Gold Membership Perks
Members often ask what the perks of being a Gold Member are. Besides winning my admiration, here are some of the perks:
Recognition Badge
Gold members receive a special badge under their avatar to show the world how awesome they are and that they've supported the community they participate in. The badge is automatic and stays through the term of the Gold Membership.
Profile Posting
Gold Members have the ability to use the profile post functions. Profile posts on your own profile page are like status updates. Profile posts on other members' profiles are like shout-outs or tweet messages — usually more casual and public than a personal conversation message would be.
Live Update
The Live Update feature is very exciting and useful. It polls the database every 10 seconds for any new alerts or conversations, regardless of whether you refresh the page or are even viewing the browser tab. You could be writing a post and get an alert, or be checking your email and see the browser icon change to notify you of a message. I love this!
Watch Tags
The Watch Tag feature lets you subscribe to an existing keyword tag on Physics Forums. Once you're watching a tag, you'll get an email or alert whenever a member creates a post using it — a great way to follow new threads by topic rather than watching an entire forum.
24-Hour Edit Window
The default time window to edit a post is 3 hours. There are many cases where you post a message, step away for a bit, and come back only to realize you made a mistake. With the 24-hour edit window, fixing it becomes a lot easier.
Signature
Gold Members are allowed a signature, appended to the bottom of every post — similar to an email signature. Most members use it for quotes, favorite links, or quick tips. Signatures can be edited at any time.
24/7 Chat Access
We've got a nice little chat community. You could wait for the usual Sunday chat events open to all, or become a Gold Member and get 24/7 chat access — a great way to connect in real time with your favorite forum members. From time to time we also run trivia events.
Hide Online Status
These days you can never be too careful. Gold Members enjoy an extra level of privacy by hiding their online status, making them nearly invisible when logged in. If you enable this feature, you won't appear in the active users list, and your online indicator won't light up.
Attachments in Personal Conversations
Simple but useful: this feature lets you attach a file to a personal conversation — great for situations when you don't want to share the file publicly.
Donation
This is the best perk of all. You can think of your Gold Membership subscription as a donation to one of your favorite online communities. You'll know you've done your part to ensure its stability and future. Keeping a busy community like Physics Forums running smoothly isn't easy or cheap — we cover monthly costs for a large server, backup management, SMTP services, monitoring, advertising, licenses, outsourced development, and more.
Premium Support
Let's be honest: I get dozens of user requests a day. I try my best to get to everyone, but if I see you're a Gold Member, you take priority and I go the extra mile for you. It's that simple — Gold Members got sway. :)
Now you know what it's all about! Subscription terms are 6 months, 1 year, or 20 years (at a big discount). The 6-month and 1-year plans work out to about $1 a month — hard to find a better value.
So what are you waiting for?