BetterMost, Wyoming & Brokeback Mountain Forum
Our BetterMost Community => Forum FAQs, Guidelines, and Updates => Topic started by: Phillip Dampier on May 08, 2006, 03:51:49 pm
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Our hosting bill has doubled with the growing traffic on the site. If you enjoy the service here and have not yet made a contribution, please consider helping us out. The overwhelming majority of our costs are covered by generous contributions from people just like you. The advertising income represents only about 5% of the total contributions/income this site receives.
You can contribute by credit card or direct debit via the PayPal Donate link on the far right corner of the screen, just below the Brokeback Mountain Radio logo. Or you can mail your contribution to:
Phillip M. Dampier
3003 Elmwood Avenue
Rochester, NY 14618-2021
Contributions of any amount are welcomed. Thanks for helping us out.
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BetterMost has introduced a Premium Membership level for those who have made a contribution to the site. The Premium Membership level gives supporters first access to new features as well as some extras especially for them. The list of features is growing, and you can feel good that your contribution is helping to keep this site going, along with an ever-expanding number of services for you to enjoy.
I realize not everyone can afford to make a substantial contribution. Even smaller donations do make a difference, especially if they are made on an ongoing basis. So do not feel bad if you can only afford to toss a few dollars our way. The fact that you did is all it takes to get a Premium Membership here.
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bump!
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Just made a contribution today, hope to do so on a more regular basis.
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Our hosting bill has doubled with the growing traffic on the site. If you enjoy the service here and have not yet made a contribution, please consider helping us out. The overwhelming majority of our costs are covered by generous contributions from people just like you. The advertising income represents only about 5% of the total contributions/income this site receives.
You can contribute by credit card or direct debit via the PayPal Donate link on the far right corner of the screen, just below the Brokeback Mountain Radio logo. Or you can mail your contribution to:
Phillip M. Dampier
3003 Elmwood Avenue
Rochester, NY 14618-2021
Contributions of any amount are welcomed. Thanks for helping us out.
for those of us with paranoid complexes... ;D....do you get personal information when we pay thru paypal? and if we were to mail a contribution....can we send money orders?
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for those of us with paranoid complexes... ;D....do you get personal information when we pay thru paypal? and if we were to mail a contribution....can we send money orders?
I do not see any payment information (credit cards, bank account numbers etc.), but I do see the registration information such as your name and address. I don't keep any of that around. Once a contribution has been placed into our account, that information gets deleted. I don't make any record of it here, and don't use it to contact people. It's very helpful, however, if users reference their user name here on BetterMost when using Paypal, as often the e-mail addresses and names don't match any user information here and it's very hard to upgrade people when I can't figure out who they are. :)
Money orders drawn in U.S. dollars are also fine, but you have extremely low risk using Paypal, and I highly recommend it because it's free and secure. International users, unless you get a postal money order drawn in U.S. funds, the handling and bank fees associated with these checks/money orders means your donation ends up mostly going to the local bank, which charges extra to handle these. I highly recommend Paypal for international users as well, because you can use your credit or debit card (with recognized symbol - Visa, Mastercard, Access, etc.) and incur no postage or money order fees.
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I popped another $40 to BetterMost yesterday. Shoot - dinner and a movie cost more than that. Thanks for keeping the homefires burning for us, Phillip and John.
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I sent a bit; will send more soon.
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I sent something via PayPal, too.
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I just sent more.
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We appreciate the contributions very much, especially as we've begun running a deficit around here these last few months. I will be updating the contribution lists over the weekend and upgrade some access levels as soon as I can. If you find you do not have a "contributor" status on your profile, and access to the contributors' forum by Monday, please PM me so I can correct the oversight.
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I will send some more if necessary; let us know; thanks
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I will send some more if necessary; let us know; thanks
Phillip is too much of a gentleman to say it, but he is carrying a larger share of the financial burden than I wish he was. All donations are very appreciated.
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I put in a modest donation. I was unemployed for many months and am still working on the edge of *EMERGENCY* but I know in this case every little bit helps, so I gave my little bit!!!
