I'm jus' sayin'

[Mike]

I have received donations from Bennett, Don'tCallMeJimmy, jimbo01, Dino and Flatsman, thus far this month. These donations total $85.00. So we are currently at 31% of the goal for December.

I have now received donations from Keeper and timar, bringing the total donations for the month up to $235, or 87% of the goal for the month.

 

[Mike]

I have received donations from Bill Pederson, Mike J and Neshkoro, which have put us over the top for December, with a donations total of $275.

I am looking at a couple of alternatives to our current set-up. Both are going to require considerable work. Either way, I will need to manually record all the data in the donation logs. Option #1 would amount to me then removing the donation manager, entirely, and re-installing the previous version, which worked with no problems. The problem would be having to manually add all the donation data back into the system. Option #2 would amount to me removing the donation manager and then adding a simple donation module, which would require manual tracking and updating. I am really looking to keep things as automated as I can, but we also need something reliable.

Since I have some time off over the holiday weekends, I will see if I can get things rolled back to the earlier version of our current script and then manually rebuild all the data.

 

[fordsbyjay]

Do what ever is best for you Mike but I think the budget scale up in the top right is a good reminder if it needs a bump. I think if it went away all together you would see a drop in donations. Just my opinion thought.

 

[Mike]

A donation from PzT places us at $285.

 

[Mike]

OK, since there is naught but excuses from Mercenary Designs, the developer of the Donation Manager script, I have deleted the entire script and re-installed the last-known, working version.

I think (but could be completely wrong in my thinking, mind) I have managed to maintain all of the data on all of the donations prior to December 2012, so I just went through all my PayPal notifications for the month and I have manually added all of those donations. For some reason (which I am sure Merc Designs would suggest is there for a specific reason ), installing the earlier version of the manager wants to leave the goal display showing a ghost donation of $20, which I cannot remove from the database, try as I might. So the $305 amount is incorrect, we have only received $285 on the month. But that is still $10 over our monthly goal, so all is well. A special thank you to all of you have donated, at any time, for helping to keep the forums up, running and growing as they are.

If any of you happen to operate, or serve as a staff member on a XenForo-based discussion forum, I heartily urge you to avoid Mercenary Design, for any of their XenForo add-on scripts. The owner, a Robert Clancy, loves to brag about his 'top tier support for licensed users', but I have found nearly every release of his Donation Manager script has created problems for me. And when approached about the problems, this chucklehead rarely has anything to offer but excuses. Sad to say, with development on XenForo at a complete stand-still, Clancy's donation script is the only full-featured script available, but I have found his arrogance and his excuses to be very off-putting. As such, I cannot and will not, in good conscience, ever recommend his work to anyone.

For instance, when I remarked the script was not recording donations and that trying to manually add donations in the Admin Control Panel was causing database errors, his response was to say, "You did an update which completely changed 90% of the add-on and expected it would just work exactly the same?" No, Dr. Einstein, I was vainly hoping and praying the update would even show some hint of actually working at all.

I'll keep an eye on the system, just in case it is still buggy. If it is, I'll be forced to give up the convenience of automagically logging donations and handling usergroup promotions, by using a more primitive donation module.

 

[jimbo01]

Thank you for all your effort Mike. Have a Merry Christmas!!

 

[Mike]

Have I ever mentioned what a PITA this donation manager script is?

I've seen that the database entries for the usergroup promotions are gone and away, so anyone who has donated prior to 1 December 2012 is no longer showing up in the Supporting Members usergroup. <sigh> So I am going to set up a local database to keep track of all donations made from 1 January 2012 through 30 November 2012 and I will manually manipulate those usergroup permissions.

If you've lost Supporting Member permissions, please bear with me and I will get that all corrected for you. It's just going to take a wee bit of time.

Merry Christmas to you too, jimbo.

 

[Mike]

OK, that only took about an hour. Let me just say what a wonderful script this donation manager really is. I cannot think of anything I would rather be doing at 2:00 AM on Christmas morning, than trying to eradicate all the problems from another person's work.

If you have made a donation since 1 January 2012, your permissions should be correct. If you feel you have been wrongfully dropped from the Supporting Members usergroup, please drop me a personal conversation (hopefully with details of your payment) and I will get busy trying to get you sorted.

What is really scary is that out of about 55 donating members, some were still showing the correct usergroup promotion and some were not. I usually find the only thing worse than a problem is an intermittent problem. So I've my fingers crossed on this end.

 

[Dino]

Mike , You no that i'm new to the site from early sometime this year. The usergroup promotion what is that or mean? Then am i supose
to see everything that i have donated here? I do see the top people that donated alot of $ on the right of the screan . There may be something on this site that i did not no that i can see or go to. Thanks Mike Happy Holidays

 

[bigfrank330]

Mike
Thanks for ALL you do
Frank

 

[Mike]

Mike , You no that i'm new to the site from early sometime this year. The usergroup promotion what is that or mean? Then am i supose
to see everything that i have donated here? I do see the top people that donated alot of $ on the right of the screan . There may be something on this site that i did not no that i can see or go to. Thanks Mike Happy Holidays

Members who make donations are promoted into a new, Supporting Members usergroup. Being a member of that group adds a couple perks to a user's permissions. The most notable being access to the Donor's Forum. Supporting members also have their username displayed in a bold, green font.

 

[jcunning]

Always wanted to be green.

