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2019 AVEN Fundraiser


Snao Cone

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2 hours ago, Kimmie. said:

EDIT: and another thing I think could help the campaign is to have a more detail list on where all the money will go with the cost of every detail writen down. Then I guess people would be more open with donating money.

This bothers me. I care about the forum being up, and so donating to help ensure it never has to go down is something that would interest me. But with the way the fundraiser is set up, it looks like every donation is just pooled together, and you don't really have a say in where your money gets used.

 

Bluntly put, I don't give a ... about chat, and I wouldn't be very happy if the site and/or forum were to end up going down in the future due to a lack of funds, with my money having been spent towards a new chat instead of being spent towards keeping the forum alive. And I wouldn't be very happy either if my donation ended up not being necessary to keep the forum alive, and the site owners decided to just use my money for a new chat. I'd donate towards necessities (which for me is keeping the forum alive), and new features are a luxury, not a necessity.

 

I respect that many others would like a new and functional chat, and they have every right to want to donate towards making this a reality, but I'd be much more interested in pitching in to help keep something I care about online and accessible, than adding new features that I don't even want.

 

(As far as conferences go, I'm not strictly against helping make those happen, even though I would never get to attend, but I just don't have the disposable income to justify putting money towards that right now, whereas the forum has a direct impact on me and it's in my best interest for it to remain online.)

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I know this have been up before but i don´t remember the outcome, Is it possible to maybe add some ads system or a "premium payed account system"? or will the cost for impement that be higher than what the income will be?

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3 hours ago, Ammy said:

Bluntly put, I don't give a ... about chat, and I wouldn't be very happy if the site and/or forum were to end up going down in the future due to a lack of funds, with my money having been spent towards a new chat instead of being spent towards keeping the forum alive.

Not addressed to Ammy, but this is why chat users have been super upset and even stopped being active on AVEN. They all donated for the last two rounds (I definitely did) but still the team haven't been bothered to spend $125 out of the $5000 for upgrading the chat (and we were promised that) and we are stuck with crappy chat. Super upset is a mild term that I am using here. We actually feel deceived, ignored and treated like unworthy beings.

 

Not just that, the team has failed to make a simple banner for chat which would help people find chat. Making a banner doesn't cost $, it can be done right there.... just below the fund raiser banner you see on top. This too has been requested repeatedly. Many chat people are such introverts, they make no posts in forums and won't even bother making a post to ask if chat still exists. 

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2 minutes ago, Chihiro said:

Not addressed to Ammy, but this is why chat users have been super upset and even stopped being active on AVEN. They all donated for the last two rounds (I definitely did) but still the team haven't been bothered to spend $125 out of the $5000 for upgrading the chat and we are stuck with crappy chat. Super upset is a mild term that I am using here. We actually feel deceived, ignored and treated like unworthy beings.

 

Not just that, the team has failed to make a simple banner for chat which would help people find chat. Making a banner doesn't cost $, it can be done right there.... just below the fund raiser banner you see on top. This too has been requested repeatedly. Many chat people are such introverts, they make no posts in forums and won't even bother making a post to ask if chat still exists. 

I think there would be merit in separating costs for simply keeping the servers running and costs for adding + maintaining new features into separate fundraisers, and ensure that the money being donated actually goes towards what the donators want. Regardless of the reason why someone wants to donate, they should be able to ensure that the money goes towards what they want instead of being used for something else. And like @Kimmie. said, if the details of where their money would be used were known, people may be more open with donating.

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4 hours ago, Ammy said:

Bluntly put, I don't give a ... about chat, and I wouldn't be very happy if the site and/or forum were to end up going down in the future due to a lack of funds, with my money having been spent towards a new chat instead of being spent towards keeping the forum alive. And I wouldn't be very happy either if my donation ended up not being necessary to keep the forum alive, and the site owners decided to just use my money for a new chat. I'd donate towards necessities (which for me is keeping the forum alive), and new features are a luxury, not a necessity.

Keeping the site up will always be the priority. My understanding is that the two go hand in hand. From my understanding, the new chat system that the techies are looking at isn't actually that expensive in itself as far licensing costs go. However it is likely to increase the overall load on the server. Hence this fundraiser is really all about[1] ensuring the stability of the server, including when we add a new chat. Thus it's pretty difficult to separate the two.

 

[1] With the earlier caveat that any extra we have, over the server costs, would be used to fund ace conferences and other vis-ed activities, if applicable - which isn't likely.

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1 minute ago, michaeld said:

Keeping the site up will always be the priority. My understanding is that the two go hand in hand. From my understanding, the new chat system that the techies are looking at isn't actually that expensive in itself as far licensing costs go. However it is likely to increase the overall load on the server. Hence this fundraiser is really all about ensuring the stability of the server, including when we add a new chat. Thus it's pretty difficult to separate the two.

