catflap Great post! I'm glad you started this thread and fully agree with all points. I am a long time subscriber, but relatively new to posting on the forums. For me personally, this was the year that I feel SLRO moved to the top spot on my list of creators. While I am still a big fan of a couple other sites, I think what put the SLRO team over the top was #3&4 on Catflap's list and echoed by doefi3
Experimental features and a spirit of adventure from the SLR team
Openness and willing to chat with us on the forum
To me, SLR's community engagement and implementation of feedback is absolutely next level! (and I mean that for all of the SLR team members on the boards as well as the customer community members that contribute huge amounts of info to the forums). I feel like they choose to tap the community hive mind far more than any other site to discuss future tech, near future goals, or just random 'outside the box' ideas for new and different features. Some of these may be good ideas, some may be not so much, some may get implemented, some may not... but the point is, what usually feel like internal team discussion topics, are instead presented directly to us the community for feedback. It is this attention given to the customers desires, and the constant push to bring better and better quality that separates the SLR team from the majority of the others that choose to just offer a 'safe' product that is 'good enough'. Here, I feel like the money I spend on the sub is actually being rewarded with an ever evolving product, as opposed to a simple transaction of-- I give you X dollars, and you give me Y number of 'safe, good enough' scenes. I truly do appreciate it!