Paying the server rent

[Yukar9]

Several people have expressed interest in helping pay for the server. Now, the only way of donating we've had is via Bitcoin, because that's very easy to setup, but unfortunately not that many people here use Bitcoin.

Several (possibly all, I think) of the people who've expressed interest in donating have stated that they use paypal. I don't personally use paypal, but if it is the case that a lot of people want to help pay for the server via paypal, I might consider setting up an account for that.

Currently the server costs 18.74 euros a month in hosting, plus the tiny fees for the domain names (which we'll ignore for now.) My idea was that people can sign up to cover a month's costs. So for example somebody might sign up for December 2015, and then some time around the end of November they would send 18.74 euros to pay for the month of December.

I've created a small page on the wiki where people can enter their name for any months they want to pay for. So far it's non-binding, just to see how many people would be interested. If enough people sign up, then I'll reset the board and let people sign up for real.

There will obviously be no reward for donating, except that you are legally allowed to call yourself King, Galactic Emperor, or The One Honorable Giver of 18.74 Euros for the entire month for which you paid the hosting.

Finally there are two things I want to make clear. Firstly this is not really necessary, if nobody wants to give anything then the server will continue running just fine. Secondly, I do use the server for several non-server related activities, such as hosting my personal website and email server, among other things. I would continue to do so.

[morl0ck]

I'd rather have a $5 recurring monthly payment than $20 all at once for one month. But yeah, a Paypal account would make that convenient.

[Yukar9]

Well the problem with recurring payments is it wouldn't hit the exact cost of the server, the reason I'm proposing this it that it exactly hits the cost of the server each month, which would make it a lot simpler to manage.

[MisterStrawman]

Signed up for November. And no one who donates is going to be bothered if we overpay a little, if we go by recurring payments. Eventually we'd get an extra month in, or for all I care, go buy yourself a pizza or something.

And I expect to be opped as thanks for this. Sincerely, The Honorable King Galactic Emperor Beneficent Giver of 18.74 Euros for November.

[morl0ck]

Yeah, why not put any extra toward the next month? Or put it toward your other bills. I really don't care what you do with it.

[Yukar9]

Ok, so how much would people be willing to give in recurring payments, monthly?

[morl0ck]

Just pm me the paypal link and I'll put in for $5 a month, that should help right?

[Yukar9]

Well sure, but on it's own it's not really worthwhile.

[MisterStrawman]

I think the idea is to have a few people doing it. With 5 people paying $5/month, that should more than cover the cost (even assuming the Euro gets a little stronger compared to the dollar), and if the account gets more money than you know what to do with, maybe upgrade the server, or even just hold it for months in advance. If this is to be non-binding, it's certainly possible that someone will drop out of the recurring payments, or if we do the month-by-month thing, sign up for a month and then not pay. Yes I know in that case you'd just end up paying it, but it would sort of work itself out if there were already that much extra money.

So for now, I say you should see if you can get enough people doing the recurring payments, then if not, do monthly volunteering and re-visit the idea sometime in the future.

[Yukar9]

I agree, we just need more people to agree to a monthly thing then.