Donations to Mefi warmly accepted

August 18, 2004 7:46 PM

Remember all those times you said "I'd pay to help keep MetaFilter safe and running more smoothly"? Here's your chance.
posted by karmaville to Uptime at 7:46 PM (65 comments total)

Hey I beta tested that! [Andre Torrez is a good].
posted by riffola at 7:49 PM on August 18, 2004

er drop the "a"
posted by riffola at 8:02 PM on August 18, 2004

Which?

"Hey I bet tested that! [Andre Torrez is a good]."

"Hey I beta tested tht! [Andre Torrez is a good]."

"Hey I beta tested that! [ndre Torrez is a good]."
posted by bonaldi at 8:34 PM on August 18, 2004

or the 2nd "o" in the last word...
posted by dash_slot- at 8:35 PM on August 18, 2004

dash_slot- is correct, should've dropped the 2nd "o" in the last word. :) I'll pony up shortly, I promise.
posted by riffola at 8:38 PM on August 18, 2004

Nice. Easy way to throw money in the pot, and I liked making the bar move a teensy bit.
posted by Salmonberry at 9:32 PM on August 18, 2004

OK, I'm in.
posted by ursus_comiter at 9:40 PM on August 18, 2004

For just nine cents a day, you can ensure that 17,000 people have safe, clean, virus-free Metafilter.

Won't you please think of the server?


posted by mr_crash_davis at 10:17 PM on August 18, 2004

I remember when begging for cash was something to be ashamed of. That said, I tossed some coin into the hat anyway.
posted by crunchland at 10:23 PM on August 18, 2004

I donated $5. it ain't much, but I'm a pretty limited means dude. I could've gone to smoothie king, but instead I donated to metafilter! praise me!
posted by mcsweetie at 10:30 PM on August 18, 2004

$5, no prob. It only takes 90 people at that rate.

Now if only we could raise X amount of dollars to get pony Y coded. Ahh...
posted by scarabic at 11:25 PM on August 18, 2004

I paid $10.00 - it's all I had left in my PayPal account - I need to transfer more money to it now!

I hope they can make goal soon.

I want a photo of the new box, though! ;)
posted by erratic frog at 11:55 PM on August 18, 2004

Money thrown!
posted by onlyconnect at 12:15 AM on August 19, 2004

I wish there was a way to do this without paypal - which I won't touch with a bargepole.
posted by salmacis at 12:45 AM on August 19, 2004

I'm really not clear on why PayPal is so grody. Should I take it to AskMe?
posted by scarabic at 1:25 AM on August 19, 2004

me neither scarabic... i've used it for years with no probs whatsoever...

*nugdes pretty blue bar forward a little bit*
posted by t r a c y at 3:13 AM on August 19, 2004

erm, "nudges". me not speel guud upon just waking, doh.
posted by t r a c y at 3:15 AM on August 19, 2004

It doesn't mean anything but if I had any money I would throw in. You guys really are the shit.
posted by Keyser Soze at 3:16 AM on August 19, 2004

I don't like PayPal because one important way in which I'd like to use it is, I've heard, likely to trigger their security measures—which will result in at least the freezing and likely forfeiture of assets in the paypal account with little recourse and a very uncooperative paypal rep. That spooks me. The contention is—and I cannot evaluate this—that this siezing of funds is part of their business model. Anyway, this is also a response to the prevalance of paypal related fraud, which is another concern.

Boy, we need digital cash. Too bad that hasn't gotten any traction.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:21 AM on August 19, 2004

I'm not buying some fancy-pants router for a guy I don't even know – I'm buying Matt an iPod Mini.
posted by timeistight at 3:23 AM on August 19, 2004

About this firewall: does this mean that Jason's home network is currently exposed to the Internet because of the MeFi box? Wow. That's...that's...

...amazing.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:24 AM on August 19, 2004

All of Eastern Europe is excluded from Paypal, unfortunately. I suppose if I lived in Ecuador, I could contribute.
posted by Ljubljana at 3:50 AM on August 19, 2004

$50 (which is a lot for me, believe it or not) of the money I received from some very generous patrons of the wonderchicken when I did a wee bit of a beg back there a few months ago, money that was intended to pay for hosting, is locked up in Paypal, with no means that I can find to get at it. I don't have a credit card, and they require one to transfer more than $100 out of an account. I hate the paypal.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:52 AM on August 19, 2004

What the hell. I can't resist making a blue bar move up....(the secret, I think, to all the stunning online political fundraising this year.)
posted by CunningLinguist at 4:14 AM on August 19, 2004

Would but I just donated on the general site. I plan to start giving monthly, sort of a self-imposed subscription though, so if its still around by the 8th, I'll pony up.
posted by tetsuo at 4:57 AM on August 19, 2004

Seriously, everyone rocks! I thought that this would be a dumb thing, and didn't have any intention of bringing it to the pages of MeFi. Thanks so far, people!

