Phoronix Premium, Site Improvements Land

[Michael]

Hi There,

Just a suggestion for the RSS reader url getting adverts etc.

You mentioned that you need to check that the account is still in good standing and paid etc - How about the RSS URL be a redirect/script that does this.

ideally you would want the URL to check that the user is all good and then forward the user on (http redirect so you can set the cookie). This would make the entire process extremely smooth and non intrusive to the paying end user.

How do you use your RSS reader? When you click the link does it open into your default web browser or what is your RSS reader? As if it ends up using the default web browser it will be all set on the weekly basis.

[boxie]

How do you use your RSS reader? When you click the link does it open into your default web browser or what is your RSS reader? As if it ends up using the default web browser it will be all set on the weekly basis.

I was more thinking that each time you load the RSS URL (say http://phoronix.com/rss-check.php?ar...45&user_id=123) the check would be done so there would be no need to visit the forums beforehand to get the cookie. More of a user experience thing to not need to jump through hoops. This would require custom RSS urls for each user (maybe a feature for the next CMS version?).

I think you are on the right track to get users to the forums with the latest CMS updates (making things prominent). One feature there would be to surface good forum comments under the news article.

But hey, I do not know the entire inner workings (including business rules) of your platform and these are only suggestions - Keep up the good work

[Awesomeness]

You could send subscribers a copy of Adblock Plus instead.

[darkbasic]

How do you use your RSS reader? When you click the link does it open into your default web browser or what is your RSS reader? As if it ends up using the default web browser it will be all set on the weekly basis.

Nope, my RSS reader has an embedded browser. I can install Adblock plus in the embedded browser of course, but this is not the point of Premium

[Michael]

Okay, I made some more changes now... On next log-in should now last for entire calendar month while handling validation through other non-cookie measures to help RSS readers.

[dcc24]

Okay, I made some more changes now... On next log-in should now last for entire calendar month while handling validation through other non-cookie measures to help RSS readers.

Thanks Michael!

[Michael]

Latest feature for premium users is that in place of the leaderboard ad on the site, now it will show articles coming up soon... Not advanced access to articles, but only article titles and the number of minutes (or hours) until they will go live on Phoronix. Just for times I write articles in advance of publishing and so to give premium users a heads up if some interesting content/reviews will be on later for checking back.

[darkbasic]

Okay, I made some more changes now... On next log-in should now last for entire calendar month while handling validation through other non-cookie measures to help RSS readers.

Thanks Michael, I'm Premium once again

[Veerappan]

I still think that you will gain much more premium users with a one month cookie than the very few you will loose because someone is exploiting it. Users who don't want ads can use Adblock for free, so Premium is just another mean to donate. Don't discourage users with useless limitations: it's a pain in the ass having to visit the forum from RSS reader every week. I didn't renew my premium subscription because of this and I don't think I'm the only one.

As long as it lasts more than the 1 hour or so that it used to, I'm happy. My normal "workflow" is to go from my RSS Reader (Feedly via browser and/or iOS/Android apps) to the article, then to the forums to go through the comments. With that flow, after the first article, I'm usually logged in until I run out of articles/news to read. The fact that I'll be logged in for a week/month should mean that I'm going to be logged in from now on...

[Celso]

ads or spam?

Hey michael, you may consider remove some of those adds on the forum, because every time i reload a damn page or login on the forum or even reply to a post, it makes always open my google store to make install the baidu software. Is f*cking annoying.

Regards