Tip: Test your levels as all forms of Mario that can access it (such as different powerups in your hack, or Yoshi).
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News: Looking for funding
Yesterday, Google shut down our AdSense account, apparently because of "click fraud". This is rather unfortunate since we were already low on funds. We still have our ads from Project Wonderful and the occasional donation, but even after the new server has been bought, we are looking at monthly expenses of around $200 USD, possibly more, which is more than what these sources provide. I have plans to move away from home before the end of the year which means that I would not be able to pay for this myself. I don’t feel that it would be fair if I had to pay this, either, since I already put a lot of effort into keeping this site running smoothly, not to mention that I’m not really into SMW hacking myself. That said, I love SMW Central, and I know you guys do, as well. The latter is actually my primary incentive for doing what I do. But it is a rather expensive hobby and if we can’t find a solution to our monetary problems, I might be forced to shut it down.
If you have Shareapic, and want to help out more, please visit #helpsmwc on IRC.
Lucasedit: This is not a doomsday declaration! The site is not going down immediately! This announcement just means that at the current rate, Kieran will eventually be unable to continue paying for the site. Instead of mourning for SMWC, backing up files, and hating on Google, why don't we try to figure out ways to support the site?
If you all are willing to do stuff like click on pictures and whatnot to get money for the site, just use ShareCash.org. It's a file hosting site that gives some 40 cents+ per download, but it does require the downloader to fill out a survey (easy, takes about 45 seconds if you know what you are doing). I am already hosting a "Deluxe" (It just has a button that says "Thanks for using the deluxe version") version of status effect there. It's been downloaded twice and I have $1.65, so that seems like a much faster way to do it than shareapic. (By the way, all of the proceeds from that are going to SMWCentral)
About the shareapic... how about one of us just makes one account with one picture (that isn't copyrighted and all that other stuff) and all of the active members of the site just click it once a while or so? Maybe an automated PM could remind members here, and the one with the shareapic account could make some code showing how many times it's been clicked? It wouldn't be much annoyance to members here, and would generate more than the chaos here has.
That's pretty much my situation, I still have my account and I only have one pic witch in not copyrighted at all (it's just some plate with worms I ate like a year ago.) The only problem is I don't know how to code something like what you said, but they can see the number of views in the page anyway. If everyone tells they're real life friends to click on my pic I could easly get enought money to make a donation.
I think that maybe merging would be an OK idea if there's a way to keep stuff not as hectic as it could get...
:/ The main problem I see is the security on the other "sites" (if we merge) jeopardizing the system here.
About the shareapic... how about one of us just makes one account with one picture (that isn't copyrighted and all that other stuff) and all of the active members of the site just click it once a while or so? Maybe an automated PM could remind members here, and the one with the shareapic account could make some code showing how many times it's been clicked? It wouldn't be much annoyance to members here, and would generate more than the chaos here has.
I apologise for my comment. Jacob is right, my attitude has become shit lately (his comment was deleted by a staff member so you guys won't be able to view it).
I'm just going to do something about myself before it gets out of hand.
The Jul community has forums for various hacking ventures (the SM64 Hacking Forum headed by VL-Tone comes to mind)and could possibly grant a space to a remnant or migration of the the SMWC Community...
Wow there have been a lot of posts since I last visited. O_O I just want to say/ask a few things.
1. Why are all of these people overreacting? I also noticed marioawesomeness yelled at people for panicking after they already came up with what seems like a long term solution (if all goes well).
2. We should keep track of the money that we are making from shareapic. I have no idea how much we're making so far.
3. I can sort of understand Domiok's opposition to merging and how it might get messy, but that's all if we don't keep things extremely organized. There are TONS of much smaller sites for hacking a specific series (like F-Zero), games from a publisher (like that SEGA hacking site) and sites for programming GBA and NES games. I compared the views of those sites to this one, and the lines for the other sites stayed at the very bottom of the chart. As long as things are extremely organized and seperated by original site/category, then it will be fine. It's hard to explain how we would be able to keep things organized like that, but if I made a site map or something or if there were tags or something for specific parts of the site, then I think it would actually work. I just want all of you to consider it. So far I've only heard one person's input.
I have to confess a fact, many of you guys hesitate a lot.
You make this situation so "huge" that we would need to meet in a conference room to solve this. Also, why so fucking rude all the time? seriously, you dosen't get anywere with your attitude. When I said "you", you know exactly who I'm aiming at.
I tried to do that GPT thing, but when i found out what offers they had, it practically ruined my intentions.
The jackpot things on the site brings in money to the other companies paying for the ads on the site by for example you sending your phone number to some company which sends you a SMS or the likes while draining 10$ worth of money from you each month.
The attitude I have seen in both the users AND the staff is utterly terrible - especially you down there, Blumiere. Rather than bashing the site, rather than flaming each other, rather than kicking up a giant fuss over nothing, why don't you all calm the fuck down for a while?
Seriously, the next comment which I dub utterly shitty or not helpful (or just down right stupid) will be dealt with.
Currently, no one particularly knows what will be done regarding this issue. It is not an immediate problem, as Kieran clearly said; however, it must be dealt with within the next few months. This News post is where we are brainstorming for ideas on a stable source of revenue for the site, not bickering with other users on whose ideas belong to whom. Either share your thoughts on various ideas, or do not post at all here. Thanks.
Can you guys drop it? The shareapic thing is long over now. Some people's account got disabled, some people's account didn't. The idea went down the drain though and there's no need to kick the dead horse.
yeah, you might have, but i was the one who tried to make it organised, you know make a system out of it, and people usually referred to me me about the shareapic plan yesterday i was getting 1 PM every ten minutes about it
Looks like everyone lost they're sahreapic account exept me..maybe because I only had one pic so they didn't notice. I'm not giving up with that idea thought. Everyone, go and tell your friends to click on this pic, maybe we can get somthing.
Originally posted by Bluemiere
I cannot believe how much ALL of you fucked this up. Did you seriously think you'd get away with just embedding images in your posts and not expect shareapic to close your accounts? What you were doing, as said, was no better than click fraud.
I mean honestly how stupid can you guys get. My anger right now at the lack of even a brainwave about how this might violate their rules is just ... urgh.
Seriously dude, if you're just going to stand in the background and do nothing exept saying "You guys are stupid and your stupid ideas won't work" instead of actualy giving any ideas then don't say anything. If you are going to call everyone stupid at least give a better idea first, otherwise you're not smarter than the "stupid guys" with "stupid ideas."
Just because you show extreme selfishness to the events that are unfolding and evidently don't give a shit if the site is taken down no badge will be given out. Do this with good intentions or don't even bother.
No, No, no. Just use somewhat real info on the site. You just need a PayPal account to cashout, and then you can donate to the site with the donate button under the side-menu.
At least we took some sort of action, unlike some people here just saying, "guys that won't work find a way to donate". It was worth a try; I knew it probably wouldn't work, but it was better than just sitting here doing nothing. >_>
I cannot believe how much ALL of you fucked this up. Did you seriously think you'd get away with just embedding images in your posts and not expect shareapic to close your accounts? What you were doing, as said, was no better than click fraud.
I mean honestly how stupid can you guys get. My anger right now at the lack of even a brainwave about how this might violate their rules is just ... urgh.
Kieran, this is risky. But it might work. Remember how your friends said they would continue to pay so the Hannah Montana ads stayed? Well... ask them to do it again. Or, just ask them for cash.
Just as I figured, the ShareAPic idea is going down the tubes. So, people, either donate SOMETHING, or think of a RELIABLE way to save this site. Isn't there ANY free hosting service that can take this site on?
moltensnow, stop being such a pessimist. If I'm the only one left standing, then so be it.
Most people got the thumb in less than a day. I'm going 48 hours strong! So you can shut your piehole if you don't want SMWC anymore. I may have less than 5 cents so far, but if you're gonna give up like that then I don't really know if you love SMWC or not enough to even try to bring it back.
This is the case for most people here, who wanted to back up everything, instead of what Kieran was hoping, that we try to donate.
