It is that time of the year again.....

[huub vink]

Dear fellow simmers,

It is the time of the year again, when we ask you to support the forum. Without your donation the Sim-Outhouse can't stay in the air.

The target is $8000 this year, which should be sufficient to keep the server running and to pay our annual fees.

Thanks for helping us to keep the site running,

Huub

[MrZippy]

Way ahead of you, Huub!

[Shessi]

Glad to Huub...come on folks, dig that small (or big) change out and don't forget to look down the back of the sofa! Every little counts..

Cheers

Shessi

[huub vink]

The donation run of this year in approaching its end and we are still stuck at 65%, which is not enough to cover the costs.

Dave has asked me to post this message:

One of the things that always impressed me with our site is we never had to worry about raising the funds for the year. For a number of years we seemed to break records on how fast the goal could be achieved.

Those days seemed to have died. We could probably point the finger at Covid or a poor economy, but the bottom line is our donating community is shrinking. A few years ago within a month we would have had over 300 individual donators. This year 2 months into the drive and we only have had 174 donations with a couple of members donating twice.

Our yearly costs

Server Lease $6,200

cPanel account $772

Domain name renewals $500 estimate
• Sim-outhouse.com 4 years @ $25 /year
• Sim-outhouse.net paid until 2028
• Ronnylarson.com 5 years @ $25 /year
• Hall18.com 5 years @ $25 / year
• Hall-18.com 5 years @ $25 / year
• ford-tri-motor.net (.com, .org) TBD

Total $7,472

For those of you who have donated Thank You.

For those who have not Please Donate

I don't think I have anything to add.

Huub

[Deathwind]

The donation run of this year in approaching its end and we are still stuck at 65%, which is not enough to cover the costs.

Dave has asked me to post this message:



I don't think I have anything to add.

Huub

I see the pickle we are in and yes the economy COVID all play a large part. That had some to do with why I couldn't donate because of lost paydays. When times are bad more time is going to be needed to raise the money and we probably didn't start early enough if we are already near the deadline.If we do make it this time we probably should look into making the next go around a little bit smoother. They haven't made a new combat flight sim in years now and naturally the list of people are shrinking rapidly. Average age of members please keep that in mind. This isn't the site teenagers drop their schoolbooks for and come online. Many of us are half a hundred and older with many older. Everything changes for a reason and what was working in the past might not today so with that in mind we should come together with Ideas about the next go around long before that time comes if it does even come. Sorry I couldn't paint a prettier picture but when I look in the mirror every morning everything else i see looks a lot prettier so I'm not as picky perhaps but we can all see the situation looks dire and it will not fix itself.

[huub vink]

Thanks for your input. All ideas are welcome .

When I arrived, here after Netwings went down, this was the place where the virtual pilots met the developers. Most of those developers have disappeared over the years. But we still have a very active CFS2 and CFS3 community and also this FS2002/FS2004 community and the FSX community are still very much alive. But when you look at this with common sense, you will realise these are shrinking communities. I don't see a 16 year old kid digging up his father's old CFS2 disks and start to fly in CFS2. There are far more appealing (combat) flight simulators and I think the pace of the average flight simulator is a bit to slow for the pace of life of the today's youngsters.

With the arrival of MSFS, a lot of people move to the new sim and it definitely cause some new interest in flight simming. But I think most of the visitors of the MSFS forum were already active here, and I don't have the feeling at attracted a lot of new members here.

This is something which has been going on for some years already and we already took action to reduce the cost by moving everything to one single server and abandon some other things we could not longer afford. However the prices went up and it will be difficult to cut even more costs.

So this is where we are. Costs will undoubtedly rise in the future, and it is unlikely the community will expand.

Huub

[UncleTgt]

Came across this thread in the fs2002/fs2004 forum

I think it's fair to say many members here are enjoying the free downloads, but just think it's up to someone else to cover site costs...

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...=1#post1311198

... and I'm fed up hearing how tight money is, it's the same for everybody, and yet the coffee bars & cafes still seem full to overflowing each day. So not so tough that we're going to make our own drinks/lunch each day yet is it?

Come on people, you'll miss it once it's gone ...

[Deathwind]

Came across this thread in the fs2002/fs2004 forum

I think it's fair to say many members here are enjoying the free downloads, but just think it's up to someone else to cover site costs...

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...=1#post1311198

... and I'm fed up hearing how tight money is, it's the same for everybody, and yet the coffee bars & cafes still seem full to overflowing each day. So not so tough that we're going to make our own drinks/lunch each day yet is it?

