Wow, that is awesome! You are incredibly generous.
I’ve put a little your way Tom - via Patreon. Super happy to contribute, and have had my adblocker whitelist Qt3 for a while now.
(It’s a better use for the money than an unused Instapaper account that’s for sure!)
This Thomas Ptacek guy is A Big Deal in the circles I run in, and I personally would take his word at face value pretty much all the time.
Given the immense pain in the ass it would be to switch hosts again, particularly when I’m essentially ecstatic with the current host after so many years of shitty ones, I’d need more than a “trust me, I can say no more” to move.
He’s a semi-famous security guy, so presumably security related. I hear a lot of scary Linode stories, enough for me to avoid the platform.
I also find their UI is really poor compared to DO, and the pricing is better at Digital Ocean.
However little I can afford, I am sending your way Tom, like I would do to any author whose works I enjoy.
People like you shouldn’t have to be bothered by money concerns…
I wish this campaign is a success to you!
I’m in for monthly support. I wish it could be more, Tom. I’ve been occasionally checking in on Qt3 for more than a decade now. There aren’t many “gaming communities” online that don’t make me wince, but this is one of them.
Also sorry to hear about your medical situation; I’m very late to the story on this but am glad to hear you conquered it. Here’s hoping a return is less likely than Star Citizen actually shipping with all promised features. (Mandatory gaming joke.)
I’ve been a lurker for way more than a decade, even before I moved to Japan. Living out of the U.S. makes it a lot harder to keep up with games so these forums, with the great signal to noise ratio that someone else mentioned, is something I’ve really appreciated.
But I’m finally moving back next month, so I’ll set up payment on Patreon when things settle down, and I’ve already whitelisted the site w/ my adblocker.
Thanks so much Tom!
You shouldn’t hate to do this. I definitely know how asking for things and accepting things can be difficult when you want to remain self sufficient and make it on your own. As I have found with my wife and her cancer, most people want to help. You just have to give them an avenue with which to do so. As soon as I realized it, I disabled ad blockers for Qt3 on my computers, but when at work, it is forced upon us. Many of us who have been here long or short times are happy to help Tom.
I’ve always kept QT3 white listed in my adblocker. Hope it helps a little :)
Everybody gets hacked, that’s a sign of the times. We aren’t running an ecommerce company here, Qt3 is a blog and forums. The only thing that really worries me is some jerk hacking the host, dropping our VM, and then also deleting the backups. I backup the entire site and DB (minus podcasts) to my home every so often, so the worst case scenario we’d have to rollback a month or two, which would suck a great deal. But that would be unprecedented for Linode.
I love the linode UI, and while I haven’t compared pricing to DO recently it’s really quite reasonable. It’s 2016, hosting for a little site like Qt3 ain’t much.
Patreoned. This is a site I have visited several times a day for years, and I have learned so much from the many vibrant discussions here.
I fully approve of this ‘‘socialist’’ move ;) Things are always better when we all contribute together.
Having said that, i wonder if my going through a proxy negates my adblocker being off, as i’ve never seen an add (that i’ve noticed) when using the forum (i see them on the front page in the title thing)?
@ Tom,
how hard from your end would it be to set up a paysafecard option for donations?
I ask because it has become the format i now most use when doing online payments (as it requires no credit card details!), and in the eurozone it seems a popular choice (GOG.com uses it also etc).
And what about amazon payments or whatever that is called, to run alongside your paypal option? Sadly i let my paypal account go a while ago and i need to read up on Patreon in relation to being from outside the usa (and if that is a problem etc) and if that would be an option for me or not.
I know it is a lot to ask (more reading/working stuff out for you), but in light of your aims (and all our desires!) of having Qt3 be your bread and butter, maybe adding more payment options will cast a wide as net as possible for your global fan base to better assist?
Patreon has no issue with wherever you pay from. I’m in UK too. You are charged the converted USD value of your pledge.
I went with PayPal as it is a convenient payment method for me that doesn’t involve entering my card details. They don’t seem to accept your preferred methods though, Zak.
They accept Visa, MasterCard, America Express, JCB, Discover, Diners Club and PayPal.
Wendelius
Can you do one-time pledges on patreon? I believe some have set that up.
I’m always curious about whether you get ads income when I use Tapatalk on QT3 forum. I guess not and so, looks like Patreon is my best bet.
Coming out of super-stealth mode to say that I happily backed the Patreon. I’m an avid consumer of all things Qt3, so anything I can do to support it is more than reasonable to ask.
I also think you’re being modest about the videos and streaming, Tom. You’re a natural, and I’ve been enjoying them immensely. Your Total War: Warhammer streams from last week were fantastic, and single-handedly convinced me to buy the game.
I love that this thread is bringing even the lurkers out in support!
I have an un-punched copy of Starship Troopers.
Also, I am now in for $5 a month.
Also pledged some. The site is whitelisted but I pretty much exclusively visit it via my phone.