| Author |
 Topic  |
|
wii
Free ASP Hosts Moderator
Denmark
2632 Posts |
 Posted - 06 October 2005 : 05:12:53
|
| I just started taking donations at my largest forum, since I can´t pay for hosting myself anymore, how do you handle this issue ? |
|
|
Shaggy
Support Moderator
Ireland
6780 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 05:21:45
|
MeTV is paid for out of my own pocket as, unfortunately, I could land myself in a legal nightmare if I started accepting donations and ended up turning a profit.
Woo.ie is paid for by member subscriptions (well, not entirely, yet; we're only new but we're getting there  ) and a bit of advertising.
|
 Search is your friend
“I was having a mildly paranoid day, mostly due to the
fact that the mad priest lady from over the river had
taken to nailing weasels to my front door again.” |
 |
|
|
pdrg
Support Moderator
United Kingdom
2897 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 05:35:17
|
quote:
Originally posted by Shaggy
I could land myself in a legal nightmare if I started accepting donations and ended up turning a profit.
Really? Blimey!
Anyway, wii, you could always syndicate google adverts or something, won't make you rich, but it'll help offset some of the costs
Or you could do what http://www.b3ta.com/board {usually safe for work and most amusing} do, (would take a bit of coding) and sell ickle icons to go next to names (by donation at b3ta), a new set to choose from every few months, just to wear as a badge of pride 'I donate to my community' kinda thing
http://b3ta.com/images/icons/tweaknik_racoon.gif
http://b3ta.com/images/icons/snail_tweaknik.gif
|
|
|
|
wii
Free ASP Hosts Moderator
Denmark
2632 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 06:03:23
|
Well, ads is out of the question, I hate ads, would never use them on a site I designed.
If no or very few donations are made, I´m thinking of integrating a "check payment" in the login page, so that people can´t login unless they have paid (let´s say 5 dollars a year) for membership. I realize it would require some coding, but I´m thinking a simple include file in the header and an additional table in the DB, with an extra field in the profile page, where admin can click whether the member paid or not. |
|
|
|
Classicmotorcycling
Development Team Leader
Australia
2085 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 06:31:50
|
I pay for my own hosting on a yearly basis where I pay just under $AU1000 and can host 50 sites from there. I get the occassional advertiser via a small advert of 300 pixels X 30 pixels and that is it. I limit my adverts to only 10 different advertisers in this manner, but am lucky if I get more than 1 advertiser. I also have Google Ads, where it takes 8 months to get a $US100 out of them. So in essence, I pay for all my own hosting.
I do it, because I like creating and learning. The things I do are for my needs now, and not for companies, if that makes sense..  |
Cheers,
David Greening |
|
|
|
Shaggy
Support Moderator
Ireland
6780 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 06:34:38
|
quote:
Originally posted by pdrg
quote:
Originally posted by Shaggy
I could land myself in a legal nightmare if I started accepting donations and ended up turning a profit.
Really? Blimey!
Ay, if I started making money off donations, it'd constitute profiting from copyrighted materials as MeTV's content *ahem* ain't exactly 100% legal!
Wii, if you're going down the paid access route, let me know as it's a reasonably easy thing to acheive by just adding an additional M_LEVEL (but not mlev) and using PayPal's IPN to update it. If you wanted subscriptions to grant, say, a year's access to the forums then you'd need an additional field in the MEMBERS table to hold the expiry date. Once you've done all that, it's easy enough to retrieve the member's M_LEVEL when setting the mlev, checking if they're paid up and executing whatever code you want if they are not.
|
Search is your friend
“I was having a mildly paranoid day, mostly due to the
fact that the mad priest lady from over the river had
taken to nailing weasels to my front door again.” |
|
|
|
Roger Fredriksson
Average Member
Sweden
556 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 06:38:42
|
| I have replaced standard registration with a 6 step process (info,registration,discount-offer,confirm,email-invoice and go) that also gives immediatly access to forum and other info on my site. Works pretty good and most people pay (15USD for one year but that includes power-price information for consumers). The coding is done in a pretty clumsy way but it works and I think that visitors do not see how clumsy it is done! You can get a copy of the files if you like. |
rf/www.avgifter.com |
|
|
|
AnonJr
Moderator
United States
5768 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 06:47:52
|
Right now I'm donating my own money to host the sites for Jesus Joshua 24:15, Warsong Records, and (as soon as I finish it) my church.
Incidentally, there is a book due out soon that might be of some use. |
|
|
|
rasure
Junior Member
289 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 07:30:45
|
I use google adds, donations, gold memberships and sell a few downloads to help pay for hosting fees, the gold membership gives members extra features such as, avatars, signatures, chatroom, extra profile features, extra posting buttons, private messages etc, the gold membership was accomplished by using the MarcelG`s excellent Sponsoring Members Mod  |
Psychic & Spiritual Development Resources |
Edited by - rasure on 06 October 2005 07:33:30 |
|
|
|
wii
Free ASP Hosts Moderator
Denmark
2632 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 07:38:00
|
Thanks for the comments, seems like there are many different approaches to this isssue.
rasure, never heard of the MOD before, do you have testlogin, so I can see how this looks like? |
|
|
|
golfmann
Junior Member
United States
450 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 08:10:56
|
I have paid myself and also collected donations from members.
