Some of you may notice that at the bottom of pages, when you're not logged in, there is an Amazon ad. It goes away if you're logged in. If you're looking at the site on a mobile device, sorry, the ad code isn't responsive to that right now and may stick out a bit over the edges. (Ideally it would switch to the square format). As I'm sure you are all aware, running this site costs real money. Not a lot, I'm not going hungry or anything like that. I have no intention of running AdSense ads or anything of that nature. For the time being the ad is largely there because I am experimenting with Amazon's ad system, and I want to see if it can actually capably generate relevant items to display. If I make a few dollars of it back via Amazon that's cool. If I make enough to cover monthly server costs back, that's cool too, the rest will go in the pot for new features and license renewal fees. If it generates absolutely nothing then I imagine it won't be sticking around. The Amazon ad is actually tied to their affiliate program. I don't get paid on clicks or views, only if a person were to click through and purchase something. I stuck it way out of the way because I don't really like ads where content belongs. Right now it only shows for folk who aren't signed in. This is really the wrong way to go about making money on ads, but I'm really skeptical of introducing them. If you run an ad-blocker that's fine by me. If you want to click on stuff Amazon shows you, that is fine too - and sort of the point I guess. Interestingly the Amazon Associates Agreement actually stipulates that I cannot make a press release to talk about using their service. This is just a casual explanation of why you might see an ad on the bottom of a page. tldr; version: I put an amazon ad at the bottom of the page for folk who aren't signed in. It'll suggest products probably or just show a link to Amazon. They claim it'll show related products. This isn't a plea for help or a sign of mass advertising to come. I have no intention to do more intrusive advertising without having an open discussion with the community on the matter first. If you guys don't like this or think I should do it differently, please let me know.
A couple of sites I regularly visit have the amazon ad, I actually think it was very smart. Couple of books I didn't know about were offered.
I'm not sure how well the Amazon thing will work out for you. You might want to consider a PayPal link for donations.
On the topic of donation jars, Xenforo supports paid user upgrades - you'd basically fill out a form, select your upgrade level ($,$$,etc), the payment would be processed through paypal and then your account would automagically acquire whatever the upgrades were. So we could run 12month 'Supporter/Plankowner/whtvr' (or lifetime, or 2 year, etc) subscriptions and things like that if people were interested. I don't really have any features withheld to offer as pay-for though, and probably wouldn't withhold core features in that way, so it'd really probably just be a vanity thing, like a user banner proclaiming how awesome you are. Open to ideas if folk have them. No idea what price points people would be interested in buying in at.
I would support the site, best hobby in the world. Maybe something around the avatar or sig line that shows how super awesome. Or for each post you get credited two
I think a banner saying something like "Supporting Member" or "Paid Contributer" would work. Nothing fancy needed.
I've removed the amazon ads. While the idea might get revisited at some point down the road, I'm just not a fan of having ads on the site. There seems to be an interest in paid supporter status / donations though, so that is something we may look in to in the next few months amongst the other site projects.
