AKATTACK 5 Posted February 23, 2005 Report Share Posted February 23, 2005 $20.00 donation sent via Visa. Thanks for such a GREAT forum!! AKATTACK Quote Link to post Share on other sites
NedPepper 0 Posted February 23, 2005 Report Share Posted February 23, 2005 I see the addy below now..here comes my dues Makc- thanks for the great forum! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
KySoldier 2 Posted February 23, 2005 Report Share Posted February 23, 2005 (edited) I am proud to see some of the veteran posters like Nedpepper and Mickporno chime in to show their support. Cobra is still pretty new but he appears to have noticed that the info we tade here HAS value. I never would have even bought a Saiga if it weren't for this forum, let alone converted it. Those people who don't want to do it themselves can find people like Indyarms, whom many of us would have never heard of without the forum. There has been a huge wave of new people here, and I'm happy to see all the new "faces," but now we're going over our bandwidth limit and I don't blame Makc for giving us the opportunity to donate. If he wants to add more services like email, great, but I don't expect or demand it in return for my donation. I'm sure there are many times over more people that get info here anonomously compared to our membership. A members only chat would be great, but limiting it only for those that donate, may be going to far. When I was new, people took the time to help me with my conversion and one guy even sent me two stocks he made by hand, totally free. I kept one and mailed the other free of charge to another member here. I still help others wherever possible. I think if I had only been here a few months and posted 100 times, I wouldn't be the first to step in and cry foul when given the oppotunity (not asked) to donate. But hey, I get on here several times a day and read/post, I would be happy to do my share to keep this great thing going. Edited February 23, 2005 by KySoldier Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Bvamp 604 Posted February 23, 2005 Report Share Posted February 23, 2005 I have had some interesting computer jobs, myself in my pursuit of a career in one of my oldest hobbies. I can honestly say that Makc has a level of self control that I cannot attain. I worked for IBM on thier mainframes and in thier regional netop offices for a short time before I couldnt stand the people anymore and left. One of the things I learned there was about bandwidth costs. I busted a number of people in the company using the hosts (not servers, hosts....the difference is like an RC car and corvette) and the main backbones of the network (a dialup modem compared to the NY stock exchange network is a good comparison) to host porn, pirated software, pirated music, movies, you name it. EACH FILE.....each SINGLE FILE that was downloaded by some kid or other personage cost the company about 200$ for bandwidth and host space. granted, that is a larger scale than the host this forum resides on, but a MIP is still a MIP (millions of instructions per second) and costs money. the shit isnt free. further, I have some experience with HTML, java, oracle, apache, etc etc etc, all those nice languages that the internet is based on and what it uses. These forum scripts are not easy to write! I know a guy from past days that wrote a company's web based email, and he showed me the source code to it, and trust me, its not as simple as you think. there are no bugs in this forum's code, and it runs well. you have to pay for that. take the month or two, write a bullet proof script and sell it if you think you can do it. wait, you said its nothing, so why dont you just make it public and free? come on, be realistic will ya? I personally think that Makc is entitled to not only ask for donations, but to put firearms inductry ads on the top of every page that you open. he can get a little extra money off the posting of the ads, and then a few more cents per click on any ad someone actually says "shit let me go there and look at that" and goes there. further, he can get a better click-through and bulk advertising rate because it is not only direct marketing, but the advertiser is advertising in a targeted market, which brings a premium from the space seller. as the forum grows, he will HAVE to do this, as the costs will continue to increase for him to keep the forum up and running, and as he stated, its not cheap. I know people that tried to start web sites doing various things, like porn sites, and the FIRST MONTH they had a 20,000$ bill from the hosting company. I was telling makc that there are a few things he can do to try to keep his costs down that wouldnt be such a bad idea. things like not letting guests post anywhere or let guests read the member only forums would be something pretty reasonable. Anybody remember that PAM assmunch that tore into us for having assault weapons? with the 1000 hits that thread got over time, and the responses back and forth, I bet you that whole thing cost makc 50 bucks by itself. another idea I had was further limiting picture byte size. that would do nicely to cut down on how much bandwidth the site uses. even an automated JPEG and GIF resizer in the hosting root to scan and "optimise for the internet" every image uploaded to the site would help, and that actually would not really affect image quality very much. I can and have posted images that are still very detailed, and are 1/10th the size digitally as a comparable quality one. I can squash most of them even further and resize them all, and get that same image squashed down to another 1/10th the size of the smaller size without losing much at all. you guys on calbe dont really realise it, but those pictures some of you upload are HUGE and take time to load on a dialup. Ive seen threads in here that have 5 or 6 or more HUGE images in them, and I HAVE to load the entire thing to get to the end of the text in the thread. Im going to look into some other software that is free that all the members can use to try to conserve on the space and bandwidth for images and such. remember, every