Premium vs Free Script forums?

Hello! I know this forum is just getting off the ground, but any chance we could get two different forums for free vs. premium (paid) scripts? I can see it getting cluttered with all of the scripts fighting for attention in one forum

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Just use the tags, there is a ā€œfreeā€ and ā€œpaidā€ tag for every script.

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Oh, tags. I havenā€™t used a forum that was created post 2000 apparently.

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Tags are nice but it can be a hassle to dig through a tag list every time to find something as common as free or paid.

I suppose it depends on how you want the site to be structured but scripts should have some prevailing categories. I would not recommend a flat style script section as that can get very messy as the number of scripts and users grow.

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Iā€™ve got this point of feedback from more than 1 person.

You could technically click the ā€˜freeā€™ tag on any post you see, but that might not be intuitive functionality for people. Originally the only tags were ā€˜freeā€™ and ā€˜paidā€™, but weā€™ve added more since which muddies the selector.

I am worried about the parent/sub category distinction being confusing, but Iā€™m willing to give it a try if enough people think thatā€™s the better option.

Iā€™m not sure how to best handle requiring people to put new topic in the subcategory instead of the parent Script category. I could disable new topics for Scripts, but that could get confusing. Or we could manually moderate the scripts section to make sure they are posted in subcategories.

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We could try sub-categories for free and paid. Since a lot of people probably like to jump right to one of those, it would provide a faster way to get there.

Another option is we could make them separate parent categories instead of sub-categories, and that would solve the problem of trying to get people to use the sub-categories to post. I suppose the downside to that is we wouldnā€™t have an option to see all scripts, both paid and free, in one list.

Iā€™m cool with the way it is now but I think one of the above options might be preferred by many.

Edit: A third option is we could add links in the category description to Paid and Free

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I also think a flat script forum would get messy as evernessince said.
And i think separate parent categorys for free and paid (or just Scripts and Realsync) is a good start.
The tags will show from both categorys anyway right?

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The one benefit of sub-categories is that you can use the parent category to view all topics from sub-categories together.

I guess an open question to everyone reading this:
Do you see Free and Paid scripts as two distinct categories that should not mix? Or do you prefer seeing all scripts together (while still being able to filter down)?

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I do see a value in separating free and paid. I believe newcomers are more interested in free scripts to begin with for instance and newcomers might not figure out that they must use tags to find them (this thread was created due to that fact). People might also forget to use add tags since they are optional. Vendors will probably be much better at using them. However, separating free and paid then gives a follow up question, what about 2D vs VR? Personally I want to separate that more than free and paid because I personally almost only use my Handy with VR. Adding more parent categories combined with free and paid requires more parent categories. That is an argument for why tags are better than parent categories.

If a tag system is promoted then a short sticky post with some short guidelines on how to tag would be good. If it is possible to create links that represent predefined tag filters that could also be good to add there, e.g. links to filters for 2D free, 2D paid, VR free and VR paid. Is it even possible to filter on more than one tag at a time? I havenā€™t figured out how.

If more than one parent category is used then all script posts should contain a script tag so that you can filter out all scripts regardless of which parent category they belong to.

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Also, from a scripterā€™s POV it would be nice to have some division so as to give the scripts a little more exposure. Iā€™m sure if a paid scripter posts an update, theyā€™d prefer not to have it get moved down the board due to new free scripts (and vice versa).

On a similar note - if I migrate all of my scripts over here, can there be an ā€œold scriptā€ subforum or something that I can dump them in? Iā€™ve made ~70 scripts and ideally would like to create a post for each of them here, but would prefer not to draw attention from the fresh releases (the only issue with this is that it would only be temporary - after moving everything over neither myself nor other scripters would have a use for it)

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On a similar note - if I migrate all of my scripts over here, can there be an ā€œold scriptā€ subforum or something that I can dump them in?

(the only issue with this is that it would only be temporary - after moving everything over neither myself nor other scripters would have a use for it)

I agree that the drawback of creating something that is only relevant during a short migration period is not desirable. Wouldnā€™t it be better to just post them all ASAP and post a reply to the existing newer ones to ā€œbumpā€ them?

Also do you really need posts for older scripts? I personally search on the actual site selling scripts when it comes to ā€œolderā€ stuff. There are good browsing features there, at least on RS. The forum is just a notification feature that tells me that there is something new that I might be interested in so that I donā€™t need to visit all script sites every day. Just a thought :slight_smile:

A little of it is OCD - I like to have an organized list of what Iā€™ve done hereā€™s an example. If someone grabs one of my scenes, Iā€™d like for them to have quick access to browse anything else Iā€™ve done, along with a few gifs of the action if theyā€™re unfamiliar with the actress or scene. Re: the pay site comment - all of my scripts are free, thatā€™s not an option for me (and I donā€™t have interest in doing paid scripts). I COULD post it all ā€œquicklyā€, but it takes a few minutes to create each one and Iā€™ve done ~70 scenes. Thatā€™s a couple of hours of work so itā€™s something Iā€™m looking to do here and there when I have some free time. Could I bump other posts? Sure, but thatā€™s taking even more time and then where do you draw the line?

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It appears you can back-date posts here. Maybe that would be a good way to deal with migrating old posts from RTS. I donā€™t know if it would solve the issue of needing to bump new posts to bring them back to the top or not but itā€™s worth a try.

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I personally like to see all the scripts created both free and paid. I think either a sub-forum or tags would be sufficient as long as I can see all at once. Back posting will get interesting with a few scriptersā€™ and their large libraries, but that is necessary to get up to speed on this site.

I have so many free scripts collected, plus a bunch purchased, that I cannot even get through them in this lifetime. Hoarding is fun but also frustrating. I only have about 20 or so out of all the scripts I have that I use regularly and half of those are paid.

Letā€™s keep the free and paid scripts and scripters here and happy!

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My bad :blush: Iā€™m almost only into VR so I forgot that you do lots and lots of free stuff! :clap:

I get your point about the work needed to create so many posts. Still, having a separate parent category for something that is a transition issueā€¦ In a couple of months that ā€œold scriptā€ parent category serves little or no purpose anymore.

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Iā€™m going to create more topics to discuss this issue in particular since it seems off topic here.

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