United3dArtists Archive

Donate to keep U3DA alive! The donate button is on the front page.

GOAL $296
COLLECTED* $62.87 (Nov. 25)

We need $286 by July 2014 to renew the hosting for 3 years.
We need approximately $10 for Paypal processing fees**.
The domain name has been paid for.
There may be tax too.

* Amount available after Paypal fees.
** Paypal charges 20 or 30 cents plus almost 3% on each transaction.

The money goes into my business account so the charge appears as "Alamo Pulse" on credit card statements.

Donate to keep U3DA alive! The donate button is on the front page.

Generous support! Thank you!

GOAL $296
COLLECTED* $254.77 (Nov. 27)

Goal Reached!

GOAL $296
COLLECTED* $312.73 (Nov. 28)

Thank you! How appropriate that the goal was reached on Thanksgiving day.

I will use this to pay for 3 more years of hosting. Any extra will stay in the account and be used for the next extension of U3DA's domain and hosting.

Thank you big spenders!

Fantastic! Now I feel cheap having only donated 10 euros...

Thank you too, little spenders!

I'm glad we made the goal so quickly!
Where else can you have so much fun and receive so much abuse for so little money?
This site deserved to continue because of the fantastic group we have here.
Great job everyone!

WOW! Thank you everyone for your generous support! That was FAST!

U3da's hosting extended by 3 years. Now expires on July 7, 2017. $26.53 remains after paying that bill. I'll ask if Prodigy wants that for more domain name time. Else it will go toward the next renewal for hosting.

Prodigy, sir, please read your PM's. The domain name will expire on May 21, 2014. I have some donation money you can use to extend it.

Finis,
I shot Prodigy an email about your PM

Domain Name: UNITED3DARTISTS.COM
Registry Domain ID: 1556476458_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com
Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com"
Update Date: 2012-05-22 08:53:12
Creation Date: 2009-05-21 09:40:38
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2014-05-21 09:40:38

Thanks Steinie. The forum software emails me when I get a PM. Prodigy should set his account here so that notice goes to an email address he checks.

I talked to Prodigy on facebook, he is noted and sends his regards. He'll renew the other one promptly as far as I know.

Thanks Draise.

Prodigy has some money donated already for the renewal so he doesn't need ours. Finis is to keep our donations for the future.
We should be good for another three years.

Our hosting must be renewed by July 7, 2017. Hostgator raised prices and this time it is $358.20 for three years. There is $20 or $30 left from the previous donations.

Your credit card statement will show this payment going to Alamo Pulse (business I tried to start).

Hostgator's "baby" level hosting costs as much or more than my business level hosting at MidPhase.

The domain name expires May 21, 2017. Prodigy and possibly another guy have access to the GoDaddy account. http://www.whois.com/whois/united3dartists.com

Finis I just sent you what I can.....

Thanks V3rd3. We have about a year but the cost is more this time so the donation drive will be soon.

With several free forum hosting sites available why concern ourselves with having to pay for a forum? Does paying for it make it any better? I have free forum and it allows for posting images and files up to 5megs. Allowed Attachments include COB, SCN, and several other file types; I can also add new file types in the settings options. Just food for thought I guess. Greetings to all btw. Leroy. Freeforums.org

Steinie,
I just read (again) your post from back in 2014...

You had me at:

"I shot Prodigy"....

Free Forum Comment section...

"I think if you read a little more carefully you'll see that everyone decided to pay for hosting and set up a real forum on their own.

I did, getting company's like this to host your forum is a recipe for disaster, especially of you want to succeed.

The way freeforums works is that they simply create a system in which it is impossible to leave, they outright refuse to allow you to take your forum with you if you decide to go somewhere else, as they have a ridiculous 5mb maximum for databases, any larger and they won't move it. and the only way to remove their ads or their slimy user sign up page that tries to get you to give them your cell phone number will cost you large dollars each month, where as having a company like hostgator.com host your forum costs about $70 a year, to stay with free forums and be add free or have your own ads will cost you HUNDREDS each year. it's a scam so unless you are hosting a forum just for a few friends, it's just not worth it.

not to mention the massive amounts of downtime and network slowdowns they constantly experience, it's just way too frustrating and annoying to do business with them, i tried, and it was a terrible experience. And to compound things, their support just don't care. They know you can't leave."

