KCRag Forum

As this site and community have grown, so too has the cost of keeping it up and running. Apart from some generous donations, I have borne the cost myself, as the site and its neutrality are very important to me. That said, I would like to explore ways to fund this site other than by myself.

I have made some inquiries to knowledgeable people about the possibility of making this site a nonprofit organization, to allow for tax-deductible donations, but I don't see that happening with any kind of haste.

I was wondering if anyone would be interested, if it was offered, in buying a supporter subscription. I was thinking it would be $3 a month(probably plus tax, depending on how I can arrange it), and the only reward to speak of, right now, would be a supporter badge or group on your forum profile, along with the knowledge that you are directly contributing to the future of the site, and helping to provide a place for locals and nonlocals to discuss Kansas City without bias or influence, and without any sale or handling of your personal data that's become all too common nowadays.

As for extras that could be offered to supporters, I am all ears for ideas. I could do silly videos for people, buy you a beer when I'm in town, or send you pictures of my dog. If you have ideas, let me have 'em.

But the bottom line is that this site costs money to keep running, and I hate the idea of the community suffering if I was to come to hardship. The site's fate should not be tied to my own.

Let me know what you think.

Would Patreon be an option?

Another forum I like to visit offers the chance to donate as well - and they give a little icon to those that do. https://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/st ... on/support

Maybe one of those models could work.

Patreon is probably the means by which the subs would be collected, if people are interested.

I'm in.

I'd suggest an annual option so I'm not continually explaining to my wife that a "bahua" is not something sexually oriented.

I'd pay a small annual membership to help keep the lights on around here.

As someone who maintains a few community web sites myself that I foot the bills for, I totally understand and would gladly become a patreon subscriber.

Patreon doesn't show an annual option. Maybe someone who's versed in the platform can provide some guidance, but here is the first form of the page that I was able to throw together using royalty-free images and slap-dash prose:

patreon.com/kcrag

I would be delighted to have some feedback on what sucks about it.

looks good to me

Pricing looks fair.

>Patreon doesn't show an annual option.

I prefer monthly myself. I won't notice $5 a month being gone. Having $50-$60 disappear all at once after enough time has passed for me to forget all about it might annoy me.

Would you be interested in sharing numbers regarding bandwidth, traffic counts, database size, hosting costs, etc?

Anyway, I'd agree that some kind of voluntary supporter model would be perfect. I personally am the opposite of scooterj: I'd take a slightly discounted annual option if it were available. I think, for example, the Shawnee Mission Post gives a "12 months for the price of 11" type of deal.

I would be more than happy to give $5/month.

This is great news, and there's already a patron! I think I will de-globalize this post, and post a new global with the patreon link front and center.

Support given.

bchociej wrote: ↑Tue Feb 04, 2020 9:08 am Would you be interested in sharing numbers regarding bandwidth, traffic counts, database size, hosting costs, etc?

Hosting for the server on which this site runs(and constitutes 99.9999-repeating% of the host's traffic and use) is $20 a month. Annual domain renewal is about $15. Mail delivery is being increased from free to about $35 a month. The database is about 750 MB in size. Traffic numbers require installing a monitoring agent on the host, and I haven't felt compelled to do that yet. I suppose I probably should.

I'm in! let us know how we can contribute!

Thanks for the details, bahua. And happy to see the Patreon option. Heading over there now.

Hit you up via paypal, let me know when we're due again.

Thanks!

bahua wrote: ↑Tue Feb 04, 2020 12:33 pm

bchociej wrote: ↑Tue Feb 04, 2020 9:08 am Would you be interested in sharing numbers regarding bandwidth, traffic counts, database size, hosting costs, etc?

Hosting for the server on which this site runs(and constitutes 99.9999-repeating% of the host's traffic and use) is $20 a month. Annual domain renewal is about $15. Mail delivery is being increased from free to about $35 a month. The database is about 750 MB in size. Traffic numbers require installing a monitoring agent on the host, and I haven't felt compelled to do that yet. I suppose I probably should.

UrbanSTL uses Tapatalk which has hosting plans from a basic forum for $0 to $10/month for everything including a forum iPhone/Android app. It is, imho, a much better interface/experience with the app making it much easier to post project updates from. Tapatalk also manages spam prevention which makes the sign up process for a new account much much easier than our current emailing scheme. KCRAG has added something like 9 users this year. We need to make it easier to join and spread the word in general.

Tapatalk has a built in donation/award feature, supports advertisements and memberships, etc.

https://www.urbanstl.com

https://www.tapatalk.com/introduction