TOPIC: Pledges & Donations

Thanx S.O. Im on board, I\'ve only been a member here for about a month, but like you said if it wasnt for this board, I would NEVER have gotten the information that I have. I would have chosen the wrong Doctor. I just had a procedure and am very happy with my choice. To me thats worth a lot. I would encourage others to donate also. From what I\'ve seen there is no other board like this. Thanx again Skeptical One!

if you need free webhosting for life i can help with that and still donate some money as well...let me know

I think there are a few reasons you didn\'t get many pledges.

The first is that it\'s an unorthodox method of collecting payment.

Also importantly you left out your goal. How much are you looking to raise? $100? $1000? $10000?

And the last thing I thought of is an explanation of what the money goes toward. People are much more willing to contribute when they know what it is paying for. Hosting? Promotions? Technology licensing? Fees for other services? etc.

As far as I know, SO has spent countless hours on creating and maintaining this site and the previous one. The mods also spend hours of their personal time to monitor and help our readers. I have 100% trust in SO and how he uses the money for this site. This site requires fees to run it and the servers have to paid for. Sure, it is a good idea to know details of where the money is going, but I am certain it is going in the right places. SO is of the highest caliber and I personally do not even bother to think about it, of course some may want to know and it is up to SO.

I do not have to defend SO, his efforts speak for themselves.

I am sure some of our new readers do not have the knowledge of how this site and the previous one were created so they can ask their questions...

I\'m just trying to be helpful. SO, you said it iss sad and pathetic that you got no pledges, which means you expected them. I am just trying to provide some insight as to why that expectation may not have been in sync with the behavior of the members here. I for one would gladly pay for a membership or use some other payment method. I know it sucks that paypal et al won\'t accept affiliation with this site, but I\'m just being honest when I say that I\'d gladly pay a couple bucks to help out if it were a typical payment method. I might be able to put you in touch with some people who could help you directly process payments.

@nohidingstyle

Sorry I should have been more clear. A pledge was meant to be a placeholder for a future donation. Keyword is donation - you choose the amount (increments of $10 to keep it simple), and fulfill that pledge when an actual payment system is available. This explains my disappointment. It was simply a request that members offer some sort of vow or commitment for a later date when a satisfactory payment system was available. No names or addresses were involved with pledges, just amounts.

The only monetary goal is a \"surplus\" sum, so that the next 6, 12, even 24 months of costs (as well as the increase in costs in that time) are covered by a donation bankroll. The alternative would be to charge for membership, since it isn\'t fair some of us donate to keep the site going while others lurk and freeload. As I\'ve said before, I\'m not going to divulge forum finances but it\'s safe to say that it isn\'t terribly expensive nor is it dirt cheap - it\'s just the fact that this forum\'s very sustenance depends on how well the a few people decide to tip me for dining out. Imagine that, life-changing penis enlargement information brought to you by the discretionary tipping of random strangers. Although I don\'t get real paychecks, I do live \"paycheck to paycheck\" so-to-speak and it can make furnishing funds for this site a real challenge at times. This is why I trouble the community with my rants & pleas lol.

This also begs the question - how responsible am I for financing this site? Originally this place started out as a very small community (I remember when it was just 20 registered members exchanging whatever trending topic we could find) and the costs were $0.00 because the site we used (Phalloplasty.proboards.com) hosted advertisements and therefore the service was free. However, the host issued a demand that all nude photos be taken down because it violated their Terms of Service or else we lose service. I complied but the lack of photos ed the most important aspect of a cosmetic penis enlargement forum. So I had to find a host who would tolerate a wide range of photos and topics that were adult-oriented, but it came at a cost ($$) and here we are today. The costs started out manageable but we had to upgrade packages every few months because of increased traffic. And this site continues to grow. Now that this site is an entirely new beast compared to the old days, do I still take sole responsibility for financing this site, or does the community, who benefits largely from its resourcefulness at no cost, have a stake in this too?

As far as where the money goes - it goes right here. As long as the forum is up and running, you can be assured that your money has or will eventually be put into running this site. If donations are abundant, we\'ll perhaps even use it for future projects (other niche sites, small conventions/conferences, etc), while notifying all donors of those possible expenditures.

I hope that makes things a little more clear, and if you have any sort of direction you could lead me in (e.g. payment processors, etc), I\'ll be listening

buttercups wrote: I know this would sound crazy but what about using Bitcoin? I would gladly donate using Bitcoin because it will protect my anonymity. Also there is no fees for you and you can convert the coins I send back to USD or what ever currency you want easily using a local exchanger on localbitcoins. Just s a suggestion

Any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated. I haven\'t looked into Bitcoin that much, but if I can have it readily available for members, provide anonymity, and have no issue converting it into US Dollars, I\'ll certainly give it a look.