Update on The Archive's future, and fundraising
Hi all, and thanks to everyone who made suggestions or shared their opinions!
It seems that The Archive is still useful to a number of existing users, and it has also been pointed out that there are a lot of fics on there that will be lost if The Archive is no more. I spent a great evening re-reading Violet Quill and Maeglin Yedi's stories last night, and I'm sure they aren't the only ones who don't have their work archived anywhere else that I'm aware of. If you know of any others we archive that are no longer in fandom, please let me know.
As far as solving the problem of cost goes, our host has very kindly agreed to reduce the cost by 75% to $10/month (bringing it down to the price it would have been if I had moved to the cheaper host I had in mind) without any reduction in the resources we have available. I have been given some time to get the bills paid so should be able to work on the site without it being suspended. Obviously this is an ideal solution as it avoids any technical issues from moving and also we are guaranteed the site is not under threat as far as content is concerned.
This means that as long as I can find enough funds to cover The Archive's bills for a reasonable period of time, we can keep going. My plan is to renew the domain for at least two years initially to save some money. If by some miracle we raise more funds than is needed for the two years, I will increase the renewal length so we can save more.
My plans for maintaining the site
I will add posts to this community for requesting new fandoms and characters, for requesting invites and for any problems. The forum won't be coming back as we had horrendous problems with spam posts, but I will remove the forum link from the site as soon as I can we do have a shiny new comm over at Insanejournal to mirror this one, and that has replaced the old forum link.
I will either recruit some technical help or learn how to fix some of the minor problems I spotted on The Archive - nothing seems to be affecting the actual running of the site or uploading, so I should have time to work on it.
To cover The Archive for two years (including the amount already outstanding on the account), I need to raise $425. For every $130 over that amount I can add another year.
The domain is due for renewal in the first week of August. This gives us three weeks to raise enough funds, so please ask your flists to help if they can, and get the word out. Feel free to offer fic or anything in return for donations, whatever you can come up with! No donation amount is too small.
If you'd rather shop than donate, don't forget you can go to this site where all proceeds go towards The Archive too.
Please note: any donations made will be refunded at the end of the month if for any reason we are unable to continue.
Artfire site refunds
If you prefer to wait until the end of the month before your items are posted in case all your money can be refunded, just let me know in the Paypal payment details and I will hold off until then. I need to know in advance because random passersby do occasionally buy things and they don't usually want to wait :)
Obviously I would prefer this fundraising drive to be a success, but your donations are safe, I promise.
Please spread the word, the three weeks start now and the goal is to reach at least $425. I will post updates on progress, so now I really hope there will be some progress or I'm going to feel really silly *g*
ETA: And we have progress! You can see how far along we are in $ and % below. Thank you very much to our kind donors and shoppers so far :-)
ETA 2: If you are in the UK and prefer to donate by offline means, just let me know.
ETA 3: 30th July - we made it! Proper post coming soon, but I couldn't wait to do the update :D
458 / 425
107.76%
It seems that The Archive is still useful to a number of existing users, and it has also been pointed out that there are a lot of fics on there that will be lost if The Archive is no more. I spent a great evening re-reading Violet Quill and Maeglin Yedi's stories last night, and I'm sure they aren't the only ones who don't have their work archived anywhere else that I'm aware of. If you know of any others we archive that are no longer in fandom, please let me know.
As far as solving the problem of cost goes, our host has very kindly agreed to reduce the cost by 75% to $10/month (bringing it down to the price it would have been if I had moved to the cheaper host I had in mind) without any reduction in the resources we have available. I have been given some time to get the bills paid so should be able to work on the site without it being suspended. Obviously this is an ideal solution as it avoids any technical issues from moving and also we are guaranteed the site is not under threat as far as content is concerned.
This means that as long as I can find enough funds to cover The Archive's bills for a reasonable period of time, we can keep going. My plan is to renew the domain for at least two years initially to save some money. If by some miracle we raise more funds than is needed for the two years, I will increase the renewal length so we can save more.
My plans for maintaining the site
I will add posts to this community for requesting new fandoms and characters, for requesting invites and for any problems. The forum won't be coming back as we had horrendous problems with spam posts, but I will remove the forum link from the site as soon as I can we do have a shiny new comm over at Insanejournal to mirror this one, and that has replaced the old forum link.
I will either recruit some technical help or learn how to fix some of the minor problems I spotted on The Archive - nothing seems to be affecting the actual running of the site or uploading, so I should have time to work on it.
To cover The Archive for two years (including the amount already outstanding on the account), I need to raise $425. For every $130 over that amount I can add another year.
The domain is due for renewal in the first week of August. This gives us three weeks to raise enough funds, so please ask your flists to help if they can, and get the word out. Feel free to offer fic or anything in return for donations, whatever you can come up with! No donation amount is too small.
If you'd rather shop than donate, don't forget you can go to this site where all proceeds go towards The Archive too.
Please note: any donations made will be refunded at the end of the month if for any reason we are unable to continue.
Artfire site refunds
If you prefer to wait until the end of the month before your items are posted in case all your money can be refunded, just let me know in the Paypal payment details and I will hold off until then. I need to know in advance because random passersby do occasionally buy things and they don't usually want to wait :)
Obviously I would prefer this fundraising drive to be a success, but your donations are safe, I promise.
Please spread the word, the three weeks start now and the goal is to reach at least $425. I will post updates on progress, so now I really hope there will be some progress or I'm going to feel really silly *g*
ETA: And we have progress! You can see how far along we are in $ and % below. Thank you very much to our kind donors and shoppers so far :-)
ETA 2: If you are in the UK and prefer to donate by offline means, just let me know.
ETA 3: 30th July - we made it! Proper post coming soon, but I couldn't wait to do the update :D
458 / 425
107.76%