time you refresh the one thread with 20 pictures in it, the host is sending you every picture in there every time you refresh. do the math. 5 pics in one thread of 200kb == 1mb. if you refresh the page twice in one day, thats 3mb for just you. cutting those same images down to 50kb or even 100kb will 1/4 or 1/2 the traffic without loss of image quality. a big throwback for taking two seconds to resave an image, no? are you gonna bend over backwards to re-vamp everything I thought you were talking dirt about my cousin, RVamp. had me going there for a second, guy. like i said, Makc has a lot more self control than I do, so here you go: if you think shit is free in this world, better wake the fuck up quick! this man left russia when it was still the red state, and came here to enjoy freedom. he opens a nice thing like this forum for all of us for FREE, and when he tells you that its beginning to cost him money and he wont be able to keep it going by himself if it continues, and asks (ASKS, not DEMANDS) for some help in the finacial dept from all of us, one of you actually has the NERVE to ask him WHAT DO I GET OUT OF IT? you should be ashamed of yourself. 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Doerdie 0 Posted February 23, 2005 Report Share Posted February 23, 2005 I will send in something asap...a few weeks. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Doerdie 0 Posted February 23, 2005 Report Share Posted February 23, 2005 Ok, my status is dropping...I was a top member, now I am ? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Bvamp 604 Posted February 23, 2005 Report Share Posted February 23, 2005 he may have increased the post amount for status level.....or is cleaning up old posts..... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
NedPepper 0 Posted February 23, 2005 Report Share Posted February 23, 2005 I noticed that.. just fiqured it was based on intelligent information that was being posted. I thought he was being kind and left me a one, gold star. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Bvamp 604 Posted February 23, 2005 Report Share Posted February 23, 2005 how about a list of contributing donators? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Doerdie 0 Posted February 23, 2005 Report Share Posted February 23, 2005 Keep mine anonomiss (gotta luv that colledge education) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Makc 64 Posted February 23, 2005 Report Share Posted February 23, 2005 When you look at the "Group:" line right under your avatar you will see the "Members" change to "Contributors" If you think a list is a good idea I will definatelly pu it up!!! As for the ranking - it is purelly based on the number of posts - here is the layout. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
chris410 0 Posted February 23, 2005 Report Share Posted February 23, 2005 Just donated, happily, I cant even believe anyone would whine at all about it. Because of this site I have two bad ass shotguns and tons of knowledge on them. If a few $$ keeps her going I'm happy. THANK YOU Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Bvamp 604 Posted February 23, 2005 Report Share Posted February 23, 2005 so how did yurt boy's status change to "native with a gun"? LOL I dont see it on that list.... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Bvamp 604 Posted February 23, 2005 Report Share Posted February 23, 2005 the reason a running total and a list makes sense, is that people who donate or want to can SEE what its going to, that its being kept track of, and that people are doing it. Its kind of like an auction on ebay...someone looks at the item, wants it, then looks at how they can pay, as well as how good the sellers rating is....then a major factor it seems like is if anyone else wants it. I have seen things sell just BECAUSE others bid on it. I never understood it, but I guess its the mentality of "if soemone else wants it, it must be good, so i gotta bid on it now". never got that whole concept, but its the norm out there. this isnt ebay, by any extent. it is a gun forum, and as such, rules change, as well as the people that inhabit this place. much different crowd, and most do things by thier WORD, not by refrences. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dodgeturbointerceptor 1 Posted February 23, 2005 Report Share Posted February 23, 2005 Donation Sent! Spoke to Makc on phone...nice guy putting this site up really out of love for the shotgun....birthed a nation here. We owe him a little...if not a lot. I donated happily as I have received a lot of big brother help here. Glad to be here. Thanks Everybody! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Makc 64 Posted February 23, 2005 Report Share Posted February 23, 2005 Oh, and in addition to the "Group:" line change from "Members" to "Contributors" the color of the name in the forum stats (at the bottom of the main page that show how many memembers are logged in and present) will change to bold orange from a regular green! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dodgeturbointerceptor 1 Posted February 23, 2005 Report Share Posted February 23, 2005 Oh, and in addition to the "Group:" line change from "Members" to "Contributors" the color of the name in the forum stats (at the bottom of the main page that show how many memembers are logged in and present) will change to bold orange from a regular green! Damn! I'm Irish Catholic(Green)... Not Protestant(Orange) There goes my perfect support for Irish Relief.... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
chris410 0 Posted February 23, 2005 Report Share Posted February 23, 2005 When are we getting our "special" "members only" section where I can hognob with the upper crust of the saiga-12 community? A place where we can taste wine (whine?) and dine on the finest of cheeses while emailing other elitists from our "members only" e-mail account 's. A place where we can discuss world domination and set oil prices before wisking away to lunch in paris in the saiga-12 forum Learjet. LOL Quote Link to post Share on other sites