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I gave some more a minute ago.
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I made a donation last Spring. It's time for me to make another one! :D
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I am always poor, but what the hell.
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Whoo hoo, thanks, Buds! :-*
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I just changed banks...it will take Paypal 24 hours to acknowledge my new bank. I HATE those guys! You send someone moneyt, and they only get SOME of the money....anyway, a small contribution will be coming tomorrow....sometime.
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I just changed banks...it will take Paypal 24 hours to acknowledge my new bank. I HATE those guys! You send someone moneyt, and they only get SOME of the money....anyway, a small contribution will be coming tomorrow....sometime.
Thanks, Julie!
:)
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Pay day is next Friday. I will make another donation then. xx
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Just made a donation yesterday. C'mon now, give till it hurts!
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C'mon now, give till it hurts!
:laugh:
Well, I just donated something. And it didn't hurt. (http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j131/pipedream_photos/gif/Hurra.gif)
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Have check in an envelope ready to go out Monday on the Pony Express.
(Some of us don't use Paypal...)
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*click, click* -done! ;D
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I gave some early this morning, but I forgot to add my BM name. Did ya know it was me? I hope so. :)
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Yee Haw! :-*
This is reminding me of that old song, "I give to you and you give to me, true love, true love..."
Checks work fine, OPuppy, several people do it that way. Here's Phillip's address (also found in the first post of this message):
Phillip M. Dampier
3003 Elmwood Avenue
Rochester, NY 14618-2021
And if you haven't read the first few posts in this thread, or haven't lately, they describe the benefits of becoming a contirbuting member (Premium member).
Thanks Buds! :-*
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I just sendt my donation. Definitely worth it!!! :)
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:laugh:
Well, I just donated something. And it didn't hurt. (http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j131/pipedream_photos/gif/Hurra.gif)
I just did too.
And I love this dancing fella .. (http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j131/pipedream_photos/gif/Hurra.gif)
;D
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:laugh:
Well, I just donated something. And it didn't hurt. (http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j131/pipedream_photos/gif/Hurra.gif)
Me too.
And it's a pleasure. :)
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I doubled my regular contribution and will continue at that level. (My "regular" contribution may not look regular"because sometimes I do more than a month at a time, but I don't think I've been missing any.) It shouldn't be up to Phillip to give us this out of the goodness of his heart.
Maybe there should be some kind of awareness campaign so that everyone knows what kinds of expenses are connected with hosting a website. I have no idea myself. Now I'm curious about FindingBrokeback. Guess I had better ask some questions there, too.
Is this posted anywhere else on the Forum?
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I am back after a long (and unanticipated) absence.
I made my donation today! Best wishes all!
TOoP/Bruce
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I hope this helps (through Pay Pal/American Express). Thanks Philip for your labor of love and thanks Clarissa for the remnder.
(Sorry if this is posted twice; system went down while I was posting the first time)
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Done.
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Maybe there should be some kind of awareness campaign so that everyone knows what kinds of expenses are connected with hosting a website. I have no idea myself. Now I'm curious about FindingBrokeback. Guess I had better ask some questions there, too.
Is this posted anywhere else on the Forum?
1) I have offered to donate hosting services to the FindingBrokeback site (we are on a Linux-based server probably similar to the Yahoo! server they are on now) with only 30% of our disk space utilized, so we could easily accomodate their entire site and call it a public service (or returning the favor for the indispensible guide that it is), as long as they continue to administer it themselves. It's something we can discuss down the road if they ever want to dispense with the Yahoo! hosting they apparently are using now.
2) Our costs usually consist of our hosting account, which is around $50 a month, our copyright royalty arrangement which licenses music for Radio 1/2/Premium which is now about $70 a month including the Live365 account, the chat room system which I think is around $25 a month, plus ancillary hosting for our backup site/status page + overflow storage space which runs $10 a month, plus registration fees for SMF as a "charter member" and various software programs which have amounted thus far to under $250 total. When the site began, our costs were around $15 a month, but we were asked to depart from our old host because we were on a server shared with dozens of their other clients, and our community completely overwhelmed their machine! Very small websites can be run for next to nothing, but when something catches on, as we have, you have to move into professional web hosting contracts and dedicated machines, and that's what we've been doing.