There probably are some usable free forum or free hosting places out there depending on what you want to do. For free hosting I had thought about wordpress.com. The deal is reasonable and there are some big websites there. There are converters to go from phpBB to bbpress. Not sure bbpress works there.

An old saying, "nothing is more expensive than something that's free". Free computer/web stuff often comes with with advertisements (I don't object to ads that aren't too bothersome) and/or sneaky stealth things like profiling you to sell your profile/info., or the service is funded by wicked people. The free places usually have stricter limits that paid places. One limit is that you can only do one thing (forum, etc.). They might have control or influence over your content where things that don't agree with their viewpoint are suppressed, censored, or deleted (facebook, reddit, twitter, youtube...) Migration of our existing content to another system could be a problem.

With paid hosting we have few limits. With rare exceptions our host is not concerned with our content. Speed, security, customer service, available features, ... we get more than a free place offers. We can use wordpress, ruby on rails, joomla, even hand craft our own site, many options. We can make many websites with our account. The front page/site and the forum are separate entities. The forum does not need the front page. The front page/site could be a large website with thousands of pages. We can have ads that pay us, sell things ... be a commercial enterprise. We could upgrade if needed: we are on the "baby" plan.

That said there are better paid hosts. Once awesome Hostgator was bought by a company that owns many hosts. Service quality has decreased and cost increased since then. There are better hosts. We could move to another host with better service.

So, what do the forum members want? Maybe that should be discussed. (Not in this thread please. This is for donation announcements and discussion.)

Site Cost Status

Deadline July 7, 2017: Our hosting with Hostgator must be renewed at a cost of $358.20 for three years.
Deadline May 21, 2017: Our domain name with Godaddy, our "dot com", must be renewed at a cost of about $16 per year. There are probably discounts for three year renewals.
We have $64.67 in the treasury.

The donation button disappeared along with the front page. I'll put one in a members only post soon. I think having it in a members only post would prevent unknown non-members or scammers using the button and causing trouble and we don't need a front page, website, for the button.

Clintonman was interested in maintaining the previous front page. A front page explaining and promoting the forum could encourage new members to join whether or not a donate button goes there.

Treasurer Needed

Who wants to be U3DA treasurer? After this renewal I want to pass the treasurer responsibilities to someone else. Anyone want to volunteer?

Site Cost Donation Drive 2017

Goal: $189
We Have: $188.02

Goal Met! Thank You! I'll donate the pennies left and the tax if any.

Do what you want but I ask that generous big spenders wait to give time for little donations to cover the cost. It is better if more members are owners or participants in keeping the forum going. Big spenders can rescue us later if there isn't enough as the deadline approaches.

Deadlines
Hosting deadline July 7, 2017 but best to have it in May to move to InterServer before we expire at Hostgator.
Domain name deadline May 21, 2017

Costs Covered
Three years hosting at InterServer $144
Three years domain name at Godaddy $45 (3x yearly price, may be cheaper for 3 years)

There will probably be tax too. InterServer moves one site for free but there may be unforeseen costs associated with that.

Miscellaneous Information
- The donations go into my personal PayPal account. I'm not using that account for anything else during the donation drive. Donations are tagged so they won't be confused with anything else.
- The costs above are based on moving the forum to InterServer.
- "We Have" is the amount available to spend after PayPal fees (2.9% + 30 cents per transaction).
- Do not check the "recurring" box that may appear on PayPal.

Treasurer Needed
Who wants to be U3DA treasurer? After this renewal I want to pass the treasurer responsibilities to someone else. Anyone want to volunteer?

@Clintonman, you were interested in maintaining the previous front page. After we move to a new host do you want to make a new front page or site and be its admin? Does anyone else want to do that?

Yep, I'll do the front page.

One year domain name at Godaddy $15

Shouldn't we just buy domain name for 3 years too?

Domain Name. Don't know what I was thinking about one year. The donation goal has been adjusted appropriately for three.

We might get cheaper domain registration from InterServer. They note "Discounted Domain Registration" for $1.99 per year as part of the standard package.

Your help: someone ask InterServer about that $1.99 registration. Can we move it from Godaddy to them and get that price?

Donation button is in earlier post.