Gang, You’re going to get me in trouble with Stephen for tipping our hand. Let us first get the forum on more solid ground. We’ll figure out something if people want to help with the cost then. Two things are for sure: 1) this forum will always be free for anyone; 2) we are not trying to turn this into a profit center. It’s all good.
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???
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Profit!!!
… oh wait, it doesn’t work there 
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I’ve just cancelled Evernote and redirected the money to sponsor @MacSparky.
How are you going to judge that one? 
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While there is a part of my brain that LOVES badges, I share this concern, too. I wouldn’t want something like badges or avatars to create a divide in an otherwise very comfortable, open, and welcoming space.
I think that’s fantastic, but what has that to do with badges?
I agree, but we are discussing someone’s business. So if they do choose to use supporter badges I hope they have a “no badge” option for those that wish to help.
Even if they don’t, there will always be ways to give anonymously. I’ve never found a situation yet where you couldn’t work around whatever system it is to give without revealing your identity if you wanted to.
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That would just be like having a “cheapskate badge” and I hope we see the problem with that. 
Ok this is just going in circles now. We haven’t made any final decisions but we’ll keep this feedback in mind.
We’ll be back with updates on forum uptime and performance.
Stephen doesn’t want us to figure out it’s not badges it’s badgers. From weebls. Circa 2003.
Tiers are badger, mushroom and snake.
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as a former sys admin and webmaster, you’re doing something wrong if running a forum is costing you that much.
I remember when clowns were just funny people who liked to make kids laugh. I took a number of adult ed clowning classes to entertain my students. I was rather pathetic at Magic although I learned a lot. For juggling I needed some heavier objects and oranges are perfect. It clicked one day at the supermarket. (“Mom, what’s that lady doing over there?”) But I got pretty good at balloon sculpture. But the make-up, blech. Just felt compelled to advocate for entertainers for kids.
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Very well-expressed!
I’m also a developer and host my share of sites and apps, and I don’t think we should be trying to backseat drive in this thread. There are other places on the forum where we’ve discussed (and can continue to discuss) Discourse hosting costs and providers. It’s a great topic, in my opinion…just not here.
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I don’t know what your traffic is, but I have a Discourse forum hosted on Communiteq that costs exactly $200/year, including email and maintenance (that’s the annual price, if paid per month it would be $240/year). That price would cover almost 10x our current traffic, and that price covers everything. Your forum has about 8x users as mine, so maybe you would have to bump up to the $400/year level. Our forum has been running for 5 or 6 years virtually trouble free. I don’t have to monitor it or be available if there is a problem, Communiteq takes care of that. They do all the updates, if it goes down they take care of it (and I can’t even remember any downtime), it’s just completely hassle free, I have never done any maintenance work at all. I have no financial connection with this company, have never even met them, just a very pleased long term customer.
Mac Prowess User !
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It might be more constructive if you also tell them/us what might help improving the current status quo.
(If possible; maybe you need more info/details to do that?)
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As of today, we’re now running on a shinier roomier server. The hamsters now have a union, which is enforcing strict rotating shift patterns!
(Actually, we upgraded the server to one with slightly more storage space, which enabled a DB upgrade as well as a number of other improvements.)
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You might want to get a used Mr. Fusion generator off eBay – it will take any household garbage, including the hamster output. Would ensure that shiny new server never lacks for power.
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