SSV Patron - New Features!

[Travis]

Howdy All.

All kinds of things happening behind the curtain.  Most of it is admin/techy stuff and troubleshooting.  But I did make a nice improvement to our SSV Supporter system and simplified the process!  We now have 1 screen that shows all of the subscription options for SSV Patrons.  You can only have 1 active subscription active at one time and this will easily manage that.  You'll have the option of switching between plans, which is much easier with this new system.  Updating and renewing is also easy to find without having to dig through menus.

You can find the subscriptions or manage your subscriptions under the Support SSV tab in the navigation bar.  You can also manage your subscriptions in the pulldown menu in the upper right corner of the website (next to your avatar).  It's located under the Settings section and called Manage Subscriptions.

On your profile page, you'll see a new block in the left column showing your supporter status, which is a nice touch.

I've also changed the Supporter tiers a bit.  The standard supporter level remains at $10/yr and that works pretty well.  We have a handful of folks who choose to support SSV on a monthly basis of $5/month at the gold level.  We also had a silver level at $3/month, which was a complete flop.  I had several folks want to support SSV a bit more, but the jump from $10/year for the SSV Patron to $60/year for SSV Gold Patron pretty steep.  So I changed the Silver level from $3/month to $20/YEAR instead.  So I figured the $20/year easier to digest.

All options now offer Paypal or Stripe to process payment and offers handy recurring payment.  Payment info isn't stored on SSV for securtity reasons and payment processing is taken care of by either Paypal or Stripe.

Anyway, the new system should be a bit easier to manage.  Everything seemed to go well during the conversion.  But if you see anything strange or you need help switching between plans, please let me know.  I'm happy to help.

Again, thank you for your continued support!  I greatly appreciate it!

[Travis]

I wanted to thank everybody who chooses to support SSV by buying a SSV Patron badge.  I really appreciate it.  It costs a lot to run a cool community like SSV.  We don't have a large publishing company to flip the bill for us.  So without support from folks like you, SSV wouldn't be possible.

As a special Thank You for SSV Patrons, I've added a nice little feature that I think you'll enjoy.  If you are a SSV Patron (at any level), you'll now have the option to bookmark a post for reference later!  You can organize the bookmarks into categories, create a title, and add notes!  Bookmarks can be private if you choose.  Or share your favorite bookmarks on your profile page by making your bookmarks public!  At the bottom of the post, you'll see a "Bookmark" button.  Click that and add it to your bookmark list.

 

You can manage your bookmarks in the pulldown menu in the upper right corner of the website (next to your avatar).  It's located under the Content section and called Manage Bookmarks.  From here you can delete, or rearrange your bookmarks.

 

Cool, huh?!  I hope you enjoy this little added perk for being an SSV Patron.  This is just my way of saying Thank You!  Have fun! 

[Travis]

If anybody is having issues renewing subscriptions, please let me know.  When we transferred to a different subscription manager, it created a loopback bug on the renewal.  Basically, some members had two different kinds of memberships at the same time and it creates a feedback loop when trying to renew.  The way I fix it is to cancel the subscriptions so they can re-subscribe, which seems to fix the problem.  But I won't know who has the issue unless they say something.

Sorry for the troubles.  I'm not the developer of the software, so many times I'm at their mercy and try to make things work he best I can with the tools they give me.