Ethereal, the network isn't exposed right now, it's just running behind a series firewalls and access servers that aren't geared to be doing the job that they're doing. They make it safe, but they're hard to administer and underpowered for what the various resources at this end of the connection -- the mail server, MeFi, etc. -- ask of them. And there's no VPN server at all, so Matt and I have had to invent various SSH tunnels to do what at least I would love to be able to do with a reasonable VPN in place.

Mcsweetie, after having been a Peach Slice Plus addict when I lived in New York, I do praise you for passing up Smoothie King to donate to the box!

And erratic frog, I'd love to provide a picture of the PIX when it gets here -- but I'm afraid that it will be a bit anticlimactic, seeing as it's 1 inch by 6.25 inches by 5.5 inches. (You can see pictures and whatnot of it here.)
posted by delfuego at 5:28 AM on August 19, 2004

I approve of the use of Cisco products in all things MetaFilter. Another $5 in the hat =)
posted by cyrusdogstar at 5:30 AM on August 19, 2004

i'm unemployed and depressed. contributing to the fund made me feel...worthwhile! i thoroughly endorse this product.
posted by nylon at 5:45 AM on August 19, 2004

$10 for the pony.
posted by yoga at 5:46 AM on August 19, 2004

"And if you watch one minute without contributing, you're a thief! A common thief!" [/simpsons]
posted by brownpau at 6:16 AM on August 19, 2004

Ooh pictures! :D Thanks!

I'd love to provide a picture of the PIX when it gets here -- but I'm afraid that it will be a bit anticlimactic

But, that's just the thing, like, when you first open it, the fun anti-static packaging and that new hardware smell, you know...that's like the *best* part of new hardware.

I plan to start giving monthly, sort of a self-imposed subscription

Yeah, that's what I'm doing, too. For the main metafilter PayPal accout thingimadood. :)

It's good to help when possible, I think.
posted by erratic frog at 6:18 AM on August 19, 2004

Thank you for pointing this link out. Almost wish it was on The Blue so more people would find it.
posted by terrapin at 6:59 AM on August 19, 2004

Nudged the blue line forward a l'il bit more....

Hey, the Sally Struthers meme by Mr. Crash Davis was worth the $13.38 (Canadian) alone :-)

It's hard enough to find community online; where it does form, it needs to be supported (now let's all join hands and sing Kum Ba Ya...) LOL
posted by Esco757 at 7:03 AM on August 19, 2004

Nudged!

And now that I'm a paying customer, where's the complaints department?
posted by DrJohnEvans at 7:06 AM on August 19, 2004

I just pushed it to 100% What do I win?
posted by bondcliff at 7:08 AM on August 19, 2004

Well, I was gonna throw in $5, but it just got to 100%... on the other hand, though, this means I get to keep my $5. I'm gonna go get me some ice cream!
posted by reklaw at 7:10 AM on August 19, 2004

pay money to typ4e words into a keyboard. great idea. i'm sure there's money in this somewhere if we just look hard enough. throw some names around, etc...
posted by poopy at 7:34 AM on August 19, 2004

I was glad to drop a sawbuck on your bad selves.

Delfuego, yo go on keepin' on being a good too.
posted by chicobangs at 8:15 AM on August 19, 2004

A big, wet, sloppy kiss to bondcliff *MWAH!*

You're awesome! :)

(So is everyone else who contributed, but hey, 100%! Wow!)
posted by erratic frog at 8:20 AM on August 19, 2004

I really think it's too bad he didn't leave the donate button up after the goal was reached. An extra monitary thank you to delfuego for hosting MetaFilter all these years would be something many here would support I'm sure.
posted by y6y6y6 at 8:26 AM on August 19, 2004

y6y6y6: Yeah, agreed - really. It would be kinda cool to have something with no goal up all the time so we could donate whenever we wanted to, like on the etc. page for MeFi.
posted by erratic frog at 8:29 AM on August 19, 2004

I dropped in $20 last night before realizing how low the goal was and thinking, "Not everyone's gonna be able to donate now." :(
posted by dobbs at 9:45 AM on August 19, 2004

Oh, aren't we Mister Moneypants?
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 9:50 AM on August 19, 2004

How about this y6y6y6 and erratic frog?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:56 AM on August 19, 2004

Greedy, greedy, greedy. How do we know you won't spend it all on iPod Minis?
posted by timeistight at 10:02 AM on August 19, 2004

I await the Metafilter pledge drives, during which time posting is suspended and Dr Wayne Dyer comes in to shill his video tapes. Then, iPod minis for everyone!
posted by Salmonberry at 10:12 AM on August 19, 2004

An annual pledge drive ain't such a bad idea. Or at least some sort of Net-a-thon to help some of us get through detox.