Although it's going to be a while until I can donate, I'm not giving up. The more you guys click on my pics, the more money we can make for SMWC.
The economy the way it is, I wouldn't donate the money I earn to here on a regular basis. I'd pay for gas so I can get out of the house for archery, and maybe taekwondo. Maybe 5$ here and there but...
It's over... ShareApic is done. All of our accounts were disabled. StripeyDope, you might as well give up. Our were closed, and chances are yours will be closed, too.
@leod: I think Kuribo Shoe's development is just being used as a reference to a point in time (in other words, just some time in the future when it's done) in russsrox11's post/comment.
@Khastvrokg: that's acually a great idea! 30 people with jobs would donate $15 dollars a month and the site is good to go until kuribo's shoe comes along!
Okay I have an idea...but we need users that have jobs in life.
I have a job...
I need more poeple to put my ideas right...
So any users out there who earn money?
Just imagine, 30 users, donate 10 dollars to the site or whatever....am I making sense? Would this idea work? I honestly don't know...it's just an idea.
:/ I have one question to all of the fake invisible image posters (using the line break code, br with the proper > < and /). You know that isn't going to work for anything.
Also a question to those who actually are posting hidden images... how is that supposed to increase the click count?
I can see what you are posting, even in the html code! :\
... :/ My idea for the layout would only work if it doesn't require the clicks...
*facepalm*
You guys understand the thing you're doing with ShareAPic is no better than click-fraud?
Quoted for truth, not to mention that it doesn't look like it'll even help in the long run.
So, could someone think of an INTELLIGENT plan? All a lot of you are doing is making Kieran wish he never started this site right now. CALM THE FUCK DOWN, and use your heads.
[18:27:16] <Snowshoe> also i believe you could use the shareapic url (just upload smwc's banner to it) as the banner override, unless it doesn't accept html files
Mariocool1999: those are not empty posts. Those are people being moronic and putting a line break between every imbed they do for shareapic. They are actually doing something. You are not. Please, cease.
mariocool, you clearly have no idea what is going on, and are obviously just making a large empty post (check the source) just because other people are dong it, without knowing why. It's not helping.
The only reason you are getting a huge wall of blank text is because you are putting line breaks! Look, check the source of this post, no huge blanks! It's not that hard to figure out...
And you can't withdraw any of it until you have at least $20, and ShareAPic can take months to actually get that money into your PayPal account.
All of these online get-rich-quick sites are scams.
Too all the morons making huge, blank posts: You are stupid. You don't even need a blank line for your image code. For instance: I just stuck two imbeds in that spot. Is that not amazing? You don't need such a giant post! Stop trying to be witty and try to be practical for once.
Guys, if you're going to use hidden shareapic files, at least don't make them huge or page stretching. I'm seriously getting pissed off at the lack of maturity being shown here, especially when this news post is on a rather grave matter. You can and WILL be banned if you continue this moronic behavior. This doesn't just apply to the shareapic users either.
It's amazing how "maturely" people can handle things... your life is not going to end. If you care so much about the site, fucking donate and stop bitching.
Sixty cents?! Come on there has to be a better way to make the money...
Maybe if anyone would like to part with a SMW cartridge we could sell it for at least 2 dollars on ebay.
Well. I guess this is it. I really hate to say good bye, but sometimes these things just happen. I wish the devil could've stayed away from here; however, as always... he doesn't. The only thing left to do is pray.
I've earned 0.0081 USD today on Shareapic, its quite pathetic imo.
I could rather go outside and look for coins, then I could got some exercise as a bonus.
I guess it would, would be better to, unless everyone wants a big wall of text. From now on I will just edit this news post.
So instead of some stretched tables, let's make a big wall of blank text.
Chances are it's because of me and all of the rest of the Shareapic people. I have 16 images in 1 post so I make like 3 cents every time someone views this page.
Personally, if I were you, I would not create more accounts in Shareapic. If everyone will be creating accounts, we will never reach enough money we need. Focus on a single profile.
Why are they FORCING you to shut this down?! I do not like those people who force Adminstrators to shut awesome sites down!! Why not call the cops on the people who are currently forcing you to shut this site down and then we can continue our hacking, eh? If this site shuts down, I'll still be hacking SMW. I will use Kuribo as an alternative. But, I'm not happy at Google for shutting down an account just for "Click Fraud"!!
I'm NEVER using Google anymore cuz they shut down ONE of your accounts. Will those people who are forcing you to shut down SMWCentral STOP trying to shut down an awesome site?! Well, if this site shuts down, I won't blame you, Kieran, I'll blame the people who want SMWCentral down....
You know, spamming Shareapic images will make people want to click the images less and less. imamelia has the right idea to show pics like that.... I'll just save my reasons...
Basically: Making huge spammy images will just annoy the life out of a lot of people.
@FUGGNUTZ: I think you might want to double check if that HTML works... if it does I have a decent idea. Have one person with one of those accounts post an extremely tiny pic and slap that pic with the HTML code into layouts. That way any post with that layout will increase click count without annoying people like crazy. If we could make that image "repeat" along the BG then that might grant tons of click counts per post. XD I don't have a sharapic account so I don't exactly know the rules of the accounts though.
@Brad172: A way to make people stop reading what you say is to make long winded sentences by pictures, especially if that site lags. :/ I read all three sentences though.
Prince you have an epic name.
Welcome to "Spam images for charity!" Maybe we should have a large walk along some country. Funding a cure (for lack of server funds)
guys PM me if you have more than one cent from shareapic i want to figure something out! for my plan to work 10 people have to make 24 cents a day. or 20 people have to make 12 cents a day. if you are wondering how this is possible PM me and i will tell you!!!
Wait, you can't have pictures of stuff like Mario and the like? Well, that sucks...I hardly have ANY pictures of any nature that don't have anything like that in them, certainly not ones I'd be sharing on SMWC. Bah. I could have used that site the same way I would have used Photobucket, too...and where the bleep are the site rules anyway?
I almost get the feeling that Google became aware of what this site is for, had a hissy-fit, and decided to just make up an excuse to stop the account.
Btw, I think the ShareAPic thing is illegal if the pics are from SMW hacks.............right? So for those doing that, do you really want to dig us an even deeper hole?
There's a way to get the views without clicking on the pictures. I'd rather not say how on the board, so if you could join #helpsmwc on IRC, that'd be great.
Again: If you have Shareapic, and want to help out more, please visit #helpsmwc on IRC.
marioVSshadow, a Windows server sucks compared to a Linux based one, which is what SMWC is running off of now.
Linux isn't slow, just that the hardware can't take it.
The thing with a Windows server is that you'll need constant reboots for updates (Linux updates are rwbootless unless it's a Kernel one, and even then ksplice removes the reboot problem), Windows has all that malware, it's slow, it's not suited well for a server, and it's exrtemely easy to bring Windows down to it's knees.
If you're suggesting Kieran runs it off his own PC, Windows' horrible multitasking engine would make it sluggish and unusable and a dedicated Windows server still sucks and is easy to bring down. Stay with Linux for servers.
You're not being "too optimistic", we're doing whatever we can to keep the site from going down. And they were only doing renovations on the forums, nothing bad's going on with them.
Ummm... guys, do you realize than 80% of what you upload here is containing a character sprite from a copyrighted game and that ShareAPic doesn't allow that, right ?
everyone who's going with the shareapic plan PM me! i need as many people as possible! once i get enough PMs i'll tell kieran and see if he confirms my idea!
come on guys i only have 3 people doing this if you are doing this just PM me so i know how many people are doing this so i can give kieran an update!
They are all pictures I've used before. Nobody ever commented on 2 and 3 before, and...does the background in 6 and 7 look okay? It seems a bit cut-off, but it was accepted to the graphics section, and I'm pretty sure it was like that in the original game.
Hey, I know this is a bit late of a suggestion, but wouldn't it be better if we had one main "SMWcentral" shareapic account that a number of people had access to? That way we could all be uploading pictures like we are now, but the money would be going to one account instead of a bunch that might never reach $20.
