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Underground > Policy & Help >

Barbelith Server Fund

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17:48 / 06.10.01

Ok. Everyone knows we've been talking about this for a while now. Rather than the sporadic bursts of cash that I get when I have real trouble paying the bandwidth bills for the site (which are great), I think it makes sense for REGULAR USERS who WANT TO CONTRIBUTE to consider donating a small amount of money on a monthly matter instead.

Please note that you don't HAVE to donate any money in order to continue to use the site. You're not paying for a service here, you're helping to maintain one.

This is PURELY a way for people who want to contribute to do so in the most logical and efficient way - so that the bills always get paid, no one has to cough up a lot of money that they don't want to, and everything is clear and clean and simple and elegantly done.

The monthly donatoin will be $2.50 a month, which is about £1.75 - about half the price of a copy of Empire or Q.

Money in the account will only be used for paying for set-up fees and monthly server fees at pair.com. I will try to make sure that there ISN'T an excess - we only want to get JUST enough to pay the bills, but if we accidentally end up with more, we can either send it back to the people or invest it in software or something. Tannhauser's potential legal fees when he drives someone insane for example...

I reserve the right to turn the place off at any time - particularly if dodgy legal shit is going down, and people can subscribe or unsubscribe however and whenever they want without me getting grumpy.

High Volume server account (with current bandwidth excess) will cost about $125 a month, I believe, and our very own server will be about twice that. Assuming we get $2.25 clear cash from each person's donations, then we only need about fifty people to get the High Volume account and another fifty to pay for a full server.

READY?

DONATE REGULARLY

[ 06-10-2001: Message edited by: Tom Coates ]

19:39 / 06.10.01

Okay, I tried to set up paypal once before and failed. Have tried again, so fingers crossed - I'll let you know.

00:42 / 07.10.01

erg. i usually hate saying this coz it makes me sound all sucky-uppy, but i want to pay. i don't have a credit card; can't do paypal but i want to pay something. don't feel like i really need to tell the rest of the board that, but i dunno how to pay without that credit card....

Our Lady of The Two Towers

08:16 / 07.10.01

Going to have a look at it later today. I assume that it as safe as paying over the Internet can be?

08:44 / 07.10.01

I can`t pay by credit card either. There`s probably a bunch of people in the same situation.

Any suggestions?

08:47 / 07.10.01

I have to admit the same thing. No credit card (though I'm trying to get one, it's a long boring story). I would like to donate but I can't use Paypal, can't use it to pay for my livejournal either...

08:47 / 07.10.01

At the moment don't worry about it. We'll see how many people are prepared to donate to Barbelith through Paypal (so far, er, one).

Paypal is the largest and most trusted transaction manager on the net at the moment. VERY good quality and very reliable. I've had no problems with them at all...

Ellis

12:05 / 07.10.01

I have signed up for it but have mo idea when I will be able to start doing anything since i have to wait for a statement first from my bank.

12:06 / 07.10.01

Well, it failed again... but then, trying to do anything at all with my credit card while pissed (Barbe-meet then sister-meet - ouch, my head) is pretty stupid. I've probably signed up to pay £200 a month to the National Front.

I'll try again later.

13:15 / 07.10.01

I'm up for it, I'll sign up tonight. Paypal is perfectly safe, folks, don't worry.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

15:40 / 07.10.01

I'm up for it, signed up even, but it's going to take a couple of days to come through, I have to get some code from my credit card statement. If Tom isn't keen on people sending him money through the post I'd be willing to take peoples cash and run away to the Bahamas/add it into my Paypal contribution.

09:45 / 08.10.01

I've signed up (yay me), but it was fairly easy considering I've used Paypal regularly before. As far as the ease of signing up goes, it did take nearly a month for the statement to come through to get the four digit code (and it doesnt accept some credit cards, but takes most Visa / Mastercard etc..) but apart from that it's pretty pain free.

[ 08-10-2001: Message edited by: Dee Vapr ]

09:45 / 08.10.01

If you are in a hurry to get the code you can go into your bank or ring your credit card company and just get them to read it out to you...

15:58 / 09.10.01

if there's an easy way to to it from here without a credit card (an EASY WAY) I'd, pay gladly...
hints, anyone? I got cash ding-a-linging in my pocket...

16:11 / 09.10.01

Hmmm...what if Tom got a postal box and the credit-less Barbelithers sent him money orders? I suppose that might be another expense, though...

09:18 / 10.10.01

It doesn't take Switch cards...

How we doing for an alternative?

12:14 / 10.10.01

So far not so well. I'm really keen to do something in the MOST organised regular fashion, so that no one needs to think about it.

The alternative that I can think of is that everyone could send some money to a person who would act as a Paypal intermediary...

The thing that's most important to me is that I get exactly the right amount of money in each month. That's all...

12:16 / 10.10.01

For example - people could send six months of money to a trusted third party. I could then institute a special group subscription type of membership - this would also cut down on Paypal's fees as a proportion of money spent...

