A few quick notes on discussions the administrator team has had, since we’ve fielded a lot of questions in these particular fields. We’re posting this both for transparency and to help us limit the load of having to respond to each of you individually.

  • We would like to become an official nonprofit at some point, but there is a cost associated with this, we are not lawyers, and we might need to change where/how we collect donations to do so.
  • We’ve upgraded the server approximately 7 times now. We’re trying to balance fiscal responsibility with server costs. We are aware that digital ocean isn’t the cheapest server and we are trying to be conservative with estimates and give ourselves extra runtime at whatever tier we are on. We’re also hoping that the upcoming lemmy version will solve a lot of our CPU-bound issues.

We are aware of the following bugs:

  • the “report created” indicator flashes in the bottom left corner for some users randomly, even non-moderator users
  • sometimes, briefly or without a refresh, the username in the top corner will not be your own; as far as we can tell this is purely cosmetic and is not a security issue
  • sometimes the post you’re in changes to another post for no clear reason
  • SkepticElliptic@beehaw.org
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    2 years ago

    I know most users here are against monetization, but I think that a simple Shopify storefront with behaw merch would go a long way to help entice more people to make a monitory donation. I would love a beehaw mug, stickers, and maybe even a shirt or a hat.

    • sarsaparilyptus@beehaw.org
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      2 years ago

      Good monetization: giving people tote bags, pens, t-shirts, stickers, coffee mugs, or window clings “in exchange for a donation” like PBS does.
      Bad monetization: selling the ability to downvote posts, selling avatars, selling the ability to have your post stickied, and all the other ways shitty forums sell prestige

    • mitch@beehaw.org
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      2 years ago

      I also really do not mind donating via Patreon or Ko-Fi or GoobGab or DinkleCoin or ScrungePay or whatever the hell people use that’s ethical now.

        • Sam Vimes@beehaw.org
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          2 years ago

          The approximate yearly budget and estimated annual budget are quite different, what are those two numbers representing? Unrelated: I really appreciate what you’re making happen here, and I really look forward to being a part of it.

          • Lionir [he/him]@beehaw.orgM
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            2 years ago

            Good question! I don’t quite know but here’s what I think.

            Estimated Annual Budget is

            1. All active monthly subscriptions. Multiply by 12.
            2. All active yearly subscriptions.
            3. All one-time subscriptions in the past year.
            4. All inactive monthly subscriptions that have contributed in the past year. https://docs.opencollective.com/help/collectives/budget#budget-calculations

            Approximate yearly budget is what they we’ll spend for the year based on past transactions and trends? Note that this month will definitely be quite a bit more expensive than all previous ones (Probably something like ~500$) so this approximation is most definitely wrong.

          • alyaza [they/she]@beehaw.orgM
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            2 years ago

            The approximate yearly budget and estimated annual budget are quite different, what are those two numbers representing?

            estimated annual we have no control over, i’d note in addition to the other reply, whereas i update approximate yearly with our hosting costs per month x12. we’ve had to upgrade a bunch this month so it’s a “best estimate of what our expenses would normally be” right now, though (and i just updated it to reflect more accurately where we’ll probably be when not needing to accommodate the big reddit surge)

    • Briongloid
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      2 years ago

      Merch is a great way to fund, paying a designer to create some graphics could be cost-efficient.

    • ryanlovescooljeans@beehaw.org
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      2 years ago

      I really like this idea, and I could even something that artists do on SoundCloud where an album costs $5 minimum but you can write in your own price above and beyond that initial $5.

      I’d happily pick up a sticker and tack on a donation.

  • marin♡ @beehaw.org
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    2 years ago

    Thank you for all the hard work! Hopefully things will eventually slow down and less pressure will be on your shoulders. This community is more relaxed and feels like a casual hang out if anything and it’s definitely a breath of fresh air. I’m glad to be here and I’ll be sticking around for sure

  • beeboopbeep@beehaw.org
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    2 years ago

    I mean I have a 10gbps home connection with 1gbps backup and a server rack! No but really, I came from enterprise architecture and built some massive global pubsub networks (on the tune of 900m users/devices). Be happy to give a hand on the infra side if needed!

