Donations?

This site is privately owned and maintained by the person with the user name Rancherous (Bill). He pays for the software and updates on which the site functions, he pays for rights to the internet domain name and he pays for the server that hosts the site. The donations that members contribute help with these costs. To answer your specific questions:

Is it still active? - Yes, Bill is still accepting donations

Where does the money go? - Bill holds the money received from donations until software/updates/license fees and server host fees are due.

What amount is standard? - No specific amount is "standard", it is up to the member to decide what keeping the site online and it's information available is worth to them. Member avatars (the field where your user name and picture are displayed) are updated to reflect if someone has donated with levels such as Silver, Gold, Platinum etc. and those levels are generally active for a year or so (Site Owner has been dealing with an illness in the family which has limited his time available to update user profiles as often as he would like).

Do I get anything for my donation? - Should you choose to donate it helps offset the costs of keeping the site online and available, without donations the costs of keeping the site online could be too much for the owner to bear and the site could go offline and close permanently. There aren't any features of the site that are enabled to members that donate that aren't otherwise available to registered members. There are viewing and messaging capabilities that are only available to registered members in comparison to people that visit the site that have not registered.

What "license" comes due? Software which contains these fora is a licensed product which requires periodic (~annual) renewal, and the server (computer/memory) which keeps the site online costs money. The site could be hosted at the owner's home should he decide to buy a multi-multi-multi thousands of dollars server/computer, but that would cost an enormous amount in comparison to paying a services provider to host the site for us.

It is a personal choice to donate to help the owner keep the site online - it helps defray the costs and without donations and depending on employment and life events the site could go dark without them.

 

One thing to note also is that bill has not had a Ranchero for several years now and yet he keeps the site up and running for OTHER owners

 

A lot of people here are better persons then me and you asshat