14:49 / 10.10.01

It might be getting too complicated, but wont it be easier just to set up as a charity and appoint trustees? Its hassle to start with, but everything's done and dusted then.

I'd also like to contribute, but can't do it through paypal.

PS Tann sent me insane long ago. Claims direct will be in touch....

17:10 / 10.10.01

I just suspect that the cost of setting it up as a charity is more trouble than it's worth. You know?

What is people's trouble with Paypal? Other than not actually having a visa or mastercard, I can't see any other potential ones...

Our Lady of The Two Towers

18:01 / 10.10.01

Well, there's the slight ludicrous point for UK people of paying you an amount, having to pay for it to be turned into US dollars then, when it reaches you, you probably have to pay for it to be turned back into British money again.

Personally, I've transferred some money but I'd not really want to go through this hassle again. I'd prefer to do a cheque next time, or do internet banking straight into your account...

22:01 / 10.10.01

Tom, you should put up a Paypal link and an explanation of the situtation on the Barbelith front page. Good idea?

05:43 / 11.10.01

I'm sorry Loz. I don't mean to be a pain, and I wish it was easier too, but I honestly think that doing it on a monthly basis is much much better in the long run than getting people to send in money. I have to spend a lot of time keeping track of money that comes in that way, and it's far from a simple process to work out exchange rates at my end too.

There is a Paypal box on the front of Barbelith at the moment!

07:10 / 11.10.01

I could just set up a direct debit from my account to yours - easier than Paypal, which I've pretty much given up on. Sorry.

It would also mean the money would come from my current account, not my credit card - I'm trying to pay it off so adding more regular payments seems stupid.

08:15 / 11.10.01

quote:Originally posted by Tom Coates:
What is people's trouble with Paypal? Other than not actually having a visa or mastercard, I can't see any other potential ones...

but that is quite a major one. there are loads of us, it would seem, that want to contribute towards costs, but can't because of not having credit cards. this seems a little unfair, leaving the onus of paying the bill to those that do have credit cards. it's pretty frustrating, wanting to help out and not having a way to do so.

maybe someone with a credit card could take cheques and pay them in on our behalf? i can't think of another solution. isn't there a uk version of paypal that accepts uk debit cards? couldn't we set both up? just trying to think of alternatives...

08:27 / 11.10.01

I should point out that you can use debit cards if they have visa or mastercard on them, and it will come directly from your bank account, should that be your desire.

11:31 / 11.10.01

Tom, I will donate but I won't be able to do so for about 10 days or so (looooong story, involving check I didn't write coming through my bank account and causing huge overdraft, etc.,). Is that cool?

I'll be able to donate on Tuesday or Wednesday the 23rd or 24th, if that works for you...

And I'm all ready set up with PayPal, so it should be no problem (provided I can remember my password).

11:37 / 11.10.01

Sorry Tom, years of credit card abuse as a student has taken its toll. Take cheque/direct debit?

12:56 / 11.10.01

I'll look into alternatives.

sirius

01:26 / 12.10.01

Ain't gonna work dude.
I won't pay for a service when I get locked out of a folder for posting a valid criticism of someone's lack of courage to give an honest answer to an honest question.
"lith gets my credit card input when and only when access is not determined by who's toes get stepped on.
Free speech is not free, nor is it subsidized when it's obviously limited to the chosen few.

02:30 / 12.10.01

quote:Originally posted by sirius:
Ain't gonna work dude.
I won't pay for a service when I get locked out of a folder for posting a valid criticism of someone's lack of courage to give an honest answer to an honest question.
"lith gets my credit card input when and only when access is not determined by who's toes get stepped on.
Free speech is not free, nor is it subsidized when it's obviously limited to the chosen few.

Assuming you were giving valid criticism, and not just name-calling (and even THAT to some extent), what you're saying sounds like abuse of moderator privileges. If this is happening, we definitely need to take care of it. If it's happening.

That being said, Tom isn't really asking you to pay. You shouldn't feel obligated in the least. Those of us who are are doing so because we want to help keep the board running without major problems. And because we prefer this to other options. Tom's just trying to make it easy to do so.

sirius

03:21 / 12.10.01

I would be happy to pay if it were actually free speech.
How do you older members shut down all criticism?
enquiring minds want to know!
I want to know, is "lith a forum for self stroking or free speech?

sirius

03:23 / 12.10.01

I would be happy to pay if it were actually free speech.
How do you older members shut down all criticism?
How do you close all input except that which you agree with?
Enquiring minds want to know!
I want to know, is "lith a forum for self stroking or free speech?
Underground? not bloody likely in my experience!!
Self serving.

04:56 / 12.10.01

What's ze's referring to as "lockout" is the familiar "can't find profile 00000000722" (+ or - some zeroes) compounded by the fact that Sax owns that member #, or did, until today. So, every time someone posts to a Sax thread, or one Sax has posted in, the thread dies.

05:47 / 12.10.01

Yes. What Sirius is in fact referring to is a function of a board that is running on a shared server and can't handle the traffic.

One would have HOPED that he would have asked what was going on before accusing us of wide-spread censorship, but unfortunately not.

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