I’ve came up with an idea.
We all know that having a server costs time and money, and maintaining group like ours brings additional costs
(all of which can be found in the Community Finances document)
Some of us can donate their hard work and time, which is awesome!
Others can support by donating 15$ or 30$ at once, for which we all thank.
But many of us can’t donate such amount instantly, and donating smaller amounts is problematic and inefficient, so saving up is the only way. But saving up is hard, especially when there is nothing that controls the amount and frequency of making those savings.
Here’s what I suggest and what I personaly do myself:
Do your own pricetags for attending OP’s and trainings.
1 OP - 1 USD
1 Training - 0.5 USD
So attending the minimum of 2 OP’s and 1 training gives $2.5 a month, that is not much.
After 6 months you are able to donate $15.
Additionaly - the more fun you get, the more fun you make possible.
OFC everyone can make their own "pricetags". This is just a good method to maintain control over savings, and to feel that you’re actually giving back for what you get.
Please note that we accept donations sized 15 and 30$ only. This is to prevent the Silver and Gold tier donation ranks from becoming a horrifying administrative slop. Yes, even if you express disinterest in those, we still keep by it. All the money goes to the same account, and 45 1$ contributions are going to be a much bigger pain for Clarke to deal with and figure out than 3 15$ contributions.
If you still want to donate then please save up those ‘evently’ contributions until you hit the 15$ mark. I’ll give you a big hug to make up for any hassle on your part, as we’re still very glad to receive your support!
And remember folks: CNTO does not, in any way, demand contributions, ever. Donations are, and should always remain, purely voluntary.
Help us financially at your own discretion and please don’t spend money on CNTO that you sorely need for your own life. You’d just make Clarke feel bad, and then he’ll use his puppy eyes which is something we all wish to avoid.
Don’t get me wrong Abuk I love the fact that you are actively trying to suggests changes in the community it shows that’s your willing to tell us what you think. However this idea…
Even though you aren’t suggesting to make it mandatory, I’m not quite sure what your point here is are you trying to get everyone to donate by saving up on every mission/training we do? I feel as though we are a Fun-driven community and as such we may need funding to keep it going but it should definitely not ever be about not donating = NO-FUN or guilt tripping.
I think we should focus more on getting our costs down then increasing income for the community. Currently I am looking to the hosting costs of a dedicated linux command line box on which we can run a FTP/ARMA/Apache.TS server so we have the repository/Arma/Website/Teamspeak central then we can shed some cost from truepings as getting more slots is getting more expensive each time. The company I work for is a network hosting specialist and together with our network specialist(he plays games 2) I’m looking into the options for either public hosting or with my company figuring out limits we have with these options. (As of yet I have nothing concrete to work with)
About the website I’m currently working on creating a replica of our current but stand-alone from enjin so we can shed those cost. (its part of a school project)
So I hope you see my point when I say that it should never be about everyone donating or the community will be shut down but to make it easier on people we can lower the price we pay now quite a bit with some clever hosting tricks etc.
Just be careful with doing your own hosting! There are ALWAYS more complications than anticipated! There is (mostly) a reason hosting costs what it does! Especially for Arma, where the server hardware plays a big role in the FPS of clients.
[justify]Unfortunately there really isn’t since we don’t use any professional software that can automatically sync with our Paypal account etc. We have to manually keep track of donations on paypal, our full financial doc, our monthly financial report, the cnto roster, on enjin as well as on TS. This is already a bit of a task with just our two donation amounts. In the previous community we allowed smaller donation amounts and not only was it administratively tasking, but also it lead to a lot of uncomfortable arguments à la "where’s my money, bitch?" when people promised they’ll pay 30 bucks in rates and stopped delivering after 2 months. It is just simpler for us administratively, interpersonally and a benefit in being able to make accurate future predictions of our funds to keep the system we have in place now.[/justify]
[justify]I don’t think he was trying to guilt trip people, but merely suggesting a saving-up system for people who could not donate at once and haven’t really thought about a way of saving up. Like a CNTO piggy-bank. As Kaleo said before donations will never be mandatory, give what you can but not more. If you can afford putting a fiver away each month for us we’ll be grateful. If not, no worries we’ll survive and keep thriving together. [/justify]
OH GOD, what did I fuck up? What did I remember wrong? I ruined everything… AGAIN!
…
Reaches for a hammer
Ahem.
Zero, I know a thing or two about misconstruing intentions, mostly because I seem to be the epicenter of it in both directions at times. I don’t think Abuk was trying to guilt trip anyone. I’ve been on his end of the bargain a great deal of times, and I believe his intentions were purely in the interests of helping not just CNTO fund itself, but also give members ideas for how they can pitch in in a way that may feel more substantial and justified.
Different mindsets I guess. I’m coming from a Twitch streaming perspective -
Some successful streamers have loud and shiny animations and overlays that play automatically when someone donates, and some people like it. Other streamers don’t have any of that and some people like it as well.
Do people donate because they like something want to support the cause, or do they donate because they want a shiny yellow icon near their name? Anyway, I’m just thinking out loud here.
PayPal has an Instant Payment Notifier service that can be utilized to automate things, but I’m not experienced enough to write something like that myself.
[justify]I’ve looked into that service back in September but put it aside because I don’t want to run into situations where some members might feel uncomfortable that their real full name is displayed publicly.
For example I keep my gaming persona and my RL quite seperate. I wouldn’t want to get FB friend requests etc. because my full name and rough location would be public on this website. I know some members feel the same.[/justify]
Whoa! I didn’t expect to raise such a dynamic discussion! Im glad everyone has the input
[quote user_id=“11341464” avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/11341464/avatar/medium.1553522842.png” name=“Clarke”]
[justify]I don’t think he was trying to guilt trip people, but merely suggesting a saving-up system for people who could not donate at once and haven’t really thought about a way of saving up. Like a CNTO piggy-bank.[/justify][/quote]
This is what I’ve meant. Just a small system for people who would like to donate financialy, but they cant afford to do it in larger amounts, so this way they can get to those amounts while feeling that they give back for each OP.
It’s more of a psychological thingy that helps managing finances.
It is true that cutting down costs is better than increasing income at first, but it has to be done smart, so functionality is not affected. While many of us might have possibilities/ideas to save up on servers or even get them free of charge, we must have the same quality and stability of a GSP, otherwise its pointless.
[/justify]
