Thread: Member Donations for Site Maintenance & Hosting Costs

Originally Posted by Addison

Yep Great Idea,, Option Of Donating To Monthly Giveaways Also A Thought!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Ty

I believe there has always been a thread in the "Contests & Giveaways" section. I see he recently redid it...
http://straightrazorpalace.com/conte...giveaways.html

Also, I'm pretty sure that sales from the "SRP Goods" help to fund the site...
 
Though, I'm not sure how much of a cut they get from those sales. The SRP Goods are made on-demand, when purchased, by the company where that storefront is at.

I don't know about PayPal, but what about a "GoFundMe" page? Also, would Amazon payments be an option? I make a few pennies a month on mTurk, and may be able to shave some off of that .

Sounds Great!! Count me in.

The dirty little secret of SRP is that nobody gets paid for maintaining the nuts and bolts that keep the site running. That 'button' that used to say 'classifieds' but now says 'buy-sell-trade' didn't get up there by magic.

A systems administrator had to spend his time to install it, test it, and work out any bugs. Updating and bug fixes take time. Years ago there were a few qualified individuals who had the skills and the willingness to do the work gratis.

Now, and for a long time past, there has only been one individual, and for those hours he puts in of his spare time he doesn't even get a thank you. I forget what the going rate for a systems administrator is, maybe $30.00 per hour, $50.00 ? Whatever it is, if the site owners had the funds to hire an outfit to maintain the site you wouldn't see it down on Friday/Saturday for hours.

It is an admirable resolve to run a free site. But as Nelson Rockefeller (former Governor of NY, and Vice President of the USA) said many years ago, "There is no such thing as a free lunch."

We might be getting it for free, but someone is doing the work, and/or paying for it behind the scenes. In this case it is, and has been, one tired systems administrator.

Well even if no one gets paid, there is still a server cost. So donations could go to that and not all out of someones pocket.
As you said, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

So who will say where the money is to be spent? Will you elect a board that will represent the members? I'm all for giving a donation to this site because I enjoy it. However when you start mixing politics with pleasure, disaster usually follows, metaphorically speaking. There will be certain rules, regulations, and procedures that will govern how donations are solicited and how the money is spent.

Understand what you are getting into before you pull the trigger! Not trying to be detrimental, just go into this with your eyes wide open.
Take a poll from the members to see how much support you will get. Just a suggestion....

A site support button would be something I would use as well, were it available.
I visit SRP often and can only imagine the work involved behind the scenes.
I'm a hardware, not software guy, or I'd offer to help keep it live as well.
HTML coding is not my forte however..
Using/abusing PayPal is something I can do though...

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

The dirty little secret of SRP is that nobody gets paid for maintaining the nuts and bolts that keep the site running. That 'button' that used to say 'classifieds' but now says 'buy-sell-trade' didn't get up there by magic.

A systems administrator had to spend his time to install it, test it, and work out any bugs. Updating and bug fixes take time. Years ago there were a few qualified individuals who had the skills and the willingness to do the work gratis.

Now, and for a long time past, there has only been one individual, and for those hours he puts in of his spare time he doesn't even get a thank you. I forget what the going rate for a systems administrator is, maybe $30.00 per hour, $50.00 ? Whatever it is, if the site owners had the funds to hire an outfit to maintain the site you wouldn't see it down on Friday/Saturday for hours.

It is an admirable resolve to run a free site. But as Nelson Rockefeller (former Governor of NY, and Vice President of the USA) said many years ago, "There is no such thing as a free lunch."

We might be getting it for free, but someone is doing the work, and/or paying for it behind the scenes. In this case it is, and has been, one tired systems administrator.

Thanks Jimmy, like I thought, some awesome gentleman doing the work when they can. I know IT, it's 99.9% of the time people ignore you and take you for granted, the .1% of the time there's an issue, you're a complete arsehole to use a technical term...

So the question is, this doesn't have to be complicated, what would it take to set up and email address to PayPal funds to or a donate button?

Originally Posted by Phrank

Thanks Jimmy, like I thought, some awesome gentleman doing the work when they can. I know IT, it's 99.9% of the time people ignore you and take you for granted, the .1% of the time there's an issue, you're a complete arsehole to use a technical term...

So the question is, this doesn't have to be complicated, what would it take to set up and email address to PayPal funds to or a donate button?

You know the old saying, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing ............

Speaking with someone in the know, who enlightened me that there is more to it than meets the eye, it is more complicated than I thought.

I cannot go beyond that cryptic statement, but that is the long and short of it.

The one forum I am part of that takes donations through paypal the person has a business account to accept the donations.
But then again it is a much bigger forum and has about 2500 members that donate yearly
So yes it is a bit more complicated, but doable

It is more complicated.

No problem with setting up a paypal account and letting folks donate however if it is to be done right and have integrity one person has to be designated to receive the funds and there has to be checks on him. Since we become a member supported site there has to be some accounting as to where the funds go.

I've seen sites like that where someone uses the funds for their own use and eventually it comes out and those sites go defunct very quickly.

Of course you can do it like Wiki and have a year end drive and request donations like they do.