MyE28.com

You can count on me as Treasurer fer sure.
It would be my pleasure.

Take a look at how my favorite radio station on the Internet does their fundraising. They are entirely donation-supported and have fans around the globe who send-in money on a monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis...automatically.

www.radioparadise.com

https://www.radioparadise.com/rp2s-cont ... me=Support

Also check out how the following enthusiast forum supports itself via subscriptions:
www.rennlist.com
I give these folks money annually and have no complaints whatsoever. It is arguably the best PCar forum on the Net in addition to Pelican Parts. Rennlist allows "freeloaders" (called "Users") who have limited functionality and no PM capability. "Premium Members" pay only $17.95USD/year (perhaps a bit less per year for a 2-year subscription). Automatic (recurring) subscription payments are allowed too. Also, I supposed we could vote have "student memberships" too, since we have a fair amount of 16-23 y/o traditional-age students here.

Whatever we do, put me down for a contribution to support mye28.com. I'm just as happy to write a personal check and send it via snail mail...old school...like our cars.

Cheers and a hearty thank you to all who keep this board up and healthy,

Tim

TSMacNeil wrote:

davintosh wrote:We all have the ability to pay via snail-mail -- cash, check, money order, beer, etc... While not as convenient or quick as PayPal, humanity got along just fine for centuries without it. Just give us a mailing address and watch the moneys fly in.

I won't speak for Jeremy, but i wouldn't want to have to process a bunch of checks and bank deposits given his upcoming schedule.
.02

Fixed.

Exactly, we have members from all over the world. I can just imagine the fun trying to deposit C$, A$, €, £, ¥ and whatever else we have.

Let's be realistic, Jeremy should make a suggested contribution based on the fact about 10% will pay it, 90% will free ride because they like "free" or just can't afford it. Let's not judge, we just want things to keep going. PayPal gift is easiest and the contributors pay 1%. Jeremy can set up a special email for the donations and if 2 Beamters have access no one should have any concerns about transparency. I've met Jeremy and some of the other Beamters and honesty is the least of my concerns.

Craig

I'll pitch in.

Cactus wrote:I'll pitch in.

Until my current landlord couldn't figure out to let me pay him electronically even though we have the same branch of the same bank, I hadn't written a check in like 38 years. Now I have checks though, oh Lawdy do I have checks...
I personally vote for PayPal but I'm down with whatever you decide. If you do a bake sale, I like those square coconut chocolate chip Rice Crispy treats.

I'm in to support the site however you decide to go Jeremy.

crazy plan -

Someone not averse to paypal screwiness accepts paypal monies all year and mails a quarterly personal cheque minus their postage and fees/costs to the person paying the bills, everyone else mails personal cheques straight to said bill payer.

win-win?

oldskool wrote:You can count on me as Treasurer fer sure.
It would be my pleasure.

Negative ghostrider. You are to be the jester.

Still new here, so forgive my ignorance. Sounds like there was a bad incident in the past.

Is the question how to fund maintenance or how to find someone to do the work ?

On the e9 board we used PayPal. The cash collected was more than enough to offset their fees.

Jeremy wrote:Fact1: MyE28.com has expenses.

Fact2: The money to pay for those expenses has to come from somewhere.

Starting this fall, my free time will be extremely limited, so I'm open to suggestions.

A PayPal account for donations is the obvious route to take, but....

Jeremy, No buts about it, your time is limited and most of us have Paypal. Fees are a fact of doing business and Paypal will help keep it simple for the masses.

I vote Paypal for ease & convenience.

What is the cost to run the site for a year?

BDK wrote:Paypal is my vote, ...
I believe they have a gift option with no fees don't they?

Fees are paid by the sender, and they are no big deal.

It's like I tell my wife, "I cast my 1 vote as a yes/no, how are you going to cast your 2 votes?".
Let us know what you decide Beamters.

Paypal or personal check. Either way. Or half and half.

Jeremy ill be doing mye28 shirts and stickers soon. Pm me an address for cash proceeds (or cashiers check).

Paypal here too.

Alright, folks. We're trying to fund the site, not pay for Jeremy's rub-&-tugs.

