Info Donations Discussion thread

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I'd like to once again float the idea of eventually offering some "gifts" for donating like they do with NPR. For instance, donate any amount over $30 and get a T-shirt (if you want one). If you can make the t-shirts for $5 a piece, then you still get $25 donated, and a lot more people will donate just because they want the shirt. Like I said, there are lots of people on this site that have the skills and creativity to come up with some badass shirt designs, and prob. some people who have the business and manufacturing connections to get the shirts made and people who would volunteer to get them shipped.

I know you couldn't do something like this until you raised enough money to get it started, but it's an idea for down the road. NPR and other people raising money do it, so it must work.

It doesn't have to be limited to shirts either. There are other options too.
 
Damn thats quite a bit of doe. I remember when i used to have the domain hax0rs.com maybe like 10 years ago and that was when internet sponsors were out there like crazy with like 10 cents a click.

I used to have popups that would have the sponsor show right up so every hit made me money (only did the popup for a week but wouldn't have it up all day just some random hours and made 600$). And i had around 1,000 hits a day.
 
Does using paypal preserve your anonymity? More directly, since paypal has access to actual names and traceable info, there won't be any link from paypal account to a BL account?

I also agree with the idea of the journal and gallery being paid features. I would even take it further and make all non-harm reduction forums paid features. Or at the very least, create a special "donators" area.

Or what about memberships? Livejournal offers different features and access for each level of membership. Free users could have access to only the drug info forums, while annual/monthly members have total access.

Too bad we can't go old school and have a meetup that charged admission, with all proceeds going to the site. ;)
 
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Daisybabe: if you're worried about personal ID, then log out of BL, then click on the Donate link - it will show up as "Guest" or "unregistered" or something :)
 
BA: comments noted, and certainly appreciated :). I think we'd prefer to keep that discussion private right at this second while we seek further information. We hope that things have happened as you you said, but they may not have. I've unapproved your post for now, nothing personal. Daisybabe, I edited yours where it referred to BA's.
 
SA said:
May I ask you to elaborate on what exactly you deem inexpensive for a site this size?
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$100-$200 a year.

Even then, your bandwidth will be restricted to a set limit (there is no such thing as "unlimited", no matter what they advertise) and should you push or exceed those limits, you'll either be paying dearly, or will be asked to move to another host.
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Very true, although my host hasn't blinked at 60 gig a month of transfers on about a $7 a month plan. (It's the videos.) A bigger issue might be the processor overhead of the script-based board; anybody know how power-hungry the software is under your loads?

I highly doubt a budget plan pipeline would handle those numbers, but feel free to check with your host.
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Well, 'budget' is a matter of perspective. Obviously the $2 a month people aren't going to give you what you need. But you can get a lot of capacity fairly cheaply these days. A dedicated server shouldn't cost more than $100/month (which does add up to a lot.)

We are not hosted in the U.S. (or many other countries) due to the sensitive (in most countries) nature of the subject matter of this site.
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I had my worries, but my site has been up for years and gone through several hosts without anybody so much as raising an eyebrow my way. Dancesafe covers much the same subject matter on their board as BL and they haven't had hosting problems in the US so far as I know. And of course, Erowid is US based. Heck, most of the hosting companies are in California; land of Hippies, gay pride parades, and a marijuana bush on every porch. :) Not really an anti-free speech region.

As for the "I'm curious where the money would be going to" comment, I honestly thought that would have been rather obvious - to run the site, i.e. pay the hosting costs, as is stated on the donate page.
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But nobody's said what the costs are, or what will be done with any excess. Should I ever solicit donations myself, you can be sure there will be a little sign saying "First $100 per year goes to hosting costs; everything after that will be spent on porn and pizza." ;) I like to know where money is going, and I doubt I'm alone in that.
 
viewing the gallery could be a paid feature.
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I think that would...well, suck. Taking away features from people who don't donate feels cheap and manipulative. I don't think many people will donate to get access to a minor feature, and artificially creating a division of haves and have-nots seems like it would erode the sense of community.

Of course its non-profit
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Non-profit in the sense that people aren't currently profiting from it, or non-profit in the government sanctioned/regulated sense?
 
DEA, with all due respect, your numbers are way off. Look, I don't mean to put your site down, but you're comparing raisins and watermelons. There are two users on your forums right now (one of them is me), 88 being the all time high. At that rate, your site can easily reside on a server with 3K neighbours and you shouldn't be paying more than $100/yr. May I suggest you visit some web hosting forums and compare what people are paying to host sites with the persistent and consitent traffic that you see here in the "who's online".

