Ouch... So am I reading you correctly that there is basically a 1400 hosting bill per year? Are there other associated costs?

Bill,

Your generosity is inspiring. I took up the challenge today, though, since the dagger doesn't really fit in my collection, contributed money instead. Hope the dagger goes to a good home.

Stephen,

Good to hear from you friend. If anything the support and hard work of members & team members
is the most inspiring aspect of this.

Bill
aka the other Bill G.

Bill -- One of the nicest things you've done for me is introducing me to this site. Thanks, friend!

Nathan -- as I said in my PM, you should feel blessed to have put together something so admired and appreciated by so many folks. Don't feel weird about being open regarding the costs of the site. I, for one, had no idea how expensive it is. Our society teaches we should pull ourselves up by our own boot straps, but you've been pulling up yourself and everyone who benefits from this site as well! Time for the rest of us to help out, and we do so joyfully!

And thanks to all of you who contributed long before I ever found this site. I told Nathan that it is a credit to him and the staff to have attracted such quality folks as members.

Well, with all this outpouring of support I felt I better put the work in to make sure you guys feel like this is all worth it. So I spent several hours today coding up a new feature for the site to support all of this, well, support.

This feature logs all donations, automates them with PayPal, does the usergroup stuff for me, tracks them against a goal (visible to everybody), and essentially makes this whole thing a bit more legit in my eyes. I personally think it's very important that all money stays very separated and every dime donated gets put right back into this project. It's impossible to ensure this gets done without proper record-keeping, so I felt this was really necessary.

It's also possible to specify that you want to donate anonymously should you not want to appear on any list for the public to see.

I took some already available modifications off the 'net and re-coded much of them to work with our infrastructure and added some features that integrate with the back-end system already in place. It's not finished, but it works right now and you can see the last 10 donors at the bottom of the forum index page as well as the total we've raised compared to our goal.

I'll do more later to get the info elsewhere so our "goals" are visible to everybody and people know what the money is being used for and whatnot. In the near future, I may start soliciting for some ideas on where to take this site and what sorts of things to start pursuing. Before doing that, I have to catch up and get some breathing room first :)

Thanks everybody.

Nathan;

Just upgraded to the Premier from the Upgraded membership as I don't think that you should be keeping this running all by yourself (Well almost by yourself !).

I get a lot out of this site and if it vanished it would leave a big "Hollow" feeling in the pit of my stomach ........LOL.

Just a bit about stress: My 84 year old Mom spent about two months in and out of hospital withThyroid and heart problems and I lost 25 pounds from the stress, I learned that to be of any use I had to let myself be selfish at times (Time for myself) or I wouldn't be able to do the distance. If you run a marathon as if it was a sprint you don't finish the run and you die half way there. (Oh, and one of the things that helped get my mind away from it all was this site and a close friend I came to know on this site.)

So when you feel you are "slacking off" remember that you are doing it because it's the only way to keep going long term !

Sincere best wishes and thanks.

Jean

P.S. She is home and fine at the moment.

Count me in! One new upgraded membership here! It's well worth it and, if you think about it, the membership price is basically the same as a good magazine subscription. Nathan should not have to sell his 'sword soul' to keep this site going.

Just got off my rear and upgraded my membership. I'm sorry that it took me this long to do this. I come to myArmoury every day (multiple times) and to be honest I don't know what I would do without it. This is the best site on the net for REAL discussions on arms and armour, thanks everyone for making this site so great. Lets all do our best to make sure we can continue to enjoy it.

Ben

Now you guys can see one of the reasons why I took the time to put together the new donation infrastructure. By defining a pledge goal and timeline for such things, I can offer contest prizes to those who participate during the drive. Check out The Recent Announcement for a contest that thanks you guys for your generosity.

Yay, my scholarship arrived yesterday! I'll make sure some of it ends up here. :)

Johan Schubert Moen

Good Job!!!

Thank you everybody for your continued support. I'm still sort of spinning from all of this. It's crazy.

The good news is that we're well on our way to meeting our fund-raising goal. This goal, a sum of $920 US, will pay the entire yearly hosting bill for the site. Gone will be the more expensive broken-up payments: the annual discount will be had by achieving this single payment. Simply put: this will be fantastic news when and if we hit this and certainly brings a lot of relief for me personally.

I put up a small contest to give back a bit of thanks to those of you who donated. Once this contest is over and the prize is given away, we'll look at the total collected and decide what to do with it if any is left over after paying the hosting bill. I have some costs that I've spent recently for the site that I'd like to recoup, but I'll put that forward to you guys to decide how to spend that money if it's available.

I'll also be putting forward some more contests in the very, very near future as well as some other exciting surprises that I think you guys will find to be a whole lot of fun.

Thank you once again.

Nathan;

As far as I'm concerned recouping some of your costs is a completely legitimate thing to do. (Or not selling off any more of your collection to pay the bills.)

Just curious? Are you going to factor in the sums received by people upgrading their memberships recently as well as sums given as specific donations.

I also know of at least one case of someone planning to send you a check.

If this wouldn't create a conflic of interest: Accepting or solicitating donations from the various makers who get a lot of good P.R. and advertising on this site might be a way to generate a modest amount of cash to keep everything running and adding new features.

And to keep it Up-front and honest have an advertising section on the site separate from the regular forums.
Also making it clear that that section would not be an endorsement by you or by the site about any advertisements there.

You would obviously limit this to quality products in various categories including purely fantasy or ornamental stuff as well as all the various areas of interest.

seeing as this site needs support, i'll pledge 10% of my crecy sale to the site. i already have an upgraded membership so that should help too. i'm very pleased with this site as is and think you've done a great job keeping it all going. this place is worth 10 times what i pay in membership fees. thanks nathen. cheers!!!

I've just completed my donation. I wish it could have been more, but it was all I could afford.

But I can afford even less to lose this site and community.

Hope it helped!

Jim

A very small donation done.

Hope things go well from here.

I just gave a small amount, as well. I think that many of those posting here are quite correct, there is no shame in asking to cover fees for services offered.

A while back I was visiting the site, thinking how much I visited and how much time I spend here, and I gave a small contribution, just because I felt I needed to do so considering my rate of usage of this site. Anyone like me should do the same----if you visit here daily, think about how much entertainment value you receive from the site, thus far for free.

It's well worth it, and compared to movies, rentals, cell phone fees, video games, etc. there is much more value for your money in giving a bit here.

I was pleased to see that t he annual goal is nearly reached, I would hate to lose a place to "hang out" :)

Almost over the top! Six more of you step up with 10 bucks and we've made it. Or three of you with 20 or two of you with 30 or... :)

Nathan,

I understand your desire to keep good records, but I really don't like PayPal (a dislike of long standing). If you'll send me a PM telling me where I can send you a donation to defray some of your cost, I'll get in the mail.

Regards,

Michael