G O B 3,516 Posted February 23, 2005 Report Share Posted February 23, 2005 Hey if you give a buck- GIVE abuck. If you don't give a buck don't give a buck, but SHUT THE BUCK UP! If you are just a cheap-ass keep your mouth shut,it is better to be quiet and thought a fool (or a cheap ass) than to open your mouth and proove it! G O B Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Makc 64 Posted February 23, 2005 Report Share Posted February 23, 2005 Here is the list at the moment! (I will make a separate tread for that later on tonight...) Thank You ALL very VERY very much!!! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
DHunter 1 Posted February 23, 2005 Report Share Posted February 23, 2005 Thanks for the gathering place Makc. I just donated too, & will give more when I can. I'm very gratefull to all here for the info & ideas shared everyday. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Caspian 32 Posted February 24, 2005 Report Share Posted February 24, 2005 USMO going in snail mail tomorrow. Thanks for giving us a place to hang out. Caspian Quote Link to post Share on other sites
StarLynx 0 Posted February 24, 2005 Report Share Posted February 24, 2005 Makc..Do you accept Cash..with proper ID ??? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ricardomagana 0 Posted February 24, 2005 Report Share Posted February 24, 2005 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
chips 0 Posted February 24, 2005 Report Share Posted February 24, 2005 (edited) I've been a member of several other forums like that for much longer than here and that whole favoritism for money game sucks. That's one thing about this site that's more cool than all the others. Everyone is equal from the latest Noob to Bvamp and Makc. We all have the same posting privlidges and there's no favoritism. If everyone donated whatever they could manage no matter how much it would be helpful, but don't try to make it another one of those pay to play sites. There's a difference between a donation and a fee. Sorry but that's the second post I've seen in the past few minutes spouting that same crap. If I had enough money to go around trying to buy extra privlidges on all the forums I go to I could buy another Saiga! wow, i completely understand now. you were right all along. ive never experienced the favoritism that you're talking about until now. i havent seen it from you, but ive seen it from the majority of the posters in this thread. there seems to be an awful lot of talking down to the non paying members going on right now. unfortionately, we are no longer equal at this site. Edited February 24, 2005 by chips Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Makc 64 Posted February 24, 2005 Report Share Posted February 24, 2005 Here is the link to the list of Contributors! THE LIST - you have to be a member and be loged-in to see it. The link to this growing list will be always avalibe on the main page of the forum in the "Donations / Contributions" section. Check out the number of posts on that list - some pepople actually DO find this forum useful even though they do not post much at all or even NOT at all! Thank You guys for your Support!!! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
KySoldier 2 Posted February 24, 2005 Report Share Posted February 24, 2005 Chips: Are you being sarcastic? I don't think anyone is being talked down to, I know I don't think less of anyone that doesn't want to donate, its up to them, I don't care. Only when someone complains about the option, as if its required, do I take offense. I think the "contributor" list is a good idea, it doesn't exclude anyone from contributing their info in the forum, but does show who contributes financially to keep it running. Payment sent, put me on the Contributor List Quote Link to post Share on other sites
stokstad 4 Posted February 24, 2005 Report Share Posted February 24, 2005 Maybe someone could get some Stickers made up that say "Proud Member of Saiga12.com or something. We could place them on our cars right next to our NRA stickers and the bumper sticker that says "My kid beat up your honor roll student" Actually I think it would be cool to have a sticker or patch or something. Someone could make a logo or something cool for Saiga12. I would prefer a sticker of some sort cause Im too lazy to sew a patch on anything. I plan on donating when I can. Moneys kinda tight right now Quote Link to post Share on other sites
chips 0 Posted February 24, 2005 Report Share Posted February 24, 2005 Chips: Are you being sarcastic? I don't think anyone is being talked down to, I know I don't think less of anyone that doesn't want to donate, its up to them, I don't care. Only when someone complains about the option, as if its required, do I take offense. I think the "contributor" list is a good idea, it doesn't exclude anyone from contributing their info in the forum, but does show who contributes financially to keep it running. Payment sent, put me on the Contributor List i'm not being at all sarcastic. just read some of these posts... "freeloaders", "cheap ass" , a post mocking my suggestion of a special forum for paying members, etc. i havent seen this in any other site with paying members. i belong to one site in which i have paid $20. i was given some privelages, but i never bragged about paying, and i have never called any of the non paying members "cheap ass". i post on shotgunworld alot. there are paying members there, but i have never seen one of them refer to a non paying member as a "free loader". i really hope that this site won't turn into one of the sites that cobra described. i was arguing for special privelages, but now i see that it may not be a good idea at some sites. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
KySoldier 2 Posted February 24, 2005 Report Share Posted February 24, 2005 Chips: Ahh, I see, well I won't hold it against anyone who doesn't donate. stokstad: The stickers are a cool idea, what about the image on the main page, the one Makc is using as his avatar? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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