I am not saying that, if others happen to like the stand out reddish color tint, that it should be changed, just asking if there could be an option to be a supporter but with the normal (and boring) blue on blue colors already being used for other "titles".
The way it works currently is that the entire donation process (including applying the profile tags) is automated, so any exemptions like that would have to be applied manually by either excluding the showing of this user tag for a specific user, or making it show with different styling. Both are technically possible to do with some custom coding in the relevant templates, but would have to be done by special request for individual users. To have something like this as a selectable option to tick off in user profiles would require custom coding a separate addon, which is probably not worth it as I don't expect this to be a very popular request. Though as I mentioned earlier, I wouldn't mind changing all the user tags to be colourful and not as bland as they are by default. If that was done, the Supporter banner wouldn't really stand out any more. I'll put this on the to-do to consider later on.
I'm not sure the same connotation exists in English, where 'donor' has the double meaning - so does 'donator', which is obsolete.
I think it does, because it is very rarely used with monetary donation systems on websites. "Supporters" is how accounts with donations are normally referred to, not donors. Maybe that's due to American influence, but that's the way it is.
Also, "donors" wouldn't really work in our case, because Supporter status is not only applied to members who donate, but also to any who contribute to RPGWatch in other ways; like being on staff or helping out in other ways.
Maybe the same background color as other tags, but a font that's a different color and/or bolded?
I actually tried that, it didn't look good. Honestly though, when it comes to styling, there will never be a consensus on anything. That's why we have both the dark and light global styles as well. It's impossible to please everyone with any single colour choice anywhere; at best the majority will either like it or be ok with it, but there will always be a minority that won't for one reason or another.
Can one just use a credit card directly, or must it go via Paypal?
You should be able to use either a credit or a debit card (let me know if not) in addition to a PayPal account. It all goes via PayPal though, as PayPal is the payment processor.
{I guess we could do an anonymous donation by creating a second account and donating with that, too.}
I'll be adding the option to make anonymous donations shortly, without any need to make a second account. However, anonymous donations will not be tied to forum accounts and consequently won't come with any perks like ad-free access and so on. For anything like that, there has to be an account that it is attributed to. So anonymous donations would normally be made by people who are not members of our forums and who have no intention of becoming members.
Of course, if you're already blocking ads and actually DON'T want any supporter recognition or perks on the forums, then it really makes no difference if you donate anonymously.
Also making the tag optional will be problematic because then everyone will have to hide their supporter tag or risk being tagged as braggadocios and get put into the out group or worse yet another made up group. While we are at it we should get rid of join date and how many messages people have as they may intimidate some posters.
Funny you should mention that, because yes, I've seen the same kind of heated arguments over post counts and join dates displayed in posts as well, on several forums over the years. Some people were just as strongly opposed to the "elitism" of members with old join dates, or those with a high post count, and asserted that this must not be visible in any of the posts.
And heaven forbid us showing any reaction scores or like count totals below avatars, might as well slit my wrists now.
If we do remove them all, be sure to make a bigger deal about the donations. If it wasn't for all the 'supporter' tags showing up everywhere, I wouldn't have known it was happening!
And then having to deal with inevitable complaints that I'm begging for donations all the time. Welcome to the wonderful world of site admins.
Having a bundle with Vaelith's hindsights and Rpgwatch is a steal but yes the badge .. I wouldn't mind the option to remove it
Thanks for your donation,
@Kos !