Oh yeah. Where's the pony fund? ;)
posted by terrapin at 10:34 AM on August 19, 2004

Well, I put in my two cents, Matt. Good luck with the world domination stuff.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 10:36 AM on August 19, 2004

The PIX 501s are great, I have one at home.

You should have said something, though - I've got a PIX 520 with four interfaces sitting in my closet taking up space...
posted by mrbill at 10:38 AM on August 19, 2004

I don't feel comfortable with PayPal either, simply because I don't use it very often, so over to amazon I go. Not as much fun as watching the blue bar, but easier since amazon already gets a hefty chunk of my discretionary income. Damn that one-click shopping !!
posted by marsha56 at 11:31 AM on August 19, 2004

Two cents? Jeezus, JohnEvans, you're a doctor. Make it a nickel, you cheap bastard.
posted by chicobangs at 11:38 AM on August 19, 2004

I always give MetaFilter my two cents.

And to think I'd recently lauded mathowie for not being a Web Whore...
posted by wendell at 12:09 PM on August 19, 2004

An extra monitary thank you to delfuego for hosting MetaFilter all these years would be something many here would support I'm sure.

Agreed. A doctor has to eat also you know. Drug reps can't pay for every meal.
posted by Dennis Murphy at 1:03 PM on August 19, 2004

Yeah, it's three-cent wings tonight.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 1:05 PM on August 19, 2004

I like the general slush fund. Even without a goal, it's still better than just giving to Matt directly since it has a nice total.

I'm surprised there's no RSS feed with the current total.
posted by smackfu at 2:10 PM on August 19, 2004

Paypal does kinda suck

I operated a site that took payments from paypal, that apparently violated their terms of service. I had nearly $1000 in the account, which they seized. I can not get the money for 6 months, when, apparently, they are going to mail it to me. For the time being I can not change anything in the account or close it. I can't accept payments either. Which means it's a dead account and I can't even open another one, for any other use. They did not contact me in any way before doing this, or ask me to stop, or anything. They just plain took my $1000 and maybe someday they'll give it back.
posted by RustyBrooks at 2:12 PM on August 19, 2004

Seriously, I'd be happy to put up a little PayPal "donate to the MetaFilter air conditioning fund" button, but I always thought it'd be a little cheesy! But now that I'm learning the ins and outs of PayPal and Amazon, perhaps it'd be too easy NOT to do it... dunno.

And drug reps pay for precious little in my world, alas -- there isn't much in pediatric hematology and oncology that makes a drug rep excited to hawk their products. Sorta good, though, since it also makes it unnecessary for me to decide on the ethics of it all!

And a final thanks to everyone; the PIX is now on-order, and should be here early next week. That's good, too, since I'm on call all weekend, and it would kill me to have it sitting in an unopened box in my apartment while I was in the hospital!
posted by delfuego at 2:22 PM on August 19, 2004

(And wow, is that too many exclamation points for one post.)
posted by delfuego at 2:25 PM on August 19, 2004

I use PayPal and I really like it, but I never keep more than $100 in the account. They have disclaimers all over stating that they aren't subject to banking rules, so I simply use them to transfer payments back and forth.

Still, I'll be a lot happier when I can start doing email money transfers to non-Canucks as well. Those are so much easier.
posted by Salmonberry at 2:56 PM on August 19, 2004

I've been thinking about an AskMe post asking about ways to transfer money between individuals electronically. But, the more I thought about it, the reason this is such a big problem and the reason there's this problem with PayPal, is because what I want to do, honestly and legally, is exactly the sort of thing that crooks want badly to be able to do. Without some changes, I don't know if there is an answer to my question.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:42 PM on August 19, 2004

I'll say it flat out: I will never use Paypal. I simply do not trust them: they are acting as a bank, yet subject to no banking rules at all.

My CitizensBank.ca has (used to have?) an internet wire transfer service. I can't find sign of it on their website now.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:36 PM on August 19, 2004

How does paypal handle currency conversions. If, for instance I donated 5GBP, how much of that would actually be received?
posted by salmacis at 2:56 AM on August 20, 2004

Why do I find these things too late? Now what am I supposed to do? iPod Mini fund or world-domination fund?
posted by Songdog at 6:42 AM on August 20, 2004

salmacis: Paypal seems to record the transaction in its original currency, but deducts it from your account in your currency, given the exchange rate at the moment. For instance, I put US$0.02 towards this fund, and it took C$0.03 off my credit card, rather than letting the bank calculate the exchange upon charging.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 6:43 AM on August 20, 2004

And who's the wise guy that donated $0.98?
posted by DrJohnEvans at 6:43 AM on August 20, 2004