Ok,

Thanks for fixing my last post, I was jumpseating home and they were closing the door.
I know what Jeremy is doing, and guys, he can't get bogged down with this...period. Sending him 153 checks and a few sacks of pennies, yen, loonies..etc simply won't hunt.

I have no issues with accountability, hell, he's been carrying the site for how long? Anyway, I propose we consider a simple solution...no accountants, no committees, no directors.

I think it's critical that the site still be "open" for reference of the masses for the purposes of reading and research of existing material. That's good for the brand, and there is truly a shit-ton of valuable material posted already....it should remain free.

Maybe we could fashion a fee for posting rights...i.e. what the usual suspects do here all the time (say, myself, for example...)
I'm not making policy here, just outside voice thinking, if one wants to post a topic, or reply to a topic, or just BS...that's a fee-based option. Wanna ask a question? Must be a paying member...wanna BS? Must be a paying member...

Wanna just read the encyclopedic technical material you wizkids have put together? FREE. Thats a good thing for the e28 community in general.

Whatever surplus funds there may be after hosting costs could simply finance a table at a fest...or finance our own fest...or print up raunchy posters of all the members in their birthday suits at Christmas...er...maybe not.

Basically: wanna post? gotta pay. That way, it keeps the playing field level regarding investment in our club.
In any case, this needs to be kept simple.

Just a thought.

TSMacNeil wrote:

davintosh wrote:We all have the ability to pay via snail-mail -- cash, check, money order, beer, etc... While not as convenient or quick as PayPal, humanity got along just fine for centuries without it. Just give us a mailing address and watch the moneys fly in.

I won't speak for Jeremy, but i would want to have to process a bunch of checks and bank deposits given his upcoming schedule.
.02

Good point. Maybe for this and for other administrative stuff and some level of accountability, the Beamters could work together on it, forming an operating board, of sorts. I don't know all of what the Beamters do, and maybe they're not the ones to do it, so a rotating group of members perhaps?

Or maybe it's time to run advertisements...
















Just kidding.

TSMacNeil wrote: I think it's critical that the site still be "open" for reference of the masses for the purposes of reading and research of existing material. That's good for the brand, and there is truly a shit-ton of valuable material posted already....it should remain free.

I agree 100% but I also think posting should be open to everyone. I think there are enough of us old fart types that we should be able to get enough funding to make up for the starving student types. I wouldn't want some kid that's surviving on Top Raman and Mac N' Cheese to not be able to ask questions (no matter how much their grammar/spelling is pissing me off ).

Karl Grau wrote:

TSMacNeil wrote: I think it's critical that the site still be "open" for reference of the masses for the purposes of reading and research of existing material. That's good for the brand, and there is truly a shit-ton of valuable material posted already....it should remain free.

I agree 100% but I also think posting should be open to everyone. I think there are enough of us old fart types that we should be able to get enough funding to make up for the starving student types. I wouldn't want some kid that's surviving on Top Raman and Mac N' Cheese to not be able to ask questions (no matter how much their grammar/spelling is pissing me off ).

Yeah, prolly right. I do detect an influx of "first car" members' recently. I have no doubt that a small percentile of us can cover the site costs...

* Maybe a pretty star by our names...pretty please?

Hell, just create a sponsor list of members...done.

TSMacNeil wrote:Ok,

Thanks for fixing my last post, I was jumpseating home and they were closing the door.
I know what Jeremy is doing, and guys, he can't get bogged down with this...period. Sending him 153 checks and a few sacks of pennies, yen, loonies..etc simply won't hunt.

I have no issues with accountability, hell, he's been carrying the site for how long? Anyway, I propose we consider a simple solution...no accountants, no committees, no directors.

I think it's critical that the site still be "open" for reference of the masses for the purposes of reading and research of existing material. That's good for the brand, and there is truly a shit-ton of valuable material posted already....it should remain free.

Maybe we could fashion a fee for posting rights...i.e. what the usual suspects do here all the time (say, myself, for example...)
I'm not making policy here, just outside voice thinking, if one wants to post a topic, or reply to a topic, or just BS...that's a fee-based option. Wanna ask a question? Must be a paying member...wanna BS? Must be a paying member...

Wanna just read the encyclopedic technical material you wizkids have put together? FREE. Thats a good thing for the e28 community in general.