Fair enough. Personally I'm glad that keeping the site up is the priority, but in that case promises about new features such as a new chat shouldn't be made unless the admins are absolutely certain that they will be able to deliver on those promises. Those who have donated to previous fundraisers with the expectation of being able to have a new chat are understandably upset when the money just goes towards other things and they never actually get the new chat they wanted.

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Again, I'm not one of the tech team but my understanding is that the principal problem with getting a new chat is the matter of integration with AVEN's software. They've put in a lot of research to even find compatible candidates and it'll take a lot of work to perform the integration. But they'll do it because having a better chat is important to many of us.

 

I looked at the previous fundraiser and I can't find mention of chat in the fundraiser itself. The fundraiser said the money was to be used for the AVEN server, which is exactly where it went. There was some discussion later on in the thread about chat, but the fundraiser itself was never about requesting money for chat as far as I can see?

 

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2 minutes ago, Ammy said:

Fair enough. Personally I'm glad that keeping the site up is the priority, but in that case promises about new features such as a new chat shouldn't be made unless the admins are absolutely certain that they will be able to deliver on those promises. Those who have donated to previous fundraisers with the expectation of being able to have a new chat are understandably upset when the money just goes towards other things and they never actually get the new chat they wanted.

I don´t know if GoFundMe supports this but is it poosible to add stretch goals? like everything up to a certain amount goes to make the servers keep runing as they are and everything over that adds new features?

 

I am just trying to make the fundraiser to take up speed. Becaue the goal is loooong away.

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15 minutes ago, michaeld said:

Again, I'm not one of the tech team but my understanding is that the principal problem with getting a new chat is the matter of integration with AVEN's software. They've put in a lot of research to even find compatible candidates and it'll take a lot of work to perform the integration. But they'll do it because having a better chat is important to many of us.

 

I looked at the previous fundraiser and I can't find mention of chat in the fundraiser itself. The fundraiser said the money was to be used for the AVEN server, which is exactly where it went. There was some discussion later on in the thread about chat, but the fundraiser itself was never about requesting money for chat as far as I can see?

 

In all honesty, I hadn't looked at the previous fundraisers, I had just assumed that what was being said was accurate, so I apologize. It does look like the expectations were misplaced, but putting myself in the shoes of someone who really cared about the chat, I can understand the frustrations, at the very least. And in the case of this current fundraiser, a better chat does look to be advertised as something which resembles a promise, so I'd hope that working plans have been made and that there is a guarantee of a better chat happening if the goal is met.

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@michaeld Is there a date when the money has to be in?

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@Ammy - yes I feel we are definitely committed to adding a new chat at this point, if we have enough money to ensure the stability of the server. There is still no cast iron guarantee because there may be some unforeseen technical problem that precludes chat integration, but it's certainly not the expectation.

 

@Kimmie. - our server bills are monthly, so I don't think there is a hard deadline in that sense. It's always good to have security though, to know we're covered for the foreseeable.

 

Thanks everyone who has donated - or has helped spread our fundraiser!! :cake: You are all amazing!

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5 minutes ago, michaeld said:

our server bills are monthly, so I don't think there is a hard deadline in that sense. It's always good to have security though, to know we're covered for the foreseeable.

Okay for when i look at the old fundraiser it took 18 months to raise 4,632 usd. So that do not sound that promising and a bit worrying that the goal will not be reached to be honest.

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50 minutes ago, michaeld said:

I looked at the previous fundraiser and I can't find mention of chat in the fundraiser itself. The fundraiser said the money was to be used for the AVEN server, which is exactly where it went. There was some discussion later on in the thread about chat, but the fundraiser itself was never about requesting money for chat as far as I can see?

I again kind of feel ignored, just like the last time. If you had followed the link I posted in one of my last post, it would have taken directly to the promise that was made. Why waste time on hard-to-please donors right? Yup, I know the fund raising logic (Doesn't matter that I have donated both times in the past). Nevertheless, here is the link again and I am quoting as well, in case anyone misses it-

"I can say this for certain: when we reach our funding goal, I'll purchase the license and upgrade chat. It'll be a last-ditch effort on an integrated, official AVEN chat client, and I hope it succeeds in solving everyone's issues. If people still have huge issues by AAW next year, we'll see what replacements may exist and, if none do, we'll have to retire our official chat." -Coleslaw

 

Not only the funding goal was reached, but it exceeded..... still couldn't afford that $125 for chat. Very misleading! :huh:

 

 

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This forum have helped so much so it is not more then fair for me to do the same when it needs help. I really hope that is is enough. 

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15 hours ago, Kimmie. said:

 

 

And a honest question if the money is as tight as you say,  would it not make more sense to remove features instead of adding them? 

