TFPers: Call for support!
 

Ok people. I'll be blunt. I need money. I can't afford the TFP the way I would like to. Furthermore, the TFP, as you may have noticed over the past couple months, needs new hardware. I am in no financial position to put together a new server with my own money. The last call for donations was fairly successful; I got enough for 2 full months of hosting within a couple days, but after that, it's been peanuts. I don't bug you guys about this music, but seriously, this is a 30,000 member site - it's not cheap or easy to run. It's getting more popular now than it's ever been and conversely receiving almost nothing in the donation till.

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=718 This is the link to the donation info thread. Sorry, I dont have PayPal.. they've banned all of my accounts.

I really wanna create a website that you all can enjoy, at any time of the day, at the fastest speeds possible. Please put in for the hosting bill and to build a new server.

/me steps up to the plate.
Thanks for all, Halx.

Who's next?

/me steps up behind Art (because I like lookin' at Art's butt - and it's a good cause)

Check's in the mail this week...

How can us TFPers outside of the US pay electronically? I've had problems with Yahoo and snailmail takes forever from here and is untrustworthy. Halx, if you PM me some account details, can I telex transfer you some funds?

Obviously if you say "Yes" then I will do it. I'm not just asking out of interest :D

I've got a 1700 P4 motherboard and processor sitting around......if that would help, let me know. Only has 256 DDR but will go to 1 gig I think, If it will be of benefit....it is yours.

Might have to become a "pay" service. :( I'll toss in $100 for a new system.

Yahoo PayDirect has some big peanuts with your name on it Halx. :)

I get paid this Thursday, I can't promise much but I'll give what I can. Thanks for all the hard work!

As soon as I have a job, count me in.

Alrighty, me gonna step up to the plate too.

Can we pay by direct deposit?

It's in the mail, snail that is. I think it's definitely worth supporting this unique place.

All the options I have are listed in the donations thread. If you're from across the pond, then I believe you can get a money order in american dollars from your bank.

Also, the specs of the server we'd like to upgrade to...

Dual 2 Ghz Opteron 246 (or better)
4GB ECC RAM
SCSI interface
..and all that jazz

I estimate it could cost about $3000 for everything including shipping the server to the hosting site.

I'll donate just as soon as the bank approves my credit card application (which won't be for a few months unfortunately :()

I'll see what I can swing. Having a money issue myself.

I'll check my budget tonight to see if I can contribute any more right now.

I MAY be able to swing a dual opty board. but that would depend on you comming up with your own CPU, memory, and I/O.

I don't have much to give, but expect some cash from me.

/me steps up to the plate behind maleficent
Ooh, this was a good idea. ;)

Ok, check cut...will arrive soon...hope you can read it...

Well I put 50 bux down towards new hardware,

why were you banned by paypal again?

I offered use of my paypal acct last time....I'm glad to do it again...anyone can check and see I've been on the board for over a year and contribute reguarly....Im trustworthy and you have my word your donation will make it to Halx..... so if anyone who like me wont use yahoo but has no problem with paypal...I will collect funds and forward them directly to Halx with a list of who donated what....if you're interested PM me...

And as I offered to Halx last time even though he didnt answer me...I will give him access to my paypal login so that he can see when he gets the funds from me that they are indeed the funds anybody might have sent thru me

No offense, Shani, but I dont trust anyone except myself when it comes to money.

as soon as I get paid.. I'll send something your way.. I've been meaning to donate for a while now.. and it's time I did it.

No biggie....I've just seen many people that would donate if they could use paypal and they are being alienated....and its funds you could be getting and arent.

I was just trying to help out with the people like me that think the yahoo thing is WAY to invasive and the overseas people that dont want to use snail mail

its one of those things i've ment to get to, i get payed on the 11th, ill send you some money then. as of now, my checking account has $17.54 in it...

New hardware? You're serious? Last I remember reading, the box you upgraded to what, a year ago, sounded pretty impressive. Dual AMD processors...chunk of RAM....and...um....alright, I can't remember the specs, but it sounded great. (I recently read somewhere what all SlashDot runs on and nearly fell over, it's so inadequate. I swear, it must've been outdated info, there's no way they're running on what I read.)

<i>Surely, you can't be serious.
I am serious, and stop calling me Shirley
...
A hospital, what is it?
A big building, full of sick people, but that's not important right now....</I>

Alas, I digress.

