User talk:Dusti

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Orain's FIRST donation drive!!

As many of you may have seen, Orain has been undergoing some significant changes. To be frank, we've outgrown our current home. With 288 communities, 1,000+ users, and sites like All The Tropes growing daily - we're beginning to look at the long term future of the project. With current funding levels, we can last four more months after we upgrade to some new servers. Our last server change wasn't that long ago, yes, but it was done to improve the overall stability and functionality of the site.

We've launched an Indegogo campaign to raise $5,000 to accomplish a couple of things:

• We would be able to move to a stable, secure, short to mid term server that has the capability to not only host us now but continue hosting us even if we grow significantly
• Begin the process of investigating solutions that include us purchasing our own private servers
• Begin working on expanding our current abilities and addressing some of our limitations
• Developing some extensions, widgets, and potentially a mobile application to improve the end-user experience
• .. and finally being reaching out to other mid to large size communities and bring them into the Orain family.

To increase the likelihood of donations we've included some incentives that we'd love to send out including t-shirts, hoodies, blankets, and some new userrights - Donor and VIP which will come with their own individual perks.

We appreciate your generosity and look forward on continuing to offer a fun, free, collaborative community for all to enjoy.

For the staff -- Dusti 08:00, 5 January 2015 (GMT)

My apologies on sending this out again, the first messages had an error

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From the indiegogo page: "we're paying roughly $65-$80 a month for our hosting services. That cost is going to double as we move to accommodate our current community and the amount of traffic that our communities receive."

So, you need $160 a month to handle the bandwidth costs as the number of page hits and wikis increase? Will that get you through the next year for sure without buying equipment? I need some firm numbers to pass on to possible donors. 160 times 12 is $1920. So if I find someone to donate $1920 we are good to go for a year? I actually prefer ads to donation drives due to the fear that donation drives engender in me that another wiki farm is going to have to fold due to lack of funds and volunteers. --Timeshifter (talk) 09:14, 10 January 2015 (GMT)

The cost change will increase after we have brought new equipment but that is basically what it will become likely towards the end of January. John (talk) 14:47, 10 January 2015 (GMT)

Thanks. Are you currently paying to rent other servers and bandwidth? Or do you have some of your own servers? And another question: Is it wise to use your own servers? The number of wikis can grow past what your hardware can handle. Why not pay some big intercontinental hosting company instead, and let them worry about the hardware end, and bandwidth spikes coming from all over the world. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:13, 10 January 2015 (GMT)

Currently we do not rent servers, Orain is ran purely on visualization options. The plan is to buy our own servers which can be physically labelled with Orain and taken where we want without any limits. It is wise to use our own servers as the price of hosting our own servers is less than dedicated servers but we remain full control and are not restricted by technical limitations. The number of wikis can grow past our hardware indeed, which is why we will have emergency fail over plans + procedures to get new hardware online once identified. We have considered the last option however the prices break even (just more for paying others) but we are restricted what their policies on what we can and can't do - most of which, I want to do. John (talk) 15:19, 10 January 2015 (GMT)

To answer your question @Timeshifter: - the funds will secure hosting for at least a year, yes. What our goal with the full amount of funds was to secure hosting for a minimum of a year or more while we investigate our ability to purchase our own servers to lower the overhead cost. Thank you for helping to get some donations for Orain. If you have any questions, @John: and I would be more than happy to answer them. Dusti^{*Let's talk!*} 15:29, 10 January 2015 (GMT)

I hadn't thought of owning servers, combined with a fail over plan for additional servers/visualization/hosts/bandwidth online as needed. I guess it is like owning a house versus renting. If done right, ownership is cheaper. But getting the initial necessary money is a problem. I wonder if Wikimedia is still giving away old servers. Or businesses. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:09, 10 January 2015 (GMT)

Some ideas. I suggest putting a link in the sidebar on all pages: "Donate to Orain". Also link to it from the indiegogo page. That way I and others have a more detailed and updated info page I can point possible donors to. Many donors will have questions. So the talk page can be used for that. This thread might be moved there. For now I guess I can point to your talk page for more info and questions.

I support all wiki farms. They each seem to have different focuses and advantages. I think the donation only path may be difficult for a wiki farm offering different extensions for each wiki as Orain does. That requires more skilled volunteers. I assume it is difficult enough to find a skilled volunteer or two just to maintain a basic wiki farm with a standard set of extensions and features. You might consider offering ad-free wikis only to those making above a certain size yearly donation. That donation might have to be larger depending on the bandwidth needed for that wiki. In any case thanks for all your efforts! --Timeshifter (talk) 12:30, 11 January 2015 (GMT)

I've added a link to the sidebar here, thanks for that. I'm against ad-free wikis only for those who donate yearly. While we maybe will offer a feature to add ads on your wiki to support us, this will never be a requirement, and that if you want a wiki here with no ads, you can have one. Southparkfan (talk) 15:31, 11 January 2015 (GMT)

Thanks for the quick sidebar link to the donations page. I did not know of that page. --Timeshifter (talk) 17:36, 11 January 2015 (GMT)

SHA-512 committed identity hash

Hi. The long hash number is messing up your user page on my monitor currently set at 1600 x 900. The table and text extend past the edge of my screen. The text for the hash is set in a large text size. Set your screen resolution to 1600 x 900 to see the problem.

One solution might be to put the hash in a collapsed table:

Hash number --
32E9351A1ABFA745207703FFFFAB57476C50C6709E1FFA44E9B4AC99FBAC6E2EFC969EC82C3F24D45410201FA2EF7AEB075C703F8EE99E96F671A09BC11FCBC8

But then the collapse button also goes past the edge of the screen.

An easier solution is to remove the hash from the table altogether: 32E9351A1ABFA745207703FFFFAB57476C50C6709E1FFA44E9B4AC99FBAC6E2EFC969EC82C3F24D45410201FA2EF7AEB075C703F8EE99E96F671A09BC11FCBC8

Then only the hash text extends past the screen edge. This works for all screen sizes. Even on tablets, etc.. --Timeshifter (talk) 07:33, 6 January 2015 (GMT)

Optional ads and social enterprises

I like the idea of optional ads for some wikis. I would like ads on my wiki. That is how I can contribute. I don't have any money right now unfortunately. I found this:

• http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:Advertising_extensions

I helped write up some ideas on optional ads in this Wikipedia essay:

• Funding Wikipedia through advertisements

I especially like the idea of semi-profit benefit corporations, and social enterprises. This would allow raising money in more ways. --Timeshifter (talk) 07:44, 6 January 2015 (GMT)