By my count, I think you reached your goal, John. I don't think 26 will be the end, either. Good idea.

'bout damn time you let us kick in a few bucks to help John. :)

Why are so few of the Moderators helping with this?

Some of us are waiting to hear if we got a job.

OK, you get a pass carnation. Others?

Are you judging participation based on a member's display of an avatar? Or do you have access to the list of folks who've joined?

:rolleyes: (because there is no smiley for RUDE, which is what that question is, and you can't convince me otherwise).

That is not how you inspire people to donate.

I'll see about getting one or more alternatives to PayPal setup soon as I'm sure there are some who prefer using other payment processors.

Yes, I got back into this thread to post an update on that. We have this immediate fundraising need covered. We're a few hundred past the 750 at this point.

Going to order the drive adapters today and also the hard drives if they are in stock. Provantage.com has the best price on the drives & I purchased from them before, so I'll give a call to see how soon they will be available again. Newegg had them in stock when I posted this thread, but they were out of stock last I checked.

I'm very hopeful that subscriptions keep coming in, though. I'll do whatever I can to continue earning the support on GC's behalf. Truth be told, I'm in the red with GC by a significant amount. Still trying to pay off CCs that I used to finance GC operations and it would be really nice to finally have a clean slate with all this.

Thanks, Kevin. I know you and quite a few others have been offering to help with the costs for years. Around 4 or 5 years ago I held a fundraiser which raised about $500, which helped a bit, but I should have setup this subscription system long ago. Seems I waited too long, almost to the last minute, to ask for help. So far the new subscription system appears to be working out well. If I can manage to earn continued support from new subscribers (by continuing development of GC, providing a nice set of bonus account features and by providing great tech support for subscribers) I think it has the potential to be really great.

My two cents...Moderators earn there keep with their service and shouldn't be chastised for not contributing.

And a democratic process for selecting moderators - including rotating them in and out every 18-months, two years or so.

Sorry, John, I feel you on what you're trying to do, and I am sure you'll get the support you need, but I can't donate until there's a process in place to retire moderators and recruit new ones.

ETA: And I am not a mooch, I have paid for advertising here before and probably would again. I am speaking as a user, not a business owner.

And the rush mods win the blue ribbon for their incredibly fabulous service during August and September!:D:D:D

The financial support is needed and much appreciated, but I really don't want to see GC subscriptions cause any friction between members. Please let this be a no-pressure thing. :)

Anyone who can subscribe will be thanked for the help and they will receive the account bonus features for doing so, but I do appreciate everyone who is here on GC, including members, subscribers & even the website guests without a GC account.

GC would not be manageable without moderators, so obviously they are a really big help to keeping this community operating well. But everyone can be helpful in a way, whether a moderator, subscriber or general site member. Being active on GC creates new content on the site, which helps to keep other members and visitors interested. That in turn creates a cycle of increased activity & interest in GC. Anyone who wants to help outside of subscribing can also spread the word simply by telling a few friends that GC now has bonus account features for subscribers.

Anyhow, let's keep this no or low pressure as possible & just have fun with it. Big thanks to everyone who is helping out no matter how you are doing so! :)

I also believe this is very important for the GC community. We did have somewhat of a democratic process in place including nominations along with review by the current mods team, but it's been a very long time since any of that has been done. Even years ago I was thinking about ways we could make very good improvements to this overall process.

However, that all takes time which I could no longer afford to give so much of to GC. If the level of GC subscriptions exceeds my expectations, then I would certainly be able to spend a serous amount of time working on the site sorting out every issue & developing new features. Even at a lower level of continued subscriptions it would enable me to consistently spend at least part-time work on the site which would also be overall quite good. For a while now the time I could offer only allowed for server maintenance, software maintenance and the most urgent issues within the forums, but hopefully that will be able to change in a good way.

I thought this account was yours but wasn't sure. Did you lose access to your other account or just having some fun with this one? By the way, thanks again for your previous advertising purchase.

I can dig it.

Just wanted a fresh start. :)

no pressure
 

John, it's your show, so I'm cool with that.

I come from a non-profit fundraising background where the staff and volunteers are supposed to lead the way with donations with 100% participation.

I'm glad the response has been good.