 

EDIT: and another thing I think could help the campaign is to have a more detail list on where all the money will go with the cost of every detail writen down. Then I guess people would be more open with donating money. 

I'm not sure what features we could remove? We're already pretty bare-bones, with only a forum and a semi-functional chat. Do you mean we should remove the forum, and stick with the home page?

 

10 hours ago, Kimmie. said:

I know this have been up before but i don´t remember the outcome, Is it possible to maybe add some ads system or a "premium payed account system"? or will the cost for impement that be higher than what the income will be?

I promise you, we'd end up with porn adds. Since the word "sex" is in our URL (www.asexuality.org), then all the bots assume we are a site about sex. I've heard stories from Coleslaw about getting emails offering money to put up adds, but they've all been porn sites.

 

Coleslaw and the whole team has worked hard to keep this place add-free. I don't know for sure (and this would have to be a really shitty situation to make us consider this), but I suspect we'd rather let the site break down slowly than to add advertisement functionality. Even if we don't sign a contract with a porn company directly, any "smart algorithm" that decides what adds to display will try to display sex adds. This would quickly and efficiently alienate a large chunk of our membership, a chunk that already feels alienated by the rest of the internet.

 

So I'm afraid it's not likely that we can get add revenue or have premium accounts :( At least not in any way I can think of.

 

7 hours ago, Chihiro said:

I again kind of feel ignored, just like the last time. If you had followed the link I posted in one of my last post, it would have taken directly to the promise that was made. Why waste time on hard-to-please donors right? Yup, I know the fund raising logic (Doesn't matter that I have donated both times in the past). Nevertheless, here is the link again and I am quoting as well, in case anyone misses it-

"I can say this for certain: when we reach our funding goal, I'll purchase the license and upgrade chat. It'll be a last-ditch effort on an integrated, official AVEN chat client, and I hope it succeeds in solving everyone's issues. If people still have huge issues by AAW next year, we'll see what replacements may exist and, if none do, we'll have to retire our official chat." -Coleslaw

 

Not only the funding goal was reached, but it exceeded..... still couldn't afford that $125 for chat. Very misleading! :huh:

 

 

I'm under the impression (and I may not have this all technically correct) that this option referred to above ended up not being compatible with AVEN's forum. In the background, we've gone through something like five or six serious options that I know of, and each of them has failed our needs.

 

I know we said that if that didn't work, we'd just give up and have no chat. I guess we're not very good at giving up. Now, for the chat services that I know of that we're looking into, an additional cost is the cost to host them ourselves, which we need in order to be able to moderate them. That's an additional non-negligible monthly cost, though we don't have a good idea exactly how much that would be until we test it and see how much uptake there is on the chat. When can we expect to be able to test it? No idea, it depends on so many things like when this fundraiser reaches what goal. Keeping the forum online at all comes first, including the computer-based chat that we have now.

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2 minutes ago, Heart said:

I'm not sure what features we could remove?

Basically everything on the forum that is not Education and visibility. (so jff, arcade and so on)

But that is a last thing. That i hope will never happen. 

 

 

4 minutes ago, Heart said:

So I'm afraid it's not likely that we can get add revenue or have premium accounts :( At least not in any way I can think of.

Okay thats to bad. But I guess that is expected. 

 

I have donated by the way and I am ready to donate more if it is needed to keep the forum up. This place means so much to me. 

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Thank you so much @Kimmie. :cake: Members like you remind me why I put so much work into this place.

 

I hope this picks up momentum as time goes on. It's only been a day or two, it sometimes just takes time :) I also haven't donated yet, and I definitely plan to! I made an honorarium recently for speaking at a local ace conference, so when that comes through I'm just going to put a hug chunk of it straight into here. The other chunk will go to my local ace community :) 

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1 hour ago, Heart said:

The other chunk will go to my local ace community

A local ace community?  things like that exist? 

 

And you are awesome by the way to put your income back in to the community. 

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9 minutes ago, Kimmie. said:

Basically everything on the forum that is not Education and visibility. (so jff, arcade and so on)

But that is a last thing. That i hope will never happen. 

I hope that will never happen as well, because I think the sociability of the forum here is one of the biggest factors in how a sense of community is established among the asexual and grey population, as well as allies. We would not be as big of a community or as far reaching as we are without that element. The chatroom that used to be part of the forum was also very good at that, which is why it's still part of the overall goals for the site to maintain a functioning chatroom. There have been barriers to that, unfortunately, but those are much more complicated than keeping the social side of the forums running. 

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5 minutes ago, Kimmie. said:

A local ace community?  Those things like that exist? 

 

And you are awesome by the way to put your income back in to the community. 

