I've been on RCG for a long time. I think this is one of the best online communities on the planet. Since joining the team here at RCG, I've been given a great opportunity to reward our members and give away FREE 1-year Plus Membership upgrades!

That's right, I'm giving away 1-year Plus Memberships to users that we feel do a great job of promoting the hobby and supporting others. It's totally subjective and nothing personal if you weren't selected. For the next month or so I'll be posting the users I've selected here in my blog. Enjoy the free year of Plus Membership guys.

This weeks rewarded users are:

theimacman
CyberJay
RCSquale
habitforming
dragbikebam
jackerbes
ndfly700
papadwight
Tom B 1956
jeb6684
Jack Crossfire
bmiller

If the goal is to reward helpful/supportive/positively-influential RCG users for their contributions, the wouldn't it make more sense to poll the general user base to find out who they'd like to "give back" to, rather than just tossing +Plus memberships at people... seemingly out of a hat, given the list you've got there?

I recognize a lot of those names. Good job!

Originally Posted by C₄H₁₀

If the goal is to reward helpful/supportive/positively-influential RCG users for their contributions, the wouldn't it make more sense to poll the general user base to find out who they'd like to "give back" to, rather than just tossing +Plus memberships at people... seemingly out of a hat, given the list you've got there?

I think a peer based poll for awarding plus membership is a good idea to some extent but the names have to come from somewhere to start. Ideally something that was discussed in the beta plus program was positive or negative post rating that other members could use to rate individual posts by users for there helpfulness,value etc. To this day i have no idea how or why i made it in the original beta plus trial but tried to contribute what i could through feedback etc. I wouldnt expect the general rcg community to know half the people that are selected or even understand why unless they were familiar with that members postings.. IE ive never seen posts by this or that user but he or she post regularly in the hybrid,boat,flying plane forums and i spend time in the xyz forums and this person has been posting great build threads for planes for years from the type of balsa to purchase all the way to final set up with radio after its been covered and all the electronics have been installed and documented the build with pics,video and text to make it easier for anyone to follow and learn etc if i dont spend any time in that area of rcg so i have no idea hyrbid,plane,boat guy posts some really good build threads. Im sure to some extent post count,hits to threads started by a user and following etc are easy to compile data on and there are all kinds of other ways im sure data can be compiled from servers as to what would indicate contribution level of individual members to pick users from for rcg. If its purely a poll and members can choose whoever they think contributes a lot to rcg it should be by category.. IE users in the boat section pick contributors for that area of rcg etc..I wouldnt know anything about who posts helpful things or how they contribute to rcg there. Bottom line.. many contribute in the forums in there own way be it build threads or Q&A threads on planes helping new pilots etc and without people giving back to the hobby posting here and sharing with others it becomes less of a resource for the hobby community in general to spend time at. One suggestion for throwing names into a hat was... If your going to suggest someone please state some of the reasons your suggesting that member,be it event coverage or helping others in posts etc.. dont just throw 10 or 20 names out and say i pick these people for plus membership status without listing some form of why you as a individual chose them and let others decide if there is merit in the selections someone has chosen or not. Glad rcg decided to award memberships based on contributions to the forums,if anything the chance to get a plus membership may encourage more to give back to the hobby and do detailed build threads or help others new to rc in general and join the forums.

I was "awarded" plus membership at the beginning of the program. At the time there was no mention of fees, only that it was a reward for being an active contributor. A few months later I requested my plus status be removed when I realized it was little more than a bait and switch program and a $4.95 per month fee was charged to those not so "awarded". In reality the freebie plus members are being used to glam up the program to make it appealing to those who will be charged.

At least now you're telling people up front they will be charged after one year.

Azarr

whatever the reasoning, i appreciate the gesture and will enjoy it for these next 12 months, and then fall back to basic membership without a care

the only feature that draws me in now is the special placement for classifieds, but I don't sell enough to justifly $5 a month just for that feature. so I'll enjoy it while it lasts

Can existing Plus members get awarded memberships?

@habit~ as a plus member, I also do not care much for the highlighted ads as I also do not sell enough; however, the exponentially larger PM mailbox is worth every penny to me. I can go read old correspondence and questions I have had over the years.