The ads defray some of those expenses, but not very much anymore. I may shake things up and move those around some. The overwhelming majority of costs are paid with the generous contributions of residents and out of pocket. I anticipate with our ongoing growth, we will probably need to step up the hosting account (not so much for disk space but to accomodate the impact of the number of users online) by the end of the year, which will put us in the $75-120 a month range. I think the other shoe has yet to drop with copyright royalty rate increases which are still being worked out. I think we'll definitely see some increased costs there as well, but I think it's well worth paying them so we are 100% legal and we have the ability to build multimedia into our community. I have also kicked in around $50 to experiment with purchasing ads to promote our site on Google and MSN search engines, but haven't been doing much of that lately because it has gotten a bit unwieldly to keep track of that. I will use some of the free ad coupons I've gotten to promote BBM Radio in the near future in hopes of attracting people back here using another angle.
Part of the issue here is that I am loathe to run endless "pledge drives" and do begathons because they are unseemly to me, so people usually forget to contribute unless prompted, and I usually won't do the prompting unless things get a bit out of hand. I do believe we should have the flexibility to keep the community growing and to open up new services and features, and we look for the most cost-effective way to do those things. We can be amazingly frugal. I am confident that with the help of our residents (and even SMALL amounts can make a big difference - even a few dollars), we'll do fine.
And as I think I've mentioned before, I am not comfortable handling big dollar projects that involve thousands and thousands of dollars of people's money. If we ever tackled something big like DC did with their book, I'd want us to have a professional accountant handling things. I am more comfortable keeping us away from large projects that involve raising a ton of money just because I don't want to be in charge of it. :)
One thing that is important is that anyone making a contribution should see their name in green here. Not only do you deserve the recognition (and the fact so many residents believe in our community that they help partner with us to keep it going is actually a good way to encourage others to toss some change our way -- whether it's 50 cents or $50.00, both are equally welcomed), but there are added features for contributors that you gain access to. So if I have somehow missed anyone, please PM me right away and let me know.
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Our hosting bill has doubled with the growing traffic on the site. If you enjoy the service here and have not yet made a contribution, please consider helping us out. The overwhelming majority of our costs are covered by generous contributions from people just like you. The advertising income represents only about 5% of the total contributions/income this site receives.
You can contribute by credit card or direct debit via the PayPal Donate link on the far right corner of the screen, just below the Brokeback Mountain Radio logo. Or you can mail your contribution to:
Phillip M. Dampier
3003 Elmwood Avenue
Rochester, NY 14618-2021
Contributions of any amount are welcomed. Thanks for helping us out.
just bringing this forward to let people know that they CAN contribute by snail mail...I am a little obsessed about not putting myself too far out here as far as electronic banking and stuff so I will send my contribution via the old fashioned way!! (I believe Phillip can even accept money orders??)
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Done!
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I will send some money snail mail too...I had asked for an address several mos. ago, and never got any response....I dont use paypal...just on principal...
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I will send some money snail mail too...I had asked for an address several mos. ago, and never got any response....I dont use paypal...just on principal...
Wow, Janice, I don't remember you asking - sorry about that! Here's Phillip's address again:
Phillip M. Dampier
3003 Elmwood Avenue
Rochester, NY 14618-2021
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Thanks to everyone who is giving what you are able.
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I made a donation because it is thanks to BetterMost that I met Elllemeno and TwistedDude and Ptannen.
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I made a donation because it is thanks to BetterMost that I met Elllemeno and TwistedDude and Ptannen.
Wow, Hugh, thanks! :-*
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I couldn't imagine life WITHOUT BetterMost!
--true enough
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Thanks to everyone who is giving what you are able.
Thanks so much to everyone who helps maintain this wonderful place!!
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I made a donation eventhough I don't come here that much. I know there are probably people who do really depend on this site but may just not have the extra money to spare.
