Donations/Support Needed

Site Admin/Owner Joined: Aug 27, 2002 Posts: 17088

Thanks to all who have helped support this site financially during the month of August. I have reached a little more that 1/2 my needed goal. Whether I will reach my goal or not remains to be seen. And, whether it continues monthly after this too. If I cannot reach this support goal, I will have to look to possibly charging for certain scripts and services that I now provide for free. This is not my desire, at all. But, I need to get closer to a break even point. This needed goal can be easily attained by just looking at some numbers:

The number of visitors/members per month need only contribute like this:

60 x 5 = 300
30 x 5 plus 15 x 10 = 300
30 x 10 = 300
5 x 20 plus 10 x 10 plus 20 x 5 = 300

I understand that not everyone can donate. I just ask you to consider whether the value this site provides is worth 5 or 10 dollars a month? If not, what would make it worth a regular support/donation?

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 12:11 pm

Well, the month of September is now upon us and thank you to those that have already donated! May I be so bold as to remind and encourage all others to please consider seriously what you can do in September and the months ahead? Thanks so much!

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 1:11 pm

Raven,

It's not going to happen. And I say that as one of your biggest Fans.

You simply HAVE to look at introducing several paid scripts. This will fund your future development.

I have been around long enough now to see how the whole open source thing is "envisaged" as working, and whilst I agree that it is a worthy goal. My appraisal and my real life findings are that it does not work.

Continuing to develop for peanuts in the hope of garnering donations is a recipe for disaster.

For all of those people who say "well, we are students, we are unemployed, we are retired, and we can't afford it" then unfortunately it's a commercial world. I'm sorry - but that's how it is. It's up to the developer to make it affordable. Free is not affordable for the developer.

Your father, I am sure, would have much admiration for someone who continues to champion the open source movement and has contributed so much to it's development. But even he, must have wondered, what has driven you to spending such an extraordinary time helping others for so little return.

I am a huge admirer of celebrities and personalities that give their name to a cause because they believe that they can genuinely help that cause and they believe in it. That to me, is a good and worthwhile donation.

However, to quote an old saying, "you can't save a drowning man until you have saved yourself from drowning first" seems perfectly apt here.

My advice to you, and we will remain friends whatever, is to turn your extreme talent into commercial reality, enlist the help of your extremely talented friends to aid you in this endeavour, produce a CMS worthy of it's name and THEN help the community with lesser (but working) versions of your commercial offering.

Once the commercial offering is proven to work and support is seen to be given then you will have a winner surely.

Please Raven, take this opportunity to revolutionise open source. Enlist the help of your friends and make something that you can all be proud of.

Regards
Tony

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 1:25 pm

As always, Tony, I continue to covet your advice and counsel. I do believe that you are correct as to the eventuality of the situation. I alluded to that in my initial discussions on this subject. I am looking at several subscription models and am always entertaining what is that 'killer' script. It's the time element more than anything. Anyway, we'll see how it goes. Thank you once again for everything!

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 2:07 pm

And, out of interest, was your father interested in all of the stuff that you did here?

Edit - I mean can you explain to everyone your driving reasons behind what you do?

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 3:46 pm

My dad was computer illiterate. He retired in 1988 and never really used a computer at all. He taught and supported me in many things, but technology is my forte, not his Smile

I do what I do because I love programming and always have (started in 1970). LAMP started out as curiosity as I was having to get into web programming at work and I needed to satiate my appetite to conquer. Then when I saw all the need out there in this community and others, I kept hearing "I see helpless users everywhere and they don't even know they need help" ROTFL

- Seriously, I enjoy helping people. That is why I started up Raven Web Hosting. It was a desire to offer up secure supported web hosting at an affordable price. Yes, you can always get it cheaper. But there aren't many hosts that provide the level of service and support that you can get here. And I guarantee it will cost you more in the long run. And then I have the greatest support peers here that you will find anywhere, imo. But, to offer web hosting and support at the level that people need requires that I offer great servers and bandwidth, which I do, and that costs. Bottom line, I am still trying to help and keep the costs reasonable.

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 9:35 am

Raven, Mary and I celebrated our 23th anniversary (28 years total) yesterday. You might wonder what that has to do with this thread? Well, we were basically self-employed the entire time. In every area of business, I wanted to reach the maximum profit level quickly, but I realized the first goal is really breaking even. My bride quickly became my financial adviser, which took a very large load from me. I was able to do what I do. She then became my financial manager (taking classes during the entire time), and things went very smoothly. She would propose price increases or decreases. She had everything researched, so the choices became much easier to make.

You first have to break even, even if it means selling some scripts, or creating a ''club'', or pricing support by the complexity of the question or whatever else must be done. A long time family friend, a top notch lawyer and my mother's boss for 40 years gave me some advice that I still hold dear - Never undercharge for work, always get what you are worth. Granted none of us could afford you at your actual worth, but taking a Christian attitude into a business is a great start. Render unto Gaylen....., knowing full well the you are a good steward and help those who need help at a level they can afford.

I feel this is the time to change the open source ideals, and deal with the reality of running a business. I look at the knowledgeable people on this site, and I know I would buy a script from any of them. I think of Chat and the fact that without his ''free'' patches, phpNuke would be in the fertilizer pile. This level of my thought applies to all of the frequent posters in news and forums.

