Hi @startekb and @orafonocenzi . Sure - basically any of the legacy members have three options. They can get a Silver plan for free for life, or a 50% discount on a gold or platinum plan for life. The Gold plan is basically going to have a series of benefits, including special offers from our sponsors, likely a private “marketplace” forum where they can buy and sell, and a few other things. I am going to be making that plan better and better over time, but if you buy it now or within the next month or so, you are grandfathered in at 50% off for life.
Another way of thinking about it is that you are getting the gold for the price of silver if you buy that now, and supporting our work of course. My theory was that some people would simply not want to pay for anything, and those people will contribute in other ways - and hopefully over time they will see the value and want to upgrade to support us. Those who are willing to sign up for a paid plan now can sign up for Gold or Platinum, and they get a much cheaper rate on the plan forever. Later the plans will all be regular price for everyone, including legacy folks who wish to upgrade.
I am trying to get a base of paying supporters so that I can finance continued upgrades and content curation. We also will have support available when issues arise, which they inevitably do.
Unrelated P.S. If you haven’t tried the search function, try typing “argentium” in the search box. Remember what the archives used to look like? Now it is all threaded, organized, titled, and searchable. It took us 3 months to convert 250,000 individual threads into that, but now it is literally the greatest Q&A on jewelry manufacturing ever assembled and a resource for many generations of jewelers. That’s the stuff that gets me excited, is building a better Ganoksin - and that’s what your memberships pay for. End of soap box / semi-sales-pitch / etc…
Hi Seth,
I do appreciate what you are doing, and thank you for all your positive responses to others who prefer to use an email forum.
Those of us who dont need nor can use the so called smart phone, I certainly cant because i have large hands, old tired eyes and find the written word the more accurate than spoken etc. Apart from the rediculouly fragile natue of them. Im a real silver smith, as my recent posts will outline a sp wouldnt last a day in my w/shop.
so as our archers who defeated the French at Cresey, two strings to ones bow is the motto.
This analogy is to advise all those who want to continue using an email forum theres Rec. crafts, jewelery , moderated by the most experienced gold smith here, thats Peter.
Hi Peter, ill be posting on your forum as well in future.
will that be ok?
regards
from Dorset UK.
Thanks @vladimirfrater! I don’t have an aversion to “reply by email” functionality, and clearly email is a critical part of notifications and other forum functionality. We just have to balance the work required to keep the data “organized” with the convenience of allowing folks to respond directly from email instead of clicking a link and then responding. We are going to play with it and see what works.
@Hanuman did an absolutely amazing job of hand curating the posts on the old Orchid mailing list, which is the only reason why they were intelligible and convenient for you guys to read. I know first-hand what process he went through, and I will tell you - the guy is a hero. I would have committed suicide after the 20th email, and he did it for almost twenty years with a smile. The result of his manual curation, however, is the archives. Do a search for “argentium” in that little search bar at the top and you will see what a powerful tool he created. We now have a 20+ year database of Q&A that is unrivaled, and irreplaceable.
My goal is to create the same value for multiple generations of jewelers but for the NEXT 20 years. To the extent we can do that using direct email reply, we will. It will be a balance and we will experiment to see how the community members (new and legacy) are using it.
I hope this helps! I do very much understand the need for convenience, and have no desire to do things the hard way I promise!
First of all I would like to congratulate Seth for this amazing new version of Ganoksin. I can only sense the amount of work behind this process and it seems overwhelming.
I completely understand that a project like Ganoksin has costs to cover and all financial support will help it to be online not just now, but 20 years onwards.
This said, I live in Spain and I do not see yet clear benefits for choosing a Gold membership… this would probably be different if I lived in the USA, but this is not case and it is soon to know what new features of the Gold members will be useful for all of us who are based abroad.
So, I have a question: would it be possible for former members to choose a Gold membership now and, if desired, downgrade in the future to a free Silver membership?
Many thanks again for your help and faith in this community.
I’m afraid that is not possible. The idea behind purchasing a gold membership now is that you get a great discount and get to keep it forever. So as the plan changes you are grandfathered in. It is my way of thanking the legacy members of the community and also my way (frankly) of trying to get some capital in the door to help defray some of the large expenses incurred in developing this and continuing to improve it.