I can't believe those scumbags at Paypal won't let you have an active account. They really need to be bitch-clapped by the Feds. I've just heard way, way too many underhanded, low-life, bottom-feeding stories about them. Really, really ticks me off.

You'll have mine in 7 days, Halx. I should've given sooner. My bad.

Thanks for keeping the site up, man. This is a great community. We all owe you.

<B>[edited]</b> [munch munch] I'm eating my words, because I found this page, and [munch munch] the kids at /. have ten servers [munching] or I just ran out of fingers to count them on [munch munch] nevermind....silly dingo...

ANd RAID, right? I know, all my silly little hardware posts are about to get dumped into <i>tilted computers....</i>

Walks by and drops some coins in the fountain.

Every penny is worth it Halx. This site is one of the few good spots on the internet I have found to stake my claim. You have built a wonderful community here.

I can't afford much, but what I can is yours. Check will go out tomorrow. Thanx for the site and I hope you get the funds you need!

Ali

I'm short on funds(broke off my ass), but I do enjoy this site so I should be able to have at least a small donation for you.

Hal,

I work in the hosting industry, let me know if you have any questions or are looking for a different provider. I know you switched places not that long ago and I don't know the whole story or anything, but thought I would put that out there. I can get some good rates.

Donated not too long ago... this is such a great place to be!

Mine is on the way as well....good luck

Dontated for the first time recently, its not much, the poor student I am, but I love this place, and I'll try to give when I can.

I'm poor. No job. Can't donate. Although there are like 5 other sites I visit that I'd love to.

:(

Have you considered using Google Ads on the site, or some for of advertising, 30K subscribers would make it interesting for companies... (google ads would make you a "power user" if you get m ore than 2 million hits a month) I honestly don't know what the service costs, but it does put some money into your pocket.

Working on getting some money your way, Halx. Thanks for everything you do for this site.

I think Hal doesn't want to junk up TFP with ads. I can understand it, with ads even in your email nowadays (gmail). Good luck, Hal! I'd contribute if all my money didn't go towards my car and college :(

maleficent, yes, considered and rejected for the reason that we desire to create a community and not a commercial site.

Here's my personal take on some of the issues involved in doing things the way we do here:

From the beginning of our association with TFP, we have been impressed with the belief system, conviction, and manner of operation of this site and its owner. I have always felt a kindred spirit in Halx.

My knowledge of the details of operation are professional - as I'm a Director of Internet Development by day and have run and continue to run not-for-profit art sites, etc.

The costs that Hal bears personally far outweigh any amount of donations TFP has ever received. This is how it is when one runs a site like this - note its non-commercial nature compared to nearly everything else out there.

Now to specifics.

The server load it takes to process a thread containing only text and just a few links is far less than a thread in which 50+ links have to be translated into image tags every single time the page is loaded.

We are currently shopping for another server because our server load is excessive now. The cost of a beefy and bulletproof server will far outweigh the donations we will receive. I can’t really foresee a time when TFP will not always be paid for mainly by Hal bankrolling most of it. The donations help defray some of that.

We really want this site to be free - so we periodically open the TB to rookies in the hopes that they will pay their fair share - they never do.

Also, we have been growing in membership since day one. There are threshold levels of bandwidth and server usage that are periodically crossed.

These considerations time the donation requests. We have to start a new initiative every time - not asking for money constantly (which we don't want to do) causes the periodic need. We go along, Hal pays the bills and gets a small number of donations. When it gets way too far out of line - it's time for a new initiative to raise money.

That's about it.
It is the way that committed non-commercial sites I am involved with operate - especially those with progressive visions of social and cultural evolution.

I vouch for Halx and TFP to an extent I would for very few other operations.

I have one question: is the slow response time of TFP due to the huge amount of new people drawing on a ton of bandwidth? I thought the slowness of TFP was due to my college's campus. Is anyone else experiencing the 15-second delay on loading TFP pages?

Either way, I donated as much as I could. Thanks for TFP, Hal!

-Lasereth

Well to be blunt. I tried to donate today and just couldn't get the Yahoo thing to work. I am not giving out my SIN#. So if you want a donation make it easier for me.

Last time I checked, getting a money order and mailing it was not that difficult, but it's up to you. There are erally no other "easier" ways to do it since Paypal won't deal with us.