I've posted this in Offleys because I need the members perspective of how they want to do things in the future. So here goes. Warning…long, boring post. This forum runs on free open-source software called Flarum, vanilla Flarum is super basic and is enhanced by extensions. pretty much everything you see is provided by an extension. There are 67 different extensions loaded which give us a hugely rich functionality, much larger than is obvious from the very clean view the forum presents. **Our host is freeflarum.com, it's run by volunteers who give their time, the servers and a share of the domain for nothing. Donations are what keep them going.** After recent events, I think it's very important that people like this are supported, or we give everything over to the corporate whales who simply swallow everything up. **These guys are not affiliated with Flarum software in any way**, and I think they are doing a marvellous job. Of course, if any forum uses too much resource that affects all the other forums they host, we might be asked to move elsewhere. Importantly, donating doesn't protect us from this! What our donations will do is allow them to expand and maintain their resources, so they never have to ask anyone to leave…but I say again, it won't guarantee we can stay here. There are a few ways to give donations, but unfortunately paypal takes a slice, so if the donation is too small e.g. $5 they say they get pretty much nothing. Not sure how that works, but they are US based. I suspect they might prefer to manually deal with a few larger transactions, keeping the workload down.. **Our other option** - move to paid hosting, hard for me to set up (I'm sure I can do it), costs money, slightly improves service/speed of response. In the first year or two if we make an upfront payment, not too expensive, but doubles after the honeymoon period. We have to keep paying for a domain name, keep paying for SSL etc.. **We would have to fund it**, there wouldn't be any option, and one of the corporates/large companies would be getting the money. So I'm not super keen to do it if we don't have to. **Me personally, I would rather give the non-profit freeflarum.org the money and see them thrive, so that small communities and displaced communities like ours, always have somewhere to go.** --- **The problem is really how to donate to freeflarum.com** 1. I can make a link, and you donate £7-10, so transaction fees don't eat it up..which is harsh amount to pay on an individual basis 2. **We have a donation thread. You make an individual post for how much you want to donate to freeflarum.com, I send a paypal FF payment request to your registration e-mail.** This way I don't have to have my e-mail details there for all the spambots to see. *If you wanted to donate without disclosing the amount, you could send a pm* In all cases, I would give you a donation badge of course and I am thinking of small amounts of money, e.g. a cup of coffee, or an espresso. The latter method has the slight disadvantage that I have to manually deal with it, it's not point and shoot. Of course, you would have to trust me that I am not pocketing the few pounds for beer and fags, intending to ride off into the sunset, or trying to make a quick buck out of the forum.. --- As always, I welcome your thoughts on how best to proceed and always remember, **no one has to pay anything and would never be expected to.** Three of us ordinary members have already talked, and if we had to would probably fund the hosting out of our own pockets on a paid hosting platform…but that's not really how I want to go. **I'd rather support the guys that did all the work, so we can run our forum for free! This way, if I ever stop running it, it can be handed to another member to run and keep it going.**

@"DavecUK"#p403 Am I right in thinking option 2 reduces the fees if so and you don’t mind this extra workload I would opt for option 2 so more of the money goes to freeflarum. A donation to keep the forum free from the big boys is a small price to pay.

I am indifferent between those two options. Please set up what ever is convenient and let’s know. If we need to move paid, it is what it is; as I said before, I will chip in. Thx again!

I'm more than happy to donate - It's pretty much the only way I can meaningfully contribute. I favour the pooling option which will minimise the cut that PP take considerably. If you @"DavecUK"#1 are prepared to deal with all the hassle of that, of course.

As discussed over the phone Dave, count on me. Happy for it to be option 2 if it’s the most efficient way, albeit some admin.

@"Meldrew"#p416 Yes, I'm basically trying to maximise the take freflarum.com get and minimise the individual donation to perhaps £1 or whatever people want to give. I just want to make sure people realise it's not expected. I guess I just don't like the big corporate practices and the greed that seems to power so many things. These guys seem to want to do the right thing and I feel good about that.

