Hi everyone, We are currently overdue on our server bill since enough funds were not raised for April - and May is well upon us. I apologize for not re-addressing this sooner and for my absence (it's crunch time and I'll finally be graduating university next week). Unfortunately, however, I'm still struggling to pay the server bill. The past few months we've had a number of generous donors, including a few large repeat donors, who've supported the site since the financial issues came up at the beginning of the year. To those of you who've kept us online so far, thank you so much. Without your help I don't know how we'd be able to keep the site online. I'm here now to ask those of you who are able and find value in this community to contribute. Right now we really need donations to keep WritingForums.org online. The current situation breakdown is this: In the month of April we didn't raise the full hosting costs of $170, so the server bill is currently overdue for April. On top of that, the May bill is due May 15th. I'm not sure how long we have before risking disconnection, but it's a real risk and could happen. To make matters worse, our server disk space is filling up, and we might need to upgrade to a larger server in the near future (I'm hoping we can last till July/August). For April, it looks like we raised approximately $65, leaving WF approximately $105 short for April, and with a new bill of $170 due for May. I haven't tallied in new Supporter membership yet, but presently we are approximately $275 due/overdue on the hosting bill (might be closer to $250 after Supporter memberships are factored in). Advertising revenue is at an all-time low at approximately $50 - and is inaccessible because there's a payout threshold of $100, so can't presently be applied to hosting costs. That is the current situation. I'd prefer I didn't have to air financial details in the matter, but this is as serious as it gets for a community like ours. I've updated the fundraiser on the sidebar; if you donated in April, you donating was applied to the April/May fundraiser, though I'm having trouble getting the $65 to show in the donations bar. Please consider donating. I would pay this out of pocket but I simply am unable to do so. Now that I'm graduating, I'll either be working on a startup project full time or get a full time job - so in a few months I expect I'll be able to handle the costs on my own, but until then, please please consider donating. I'd be willing to take a personal loan for a few months to cover this if someone on this forum willing to do so. Daniel
Sorry, I got pulled away before I could edit. Is there an alternate way to pay besides paypal? I don't have a paypal account and wasn't planning on creating one.
Holy crap @minstrel and @Wreybies YOU GUYS ROCK. Since the counter isn't counting the existing $65 I believe this puts us up to date!! You guys are incredible. As for other ways of donating, there are a few. You can mail a check money order, pay with bitcoin, greendot moneypaks, purchase Supporter membership, and possibly other methods upon request. PM me (or email me at daniel@writingforums.org for faster response) for details. I expect for the next 1-2 months we'll still need to fundraise to cover our hosting bill, but we are paid till June 15th. Starting the 19th I'll be graduated and I'll have more time, much of which I'll put towards re-examing WF's advertising/income source and trying to improve it. Hopefully by the end of the summer advertising will once again cover hosting costs. I'm continuously amazed at the community here and the speed and willingness to donate in order to sustain it. It's worth repeating again: YOU GUYS FRIGGIN' ROCK!
I hope people are reading this and taking what you say on board, @Daniel. Surely it's not impossible for more people to donate small amounts more regularly. Maybe 'donate' is the wrong word. I think we need to consider this as paying for something we use and enjoy. Something that is not 'free' to produce. It's not fair that the entire cost (and worry) of the enterprise should be yours. We all benefit from the forum, and while there are many people who really CAN'T afford to donate a pittance towards its upkeep, there are many others who can. I just noticed the statistic that 200 members have visited the site in the past 24 hours. Even a $1 per month donation from every active member would help. Or a $5/month donation from people who are not in hardship. I'm sure people spend $12 (or $60) a year on stuff that gives them a lot less pleasure than the forum. It's a matter of perspective, really.
I'm sorry to say that we are still experiencing issues funding the server. The June bill is overdue. Please consider donating. I've adjusted the fundraising goal to exclude the mail server and just include base hosting costs to keep us online.
@minstrel @Okon @Wreybies @jannert you guys rock. Seriously, thank you. You kept the site online. I should be able to cover at least part of July's bill next month (which becomes overdue July 15th).
Does the membership go toward the server bill? If not I'll be sure to donate next time, wanna help keep this place around
I decided that I finally have a stable enough job and income to support WF monthly. Which is great, considering I haven't felt stable in a long time and this is one of the few communities I cannot get enough and that helped me so much over the years (I lurked for a while :3) and I've met some great, inspiring, and helpful people here. I hope my contribution keeps this place afloat and I know that once I become a rich author, it'll be thanks to this place Honestly, if there are any gamers out there, consider this your monthly MMO subscription Every member is an useful NPC, every weekly contest is a daily quest, every annual contest is a new patched raid for epic loots. The ultimate goal? Defeat the dreaded Not-yet-a-published-author demon! Yes... I am nuts.
There once was a doggie quite lewd. But regardless, an interesting dude. When asked as to preference here refused to make reference and said,"Whatever, just don't intrude."
Thank you guys again, and thank you to those of you who've recently became supporters. Just an FYI update for those wondering: I've updated the fundraiser counter. Since we raised enough for the overdue June server bill, and July's bill is due the 15th, I've moved the donations that exceeded the $170 mark to apply to the July fundraiser. I'll also be paying these upfront to our host. We'll go without the email server for now. This puts us almost halfway there. It does, in most cases; rather, right now it definitely does, but might go to other things if we didn't have server finance issues. If we have a sever bill overdue or due next month, it definitely will go directly to those hosting bills. If we have enough for the server, it will then be applied to the mail server. If we have enough for the mail server, it'll carry over to the next month's server bill or be used to purchase other improvements for WF, such as new features and software update extensions. Once the site can maintain it's server costs through advertising, Supporter donations would be applied to things like getting custom software developed, promoting the site, and hosting new prize-based contests (though this hasn't happened in some time). Supporter donations really do go to support the site. Thanks!
