Finances
Hosting our own game servers, website, and forums is not a cheap endeavor to say the least. The cost of bandwidth, hardware, and space is enormous. The cost of the website and forums is funded completely by the contribution of one of the founding members, Kramerika. However, the costs to host our own game servers and VOIP servers on rented resources is funded entirely by the enerous contributions of the members of this community and also through donations from outsiders.
A contribution is not required to be a member of this community, but it does aid in furthering the cause of continuing to have the resources to host game servers. Contributions and donations should be made without expectations and should not be considered payment for any service or privilege in return except that it collectively benefits us all to pitch in so that we can continue to have complete control over our own game servers. If we do not share in this responsibility, we will lose this ability, but this community would still live on in the website and forums and with a continued focus of playing online games with friends.
Our resources include rented game servers as well as a 20-client Ventrilo server through Branzone. Having these resources supported by our own contributions assures us that we will always have a place to host our own game servers that we desire.
Our finances are reworked during the month prior to each of the four quarters of a year (3-month periods): January-March, April-June, July-September, October-December. The official fund-raising months of focus would be March, June, September, and December. On the 1st of each of these months, a thread is established for the upcoming quarter and pinned in the members-only forum. A running record of the current account status along with bills, contributions made by members, donations made by outsiders, and payments made for that quarter is kept there. Contributions made during the months of the current quarter will be applied to the next quarter unless the current quarter’s finances have not yet been resolved.
We prefer that contributions be made primarily via PayPal and in multiples of $5/month (i.e. $15, $30, $45, $60, etc.), but members may also make them via a money order (send a note to the financial administrator for more information about this or any other questions). Contributions can be made by members here in US dollars, and those who are not members can make donations here. Members should be sure to note the service charge table on the contribution page in the Treehouse to add the additional PayPal service charge so that we end up with whole numbers for the most part. All contributions and donations are non-refundable.
To put $5/month into perspective, think about how many movies the average person will see in one month's time. One 2-hour movie costs well over $5 today, yet many of us play online games a much greater amount of time over the course of a single week, much less a month. The more who are involved in this venture, the lower each person's individual contribution becomes. At least $5/month to share the burden of providing a steady set of resources to host game servers that we can completely control should be well worth the small investment from each of us.