Where are descriptions with prices and specific benefits of the different memberships? Thank you. The website has been SO confusing before, it will be nice to actually use the site
The new Ganoksin is amazing! Thank you for bringing the site into the 21st century! All content now appears open and expansive as opposed to visually constricting. It is like night and day. Eventually I’ll purchase a silver membership, which leads me to ask how much time past members have to purchase the silver at the reduced rate??
My current plan is to let all of the legacy folks get on board and signed up for the Legacy Free Silver plan. I am going to send out a few more reminders to folks being like “Hey, claim your free plan and get back on Orchid” over the next few weeks or so. We just sent out the first round of email announcements (37,000 emails) and right now we are signing up around 300 people a day.
Once folks get in and used to the system, I’m going to send out a few emails saying “Hey, we are only offering these discounted memberships and lifetime memberships for a limited time - so get them now, as we won’t ever offer them again” I’ll send out a few of those over the few weeks thereafter, send one final email being like “now or never” and then just move everything to regular price for everyone.
So to answer your question, you probably have bout 5 or 6 weeks before you have to make a decision to stay Free Silver or go to Gold or Platinum. Discounted Gold is only $6 a month, so it’s pretty cheap… even cheaper if you pay annually. And I am going to be focusing a lot of the value-added stuff on Gold and Platinum (for example, over time I am planning to make for sale postings and commercial postings only available to Gold and Platinum members). Ditto for various offers from Sponsors and special sub-forums. My goal is to basically make it so the the under $100 a year or so you spend on Gold membership is such a no-brainer that people don’t even think twice about it.
The idea behind the discount is simply to motivate people to support us early. I am not sure what I will do to make Gold more attractive over the years, but I will keep working at it until Gold members join us and stick with us. Those willing to take the risk get to have and keep 50% off forever.
I hope that makes sense! My main goal is to just get some revenue coming in so I can continue to build out Ganoksin and Orchid. Ganoksin remains completely free, and that content base requires a TON of maintenance. I just couldn’t bring myself to keep all the crappy ads that have nothing to do with jewelry all over the pages - I wanted it to be usable, but in doing so, I cut off most of my revenue. But I’m convinced there is enough demand for (and support for) this content library in and amongst the community to justify eliminating ads and being jeweler/member supported.
Hi @Pam6 - when @leah-ganoksin-admin sent out the invite emails to join, on that page where you joined, there was an area to the right to join at the discounted rate I believe. If you have any issues signing up for it, drop us an email at "support@ganoksin.com" we will get you squared away.
I agree it is already looking like the site belongs in this decade. Miles better!
And I am happy to pay a bit toward this resource. It has supported me for years so I opted to pay in despite knowing I could join for free as an old member.
It has been years since I have looked at Orchid, although I used to spend quite alot of time on the site. I am impressed with the work that has been done and the improvement in terms of searches. Thank you so much, and I think the fee is way easier than relying on donations. As one of my favorite clients told a sticker-shocked, beer guzzling customer at an art festival years ago, “If you want nice things, you must pay.” In this case, you don’t even have to pay very much! And the best part is that now nobody has to work their fingers raw for free to make the site nice… Thank you for the initiative and the great work!
@pipistrella It means a ton to me to have folks like you. of course, the fees subsidize not only the improvement of Orchid, but also the improvement of Ganoksin. We are literally (and I mean all of us) the stewards of a great resource. Between the Orchid archives and the resources on Ganoksin, we host the largest technical resource on jewelry manufacturing ever assembled. It’s a big responsibility, in addition to being a big opportunity.
As improvements are made, I will do my best to balance improvements that benefit the “internet at large” (ie the free stuff) and augmenting the benefits (especially for Gold and Platinum members) who are the ones supporting the work along with our generous sponsors.
Again, my sincerest thanks to you and those like you.
Yep! I found a couple of magazine subscriptions I can do without. Orchid is a wonderful resource and I want it to succeed so I have moved up to gold. Please consider asking for an Orchid subscription as a holiday gift. If you are earning an income from your work is it deductible?I want nice things. Orchid is really nice!Karen
