Cthulhu
Administrator
- AKA
- Yop
Hai gaise.
For a long time, TLS has been ad- and donation supported, with ads only being served on the forums (because I was lazy) and donations being a one-off, whenever you feel like it kind of affair. This has been fine; roughly (VERY roughly) these two covered about half of the costs for running the site, ads having brought in about €1500 over the past ten years, donations errr, I'd have to do some adding up, but not as much as the ads did.
Anyway, ads are shit and I'd prefer to avoid them. They were also not as effective as they could be because our most active users - people that would end up viewing / clicking on the moast ads in theory - are also donators so they don't get them.
I would love to be able to run TLS ad-free. Actually I already can (and am) but that would mean I'd take all of the financial hits
. Donations as they are right now are unreliable, in that it's often a one-time affair until something comes up, or it's mentioned again, or there's a fundraiser of sorts, etc.
Patreon is a service that allows for recurring smaller donations; I'm not a fan of the commission they take (iirc Paypal's fees are a lot smaller), BUT they make it very easy to set up a recurring, low fee donation. Currently our hosting is about €500 / year (paid every six months); we might be able to save a bit on that given our server can handle the load easily, but ehh. OTOH I wouldn't mind a server with more storage. That means that if we could get €40 / month in donations - or 20 people doing €2 / month - we'd be in the green.
On top of that, the youtube channel is doing pretty good - the income from it and our >10.000 subscribers is also pretty good, I've done some math and this year the youtube channel brought in roughly $56 / month. Up until a little while ago, Lex had his adsense account linked to the channel and he'd transfer it over to me, but I've linked my own adsense account to it recently.
So, Patreon + youtube would mean we can easily run the site without having to put ads on there. At that rate it'd still take a few years before I'd personally be in the black again, but I'm not in it to make a profit, so the excess will be put back into the site in various projects:
* The TLS Giveaway, spearheaded and paid for by Mage - please let me know how much it cost (with shipping), if we could do one of these a few times a year it would be great. I would've liked to see more people sign up for it though. I know I will next time, I don't have a PS1 yet
.
* TLS Movie Night - Fancy mentioned the other day that it cost her about $20 in movie rental fees. Does Rabb.it cost any money to operate? I think paying for a voice/video chat system where a lot of people can join in would be entertaining, as long as it's open, accessible and welcoming to everyone. (I'm personally not a fan because eww people / sensory overload, but whatever floats your boat)
* Software licensing - We bought Xenforo this year, the initial cost was $140, license renewal will be $40 / year
* Re-donating - I'm already passing some monies to Shademp and Hito
* If we get into dankloads of money: TLS Travel Bursary, buying tickets to e.g. Kupocon for our members. Tickets would be a stretch goal I think, if we make so much money we can afford to pay for flights and stays and shit, I think we need a serious reorganization for TLS' finances, put it in a more formal organizational structure (if only because the tax office will start charging me income tax for TLS funds <_<).
* GIVE SUGGESTIONS. We will have money available for any kind of projects you put forward.
NEXT STEPS
I've already registered the TLS name on patreon - or well, have done a setup. However, before continuing we need a few things and I'd like your help with these:
* An introduction text - I've made a proposal, Lex made some edits later on, I'll post that down below, let me know what you think
* A profile picture - a round icon of sorts.
* A cover picture - it needs to be exactly 1600 x 400 px
* An intro video - optional, but it'd help
* Tiers - optional, at least one would work.
* Goals - also optional, IDK what we'd put here (if we get $x / month we will do y)
* A thank you message - please give me something
DONATORS / PATREON BENEFITS
Right now we give clear benefits to donators - bigger inbox, upload stuff, etc - actually I need to review this after the move to XF. Do we want to offer Patrons benefits like that, and if so, what should they be? Early access to e.g. non-time-critical podcasts and videos? Early access to work in progress articles? TLS t-shirts? Shoutouts in videos, podcasts and articles? Gibe me something!
Also, I'm going to keep the existing donation option via paypal available - donating is optional, and recurring donations are optional as well. With the Patreon too, it can be cancelled at any point. I want to offer one-time donators and recurring donators the same benefits if possible (in addition to the warm fuzzies for supporting TLS).
