Hate to even ask but, we are going to need some (a couple) donations this year. We haven't had any yet, at all.
Don't like PayPal, PM me and we can work something out.
Thanks!
-kemp :)
The site needs money. We had a tentative plan to auction off items and pledge the money to the site. Who's interested in picking up the notion?
I'll send a little cash in the next while.
lw
Straight cash, homey.
Cash works too... PM me and I will send you my addy. Unless Cenny is going to take care to the cash this year.
Don't care either way... I just can't afford it myself this year.
-kemp
PM sent.
The auction never got off the ground and i do understand why. There was a lot of logistics to work with. We weren't sure who would pay postage for one thing. I suppose paypal or sending cash would work for payment. Until paypal found out what we were sending and then cut us off at the knees, as they are known to do. If we ever did get it worked out it would take care of the cost of site maintenance. I still have stuff i could put on the auction if it becomes a reality.
Kemp, there is no reason you should pay it out of your pocket. We should be able to scrape it up amongst ourselves.
A lot of people seemed to be behind the auction concept and it's been popular on other sites. It might even bring us more traffic overall. I suggest adding google checkout as an alternate. That way, if paypal does take their ball and go home, we still have options. They could do it now just on general principals, i've seen them do really high handed stuff and heard the horror stories. Better to always have a backup.
I'm thinking the one who wins the auction should pay something for shipping. It could be stated in the auction just like other auctions. The donor could say usa only, eu only or something like that if it's hard to get by customs. You can't expect someone who is nice enough to donate cactus cuttings, for example, to pay the freight out of their own pocket possibly to another country. Or even to the same country, that adds up. The money for shipping could be given to the donor, perhaps by paypal or google or cash mailed. We could give the cash mailed option to bidders too who might be hesitant to give up their info when buying borderline stuff. If this goes well it could cover costs indefinitely just with once or twice a year auctions.
Anyone have any thoughts about this?
i've never heard of google checkout (i'm gonna take a look).
In general, if other sites are managing successful auctions, there's no reason we can't as well.
And your idea about the buyer paying shipping costs is reasonable.
Like it all.
I wish I had more time to work on a project like that but I don't... maybe this weekend I can help but I also have no experience setting up an auction. If someone wants to take lead on this, please speak up and we can vote if we get more than a few.
Already got one donation from one member but waiting to see if it's OK by them to be recognized for it.
Will look at Google checkout this weekend.
Gotta get sleep for work tonight.
See ya later!
-kemp
I don't have much to offer but if you guys do start the auction idea I might have some various seeds and or brugmansia cuttings to benefit the site.
i looked at google checkout - and saw a lot of major chain stores accept it.
Not sure if it works for small set-ups like us.
hi alice - good to see you're on board.
I wouldn't try to mail biological samples overseas, but i'd put some poetry books on the block.
Is there anyone, as Kemp asked, prepared to lead this auction?
I'll help if i can but seems like anyone could help, they would not have to be an administrator or mod. I could set up a forum for it and make someone the mod of it. Judih, you game? Or i guess i could do that part too if no one wanted to.
Setting up google checkout would require a bank account like they do for paypal, or that's my understanding. I keep hearing horror stories of paypal and ebay stealing people's money for any excuse or because paypal made a mistake. You can't even talk to anyone, they won't answer you. You just get a form email and they grab your bank account balance or whatever they want to do. It's all in their tos. I heard from someone who had no money in their account and they took $250 anyway without giving a reason and he had a -250 balance.
Other things that would require behind the scenes work would be to get the postage payment to the donors who send stuff out. I should think that could be done by paypal, google or cash in the mail, same as payments are made. It's my understanding kemp set up the paypal so if he does not have time to mess with it then it will be hard to do. But the rest of us can do the other parts like monitor the auction and so on. Donors would be expected to send stuff out when an auction is won and payment is made.
Judih, cenacle, maybe one of you could set up the google account? I don't know but it seems like a good idea and it would take care of donations for a while. We could promote it on other sites. We've been slowly going downhill for years and done nothing about it. This might reverse that process.
Quote from: "Stonehenge"I don't know but it seems like a good idea and it would take care of donations for a while. We could promote it on other sites. We've been slowly going downhill for years and done nothing about it. This might reverse that process.
I would love to see more movement on this site(members and posts) This is really the only site for this topic I participate in.(I have been a member of shroomery for over a year but never made a single post) This place just has such a great backbone of awesome members I would hate to see it eventually slow to a stop.
I am going to see if I can pull some members from the facebook group I run and get them to come over here.(I have almost 400 members so hopefully I will be able to get a few people)
hi alice - great idea.
kemp - the part that doesn't fit me is the bank account.
Quotekemp said: "setting up google checkout would require a bank account like they do for paypal, or that's my understanding"
I'm a kibbutznik - no private income - my salary from teaching goes straight to the kibbutz and i get a small yearly budget. i don't deal with banks. Bank accounts and i are not a daily occurrence.
Aside from the fact that we operate in a different currency, it seems that banks around here also operate on a parallel plane. (backward and slow and so unlike what i've seen in major cities in this country, not to mention in n. america). Therefore, setting up a google account is something i cannot do.
Maybe cenacle? Or someone else?
Yeah Google Checkout looks like it is more of a pain to setup than the alternatives.
Cash or money orders can work fine if people wrap (say cash) in a regular 8x11 piece of paper, tri-fold it and put it in there. I can keep track of who pays me by sending cash or by PayPal and I don't keep any large amounts of money in PayPal so, I doubt they would take it away.
We only need 90Euros to cover next year so, we already have $30 and with a few more donations like that, we will be done for this year. This doesn't have to be complicated or take a lot of time.
I will make another thread to list the donors.
Thanks,
Kemp
K guys, we have made progress but we still have a little ways to go. Can you afford $5 to help keep this forum going another year? If so, please help out. There is a Paypal link at top of the forum and if you don't like that, you can send cash. Shoot me a PM if you have any questions you can't or don't want to ask here.
Thanks everyone!
-kemp
Sent a small donation via PayPal.
Indeed.
Thanks for your donation JRL!
:tea:
Nice work on the site PK.... and sorry to just drop it in your lap. I will get you some cash in short time. :smoke:3
Hey, I hate to come home empty-handed, but I couldn't find a link for donations.
Somebody hook me up? Or should I wait for another funding drive?
hey space good to see you. The donate link is at the very bottom of the page.
-roach
Thanks roach--I'm always lookin' up, so I didn't see it.
I hit the Donate button and got this:
QuoteError Detected
Error Message
PayPal cannot process this transaction because of a problem with the seller's website. Please contact the seller directly to resolve this problem.
But maybe that's because I'm on an old laptop in the basement Sanctum where I run microXP.
I'll try it on my vanilla desktop later, see what happens and let you know.