 

[Mike]

I've always just wanted to have some green.

 

[RPM]

Last day of the month. I think the site fell short last month.

 

[409T]

Last day of the month. I think the site fell short last month.

There are a lot of new people here, so I think I will offer a little history concerning the site's finances.

The site costs a minimum of $270.00 per month to stay afloat. That covers the hard costs of server time, license fees and the like. It doesn't put a nickel in anyone's pocket. Last summer when donations started running short of this goal, we had a big push to gather funds and keep the doors open (so to speak). The members dug deep, and the site actually wound up with a surplus which carried us, for a while, through any further donation shortfall. Eventually the surplus ran out and although donations per month never again reached the $270.00 goal, over the last few months (or perhaps more than just a few, I don't remember) the difference has been made up by the sponsors. I'm sure you all would join me in saying thank you to them for their generosity.

Mike's position concerning the finances of the forum has always been to let it sink or swim on its own merit. That is as it should be. It's not a statement of emotion in any direction, simply one of the primary rules of business decision.

So there you have it. Do with the information what you will. Everyone participates, lurks, responds and so forth at the level that is comfortable to them, and donations, if any, should be made simply as each individual sees fit as well. If that fills the bill then so be it. It would make me very happy, everyone else must speak for themselves.

 

[Mike]

Mike's position concerning the finances of the forum has always been to let it sink or swim on its own merit. That is as it should be. It's not a statement of emotion in any direction, simply one of the primary rules of business decision.

Sad to say, that well and truly is my position. And that has allowed morons (a.k.a. the sockpuppet and his minions) to maintain their campaign that this site is going away.

The bottom line is that this place does require a lot of money to stay afloat. And as 409T had said, everyone participates at their own level and some members donate at a level that is comfortable for them. I don't know if I find it disappointing or frustrating (maybe it is aggravating???), but out of the 3,217 registered members on these forums, we currently have just 65 in the Supporting Members usergroup. 2% of our total membership are paying the freight for everyone else.

Here are my options -

1. Encourage more people to help support the site through their generosity
2. Remove some of the features and functions, so we can go back to lower cost hosting
3. Close this site down, lose all 104,456 posts and re-open shop on a free hosting service
4. Wait until this site goes bust, shrug my shoulders and walk away

I am, in no way, shape or form going to turn this site into a pay-to-subscribe site. So that is not an option for me. Sorry, but either the site offers enough value to our members to encourage their support, or the site is worthless.

For our newer members, offering promotional items with the site logo is a loser. I spent a boatload of money to have t-shirts made up, a few years back. When I floated the concept, people were drooling to get T-bucket Forums t-shirts. When the shirts arrived, most of those people were like roaches when the lights come on, they all disappeared. The last of the shirts went out of here in a bulk sale, at a greatly reduced price. I swore off t-shirts and I think some of the older members are treating theirs like collectors items. To my knowledge, only two of us have jackets with the forum logo on them.

Most of you will not remember what things were like, back in 2007, when loading a single forum page could take between 1 and 3 minutes. I know I am not interested in participating in slow-running sites, so I am betting most of you feel the same way. We are now large enough that if we were to make that kind of move, we would have to lose a lot of features and a few thousand posts to get there.

The free forum hosting sites are out there. We have a couple of malcontent members (well, OK, one of them has been banned) who are operating wannabe sites on those services, already. But, to my knowledge, there is no way to migrate our current database into the freebie sites. We have accumulated over 104,000 posts in the last 77 months. Do we really want to lose all of that, just to not have operational costs? We would lose many of the features we currently enjoy, as well. I've been watching the development of a couple of photo gallery scripts, but that is something we could never have on the freebie sites.

Here is where the naysayers start licking their chops, because they always fail to read to the end of anything. To be quite honest, I have no issue with someone who cannot afford to donate a single dollar. I spent nearly all of 2012 without a job. And being self-employed for the couple years previous, there were no unemployment benefits, I simply had no income. I have been fighting some health issues I cannot afford and within the last month I was forced to move as I lost my home. So I know what it is like to not have spare pocket change to spend on anything. I get it, I really do. If that is where you find yourself, I certainly hope and pray things will turn around for you.

Likewise, if you are a member of this site and feel the site is of no worth to you, then there is no reason you should spend so much as a dime to support it.

So before the admins of the wannabe sites start crowing, let me make this crystal-clear to everyone. If you cannot afford to help support this site, I fully understand and I have absolutely no quarrel with you. But I also need everyone to understand I cannot cover the monthly operational expenses out of my own pocket. I enjoy helping to offer everyone the largest, the fastest-growing and the most informational T-Bucket resource on the Web, but I'm not going to even attempt to run it out of my own wallet.

I think we all want to keep this place alive, but the bottom line is still the bottom line - If we are to survive, it is going to be as a result of your own generosity.

 

[butch27]

Mike : I've sent before by check. I don't have a Pay Pal acct. Don't know how to get it to you.??

 

[Dino]

Its been little tough the last 6 weeks but i just sold my wifes dog Lol . No the dog is still here and the wife would of killed me . $ on the way and thanks to all that pitch in .

 

[RPM]

Well it is 10:45 eastern and the donation box is not there.

 

[Mike]

The Donation Manager wants to use its own time zone selection, so what happens is its end of the month arrives before our end of the month. There is a new goal set up for April, but the POS won't display.