The most important Forum Post ever

oogber wrote: if SWM does run ads, please don't run adblock

Okay, that's a fair point.

oogber wrote: Well, if they are flash ads, I would block them. So I guess I have my limits too.

While I never say never, I would say that ads are probably not in SWM's future, unless they are specific ads/links to pre-selected genre content (e.g. PSW, Cult Retro, AC Comics, KAK, etc) meant to help facilitate the genre

ElF

hi all,

An update on what has been going on.

Lfan and I welcome all the comments that have been posted in this thread, the offers to support the site has been gratifying to say the least. Lfan has been looking at how we work the money side of things and he is currently looking at Patreon as the means of collecting the donations but that might change if he finds something better to our needs.

I've been looking at the options for the server and the costs attached.

At the moment there are a number of server packages out there that will fulfil our needs, I’m working on whittling them down to the best for us, the biggest issue that we are having is most hosts have a AUP (acceptable usage policy). The AUP for most of the host would not allow our site this is due to the content of the material and I’m not talking about the nude pics that have been posted, but the stories as well, some would ban us for the violent content of the stories and others for the sexual content of them as well, so the number of hosts that I can look at is small to say the least.

The new host is going to be either a traditional VPS or a Cloud VPS. My preference would be with the Cloud VPS as it gives us a lot more bang for our buck and also it would allow us to be able to change the server specs quickly allow me to shape the server to best suit the site needs.

I'm not anticipating that we will be moving to the new server until the end of July, this is to allow me to find the best package , for Lfan to get the donation system up and running.

There is a lot going on in the background at the moment and it's important that we get this right, to rush it and go with the wrong package could be a disaster for the site and it's one that I don’t want to do.

If anyone has a host that they feel could be good for our site or have come ideas on hosting, or any questions please feel free to post them here.

Fats

As Fats said, we cannot thank everyone enough for the support and comments. Fats is looking into the technical hosting end of thing, but I thought I'd mention what we are considering from a donation standpoint and how that money will be spent:

WHERE WILL FUNDS GO?
======================
-- We are considering a considerable hosting upgrade which will hopefully relieve us of those pesky outages. Without going into details, our current host has changed their support policies internally (I have been told) which makes "recovering" from the outages much longer and far more frustrating to get their "approvals". With the new hosting package, we aim to eliminate this and have enough BW and processing power for possibly other features (e.g. IMs) that we were forced to abandon previously. Our goal is get enough contributions to fund this, which right now is looking at around $60 per month (more on this below *)
-- Some of the collected funds (overflow hopefully) will go into our reserves to use in case the contributions drop off so much they do not cover the monthly costs. I currently pay for the monthly hosting but I simply cannot pay for a higher hosting package on a regular basis. Having a reserve will help cover losses -- in the short term if the contributions dry up.
-- The rest of the contributions -- if we have a windfall -- will be used for a content bucket that I will use for prizes for "workshop winners" or "hired content". Rather than commissioning artists for the workshop winner's prize, we'll probably elect to give out cash prizes via paypal. In addition, I want to run some "themed galleries" like I did at SGI. This would require getting artists to "buy-in" and participate, and to do this, we need to make the prizes attractive. Otherwise, artists see contests as simply a ploy to get free commissions (which I understand). However, if the prize is enough (e.g. $150), it might be worth their time. My hope is we get some great ubergirl artists to participate. I've been talking with some members who regularly commission artwork (e.g. TwiceonThursday) and they they have been a great help and resource and will help (hopefully) to recruit artists via their contacts. Keep in mind, it might take months to build up the reserves enough to do this, so I see this happening maybe twice a year (subject to change though). Other content ideas we might use the money for are audio stories or maybe video content we publicly commission.
-- To reiterate, 100% of the money collected goes to the site. Whether it be hosting, software costs, commissioning, or something else. None of us are getting "paid" with money we collect for our time
-- To also reiterate, 100% of the site will be open to users whether they contribute or not. Commissioned content will be made available for everyone, not just the contributing members. We see SWM as a community and, as such, are hoping we all share the contributions and burden$ to some extent.

HOW WILL MONEY BE COLLECTED
============================
-- Based on the feedback, I think I'm gonna setup a Patreon account for monthly "contributions". It is a cool way to be a monthly supporter and will help us see what is budgeted before we have to act (again, see below *). Keep in mind, no donation is too small (or too big) and Patreon doesn't lock you in. You can cancel at anytime.
-- In addition, we will have a one-time paypal link for one-time contributions. We understand fully about people's real life situations and understand people simply cannot spend money monthly on this. Again, nothing too big or too small......

* WHAT IS YOUR BACKUP PLAN
==========================
To be honest, both Fats and I are a little nervous with the financial burden of a larger hosting commitment, and while we are encouraged by the responses, we understand things could change. As in, the contributions dry up and we are short every month on the hosting costs. As I said before, I cannot personally give more than I currently do, so we feel we need to plan for this nightmare scenario so the site doesn't have an extended outage (and we are locked out) for not paying our bills. Therefore, as part of the $60 monthly cost, we are paying for a scaled down hosting package (probably at the current host), in case we have to fall back to that. This will prevent us having to look for and hire a new host (which is a pain in the ass) if things go south.The cost of this redundancy will probably less than $10 of the $60 monthly cost. If we see after 6 months that we're basically in the clear and contributions are healthy enough per month, we'll probably be comfortable with getting rid of the backup host.

Well, that's the tentative plan, which I hope answers some questions people might have. If you have any comments, please email us or post them here. Thanks again to everyone for their understanding in this.

Peace,
ElF

just a quick update, I have a paypal system in place on the site, just need for lfan to get the paypal account up and running, and I’ve got the hosts narrowed down to 3 just waiting for reply to emails that I have sent and things are looking promising.

Fats

VagabondEye wrote: Would you accept occasional donations via anonymous bit coin transfer? There is getting to be so much security hassle with PayPal lately it takes me an hour to convince their machine via scanned ass-print that I'm me and I STILL don't trust PayPal with my credentials any further than I can throw them. I've seen they have public, explicit agreements with the Feds (NSA etc), so I'm left wondering why anybody uses them for this sort of personal item.

The idea on Bit Coins is a good one, I’m going to look in to it as a another donation option, I cant say that we are going to accept them initially but it might be something that will do after a few months.

Fats

d_k_c wrote: What about having content that you pay for on here? Obviously stories and pics should be free. But what about videos, graphic comics, picture comics like those on super sexy heroines before it went down? People all over the world submitting content, which obviously will have to meet our standard, no peril etc etc, and swm sells it and takes a cut.....say 50%.

Also I think if you want to increase membership. Shut down content to those who are not members. I'm pretty sure I can access everything without even logging in....even vote, forums being the exception. Lock it down.

I've now "locked the site down" so you need to be logged in to access the libraries and galleries, it was something that i need to get done for some time that has been put on the back burner.

Pay to access content is something that i can put in to place a t a moments notice (once we have moved) again like Bit Coins it might not be something that we put in place initially but it is something that we can put in place if the membership requests.

Fats

castor wrote: I would comment that i wouldn't like locking off the stories to only members.

I have contributed a fair number of stories, and i did it on the assumption they where freely available. if you had to pay to get them that violates i think the implicit contract there. I realize no ones making money here, but yeah. Frankly making them only making the available to just members in general kinds of bothers ne,

I don't mind the montly contribution idea, or even advertising just keep the stories free.

the libraries are free and will always be free.

the changing of the libraries being only available to members rather than being available to the public is going to be an experiment to see what impact that has on server usage and visitor count

fats