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A-U Revival: funding
http://www.arwen-undomiel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=21132
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Author:  Nurrantiel Mashiara [ January 26th, 2011, 12:04 pm ]
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The problem is we all post ideas, but no one wants to come out and say, "Let's do it this way" because we're afraid of people thinking we're taking too much power onto ourselves. :teehee:

Ea wrote:
We need to establish whether we can do the coding ourselves.


From what I've gathered in the coding thread, there are enough of us who know basic coding to run the main site. I don't know who knows forum coding. At any rate, we can work on the main site.

Taur wrote:
● Mods: Need to get together and choose new mods
● Committees/Teams need to be formed
● An Editor/President/Authority figure needs to be elected
● A Treasurer needs to be chosen
● Coders: Begin cleaning up the site


Why don't you see this happening soon, Ea? These are things that have to happen for us to move forward. It makes sense that the teams and manager come from the group of people that have been posting here regularly enough. Obviously, it would be a bit much to expect forum-wide elections for things at this point. But we are all reasonable people, so I think we can work this out among ourselves. We all are passionate and skilled with different things. I know that I have much less interest in running the forum aspect of the revival as opposed to the site aspect.

We (obviously) cannot do the Mod thing by ourselves. Someone needs to be definite and figure out exactly how the new mods will be chosen.

Forming teams: Somebody's gotta step up. The teams we should probably form would be much like our threads:
Coding
Main Site
Forum
Administration
Inside these teams there can be sub-teams, like different aspects of the site, but we need a person to lead those teams. It makes sense to do that in the threads already there, but whatever. We just need people to make a move.

Once we have the teams, we can get to work. It would make sense if the team leaders (so, 4-7 people, depending on how things pan out?) had access to the behind-the-scenes stuff - putting up the new content, tidying, etc.

Again, we're reasonable people. I don't think many people will freak if start taking responsibility for things. Let's not let this just stagnate!

(On a side note, the layout section had stalled a bit. I put up a poll in Your Life for definite color choice for the new layout.)

Author:  [ January 26th, 2011, 1:36 pm ]
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Sorry Nurr. I just looked into the palántir and saw the worst outcome of all this: that all our effort and work were destructed because of those bloody $30 USD that we couldn't raise every month and how the members would scatter for the wind and A-U would end up deserted and forgotten to sink into the depths of the world wide web... And that was a rather discouraging scenario. :P

I shall try to wear the Postitve Hat from now on! I know we've already come a long way and there is no reason why these plans shouldn't be carried out as long as we believe in it. :)


EDIT: Oh by the way, like I said I'd help with cleaning/content to the best of my ability and time. I didn't post in the content and layout/coding threads about it again because I've stated my will to assist before. ;)

Author:  Eruraina [ January 26th, 2011, 1:48 pm ]
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@Ea: Sometimes is nice to have someone to point some things out and bring us down to earth when are thoughts have gone sky high and flown ahead. In a way I have the same worry too, but I didn't voice anything, and I kind of faded out of this discussion due to financial struggle at home.

But I would like to say, what I have said earlier. Someone should get Lothy to report what she got with having everyone willing to be donors to pm her. And instead of saying someone should be the treasurer, I think we should ask, who is willing to be the treasurer? It seems we've all agreed we should have one, but who is willing, and has the financial stability, to step up to this plate that should be the first base filled before we continue? And whoever does step up... when they do there should be a vote with all us "revivers" on whether or not we all agree that said person could do the job. So instead of saying "yeah, we do need a treasurer" we should probably ask "who will be the treasurer".

Author:  Nurrantiel Mashiara [ January 26th, 2011, 2:06 pm ]
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:hug: No, it's good to see what issues there are! I was just wondering why we couldn't be looking at other things as well. You said they weren't likely to happen in the near future, and I wondered why not. But I agree, having a treasurer and figuring out the whole financial aspect is extremely important. :yes:

Author:  Eruraina [ January 26th, 2011, 2:13 pm ]
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Oh, one thing I would like to ask Arweb. When exactly do you plan on handing over the $30USD a month? Just so we know a time frame of how long we have to get the financial thing figured out. Or are you going to wait until it's figured out before doing so?

