Admin Posted April 20, 2013 Report Share Posted April 20, 2013 Guys, I am sorry for having to reach out to our members again, but the economical burden on my shoulders is to heavy for me to carry alone these days. As most of you know, PayPal closed all of our accounts and we were unable to accept PP-payments for almost 6 months. Because of this, all payments from existing member stopped. As you might know, our VIP/Platinum members are allowed to choose whether they prefer to pay per month, per quarter or yearly. All income to the forum is important, but we had a lot of members that were paying by the month. Since PP closed our accounts, all of these VIP and platinum memberships expired and I had to cover pretty much all expenses out of my own pocket for almost 6 months and we are talking thousands of dollars here. Now, I am in no way a rich man, so these extra expenses had to be covered using my personal credit card. Fortunately, we are now able to accept payments as usual, but unfortunately, only a small percentage of the members that used to be supporting members have signed up again. This basically means that we don't have the cash flow needed (yet) to cover all of our expenses, meaning more expenses for me. I love RWG and the great forum we have created here. I have made a lot of friends here and I have also been so blessed that I have been able to be a part of one of the GTG's and actually meet some of our great members. But the money is tight and this money issue has actually become a big burden for me lately. Actually so much, that I notice that it is influencing my relationship to the forum in a non-positive way. Basically, I have to work a lot more and harder in my other job(s) to get more money and this leaves less time for me to spend here (Or even more important; with my family). I may not be the most active member in the forums, but that's basically because there is always a lot going on in the background here. For instance, I receive 10-30 e-mails/PM's every day with questions, problems, etc. that needs to be answered/solved/etc. Not to mention hardware maintenance, software upgrade/updates/, database maintenance. And this is just on the web + db-servers we have. Add a backup-server + load balancers and you can imagine that we have a pretty complex setup. All to give the almost 8000 unique daily visitors that best possible experience browsing our forum. Doing this hasn't bothered me at all for many, many years. But now, when I have this economical burden hanging over me, I notice that I feel the forum isn't all the fun it used to be. I feel annoyed by the number of e-mails and questions I get, that I know people could have just used the search function to find. (Not to mention all the e-mails I get from members who are unable to log in here, just to find out that they aren't members here. Good things we have multiple RWG's.....). I feel I could have done other things, that actually got me some money in my pocket, instead of having to optimize the database today, etc. OK, long story short, we need your support and there are multiple ways you can support your favorite community. The preferred one is to upgrade to either VIP or platinum membership. By doing this, you are giving something back to the community and we are giving you something back: No ads, bigger PM inbox, no limitations on search, access to post in sales forum, etc. You can upgrade your membership by going here: http://www.rwgforum.net/pages/upgrade If you think $5 per month is to expensive (or $3 per month, if you pay by the year), I have created a special RWG supporter-membership( or the "cost-less-then-a-cup-of-coffee-membership" ). This will only cost you $2 per month (Can only be purchased on a pay-per-month basis) This will remove the ads from the forum and you will get a RWG Supporter tag, but that's about it.. You can upgrade to this special membership here: http://account.selg.nu/signup/index/c/26QFkdw3 Log in with your forum username and password. Last option is to make a donation to the forum. This is of course available to all members, even if you are a supporting member or not. Please use this link to make a donation: http://selg.nu/support/2 I hope as many as possible will consider an upgrade. I know it's a tough world out there, with lots of people with little or no money in their pocket, so please contribute if this is something you feel that you can afford or of you feel that our forum is worth to support. If you have no money, you can also support us by click the ads, if you see an ad for something you find interesting. The ads might be annoying, but they do generate a small income for the forum! The forum itself will always be free and open to everybody, but we rely on our generous supporters to stay online. After all, this is a forum with more than 46000 members. If just 1% upgraded and paid our new RWG Supporter-membership each month, we would never have to ask for donations again. Let me just end this with a massive thank you to all of you who already have upgraded and who is always there to support the forum. Oh, and if you are having any difficulties upgrading or submitting a donation, please send me a PM or e-mail (admin (at) rwg.cc) T PS. Please keep this important topic bumped for a while, as my weekend is rather busy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SSTEEL Posted April 20, 2013 Report Share Posted April 20, 2013 I will be upgrading my account in the near future. Money is tied up right now, and we are feeling the pinch here too with the terrible economy, but I do plan on giving something back to this wonderful forum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Posted April 20, 2013 Author Report Share Posted April 20, 2013 Yea, money is tight for a lot of us. Just for your kind thought as a reply to this post, I have added a complimentary 1 month VIP membership 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeSentier Posted April 20, 2013 Report Share Posted April 20, 2013 What about to donate a percentage of each sale to RWG - I thought we had this in the past? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Posted April 20, 2013 Author Report Share Posted April 20, 2013 What about to donate a percentage of each sale to RWG - I thought we had this in the past? We did, but unfortunately, most of the members never honored this. "Yes, I know I posted it for sale here and I sold it, but I sold the watch on one of the other forums" was a well known excuse... