/!\ IMPORTANT /!\ OSTan needs you !

[Bella]

True. :/

Unless Fedora-Tan (or someone else here) can find a cheap/free host that will take the site as-is, I like the Kraus option the most.

[Raffaele the Amigan]

Thanks for all the suggests

Crowdfunding problem is that a good % goes to the platform, which is quite a waste still.
There is an embedded function on the forum which could be of use, i tried to set it up but i don't know if it works properly. For those who dare to try it :

https://ostan-collections.net/forum/index.php?action=profile;area=subscriptions

(Also reachable in your profile --> Actions)

It's a matter of a few ppl only using it actually so it keeps running.

If anyone tries that please keep me informed if it works well !

That is almost unuseful as it reachs only people who are registered...

...Amongst the registered users is usable only by those who are active...

...And amongst the active users, it will be clicked just by those who will gladly donate...

Indiegogo is a worldwide well-known platform for crowdfunding and you can reach thousands and thousands of people...

If only those thousands will gladly donate 1 Euro, with only 1000 people backing the collect, your site will be supported for at least 3 years.

And you will renounce to easy 1000 euro, just because 5% (this is Indiegogo price) goes to crowdfunding site? It is just 50 euro out of 1000!!!!! 

You will collect 950 euro!

IMHO is quite honest price.

If you set crowdfunding target at 500 Euro, and you reach your goal, you will keep 475 Euro (that is quite more than 360 Euro you need) and you will pay just 25 Euro of fees.

And with the presence on indiegogo, this site will start being recognized also as hiring yearly campaigns for crowdfunding, and this fact will generate a platform of regular donors who will donate any year.

Don't keep yourself stay closed in your courtyard when your stage could be the whole world...

Advertising is the soul of commerce and you need big visibility to collect enough funds. And with big funds you could also continue keeping online Hentai section too on your usual provider.

Sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo can really help you to keep OSTan-Collection site alive.

I suggest you to try a crowdfunding now and check what happens. At least it could cost you just 5% of the funds, if you reach the goal, and it has no charging costs if you don't reach the amount you were asking for.


[EDIT]

I just donated 5 dollars with Subscription Feature of OSTan site. Please refer if money arrived.

This will mean that you set it well.

[Dr. Kraus]

The only issue that I see with crowdfunding other than the percentage is that its going to get buried with every other website that is also attempting to collect funding.

Also you aren't going to keep  €950 because you WILL(unless the nation doesn't place crowdfunding in its taxable gifts/income brackets) get taxed upon collecting the funds which will vary depending on country.
France, if my memory serves me correctly, has a pretty high tax rate compared to other European nations within the Union so I will confidently say that  €950 isn't what you will be looking at if you even can get a thousand people to give  €1.

Though whatever route we go I will happily accept it and support it! But only when its been confirmed and its our only feasible option.

In terms of going to the free option for hosting it would probably be a bother to have to rid of all the 18+ stuff on the site that has gathered over the years. I also don't like the notion that we would have to censor the gallery where some people who come to visit would want to go.

Anyway, hopefully everything can be sorted out by the deadline at the end of this month!

[Bella]

I agree that the relatively small active userbase of this site seems like it would hinder crowdfunding. I hadn't thought about the taxation aspect either but that's a good point. :/

Since we're running low on time here, what SHOULD our next steps be in the next week and a half (roughly)? I'm really concerned about running out of time without coming to a satisfactory conclusion on what we want to do.

[Fedora-Tan]

...
I just donated 5 dollars with Subscription Feature of OSTan site. Please refer if money arrived.

This will mean that you set it well.

It arrived, thanks !

About the crowdfunding, it's like Dr. Kraus said, about 30% of it will go to tax and probably around 15% to the platform itself. Like we mentioned, it's not enormous amounts and just a few people participating would be enough.

For the close call right now, i'll move it to some reserved space, it's not a permanent solution but it allows to not renew useless stuff and to have more time to think about it.

[Raffaele the Amigan]

It arrived, thanks !

About the crowdfunding, it's like Dr. Kraus said, about 30% of it will go to tax and probably around 15% to the platform itself. Like we mentioned, it's not enormous amounts and just a few people participating would be enough.

For the close call right now, i'll move it to some reserved space, it's not a permanent solution but it allows to not renew useless stuff and to have more time to think about it.

