Thank you so much Adam! I really appreicate you taking the time to detail these things for me.<br><br> What brought the contribution issue to mind especially is that until recently I had been paying Linden Lab for a full private region in Second Life. And you may know those regions go for $295 per month (even "light use" regions are $195 a month). That's a hefty chunk of change. Of course, now I use OpenSim almost exclusively and would be far more willing now to pay a monthly contribution to this project rather than continuing to breastfeed the Linden Lords. :)<br>
<br>Last I heard they have around 300,000 regions they are feeding off of now.<br><br>Thanks again and I'll be very happy to initiate a decent monthly contribution soon if the contribution portion of the site gets updated and more properly managed.<br>
<br>BTW, you mentioned having to change the stats in several places on the site. Is it not running on PHP or similar? Even if it still had to be manually entered into the database, surely drawing the stats for contributions from a single database field would simplify matters.<br>
<br>I had a non-profit site for a few years and had a small bar meter graph in the header (on every page) that relied on a field in the database. Once a week I entered that week's donations and expenses in and the bar graph updated to reflect it. It made sense because on that same day I also spent donated money for hosting, supplies, etc so it was a fairly simplistic process. I then displayed what purchases I made as a simple pop up when the donation meter was clicked on.<br>
<br>I had a disclaimer, as you do, that I had authority to determine in what ways the donation was to be used, but by also displaying what I used it for then there was little question coming from donors. I even had a "back-pat allowance" that I openly said was pocketed money for personal enjoyment (generally 10-15% of the total donation amount monthly). I never had a single complaint, but I believe that was because I was crystal clear from the start - if you disagreed with my use of donations then you had the simple choice - not to donate.<br>
<br>Thanks again Adam!<br><br>- Len<br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 2:07 AM, Frisby, Adam <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:adam@deepthink.com.au">adam@deepthink.com.au</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div link="blue" vlink="purple" lang="EN-AU">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Sorry about this – we switched it (or should have)
recently over to a fixed message on the screen (may not have been put on the
live site yet, I believe Dave was supposed to be doing that?), since tracking
the donations turned out to require a manual count of the subscriptions every
time it needed to be updated (which naturally resulted in it not getting done
after a few months), and it needs to be updated in about fifteen different
places on the site’s code.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">That said, I do think it is still a little shy of the target
right now, but we’re ahead of our costs which is good – I would
like to prod Ckrinke (*prod prod*) to do some kind of news piece on the site
with just a quick update on where the fundraising efforts are going, and what
the current donation levels are – we’re trying to hit a target of
having about years operational fees in balance (which should be described on
that page) which gives us a bit of long-term security.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">If you are curious about what it’s being spent on –
right now, I believe (and don’t quote me here, I’m not doing the
books) we’re slightly ahead of our current costs which are entirely
consumed by server lease fees. We also had a couple of one-off expenses this
year with paperwork filing fees in CA to get the registered organisation
wrapped up (and we’re formally applying for federal tax exempt status
this week – long process). If I had to guess based on the balance in the
bank account; we’re taking in about $250/mo right now, and our target is
$300 (so 80% or thereabouts).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">We do also get a couple of one-off payments which we don’t
count towards the regular monthly commitments; we’ve had a couple of very
generous persons who have donated $100+ at a time; which we’re putting
into a rainy day fund that will be used to cover shortfalls in other months (ie;
if we have a month where donations is less than our costs, as has happened
occasionally), or may be used in the future to purchase new hardware (we are eyeballing
replacing the current asset server with something more purpose built for the
task.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Costs remain right now at $160/mo + one-offs; so the donations
are still much appreciated – once we hit that magic $300/mo, we want to
go ahead and buy a second UGIM server to act as a hot-backup to the current
systems (since right now our regular backup is in Nebadon’s basement –
and not really ideal if we ever need to do a big restore like in January.) –
this is non-essential for the grid operations, but we do want to insure
ourselves against catastrophic hardware failure and has been a priority to
setup hopefully sometime this year.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">In addition to the donations, there are also the sponsors –
OSgrid is sponsored to a fairly considerable tune by people who have donated
dedicated servers to the grid. The electric sheep company provides our central
database & UGIM server right now, Dave Coyle/Knifejaw Systems provide a
fairly powerful box that hosts LBSA Plaza & others; DeepThink (disclaimer,
I’m part of D.T.) donates two boxes which host the remaining plazas (inc.
