Google ads in the forum?

[Gryzor]

Oh, that'd be great if you did - no pressure, whenever; if you happen to talk to them some day just ask them casually.


Yes, I've seen the support options, good enough!

[MaV]

Hehe, turns out that we're above target already.

[TotO]

Hehe, turns out that we're above target already.

Hahaha... You sold some painting restoration! 

Don't you think it was better if the money can be used for 2 years instead of one?

[MaV]

Hahaha... You sold some painting restoration! 

That never even ocurred to me, but I can try.

Don't you think it was better if the money can be used for 2 years instead of one?

Well, I promised to donate last year, but couldn't back then. And then I forgot about it, so I tried to make up for it now.

[steve]

Btw, I don't think pages would slow down loading, they're mere HTML snippets.

I am often faced with a blank page and a little message box in the lower left corner that reads "waiting for adserver" (or whatever it's called), it usually adds about 3-10 seconds to the page loading time.  .

A monthly reminder in the news line (where you currently publicise the 16kb rom competition), could keep donations rolling in, and if it doesn't then the mere threat of adverts should do the trick.

[steve]

Could you add a little explanation of the balance shown at the bottom of the donations page please, it currently shows a balance of 905 euros?

[Border_7]

Ads don't bother me, they are everywhere these days anyway ... trains, elevators, in the sky, embedded into skype...


If you think it will help the cause, then why not?

[AMSDOS]

It's annoyed me to no end the commercialisation rubbish which is on the Internet eating up my Download which is costing me $50 for 4Gb for 30 days and there are updates on top of that along with video rubbish which always slows my connection down. 


What I cannot figure out is why they don't have commercial rubbish at Gambling venues, so you put you money in a Poker Machine:





press a button, and up comes a big whopping advert you have to watch for 30 seconds before you get to see what the machine will roll & hopefully the money can go into the commercials that way (as well as pay for the lighting bill.)

[Gryzor]

@MaV: yup, we are! Woo-hoo! Who'd have thought...

@Tot0: of course. As I said, we'll be moving sooner rather than later. I've never done a migration under Linux using images (no way I'm installing/setting up everything from scratch again), and I need to see what this entails...

@Steve: you see that message with google ads? Strange, never seen it myself. And googling the error doesn't bring anything up... I think Google Ads are loaded last, so the rest of the page has already appeared when they are fetched.
Also, where do you see that balance? I don't see it?

@Border_7: well, true, they're everywhere, but this doesn't mean they're that nice Just a good way to provide for the site.

@AMSDOS: ouch, man, that's one huge image!

Border_7 and MaV, thanks so much for your donations, I have added you to the supporters group. Have a great day!



Now, I really want to thank you all. A year and a half ago, when we run the first campaign I did not in my wildest dreams hope we'd cover the amount, and so fast. This time I tried to find a way to spread the cost and so I just put an idea forward, and instead, money started pouring in!

I'm really touched, and grateful. I was discussing this with my girl last night, and she said (referring to the Cyprus scare) "well, we may perish, but the wiki will live on!". Such a fantastic thing. A few days ago a fellow member sent me something for free (not the first time...) and when I asked to pay he said, in effect, "I've taken so much from this community, I don't mind giving back". And that's the spirit there is, really, people giving again and again, in various forms. I'm humbled.

Thanks again, guys...


The ads have obviously no reason to be implemented now, but I still think the idea is valid and fair. So keep the feedback coming in, so that we can revisit it in a year or so!
T

[TotO]

If pages loading take times, we can add rasters borders with tape loading sound, to fake that... 

[Gryzor]

Hahaha that'd be fantastic... in fact we could probably do that now, if we touched the theme...

[ralferoo]

As I was donating, I noticed that we'd already hit the target but in a way that's not really fair as Gryzor noted. It's great that people want to donate as much as they do, but potentially seeing such big donations might put people off from donating a small amount. We'd easily be at the same target if all the regulars donated just €5 or €10 each rather than just a handful doing big donations.

I noticed the personal "site balance" after donating... as a thought, maybe we could "charge" €0.25 or similar of "site balance" for classified ads. This is small enough that it shouldn't put anybody out but it means there'd be an extra incentive to donate a small amount. Maybe have the first few adverts free so it's only regular advertisers. Maybe this wouldn't even get close to raising enough money to be worth implementing.

Or maybe adverts for non-subscribers might be the way to go, I'm not sure... but there has been a lot of coverage recently (at least in the gaming blogs) about Destructoid which is the latest to be struggling for revenue now that the majority of visitors use adblockers, e.g. http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/PatrickMiller/20130309/188188/Adblock_and_Destructoid.php

[EDIT: I meant to add... They've actually had quite a good response from users when they asked people to turn ads back on for their site, but they've also had a lot of users saying it's all or nothing with their software so they can't...]

[steve]

		Registry - Income & Expenditure
Item	Number	Total
PayPal IPN	36	905.94
Net Balance		905.94

@Steve: you see that message with google ads?

Next time I see it I will post about it.

