You've probably noticed the button at the top, just wanted to give some info on it. Well, aside from the fact that it's a donation button, I don't think I have to explain what it is.

This forum script used for U-P is from Invision Board, a group which gives away it's board software while selling support and extra features (such as integrated IRC chat, portal options etc). When this board started in 2002, Invision Board was new, but in the past two years it has become the second most popular board script on the web. Recently, without warning, Invision Board chose to discontinue their free 'unlimited trial' board software, when most people had been using various beta versions of their version 2 software. This board has been running on various 2.x betas for most of the year.

Now, the only options to be able to upgrade to a more stable, bug free and more secure forum script is to pay for a license, and the tactics of Invision Board has me pissed off (the management at IB guarenteed that the final v2.0 software would continue to be free two months before they reversed this policy). As a result, I'm going to switch this forum to vBulletin software, which is more popular and robust than IB.

Back to the donation button...vBulletin costs 90-160 dollars, depending on the license chosen, and I don't really want to waste that much. As a result, I'm hoping a some of the regular members here could throw in 4-5 bucks through the Paypal link. It's purely voluntary, and I don't want to use ads under any circumstance; I find even Google text ads on msg boards to be an eyesore, and can't stand to have one here (besides which, I'd be lucky to generate 1-2 bucks a month through that).

The conversion/upgrade will eventually occur (probably in January) regardless of donations, but I would appreciate any donations at all to help with the licensing costs (server/hosting/domain costs aren't an issue). You don't get any privileges for donating, only recognition, and good karma directed towards directing Natalie Portman under your covers one day. If you do choose to make a donation, could you include your U-P username in the extra field through Paypal, so I can make a list of people who've donated.

Regards,
Sastan

I'll see if I can scrape together a few bucks.

IIRC, isn't VBulletin $90 for one year and $160 for unlimited?

Yes, the one year license means you have to renew or close down the boards after a year, the unlimited license gives you one years worth of updates, with updates after that at $30 per year.

So how much do you need Joy? If I donate the whole amount, will the front page honour my name for the next few months?;)

Thanks, but I wouldn't feel comfortable with any one person paying the whole amount. Now that you mention it, I think there should be a cap of $US10, so noone feels it necessary to donate too much.

BTW, are you still in the nightclub business? Whatever it is that's giving you gray hairs, quit now while you still have hair at all. :p

Have you lynched GWB or something?

I'll see what I can do; I should be able to pay some.

Another important question...when you complete the conversion, what will become of our old posts?

If everything goes fine, then they should still be here. That's the reason I'm waiting until January to switch forums; if anything goes wrong with the conversion, then at least there won't be significant downtime during summer/winter vacation (depending on where you live) when a lot of you will probably have more free time to post here. BTW, who are you?

Libertarian; I requested Jacen that he change my name to whatever he felt like changing it to whenever he felt like it. If you are gonna become the main admin again, then feel free to have your way with my name as well.

This post has been edited by Big Brother: Dec 2 2004, 03:06 PM

is there a non PayPal way to donate? Mail a check or something?

If you promise to stay, oh holy Joy, I will pay whatever amount you want.

Give us back our Joy! :(

There is always a little Joy in us all, it can never go away.

zkajan, for small payments cheques aren't really worth the hassle, I do appreciate the though though :)

Just wondering, why did you disappear?