I know this might lead to some problems such as someone randomly sabotaging the account or stealing the money by sending it to their paypal account, but if access was restricted to trusted members that shouldn't be a problem.
Not sure if that would be considered a ToS violation but it doesn't sound like it to me!
Not completely sure on how this works, I just upload an image and get the code right? I earn the money, and when I reach my goal, I enter my paypal info right? Someone answer me please.
Anyways:
wat. those were the only two i had. start clicking so i can donate guise. i wanna help!
I only have $0.0088 and I can't do anything until I have $20.00! So click.
That reminds me. The amount of money given per view is extremely small, but you have to wait until you have $20.00 before you can get any money from the site. So that means if you're doing this, you have to get a lot of clicks from a lot of people on a regular basis.
Also if you want to do this, get someone here to refer you. (like me) It definitely helps.
Upload videos of your hacks on Blip tv
<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/hcAIgfXdaQA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="256" height="254" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>
everyone who's going with the shareapic plan PM me! i need as many people as possible! once i get enough PMs i'll tell kieran and see if he confirms my idea!
These pictures were part of a collaborative effort between me and a friend. We made them about a year ago in a game of iSketch. Each of these pictures use a unique art style that emphasizes the beauty of nature (except for the unfinished LoZ dungeon. That one just sucks).
@HuFlungDu: I personally am not going to rely on that as a means of revenue. However I figured since there was no harm in making an account, and possibly getting something back even a year from now would still be cool.
Keckcellent brough up a good point earlier with his soda talk. Once I get a PayPal account up and working I'll be more than willing to donate some money that I'd normally waste on something I don't need but buy anyway.
Also, I noticed quite a bit of people saying that they'd go along with the "Everyone donate $5" scheme, but don't want to because they aren't sure if anyone else will join in with them, and they don't want to waste their money. Just donate the $5 if you like the idea! You'll get nothing done if no one steps up and starts it off.
I've been viewing peoples' Shareapic stuff, but I doubt I'll join in on it. Even if I do get the money, I still doubt my parents will let me donate, anyways. -.-
@HuflungDu - Well maybe well have to make users click extra and do it often, since this is sort of a matter of "life or death" for SMWCentral (not saying that it actually is or anything)
EDIT - I dont think it will be that hard to get 45 views for a cent since i've gotten 20 view in total in the past 2 mins
Hate to be a party pooper, but you people are being rather optimistic about the shareapic thing. You may have noticed that they are still recuperating from a lawsuit, and have still not yet paid money for some claims dating back to 2009. You probably won't even get your payment for 3-4 months after you claim it. Also: 1 cent per 10 minutes? That means ~45 unique views every 10 minutes, and that's unlikely to be consistent. Realistically I don't think this will work at all... (However I'm not saying you shouldn't try [I also have one, even though I just set it up for testing purposes] it's just not very likely that it will lead anywhere.)
Jumping in on the ShareAPic fad. This piece of artwork is the first in a series of pieces I plan on releasing. This one is entitled "Majora After the Chocolate Contest 2010 Results Have Been Posted".
Regarding shareapic:
Apparently you can't make money when you hotlink the images themselves; you will have to link people to the page with the image on that site... which sucks since those pages have popups and stuff. Although there's a way to bypass that (I tried it and it really works), I decided to drop that bypass because it's basically theft in my opinion.
How come I have 12 referrals? I've never referred anyone.
Setting up a PayPal account isn't hard, guys. I should know: I just did it! It takes a couple days to verify the account (unless you use a credit card), but once yours is up, don't you think you could spare a couple bucks? When's the last time you were out on a hot day, and you stopped into a convenience store to get a slushie? That's a couple bucks right there. Just money burning a hole in your pocket. $2, and you can help save this awesome community with slushie money alone. Are you worried you might donate, and the community will go under anyway? Your money lost to the cyber-void? It's just two bucks!
@blumiere - Well, shareapic is a site that host pics and generates money as people click to view them. So technically, its not click fraud, since it is not an advertisement, it’s just a linked Picture like Photobucket (except from generating money part).
Its not an advertisment system like google Ads that send you to a website that the ad has shown.
...yeah, it's prettty much Photobucket, but it generates money as the views go up :|
@ Error52 - Click Fraud is when a person Clicks on an ad to "Raise the money" and clicking back, not taking any interest in what the advert actually is.
@lemonade - So if what your saying is correct, we should get...
$0.22 X 50 users (average) = $11 per Day
$11 x 7 = $77 per Week
$77 X 4 $308 per Month!
Shareapic would probably close our accounts if we did that.
Also click fraud means someone was clicking ads way too much and put us in deep shit because Google mistook it as click fraud, which violates their terms and agreements.
If everybody on the site put a ShareAPic picture in their sign, it would easily generate over 0.22$ per day and per user.
I mean SMWC has a lots of views, if we also put three pics per ressource page and user bio, one on the tips of the day, one to the left of user comments on the news, one on each SMWiki page, and one in a hack page... Well that's going to be very heavy but the result *can* be good if I understood correctly.
Also, Camerin Neede also said SMWC had a lot of custom content that could be sold. Hundreds of true musical masterpieces. Woah.
Seriously. If I get the permission to do so I'll put one share-a-pic instead of my avatar and one in my sign and donate what I get.
EDIT : also MSA I'm going to use this cookie if I need to and not another one.
I guess I came off as a bit negative in my last comment, and my suggestions probably didn't really help either... Sorry about that, I guess.
Anyway, though I haven't taken a closer look at it, that Shareapic site sounds like a good idea to me. As suggested earlier, you might be able to host some popular images (banner, menu question blocks, layout images) there for easy money. How about it, Kieran?
"Unlimited" bandwidth = Use much more than 10 GB/month and we'll close your account. One.com is good for smaller websites, but SMWC is too big for shared hosting solutions. You get what you pay for.
:/ Out of curiosity, couldn't you "split" the website onto multiple "portions" onto those kind of sites? Like say ROM Map goes onto one site, the RAM Map goes onto another, and the link between them is just between those two sites.
Not sure how the posts would work though. :/ Even though they'd take up most of the space... and the PMs...
Pooling with other sites is one option... but there are consequences.
It would be hard to keep everyone together, the rules wouldn't match up... but everyone would see loads of other communities they could join. With risk comes reward... but would that risk be worth it?
Also, couldn't one of us users use that GoogleAdsense TOS thingy to make those ads work again? I know I never click on ads. :/ Maybe to prevent users from just re-killing the ads a "click-detector" code could be slapped in, preventing users from clicking ads x times in y hours. (Well, I realized what those ads actually did cause of this thread/news post...)
:\ Sorry about the negative additude eariler. (Xd I can't spell right correctly right now)
I haven't fully investigated ShareAPic yet myself; however, I'm relatively sure by what I heard from Dotsarecool that one would be able to generate revenue in that fashion by using a PHP script. Considering I do not know much PHP at all, I do not know how to write a PHP script for displaying images in such a way, but it apparently works as intended using such a script. Once I see Dots online again, I'm going to question him on this, so forgive me if I am incorrect on this subject.
Hmm.... I have the strangest feeling that having some PHP that will force that will raise some suspicions (click fraud: the sequel). Not that it should really matter to the guys at shareapic, since they are still getting paid for the ads that the users "see", but then that could also incur click fraud charges on them, so I'm guessing they would shut down someones account if they were to do that. However, if there is a way of doing that, I wouldn't really have any problem testing it out myself, just to see.
Man, I remember the day when this site had 8,031 users. That was the best day in SMWCentral history! And do you know why? First one to answer correctly gets a lovely cookie!
Maybe we should have an online bake sale. Just imagine SNN and kieran in aprons baking pie and shipping them internationally with outrageous handling fees. It'd totally keep the site going for a good while, until we think of something else.
What ever happened to the magical internet gerbils that kept our site running happily?
