My take on icons has always been that they are like an advertisement for the site. If someone sees a bunch of people posting in the forums and they have an apple under their name, others would become interested, click the icon, and more donations would be made.

Yeah, I forgot about the Great Apple Icon Disappearance of 2010. I remember some people freaking out and couldn't figure out what they were getting so upset about. I thought: if you want a shiny apple on your forum posts so badly, go donate another credit and help out some kids. I took it as a reminder to do so.

If all the features I use stopped giving me those little icons I would still be using them, so "status" has never been the issue with me. Then again, if the icons weren't used, I probably wouldn't know about some of the features. Which was my original point.  

This thread has turned into icon envy? Oh please. I agree totally with everything Lisa H. just wrote -- learned about the donation programs from seeing the icons, and gladly donated -- didn't do it for the icon, did it because I like giving back.

I would probably be more inclined to buy it if it were called Brown Turd Membership Bonuses because it would make me laugh really hard. Especially if it had a corresponding icon.

@Rachel, I immediately had a visual of the corresponding icon in your first post referring to said BTMB's, and here you come with the idea. It did make me laugh really hard. Thanks for that.

I have 252 friends and believe it or not, I 'know' 200+ (meaning, these are people I interact in the Games forums.) The rest are people that have befriended because of my TG status.

I'll only post books to friends if they have more than one book I can post to them. Otherwise, I'll continue using the WL threads (if I posted everything FIFO, I couldn't afford to send as many books as I do.)

Also I checked all my WL books to see if they were in any of my friend's WL and only 5 of them do.

Heck, if we did it the way the above poster suggested and were able to GET as many WL books as we post, I'd be getting seriously ripped off.  I can't even remember the last time I was offered a WL book through FIFO.  I'm LUCKY if I get 1 per month.  Most of my books come from FRIENDS and games.  I post WAY more than I get.  From my perspective, I'd rather my friends get my books, since there the only ones I receive from on a regular basis.

I don't know who most of my friends are either.  I have it set to auto and people just appear there.  For all I know they "friended" me because they dont' like me posts and don't want to get books from me. (yes there are people who say they do that). 

The brown turd icon could be a Baby Ruth bar.   They look like turds. 

I lost my apple icon.  I only had a couple of credits the last time they did the school donations.

Are you seriously suggesting that people only be able to WL the same amount of WL books they post?  So, if someone has only ever posted 1 WL book, they can have a WL of 1?

No. What I am suggesting is that every member has a certain quota of WL spots. This number is currently 200, but doesn't have to be. If you want more than 200 WL slots, then you have to earn them by posting WL books into the system. Those "earned" spots are not permanent. Once you have gotten your wish fulfilled, then that slot is out of play.

This tries to balance the number of WL books going into the system with the number of WL books being taken out.

I dind't like the idea of the Directed Delivery (or whatever it was called) but I'm not planning on buying the service. After reading some of the posts here, I have a more friendly attitude about it. I would much rather they do this than to start charging to use PBS. That would crush me.

I also want to thank all the people who DO pay for things that support the site... which also supports me being able to keep using the site. I had never looked at it that way before, but it's true. And I thank you.

Now, if they'd only address the continually falling price of credits I'd cease any concerns about the future of the site.

What does this mean?  Are you talking about the prices that people pay in the book bazaar?  What does this have to do with the future of the site?  Not trying to be snarky, I've just seen this a couple times in this thread, and I wonder what I am missing.  Thanks!

I used to frequent FOL book sales and pick up wishlisted books, some of them for the sole purpose of posting on PBS. I no longer do that since the price of credits for sale in the bazaar got so low. It's to the point where buying credits would be cheaper and less hassle than mailing most books. I still mail out books rather than buy credits, but no longer buy books just to list them.

I think what she meant is that a couple of years ago you could get $3+ for your credits if you sold them in the book bazaar.  So a lot of people didn't mind earning a lot of credits and even bought cheap WL books just to post.  Knowing they could sell the credits and at least recoup the postage, packing supplies and maybe part of the cost of the book. 

I used to do this.  Buy WL books for .25-$.50  just post them fullfill someone's WL. I would just sell 30 or 40 credits a month just to recoup the expense. No profit made. 

But now credits go so cheaply that you can't even really cover the postage unless you can ship in multiples a lot.  So I don't buy WL books just to post anymore.  I leave them at the thrift store.  I will also post WL books on another site  if I have a good stash of credits here.  I can't afford to have a lot of money tied up in credits at once and can't recoup expenses to resell them.  So I send less books out.

Other than the loss of "WL book hunters" such as Lsressler and Mary L and the WL books they introduce into the system, once the price of a credit is too low, then for a given individual member there might be no point in posting and mailing books. It would be cheaper to just buy credits and order books. However, if too many people do this, then the quantity and selection of books available would suffer, and people might become discouraged from joining the site or leave it, causing a "run" on credits and the site to crash.

Presumably, the rule limiting credit transfers per month to 50 was a way in which the site tried to shore up the average price of credits in the Book Bazaar. Didn't seem to work too well.

Where did all the doom-sayers come from?!?!?! This is just nuts!

I admit that I've been tempted a time or two to buy some cheap credits.  But I still prefer to earn them by mailing out books. I just no longer seek out cheap WL books.  Well I do, but for ones I want to read first.