I think in this day and age, folks who use a facility seem to be quite prepared to contribute towards it. I have recently moved back to an iPhone and I find it so frustrating that the ap store offers virtually nothing for free these days. I think the age in which we live means we are all becoming pre-conditioned to paying for services. I think a non-mandatory figure of £10 per year would be both appreciated by the good folks who run the forum. For me, the only question is how to get the money to them

Happy to donate Dave as on the other forum - I get lots from using the forum and being involved so option 2 sounds good Really happy with how many are here now too

I'm all for giving freflarum a go and supporting those that have done the work to provide this platform. I'm happy to contribute either way but would lean towards option two if you are ableto take on the extra workload.

@"CafeCalando"#p432 I feel i might have to take on the extra workload, because I think it's much easier for people to be able to give small amounts, rather than set minimums. It might be that someone picks up a pound, or perhaps gets a couple of pounds off something etc.. and thinks, I'll donate that. Others are genuinely short of cash and might feel a bit put out if the donation is a minimum of £5, but 50p or £1 is doable for many, and allows them to feel part of what we're doing, that they can contribute if they want to. Perhaps they are a student But if they see all the Richie Riches able to make the big donations, and they can't, I know it would make me feel awkward if I were them. I'll tell you a true story… A long time ago (38 years) I was a member of Lasham gliding club for the 1st time. I was working for an oil company, was well paid and could afford it.. Then I became a student, self funded and was skint. Luckily, Lasham had a student rate and I could keep gliding. I went to the annual general meeting and a guy named Clutterbuck (can't remember his first name) put a motion forward to stop the student membership rates…they all voted for it. It effectively meant I had to give up gliding, and I told this Clutterbuck guy after the meeting. He immediately whipped out his chequebook and wrote out a check covering 3 years membership! I kept that cheque for my entire 3 years as a student and stopped flying….and when I finished, I burned it. I didn't rejoin the club until a further 3 or 4 years had passed….but I was dammed if I was going to use that cheque. **I'd been made to feel I couldn't pay my way!!**

Happy to chip in, and either option works for me. @"DavecUK"#1, you put too much effort into this community to be at all concerned about option 2.

Our Forum and the future

Lake_M

Over the years I’ve taken a lot from the forums, probably more than I’ve given back. I’m more than happy to contribute whichever way is thought to be most efficient. Option 2 sounds good because the good guys get a bigger slice of the pie.

Eyedee

Although Option 2 appears to be alot of work for you Dave it does seem the prefered way to go.

Ian

DavecUK

Eyedee Although Option 2 appears to be alot of work for you Dave it does seem the prefered way to go.

I think it does seem the preferred way and certainly my preferred way. Supporting the free hosting we have is very worthwhile. It also seems people trust me enough for it not to be a problem.

MediumRoastSteam Personally, I think differentiation is not a great idea. IMO, all donations should be anonymous and no one should be “rewarded” with a badge for it. You donate, you know you did some good. The whole wide world does not need to know about it. IMO, of course. And everyone therefore is equal, rather than some being more equal than others. ;-)

I sort of share that view, with the concern that it lacks and element of transparency. I did create an area and did some testing, some of which broke a forum thread due to a bug in the forum software. The bug was not due to the area, but deleting the temporary user I created to test it. Deleting users has to be done in a very specific way as a workaround, doing it normally you hit the bug every time.

However, the area I created should create an anonymous donation and keep a record (for me) of what’s gone on. I think it should show, who asked to donate what…it can’t of course confirm that the donation was ever given in response to the PayPal FF request I then send. So that record is more for my benefit to tie up payments made etc..

I do think I can keep a running total of what has been donated and also passed to Freeflarum.org, as I would pass money to them in batches. probably of £15 or £20 for simplicity

Essentially you would see your own posts an unapproved, but nothing else….I’ll set it up so people can give it a try.

DavecUK

Donations are all working ready to use and anonymous.

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