(this is my attempt to lighten the stress of the situation, as we don't need a bonfire calling S.O.S. just yet)
Dotsarecool informed me that Shareapic does not require you to have a bank account or credit card. All you need is a PayPal, which once again does not need a bank or credit card unless you need it for those things. With your shareapic, you just have to wire the money to your PayPal when you think you have enough and then just donate.
Of course, PayPal requires you to be 18 years of age. If we can convince our parents to make a PayPal or allow us to use theirs in conjunction with this service, we'll have a lot of money judging by how much Dots is getting.
That, or we sign up faking our age. Of course, this might lead to our account being limited ...
I think we should replace the broken Google ads with another ad hosting service. Having to click the button three times to move back a page is extremely irritating.
That wouldn't really help anything, as shareapic, I'm pretty sure, only gives you revenue if they actually visit the site, not if you just link an image. Since they are just giving you a small portion of what they get from their own ads, really it doesn't make any sense that you would get paid for linked images.
I haven't fully investigated ShareAPic yet myself; however, I'm relatively sure by what I heard from Dotsarecool that one would be able to generate revenue in that fashion by using a PHP script. Considering I do not know much PHP at all, I do not know how to write a PHP script for displaying images in such a way, but it apparently works as intended using such a script. Once I see Dots online again, I'm going to question him on this, so forgive me if I am incorrect on this subject.
@russsrox11
Even if the ShareAPic method of income actually succeeded, it would be quite a challenge to get even one hundred active users to use ShareAPic in that way. That, and the calculations you had made would not be practical in relation to the revenue earned by the likely amount of users donating from ShareAPic.
... This post has made me realize how much I usually disregard the term "revenue."
You guys all need to calm the fuck down. The server is (as far as Kieran has let on) in no worse of a condition than it was when he made that announcement a few weeks ago. The only thing new that's happened is Google cancelling SMWC's AdSense account. Honestly we should just get a new ad provider and continue on as is, there isn't really much we can do as users long-term.
I was going to go to shareapic, upload a lolcat, and post it into this thread and make some money, but then I remembered that I didn't have credit card.
Well, then I'd recommend One.com that instead offers unlimited traffic and 3 different spacing plans. From 3000MB to 25000MB. If I'm not wrong, One.com is also cheaper and got a better uptime. As it during 36 month test had an uptime about 99.99%
"Unlimited" bandwidth = Use much more than 10 GB/month and we'll close your account. One.com is good for smaller websites, but SMWC is too big for shared hosting solutions. You get what you pay for.
It's a shame dedicated hosting is so fucking costly, else Kieran and I could have went half and half on it.
Guys you really need to chip in to my idea I mean really everyones logged on, and were mourning that smwc is going to be history! It's like a smwc funeral for gods sake!
Kieran is currently using GoDaddy if I'm not wrong? Well, then I'd recommend One.com that instead offers unlimited traffic and 3 different spacing plans. From 3000MB to 25000MB. If I'm not wrong, One.com is also cheaper and got a better uptime. As it during 36 month test had an uptime about 99.99%
I support the ideas of placing new ads on the site and uploading common pictures, one of which being the banner, to ShareAPic
That wouldn't really help anything, as shareapic, I'm pretty sure, only gives you revenue if they actually visit the site, not if you just link an image. Since they are just giving you a small portion of what they get from their own ads, really it doesn't make any sense that you would get paid for linked images.
Guys we all need to do that shareapic thing we make 1 cent per 10 minutes if we all do it, us 1,872 users we should be good to go permanently! That's about 135,000 USD per fucking month!!!! if we all pitch in our site will be good forever and more!!!
I really like this Shareapic idea, abut how exactly does it work? I really want to find ways to earn money for the site, but I'm 13, I've donated, I don't know how to help now the ads are down.
Hey I just sent CD the hedgehog's Help SMW central video to at least 257 people on Youtube! I don't know how many people will help but it's worth a shot right? Oh I hope i helped a little bit....
Just got home from work and read through these comments. I have one thing I'd like to point out:
Good intentions do not get the bill paid. Constantly seeing "Well once I get x then I'll donate y" means nothing. If you're going to donate, just donate. If you're not going to donate, don't say anything.
Really guys, come on. Rather than running around like chickens with your heads cut off, calm down, relax, and carry on once the forums return. All donations are obviously appreciated, but giving false hope doesn't help the situation. To those attempting to help: thank you.
Well...this isn't good. I'm aware that the site isn't going to just die any minute now, but if we continue doing basically nothing like we've been doing, it will eventually be a problem.
I have savings for a new graphics card for my new computer sense it came with an Intel graphics card (don't get me wrong, I really appreciate what I've got, but I play The Sims 3 quite often, so Intel isn't doing the job as good as I'd like it to be doing right now), so I could easily donate 10 dollars or more, and possibly a second donation in another month or so. My dad brings home a few dollars in change every day and, with his permission, I take it and roll it into change rolls, so I could easily replace the money I donate. The only thing I'd have to figure out is how to get a PayPal account due to being fairly young. I'm pretty sure my parents will let me though, so it should be okay.
By the way, I'm not trying to suck up to the mods or anything when I say this, but I'm noticing that some people aren't really doing anything differently (though it is probably good to not just flip out at the moment), even though the site needs donations now more than ever. I understand not having money is a valid reason, and I know your parents won't let you, but let's try a little harder this time to convince our parents, save money we find/earn, and other things like that. SMWC is an awesome site, and I'd really hate to see the community break apart in a few months...
I'm not trying to advertise here either, but if some of you know others who have some money to donate or something, spread this video around, it might help bring in some more money.
I, for one, do not support the idea of "merging" with other sites at all. Although other hacking sites, the F-Zero site for example, may have troubles with their expenses as well, it would make no sense to join with many of them, nonetheless any of them. It would be overly difficult for the sites to conform with the other sites' policies, and most of the hacking sites would be completely irrelevant to each other. Overall, it would just be a huge mess trying to merge even just two relevant sites together.
Out of all the ideas proposed, I support the ideas of placing new ads on the site and uploading common pictures, one of which being the banner, to ShareAPic. I have just made an account for ShareAPic, and I do intend to donate any money generated in that way to SMWC. Otherwise, I cannot think of any efficient method of raising income for SMWC. I'll just keep an eye open for any other ideas that pop out to me in this news posts or on my friends' sites.
As a regular reader, occasional poster, I feel compelled to say something regarding Kieran's comments and how this thread is going. I don't want to be a kissass but Kieran has invested an unimaginable amount time over the past few weeks trying to work out the kinks with the forums. I don't know how much money he's put into this site himself but I'm sure its signficant. It isn't asking that much to sacrifice a little of ourselves to help out the site. This may seem hypocritical coming from me, but I'm getting a paycheck on Friday and will be making a donation afterwards.
I actually fall out of the age range of the majority of this website's demographics (I'm 29). I don't have to worry about Parental Consent or Inability to Pay.
Some of you may literally be scraping by on every dollar and that is understandable. Probably the majority of you can make simple decisions to save up some money for a donation. For example, lets say you buy one 20 oz. soda every weekday. That adds up to ~$8.50(American-centric values but the concept is universal). What if you opted not to buy soda for a week or opted to not buy a soda on Monday. Instant savings. Or you can choose to wait to purchase a new game until the price goes down (or purchase it used). These are actually very basic financial practices - I feel like I'm stating the obvious here.
Regarding the parental consent thing: This is a bit more difficult. SMWC does seem a bit shady for outsiders (OMGHacking!). Look at the skills it teaches - Programming, Graphical design, music, working as a community, quality control, and most importantly, creativity. I am amazed at the work that some 12 year olds put into this site. I can't do that and I'm 17 years older than that. I don't know how helpful this can be but you can use these skills to try and sell SMWC to your parents.
I've been mulling over the idea of a 24-hour marathon hacking event. It was originally inspired by the 24-hour comic day http://cowbirdsinlove.com/comics/872/addicted/addicted.html but maybe it can be a more structured event like the Mario Marathons for Childs Play. I might be willing to put in $1 for every $5.00+ during an event like this. I know people shouldn't need to follow other's leads for donations but you have to do what you have to do. Good luck Kieran.