Wright) [which deepthink recently just upgraded]. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">As mentioned on the site – OSgrid is a registered
nonprofit, and while the above may paint a somewhat rosy position; in absolute
terms it is still only ~$250 per month; and we desperately want to both; a) have
savings for a rainy day (e.g.; a critical machine fails & needs replacing),
and b) purchase some new equipment from time to time to expand our services
when possible; which means that every donation is very-much appreciated –
and it can be assured we’re doing our best to keep our costs down &
not wasting any funds we receive.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">With all the above said, the opensim-users list isn’t really
the place for osgrid specific discussion (#osgrid on freenode is probably the
proper place) – but I hope I answered any questions or concerns you might
have about the donations & where they go. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Regards,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Adam</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">(OSgrid Vice President)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"> </span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-US">From:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-US"> <a href="mailto:opensim-users-bounces@lists.berlios.de" target="_blank">opensim-users-bounces@lists.berlios.de</a>
[mailto:<a href="mailto:opensim-users-bounces@lists.berlios.de" target="_blank">opensim-users-bounces@lists.berlios.de</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Len Brown<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Saturday, 7 November 2009 10:52 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> <a href="mailto:opensim-users@lists.berlios.de" target="_blank">opensim-users@lists.berlios.de</a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Opensim-users] Funding/Donating to the OSGrid Project</span></p>
</div>
</div><div><div></div><div class="h5">
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">I just noticed this on their
donations page:<br>
<br>
"<b>Current Status:</b> $50.00/mo pledged. (Last updated: 11:36PM PST,
Monday 20th July 2009)"<br>
<br>
That is quite interesting as well. I don't see how they come to the
conclusion that a $50 donation pledge is "58% of Target" which is
$250.<br>
<br>
:)<br>
<br>
- Len</p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 12:12 AM, Len Brown <<a href="mailto:lenwbrown@gmail.com" target="_blank">lenwbrown@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hi!<br>
<br>
I've been wanting to make a monthly donation to
OSGrid.org but for the last several months (as far back as I can recall) the
site has shown a static "Funding at 58% of Target" and not changed
whatsoever. I find that extremely hard to believe. Is OSGrid simply
lying and maintaining that 58% donation figure for months on end to compel
people to donate? for all I know at this point, they may be receiving
thousands in donations per month, but of course, without transparency, that is
impossible to identify.<br>
<br>
I regularly donate money to open source projects I have an
interest in, but only when their donation requests are transparent and
clear. On OSGrid's donation page, they state their target is $250.00 per
month. I just find it very hard to believe that, with the thousands of
users and connected regions they are still only getting about $150 per month
without any changes in that contribution level all through the summer and fall.<br>
<br>
I have the suspicion that others who would like to
donate as well are turned off by the seemingly forever static contribution
coverage percentage. If I saw even a little fluctuation I'd at least know
there is some variability in contributions and I'd not hesitate to offer a
monthly contribution via PayPal.<br>
<br>
Heck, even if they said that contributions were at
100% but that they could always make use of more money, even if for personal
compensation to those working on the project, I'd not have the slightest
problem with that. I have no reservations about making a donation that
the recipient pockets - as long as they are actively contributing to the project
in some manner.<br>
<br>
But for now I'm donating my money to other groups
while OSGrid.org maintains their contributions as only 58% of their meager
$250/month goal...<br>
<br>
- Len W. brown<br>
<a href="mailto:lenwbrown@gmail.com" target="_blank">lenwbrown@gmail.com</a>
</p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
</div></div></div>
</div>
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