I can understand you wanting to move on from something that has become a financial burden Jay, I didn’t realise it was costing you that much to keep this place running from month to month. Though it is a real shame you won’t be getting involved in discussions anymore, reading many of your posts while banned is part of what actually made me want to try and return to being an active member here and I was actually looking forward to being part of a number of topic discussions that you were actively involved in yourself. I had actually thought stepping out of the ownership role and just to tech support would take a lot of weight off of your shoulders in being able to post and remain active in the community. I don’t know the reasons as to why this is not the case but I am disappointed that we’ll no longer have your voice around here.
In any event, it would be a sad day if this place were to suddenly cease to exist so I’ve just made a lump donation to hopefully go towards the immediate costs while something more sustainable is reached and in that respect, I have also setup a $1 per month automatic donation in the hope that others will do the same and as a combined effort, we can all come together to help keep this place going with minimal cost to the individual.
I haven’t had time to read the thread in full so I’m not sure exactly what other ideas are going around currently but I remember someone suggesting a list which I think is a good idea. You wouldn’t necessarily need to put names up if you didn’t want to advertise up front who is actually donating (which could lead to some odd situations where people assume favouritism or misconstrue moderation outcomes due to one person being a donator and the other not, resulting in an “us/them” dynamic amongst the community), instead just indicating if 1 of the 75 monthly dollar donation slots is taken or not, so you’ve got a visual indication to the community on how well or badly the site is currently coping with the base funding. If you happened to get over 75 monthly donators then they would spill over into a surplus fund to go to things like new forum features, competition prizes, etc.
So maybe just a stickied thread under the forum announcement area something like the below?
OT.com Donation Status
Base monthly site costs ($75p/month)
Slot 1. Filled
Slot 2. Filled
Slot 3.
Slot 4.
.
.
Slot 75.
Surplus site funds (for new site features, competitions, etc)
Slot 1.