@CaptainPissweak
I was reffering to my idea of merging with other sites. You even quoted that part. It's not like I said "how will we keep our stuff when SMWC dies".
Um, do you need anything, such as a credit card account, to sign up for Shareapic (and/or a PayPal account)? I'll sign up for that, although it seems too good to be true...free money and all...heck, even if I donated only half of it to SMWC and spent the other half on eBay, that would still be ~$10.00 a month if things went well.
The way I see it, the best long term solution is to get some more advertising as soon as possible. As everyone here has, rather depressingly, pointed out, no one wants the site to go down, and therefore I'm sure that no one would mind if advertising just went all out.
While many people donating could easily get a lot of money, we need to keep in mind that no one just has a limitless supply of money. What's more, those of us who are at an age where they can donate most likely need the money for their own necessities. Kristian, your idea works in theory, but unfortunately you do not seem to have learned the value of a dollar.
Dotsarecool's idea seems to be going well for him right now so possibly that should be taken into consideration as well.
Originally posted by LieutenantPie
I agree that backing the site up for the hell of it is stupid, but how else do we transfer everything to the new site if we do decide to merge with another site?
You realise this is the kind of attitude he's saying not to have, right?
I agree that backing the site up for the hell of it is stupid, but how else do we transfer everything to the new site if we do decide to merge with another site? Also, how are we going to copy all of the forums from all of the sites if we do? Maybe it would be better off if we left the forums behind (except for the ones that are archives like past contests and stuff).
Also, holy crap, Kieran. I agree that some people are only panicking, but for the most part we are coming up with ideas.
I am extremely disappointed in how most of you are handling this. It's not a fucking doomsday declaration!! That, however, does NOT mean that we have nothing to worry about at all! Even if we will be okay for the next while, we WILL run into trouble in a few months. I am posting these news in advance so we have a chance at doing something before shit hits the fan. FUCKING OBVIOUSLY will the site not just go with a bang, so will you fucking spare me. >8(
I'm not saying that the site's shutting down! I think it's a good idea to back it up because most of the options I came up with involve moving to another site. I think merging would actually be a good idea. Only a few people would have to worry about certain aspects of the forums and other technical stuff. I think if we implemented a friends list system with groups of friends along with maybe an IM feature and used the same organization we have right now with separate groups based on what game it's for and the info box including what site the user used to be a member of (here, the other sites or a new member), then it would work out perfectly. It sounds stupid and complicated, I know. But it would be beneficial to all sites involved and would be pretty inexpensive if all of the owners of the previous sites split the expenses evenly. $200 becomes $100 or even $50 depending on how many sites merge into this site. I think this might work. And this is also a reason to back everything up. For moving. I just want to know people's opinions on this. If I get everybody's support, I can help find sites. We don't even need to find sites in financial trouble to merge! I know about this one site... I think it was called Planet Virtual Boy or something. It's probably the only Virtual Boy hacking site in existence, and it still has almost no views. Merging will get that site more attention. There's also a lot more tiny sites for one specific field. If we gave them their own forum (or sub-forum depending on how large the field is) and sections in the hacks and homebrew sections, then it would work out great! Especially if we put all of our knowledge into one giant hacking wiki. I think there actually is one already! They could merge too.
Either way, do you get my point? If we backed up everything and merged with lots of other hacking sites and come up with an awesome name and slogan with specific IRC channels, then we could become the definitive source for romhacking! It would be beneficial to all of the sites involved (Although I'm pretty sure Board 2 and Jul won't end up becoming the same site because of that split [I don't know why it split into two sites, but I'm sure it was for a good reason and it's better off separate]).
Please let me know if you have my support so I can go around convincing other sites to merge with us.
I mean, we could at least donate more than earlier until we/you/kieran find a more permanent solution. For you guys without Visa etc., send the cash in a letter or something.
So after about ~4 hours of Shareapic, I have 8 cents. This is ~2 cents per hour, ~50 cents per day, $3.50 a week. So about a month will raise $20 (the lowest amount you can withdraw).
@volke
That might work, but there's two things wrong with that.
1. Donations aren't a permanent solution (although YouTubers might have more money than us).
2. Who would we get? We could make a video and upload it to several accounts belonging to users of the site or just one member. From there, we could get people to post it as a bulletin which goes to all of their subscribers and friends, email it to everyone they know and ask for them to do the same. Eventually, it will spread all over the place and some people might donate.
And on an unrelated note, there should be a YouTube group for SMWC.
Maybe if we get someone really big on YouTube or somewhere to start a sort of fundraiser for SMWC, then, send the link to the sort of fundraiser to a bunch of people to raise awareness about it. We could gain money really fast that way... I think...
Remove "Kuribo's Shoe" from your vocabulary, people. It is irrelevant in this situation. No SMWCentral = no Kuribo's shoe. Kuribo is supposed to be the future replacement of SMWC. That doesn't denote a change in server location, or expenses, or...well, anything, really. "Moving to Kuribo's Shoe" is not a solution of any kind at all.
@moltensnow and Midna
Stop getting mad at russrox! Everyone's just trying to help! He's not shouting "THE SITE'S CLOSING AAAHAHA" or saying that trying to save the site is useless, so both of you stop. And if we are maintaining the caffie.net servers, then wouldn't the IRC channels go down with the site (if it goes down at all)? Never assume that someone's just going to take care of something, especially if they didn't say anything about it. We have a few options we should consider, and to be honest donating isn't a permanent solution (especially considering the huge amount of users that can't donate because they are too young, parents won't let them or are short on cash and need every cent [which goes for almost everyone in the hacking field]).
So our options are:
1. Moving to Kuribo's Shoe. If we maintain that site, then aren't we paying for two sites?
Raibys has a point.
2. Merging with other hacking sites (particularly the ones in financial trouble [there's lots of those]) to create the largest and most reliable hacking site ever. If all of the previous owners of the sites that merged split the expenses, we would never run into financial trouble. And as an added bonus, people can still find people from the old sites and be introduced to people from different communities. The only downside is trying to move all of the data and combining and organizing it as well as trying to come up with an awesome name that fits a huge hacking resource.
3. Putting a bunch of ads. It's annoying and everyone hates them, but it's better than trying to move everything.
4. Trying to find some other way to get enough money to support the site or find some other PERMANENT SOLUTION. Sure, donating would help. But eventually the donations all get used and people can get in financial trouble too. If we went along with relying on donations, I bet we won't even get half as much as we need. Not to be pessimistic, but everyone saying they will donate already said they can't. Most people here are either too young, don't have enough cash or both.
Oh. And @Lucas, getting money is definitely going to help, but so far none of the suggestions people have been putting out have even been acknowledged. I strongly recommend we consider the above four solutions, because any of them are going to help, even if it's not by much.
@russrox11
If we either moved to Kuribo's Shoe or merged with other sites, either way we would get to stay in contact. Moving is exactly that: moving. All of the SMWC users that get the message will move to the new site and everyone will still have their usernames. And if we merge with other sites and if we have the sites we used to use on our profiles or at very least use the same usernames, then we will always be able to find our friends. At very least we can exchange emails with our friends or just try to keep the site alive, which considering the other options might not even be the best thing to do (please no angry mobs!).
@russsrox11 You're being negative. Just shut up, because you don't know what you're talking about. We still have the IRC to keep in touch. The forums will be fine, as I'm sure Ulti will backup the most important forums.
I think i have like 60 $ in my credits card, but i don't think it's the right kind of card that i can't donate to SMWcentral and + I don't think my parents would let me donate for a site that they don't know.
(Even though i'm 14 so that's my problem)
Please don't consider it an option that the site should close. None of us would like to see that. Rather, see if you can think of some way that we could earn some money.
TL;DR: Stop being a doom-and-gloomer and try to help however you can.
In case it was not already obvious, moving to Kuribo and backing up the site would do nothing to improve the situation. The site is not immediately going down by any means, but unless we can find a way to raise money, Kieran is not going to be able to keep up with the upkeep costs.