My latest forum, I told people from the start that they iwll need to chip in if they want it. I then made a special donate header with a pay pal button (that goes into the SAME account the host has a monthly subscription to draw from)
When we start getting low I switch the headers and when we get a couple months ahead, I switch them back. All is on the up and up and I don't let the amount get too big in our stash so I can't be accused of profiteering. lol ($100 bucks)
I could send you a copy of the donate header if you want, or post it here I suppose. You would need your own pay pal account and code to replace mine.
Let me know if you're interested.
gmann |
|
|
|
wii
Free ASP Hosts Moderator
Denmark
2632 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 08:24:07
|
I already have a header with a link to the PayPal donation link, but I would love to see how you did it.
rasure, that´s quite cool, I will look into that if donations are not enough. |
|
|
|
golfmann
Junior Member
United States
450 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 08:42:32
|
At the very bottom in inc_header (stored in a donate header folder for switching easily)
%>
<!--#INCLUDE FILE="inc_ipgate.asp"-->
<table width=100% cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 bgcolor="<%=strTableBorderColor%>">
<tr bgcolor="<%=strPageBGColor%>">
<td align="left">
<font face="<%=strDefaultFontFace%>" size="<%=strDefaultFontSize%>" color="<%=strForumFontColor%>">
<center><B>We ask for a SMALL donation if you'ld like to keep No Name going</B></center>
</font>
</td>
</tr>
<tr bgcolor="<%=strPageBGColor%>">
<td align="center">
<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_xclick">
<input type="hidden" name="business" value="xxxxxxxxx">
<input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="No Name">
<input type="hidden" name="item_number" value="No Name">
<input type="hidden" name="no_shipping" value="1">
<input type="hidden" name="handling_cart" value="0.00">
<input type="hidden" name="return" value="http://www.wethepeopleforum.com/forum/active.asp">
<input type="hidden" name="cancel_return" value="http://www.wethepeopleforum.com/forum/active.asp">
<input type="hidden" name="cn" value="What's your user name?!">
<input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">
<input type="hidden" name="tax" value="0">
<input type="hidden" name="bn" value="PP-DonationsBF">
<input type="image" src="http://www.wethepeopleforum.com/forum/images/ppal.jpg" border="0" name="submit" alt="Please pitch in ONLY with what you can afford or it's worth! - Pay Pal is rarely fast, semi-free and pretty secure!">
</form>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Using a custom size and color pay pal button I made to look unobtrusive: 
Nothing earth shattering, but it works, and we All keep it going.
|
Edited by - golfmann on 06 October 2005 08:48:35 |
|
|
|
rasure
Junior Member
289 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 08:59:45
|
You could add this near the top of the page...
strUsername = Request.Cookies("Snitz00User")("Name")
Then this as a hidden field in your paypal form...
<input type="hidden" name="os0" size="20" value="<%=strUsername%>">
which automatically puts the forum username into paypal, that's what I use on the gold members payment page. |
Psychic & Spiritual Development Resources |
|
|
|
Shaggy
Support Moderator
Ireland
6780 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 09:13:41
|
No need to read the username in again from the cookie, it's already assigned to the strDBNTUserName variable, just drop that in instead of your variable.
|
Search is your friend
“I was having a mildly paranoid day, mostly due to the
fact that the mad priest lady from over the river had
taken to nailing weasels to my front door again.” |
|
|
|
MarcelG
Retired Support Moderator
Netherlands
2625 Posts |
Posted - 06 October 2005 : 09:36:46
|
The hosting and domainregistration for oxle is paid out of my own pocket ; I do have some sponsoring members (for 5 euro's a year), and get some income back via Google Adsense (120 US dollar since 12-2003) and TradeDoubler (150 euro's since 03-2004). The ads are not shown for sponsoring members.
For Forumcode.com the hosting (+SQL db) is provided for free by Sr_erick, on his own dedicated server ; there I'm also running Adsense, which is only intended to pay for future upgrades or 'community packages' (like for instance Invision Power Board).
'Luckily' my traffic isn't very big (less than 5 gb per month), so my monthly bill is very acceptable (10 dollar for the hosting, 40 dollar per year for the domains (.nl, .com., .net, .org, .info, .biz))
I must admit I never had a hobby that's so cheap! |
portfolio - linkshrinker - oxle - twitter |
Edited by - MarcelG on 06 October 2005 10:53:45 |
|
|
|
Topic |
|
Topic Locked
