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The future of OT.com - UPDATE: Please donate! — Page 4

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Donated.
I don’t hang around these parts much anymore, but It would be a shame to see this place disappear.
All the best Jay, and to SilverWook and Anchorhead for taking up the mantle.

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I’m not sure when I first encountered OT. It was definitely after I bought a copy of the SWHS on eBay and before I purchased a KCCI disc of the SWHS from a member who would shortly be banned for selling his work.

Over those many years I encountered a community that’s made me laugh at times and reassured me that I’m not the only with a bizarre love of the SWHS. It also introduced me to Adywan’s Revisited version of Star Wars and let me see what this thing called The Phantom Edit was all about. I got great feedback for my own project, got valuable help in response to random questions, and I hope to someday do a followup to that disc.

And lately I’ve encountered some people doing amazing work preserving projector film. That never would have crossed my mind a year ago.

Thank you, Jay, for all those years. And to Anchorhead and SilverWook for the fact that the site and its community has a future.

“Before the Dark Times. Before the Prequels.”

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Donated. I’m new around here, but look forward to a long tenure.

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Wow,
I haven’t been around for a while due to life stuff and being in some other forums but it’s certainly a passing of the torch. I’ll definitely donate some and think it shouldn’t be difficult to do a $5 or so monthly donation. 10 or 20 of us would more than do it at that rate and many forums do some kind of yearly fundraising for server costs.

Without OT there is no home for every facet of SW fandom, no place to freely discuss all aspects and our own brand of particular madness. Who and where else would understand the humdinger glitch, Technidisc, JSC, Coily, Four eyed Stormtrooper, and my own rambling?

VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader

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I just saw the donate button up top. Silly me. Chipped in $5 to start.

How are we doing so far?

VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader

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We’re good through February and a bit into March.

Well done everyone and a sincere thanks at helping keep the lights on.

Forum Moderator
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ray_afraid said:

Just seeing the button, just seeing this thread.
I’ll happily donate after making a much over-due deposit tomorrow.

Pretty much where I’m at too. Except, well, Thursday, not tomorrow.

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Made a quick $10 donation after noticing the button up top and seeing the thread for the first time. I’m hoping to make my contribution a monthly one soon, and perhaps at a bigger dollar amount. I think we can keep the site up with crowdfunding.

“You don’t really mean you’ll kill me, do you?” - Juror 8
“Silence, Earthling! My name is Darth Vader. I am an extra-terrestrial from the planet Vulcan!” - Calvin “Marty” Klein

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Anchorhead said:

We’re good through February and a bit into March.

Well done everyone and a sincere thanks at helping keep the lights on.

Good to near you’ve raised enought to keep the site going into March.

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Sent a small donation. Who knows, maybe we can get a whole year funded before March! 😉

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Has there been any discussion about using Patreon? It would be a good incentive to get people to donate if they get special content just via Patreon. I’m not sure what that content would be but it’s an idea.

Donating now.

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Just donated. I’ll be donating a small amount monthly.

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Mackey256 said:

Has there been any discussion about using Patreon? It would be a good incentive to get people to donate if they get special content just via Patreon. I’m not sure what that content would be but it’s an idea.

Donating now.

How on earth would a basic forum like this generate “extra content?” Move up a tier to unlock the project update threads? Who’s going to make that content? The mods?

That’s impossible, even for a computer.

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Subscribestar is a better option than Patreon IMO. It supports different tiers, so you can have $1/month, $2/month, $5/month and $10/month for example, the only issue is I don’t think it makes the total contribution amount public - but that can be done manually in the website header where there’s currently the PayPal link. All you need is a text file on the server and update it every week, and then read that text file using PHP. I’m setting up my own profile on there should be ready soon, they also have a referral program (my referral link is here if anyone reading is thinking about signing up there).

[ Scanning stuff since 2015 ]

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What? No, this site has to carry on! Last summer I came on here as a complete idiot and got chatting to a couple of people who through either gentle or blunt means got me to FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS and discovered my own copy of despecialised movies…

Haven’t been on here in ages, I don’t have accounts to access stuff that is seeded etc sadly or the ability/or even the content to upload for others - but…I’ve donated as a thank you to the community who helped me out (I was actually quite poorly last summer and the distraction of Star Wars was welcome).

I’m sure there are many of us on here who are complete novices and can only just about manage to click on a link and keep their fingers crossed - so, be gentle with us.

It might be useful/helpful if we had a running total of how much money/how many months in advance the site is paid for? It might encourage people to know if they send $5 each a month then a core group will keep the site going? Additionally, if we know it’s struggling to get over the $75 line most months more of us might chuck some cash into the pot realising we need to?

Finally, and I know this might be a bit “naughty” but for those of us not technically minded - help from the experts should result in a donation to the site - so if anyone asks someone on here for a link or access or a disc to be burned I think the reply back should be “donate to the site and I will”.

just my thoughts - hope the lights stay on for a long time!

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Ed1973 said:

if anyone asks someone on here for a link or access or a disc to be burned I think the reply back should be “donate to the site and I will”.

We already have a reputation for being hostile to newcomers (which isn’t entirely without cause). This is a rabbit hole we don’t want to go down. That’s not even getting into the ethical/legal issues we’d be inviting by requiring site donations for access to projects when we’ve spent years developing the culture of “Never ever ever charge people for fan projects or you’re done, no second chances.”

Not trying to jump down your throat or anything - your heart’s in the right place and it’s not a bad idea for other types of communities. But I don’t think it’s an idea that should be entertained for us. Even if you’re not paying the creator of a project for his work, being forced to cough up cash to anyone in any capacity in order to gain access isn’t okay.

At least, those are my thoughts on the idea.

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As of Jan. 26th, we have raised $141.85! You guys rock! 😃

A visual thermometer type deal showing how much has been currently raised would be ideal. If anyone knows how to make one, please let us know! It would be cool if we could get one that looks like this.

And yeah, linking donations to project downloads is a very bad idea.

Forum Moderator

Where were you in '77?

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That is about enough to keep the place running for two months. Good. 😃

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Glad to hear the site is ok for a couple more months - hope my donation helps!

I can see why the donation to the site for help suggestion I made might not be a good idea - it was based around the fact that I have little expertise or equipment and when I first came on here someone suggested “X person might do that for you and if you are lucky they wont ask for their costs to be covered” and at that point I would have been so grateful for anyone to do anything for me!

But yes, not such a great idea of mine - sorry.

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maybe we should have a pay to post feature. lol

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We don’t want to make more work for the moderators.

That said, perhaps account customization (thinking specifically of using a picture) could be tied to donation.

But it would create its own rat’s nest of tracking how long ago someone donated, let alone which donation goes to which account. (My donation came from a different email address than the one I’m registered under at OT – swhs(dot)geek says more about me than the address that’s just my name, but that’s the one setup in PayPal.)

“Before the Dark Times. Before the Prequels.”

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Finally got around to donate something. Good to see that the next month is already covered.

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