If every active member donated $5.00...

[theaxiom]

If every active member, which I estimate to be about 10% of the 100k+ members, donated just $5 to the RunUO team, that would come out to about $50,000 USD. Don't you think the team deserves this for the hard work they have invested into what has now become what your shard lives and breathes? I know you each have $5.00 to spare, and considering that you would not be here unless you were running/planning to run a shard, and you have a lot of fun from the fruits of someone else's labor, don't you think you could spare at least $5.00 to keep them going? Show your thanks for what they have done for you.

As soon as I have some money I am going to be donating, it will most definitely be more than just $5.00 because I appreciate very much what they have done for us. I will probably have do mail it, so I will need someone to give me their mailing address.

If you are unable to donate, all you have to do is reply to this thread and give a simple thank you!

Thank you RunUO Team for the wonderful tool you have provided for us free of charge! I realize you could have kept it to yourselves, or charged for it, but you don't and I can't thank you enough. I would also like to thank the community for the wonderful support, and custom additions.

Everyone keep up the great work.

[Phentis]

Never had web money, but Very very big thank you to RunUO team! You power our worlds!

[WarAngel]

Originally Posted by theaxiom

and considering that you would not be here unless you were running/planning to run a shard

While that's not really true, even I'd be glad to give $5.

[Anti-Basic]

I'd rather see a RunUO Team sponsored donation drive to help poopthrower. Noone should die that young tbh.

[Brutus5000]

Originally Posted by theaxiom

If every active member, which I estimate to be about 10% of the 100k+ members, donated just $5 to the RunUO team, that would come out to about $50,000 USD. Don't you think the team deserves this for the hard work they have invested into what has now become what your shard lives and breathes? I know you each have $5.00 to spare, and considering that you would not be here unless you were running/planning to run a shard, and you have a lot of fun from the fruits of someone else's labor, don't you think you could spare at least $5.00 to keep them going? Show your thanks for what they have done for you.

As soon as I have some money I am going to be donating, it will most definitely be more than just $5.00 because I appreciate very much what they have done for us. I will probably have do mail it, so I will need someone to give me their mailing address.

If you are unable to donate, all you have to do is reply to this thread and give a simple thank you!

Thank you RunUO Team for the wonderful tool you have provided for us free of charge! I realize you could have kept it to yourselves, or charged for it, but you don't and I can't thank you enough. I would also like to thank the community for the wonderful support, and custom additions.

Everyone keep up the great work.

Well, do you know how much a root server costs? Many people offer freeshards. And that's THEIR effort for the community. Does anybody pay them? No? But why do they do it anyway? Because it's fun!

Of course the RunUO Team has done great work. But they decided to give it away for free. If they would need the money they would have chosen another licence, or maybe you would see a lot of advertisements on this page. I believe the devs have good jobs (no wonder with such skills ) and they really don't need the money. Just have a look at Ryan's server farms. I'm sure he pays more than 500$ per month just for that.

And your question pops up everywhere: Following you argumentation I'd have to donate 5$ to RunUO, 5$ to Razor, 5$ to OpenOffice, 5$ to Apache Foundation, 5$ to Firefox, 5$ to Thunderbird, 5$ to the Linux Kernel, 5$ to my favorite Linux Distribution, 5$ to every OpenSource program i'm using. Believe me, that would be up to ~1000$, increasing every day.
I don't have so much money, I would have to select to whom I'd like to donate. And now please tell me, why exactly RunUO?

But there are also a lot of other ways to donate to OpenSource projects. Report bugs, submit patches and donate code. Help other people in the community, give support wherever you can. Convince people to use Free Software instead of proprietary. This is something you can not buy with money and helps the project much more than just spending money.

And, if you have the skills, you can release your own programs under an Open Source licence. That is the spirit of Open Source. It's not all about money.

[TMSTKSBK]

They took donations for a while.

Then they stopped. It was a hassle.

AB has an excellent idea.

[Rosey1]

Originally Posted by TMSTKSBK

AB has an excellent idea.

I agree

more text....

[theaxiom]

Brutus5000, yes you are correct, those are also great ways to show your thanks for the wonderful contribution the RunUO team has made. Thank you for the elaboration, and I do apologize if I had offended you.

[Brutus5000]

Originally Posted by theaxiom

Brutus5000, yes you are correct, those are also great ways to show your thanks for the wonderful contribution the RunUO team has made. Thank you for the elaboration, and I do apologize if I had offended you.

You did'nt offend me, there is no need to apologize

[Joeku]

Already donated $$$ to Zippy for Razor...

But yeah. Donation for poopthrower. Definitely.

[Lord_Greywolf]

who is this "poopthrower"
when i do a search for him - everything seams to point back to nomad707 (or something like that)

[TMSTKSBK]

His username changed. poopthrower==nomad707.

[slithers]

how is he dieing?

[Rhexis]

Deforming breastbone after a motorcycle accident..didnt find out about it til chest pains in teh army? -Vague recollections- I think the most recent thread he made was in regards to it. Estimated four years left to live.