And sorry for posting twice, but I agree that comments need ninja protection. Especially if they're being used as forums. And I didn't end up posting twice in a row, then that's just more proof of how useful this would be.
@SolidSnake141.35
Yes, but isn't Kuribo's Shoe maintained currently by the same people that maintain this site? If that's true, then they're paying for two sites and flocking to one that we're already paying for would be smart. Unless I'm wrong...
@scepile
It's a nice idea (because it was mine too ), but everyone backing up small parts of the site is a bad idea. Then nobody will have everything and the site will be harder to recover. It's a much better idea if one person buys an external hard drive (after figuring out how much space all of the files on this site use) and puts it on the drive for later. It's really just a back up plan, but if someone with the ability to instantly look at the stats of the site like that saved everything then it would make everything easier. Users can save their own stuff like layouts, signatures, profiles, hack descriptions, favorite posts, ect.
And I still think we should seriously consider merging with tons of other hacking sites or at very least flocking to Kuribo's Shoe if this becomes a serious problem and we know for a fact that the site is going to be shut down. But even then, merging would guarantee that new site never gets in financial trouble. If everyone can keep their own sites alive, then we can definitely keep one site thriving as a collaborative effort. We could claim it's the ultimate hacking site or the epitome of this or the definitive that and be right.
But for now we really to focus on figuring out if we are eventually going to have to close and backing everything up.
*looks through comments* Mootboxles idea isn't as bad as it seems, because parents might (not definetly) be willing to let there kids pay for something if they can see that they're clearly getting something out of it, because sod's law dictates that parents can't see anything out of donating to continue running a site. The only bad thing 'bout the idea is getting some money to lift that scheme of the ground to create the merchandise in the first place. If you can sort that out, this might be a potential solution.
I've been working on my site, php'ing it, and it could serve a backup of SMWC's tools and files... sort of. My FTP says I have a file limit (SMWiki eating up most of it, speaking of which, that needs to be backed up too) of 6000, yet my host says otherwise...
:/ I can't donate, so that sucks. I'll try to "back-up" as many resources as I can. Maybe everyone can pitch in and "pool" the resources together? That would minimize the loss if the site closes. :V
Man... I would mind increased ads, but I could tolorate it. Hey, as long as the site stays open, right?
Haha, I just had $80 routed to my Paypal account from a friend to try and donate. Apparently though, you absolutely need a bank account or whatever linked with your account to spend anything (what a retarded system), I could have sworn it wasn't like that before. In any case, I know have 80 useless dollars stuck in limbo, which is really a shame.
If I had any money, I would donate. I hope this site doesn't die (especially before the forums open back up!). Hopefully there is some way we can keep the site alive other than constant donations. But I think just to be safe, someone should back up all of the hacks, music, tools and everything with the descriptions and save it to an external hard drive. This way, just in case the site goes down (which I hope it doesn't) we have all of the stuff we made. I find forum posts less important to save (unless we have more time to do so).
Also, what about Kuribo's Shoe or whatever that was? Maybe we could flock to that because iirc, it's just like this site but it applies to any game. Or an even better idea! Since I noticed several video game hacking sites are all in constant financial trouble, they could all flock to one site! That way, all of the previous site owners could split the costs and it would end up being much more inexpensive and people from tons of different communities could collaborate and talk with people interested in hacking different games. I know that F-Zero hacking sites are scarce and the only one I could find that was really popular had a section for F-Zero in general and only a handful of threads about hacking! I think it would be annoying if everyone lost their post counts and everything, but if we managed to merge our site with tons of other ones, then it would work out great (as a last resort)! We could have something in our profiles that shows which sites we used to be part of and some options for the games we hack or something.
If we did merge with other sites, then I think it would actually be more beneficial to the other sites. I love how organized this site is with it's request section and places for files instead of having to dig through old threads. A lot of other sites aren't as lucky as we are to have all of this organization and trying to find a utility someone made is near impossible. As long as all of the sections could be organized by game, I think it would be awesome. My point is that if this site's going down and other sites are getting to that point, then everyone could join forces and the site would be the most complete and reliable source for hacking information.
Again, as a last resort. But either way we should still save everything to an external hard drive so it's all safe.
I agree with SuperTails' previous comment about pay-per-view advertising. The site gets about 50 views every few seconds. It could easily help amass the amount of money required.
Originally posted by Kieran, AKA the PERSON WHO CREATED THIS SITE
Please don't consider it an option that the site should close. None of us would like to see that. Rather, see if you can think of some way that we could earn some money.
I really does suck that SMWC is gonna die. And I don't donate to Webpages, but I think I maybe can spare some money, But I'm 15 and my mom and dad don't want me to donate monney to webpages.
I usually say it but Now i don't want to but somthings forcing me to say it:
Shit happens, live with it. Even tho we love this page, It's not the center of the universe.
Russ: Don't be so negative. I'm sure SMWC will pull through.
Edit: Why do I bother? I don't know... If you people have that kind of attitude about this, (looking @ non-believers) the site will most likely barely make the money or not at all.
As soon as I can, I'll donate again.
I feel bad that I can't do more to help the cause...but as it is, I'm really behind on my bills, so I can't spare the funds.
C'mon guys, surely someone out there is resourceful enough to come up with some revenue-generating ideas outside of ads.
How about merchandising? Although, I suppose, that if the majority of the userbase is unable to donate, they would also be unable to buy any sort of stuff online.
We've got to think of something.
So far, AdSense has done nothing for me on my own site. Having said that, my site gets less than a tenth of the traffic that SMWC gets.
We can't bury our heads in the sand here - we've got to come up with a solution.
- We pay $0.22 per 1000 pic views.. that's more than some major ad networks pay their publishers!
Cool, if we all embed an image in our layout in a site with such a high traffic like this one, we would earn quite a bit. Maybe upload the SMWC banners to that site and profit++;?
I didn't look at this in-depth but it's just my theory.
Great... didn't I say that clicking the Google ad for no reason other than to get us money would get us cut off? Well, no... I didn't, but a few people did, I did agree with them though.
Way to drop the ball on my sister's birthday, douche.
On a serious note, let's be honest, most of the users here are in the age range of 11-17. Most of them don't have a credit card nor a pay-pal account to donate, people aren't going to donate, they pretty much "aren't allowed to." Those of us who have jobs only use the money for bare necessities, that is unless it brings enough disposable income for other uses, or we don't know the value of money.
Basically, most people aren't going to be able to help support the website by giving money. Though I hope this site stays up, because the resources are helpful and the community is enjoyable and welcoming, that's not to say it will.
More PW adds wouldn't bring in enough income, they barely bring enough now. Tbh, I was really surprised when you said this;
I have the money, am allowed to use it how I want and am willing to donate it, but I need to know how. I'm sure there's a way for people like me, without creit card or anything for that matter.
Back when I was playing various MMORPGs I could go to a store, buy a little card with a code, put that code on the website and had the money online, but I don't know if that works for paypal or if I'm completely wrong.
I believe some kind of private channel (chat room or forum) should be created for people who are serious about donating; inside the channel we can see if it's possible for SMWC to accumulate a monthly $200 goal via donations. I do visit this website regularly (although logged off) and would be up for helping with a donation, but I'd like to know if it will help in the long run.
And as for the earlier comments about the value of $5 ... some of you guys really have no clue how difficult financial situations are for young adults. When we have to pay for bills, rent, car payments, and school, $10 to us is a a whole week of food.
Kieran, I'm being sincere here. If I was rich, I would donate $9001.69 and you'd be set. Sadly, I'm a lower middle class 12 year old boy whose mom won't let him donate a measly $5.
Man, I wish I could pay. However, I'm spending all of my birthday money on a gaming computer that I'm building. My dad is paying for over half of this because I don't have enough money to pay for half. I ALMOST do, but still not enough. :/ Plus, my parents would think it's a stupid idea anyway to donate, but gfdsgfsd. I hope I could help in some other way to fight this issue besides cash (which there probably is none).
