Discourse hosting is being terminated, fundraising successful

[kevin.granade]

GlyphGryph had hosting already set up so we ran on that for years, about a year ago he needed his capacity or whatever for something else and I moved the forums to Discourse.

[dissociativity]

If the regulars contribute $2 a month we’re already mostly there.

[TheMurderUnicorn]

I like Discourse. I also like this forum.

I, personally, can’t contribute right now. Things are delicate for me, but I figure by February a couple bucks a month shouldn’t be an issue.

And here’s an opinion that is sure to be unpopular – I sorta think you should enable ads anyway? I think most of us are adults with real jobs but there’re young folk around, too. Ads would enable a few pennies here and there from them or people like me who maybe can’t contribute with actual moneys.

[Litppunk]

Whats the going rate on ads these days anyways? Is there any chance that keeping it minimal would generate extra $ for siphoning into bounties etc… instead of the other way around?

[Jack30749]

i can’t contribute money right now, but i actually wouldn’t mind the ads if they keep the site running

[Daeros13]

If i wanted to make a direct donation, where would i go to do this? Or did i miss that link?

EDIT: OK. I searched that website Kevin mentioned, Patreon, and I found this link https://www.patreon.com/posts/1692744 but it seems very dated and I don’t see Kevin’s name. As soon as the final decision on if there is to be a move or a fundraiser, be sure to please post the link here. Thx.

[Profugo_Barbatus]

I’d be happy to support the site. If the funding turns out to be more than enough, what is the plan for the additional money? I would assume it will be funneled into Bounties?

[Litppunk]

I would assume either bounties or kept for slower months

[TheZoneWizard]

So short version. Are we moving again or staying?

[kevin.granade]

I have the patreon page up now at https://patreon.com/cataclysmdda and I’ll start looking into setting up ads on the forums.

extra $ for siphoning into bounties etc

If the funding turns out to be more than enough, what is the plan for the additional money?

I don’t have a solid plan for this. At the moment I’m just scrambling to get something together ASAP to avoid a site outage. I don’t think I’m going to worry much about overshooting the mark until enough has been socked away to secure the site, at least several months worth of hosting. There will be plenty of time to sort out where it goes after that. I intend to let people know if the site funding needs are met so they can prioritize appropriately.

Are we moving again or staying?

Unless fundraising fails, there should be no user visible change, we’ll just move from one hosting provider to another.

[Profugo_Barbatus]

Done, glad to be of support.

[TheMurderUnicorn]

The link on https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/groups/patrons directs you to the Patreon home page, rather than the actual cataclysm Patreon.

I hadn’t checked this thread yet but saw someone with the Patron tag and clicked it. It stands to reason that some people might navigate that way, so you might want to amend the link.

Other than that, hooray. It’s the first Patreon I’ve felt compelled to give money to – In a month or so I’ll be contributing. Uh, hopefully, I mean.

[dissociativity]

I’ll support the patreon for as long as I can manage, at this rate of donations it should be fine by February!

[nameless_survivor]

Are there any additional things you need to keep the site running or that would assist development, like hardware, or software that needs to have paid licensing? I might be able to contribute a bit more on occasion, but they would have to be one time expenditures.

[kevin.granade]

I’m pretty comitted to using open source software, so there’s nothing to license.

The complete list of expenses for the project as of now are:
Hosting for forums.
Hosting for Jenkins build (this is donated by @Narc0tiq, i would be interested in covering his costs if donors were ok with it).
The cataclysmdda.org domain, this is only like $15 a year.
Compute resources I use for building and testing, about $40 a month.

[Stone]

I can chip in if need be, definitely dont mind supporting a game I’ve played for years. Edit, just saw the patron page,

[Daeros13]

As far as I think, any money donated would go to any and everything project related, regardless of location. But if you do a poll, throw my vote to: all uses as you see fit.

[kevin.granade]

Thank you everyone who has signed up to donate. Its looking very good to cover the costs, and I’ll start the process of migrating the forums.

I’ll also continue to look into ads for the forums as a more equitable and future-proof alternative.

[Ricky_Van]

ahh good news… more refreshing than a winter wind.

i’ll be waiting for the ads to come so the forum will have new and fresh look, plus ads.