This forum personally costs me about $35 per month to run currently which is increasing as the volume of email messages and bandwidth increases. I am no longer able to justify spending this every month for a number of reasons.
I’m not looking to profit from this site - I just want it to be self-sufficient.
To that end, I have set up a Patron page with a clear goal of how much the site costs per month to run and how much money has been pledged.
If we’re not able to reach the required monthly goal then I’m afraid I will either have to shut down the forum or, alternatively, I’m very happy for someone else to take over managing the server, paying the hosting fees, etc. If you are keen to take over then either reply to this topic, email me or send a private message.
I think this forum is a valuable part of the Xojo community and I hope others agree.
I’d be happy to give a bit of assistance, not as much as I’d like due to a limited income, however before I do so, I’d like to know exactly how this works… I’m hesitant to give any information to a site I’ve never heard from, and there is no indication up front, as to if it is a Credit Card, PayPal, direct account transfer , etc.
There’s an argument to be made for this (since the forum software is much better on the official forum now) but I think many people here value the fact that they can speak out against Xojo (so long as it’s constructive and fair) without fear of direct reprisal.
A fair point. I have never set up a Patreon page myself but I have contributed via their service many times over the years. They have a comprehensive explanation of their billing practices here. As far as I can see there is no way to have a “give what you want option” so I tried to pick a few low points to cover the bases as the outgoings are not huge that need to be covered. You’re billed monthly up front and you can cancel at any point. They have included sales tax. They take 8% of the pledge.
Thanks for chipping in. It could be reduced I suppose by switching hosts and reducing the server size (although discourse is a RAM hog). It’s currently hosted on digital ocean. To be honest, I’m not a backend guy and I don’t have the know how to do a big forum migration when things are working well from a technical point of view right now.
I’ve made sure the amount collected and the monthly goal is clear for everyone to see on the Patreon page so there’s no doubt what’s being brought in. It may be that if enough people chip in we can stop the Patreon and use the money to buy a year of hosting, etc.
There are things Xojo simply wont permit on their forum
Anything critical gets removed or users get banned
Talk of “other tools”
see Forum Guidelines - Xojo Programming Forum
Don’t post links to competitive products, they may be removed at moderator’s discretion.
Discussion of or links to blogs or websites that share privileged or internal Xojo company information (financials, personnel, etc.) is not permitted.
Uncomfortable truths dont mean a person hates the product
There are things I hate about Apple’s software - but I wouldnt say I hate it when compared to everything else
And I file bug reports and ride their case about the goofball bugs they have like Mail crashing if I try to reply when its on the left most screen but not the other two ? I sent them a video of that one
There are things I’ve told my Ford dealer that I dislike about my truck as well
I wouldnt say I hate the truck or the company
Neither however bans me from their forums or actively removes my criticisms
I’ve had at least one reach out and ask how they could make their product better based on my complaints
Its a popular site for funding things like YouTube content creators and other micro-subscription type payments
If you have 1000 subscribers paying to $5 a month thats nice
This is the Walmart model of funding
Lots of tiny payments from a huge number of people
Much like Sam Walton said he’d like to sell a million items and make $1 each instead of sell 1 item and make 1 million (or something like that)
If I wasn’t trying to remove attack vectors from my server, I’d let you host it there. But after having my site hacked multiple times, I’m literally removing all dynamic content. Slow process.
I’m so sorry to jump in late as things have already progressed pretty far. @Garry Maybe I’m the only one who finds it ironic that you’re using Patreon as they’re well known for creator censorship and this forum was created to counter something similar. On top of this, a week or so ago they lost a court case and are potentially on the hook for millions of dollars ($10K arbitration * x number of customers) and they’ve called out this could cause a bankruptcy for them. They’re not fly by night, but the way things have been going with creators getting paid, this might not be a good long term plan.
Maybe you could add another payment option for those of us not inclined to support Patreon? Maybe a yearly Kickstarter/Indiegogo campaign, Gumroad, Subscribestar, or heck I’m happy to just PayPal you some money and skip the middle-people (100% to you IIRC if folks pay with their bank account instead of a Credit Card).
How ironic. I hadn’t seen that story. It doesn’t really bother me as I’m only using the platform to make funding the forum as painless as possible.
Honestly I just don’t have the physical time, free cognitive capacity or spare funds at the moment to put a lot of effort into this problem so I’m looking for the lowest friction mechanism to keep the site running. As I mentioned earlier in the thread - I’m very happy to hand over the reigns to someone else if anyone else is keen to take over. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the community (I think it’s great) it’s just that I’m spread very thin at the moment over many endeavours, commitments, etc.
On top of this, a week or so ago they lost a court case and are potentially on the hook for millions of dollars ($10K arbitration * x number of customers) and they’ve called out this could cause a bankruptcy for them. They’re not fly by night, but the way things have been going with creators getting paid, this might not be a good long term plan.