I would be willing to donate a small amount.
Im not very rich,Im actually having a few struggles with money.
But if it helps to keep such a strong community going, I would gladly do it.
But a small amount wont help if i do it on my own, The mass donation thing would be a good idea.
maybe keeping a list of people who would do the mass $5 donation would be a good idea, because then when some people join, it might spur others into action, and we could actually get somewhere. about how many people would we need for the mass donation to be useful ?
also, i'm gonna try and convince my mum to let me donate again tomorrow, so if i manage i'll join the mass donation.
I found this site where uploading pics and getting loads of views will earn money, so if people please visit my profile and click the link at the bottom of my layout, then i earn cash and if i earn at least $20, (i gain 0.000022 per view...) then i can withdraw it and donate, so more views = more cash (even though it is low, maybe enough views will work...)
I've give the referral link once im off the dsi (tommorow) - i gain 10% of the views...
I'm going to try to help in any way I can. Unfortunatly, I can't donate, as I have no source of income at all. But I have a lot of memory/space left that I can use to store stuff like hacks and blocks. I'll back them all up on disks, too. Also, maybe tell google about this issue, or get a different ad to go at the bottom. maybe even one for the left. I surely wouldn't mind too much. I also read something about a windows server or something like that. I wish I could back up the forums too, but that would take at least a month, which I honestly don't want to spend. seriously though, what is wrong with google. they've been messing up everything from SMWC to youtube. both of those are the main sites I go to!!! oh well, hopefully this will just blow over.
As it was pointed out several times before, Kieran said (in the comments) NOT to consider the site closing to be an option. Just try to think of a way to gain the site some money instead of mourning it's "upcoming death"! D:
How can this be? I was looking forward to showing off something for the next C3 and right when I'm finally ready, first the forums, now this! Hope the mess gets sorted out, or we're all in a pickle.
Just wanted to throw out that I would definitely be on board with the mass $5 donation, and could probably stretch it to a little more than that. However, like others, I would need to see some 20 other people who are on board with it before I would do it, since it would be pointless otherwise. Maybe we could find some way to organize the list of people who would be willing to join this so we can keep track of it? (Directed at Kristian).
Doing a bit of research, I noticed that there are both "pay per click" and "pay per view" systems. It looks like we did the per click one with the Google ads, since it was because of click fraud that we lost the Google ads. If we somehow get some ads with the other system, which is based on how many times the ad is shown on the site, then maybe that would work. Just throwing it out there.
Perhaps preventing external linking of images and such for the file bin would be a better idea then axing it completely... and/or making the file bin size directly depend on how much you donated? Like for every dollar you get a whole meg or something
Just tried to donate but I dont have a card they accept. If the site does get shut down Im gonna miss it. But I will have the memories of my year and abit here.
D: Now I SERIOUSLY WANT to donate. But my mom won't let me. Even with MY money. Let us know if you're going to shut the site down. Hopefully this will all be resolved soon.
How much are $5/10 in €?
Also, I agree, we should at least limit the space every user has from 20 to 5 or something.
Should be enough for screenshots and the like.
One thing we could do if we need to put SMWC on a cheaply host is to throw away the File Bin. Why we need 20 MB of space for each user?
Unfortunately, I can not make a donation. Moreover, many of us we can not make a donation.
Another thing we could do is to divide the site into subcategories. For example, hacks are in a free hosting site, patches on another website, etc... Using a redirector, the site would be almost complete. But this should not be easy as I think.
Click Fraud? Are there any more details about that? I guess it won't matter now, it just seems sad google would drop you like that, And I really don't trust project wonderful at all, but I donno.
I really literally have no money right now, so I can't donate anymore, but I think given a big enough drive, there are enough users with money to save the site. The trick is getting them to notice. On the other hand most people here are like 13-16 so...
Anyway, I really don't have much of an idea about how maintaining a webserver works, but I think the best solution, if available, is to simply cut costs. Or if worse comes to worse, hand the server over to someone who can pay for it.
BTW, is bandwidth a major concern right now? I wonder if saving bandwidth by disabling images in the layout and forums when you are running low on bandwidth would help at all...
How can people take that one sentence I said as a joke. It's a fact that 3 people did '^@Ersan' right after he said 'Some people need to save money for important things', so I don't get how that was any bad.
Would a person who can donate really just make excuses to keep 5 bucks? I doubt it. The fact is, most of us CAN'T donate, and to a ROM hacking website at that. My parents fight every god damn day about our money problems.
Anyways, I heard Google AdSense sucks ass, always claiming "click-fraud". Try and find some different ad websites. If worse comes to worst, somebody should just back-up the files and eliminate the community aspect altogether.
"Also, I agree with Kristian here. Think about it: we have ~2000 active users according to the top-right corner of the site, and if each of us donated $5, that would be around $10,000, which could cover the server expenses for somewhere around 50 months! That's 4 years right there, just with each person donating a measly $5!"
Originally posted by mockingod
"Damn, if only I could convince my mom to let me donate."
As much as I would like to see such a plan like Kristian's go through, I honestly do not see it being practical when half of the users are not able/willing to donate for various reasons. In the one announcements thread about the status of the income from the ads, many people were stating reasons as to why the could not donate, so it would not surprise me if a high percentage of those people were still unable to donate.
If something along the lines of a mass $5 donation were to actually occur, I would most definitely participate in such an event. But, I myself do not see that happening any time soon.
I've seen many advertising sites. Not sure which posts content you accept (text only or non-animated only or $200/month or whatever), but it might be worth googling.
(Assuming you can't make a new adsense account or reopen the old one for whatever reason)
I could sell some of my books through SMWC. I was thinking of getting them published legitimately, but writing is easy for me, and I could give some of my work to the site for sale. The books are in very good condition (no spelling mistakes, good plot, etc.) and have been peer-read by several people.
This is sad.... this site have a history. but i guess there is now lots of suggestions that can help the site not to shut down. i will try to donate anything soon though.
@Kristian: Knock it off, some people actually have to save money towards something in real life, and any little amount of money will help that.
Five dollars. Is nothing.
I don't understand how people are against donating FIVE DOLLARS.
You could put your hat out on the street and dance and probably earn five dollars, that's how little it is.
Also to what WYE said, that's the thing. I'm not going to donate if no one else is, because what's the point? If everyone donates, we'll be a-okay.
And for the record, I'm not telling/forcing anyone to do anything, I'm just saying I love the site and no one else is making an attempt to get something going here, so I am!
Please don't consider it an option that the site should close. None of us would like to see that. Rather, see if you can think of some way that we could earn some money.
Idea:
Add a cash-o-meter at every page, below the menu or something. It increases when someone donates or something like that, and goes down each minute-or-something. Might make it a bit more visible that donations has effect.
I wish I could donate, but, like Kieran, I'm moving away from home this year (tomorrow, actually), so I need every bit of money I can scrounge.
Why not try advertising through different media? Have someone make a podcast on the nature of video-game hacking and whether or not emulation should remain legal. Charge $5 per podcast, and I assure you that the site would be swimming with cash.
Wow, this really un-made my day. Even worse, if this news post becomes out-of-date, we'll all forget about it, thinking everything's fine again.
I don't think my parents have anything against me donating, but in the long run, it'd be pointless if not everyone donated. I'm really trying to think of ways to get you enough money, but given my very limited knowledge about the internet, servers, webspace and stuff, I probably won't be able come up with anything good. I could've sworn I've seen some webhosting services offering unlimited webspace as well as unlimited traffic, but that would probably be too good to be true. Even if such a hoster existed, would it help you in the first place? Or is the problem you're having a totally different one?
I suppose there's no other way we could help you other than donating money, right? I thought it might be possible to for us offer a bit of memory from our PCs to SMWC (kind of like this), but again, I'm not an expert on that topic, so it probably won't work as I imagine it.