I'm cautiously optimistic that our own numbers and funding/expenditure details will be disclosed in the future (how and when, I can't say). I'm just not in a position to be doing so myself.
 
At that rate, your site can easily reside on a server with 3K neighbours
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I'm probably the only site operator on earth that discourages people from using the forums. :) (There's a note in the first forum that tells people to come here or to Dancesafe.) I basically set that system up as a place where I could easily add and store items that didn't quite fit into the main architecture of the site. It's an attic, not the draw of the site. *shrug*


I have no idea if the specific hosting package I use could meet Bluelight's needs; I wasn't claiming that it did. I do know that bandwidth itself can be had very cheaply, and I've yet to hear of a drug related site having trouble finding a willing host. (Well, certain...ah...'chemistry' sites aside.) At worst, there are plenty of affordable (under $100/month) dedicated server companies in the US, and they're even less inquisitive about what's being hosted on a dedicated machine.
 
Last time i looked BL uses 1TB a month b/w... It can't be hosted in the U.S. for obvious reasons. The CPU overhead is too large for those normal hosting deals... Basically I think BL has the best package hosting deal right now than it would anywhere else.

It requires two hefty machines to not fall over 1 DB and 1 Apache. So if you think about what you'd be paying in U.S. terms we're talking about $300+ * 2 per month. I believe bl has a better colo deal than that right now.
 
so swilow would writing a check from my busness to Bluelight be considered a tax deduction ? I give the local non-commerical radio station $500 a year and i can write it off.
 
Have you thought of a way to make anonymous donations that don't leave a money trail? Pay pal keeps track of where their money goes to.

Have you ever thought of having a way to accept money orders or something like that can be truly be done anonymously. (I wouldn't mind people on the site knowing I donated, but I certainly don't want my credit card company or paypal to know I donated.)

I don't trust pay pal's ideas of morality and privacy with that. I heard that they are run by the same people that run myspace, and have defintely created problems with people ordering adult toys and such in the past. Drugs are often more taboo than sex, I could see them creating a huff about this (and although this site is meant for harm reduction--I am pretty sure that the christian right and the anti-drug lobbiests don't see it that way). I certainly wouldn't want any donation I would make through this site going through my paypal account and onto my credit card. eekk.
 
How many more ways can I say "More donation options are coming"?

Some people wanted to donate straight away, so we built the paypal option. We are working on every other possible form of donation but these take time, and in some cases money. Which leads me to

How much money do we need? Is Bluelight non-profit? Can I claim it on my tax?
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All of this is linked. I can tell you our server costs but that is not all that we need. Is Bluelight non-profit? Bluelight isn't anything. It is a gentlemen's agreement that now has to grow up.

We need to encorporate in some form so that we can pay our bills. Until now Alan paid from his company directly to oour hosts. Now we need to form some entity to both collect the money and distribute it. This, of course, takes time and money. And if we do it well it will make us money, and put less of the burden on the users.

Take the last question there, tax status. We have it on good advice that we can start the process towards becoming a charitable organisation that will allow us to take donations that are tax deductible. This involves lawyers, so naturally money is required, and yet more time. But it would mean that Bluelight would be self perpetuating and everyone wins.

I've been thinking over these issues for about 7 years now, before Alan offered to foot the bill. Since he did we have always been lazy in bringing any of it to action, and the suddeness of his death has been both a shock and a wakeup call.

I know people are trying to help with these suggestion but I would ask of you all a little trust that we, the admins, have the site's best inteterests in mind and that even if we may not be able to answer a question straight away it is seldom because we havent' considered it. There are so many moving parts right now it is scarey, but we will get there

So use the donate link above, or don't. It is up to you. More forms are coming, and lots more information as well.
 
When alternative donation methods become available, I'd suggest that you give people the opportunity to use a debit card, as opposed to a credit card. Either that or the ability to create a low-yield standing order. Just a suggestion.
 
I made a donation just then, the exchange rate is pretty shithouse, but fuck it!

Got paid today, don't use my spending money for drugs anymore, so have a bit to spare.

In memory of Alan. Poor old dude.
 
tambourine-man said:
When alternative donation methods become available, I'd suggest that you give people the opportunity to use a debit card, as opposed to a credit card. Either that or the ability to create a low-yield standing order. Just a suggestion.
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aye, i would definitely be up for that.

steady income is where it's at. :)

p.s. well done zeffers ;)
 
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