Thank you, I just swung a couple of coffees

Big thanks Lodion for setting this place up and running it. I understand the mental and financial load it brings. No judgement for stepping away. I hope whatever is going on in your life is made easier by doing so ❤️

This community is certainly a pleasant corner of the internet which is a true rarity.

Nath, big thanks too for putting your hand up for running things. If it's getting too much and you need a break or helping hand don't keep quiet. Appreciate the way you've both done the post.

I've got strong dislike for small monthly payments but if I can do a once off I'll throw some dollarydoos at it and probably again in a year or two. Please announce when a suitable option is chosen.

Dammit! 😆

You can borrow mine if you like, I'm not using it

4106

Thanks for the link, came back just to see if this got posted!

Yeah took me ages to find yesterday, good job for linking!

Sure about that? 😉

Apparently my postcode doesn't exist

Hey hey, firstly, a huge thanks to you and Lodion for everything you've done with Aussie.Zone. I'd really love to see it continue.

I'm more than happy to chip in financially, but I also have some time and would be keen to offer some practical help.

I noticed you mentioned needing assistance with the finances and reporting. That's something I could potentially help with, along with documenting the existing setup and working through what a sustainable operating model might look like.

I've got experience with planning, governance and financial modelling, as well as a fair bit of hands-on experience with self-hosted services and infrastructure. I'm certainly not a Lemmy expert, but I'm comfortable working through the technical side.

I wouldn't want to create more work for you, particularly while you're managing the transition, but if that sounds useful I'd be very happy to help.

And Lodion, thank you for creating this place. It's genuinely something special. ❤️

Yeah, but i've still got you pipped on that leaderboard 😋

Just an FYI for all those saying they totally would donate.... You currently can, at https://ko-fi.com/lodion. Just saying.

I totally agree. Actually I think pretty much everyone agrees. It's just a bit tricky, because it is not what most people are use to in their daily lives.

I mean, in most cases people seek out the highest quality products at the lowest prices. Lower cost is basically always what people aim for, as long as the quality is high enough. But with FOSS and other free services, you get the product for free... so that's a win right? Zero cost. What are you paying for? It needs a totally different mindset. We need to think of ourselves as part of a community working together and sharing resources - not a bunch of independent people only making trades for our own self-interest. For that, I think transparency about what funding is needed and where it is going is very helpful.

Yeah. Shlee is a bit of an expert on fundraising for community projects. He has taken on the funding and maintenance of a few smaller mastodon servers after their original admins were no longer able; and he is the chief fundraising guy for pixelfed, the fediverse alternative to instagram. I'm on aus.social, and I've donated to the Posters Union a couple of times. (Although I think it might be renaming to Posters Guild, due to some minor legal pushback when registering it as an official charity or something.) And as you (Gorgritch) point out, he is a real-life person who also does various charity fundraising in the physical world amongst real people outside of the internet.

So yeah, probably it would be worth contacting him for ideas and suggestions.

I’m a carer, but I can find a few dollars.

I like what’s going on here, it’s worth a few dollars

Edit: and thanks.

Thanks heaps for making this community and keeping it running for 3 years Lodion. Ill admit that I had drifted away from Lemmy recently since joining shortly after Reddit killed the 3rd party apps, but am happy I opened it just now to see this post.

Even as the irregular user I have become, I would be happy to chuck in a small amount to support the running costs of the site as its good to have this quiet and conscientious community to participate in when I feel up to engaging.

I am semi tech literate, and will hopefully be getting diagnosed with the ADHD in the near future so if that helps me organise my time better I would be happy to try and support with the operation of the site itself, as well as hopefully contributing within the community here more as my current shit dopamine seeking habit is the endless instagram doomscroll, which isn't ideal!

Wishing you the best and I hope everything goes as well as it can in your personal life, and understand how that takes the priority!

I registered here as the first place when I ditched Reddit. Lemmy cured an addiction for me. I don't really have much energy for Lemmy now either. I'm almost totally social media-less. I take this as a win.

When I get an urge I open here and I get a clean good (if quiet) feed. I appreciate that you've freely given me this space on your servers and if you sign off and hand everything over, all I have is good memories and all I can give is my best wishes.

Thank you.

Please if you don't feel like being part of this anymore, know you're not indebted to us users. If I care to move, that's not that hard on Lemmy. Especially because the points don't exist, a new account somewhere else is trivial even if I don't migrate my ID because I don't notice a message telling me it might go offline. It's not that bad.

Oh right! Yeah, that would make sense. Although i don't remember that having a name.

Pretty sure it was just the age verification stuff.

If anyone knows of above board methods to establish a crowd funded piggy bank for something like this, I’m all ears.

For crowd funding, I'm a fan of Liberapay and fund a lot of my favourite people and projects that way.

yeah a patreon could possibly work for that, unless someone knows more of the ins than I do.

In terms of covering costs, Lemmy.nz has had to do this since earlier this year (we borrowed hosting before this). Making it visible is important, and people will donate if they are aware but as our LemmyNZ census questionaire shows every time, there are a significant chunk of people that don't even know how to donate!

I've been doing quarterly financial updates to make the costs and donations visible. Each post has led to a string of donations, not only from our users. One update had a $100 shortfall and there were hundreds donated in the following days!

So I highly recommend doing some sort of regular post so everyone knows where you're at financially and as a reminder to people who want to donate but forget.

I'll reiterate that this place has been a safe space. Much nicer than reddit, a much happier place I'd rather be. Thankyou, every ounce has been appreciated even if you think it not :)

Just tell us how we can support you.

Patreon perhaps?

The Molly project?

Do you mean this: https://mollyproject.org/

I'd be happy to do a recurring donation. I'd like to help out as well but I don't have the most technical background, I'd love to learn but I just need to find the time