Tribe of Judah accepting donations for next dedicated server hosting account

Tribe of Judah recently took its game servers offline when Plankeye discovered that our former dedicated hosting provider, ServerBeach, began allowing adult content without notifying its current customers. Rather than support a company that hosts pornographic media, Plankeye took the servers offline and cancelled our account. I and the other staff members agreed and still agree with his decision.

Shortly before Plankeye closed down the servers, Thaddius, our former Treasurer, stepped down from his staff position. Thaddius served Tribe of Judah for years and made our move from free web hosting to paid web hosting possible.

Since Thaddius' resignation and the cancelling of our account with ServerBeach, ToJ staff members have been working toward finding a suitable dedicated server host and bringing our servers back online.

I hope to start a fundraising campaign soon, but will need to appoint a Fundraising Campaign Manager first. Click here for more information regarding this new staff position. The Fundraising Campaign Manager will also contact businesses regarding non-invasive advertising opportunities with ToJ. These advertisements will likely be in the form of a periodic two-line text advertisment on our game servers featuring the sponsor's slogan and web site address.

While we still have a long way to go before we can bring our servers back online and keep them online (by monthly sponsorship from businesses), I have established a new Paypal account for Tribe of Judah donations. Starting today (Sunday, July 10, 2005), we are accepting donations via Paypal toward the next Tribe of Judah dedicated server.

I have elected to provide Thaddius with the password for the new Paypal account in order to keep me accountable and verify I am handling the funds donated by members honestly. I plan to transfer all funds from this "holding" Paypal account to one managed by our next Treasurer as soon as possible.

In order to establish an account with 1&1 (the server hosting provider staff members selected) and keep it active for six months, we will need $813 US in donations. It will cost an additional $714 US to keep the servers online for an additional six months.

In addition to dedicated server hosting expenses, we are also accepting donations toward ToJ's web hosting expenses. According to Thaddius, we pay $9.95 US per month for web hosting with GearHost. It will cost $59.70 US for six months of hosting; $119.40 US for one year of hosting.

While I do not plan to rely solely on member donations to fund our web site and dedicated server, I know several members are waiting to contribute what funds they can afford toward ToJ's expenses.

For more information on how you can help bring ToJ's game servers back online, click here.

Yowch. The beginning money is alot, but once we get the ball rolling we should be fine. I'm gonna try to see if I can.

I forgot to add this.

I'm like *yay! we gotta server!* But I'm also like:

*BOO! BAD Ping!*

lol
---
I'm totally envious of hcs:aka suicidebomber's ping. ping = 1-8

my ping = 110-170

That's why I'm tired of playing on ToJ and GFC but WHATEVER!

i'm gonna try 2 pwn hcs anyway! >

July 19, 2005 update

UPDATE: As soon as a few eCheck payments clear, we will have $131 in donations. A big "thank you" goes out to those who have donated.

Ahhh... I can officially send payment thru PayPal, yesterday was my first official paying for eBay, and it works. So, mine should be coming thru soon.

errr what happened to all the money that was sent to help the server from closing before the hosting company changed?

Atown said:

errr what happened to all the money that was sent to help the server from closing before the hosting company changed?

Click to expand...

In this post, Plankeye stated that enough donations had come in to cover May and June, but the server would be shut down at the end of June if no more donations came in. Six days later, he pulled the server offline after discovering that ServerBeach hosted adult content. Chances are slim that any donations came in during those six days, but I'll PM him and ask for the specifics.

Ideally, ServerBeach would refund the money for the remainder of June if we canceled the account in protest of their change in Terms of Service (of which, as far as I know, they never informed their customers). I don't know if such a refund was given, but I'll ask Plankeye.

Atown said:

errr what happened to all the money that was sent to help the server from closing before the hosting company changed?

Click to expand...

Every bit of the money that was poured into ToJ was forwarded to Plankeye. When I stepped down, I cleared out the paypal I have, Tek setup a new one, and the email addresses were switched to there.

That money will most likely be used for the startup of the new server. I am not sure how much Plankeye has left over or anything. That is a question he will have to answer.


Cory

I took a nice long vacation and bought several new video games... joking.

There was actually enough transferred from Thaddius/donated to have coverd an additional month had the Terms of Service not been changed. That is still in my paypal account pending information on where to transfer it next. In fact, it is just $25 shy of being able to cover the initial month of hosting with 1and1 (119 monthly cost + 99 initial setup = $218, I have 195 in my paypal account).