Please let me know what you think.
For a long time, TLS has been ad- and donation supported, with ads only being served on the forums (because I was lazy) and donations being a one-off, whenever you feel like it kind of affair. This has been fine; roughly (VERY roughly) these two covered about half of the costs for running the site, ads having brought in about €1500 over the past ten years, donations errr, I'd have to do some adding up, but not as much as the ads did.
Anyway, ads are shit and I'd prefer to avoid them. They were also not as effective as they could be because our most active users - people that would end up viewing / clicking on the moast ads in theory - are also donators so they don't get them.
I would love to be able to run TLS ad-free. Actually I already can (and am) but that would mean I'd take all of the financial hits
. Donations as they are right now are unreliable, in that it's often a one-time affair until something comes up, or it's mentioned again, or there's a fundraiser of sorts, etc.Patreon is a service that allows for recurring smaller donations; I'm not a fan of the commission they take (iirc Paypal's fees are a lot smaller), BUT they make it very easy to set up a recurring, low fee donation. Currently our hosting is about €500 / year (paid every six months); we might be able to save a bit on that given our server can handle the load easily, but ehh. OTOH I wouldn't mind a server with more storage. That means that if we could get €40 / month in donations - or 20 people doing €2 / month - we'd be in the green.
On top of that, the youtube channel is doing pretty good - the income from it and our >10.000 subscribers is also pretty good, I've done some math and this year the youtube channel brought in roughly $56 / month. Up until a little while ago, Lex had his adsense account linked to the channel and he'd transfer it over to me, but I've linked my own adsense account to it recently.
So, Patreon + youtube would mean we can easily run the site without having to put ads on there. At that rate it'd still take a few years before I'd personally be in the black again, but I'm not in it to make a profit, so the excess will be put back into the site in various projects:
* The TLS Giveaway, spearheaded and paid for by Mage - please let me know how much it cost (with shipping), if we could do one of these a few times a year it would be great. I would've liked to see more people sign up for it though. I know I will next time, I don't have a PS1 yet
.* TLS Movie Night - Fancy mentioned the other day that it cost her about $20 in movie rental fees. Does Rabb.it cost any money to operate? I think paying for a voice/video chat system where a lot of people can join in would be entertaining, as long as it's open, accessible and welcoming to everyone. (I'm personally not a fan because eww people / sensory overload, but whatever floats your boat)
* Software licensing - We bought Xenforo this year, the initial cost was $140, license renewal will be $40 / year
* Re-donating - I'm already passing some monies to Shademp and Hito
* If we get into dankloads of money: TLS Travel Bursary, buying tickets to e.g. Kupocon for our members. Tickets would be a stretch goal I think, if we make so much money we can afford to pay for flights and stays and shit, I think we need a serious reorganization for TLS' finances, put it in a more formal organizational structure (if only because the tax office will start charging me income tax for TLS funds <_<).
* GIVE SUGGESTIONS. We will have money available for any kind of projects you put forward.
NEXT STEPS
I've already registered the TLS name on patreon - or well, have done a setup. However, before continuing we need a few things and I'd like your help with these:
* An introduction text - I've made a proposal, Lex made some edits later on, I'll post that down below, let me know what you think
* A profile picture - a round icon of sorts.
* A cover picture - it needs to be exactly 1600 x 400 px
* An intro video - optional, but it'd help
* Tiers - optional, at least one would work.
* Goals - also optional, IDK what we'd put here (if we get $x / month we will do y)
* A thank you message - please give me something
Patreon intro / description text proposal said:
DONATORS / PATREON BENEFITS
Right now we give clear benefits to donators - bigger inbox, upload stuff, etc - actually I need to review this after the move to XF. Do we want to offer Patrons benefits like that, and if so, what should they be? Early access to e.g. non-time-critical podcasts and videos? Early access to work in progress articles? TLS t-shirts? Shoutouts in videos, podcasts and articles? Gibe me something!
Also, I'm going to keep the existing donation option via paypal available - donating is optional, and recurring donations are optional as well. With the Patreon too, it can be cancelled at any point. I want to offer one-time donators and recurring donators the same benefits if possible (in addition to the warm fuzzies for supporting TLS).
Please let me know what you think.
). 
