Donating towards the TS server

Regarding TS3 donations

A couple of people have asked now about donating towards the renewal costs of the TS3 server, and, as you may have noticed whilst on the TS server, someone (namely Boos B) has done so already.  The first and foremost thing to note is, there's absolutely no requirement for any SGTA member to chip in anything, the server will be free for every clan member (and clan graduate) to keep on using for as long as it's up; that said, every donation will ensure that it can stay up longer, as for the present size of server we have I would struggle to pay for it all on my own.

The current plan, agreed between the SGTA staff and instructors, is that if we hit a point where enough had been donated to renew the server for two full years, at that point we stop taking donations entirely.  It seems unlikely that we will hit that point, but it seemed sensible to all to have some sort of cut-off point in place.


How the donating process works

The hosting company for our server operates a virtual "token" system, so that at no point does any money have to change hands between clan members - basically speaking, you can buy tokens from the company, then transfer them to another user.  These tokens can only be used for renewing servers, and nothing else.

1. To start off with, go to teamspeak.co.uk and create an account.  The option is given in the left hand group of links, third from the top; there's also a link to their FAQ on tokens.
   
2. Go to the "My Account" area, then "Your Tokens" - from this page you can purchase and transfer tokens.
   
3. 1 unit of currency (pound, euro, etc.) is worth one token; if you're paying with PayPal, there seems to be no restriction on buying in the currency that gives you the most tokens for the amount spent (likely USD), though we've yet to test for real if this works; on my end I have to convert any donations into GBP anyway, so it's possible this negates any effect there.  As I said, we've yet to test it out.
   
4. Once the tokens are purchased, they can be transferred from the same page - in this case, to my account, which on TS3.co.uk is pointyhairedjedi (making sure to have the full amount typed into one of the boxes immediately above, in whichever currency you bought it in).  I don't appear to get any kind of an email notification that this has happened, so you'd need to PM me through the forums so I can check it's worked.
   

There are only one or two more things to note; firstly, if you're happy for it to be known that you've donated, I'll add you to the special TS server group and you'll get a shiny icon to show just how awesome you are.   Secondly, TS3.co.uk has a groups management page (found under "My Group") - I have created an SGTA group, so let me know your site username if you do donate, and I'll add you.  It doesn't serve that much function apart from making it easier to see who has donated all in once place.


So that's more or less it.  If you have any questions, or problems, feel free to ask here (or PM me).  I will create a post under this one with the current renewal status so that everyone can see where we're at.

Current TS3 server renewal status

(Post information updated last: 30/06/13)


Present renewal date:  31st July, 2013


Tokens sufficient for:  13 months renewal


Estimated next renewal date: 31st August, 2014

pointy, should be sorted now....

Just a suggestion, if the donator wishes to, post his name and his donation on this topic as an aknowledgment or something.

"At x date, y member contributed z tokens for the SGTA server. On behalf of all of SGTA thank you!"

Donation made - hope it helps

As a suggestion,

I run a website myself http://www.honda-forums.com ive recently moved the site from a box on our virginmedia network, but since security collared me :lol:ive moved it to another hosting company, which is no longer free.  
Ive added some adverts to the site to cover it, as the forum software allows this very easily.  phpBB also allows this, it will most likely cover all costs and more.

Something we could look at andy, though it's probably nicer for all users to keep the forums as ad-free as possible.  As you've brought it up I'm sure it'll get talked about at a staff meeting though at some point.

Sapaki wrote:Just a suggestion, if the donator wishes to, post his name and his donation on this topic as an aknowledgment or something.

"At x date, y member contributed z tokens for the SGTA server. On behalf of all of SGTA thank you!"

Not a bad idea - I can add a list of those who wish to be named, I'm going to assume if they're happy with an icon on TS they'll be happy to have it down here too.  Or else I could amend one of the channel descriptions on the TS3 server itself, how about that?

Lemmingtrain wrote:Donation made - hope it helps

Thanks! It all helps - heck, yesterday we had enough tokens for 3 months auto renewal, it's taken a bit of a jump in just one day. We've had five donors in total so far, I just want you to know you're all super awesome.

I've signed up for an account and bought a couple tokens, but they are currently "In Wait".

nilzatron wrote:I've signed up for an account and bought a couple tokens, but they are currently "In Wait".

If you paid by Ebay did you verify your Ebay account with the site?

I have a verified Paypal account, but did not specifically verify it with teamspeak.co.uk (and looking around their site, cannot find an option to do so).

@ nilz - had same prob. Go to your TS account, click on technical support, bottom of page in Invoices and Payment section click on Activation of invoice (PayPal). You will need your invoice ref no.

Ah, not easy to find. Unfortunately gives me an error, so filed a ticket with their support.

6 donations in total now, enough to take us up to a full year's renewal.

Did you have any luck from that support ticket, nilz? I must admit I've never had to submit one, so I don't know what the quality of their customer support is, or how quickly they get back to people.

They've asked me for the Paypal transfer code. I've sent it back to them, but suspect they won't get back to me until Monday.

I've just made my little contribution.

Hope it helps.

Done

Nick is the same as my WoT one to make life easy!

Thanks guys! Icons added on TS; I'll add lemmingtrain too next time he signs in, for some reason he's not part of the SGTA server group yet (so I'm guessing he'll be counted as a "guest", dunno why).

Logged in but can't play at the moment

Let me know if you need more funds chap

We're doing distinctly ok right now, the 2-year mark isn't that close but we've enough for the 12 month renewal when that comes up at the end of July, so there's then plenty of time to think about the next renewal after that.

could I enquire a bit about the specifics of the TS server currently used? How many seats are required with a clan such as these? 30 or its 60 rather required? Also it's it heavy on your bandwidth? :-)

HowTheStoryEnds wrote:could I enquire a bit about the specifics of the TS server currently used? How many seats are required with a clan such as these? 30 or its 60 rather required?  Also it's it heavy on your bandwidth?  :-)

I would also like to add due to our expansion interests we should keep that into account too.

We're currently at 60 seats, which seems to be working fine for one clan; bearing expansion plans in mind though, I will go away and look at the costs for 100 (just as a round figure). At a rough guess, we've probably enough tokens for 6 months of a 100 slot server; however there's no need to make any massive jumps right away, as the option is available to add seats incrementally.

Bandwidth isn't an issue as it's basically a rented server, and it means it's always on, though we have lately had a few instances of it dropping out inexplicably.

wouldn't it then be cheaper to run a TS3 server ourselves on a virtual host? I read that NPL licenses allow up to 512 clients for free?

PointyHairedJedi wrote: Bandwidth isn't an issue as it's basically a rented server, and it means it's always on, though we have lately had a few instances of it dropping out inexplicably.

It happened to me every day for the past few days. Strangely enough, when I get kicked out I cannot reconnect, but if I restart my client then it connects just fine.