Yes, and ours in Vancouver is actually one of the biggest! We started right here on AVEN, in the meetup mart, just over 10 years ago. Since then, we've evolved and now we have a Facebook page, a Meetup.com page, and we have partnerships with local organisations that let us use their rooms for meets... it's crazy. We're even going to march for the first time in our Pride Parade this year :D

 

You live in Sweden according to your profile? I have visited Sweden several times and I love it deeply. I'm planning another trip there next summer, to visit a different friend of mine. We should see if we can get some Swedish aces together and have a meetup ;) 

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53 minutes ago, Snao Cone said:

I hope that will never happen as well, because I think the sociability of the forum here is one of the biggest factors in how a sense of community is established among the asexual and grey population, as well as allies. We would not be as big of a community or as far reaching as we are without that element. The chatroom that used to be part of the forum was also very good at that, which is why it's still part of the overall goals for the site to maintain a functioning chatroom. There have been barriers to that, unfortunately, but those are much more complicated than keeping the social side of the forums running. 

I was thinking that because AVEN main goal (as in its name)  is for education and not being a social media . And if it is necessary to strip the forum to ease the servers than that is a no brainer for me. But I do agree the social part is what makes this place so great. 

 

53 minutes ago, Heart said:

You live in Sweden according to your profile? I have visited Sweden several times and I love it deeply. I'm planning another trip there next summer, to visit a different friend of mine. We should see if we can get some Swedish aces together and have a meetup

That would be great but I guess it would not be many people at all. 

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1 minute ago, Road said:

Have you considered using a site like Patreon to get consistent monthly donations?

I would be up for that! 

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Keep in mind that Patreon takes 5% of all the earnings. You'd be better off just having PayPal and setting up a recurrent monthly donation towards AVEN's PayPal, which only takes 2.9% + 30¢ per donation.

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1 hour ago, Kimmie. said:

I was thinking that because AVEN main goal (as in its name)  is for education and not being a social media . And if it is necessary to strip the forum to ease the servers than that is a no brainer for me. But I do agree the social part is what makes this place so great. 

 

That would be great but I guess it would not be many people at all. 

*really, really hopes it never comes to this... I'd rather donate more myself :P Half my social life is here or came from here in the first place! :cake:

 

 

19 minutes ago, Ammy said:

Keep in mind that Patreon takes 5% of all the earnings. You'd be better off just having PayPal and setting up a recurrent monthly donation towards AVEN's PayPal, which only takes 2.9% + 30¢ per donation.

Yeah, we've (mostly people other than me, so thanks a huge amount to those people!) have put a lot of thought into how to collect money so that the most of your money as possible gets to us instead of other companies.

 

I'll bring the suggestion of paypal to the board though. We actually have one of those set up with my local ace community, and it's been really nice and useful.

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38 minutes ago, Ammy said:

Keep in mind that Patreon takes 5% of all the earnings. You'd be better off just having PayPal and setting up a recurrent monthly donation towards AVEN's PayPal, which only takes 2.9% + 30¢ per donation.

Well i deleted my PayPal account awhile back so that is not for me then unfortunately. 

2 minutes ago, Heart said:

Half my social life is here or came from here in the first place!

I would say atleast 80% of my social life is on here.  So it would be devastating if it had close down. 

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2 minutes ago, Kimmie. said:

 

I would say atleast 80% of my social life is on here.  So it would be devastating if it had close down. 

Then let's not close it down ;)

 

We'll always find a way to keep the servers online, I promise. At least while I have a say in it,  and I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. Remember, the servers have been up for long before fundraising became a possibility. This effort is in part to ask those of the community to help when they can, so the burden is spread out more and doesn't rest solely on the shoulders of a few people to pay for everything. Any donation, no matter how small, is appreciated!!!

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7 minutes ago, Heart said:

I'll bring the suggestion of paypal to the board though. We actually have one of those set up with my local ace community, and it's been really nice and useful. 

Isn't there already one for AVEN? It's in @Homer's signature, and there even already is a checkbox for making it a monthly donation (it even accepts Credit Card for those who don't have a PayPal account!)

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2 minutes ago, Ammy said:

Isn't there already one for AVEN? It's in @Homer's signature, and there even already is a checkbox for making it a monthly donation (it even accepts Credit Card for those who don't have a PayPal account!)

Huh, interesting! I didn't know we already had one :)

 

Also, this is a good reminder to @Homer that their signature has an old gofundme link. Might as well update that now to this one ;)

 

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By the way, re: Patreon: there's actually a ~5% transaction fee on top of the 5% cut that they take, so with Patreon, AVEN would only receive ~90% of the money. Which is even worse than I initially thought.

 

Edit: Patreon also has another fee, for taking the money out of the Patreon. Which makes it even worse, haha.

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