As far as transferring that, let me know. Don't forget that it incurs paypal fees everytime it is transferred. This happened when thaddius transferred it to me. So make sure I am moving the money to a permanent location so that we are not loosing money to paypal fees.

PayPal will charge about $6 for a $195 transaction, by the way.

Plankeye said:

There was actually enough transferred from Thaddius/donated to have coverd an additional month had the Terms of Service not been changed.

Click to expand...

That's terrific news!

As far as transferring that, let me know. Don't forget that it incurs paypal fees everytime it is transferred.

Click to expand...

Any time is a good time. I created a basic Paypal account to receive donations, so fees should be light. The plan is to upgrade the account, if necessary, rather than move the money again.

ok... I think I'll donate with my parent's money and pay them(my parents back) in cash... ^_^

August 6, 2005 Update

Plankeye transferred the "leftover" $195 US of donations from the previous server account to the new ToJ Paypal account on July 27. That brought us up to $326 US.

In order to keep the Tribe of Judah web site online, I have submitted a request to transfer $59.70 US (to pay for six months of web hosting at $9.95 per month) from the ToJ Paypal account to the bank account set aside for ToJ expenses. This leaves us $266.30 US in the Paypal account, meaning we must raise an additional $546.70 US before bringing our dedicated server online.

Click here to find out how you can donate funds to help bring Tribe of Judah's game servers online.

NOTE: At this time, we are not accepting donations by credit card. To accept credit card payments, we would need to upgrade the Paypal account from Personal to Premier. Doing so would mean losing money from each donation to Paypal fees. Currently, we are not charged for accepting donations sent via Paypal or eCheck.

Tek7 said:

NOTE: At this time, we are not accepting donations by credit card. To accept credit card payments, we would need to upgrade the Paypal account from Personal to Premier. Doing so would mean losing money from each donation to Paypal fees. Currently, we are not charged for accepting donations sent via Paypal or eCheck.

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You're basically saying that, if you have a Pay Pal account and want to donate, it needs to already have funds on it to donate to you, correct? At least that's the way I believe it works...

Shagz said:

You're basically saying that, if you have a Pay Pal account and want to donate, it needs to already have funds on it to donate to you, correct? At least that's the way I believe it works...

Click to expand...

No, Paypal can take money directly from a credit card that has already been attached to the account. It is different when you pay directly by credit card. If you use Paypal to send a payment, it should work, even if Paypal turns around and charges your credit card in order to send the payment.

Mr_Slice said:

No, Paypal can take money directly from a credit card that has already been attached to the account. It is different when you pay directly by credit card. If you use Paypal to send a payment, it should work, even if Paypal turns around and charges your credit card in order to send the payment.

Click to expand...

I second that...he's right.

Mr_Slice said:

No, Paypal can take money directly from a credit card that has already been attached to the account.

Click to expand...

A Paypal account can also be configured to draw money from a bank account. This provides those without a credit card an option for sending money.

For example: My personal Paypal account is tied to my personal bank account. I keep a balance of $0 in my personal Paypal account. When I make a purchase using my Paypal account, it automatically withdraws money from my bank account and sends it to the designated recipient.

You can also browse Paypal's help section for more information.

Right got that....I just remember a while back that I had to upgrade my PayPal account in order to receive payment from someone elses PayPal account. I had to upgrade because the other person didn't have anything in their existing personal PayPal account, so the money was going to come from that person's credit card.

I upgraded so I could receive this guy's payment, and now PayPal pulls money off the top of my transactions (or at least just that transaction, that was the last one I had).

I'll check the help section, see what she says...

Shagz said:

Right got that....I just remember a while back that I had to upgrade my PayPal account in order to receive payment from someone elses PayPal account. I had to upgrade because the other person didn't have anything in their existing personal PayPal account, so the money was going to come from that person's credit card.

I upgraded so I could receive this guy's payment, and now PayPal pulls money off the top of my transactions (or at least just that transaction, that was the last one I had).

I'll check the help section, see what she says...

Click to expand...

Anytime you receive payment from a credit card, Paypal takes some off the top. I really hate, too.

Which leads me back to:

At this time, we are not accepting donations by credit card. To accept credit card payments, we would need to upgrade the Paypal account from Personal to Premier. Doing so would mean losing money from each donation to Paypal fees. Currently, we are not charged for accepting donations sent via Paypal or eCheck.

Click to expand...

So, if a person's Pay Pal account was config to draw from a personal bank account, then ToJ can receive donations no prob. But if ToJ wants to be able to receive donations from people who have their PayPal account tied into a credit card (like myself), then they'll have to upgrade, which we're not about to do any time in the near future. Correct?