First, thanks to everyone who has donated to ADDForums! I just dropped into the Donation section and was pleasantly surprised to see all who have donated! Thank you very much and I can assure you that the funds are going towards upgrading the site and equipment. (More on that in a minute)

While adding features I found a hack for donations that gave those who want to donate credit for their contributions. I have emailed the author of the hack/mod and asked if we could get some additional features such as anonymous donations (for those who might want to donate in that manner), and especially for an automated system where it would add something to members postbits like we used to have for "awards". (Which I am also trying to get resurrected in our new version)

So Why ask or allow for Donations?

These is a lot that I/We would like to do to enhance ADDF and keep with the newer technology available today. I'm not complaining at all but a lot of this isn't free.. Simple hacks are often found for free but things like Photo / Video Galleries, live chat, vBulletin membership, site graphics customization, and especially hosting are not.

On the note of hosting, I've been able to get away with piggy-backing ADDForums on dedicated servers paid for by another larger community that I own that brings in enough revenue to pay the server bills, but together they are starting to max out resources at peak times, and if there is an issue, it can take down the system and both sites.

My server admin has been pounding on me for a while to add at least one more server to the system for both redundancy and performance. I need to do this in the next couple of months, and will one way or another, but any help from the membership are obviously welcome and appreciated.

For those of you who want to know what and how much, the new server is a smaller RAID server than the one I purchased 2 years. Its cost is a little over $3,000. (The one I bought 2 years ago was $6,400) Time and tech improvements has made the new one as processor powerful as the previous one I purchased 2 years ago, for much less $, but the original server has very nice 15k SAS hard drives (6 of them), redundant power supplies and much more. It will be converted to a dedicated database server and connected to the new server which will be utilized for web (http) work, some backups, etc. Both will run RAID 10 arrays and give us a lot of room to grow in all areas. What does this mean to ADDF? Even faster page load times, and much better "up time".


I just thought I would share with those who may be curious what any donations coming in will be utilized for, and thank those of you who already have!

Thanks!
David

PS. As soon as an Awards Hack becomes available (or I may pay someone to create it) we will add that again to the system and do our best to import the old data. In addition, those who donate will (once the hack is added) have a "Supporting Member" or "Contributing", or "Donating" (ETC) icon added to their post bit, for starters.

P.S.S. If you are interested in donating, there is NO minimum (that I am aware of) that you must donate. If its a dollar, that is fine. Trust me! I realize that none of us have money trees!

*Server Spec's attached as a PDF for you techies.. ;)

Thanks for taking the time to explain the donation/expense in detail! In my life outside of ADDF, I deal with fraud and all kinds of contract nightmares. Mostly because there were simply too many blanks people were happy to just sign up for. And that leaves society a little wary to donate or crack out the credit card for things...knowing some specifics not only makes it very clear and real how much goes into the upkeep of a forum this large, it makes us all feel like we are contributing !

This place is a second home for me and has been an endless source of support and education! Nice to know there is another way to help keep it running smoothly!

Hope

Personally I was happy to see they take pay-pal here - This way can donate without my debit card number being compromised - nothing personal against the folks here, my preference is merely a reflection of who I am.

Okay honestly:
If I didn't use pay-pal every craft, jewelry,pet product site on the internet would have my debit card number by now - {did I type that out loud?}