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fraggle42 Posted April 20, 2013 Report Share Posted April 20, 2013 It's a pity that everyone likes using their web browser to access forums and so on. It wouldn't take too much to code a front end "forum" app that used bittorrent as the back end, meaning that a dozen or so members with a decent fast and reliable net connection could actually host the forum data in a bit torrent way (on PCs that would need to be left on 24/7). You'd have great redundancy and the bandwidth would be split between the member hosts too. Updates and new posts wouldn't be quick to propagate though, but small price to pay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeSentier Posted April 20, 2013 Report Share Posted April 20, 2013 The donation could be made before the sale - that's like a kind of comission for RWG. This could be offered to non VIP/Platinum members. After donating, you could offer a free VIP/Platinum membership for an agreed period. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nanuq Posted April 20, 2013 Report Share Posted April 20, 2013 I'll toss a bone in here... I've been running a sale for over a year, off and on. It's for a rare ~40mm titanium dive beast. Someone buy it and 50% of the proceeds go to RWG. Who's up for it?<br />http://www.rwgforum.net/topic/122480-fs-titanium-chrono-dive-beast/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sgtguk Posted April 21, 2013 Report Share Posted April 21, 2013 I've got a few pieces that are going up for sale soon, I'll gladly donate the proceeds to the cause when sold Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legend Posted April 21, 2013 Report Share Posted April 21, 2013 bump and yes support on the way! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike on a bike Posted April 21, 2013 Report Share Posted April 21, 2013 Donation in route. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike on a bike Posted April 21, 2013 Report Share Posted April 21, 2013 Chief can not get donation link to work" 0%" in box can not get out and put in money? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike on a bike Posted April 21, 2013 Report Share Posted April 21, 2013 I am sure that the problem will be taken care of now to matter at hand, guys I know money is tight whatever you can even 5-10 buck donation if that is all you can do there are a lot of us it adds up! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legend Posted April 21, 2013 Report Share Posted April 21, 2013 Mike, join me in the RWG diamond club. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CptTripps Posted April 21, 2013 Report Share Posted April 21, 2013 I can appreciate this WAY more than most. I've run a lot of forums in the past, and still do. I have one that uses a constant 3-4MB and costs about $3K a month to run. I've found a few ways to monetize the site, without disrupting the normal corse of usage. I'll send you a PM in a bit. I may be able to help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike on a bike Posted April 21, 2013 Report Share Posted April 21, 2013 Whatever Legend you know I'm in! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legend Posted April 21, 2013 Report Share Posted April 21, 2013 Whatever Legend you know I'm in! Mike, you are always in like the latest trend Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike on a bike Posted April 21, 2013 Report Share Posted April 21, 2013 Of course, look at my bike! LOLROF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike on a bike Posted April 21, 2013 Report Share Posted April 21, 2013 Bump Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legend Posted April 21, 2013 Report Share Posted April 21, 2013 Mike, support and be a diamond club member haha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike on a bike Posted April 21, 2013 Report Share Posted April 21, 2013 Come on guys 5 dollars a month for VIP 36 bucks if you pay for the year lets get the lead out! Legend PM me how, on the way out will be back later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpz5142 Posted April 21, 2013 Report Share Posted April 21, 2013 Mike, join me in the RWG diamond club. What's this with the diamond club? I don't want to miss out and have Mike and Legend the only members, share the love! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
basketbob951 Posted April 21, 2013 Report Share Posted April 21, 2013 It.s a little hard, but I cannot imagine that you have to pay for our joy Chief... We have to make a huge effort or take radical decisions but it cannot go this way longer.... Maybe limit the number of topics viewed or the number or answer possible to non supporting users? Come on guys , we see every day those 400$ watches which are sold here thanks to the platform.... Everyone here which is a regular user should be a supportive one, we cannot rely on someone else effort.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpz5142 Posted April 21, 2013 Report Share Posted April 21, 2013 I just upgraded from VIP to platinum and let me tell you, the forum just looks different now. It sparkles and glimmers and it even automatically told me the answer to "who has the best sub?" I'm telling you everyone should experience the forum like this... Just saying... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sgtguk Posted April 21, 2013 Report Share Posted April 21, 2013 This forum is a goldmine for everything horological and should be cherished, we are not talking big $$ here guys just a few bucks into the pot for a good cause every now and then doesn't hurt Donate right here http://api.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&key=79bd9386a12d9ac58a81d42672c87dc4&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rwgforum.net%2Ftopic%2F158404-please-help-support-rwg%2F&subId=&v=1&libid=1366554166933&out=http%3A%2F%2Fselg.nu%2Fsupport%2F2&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rwgforum.net%2Ftopic%2F158404-please-help-support-rwg%2Fpage-2&title=Please%20help%20support%20RWG%20-%20General%20Discussion%20-%20RWG%20Forum&txt=http%3A%2F%2Fselg.nu%2Fsupport%2F2&jsonp=vglnk_jsonp_13665541550694 Good on ya Jp see all that glitters is indeed 'Platinum' enjoy your new found freedom ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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