Whatever surplus funds there may be after hosting costs could simply finance a table at a fest...or finance our own fest...or print up raunchy posters of all the members in their birthday suits at Christmas...er...maybe not.

Basically: wanna post? gotta pay. That way, it keeps the playing field level regarding investment in our club.
In any case, this needs to be kept simple.

Just a thought.

That's a fine and dandy idea but with money involved and no accountability things could get ugly. Not saying anybody is dishonest or untrustworthy but things happen that people will squabble over.

If there is a fee involved for users, its should either be a for-profit enterprise supplying a service which we pay for (nobody should wantjust that) or a club/organization which we pays dues to and have elected officials.

Donations like are done now to pay for hosting and everything else done byit volunteers seems to work well now, it just looks like the main person volunteering is needing to step down or pass on some responsibilties for reasons of their own. So either someone steps up to do the part needing to get done ( and if its just collecting money I would be willing to help) or we have to organize one of the solutions above for a more lasting solution and community. Just my 2 cents.

mattur wrote:That's a fine and dandy idea but with money involved and no accountability things could get ugly. Not saying anybody is dishonest or untrustworthy but things happen that people will squabble over.

I don't think the costs to run the site are astronomical (correct me if I'm wrong) and I honestly don't care if Jeremy is spending half of whatever I may donate on hookers, cocaine and snotty postcards to Matt H on Ban Island.

I wholly disagree, with all respect. When you become for-profit with fees, certain expectations arise. The whole "fee-based" membership is fraught with potential abuse.

Imagine those fucking trolls that stumble in from time to time.

What if vai2iant was a "paying member"....he'd have the right to make me insane.
Hells no.

Too complicated.

We have enough beamters' to create a viable system of checks and balances for those who are concerned. I'm not.

Karl Grau wrote: I personally vote for PayPal but I'm down with whatever you decide. If you do a bake sale, I like those square coconut chocolate chip Rice Crispy treats.

x2 on this. I'm willing to pay for this site because it surely has paid me back both in knowledge and friendship/camaraderie.

And I love those little coconut squares, but me down for a plate.

Maybe I haven't read closely enough but how much money is needed? I can't imagine it's that much. I'm sure there's enough of the willing to throw $20 at you and not worry about oversight. Still doesn't solve the how problem but I don't think it should be so complicated to the point that we need statements showing that my $20 was spent on toilet paper even though I assumed it would be for a classy hooker.

First off, thank you to everyone for their input.

The mechanism for donating will be Paypal. Simple, easy, no muss. The account is already created. The big advantage here is that Paypal will issue a credit/debit card linked to said Paypal account, so the hosting fees can be paid, automatically, every month, directly from that account. If I get arrested/go clinically insane/am otherwise indisposed the hosting bill gets paid. I'm looking into the possibility of setting up a recurring payment option for those who would prefer to give a set amount every month as opposed to a lump every now and again. It appears to be possible. Once I figure that out, I'll make a new post/announcement with the PayPal account name and go from there.

There won't be any "pay to play" system here. That's not how the site was founded and that's not how I want to run it. This site is free and open to anyone that can abide by our very limited set of rules.

I'm also not a fan of any ranks or stars next to user names. I don't want anybody acting like they're better than someone else because they donated to keep the lights on. Egos do tend to rampant here sometimes, I'd rather not fan those flames. That's the reason why the post count based ranks went away when we moved to phpBB. Only the people that have been here a while will remember those, but I specifically requested that they be removed from the software when I took over. I have no desire to bring them or anything resembling them back.

Thanks for the feedback guys, keep it coming if you have any additional thoughts.

Jeremy

No stars?

(I was kidding...)


Good, done.

Jeremy wrote:The mechanism for donating will be Paypal. Jeremy

That's nice. So what do those of us who are more than willing to donate and also absolutely refuse to use PissPal do? Leave?

I think we should have a lottery.

The top 20 posters will be automatically entered. We can assign numbers to screen names alphabetically. Run a random number generator and the lucky winner will post the bill for 1 year.

If you "win" you get a 10 year reprieve.

Anyone can enter the lottery, but at least the top 20 posters will be in by default.

The drawing will take place on February 12 of each year. The ticket window closes on February 10. The "winner" must post payment net 30.