I hope my thoughts contain some cohesiveness, Mary is not here to proof read it for me. Laughing

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 9:40 am

My trusted friend and Member Emeritus,

We've come to know each other very well over these last 2 years and I always value your input. Thanks for your continuing support!

P.S. - Happy Anniversary! Wave

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 2:07 pm

Looking for that killer App?
How about a compre utility that will work with sub folders?
i.e. load phpnuke7.1 in one window, phpnuke 7.2 in the other and it compares every file in every subdirectory (just one click to advance to the next file).
I wonder how many nukers would find that useful?

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 4:51 pm

http://www.grigsoft.com/

CompareIt and/or SynchronizeIt

registered · Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 4:59 pm

http://winmerge.sourceforge.net

Can't do without it Wink

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 9:39 pm

sharlein wrote:

Raven, Mary and I celebrated our 23th anniversary (28 years total) yesterday.

My wife and I celebrated our 13th anniversary (17 years total) today. High school sweethearts even... Wink

Congrats on your anniversary as well Sharlein!

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 9:42 pm

Happy anniversary Smackdaddy and the Mrs.!

Worker Joined: Nov 17, 2003 Posts: 131

I would happily subscribe to a club option, Raven. It would be easier for me to come up with a set club fee, when I can do it, for a quarter, half or even a year. RavensScripts

== only scripts I really trust. I know I am even less than a novice at this, but what I know I've learned here in this wonderful little community.

Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 5:29 pm

I am 'bumping' this as we are half way into September and, as always, I appreciate the support that has already been given worship

For those many others who visit here regularly and dip their beak Wink

, please consider giving back to the support of my site and to the future development and support of NukeSentinel, Nuke and PhP. Thanks!

Client Joined: Jul 13, 2003 Posts: 11

Charging $15-$20 for your scripts isn't asking much, and it's a price everyone can afford.

I'm sure that no-one will mind paying... because it's worth it!

Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2004 9:34 pm

September has seen the donation goal met! Wave

My sincerest thanks to everyone who have joined in the monthly support of this site worship

Only good and better things will come as a result!!

New Member Joined: Mar 20, 2004 Posts: 1

Hey Raven:

I'm pretty much a stumbling idiot when it comes to this php stuff.
Could I learn it? Yes. Should I learn it? Yes. Do I want to learn it? Eh.
I would really love to dive into the technical side of nuke, but I
honestly don't have time. Personally, I'm a writer who runs a website,
not a techie who writes. There's a difference (and also leads into
my point for this topic).

Between work, family, writing my ezine, running my site and generally
having a life, I just don't seem to have time (or the energy...I'm an
old 29...) to keep up with all the technical responsibilities that hound
a web owner.

I would gladly pay to have someone such as yourself on a retainer
of sorts.

I got hacked? "Hey Raven?!"

New patch came out? "Hey Raven?!"

I want a slick new module/block installed? Guess what: "Hey Raven?!"

I'm not suggesting an unlimited usage retainer here, but maybe
a monthly maximum of your time with the understanding that it's
"use it or lose it," meaning no refunds for unused time (because
offering a client peace of mind has value).

Example $50 a month gets a client 5 hours per month of your
time. Six clients garners you $300. I would suggest one, no more
than two, price points as tracking would get tedious.

Considering everytime I need something done, I have to run around
to all the sites pm'ing like a mad man, I'd say there's a market for
this. Could even be developed into a niche in the community for you.
Once word got out, you'd get competition, which would increase
awareness, which would increase the market base. I'm babbling now.

I'm a marketing/finance guy, so I could be way off base here considering
I haven't seen an idea like this around. Maybe there's something I'm
missing. Possibly other aspects of your operations make this model
impossible.

Anyhoo, if you consider it, send me the details and I'll be the first in
line.

Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 6:19 pm

Thank you for this suggestion. Actually, I and a few others have been discussing this for quite some time now. The exact model is not complete but I hope to have an announcement soon!

Client Joined: Jul 18, 2003 Posts: 977

I will be second in line!

Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2004 5:13 am

I am 'bumping' this as we are past half way into October and, as always, I appreciate the support that has already been given worship

For those many others who visit here regularly and dip their beak Wink

, please consider giving back to the support of my site and to the future development and support of NukeSentinel, Nuke and PhP. Thanks!

Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2004 6:32 am

Thanks so very much to all the Raven Web Hosting clients that have jumped in this month to offset some server upgrades scheduled this week! worship

For October only, I am seeking $500 instead of $300. The $300 is a portion of normal operating expenses. The other $200 is 1/2 of the server upgrade cost (and has almost been reached in 24 hours!!!). It will be back to $300 in November. Thanks once again to ALL. There are better things coming for the community and for supporters! I will be revealing more as time allows Smile

Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2004 8:18 am

Raven wrote:

There are better things coming for the community and for supporters! I will be revealing more as time allows Smile

Looking forward to what this pseudo-cryptic comment means! Mr. Green

New Member Joined: Sep 15, 2004 Posts: 13

Mid-November ... looks like we were a tad behind pace so I made my donation. Even thought I haven't been around a lot lately, I plan on being around a lot in the future so I figured pre-donating would be a good idea!

Raven, any change of heart on the paid scripts idea that some mentioned above?

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 12:31 pm

As long as I can make the donations I'm ok.