Plus after that whole Frugalreader thing awhile back-I feel uncomfortable having so much money tied up in credits or pts on a book trading site.  Not that I think PBS is going anywhere anytime soon.  With each credit costing me $2+, I just can't have 50 of them just sitting here after the divorce. 

I don't intend to get an ereader anytime soon (if ever) so I hope PBS sticks around a long time.

Also I checked all my WL books to see if they were in any of my friend's WL and only 5 of them do

I did the same thing, DG. I have a stack of about 30 WL books listed in my WL Multiples post. I checked them all today to see if I had any of my 200 Friends with multiples on their WL.  I found three friends who each had one of my WL books on their WL, but none with multiples. 

Hi Debbie,

The Directed Delivery also takes into account how long a sender usually takes to accept and mail a book, not just their geographical location.  The fast accepters and mailers will also benefit from this service, even if they aren't Gold Key members.

Here's what I posted in the other thread: 

I signed up because I want the extra WL spots.

But I am not happy about the directed delivery. I like the FIFO system on PBS and I have books that have been sitting on my shelf for years that are slowly working their way up the FIFO line to be requested. 

I live on the Washington coast in a very rural area. There are only a handful of members near me. If a popular book was requested by a gold key member, the odds are high that someone in Seattle or Portland (or ANYwhere else in the continental US) is going to have it and be closer to them. It would be extremely unlikely that I would ever beat out anyone in this system thanks to being in the very corner of the country. At least members in Alaska and Hawaii would have a chance of getting priority to members in their state. 

At best, I'll be moving up the FIFO line at the same rate I was, but the odds are good that there will be some books on my shelf requested from someone behind me. 

*dislke*

Becca, I understand your concern, but consider that there are likely to have already been books behind you in the FIFO line requested. I have, on a number of occasions, added several books from a member's booksehfl after requesting a book they'd posted through FIFO. Unless theirs were the only copies of those titles posted into the system, it's more likely than not that they were not first in line for general incoming requests. This also happens whenever members offer deals. While this does add another opportunity for a member behind you in the FIFO line to have their copy requested before yours, it's not likely to happen so much more often that you'd notice, and it's certainly not risking the notion that your copy will never be requested. Even single copies of books sit in the system unrequested for what seems like ages. As with most things here, it really just comes down to patience. I understand that the slight increase in the need for patience seems an inconvenience, but I'm fairly confident that this feature will in no way amount to a compromise in the experiences of the average Swapper.

My first thought, as I saw the Gold Key annoucement, is that they are proving that limiting the wishlist to 200 wasn't really to help the health of the club (which I never bought) but instead, they saved it as a way to ask for money.  As other posters have noted, with how some people game the shipment system to hold off sending books for days, negating the closer-book benefit, the wishlist is the only real benefit for the money -- which makes this an overpriced option,

I'm more than happy to spend the extra few cents on every swap to buy PBS DC, when I could save the 27¢ and print it myself (using USPS software or printed postage from Paypal, etc) and do so on every swap. I reload the money on my account in small increments, so they make extra money on that too (since the transfer fee is much more than what Paypal charges them) .  But to ask for money where there is no guaranteed advantage, not going to be useful to me. 

Like someone else said about the other site with the per-swap fees, which I stayed at during the fee and beyond, such fees might scare people away.  But it's also the most fair -- and PBS has these, if you use their postage.  At least I was getting something when I paid that 25¢ per swap, which was insurance that I would get the item and was backed up with the sender's credit card.  It was a benefit that, sadly, was needed because of all the problem swaps on all the sites.

I am at a library using their computer and I am trying to sign up for the new Golden membership. The problem I am having entering the required information (phone number, credit card number, etc). Nothing I type in the respective box is showing up. What gives?

PS. I like the new option.

Funny how everyone is saying that they bought the Gold Key Membership just for the extra Wish List spots. My Wish List has never gotten dangerously close to the limit of 200.

Some people do crazy things to get around the 200 limit. I remember reading a thread where a new member asked why his friend, a fellow new member, had disappeared just because his friend had made two accounts so that he could Wish List 400 books. At least this Gold Key Membership is in line with the rules.

Funny how everyone is saying that they bought the Gold Key Membership just for the extra Wish List spots. My Wish List has never gotten dangerously close to the limit of 200.

Everyone uses their account differently.  I used to agonize and plan shopping with Amazon to cut my wishlist down to the 200.  A lot of my books on my wishlist are rare, or out of print, and I don't want to take them off my wishlist on the chance they will get posted.  

Now, not everone has a wishlist like that.  Some members just wish for new releases, or books that a broader interest base (unlike my 30 books on cemeteries and mourning *cough*).  For people who want the extra slots, this is a great way for them to have it, without resorting to the more complicated wishlist formats over at SwapaCD or SwapaDVD.

I am at a library using their computer and I am trying to sign up for the new Golden membership. The problem I am having entering the required information (phone number, credit card number, etc). Nothing I type in the respective box is showing up. What gives?

John, 

this is going to sound silly, but are you using the number pad on the right side of the keyboard to enter your information?  If so, make sure that the NUMLOCK key is down.  Otherwise it wont work, and you'll be typing blanks.  :)