Incidentally! :cool:

That's an interesting idea which should be considered. But on the other hand, we should also be careful not to make this forums a divided message board with the donating members with tons of extra features on the one hand side and the people who don't want to donate or simply don't have the money on the other hand.

Why not? As long as all the basic features are available for free, why not use this to make some money for the forum? I don't see why that would be a problem, unless you're a pinko, I suppose.

I don't support making the ability to, for instance, attach files a paid feature (like at SA), but flags... seriously, who cares. Divided message board, huh? It's not like anyone would discriminate against people who don't have their own fucking flags.

Haha, divided Mush? I think we're in (and have gone through in the past) some really thick divisions. If gold borders don't divide us, this won't either. Maybe a separate donations list for the flag people? Like, if you donate in general you get the border. If you donate for the flag, you get the flag. But you get rocognition either way. I don't know, maybe over the months and years we can come up with incentives like this?

I always liked that about Board Support. It's almost a more public modhut.

Well yeah, I wasn't talking about the flags per se. That's why I said it's a good idea. I wouldn't care about custom flags at all, on the contrary, it would be neat in one way or another. I was just saying that we shouldn't have donations for every single forum feature, that's all.

I don't really like the idea of donate for feature stuff since that can always be used as a justification for charging for things in the future.

You are my hero.

Well, the problem would be in charging people for things they should have for free; this doesn't necessarily count as that. Besides, if people are going to donate anyway, why not give them something? And we don't have to worry about people using these tactics as justification in the future for charging. Blah and Miles are in charge, not bobo.

The only problem I see with custom flags is the danger of flags becoming completely pointless once everyone has some random mini-gif sat up there that may or may not be a flag from a game or film or who knows what. Essentially you're turning the flag info into yet-another-customisable-image-hanging-around-your-posts, at which point, like sigs, I'd want to turn them off. I'm sure plenty of kids here would love to proclaim to the world that they've played Ace Combat with every post they make but can't you do that in your sig already?

I have a compromise then. Have a setting for normal flags and also have one for custom flags. You can turn custom flags off and still see their normal flag then.

If nobody is currently working on it, I would gladly make the flags be sized uniformly (21x14 pixels seems good). Some big-ass flags are making the postbit look ugly. If someone could make me a nice package of all the flags, I'd be very thankful.

Permission for take-off? (Y/N)

Mind the emphasis. That's why I'd be in favour of making custom flags a donator-only feature.

I'd be up for this as well if not just for archival purposes. I have all of our emoticons as well plus a few old ones as well.

If people are willing to pay to move their postbit that one step closer to being a myspace page, I guess that's their perogative. Like I say, I think there's plenty of space for images in your sig but I seem to be in an overwhelming minority here. I guess I'm just not down with the kids any more. :(

Too cool for school, Shin? Remember that?

Anyhow, MySpace charges for features like that or are you just saying MySpace is full of customizable images and is therefore tacky as fuck? It's just a flag Shin, it wouldn't really operate any differently than the ones we have up now.

Essentially, yes.

I know it's just a flag and to be honest it would make very little difference to me either way but at the end of the day, this is a discussion forum and I can't help that feel like with every new customisable bit of crap on the screen, we step away from the point of this place. In the other thread about custom user names, Elixir accused me of ruining people's fun but I don't see that we want more members who derive their fun from changing their name (And flag, sig, avatar and who knows what else) rather than posting and chatting.

I guess I associate "wacky" flags and "zany" usernames with the current Testing crowd and the users who do little but spout memes left right and centre around the board.

I suppose you're right now that you put it that way. =o We might as just focus on the core reason we came and remain here.

I'd be all for custom flags if having them turned off by default allowed me to have them.

In your profile it should ask you to select a normal flag as well be it your actual flag or if you're a fun goofball and you select Antarctica. After that it will have an option to upload or link to a custom flag. It will also have a button "Remove custom flag" if you don't want to display a custom flag anymore. After that will be a checkmark for "View Custom Flags" that will automatically be checked if you upload a custom flag. You can uncheck it but people will still see your custom flag if you don't click the "Remove custom flag" button (and if they have "View Custom Flags" checked). If one doesn't have "View Custom Flags" checked then you will see people's normal flag whether they have a custom flag or not. Good?

Why don't you make a poll of it?

How about instead we turn on custom flags but have them only display in Testing and Laughs and Games? That way the wacky flag japesters can lol away to their hearts content in the appropriate place without lowering the tone of the rest of the board.

Hmm, do those two areas get enough traffic to make it worth it?

That's kinda the point. The crazy custom flag antics would breathe new life into an otherwise struggling part of the board. Elixir said having a custom flag would be for fun and that's where the fun time threads should go, right?

See, your idea is rather restrictive while mine isn't. Options, Shin, options. Shoot the core.

Why should custom flags be restricted to two forums people rarely visit? In the future who knows if there will even be a The Place of Laughs and Games. I'd love to see arguments for keeping it. I certainly don't go there for Fun Times threads. That's the place for loool that was a pretty funny flash, yah good episode, loool that's old where have you been, and other such junk replies. Every now and then you get something good otherwise it's usually just a depository of links, and if it's any good it's usually created in The Sewers because then whatever it is will actually have an audience.

Why would we want to have flags in the first place? To figure out where our fellow members are from, right? I mean, sure, there are a bunch of weirdos who pick flags different from where they're from, like me when I used the South Georgia and South Sandwich islands (mmmh, Sandwich!!) flag, but as for the majority is concerned, you can see where they're from. Now I honestly don't have any idea why we would want custom flags after all.

Look, I have nothing against fun around here, but when it's getting too ridiculous, it's getting too ridiculous.

How is it ridiculous if it's off by default, user's have a normal flag selected for those who don't have the feature turned off to see, and have a custom flag for themselves and anyone else who has the feature turned on to see? It's a silly thing people choose to use and view. Everyone else who doesn't want it won't have to do a thing as they'll still see everyone's normal flag as usual. What in the world could you have against that?

That's why I think it's ridiculous to have it off by default (?) I mean, what's the reason for having something like flags? I don't think that flags are a "silly thing". Per default, they indicate where someone is from. If we wanted them to indicate something else, then we wouldn't need them at all.

I mean, while we're at it, what about custom user names, custom user member numbers or custom user member join dates?