-
Please see the most recent updates in the "Where did the .com name go?" thread. Posts number 16 and 17.
It's That Time Of Year Again
- Thread starter stovall
- Start date
Done. I was one of the first to donate. Money well spent.
Cees
Cees
Blackbird686
SOH-CM-2026
Did my bit, and as always... happy to help.
BB686
BB686
Taking a look at who's online, I see 32 users of which 10 in red, and the others in blue. That means that 22 people are depending on the money of these 10 paying members. Come on guys, let's keep this site going! Donate if you can?
Kind regards,
Cees
Kind regards,
Cees
Daube, I agree, we shouldn't make the donation drive a personal thing. However I can fully understand the frustration from Cees.
The SOH has 22,898 members, from who 4,395 are considered "active members". So far 251 donations have been received in the 2016 drive. And there are several members who already have donated several times!
So roughly so far only 240 members have donated in this drive, which is less than 6% of our members!
I think SOH is unique, due to the mixture of developers, (re)painters and users, and the fact that the members facilitate their own meeting place.
Therefore I personally think SOH is worth a small donation. But I think the figures show that not everybody shares my opinion. So far not even 6% of the members have covered more than half the costs to keep the SOH online. It shouldn't be so hard for the other 94% of the members to cover the other half........
When we can't raise the required money to pay the bills, the result is simple: There won't be a Sim-Outhouse anymore.
Regards,
Huub
The SOH has 22,898 members, from who 4,395 are considered "active members". So far 251 donations have been received in the 2016 drive. And there are several members who already have donated several times!
So roughly so far only 240 members have donated in this drive, which is less than 6% of our members!
I think SOH is unique, due to the mixture of developers, (re)painters and users, and the fact that the members facilitate their own meeting place.
Therefore I personally think SOH is worth a small donation. But I think the figures show that not everybody shares my opinion. So far not even 6% of the members have covered more than half the costs to keep the SOH online. It shouldn't be so hard for the other 94% of the members to cover the other half........
When we can't raise the required money to pay the bills, the result is simple: There won't be a Sim-Outhouse anymore.
Regards,
Huub
Scott, we are trying to raise 11,000 USD, to keep both servers running. So far we have received 5,900 USD. The .com server with the library needs quite some bandwith and we have had some problems with the hard-disks which needed to be replaced. And sad enough, a part of the money is of course already gone to Paypal before it arrives at the SOH.
I can see the amounts just above the indication bar. I think you should be able to see it as well.
Cheers,
Huub
I can see the amounts just above the indication bar. I think you should be able to see it as well.
Cheers,
Huub
Daube
SOH-CM-2026
My donation should be done now. Please let me know in case something went wrong.
For info, there were two attempts from me, the first one was aborted because I needed to update some info in my Paypal account. I received the confirmation MP from Ickie nevertheless.
The second attempt must have been successful though.
PS: in 'My Contributions' above the progress bar, I can see two payments. There was only one in reality. Only the second one was really executed in Paypal.
I think that's a small glitch in the SOH part: it registers the payment as soon as you jump to the Paypal webpage, but it does not consider if you really executed the payment in Paypal or not.
For info, there were two attempts from me, the first one was aborted because I needed to update some info in my Paypal account. I received the confirmation MP from Ickie nevertheless.
The second attempt must have been successful though.
PS: in 'My Contributions' above the progress bar, I can see two payments. There was only one in reality. Only the second one was really executed in Paypal.
I think that's a small glitch in the SOH part: it registers the payment as soon as you jump to the Paypal webpage, but it does not consider if you really executed the payment in Paypal or not.
big-mike
SOH-CM-2022
Huub,
you and the staff at SOH should probably think about other ways to keep SOH alive.
I always made my donation and this year i was normally not able to do so.
I am not very active(my poor english),but i am here every day to keep me informed.
During the past year i was retired,because i`m so sick that i cannot work any longer and the money i get is more than a shame,i need social help now.
But SOH gives me so much and i have learned so many things and i understand that there is no free lunch anywhere.
I really hope that SOH will be online for another year.
Mike
you and the staff at SOH should probably think about other ways to keep SOH alive.
I always made my donation and this year i was normally not able to do so.
I am not very active(my poor english),but i am here every day to keep me informed.
During the past year i was retired,because i`m so sick that i cannot work any longer and the money i get is more than a shame,i need social help now.
But SOH gives me so much and i have learned so many things and i understand that there is no free lunch anywhere.
I really hope that SOH will be online for another year.
Mike
Mike, I understand your concerns. We have discussed other options already many times. One of the options is to close the .net server, which is used as our back-up and on-line flying server. As we would like to host flying events and have a lot of members who enjoy on-line flying this is an option we haven't chosen so far.
An other option would be sponsorship. This raises two questions: Who is willing to invest the needed amount of money in an independent forum and are there sufficient commercial parties willing to invest money in a shrinking flightsim world?
As said so far not even 6% of our "active members" have donated something. With the amount of members we have it crowd-funding really shouldn't be a problem. I think the main challenge is to make people aware that when we don't succeed to raise the money, the SOH will end.
Cheers,
Huub
An other option would be sponsorship. This raises two questions: Who is willing to invest the needed amount of money in an independent forum and are there sufficient commercial parties willing to invest money in a shrinking flightsim world?
As said so far not even 6% of our "active members" have donated something. With the amount of members we have it crowd-funding really shouldn't be a problem. I think the main challenge is to make people aware that when we don't succeed to raise the money, the SOH will end.
Cheers,
Huub
JensOle
SOH-CM-2023
Or as a more drastic move, make access to the site/part of it dependant of a donation. Then there would be no free rides and if SoH really matters people will need to donate in order to get access.
The problem is all the people taking a free ride here and not helping out. Many pays large sums for addons, but a donation for their favourite sim site is rather difficult. If everybody saves one or two addons and spend the money on the SoH I'm sure we had not had this discussion.
For me it was an easy decision to support my favourite FS site even if I'm currently living on a student income. Priorities.
The problem is all the people taking a free ride here and not helping out. Many pays large sums for addons, but a donation for their favourite sim site is rather difficult. If everybody saves one or two addons and spend the money on the SoH I'm sure we had not had this discussion.
For me it was an easy decision to support my favourite FS site even if I'm currently living on a student income. Priorities.
Reply...
JensOle,
The problem with that argument is that if you look at the readme files for a lot of the downloads, it is specifically noted that those uploads are forbidden from being hosted by a website that requires payment for downloads. To do your suggestion, I would have to comb through every file in the library and remove all those files which stipulate such a demand.
That is especially true with CFS2, where I work and play.
JensOle,
The problem with that argument is that if you look at the readme files for a lot of the downloads, it is specifically noted that those uploads are forbidden from being hosted by a website that requires payment for downloads. To do your suggestion, I would have to comb through every file in the library and remove all those files which stipulate such a demand.
That is especially true with CFS2, where I work and play.
"Donate if you can?" shouldn't make people feel guilty but aware, dear Daube. Nothing more. But the amount of freeware and good advice you can get here, is priceless.
Cees