Author:  Arwen the webmaster [ January 26th, 2011, 7:26 pm ]
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Okey dokey. Questions, questions that need answering...where to start...

1) Despite what anyone may think, A-U really is important to me, and that's why despite my now being a poor uni graduate, I will continue paying for it as long as necessary. I do have a small bit of income right now and enough savings that it's not a big problem. So, there's no exact <i>time frame</i>, but please don't take that to be indefinite. Since it looks like I won't be handing everything over immediately, let's just see how it goes and we can take care of the financial side of things eventually (famous last words :teehee: ).

2) Currently active moderators. So obviously I haven't been around for a while, but from what I know, Kitoky, Sidawethiel, and Elanor are still slightly active. Ivreniel may or may not be active. I still have contact with a few of the other people on the list, but I have my doubts that they're still up for active moderating duty. Others haven't been seen in ages. For example, someone mentioned tulk - I don't think any of us have heard from him in about four years. Sad but true.

3) Choosing new moderators. I'm not sure whether I've clarified this, but <i>I am not comfortable choosing new moderators</i>. Originally, in the "A-U is going to be completely out of my hands" mindset, I was thinking that you could get that sorted yourselves because I wouldn't be in charge anymore :-P As it is, it doesn't seem like anyone's stepping up to be an acting president. My choosing moderators is a bad idea on all counts. It's my own fault, but I don't know all of you particularly well anymore. I don't want to play favorites and just select people I used to know. I don't want to ignore people I don't know well now who may be perfect moderating material. In short, <i>I'm not qualified</i>. I can try to talk to the few active moderators and see if they'd be willing to make selections. Or you can decide these things for yourself. Which leads me to my final topic...

4) My role in this. Things have gone differently than originally imagined. It's okay - as Carlotta would say, these things do 'appen. I can help. I owe it to you guys. That said, aside from the technical aspects that have been the bane of my existence in the past, what I really didn't want to have happen was my shouldering the responsibility for looking out for the management team. If I handed over the reins completely, including funding, then it's your deal. As it is, I'm still going to be the one to deal with things if something goes wrong. Someone asked if current moderators had tech access to things. The answer is no, not at all. I've kept FTP access limited to just me, and accordingly I'm not at all comfortable giving a dozen people unlimited access if I'm responsible for any bad consequences. If anyone has ideas for how to deal with this, I'm open. I just want to make it clear that things have to be pretty thought-through if I'm not going to be taking a total back seat after all.

Author:  Lothy [ January 26th, 2011, 8:29 pm ]
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I'm sorry to be the bringer of bad news guys and also that it's taken me a while to come back to you with my findings but I was kinda hoping by leaving it a bit longer I would get more donors. Sadly that hasn't been the case and at the moment we only have one person willing to pledge $10 a month. For obvious reasons I'm not going to say who that one person is but right now the outlook isn't promising for our grand handover.

Author:  Johnny's Fan [ January 27th, 2011, 10:06 pm ]
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Arwen the webmaster wrote:
The revival's been off to a great start so far, but I can see it starting to trail off from the initial enthusiasm now that we need a hard plan. So...plan? Half a plan?


To be honest, this is starting to bug me now. I know originally some us thought it was all moving too quickly, or at least, things seemingly were being sorted before everyone had had their chance to at least say "wow, this is great", but it's almost like now there is clearly work to be done, it's the same people over and over again posting. We're not expecting 50 billion people to scream "I wanna do stuff", but I think as anything that is changed is for everyone and not just the people with *powers* feeling click-happy and almighty, it would be really good if we could at least get some opinions from people regarding what they would like to see. And if more people actually wanted to do stuff, maybe now is the time for shout outs, like Nurr did with the scripts. I think now is the time to start assigning missions to people.

[/end mini mini very mini rant :P]

@ Lothy - that is unfortunate, but maybe again, some people are just not aware of what is going on. Perhaps this will be donations only, unless as Ea said, is anyone going to be willing to sponser the site? I don't know how that would really work, but the sooner we figure something out, even if it not something we really want to do (like google ads), for now we might just have to do it and then see what happens.

