ups..... please forgive my incompetence..... didn´t notice the "make a donation" thingy...... <BR>:snow slaps :snow with a HUGH trout over and over again :/
Hey Randy, gRAVE asked me to answer for skinbase cause his english is not so good, it´s ok, I haven´t tied him up anywhere ... yet! lol <BR> <BR>Ok, since joining skinbase and ever since the traffic has been increasing rapidly and pretty soon, G-Man will find it very difficult to keep the site online. The truth is, that everyone who cares about the site should try to do something to help out. I have offered to help by providing our own PayPal commerce account cause gRAVE has no facilities with his own bank. But it´s to early to say if these donations will be sufficient to keep the adds away for the members in the near future.
and :snow.. we just put it up few hours ago, and it was done as soon as gRAVE asked me about it, pretty easy to set up really 8)
Can we donate by personal check? or by Money Oder? Me don´t have visa/master card I only have American Express :-(
chichi.. yes, we can just about except any form of payment, just give us a day or two to get some more info on transaction charges and such, and also to set up the facilities. We are looking into it.
Which is preferred, ad clicks or money? <BR> <BR>I typically have 6/8 ad windows open by the time I leave the site and I usually visit once a day. <BR> <BR>But I´ll donate if that would be preferred to ad clicks.
redllar: from my experience adds will prolly pay for the certain percentage of the general upkeep of the site, but they are never enough when it comes to bandwidth. Unfortunatelly, those costs per Mb are the real obstacle for any popular skin site. That is also the transitional period where popular sites run into problems as they have to increase their bandwidth to cater for extra traffic. So we have to look at alternative ways to generate the extra revenue. Donations are at this stage preffered option to a subscription service but it´s too early to tell if they alone will be enough. <BR>gRAVE has so far been taking care of all the costs himself including additional expenses we have to take care off. For example, we have to increase our storage facilities as we are quickly running out of room on our current drive and the old Proc finds it a hard going, so some hardware will have to be upgraded soon. <BR> <BR>So in short, if you click on the banners we will pay our electricity bill.. if you donate money, you also insure that the site stays online and can cater for extra traffic as well as providing administration with extra funds to improve your skinbase experience. In my opinion, any surplus should go towards contest prizes or ´adds free´ browsing experience. We are now also looking at ways to bring you some other interesting member services... but it´s only a start in the positive direction. <BR>I´m sorry for generalising, but I haven´t been involved with skinbase for that long and we don´t have any solid figures to indicate what would be the best option/s at this stage. But I´m sure that gRAVE and the rest of us would be more then happy to take any constructive ideas on board.
Has anything been done so those of us that don´t use visa/master cards are able to donate?
With so many sites online again now, and each and every one of them in need of support, I think a lot of the long-time active members of the community are going to have to start playing favourites......it´s going to get a tad pricey supporting all of the needy. <BR>I personally don´t have a huge income to spread far and wide....and then there is the time needed to keep up to speed on all of the sites. <BR>I for one will have to start playing ´favourites´ and only frequenting/supporting the ´ones-most-likely-to-succeed´. <BR>So many times, I have upped work to a site only to see the database go belly-up. <BR>If you think skinning sites have a rough trot, you should see the LiteSTEP ones.....they have more ups and downs than a honeymoon...;)
Well... me only got one thing to say: The Community is getting to big for it´s own good! <BR>:snow
yes Jafo and what happens to the ppl that donate for a year and the site goes belly up two months later? I´m sure those ones that did donate to keep the site there wont be too happy about that at all... <BR> <BR>If donating would "assure" sites sticking around then more would donate but I don´t see that as the case, cuz some are still saying it´s a day by day thing even w/ donating being readily avail now =/ <BR> <BR>again I guess only time will tell... <BR> <BR>Goodluck! =)
Thanks guys for feedback. I haven´t had a chance to speak to gRAVE about the costs of transactions, which is something he has to find out from his bank. As soon as I know, I will let you know Chichi. The problem is that we still don´t have the details of the costs of transaction and currency conversions in this case. <BR> <BR>I would also like to asure everyone that skinbase will get our full support as an active partner of PixelPrintz. We see a need to provide a long term support to a community site that will also act as our talent nursery and a hub of digital customisation. It is important that we support skinbase and make sure that it remains impartial and fair place for any artist, developer or anthusiast.
Perhaps you could tightly integrate it with Pixelprintz in that there would be an "order" button next to walls and such (yeah I know the PixelPrintz ones are hi-res).
Thanks for the info grim. /me thinks this site is worth keeping around. :)
Thanks for the generous donation Redllar, much appreciated! <BR> <BR>For anyone else that cannot use PayPal facilities get in touch with gRAVE at donate@skinbase.com to discuss other payment options. <BR> <BR>Thanks everyone 8)
