Donations

[poultry_admin]

As you might remember we started this PTO endeavor with the goal to use the remaining server space of my company that it doesn't use. And this meant that we are limited by the total number of attachments we are saving on the forum. Initial predictions showed end of 2017 (two years running) will be that point and we are still on track to make it to the end of the year without having to prune anything or limit something.

We would need to buy about $5/month worth for every year we don't prune old stuff.
I am hoping that we can exceed this with donations. This will then also give us choices in regards to prizes and other things we could to with it.

Then we have a few choices:
- prune old pictures to keep the space on the server in check
- buy more server space.
* we can do it with donation money or
* with showing ads on the pages

No one likes ads, and this donation extension is not intrusive to be in the way of everyone, so this is an option.

@WLLady suggested to do a poll to see what people want to do. I agree, but it's easy to say "I would donate" and then not doing it. So my solution is to make donations available and see what happens in the next 6 month and go from there.

I pledge to do the following with your donations:
- donations won't be used for any other expense than for PTO.
- donations will be used for these activities, priority of where the funds are applied will be decided by the admin team.
* PTO game prizes (like end of year pic contest, show, ...),
* PTO advertising (Merchendise, ads, ...),
* PTO youth program ???
* Running of the server,
* PTO-piknik support,
* others uses for PTO or it's members as voted on by the admin team.

The donation extension is setup to show you in a group "Donor Coop" if you make a donation. If you don't want others to see how much you donated, go to UCP->Board Preferences->Set "See your donations" to NO.

You will then be shown in the list as having made a donation, but the amount(s) will be hidden.
If you also don't want to be shown in the donor group, go to UCP->Usergroups and select the membership you want to show.

And lastly, this extension is a bit hard to test as you can imagine, so please bear with me until I get all the settings right.

If you have an opinion, don't hold back. Either public or by pm. No worries, I have a pretty thick skin

[Home Grown Poultry]

I think its a great idea! im all for the donations. would that mean that you would have to register as a business or no?

[baronrenfrew]

I'm in for donations. If I paid you 5 cents an hour spent here I'd owe $100.

[windwalkingwolf]

If you can accept PayPal, I'm in! I hate the idea of having ads. Can't hardly read anything online, on an actual single page, because of all the ads, and I'd not like to see nonsense flashing at me here, given a choice. Even if you could guarantee the ads wouldn't be for lingerie or adult dating sites lol. As for pruning old pictures, posts, etc., for me that would be something to do if there weren't another option. I'd hate to for example lose a beloved animal, and discover that the only pictures I had of him were on here, and were pruned. I mean, I backup my stuff as much as possible, but stuff happens. Plus, many pictures and posts are educational resources we can send people to when losing patience with answering the same questions over and over lol

[Poultryprincess]

YES Paypal would make it easier, & Yes I'm in!

[Ontario Chick]

Absolutely in :)

[ross]

My donation will be cash at the picnic . Luck

[poultry_admin]

If you can accept PayPal, I'm in! I hate the idea of having ads. Can't hardly read anything online, on an actual single page, because of all the ads, and I'd not like to see nonsense flashing at me here, given a choice. Even if you could guarantee the ads wouldn't be for lingerie or adult dating sites lol. As for pruning old pictures, posts, etc., for me that would be something to do if there weren't another option. I'd hate to for example lose a beloved animal, and discover that the only pictures I had of him were on here, and were pruned. I mean, I backup my stuff as much as possible, but stuff happens. Plus, many pictures and posts are educational resources we can send people to when losing patience with answering the same questions over and over lol

- Paypal is the only way to go here. I have set up the extension and if you look at the top navigation bar you see the donations link. Or on the bottom of the index page. It's live and you can use it.

- I have the same issue with websites with lots of ads. The more ads, the least likely I want to read it. -> ads will be the last option. Promised. And if we have to go that way, it will be the fewest ads to keep this site running only.
Ads are a difficult thing to setup manually as an administrator. You have to set up contracts with each company to run ads, count hits and invoicing/accounting. This is associated with A LOT of admin. For our board this is too much. Google offers an easier version, but your individual history with them controls what ads you would get. So, if you are looking for a rocker chair, car, medication, ... online, you would get those ads here. I don't have a choice in that.

- pruning would be done first and more aggressively on topics like "around the waterer" or "pictures" where we don't have health or educational info. I will not prune the health topic. So the loss should not be that critical. If you happen to have a treasured picture here only (although I don't recommend it! KEEP YOUR OWN BACKUPS!) and you lost it everywhere else, please contact me. I am backing up the server frequently, including PTO. So, chances are that I might be lucky to find it. Even for a few years down the road.

[ross]

Pruning works for me too . Anything other than ads that don't cost me money is fine by me but if push comes to shove will donate . If donations appear on PTO I would prefer dollar value listed for examples but not donor names . These I take it would be yearly ? Luck

[windwalkingwolf]

with Ross about the donations/name. Is there anyway to have it completely anonymous and amount not shown, by default? Then if you want a name and amount showing up, you have to select the option in user cp. That way, nobody knows who gave $2 and who gave $200. Not sure how to explain myself, but a name and a dollar amount feels like a sponsorship or an ad. Which is fine, if we're sponsoring an award or advertising something, but I kind of feel like, just to keep this place as it is, a WONDERFUL, friendly, helpful,ad-free community, nobody needs pats on the back except the wonderful admins that picked the former board off the ground, and put it back together 10x better than before. If so-and-so wants to donate prize money for our next online show (for example), and not be anonymous, let that be a separate thing from server space $.