Author:  Rinoa Amarth [ January 28th, 2011, 10:31 am ]
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*after reading everything* I have been gone during all of this until today and I am pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to help. :duh:


As much as I would love to provide all the funds to keep the siteand forum up, in truth, I have no income at all. :( Thus the idea of a donation button would be fantastic! I am sure many of us poor people would donate what we can when we can. However as for something we can look into right now... No one likes seeing all the ads but like Ea & JF said, it is a way to make some type of income and at this point every little bit counts. Even right now I am trying to look up info about google advertising on sites and seeing how that works. I'll look into it and relay what I find out about it, if it is something we might really consider doing. Might have to put in a call to google to see how this works though. :lol:

From what I am reading atm it looks like google's "AdSense" is pretty customizable though I think it will still come down to, "Who do we pay?"

Author:  Eruraina [ January 28th, 2011, 1:05 pm ]
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I wasn't going to say anything about the google ads, because in the beginning it was just a thought. But we seem to be leaning more and more in that direction. But I'll just sneak in there that I have a persional vendetta against google ads. One, for the expandable adds that when you scroll your moust over, cover up half the site, and then the adds that are becoming ever more popular, the ones that made noise. But the biggest thing I have against them is that back in November my computer caught a really bad virus that made it so I couldn't do anything(my dad did eventually fix it and get rid of the virus), and the virus was tracked, and I got it from a google ad... so, that's just how I feel about the whole ad idea. If it had been suggested back in October, I wouldn't have had a problem, but if you guys do decide to take that path, you're not going to loose my support, but I might be a little less inclined to go to the main site if that's the case... But, don't let one person's vendetta spoil the idea.

Author:  Arwen the webmaster [ January 28th, 2011, 5:14 pm ]
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You guys do realise I already have Google Ads installed, right...? :lost: Look at the bottom of every forum page, or on the main page toward the bottom. They don't provide a lot of income because very few people actually click on them, but they're still there...just making sure you're aware of that.

Author:  Johnny's Fan [ January 28th, 2011, 5:30 pm ]
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So... if I clicked on them a lot... that would provide income?

Author:  Arwen the webmaster [ January 28th, 2011, 5:33 pm ]
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Ahahahahahaha :teehee: Maybe. Google probably has some way of tracking IPs to make sure that the same people aren't going click-happy to fund their own sites though. It's a thought, though...each member pledges to click on the ads a few times a day....hahahahaha xD

Author:  Rinoa Amarth [ January 30th, 2011, 6:44 am ]
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:duh: How is it I never really took note of that? *hovers over the "i" in the circle* Oh!! Sneaky! :lol:
I was looking into it not long ago and they have two types of ads and payment... stuff. Certain ads are pay per 1000 views and others are by clicks. :confused: After reading that I can see why they don't really generate an income. :annoyed:

@Eruraina: Ow. I'm sorry to hear that. I have had something like that happen once myself and nearly again by random page change on photobucket. It's not fun and I completely understand the vendetta. :yes:

Author:  Minuialwen [ January 30th, 2011, 5:45 pm ]
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Hum...so not many people have pledged to donate. Could we maybe set up a thread in the Your Life section with a poll, and ask people to just indicate how much they could donate every month? Like $1, $3, $5, 10$...

Your Life has a lot more traffic; there could be people out there willing to donate who haven't heard of the need for money?

Just a suggestion. :)

Author:  Arwen the webmaster [ March 23rd, 2011, 3:48 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A-U Revival: funding

Bumpity bump bump :-P

So, for any newcomers to the Revival, things have changed since we first addressed the funding issue. For one, the people who were initially looking into ways of funding A-U dropped out of the Revival completely. For two, I became far more involved in the Revival than I'd planned to be :-P For three, everybody kind of forgot about this being an issue in the first place :teehee:

Anyway, is anyone currently in charge of funds/donations? I know we had a poll that I think Eruraina started, but I'm not sure if she ever got in touch with the people who voted about what they were willing to donate...or if those people are still active on A-U.

But for some good news. With the forum picking up more steam and my better integrating ads into the revised forum skin, the income from the ads has also been picking up. A-U has earned about $6.50 USD in the past week! I know, I know, that's really not a ton of money. But if this stays consistent, while it's not enough to cover every last penny, it does cover the majority of the fees.

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