[theaxiom]

<off-topic>Thank you very much, to the extremely kind person who gave me negative reputation for this thread. I really do appreciate it. I wonder why it doesn't show names of people who give you reputation...</off-topic>

I had never heard of this poopthrower, is there any way we have of providing him with donations?

[Anti-Basic]

There isn't yet, hence why I suggested it. Donating now is premature, until we can A) set up some sort of organized method, and B) Have a rough estimate of the people willing to donate.

There's no point in starting a huge donation drive if the most we'll make from it is 100$. We also don't want to get poopthrower/nomad707 too excited and give him false hope in case it isn't successful, especially since he seems to be somewhat accepting of his current situation as it stands, although that might just be the pessimist in me.

[HellRazor]

People should know where the donations are going. For example I'd want to make sure that my donations were used for the benefit of RUO and applied either fairly to the team as a whole and/or used toward the costs of maintaining the community. I would need to think about it though if the donations went toward maintaining the official RUO shards since I don't play on them.

But other than full disclosure, I'm all for it. I donated under the old system when it was still active. It's a great server and a great community and I don't mind contributing to something that I enjoy so much and which the RUO team has worked so hard on and been so generous with. It would need to be a system supported by the RUO team tho.

[HellRazor]

Originally Posted by Anti-Basic

We also don't want to get poopthrower/nomad707 too excited and give him false hope in case it isn't successful, especially since he seems to be somewhat accepting of his current situation as it stands, although that might just be the pessimist in me.

Also, not to sound cruel or anything, but someone should validate in some way that the condition does in fact exist so that people can feel comfortable that they are donating to someone truly in need of help. I'm sure it's probably totally valid and if so I'm completely sympathetic to anyone in that kind of situation - but sad to say that there are so many people out there on the internet who lie about such things for whatever reasons they may have.

The last time I tried to help someone, it was a guy outside a Borders store who said he was broke, and his truck ran out of gas, and could I loan him a few bucks so he could get gas. He seemed sincere enough, so I gave him 10 bucks only to find the same guy at the same spot a few days later. He didn't remember me and he gave me the same line. It's sad that guys like this have made people so skeptical when there are really needy and honest people out there who truly need help.

[Anti-Basic]

Originally Posted by HellRazor

Also, not to sound cruel or anything, but someone should validate in some way that the condition does in fact exist so that people can feel comfortable that they are donating to someone truly in need of help. I'm sure it's probably totally valid and if so I'm completely sympathetic to anyone in that kind of situation - but sad to say that there are so many people out there on the internet who lie about such things for whatever reasons they may have.

The last time I tried to help someone, it was a guy outside a Borders store who said he was broke, and his truck ran out of gas, and could I loan him a few bucks so he could get gas. He seemed sincere enough, so I gave him 10 bucks only to find the same guy at the same spot a few days later. He didn't remember me and he gave me the same line. It's sad that guys like this have made people so skeptical when there are really needy and honest people out there who truly need help.

Completely different scenario. He just posted about it, and at that was relunctant to do so. He didn't ask for anything, I suggested it.

Now I understand your concern and it is valid, we had a lot of very similar things happen during Katrina, people scamming etc and you are 100% corrrect in that it takes help away from the people that need it, but thats really not the case here.

[theaxiom]

Originally Posted by HellRazor

People should know where the donations are going. For example I'd want to make sure that my donations were used for the benefit of RUO and applied either fairly to the team as a whole and/or used toward the costs of maintaining the community. I would need to think about it though if the donations went toward maintaining the official RUO shards since I don't play on them.

But other than full disclosure, I'm all for it. I donated under the old system when it was still active. It's a great server and a great community and I don't mind contributing to something that I enjoy so much and which the RUO team has worked so hard on and been so generous with. It would need to be a system supported by the RUO team tho.

Exactly where I am coming from.

[HellRazor]

Originally Posted by Anti-Basic

Completely different scenario. He just posted about it, and at that was relunctant to do so. He didn't ask for anything, I suggested it.

Now I understand your concern and it is valid, we had a lot of very similar things happen during Katrina, people scamming etc and you are 100% corrrect in that it takes help away from the people that need it, but thats really not the case here.

Yeah, I know it's not the same as my example and is probably a 100% true situation, especially given the way it came up and that he isn't asking anyone for anything. I'm just saying that if there is a donation drive, whoever starts it should take some extra steps just to make sure so that everyone can be assured they are donating to a worthy cause. It will make people who don't know the whole story more likely to donate if they know for a certainty.

Again, I know this probably isn't the case here - but I've seen people online who you think you know pretty well do some pretty atrocious things, and for no reason at all. I've seen people make up terminal illnesses and fake their own deaths and suicides, even when there wasn't anything in it for them to do it. Why anyone does something like this is beyond me but it does happen. Playing UO itself is a good example of how you can meet people who you think are friends, but who actually place no value whatsoever on any relationships they make online, as if the online people they meet aren't "real" with real feelings.

I could write a book, "Everything I Needed To Know About Online Relationships I Learned From Ultima Online" - and the moral of the story would be, "be careful with how far you trust anyone".

I actually had a friend who I met online, became very good friends with in "real life", and I found out something like 6 years later that the name I knew him by wasn't even his real name. So you really just never know about people.