Guys, it's been over 4 years since we introduced Charter Memberships, and I'd like to talk about it. Some of you may know, we are approaching our 5th Siftiversary on February 17th. Lucky and I are discussing making some changes to the social mechanisms of VideoSift - one of the things we're considering is phasing out Charter Memberships.

There are a couple reasons why we're considering this change. The first is that it's not a great financial supporter for the community. Most months we bring in about $200 for charter memberships. I promise - I'm not stating this to guilt you in to upgrading- but this is just a bald statement of fact.

The second reason for phasing out Charter Memberships is that in our 5th year, we're fighting against cruft and entropy. As a community ages - systems get layered on systems, confusion grows, *neglect* sets in and chaos raises its head. I'm all for having a complex, rich community culture on VideoSift - but personally I don't feel the charter memberships help us in that regard. It's just cumbersome to manage, confusing to use and raises the awkward concept of how money plays into our largely meritocratic community.

So what we were thinking is to distribute the privileges of Charter membership into our existing star system. eg. coloured comments for gold stars, higher queue quota for silver stars etc.

Some other things to think about- this would mean the return of ads for all members and power points would only be distributed on merit.

This is not something that would happen immediately, don't worry if you've just bought a Charter Membership - there would be a gradual phase out. Depending on the community's reaction - it might not happen at all - or something entirely different might arise. That's how we work. So, what say ye all?