Strange, never seen it myself. And googling the error doesn't bring anything up... I think Google Ads are loaded last, so the rest of the page has already appeared when they are fetched.
Also, where do you see that balance? I don't see it?

It is at the bottom of the donations page.

[beaker]

As I was donating, I noticed that we'd already hit the target but in a way that's not really fair as Gryzor noted. It's great that people want to donate as much as they do, but potentially seeing such big donations might put people off from donating a small amount. We'd easily be at the same target if all the regulars donated just €5 or €10 each rather than just a handful doing big donations.

I see your point; last time I saw the target was reached so didn't bother donating as it seemed a waste of time at the time. May be the whole thing should be anonymous so no one feels pressured and people give what they are comfortable with?

[Gryzor]

@ralferoo: yes, I know what you mean; when you see someone donating, say, €100 and you want/can donate a fiver there's the possibility of rethinking it. But, I don't think we'd 'easily be at the same target' - a dozen or 15 people donated now, if it was hard-set at €5, would a hundred donate? Ads are also not that many as to cover the donated sum... assuming you meant ads as they're posted in the forum. If you mean asomething else, please elaborate

I thought about using Flattr (though I'm not sure yet how it works or how to incorporate it to the forum) and doing micro-payments. Any thoughts?

Interesting article, about Destructoid. I thought about ad blockers myself, but I thought, we're a close-knit community, surely some members would allow them ads? But yes, it's one of the concerns that we'd hve to try it out and see.

@steve: I still don't see it! Can you post a screenshot? That's mysterious for sure... yes, I see such a balance in the admin area, and I have no idea what it means. I just did a reconciliation and the net Balance skyrocketed to 1585 euros, so I'm pretty certain it doesn't quite work More like €1100 since we started accepting donations.

@beaker (this applies to above comments as well): the point of having the donation registry is to provide as much transparency as possible. People may choose not to announce their donations, as per option, but I still will register them and show them publicly under "anonymous". It seems people do trust me not to take the money and run, so I'm trying to provide as much info as possible... I think removing this would cause more issues than it'd solve. But I'm open to ideas!

[ralferoo]

I see it too. http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=treasury :

		Registry - Income & Expenditure
Item	Number	Total
PayPal IPN	52	1585.41
Net Balance		1585.41

[ralferoo]

@ralferoo: yes, I know what you mean; when you see someone donating, say, €100 and you want/can donate a fiver there's the possibility of rethinking it. But, I don't think we'd 'easily be at the same target' - a dozen or 15 people donated now, if it was hard-set at €5, would a hundred donate? Ads are also not that many as to cover the donated sum... assuming you meant ads as they're posted in the forum. If you mean asomething else, please elaborate

Yeah, the classified thing was just an idea, but I said in my own post there probably aren't enough to make it pay for itself. And it probably would put people off who hadn't yet joined the forum from making the effort to post.

Anyway, back to the money... Certainly at €10, I'd have thought we'd manage get 50 donations as it feels like we have more active users than that. Of course, I might well be wrong too. It was more that now we're over the year target, there's less reason for others to donate now. My point was just if more people donated a little bit, we wouldn't necessarily need the bigger donations too. Of course, there's no reason why the budget needs to be limited to €500... we can start saving so that we have a year's fees in advance, use extra money for prizes to run more things like the ROM game competition, etc...

[Gryzor]

Thanks for all the feedback


The "Net Balance" probably appears only for normal users, as an admin I see it in a separate area... makes sense (if it worked, but anyway).


Any money over the required amount does go towards the next year or for extras, like mods etc (Downloads, Notifications, Likes...). Of course we could start a sort of fund - say, for the occasional rare ROM that needs to be dumped or, indeed, for the competition (actually there was a call for donations but nobody stepped forward ). It's not like I pocket any excess funds


As you said we're set for now, when the money runs out (a long time if we switch servers) maybe we can experiment with fixed, low amounts. If it costs €360 then yes, we can probably cover it that way!

[Border_7]

Glad to help out Gryzor!

[TFM]

Hey 7th Border... I'm curious... what's about your avatar? What's the name of the game? Looks interesting.

[Border_7]

Hey 7th Border... I'm curious... what's about your avatar? What's the name of the game? Looks interesting.

Sorry I missed your question. My very belated answer: The avatar? Well...let me explain. It's my first game I got / played on the Amstrad and has a special place in my heart. Gryzor's too I believe:


Into Oblivion - CPCWiki

[Gryzor]

Oh yeah baby.


Some day I must sit down and make a map for it.

[Border_7]

Yeah I keep thinking the same.... It is too bad (as far as I know) I.O was only released on the Amstrad - so no C64/Speccy users out there could have made maps / offered hints.


I guess it is up to us.

[Gryzor]

I have actually forgotten even what to do in the game But I remember spending many a happy hour just blasting those stupid aliens away.


Maybe after I've finished testing all the ST games on my MiST board I'll give it a try in Winape (guess it's the best way to do the map?)

[TFM]

Oh yeah baby.


Some day I must sit down and make a map for it.

Try the JavaCPC Map-Generator, seems to be pretty well done.