Come on people, you'll miss it once it's gone ...

Times are tuff yes but Not all of us are the same. The ones you see in Starbucks they got money. Me if I get coffee out I have to settle for 7-11 or McDonald's. I don't know how well off the others are but whatever the reason I'm sure they won't listen if we get after them. I'm thinking but haven't thought of anything yet and it's late in the game.

[UncleTgt]

DW,

I hear you, but just using the "carrot" alone doesn't seem to be working, does it?

People need to appreciate that not getting involved by contributing to the site's upkeep can have consequences

[Deathwind]

I see what your saying and it’s easy to think that way even I’m capable of it sometimes but really I getting angry rarely solves anything and for whatever reason they aren’t donating whether it’s because they broke which in that case the consequences of losing their hobby might be better than by letting a kid go hungry that night or in more likely situations they just simply accept it if that’s the way it’s gonna be. Anyway letting off steam might help yourself it certainly isn’t going to make them pay up . Personally I might get a lot of hate messages but it is what it is so I think going to another level of membership with unlimited downloads requiring some kind of annual or monthly fee and maybe a free version with severe restrictions making you want to pay. Maybe let them download a mod or two get them hooked then cut em off. There are other things we can do like we could do prizes for donating like be eligible to enter a drawing for a mod that was especially created for the event . Maybe a drawing or spin the wheel. We have to make them more excited somehow or they aren’t gonna donate enough. Probably need a longer window to donate in too. It happens all the time people let their favorite restaurant or store shutdown because they are controlling their money and when things are booming they attend to boom with it but when you turn on the news now it makes you want to skip the country all together. I don’t know I’m just tossing ideas out. We are all human so that means everyone has their own thoughts like sending Rambo after the ones not donating so let’s hear what they have to say and hopefully we can fix it if not we tried.

[Shadow Wolf 07]

I had a problem sending my donation via the links provided. So I mailed dagerousdave a check. All is fine now but I wish I could donate more. This site is a gem!

[voyager]

I did the snail mail route also and wish it could have been more.

voyager

[Captain Kurt]

If you use this site and haven't contributed, consider this. It needs your support to stay open.

[highpockets]

thanks for the reminder. Just did! Used my wife's PayPal

[Shessi]

Agreed CK,
I do find it very odd why it's taken so long to get the required base SOH drive amount. We have some 50,000(!!!) registered members, obviously not all are still with us (for various reasons), unfortunately of those only about 12,000 have visted within the last two years.

But and the big but is that some 3600 individual members have visited SOH this year since 1st Jan, and some 3090 since the begining of this years drive (1/2/23). Working on $8000 required, that's only $2.60 each...so where are the excuses then?? Who can't afford $2.60, 2.34 Euro or £2.09??!!!, for a whole years worth of SOH!!

Also, in the last year, there have been 15,160 uploads for peoples delight, and I hate to think how many downloads from those and the 14,000 other uploads available here........

It's a no-brainer, do you love your simming?, does SOH provide what you want?, have you ever downloaded an add-on or had answered a question or picked up a useful bit of knowledge?...of course you have, stop expecting others to pick up the slack, no excuses...because when it's gone...it's gone...no more SOH! Think about it.

Shessi

[Shessi]

Oh and I've just checked the contribution list, there have only been about 223 donations since 1st Jan this year, and some members have made multiple donations during this time, so lets say about 200 individuals...is that fair that just those 200 should pay $40-odd for the rest to donate nothing?

Shessi

[Shadow Wolf 07]

I can put in some more the first of next month.

[highpockets]

Thanks for the information ,Shessi. I always wondered why it ws so hard to get the money needed. I can contribute some more next month.
Come on sim users, for crying out loud. Cough up a few bucks--those of you who haven't contributed yet!!!

[Deathwind]

I’ll try again next month if not there yet.

[Worthless]

Hey, am seeing things? $8,405. 105%. Guess there must have been a rush to the finish line. Whew!

[highpockets]

Way to go simmers!!

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Thank you, folks!

[Deathwind]

I thought we might lose are toys and playground and as soon as I started crying in despair we made it and it was like mommy made it all better again. I hope we can ease the pain next year and find a way to meet the goal without giving others heart complications in doing so. Getting the dough in faster might be better for our health and sanity which I’m probably lacking both but that’s not the point it’s not about me it’s for everyone’s good. Thanks glad we did it.