thanks for speaking up @everyone

[Darklanman]

Maybe you guys could add pop up windows asking people to leave feedback on posts if they don’t meet some sort of quota, just to push the idea across. Maybe add a shiny badge or something for frequent commenters.

[Lucifie]

You can just write something like this in any script release by yourself or create an image that shows a shiny text. If users ignore this then a popup will also don’t help.

I have created the metatdata tag with a few other devs to improve this behaviour and make it easier to get back to the topic. I always found it hard to find the topic again to post my feedback.

Now I just have to click a link in HandyControl to be redirected to the release page of the script. I just wish more people would use that feature and add metadata when they script something. OFS also does support it.

[hornkorn25]

@Lucifie

I have created the metatdata tag with a few other devs to improve this behaviour and make it easier to get back to the topic.

Really cool, it should become the standard…
I’m sure most scripters just don’t know about this yet! Awareness about it should be raised considerably, for it to gain foothold.

@Lucifie

Now I just have to click a link in HandyControl to be redirected to the release page of the script.

Will the metadata also be displayed to viewers in FT’s Scriptplayer or JoyFunPlayer?
Do you have to click a button to turn it visible?
If so, I think it should automatically be displayed with the script by default in any player - so it truly can’t be missed.

Like this it would certainly drive more people to actively engage with the community, at least in the long run.

[Lucifie]

Maybe we have to ask @Liquid, @Khrull and @raser1 about it as I don’t know how far they are with implementing.

In HandyControl you see it in the log window once you load a script which has those information. You can also open the Metadata Editor to view it.

[Liquid]

Well, it’s in there but I have no idea if someone is using it or not …

[Slibowitz]

For everyone, who wants scripts for certain users:

Please try to imagine how it is, for the other users. Especially a new user. They would face a new community, where a certain group of people are not allowed to get the content. They will feel like second class users. When I first got my Handy and found out about scripts and found the old RTS forum, I felt like a kid on Christmas Eve. So many great scripts for so many great videos. I was so happy I found it. If certain scripts would have been available for just a certain group of people, I may would have thought, that this community has a problem with elitism. I may wouldn’t have felt welcomed to the community.

I am repeating myself on this. We as the creators have to change our mindset. The problem are not the users, who aren’t active or who don’t give feedback. It’s our expectation, that might be too high. We have to learn to accept, that we don’t get as much appreciation, as we would like to have. And we have to be more happy about all the feedback and appreciation we are actually getting. Focusing more on the good, rather than the negative. More on what we have and less on what we don’t have.

I repeat myself again. I understand everybody, who wants more appreciation in any kind. I want it as well. But restricting scripts from a certain group of users won’t help and won’t help us in the long way. If somebody don’t want to release scripts anymore, I do understand. And if they want to send a script just to certain people in their friend list and send them a link, where they can download the script, that’s fine as well. Their script, their work, their decision who get’s it or don’t.

[Husky]

I think my initial idea came out wrong and I totally understand all the people who think it would create some form of exclusivity. And you are totally right - creating artificial barriers won’t stop people who want to download those scripts anyway and it would affect new users who wouldn’t understand how the things are working and why they have to get some stupid milestones to get to the part of the content here.

I do agree with the statement that people who create content should not expect anything in return as I mostly did during this past year. I always created scripts for the videos I liked in the first place and sharing them was something extra that I could do to brighten some days of others.

But it’s not always on content creators to try to keep their positive attitude. The whole negative mindset I got was from a few individuals who notoriously were sending me PMs with requests (for free, how else…) or asking about ETA for my WIP scripts that I was posting for other scripters in the first place so they won’t lose their time creating the same scripts. Like it matters if the script will be released tomorrow or next month - when it will be ready it will be ready, if you want it faster you can always try do it yourself.

This kind of behaviour started to be so apparent lately that it led to the feel of pressure, then the things just escalated to the current situation. Even tho I politely refused taking requests every time (there is a whole section for it btw) some people couldn’t understand it and were sending me PMs over and over again thinking their requests are somehow special or maybe they will be able to take advantage of the fact that I’m sharing my scripts for free. I understand that everyone wants to have the script for their favorites scenes asap and while their intentions could be all good I ended up feeling naive, with the doubt that maybe being too generous led to the current situation and was not the best idea whatsoever. Most people probably don’t experience this kind of behaviour so it might be hard to understand, but this was my most current point of view, and while there are numerous people who are supportive and great here it definitely felt odd.

So I became maybe a little too angry over this and decided to delete all my work from here. In an act of emotion I didn’t think this through and in the end it didn’t hurt those people since they probably downloaded all my scripts long time ago, but it hurt or will hurt normal folks who just want a script for their favorite video for their toys.

But there are also some positives from this situtation - I got rid of those random numbers next to my name. I will soon try to recreate my portfolio with one Mega link for all my past scripts like I had before and will recreate my video tutorial post for OFS - it was made for people of this community in the first place anyway.

All in all I will definitely take a longer break from scripting to cool things off and I will see how the things will go and if I want to get back to it or not.

[hosenguy]

HUSKY Thank you for coming back.
You are one of the members who’s posts I always read and I have all your scripts I have seen because they are all top quality, and quite varied both in script and content of the videos.
Please take your time and relax! I personally cannot understand the impatience of some members when there are at least 5 to 10 new scripts every day!
Thanks again.