To those who helped with donations to get the license renewed, thank you...

rick cottontree
curunir
bladecollector

You're most welcome. I'm just glad the site being down was temporary.

What happened?

[quote=""BrandalftheBlue""]What happened?[/quote]

The site was down for all of, what? 12 hrs?

Oh, well it's good to see that it's up and running again

Well, thanks Curunir, Blade, and Rick for your support to this community. I wish I could have helped, perhaps if this happens again, we should announce a couple in advance before the forum is shut down. And sorry to hear about your job Justin, I hope everything works out for you.

Our license for VBulletin e xp ired and Justin was contacted about it. It would be nice if they could have given us a few days notice because then we could have asked for donations while the site was still up. Unfortunately, they threatened to shut us down if we did not "close" the boards. Something about software piracy.

Anyways, we are back! Thanks to Curunir, Blade, and Rick! Your contributions to these forums are greatly appreciated by everyone!

Happy collecting!

That's wicked! Thanks guys. I would like to help next time, as well.

Well if anyone wants to start donating for next year, or to help cover the month to month costs of the board until UC starts sending the sponsorship money (which is just enough to cover the cost of running the board, I am not making money off them ...) you can send whatever you would like to paypal@unimatrix424.com.

They sent a reminder email to me about the license, I wasn't e xp ecting them to be strict about it. But, I understand where they are coming from. There are a ton of people using this software who never paid for it. They are protecting their interests. No biggy. Just glad that with your help we weren't down for too long.

For those who missed the message, I was laid off in October, as a result my funds are EXTREMELY limited right now.

To all who donated. With your help we can now keep the forums up without ANY need to pay yearly licensing anymore! We now own our license for vBulletin and PHP Photopost Pro ... the only time we will have to pay again is for newer versions of the software in the future. Not a huge deal if you ask me

Below is a list of contributors:
Thranduil
Moonglum83
Steel Servant
Rough666
Draven_of_the_Shire
Darlak

WOO HOO! We're back! Thanks all who contributed!!!

That was scary!

Will we still have to pay the monthly fee of 80 bucks?

Damn happy to help, Justin. I have learned so very much from the other members and the "inside scoop" that trickles through the forum. It's the least I could do.

Thanks to everyone else who stepped up to the plate. I was affraid we might be without our fount of knowledge for a while. Whew!

Thanks, guys.


I still don't understand... What's the story behind forum's sponsors? I
remember there was search for them, and there's probably one at least,
since there's advertising banner "Flames 'n Knives" on every page. What's
the exact meaning of it - I mean, it's there, but private members cover the
costs?

[quote=""ed209""]Thanks, guys.


I still don't understand... What's the story behind forum's sponsors? I
remember there was search for them, and there's probably one at least,
since there's advertising banner "Flames 'n Knives" on every page. What's
the exact meaning of it - I mean, it's there, but private members cover the
costs?[/quote]

I never thought of that, it makes no sense to have sponsors that doesn't, well, sponsor us.

Well, Flames n' Knives belongs to Justin and his partner so that's why you see that banner there.

As for the other sponsors, only Justin can say.

All that aside, my thanks for plugging the life support back on. Darlak and others, I will ask Justin why your titles and colour have not been changed yet.

[quote=""Valkrist""]Well, Flames n' Knives belongs to Justin and his partner so that's why you see that banner there.[/quote]

I know it belongs to him, but this still doesn't answer my question at all.

Is this public or private forum?

And when I ask that, it's not arrogance, I'm seriously trying to solve that.

Cool, getting a red name =)

And if the other sponsors doesn't actually sponsor us, it really is a one way relationship, with members buying from them, while they just sit there.

I may of course be completely wrong, but if not, perhaps we should get new sponsors or something?

This does have the potential to become a serious problem as transparency of accountability may prove to be like shooting oneself in the foot.
However, transparency is the best way for all to see what the costs of having our beloved forum up and running truly are.
Flames and Knives may be supporting more than we know and this whole license issue came up immediately following a decision made in a meeting of the server company and hit all of its clients at the same time, thus the forum became the victim of a policy change that came out of the blue.

I can't speak for ed, but I'd like the peace of mind that comes from understanding just where I stand with my support and how it helps and at what level of support I'm providing. In other words, would the forum have to say to all of us, without your contributions we're off line. A perfectly honest, "Yes, we need your support", allows us to decide between, I'll continue to support because I want to have the forum, or, I won't.

It boils down to making decisions about what we do with our money.

Perhaps the answers need to come to us privately, either way, I think what ed and I want is to know how much our support actually weighs on the scales of total e xp ense. I'm not looking for share, or to have a say so here in policy making (I've got too much on my plate as it is) and I was more than happy to help.
My only thought when I found the forum down was, "There's too much correspondence that happens here."

On a positive note, having it go down brought to my attention email addresses that needed to be changed since I moved and had over-looked.

A complete breakdown of e xp enses is hard to do since the server which hosts this site also hosts a few others. Suffice to say, yearly I spend the following

Dedicated Server Hosting - $912.00
Domain Fees - $10.00
Co-Location Fees - $300.00

So, total cost to run my server is $1,222.00 per year. Now, forum sponsors pay $150.00 p/year. I have clients who are also hosted on this server which account for about another $500.00 p/yeah, which leaves me about $300-$400.00 p/year out of pocket + licensing. Since licensing is no longer an issue, I don't count it. $80.00 p/month covers the Dedicated Server fee but not the colocation fee. The reason I ask for $80.00 a month in donations is to help offset these costs. I never e xp ected a full $80.00 a month, but that would be my goal.

No one is obligated to pay. Just bear in mind, when things like the licensing come up, with no support from the community, it can effectively close down a website. We ask for your support, but do not require it as a condition of membership.

Does that clear it up?

BTW, there will be more banners for the other 2 companies, just waiting on them to send em to me to put in the rotation

[quote=""JustinTD""]Now, forum sponsors pay $150.00 p/year.

[...]

Does that clear it up?[/quote]

Almost.

$150.00 pays each sponsor, or is it total of three (one banner that's here
plus two coming soon)?

Woah, that's friggin' loads, imagine all those swords...

Never even imagined it would be that much. So when you're only asking for 80 bucks from the members, I'll try to donate some whenever I can afford to.

[quote=""JustinTD""]To all who donated. With your help we can now keep the forums up without ANY need to pay yearly licensing anymore! We now own our license for vBulletin and PHP Photopost Pro ... the only time we will have to pay again is for newer versions of the software in the future. Not a huge deal if you ask me

Below is a list of contributors:
Thranduil
Moonglum83
Steel Servant
Rough666
Draven_of_the_Shire
Darlak[/quote]

Word.

sorry I was unable to help with payments rough666 and the other forum supporters... I feel so bad

I will try and help next time as I feel it is my duty

Sorry, EG... just edited your post to change the word 'creators' to 'supporters' which I'm sure is what you meant.

And thank you for your sentiment, it is appreciated.

why did I put creators in? silly me I'm all over the place these days. lol thanks Val