It is stated that Indiegogo applies just 5% picks from the amount you collect, and only if crowdfunding reaches goal success, else all money are refunded to donors.

Taxes? It depends from nation to nation.

For example in my country Italy, if your site generates less than 5000 Euro in a year it is considered "perquisite" (occasional earning), and you must not pay taxes on it, but the state picks up 20% of the money you earned...

State picks nothing from site earnings if the net income of the person is (in total) less than 5000 euro per year, including his/her salary (it happens for example if you are unemployed, or you pay nothing if you are aged less of 18 years).

Site can also be declared as "charity", "cultural", or whatever else, and being subject to a reduced withdrawal from the tax office (10% or 4% if I remember well the percentage).

Northern european nations are the most sensible and generous with these kind of sites, upto the point that they declare certain sites being tax-exempt.

Keep present that 1000 euro of amount that I wrote in the example are purely indicative so don't assume it is a precise amount to rely on it. I used 1000 just to keep plain calcs.

FedoraTan should check carefully what are his needs and set a goal amount that matches best the incomes/tax ratio.

If in doubt, he could also ask informations from a local tax office, business consultant, or a local consumer association in his country if he is subject or not to a taxation (full, reduced, or tax-exempt).

Consumer Associations tax experts give usually their counseling for free.

In the end Fedora must choose if hire a crowdfunding collect and keep site alive with no any concerns (as the money come from donors, not from his pockets) than pay 5% of amount collected to crowdfunding site (and pay some taxes by chance if necessary by law, or if declared NOT tax-exempt), or perhaps decide if running a reduced OSTAN site, amputed of some parts and features, with his own money and receiving a few money by us sparse active users who decide to donate in random occasions time.

Choose is simple.

[Dr. Kraus]

The one and only thing that I haven't been able to grasp about this entire situation is the total cost needed.

As Fedora stated in the opening post about this issue, the total cost is around €360 per year.

In my opinion this cost is substantially higher than what it should be around if all hosting of forum, database, and gallery were placed on the same server if not the same service.
The cheapest and best option I can see for us is moving over the Amazon Web Services due to the very low price point for EC2 cloud servers.
The best option I see is the following:

EC2 micro for Forum&Database - ~$5/month = ~$60/year
EC2 micro for Gallery - ~$3/month = ~$36/year
========================================
Total cost yearly == ~$96

Now I do have a small form factor dell comp lying around that I could use to host everything in which nothing would need to be paid but if power goes out or internet service (which happens somewhat often around here at the bottom of the USA) AWS would be the option I would go with.

Anyway there is my 5cents on what can be done.

[Raffaele the Amigan]

The one and only thing that I haven't been able to grasp about this entire situation is the total cost needed.

As Fedora stated in the opening post about this issue, the total cost is around €360 per year.

In my opinion this cost is substantially higher than what it should be around if all hosting of forum, database, and gallery were placed on the same server if not the same service.
The cheapest and best option I can see for us is moving over the Amazon Web Services due to the very low price point for EC2 cloud servers.
The best option I see is the following:

EC2 micro for Forum&Database - ~$5/month = ~$60/year
EC2 micro for Gallery - ~$3/month = ~$36/year
========================================
Total cost yearly == ~$96

Now I do have a small form factor dell comp lying around that I could use to host everything in which nothing would need to be paid but if power goes out or internet service (which happens somewhat often around here at the bottom of the USA) AWS would be the option I would go with.

Anyway there is my 5cents on what can be done.

Not feasable IMHO as Amazon is not kind with porn and Hentai Section is porn.  And it is the section that attracts best part of otaku visitors....

And I found an Indian Hosting Service that wants 3,50 US$ per month if customer signs a 3 years contract.

See my first post.

[Dr. Kraus]

Not feasable IMHO as Amazon is not kind with porn and Hentai Section is porn.  And it is the section that attracts best part of otaku visitors....

And I found an Indian Hosting Service that wants 3,50 US$ per month if customer signs a 3 years contract.

See my first post.

Amazon has no say as to what you host on their servers unless its illegal, if you want to have a hentai section amazon isn't going to throw a fit unless you are generating insanely large amounts of traffic and you advertise yourself as an Amazon partner or that you are heavily using their services.

Plus you just take the hentai and put it behind an age wall where the user has to verify age before entering.

Amazon is too large of company to worry about porn being on their servers unless its being sold, illegal in the hosting territory, or generating extremely large amounts of traffic.

