So, just a follow up. According to matt, we got around $2,000 USD right now in the PBC overnight, and there are still more payments processing. I paid the Linode bill this morning. So, funding problem: solved. We should be set for the foreseeable future as far as money goes!
Seriously guys, you stepped up, and I am thankful. Since I'm here, a quick update on what's going on: Right now, we're mostly just waiting for paperwork to go through as far as handing the site to a newly-created, not-for-profit. It's slow work and I'm not directly involved, but I've seen that there has been a fair number of articles on the subject so I'm pretty happy that everyone is aware of what's going on.
I could write more, but I think I'm going to keep this short and sweet for now. Once I have a final total, I'll post it.
- N
Addition: We have been asked if people can donate anonymously without having an account. The answer is "Yes". Click the subscription link and then make a gift subscription to another account (It defaults to NCommander but you can choose any account). Pay via stripe using an anonymous username.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Thursday March 07 2024, @09:40AM (10 children)
Over the last 12 months or so various staff have been asked "why do you bother?" or have been told "Just let the site die".
The answer to the first part is YOU are why we bother. The response to NCommander's plea 48 hours ago has been overwhelming and to be honest exceeds what anyone was expecting to see. I had no doubt that we would get the support to reach $500 but the current total paid in as I write this now stands at $3500.19 net. And I expect that there are still some more donations to be processed. You are amazing. 'Thank you' is not sufficient to express how grateful we are, but they are the only words that I have at the moment. So, again, Thank You!
Secondly, if anyone had doubts about the amount of support that there is for this site (with its numerous problems, technical debt, warts and all) then this response and the comments to NCommander's previous Meta those doubts have surely now been dispelled. We have our usual detractors who say that the site is outdated and pointless, and to them I would say if it isn't to your liking then either join the staff and help change it, or leave us with our best wishes.
The staff, like the community, has been decimated, especially over the last year or so. We will need additional volunteers when we get to the new site particularly in the sys-admin area. We have a challenge ahead of us but not one that we haven't overcome before and I am looking at that task with more confidence now than I had a few days ago.
I don't care how much you donated, I don't care if you are unable to donate anything at all, you are all welcome in this community as long as you let others enjoy being part of it as well. Insulting or abusing each other is not what we are about. Reducing discussions to childish squabbles is not what we are about either.
Your participation and comments are what makes this site what it is and I think that most of us realise this. The supporters far outweigh the detractors. Let's keep it that way. I will do my very best to ensure that the site continues into the future while spending as little of your money as we possible can while doing so.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ls671 on Thursday March 07 2024, @10:02AM
No problems, we are all always glad to help!
Everything I write is lies, including this sentence.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by acid andy on Thursday March 07 2024, @12:41PM (5 children)
I was feeling like crap this morning, physically and mentally. Thinking it's really hard to do anything of much positive significance.
This story and your comment made me feel much, much better. Thank you for all that you do and to all the rest of the staff and community. You're all awesome! :)
Welcome to Edgeways. Words should apply in advance as spaces are highly limite—
(Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Thursday March 07 2024, @01:13PM
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2024, @01:15PM (2 children)
Another two cents worth, I woke up to (electric) power failure, more common in my specific neighborhood (a few dozen houses) than the surrounding area. No storm or other obvious reason, I think we're due for an equipment upgrade from our utility. We never get much info on how long it will take to fix, so I spent the last hour or so wondering if I should jury rig the AC inverter to the car again. It's big enough to keep the fridge running and power up the gas boiler (house heat -- it's about freezing temp outside this morning).
Anyway, once power came back on, the "modem" and routers came back up and then I saw this SN article and post. Feeling a lot better now!
(Score: 3, Informative) by mcgrew on Thursday March 07 2024, @07:33PM (1 child)
My dad was an electrical lineman. He said most wintertime outages are from squirrels crawling inside transformers to get warm and electrocute themselves.
It is a disgrace that the richest nation in the world has hunger and homelessness.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 08 2024, @09:44PM
Could be, but all the squirrels in the neighborhood seem to be in my back yard this year. It was a clear sunny morning when the power went out and the squirrels were running all around the yard.
We used to have a hawk and recently I've seen another, so we may be on the cusp of a small rodent population crash.
(Score: 3, Touché) by turgid on Thursday March 07 2024, @10:13PM
Chin up, old bean!
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by OrugTor on Thursday March 07 2024, @05:01PM (1 child)
The amount given is certainly impressive but it underscores the low subscription performance before the crisis. The community needs to do a better job of financial support ongoing if it wants to avoid a repeat of the near-death experience.