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I made a donation eventhough I don't come here that much. I know there are probably people who do really depend on this site but may just not have the extra money to spare.
And that is definitely something I understand and appreciate. The question is, how do we get you to come by more often? :)
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Thanks Phillip. :) I do seem to be coming by more.
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I made a donation eventhough I don't come here that much. I know there are probably people who do really depend on this site but may just not have the extra money to spare.
Wishes that's lovely of you to think of tht - I'm glad you are around more - cos I rekon we're kindred spirits & I like chatting with you! :-*
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It's the last worming day of the month - which means its pay day (thank GAWD!) which means I can make a contribution! So its done!
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In honor of my birthday today, I am making an extra donation to BetterMost, the best gift a boy could have!
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In honor of my birthday today, I am making an extra donation to BetterMost, the best gift a boy could have!
Happy Paul's Birthday to all of us! :-*
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I should have everyone's contribution up to and including today registered. A few of you may have received e-mails requesting your BetterMost user ID. This happens when your e-mail address does not match your profile e-mail and the system cannot match your contribution to a user ID. Just reply to the e-mail with your username and we'll be all set.
There may be one or two mailed contributions that I have not processed yet. If anyone has made a contribution recently that has not been recognized by me, please PM me so I can track it down.
Thanks to everyone who did contribute!
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Thanks Kelda. You are such a very nice person!
Also, one of the reasons I donated (first time) was because of the message that was sent stating funds were needed. I felt bad that Phillip had put so much of his own money into the web site when so many people enjoy it. I hope the PM helped to bring in donations and I hope in the future PMs will be sent out again if additional donations are needed.
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I've been slipping in the contribution department, what with the move and all, but I've started 2008 the way I mean to go on. Who's with me??!!
Just click the little PayPal icon on the right and Presto! (Although there really is no way to put a monetary value on the return I get from my BetterMost community...like those Visa commercials - it's priceless.)
-Lynne
8) :-* and O0 (cause Truman declared it AfroIcon day ::))
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Thanks for reminding us, Lynne. How time flies...it´s been a while since my last *click*. :)
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bump!
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I'm bumping this as I've just been reminded by reading a post that this site costs a lot of money to run.
cash on its way to you Phillip
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I'm bumping this as I've just been reminded by reading a post that this site costs a lot of money to run.
cash on its way to you Phillip
Time to donate again.
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Time to donate again.
How do I donate ?
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How do I donate ?
If you have a paypal account, you can click the button underneath the radio buttons.
If you don't, you can easily create one if you want. Otherwise, PM Phillip re alternative ways.
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If you have a paypal account, you can click the button underneath the radio buttons.
If you don't, you can easily create one if you want. Otherwise, PM Phillip re alternative ways.
No need to PM Phillip. Just read his first post on this thread, which I'm reposting:
Our hosting bill has doubled with the growing traffic on the site. If you enjoy the service here and have not yet made a contribution, please consider helping us out. The overwhelming majority of our costs are covered by generous contributions from people just like you. The advertising income represents only about 5% of the total contributions/income this site receives.
You can contribute by credit card or direct debit via the PayPal Donate link on the far right corner of the screen, just below the Brokeback Mountain Radio logo. Or you can mail your contribution to:
Phillip M. Dampier
3003 Elmwood Avenue
Rochester, NY 14618-2021
Contributions of any amount are welcomed. Thanks for helping us out.
:)
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There yo go Fiona!
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Thanks for clarifying, Fran. Maybe adding "details in first post" to the title would help.
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done
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If you have a paypal account, you can click the button underneath the radio buttons.
If you don't, you can easily create one if you want. Otherwise, PM Phillip re alternative ways.
Thanks I have a paypal account so that will be the easiest root for me.It will have to wait a couple of days,until I have paid my credit card !!!
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The Brokie-friendly coverage of the election reminds me that this site deserves to be supported.
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This week, I've once again been shown the wonderful (and I mean this literal: full of wonder) site of being a Brokie and a BetterMostian. I made a donation and give this ole thread a *bump*.