Oh well. I hope you'll be able to host this site for as long as possible, but of course, if you haven't got enough money, I'm not expeting you to get into debt for something as unimportant as an online community. All I'm asking is for you to inform us early enough if you shut down the site, so people will have enough time to make backups, plan substitute sites etc. The last thing I want to see is a sudden shutdown of SMWC, resulting in various mini-communitites, scattered around the internet unorganizedly, each of them claiming to be the only legitimate successor to SMWC.
...Wow, that was one long post. You probably won't ever be reading this, Kieran, but if you do, I'd like you to take my points into consideration (although I'm probably not all that much of a help :/).
GOP1994GOP and I are designing a website and we're using a Windows server which will get us everything for free. By free I mean that we will have unlimited domain names, unlimited sub-domain names, directory registering and much more.
Jobs are hard to come by around here, so five dollars is a quite a bit for me right now.
Maybe I'll donate, but I don't think that we should be told to do so. I realize that we all want to keep this site up and running, but do you really have to start singling out the people who can't donate and make jokes at them? Such as "<LeOdd>Now everybody do '^@Ersan' and nobody has to donate anymore"? I mean come on people, I don't even like a majority of this community anymore due to stuff like this.
I think we need a list of the donaters and how much they've donated. People is for sure affected by stats and won't donate until they see that this is profitable. I can donate 10-20 USD if I see people do the same. As for now, I can only predict few people do this, many have lame excuses along with me (for now).
@Kristian: Knock it off, some people actually have to save money towards something in real life, and any little amount of money will help that. I'm hoping to be the first person in my family name to actually go to college, so saving for that is main priority for me.
The donations seem good for one-off purchases like a new server but it looks bleak if it has to cover a continous expense. There's no hope of it working if ads don't fully cover it, or most of it.
A slower SMWC is better than no SMWC I guess. Is $200 US as cheap as it gets for a functional setup? Is the new server an absolute must-have? I don't really care how slow the site gets, assuming that's the main problem with your current server.
If SMWC folds, there's already established romhacking communities to go for so it's not a total loss. board2 has a SMW hacking forum that could use some more activity =). Fragmenting the community would suck though. Hopefully the majority end up moving to the same forum.
I too agree with Kristian, if every active user donated, it would make a huge amount of money, which as K3fka said, would solve these problems with the server for around 4 years, and 4 years later we could just all donate again, $5.00 isn't that much!
While what SNN said would work, (though my American Express giftcard never worked) my mom would surely find out if I spent any money here. I won't even be using this site when I get my laptop because I'll have a bunch of stupid safety crap installed. I'm also kinda bummed that I'm forced to have a laptop as apposed to getting my desktop back... Please change the slogan so the first thing parents see isn't "hacking"...
Edit: Besides, my mom is threatening boarding school if I'm caught doing illegal stuff again...
Also, I agree with Kristian here. Think about it: we have ~2000 active users according to the top-right corner of the site, and if each of us donated $5, that would be around $10,000, which could cover the server expenses for somewhere around 50 months! That's 4 years right there, just with each person donating a measly $5!
Oh god, this is not good at all...I will try to donate more, as I've been meaning to for quite a while, but that obviously won't be a permanent source of income...
What I tried to do/say on the IRC was that if everyone possible could donate $5-10, we'd have a lot of cash going.
Convince your parents or do what SNN said, just get it done.
On the IRC everyone kind of shrugged me off with lame excuses.
It's 5-10 dollars! That's practically nothing!
Keep in mind that using a Mastercard (or Visa, I believe as well) gift card purchased from local stores is also accepted by PayPal. Around here, they come in increments of $10, $25, $50, and $100. Not owning a credit card isn't really an excuse if you have these gift cards readily available to you. I know they are very common in North America, at least.
My mom's paranoid about me even being on here or talking to people online so even if I had a credit card I wouldn't be making donations. It'd really suck though to have this place shut down before I can even make contributions...
@Kieran: You have discussed this with Google, right? Explain the situation and ask them for tips on what has to be changed for them to allow you to host ads here again. Maybe you just have to clear up some rules.
I wouldn't be surprised of some user actually used something to click the ads a lot of times. And well, if so, you might have to ban that user / tell them to absolutely not do something like that.
Google's decisions are not absolute and therefore I hope that you'll be able to tell them that this clicking fraud is a thing started by the users, and that you will sharpen the rules and e.g. ban users who openly encourage these click-a-lots.
Huh, what happened to Ulti's backup site? It's still running and all, but when I click on Blocks/Sprites etc. it gives me a 404.
Last time I checked everything worked.
Ugh...that really sucks. I love this place, too, and it would be a great shame to see it go under. It's unfortunate that most of our userbase consists of kids too young to have enough money and/or a way to spend it for the site. (Meanwhile, I probably have enough money to make a second donation, but don't have my own credit card or PayPal account and don't really want to borrow one again.) I hate the feeling of being powerless to stop something. $200 a month?! No wonder you're having trouble paying.
I guess if there's really a threat of the site going down, we should try our best to minimize losses and do what we can. I have almost 250 GB worth of space on an external hard drive, which I could use to back up as many hacks, sprites, patches, ExGFX sets, etc. as possible. Then there are other websites out there...Team Haunted, Dimension Project, and Jul, to name a few. As for helping newbies and the like, perhaps a Baby-sitters Club kind of thing might be in order? Like, if somebody needs help, they e-mail a certain person, who contacts a group of people, and one or more of them answer via the shared e-mail. Of course, there is still the IRC...at least that's free (I assume).
The way I see it, if we could find, like, 10 or 20 people on the site with a job/money, and get them each to donate $25 or something, then we'd have a good footing. I know I'm willing to donate that. Even more maybe.
The only problem is that if we do donate, but it's still not enough, I'll be >:<
I really hope this site doesn't shut down.
There has to be another way to make money.
Maybe add a page that has offers on it. So people like me, who don't have the money to donate, can fill out an offer. The people running the offers would pay SMWC.
I'm not sure if that's how offers work, but it was worth a try.
I don't mind having lots of useless ads around if it means that the site keep running too. IF the site shut down, a backup of everything of SMWC can be put in another free or cheaper site, here are many resources to just trow away.
I really don't want this place to die. Not just because I like it, but because it's a useful place for newbies to come, so they can find resources, criticism, and generally just a good place to come to whenever they're bored and need some cheering up. Let's be honest; without this site, the SMW hacking community would be drowned in a sea of mediocrity, Kaizo ripoffs, blatant level edits, and floating/stacked Munchers.
I've already suggested replacing the lost Google ads with Project Wonderful ads, even if it means we have to tolerate more "super funny kids in action" or even - ugh - the Penis Song. Anything to get more money to keep the site afloat, right?
Man, i'm really sad about it, i really, really wanted to donate, but it's kind of hard that it could come to happen, my parents never would allow me to donate. but we can't just let it die, can we? i just love this place...
In your first coment it doens't even looks like you where trying to say something like that at all. And I know Kieran has more important things to pay for, that's why I sugested him to get a job so he can pay for the site and his personal stuff. End of the story.
olo, I laugh, because you thought I'd be upset or something, I just wanted to point out the same thing Aqua said, that he has other things to pay for, more important things, just in my way.
Why don't you try getting a half time job or some other way to get money? I realy wish I could donate, but I don't have a credit card or any way to pay online.
Replace the ads Google removed with more Project Wonderful ads, maybe? Sure, it'd mean more "super funny" toddlers accidentally discovering what a vagina is, but if it means more money for us...
Hadron: I don't think any free webhosts allow the kind of traffic this site generates. It was too much for HostGator, and that's a paid host. Domain names aren't free either.
That's...sad. I hope we can still surivive this loss somehow, I've already donated $5 (I know it's not very much), but I don't really think I can give more. But if the worst happens, and you'll have to shut down the site, we could still use a backup or something (it would be huge though) on a free domain...maybe?
Yeah, I would love to donate 200 dollars of my own savings (I'm 16), but my parents would never allow for such "wastes".
Just do us a favor and let us know if you're closing the site, so we can all flock elsewhere together. It'd be a shame to see the community just dissolve.
I can see what you are posting, even in the html code! :\
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