Sure the Indian service might be cheaper but then you have to add different factors into it:
How secure is the server from outside attacks?
How secure is user information on their servers?
Will they sell user information?
Will they sell user IP identification?
Will they throttle bandwidth?
Are their servers elastic type which can adjust to demand and even auto turn off if there is absolutely no demand(quite rare in many cases)?
Will there be secure image backups of the server and site?
How clean and streamlined is setup, operation, and management?

Overall the main question is,
Can they be trusted?

With AWS your getting everything listed above along with Amazon's supreme customer services if something goes wrong!
Your getting servers that are located in the United States, are secure, simple, and elastic.

Even if our goal was to largely expand the site and community, which I believe it isn't, what happens when a larger server is needed?
More cores, RAM, disk space, bandwidth? You get charged with it at a heightened rate compared to what the starting rate was!

Am I saying that hosting services in India are a bad choice or idea?
Not entirely, just that when there is an option that leads to better long term security and sustainability for the website and community as a whole available why not make that choice.
In the end its entirely up to Fedora to make the choice on how we will move forward though I believe it would be best to make a decision together that will benefit the site and community at whole.
I will stand my ground and say that AWS is probably our best option moving forward, even if a somewhat cheaper site can offer a slightly cheaper rate than AWS I will feel safe and satisfied with an American or Western European based host.

Just to touch base on the whole porn thing one last time, Amazon isn't going to make a move on a small time forum that has been somewhat buried in the back of the web for years.
Even if we start growing at an alarming rate that causes Amazon to take notice at what we are doing they won't make a move unless it directly affects their ability to provide service or it tarnishes their name is some way. Though it wouldn't even be a problem as long as you don't do something like sticking "HOSTED BY AWS" at the bottom of every page, if people don't know your being hosted by them then it isn't an issue.

I say all this with confidence as a Amazon Certified Partner, IBM Certified Partner, and Google Certified Partner.
We are very tiny little fish in an over populated lake that everyone is looking at, no one is going to bother us if we have a little pink when most other probably have more.

[Raffaele the Amigan]

Don't ask me Dr.Kraus.
If you want these infos you may conduct a survey by yourself. by checking webhosting rating sites or feedback & comments by the users.

[Raffaele the Amigan]

perhaps I found an interesting webhosting site in USA, with good votes on sites that rate webhosting services.

It is called FastComet and offer hosting starting from 2.95 US$ per month.

[Dr. Kraus]

Don't ask me Dr.Kraus.
If you want these infos you may conduct a survey by yourself. by checking webhosting rating sites or feedback & comments by the users.

The questions were rhetorical, I answered them after asking them.

perhaps I found an interesting webhosting site in USA, with good votes on sites that rate webhosting services.
It is called FastComet and offer hosting starting from 2.95 US$ per month.

FastComet is fine since it's American based piggy backing off of TelX servers located in the four corners of the USA.
I'm still going to advise AWS just due to the main point of it, you have complete control of the server and how it operates.
You can move data at a faster rate, manage quicker, and streamline it when needed. This goes along with having other AWServices available for use if ever needed.
If we end up with a host that uses TelX servers then I'm fine with it in terms of security.

[Bella]

I don't know if I've thrown it out here yet but whatever option we pick I would like to help support it financially, if needed.

It probably won't be much but I'd like to kick in what I can.

The only reason I haven't donated yet is that I'm not sure what's going to happen with the site with regards to ownership...

[Red-Machine]

Okay guys, I'm officially coming out of retirement.  The deadline is closer than my fingers are to this keyboard right now, so if we don't get something arranged ASAP then we may find ourself up a certain creek without a paddle.

Even though I'm unemployed, I'm in a relatively financially stable position thanks to my disability benefits.  I can cover some of the cost of running the site, and even some of the admin work.  I've got a bit of experience with running forums and would be glad to lend a hand to whoever takes over if required.  If need be, I can liaise with Bella and help support her budding server farm if she is the one who takes responsibility for the site.  Hell, I may even be able to throw in some server space myself provided someone explains to me how it would all work and assure me that it wouldn't bend my router over its knee and spank it.

Come at me, guys.

[Bella]

Red! I'm so happy to see you back!

AFAIK Kraus will be taking over, but in case he can't for whatever reason I'm willing to. At any rate, regardless of who manages OSC in the future it's good to know there are a number of people willing to provide labor and financial support.