Huge thanks to janrinok, NCommander and the staff for getting us through these trying times.
(Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Thursday March 07 2024, @05:54PM
To be fair, we had asked the community to stop making submissions because we all thought that the handover would have been accomplished far more quickly than has been the case. Historically, we would have a push every 6 months (organised by Martyb) to collect subscriptions to get us through the next 6 months. We usually achieved it although it was up to the wire on occasions.
I agree that in a perfect world subscriptions would be flowing in more evenly but I think that is down more to human nature than anything else.
Finally, it might be NCommander and myself getting the headlines but I would like to thank everybody both on the staff and in the community for their support. Certainly on the staff side of things there are more people involved than you might think. From the community perspective, it is those people who are making submissions that has given the staff a bit more time to look after the reorganisation. And without the discussions there would be no reason to have a site at all. Many people contribute in some way or other.
I am happy to be where we are today although there are a few more hurdles to overcome before I can sit back and take a break.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Thursday March 07 2024, @05:43PM
How are you going to admin the new site?
I only have three decades of relevant experience but I also have decades of experience shitposting and I could see people feeling weird about me having root, much like I'd feel weird if theoretically "he who shall not be named" had root. That's because in ye olden days you'd run stuff by hand or good old Puppet or slightly less geriatric Ansible.
However, in the current year, it's all about gitops, deploying K8S 'stuff and containers' via git after automated unit testing etc. So nobody needs to feel weird about so and so having root if they don't have root they just toss github/gitlab/gitwhatever merge requests that fix bugs or feature requests and virtually no one on the admin team 'has root' anymore.
Just tossing out the conceptual idea that might theoretically raise microscopically more volunteer assistance.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by pTamok on Thursday March 07 2024, @02:34PM
From someone who is (hopefully temporarily) hors de combat [wiktionary.org], thank you to all. I like it when nice things happen, especially when a group of people coöperate to make it so.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Thursday March 07 2024, @05:53PM
Here's my modest proposal to make money off "advertising".
Yesterday I bought a one-month subscription in honor of our dear departed buddy MDC. And that's just fine. However, I have another way to fundraise a couple bucks that is intriguing to consider.
MDC is already present in the existing list of quotes at the bottom of the page. Which right now for me reads "How long does it take a DEC field service engineer to change a lightbulb? It depends on how many bad ones he brought with him." Obviously a survivor of the 80s VAX era, but I digress.
Someone with an infinite amount of spare time could write an auction market or similar fintech such that I could bid $4 to promote an existing MDC quote to the bottom of the page for a day/week/month or "X-zillion impressions" or whatever. Someone who doesn't like that could outbid me, theoretically, I suppose. Or they could toss in their own $4 to promote the same MDC quote.
It's "advertising" in a sense, but only advertising quotes already present in the quote file. Of course, we'd have to make sure nobody adds quotes containing current corporate advertising slogans. No interest in seeing "I'm lovin it" at the bottom of the screen advertising stuff that technically isn't even food, although Google's "don't be evil" with the "don't" crossed through would be minimally funny.
Probably neither my best idea nor my dumbest idea, but it is a mildly interesting to think about idea. I guess now that I'm getting old enough, I'm turning into the "good idea fairy" that everyone hated when we were young admins/programmers, LOL.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jon3k on Thursday March 07 2024, @06:25PM (3 children)
Would be nice if you maybe put a donation bar in the site header that showed donations against some target? It would help me remember when and how much to donate.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday March 07 2024, @07:34PM (2 children)
There is one that lives on the right hand side of the page. We will have to reinstate it.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 4, Informative) by pTamok on Thursday March 07 2024, @08:48PM (1 child)
It is actually still 'visible' if you look at the site with the 'links' browser, but 'somewhat' out of date.
Funding Goal [soylentnews.org]
For 6-month period:
2022-07-01 to 2022-12-31
(All amounts are estimated)
Base Goal:
$3500.00
Currently:
$438.92
12.5%
Covers transactions:
2022-07-02 10:17:28 ..
2022-10-05 12:33:58 UTC
(SPIDs: [1838..1866])
Last Update:
2022-10-05 14:04:11 UTC
--fnord666
(Score: 2, Insightful) by oregonjohn on Thursday March 07 2024, @11:51PM
I remember that now. I liked the thermometer. I don't have a lot of money but when it is obvious a little from me would go a long way toward a goal I would make an extra effort to contribute.