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David K Heh.
Well, isn't the forum's existence a perk?
OK, if you insist I'll get wayne_f14 to recount his tale of cycling in nothing but his mask. If that isn't worth the money then nothing is.
GIVE A POUND OR I'LL START POSTING THE PICTURES
that should increase the revenue stream a tad
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wayne_f14 [quote]David K Heh.
Well, isn't the forum's existence a perk?
OK, if you insist I'll get wayne_f14 to recount his tale of cycling in nothing but his mask. If that isn't worth the money then nothing is.
GIVE A POUND OR I'LL START POSTING THE PICTURES
that should increase the revenue stream a tad[/quote]
And in the case of untexas, give £2 to see the pictures.
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just donated. does the server drink ale or lager?
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Seems only fair to donate - I've been on here so much in the past few weeks! reading old threads etc to make the days pass and numb the pain of work.
I'm bikeless and in Norwich at the moment - sucks. My frame was delivered to London yesterday and I'm gonna build it up tonight - YAY!
Server = my friend. Only drinks Red Stripe.
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Stef David it seems fare but at the moment i'm moving house so you can imagine how dry my pockets are but once i'll get back on my feet i'll chip in
There's NO obligation at all. Nada, zero, zip.
In fact, I really don't want anyone to donate if they don't want to, can't afford to, or if they're saving up for a new saddle or something.
As no announcements are being made as to who has or hasn't donated, you shouldn't feel any guilt to donate if you can't or just don't want to.
That's the way I like things... non-elitist, inclusive... and letting those that can and want to donate do so, and let everyone regardless of their means or attachment to the place enjoy it.
The only log of who has donated is on http://www.bowlie.com/accounts/ and even then the user info is anonymous.
And if you're out at the Snow this evening Stef, I'll get you a pint (own money, the server money is for it's slush fund and not mine).
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can i donate with out a creditcard or bank account?
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vegansdontneedgears can i donate with out a creditcard or bank account?
Not really. It doesn't help you see.
If you gave me money I'd spend it on beer, and the server would go without.
And frankly I personally don't need money, the server does (though not urgently, just in general).And then there's the complications. We host in Texas as it's the most cost-effective place to host. We bank in NYC as we could and keeping everything in one currency works and as our bills are in USD we bank in USD. We use a British bank account and PayPal to handle shifting money from donors to the US bank account as it's easy. On Bowlie we accept donations in USD, CAD, EUR, GBP, YEN, AUD, so our entire system is set-up to handle multi-currency donations.
In other words, it's complex and everything is kept online and it's best that we never actually see the money because it might then be tempting to dip in.
Oh, and there's two of us who run things, and we are overseen by a third person. I run the tech, Carl runs the finances, Aruni makes sure neither Carl or I do anything we shouldn't.
The result of all of this, is that donations are best made electronically via PayPal or bank transfer (we can and do receive monthly standing orders from lots of Bowlie users who donate £1 or £2 per month directly to our UK bank account).
Which means... nope, without a debit/credit card or bank account it's pretty hard to take a donation.
Don't worry about it though.
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For some reason I felt compelled to buy the server a beer this morning (I guess I'm now doing anything humanely possible to do work today). Its being doing good work for a while. Chapeau to it I say.
velocity boy: thats quite a complicated set-up you've got going there. I'd hate to be the accountant :)
hippy
big_daddy_wayne
Hovis_Brown
provenrad
kipsy
Rich_G
slamm
nimhbus
Stef
chris_crash
pipAbout
Donations
Posted by
@Velocio
[updated 2016-06-12]
The server upon which this site is hosted costs money.
That's OK because we generally have money in the bank from things like donations and affiliate adverts.
Our physical server costs alone exceed £700 per month. Then there are domains, SSL certificates, software licensing, cloud services for email, a part-time and cheap sysadmin (me), accountancy, the list goes on and gets duller in the process.
If we raise more than we need then the money simply sits in the bank account and we stop asking for money for a while (like we have done in the past).
You are NOT obliged to donate.
In fact I am very much of the opinion that you shouldn't donate if you can't afford to, even if you use the site heavily.
The best way for costs to be met is for many people to give a little.
The way I view this is this:
When you can, and when you feel you want to, buy the server a beer.
Which means I'd rather have 10% of active users donate £3.50 per month on average, than have 10 people give £100 each.
Why? Because it's fairer for starters. You also won't feel the price of a pint. And if we were to rely on larger donations from fewer people then we'd be exposed to the risk that if those people stopped donating we'd be screwed. So by spreading the load of what the server needs to raise, we reduce the risk to our cash flow and we keep it as cheap as chips for everyone.
Finally. There are no perks or status to be gained from donating. You get a little gold star next to your username in recognition that you are a patron of the site and a warm fuzzy feeling. It's not a popularity contest or something to beat up those who are too broke to help. It's just a "If you like this place enough, and can afford to and want to, consider buying it a beer.". That's all. The servers drink beer (until they finally make the move to single malts).
To donate.
Do so directly via PayPal.
Managing your ongoing donations.
If you have opted to donate on a regular basis (a subscription) then you can manage this via PayPal on their My pre-approved payments page. Once you visit that page, filter the list to show just the "Active" subscriptions.
Note that there should only be one active subscription for LFGSS at most, but I have found out that PayPal enabled it such that you could set up more than one, if this has occurred please do cancel the ones that you consider the duplicate and get in touch for refunds if you would like that. I will refund duplicates for as long as I have complete records in PayPal.