    • Gaywallet (they/it)@beehaw.orgOPM
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      2 years ago

      if you’d like to chip in please join the discord or matrix- as a general statement we are not looking to have people self host beehaw for us at this point in time

  • cyberdecker@beehaw.org
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    2 years ago

    Thanks for all the hard work. It’s seen and appreciated.

    On the existing bugs/issues, are these issues with the Lemmy code in general or with the specific implementation here? Do you all need help triaging or finding root cause of issues? I am a test engineer and might be able to help out with digging into finding problems.

  • sky@beehaw.org
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    2 years ago

    Thank you for all the tireless work. I can’t even imagine how slammed all of you must be right now.

  • Velociraptor@beehaw.org
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    2 years ago

    Thanks for all the work you guys are doing. It’s really heartening to see someone trying to pick up the pieces with the mindset of not tolerating the intolerant.

  • Ghostalmedia@beehaw.org
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    2 years ago

    Thanks for trying to figure this out. I can’t imagine home much time this is requiring of you, and bet this isn’t what you thought you’d be doing in June.

  • nlm@beehaw.org
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    2 years ago

    Appreciate the transparency and hard work! It’s impressive really with the massive influx this place is experiencing.

    • luckless@beehaw.org
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      2 years ago

      Beehaw.org is run off Digital Ocean, they currently have 16 vCPUs and 32 gigs of ram. They plan on hopefully scaling back down once the whole reddit migration situation has calmed down.

      • marx2k@beehaw.org
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        2 years ago

        That actually sounds pretty cheap. Unless social ocean is way way way more expensive than aws?

        • luckless@beehaw.org
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          2 years ago

          It seems that Digital Ocean is considered relatively expensive actually.

          Though I hear it has good support and it’s very easy to use. I can’t speak on how much AWS costs though, I’m unsure and don’t like supporting amazon regardless.

    • PenguinCoder@beehaw.orgM
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      2 years ago

      Depends. Who wants to know and why…

      I think we got it on an rpi. Thanks for the donations, we managed to buy two of them.

      • ultraHQ@beehaw.org
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        2 years ago

        Lol, because I’ll be spinning up an instance this coming weekend with some QoL changes that I’d like to see, but don’t think would be merged in (route schema for posts as i dont like {url/post/{post_id})

  • surrendertogravity@beehaw.org
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    2 years ago

    Appreciate all the work you do in keeping this instance running! I haven’t donated yet, but plan to do so in July, in the hopes that operating costs settle out after the the final impact of 3rd party app closure on the 30th.

  • EthicalAI@beehaw.org
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    2 years ago

    So if we are a non profit coop, can we get paid for code contributions and moderation via the donation pool?

  • Puttybrain@beehaw.org
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    2 years ago

    Not to throw an unwanted suggestion but would an OVHCloud eco server work for this?

    I’m not an expert in any way but I’ve had no issues with my instance and it was a lot cheaper than anything else I could find.

      • mizmoose@beehaw.org
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        2 years ago

        Sorry I am a busybody. For what it’s worth: Pair. I am an ex-sysadmin and I know a mess of people who worked for Pair and say good things about them. Their physical and customer service is excellent. I’ve had/have multiple accounts with them, some for 501c3 orgs, and never had any major problems with them. (Nothing is perfect.)

  • Gur814@beehaw.org
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    2 years ago

    Thanks for all the hard work. I just sent $10 your way to help support this project.

      • Gur814@beehaw.org
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        2 years ago

        Nice!

        I think this kind of thing will only scale long term if the user base is willing to contribute something. Even a few bucks a month would go a long way if a large enough percentage did it. Ok, I’ll get off my soapbox now. 🙂