I would say that the regulars who contribute to the board with a lot of posts and helpful information donate with their time. It is all of the people that come here with questions or just read the old threads looking for answers that should be donating. If all of them made a one time donation of $10 or $20 it would pay for hosting/upgrades/beer for a good while.

I honestly have no clue. I don't get how some people can frequent a forum for 4+ years and not pitch in a single cent towards the upkeep of the site. I'm not talking about lurkers with a hundred posts, I'm talking people with multiple thousands of posts.

Even when my forum of choice was IGN/VNBoards for a MMO I was playing, I still would buy "Insider" every once in a while to support the board and for some other associated perks. I'm basically broke-as-a-joke but still got my account set up for 3 bucks a month. That's less than half of one lunch at mc'ds or anywhere really. It's not a burden to me, but I know that money is both needed and appreciated to keep the site going. If Robin can get for 3 bucks what I got from a webhost for a similar amount, I know it's more than enough to pay for MY useage, if nothing else.

It's none of my business but I'm very curious what the site upkeep fees are and how much the site brings in monthly/annually from donations. I'm happy to donate though. I've learned so much about these machines thanks to this site.

I want a really good explanation of how the lurkers are using more bandwidth and storage than the active posters, and also how making posts and offering advice pays the costs of running the site given that there's no ads.

It is simple. Without the people that provide the information there would be no board. The people that consume the information should be paying.

I agree. I'll donate. How do I go about doing so? Ed

I am currently in Africa fighting off the current hangnail outbreak, But I can have my agent stop by to pick up the donation...
Regards

https://pinside.com/pinball/donate

Thanks pezpunk, donation just made. Ed

A couple years back I couldn't afford to. And when dragged into one of these I pointed out if my tech help wasn't wanted to just let me know and I'll go away.

Now I could contribute a little, but have no way to. I don't have charge cards or paypal.

LTG : )

I just donated. Thanks again for the AWESOME site!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I challenge every regular user to donate to this web site which is such a valuable part of our hobby. It only takes about a minute of your time.

PS, I also just made a donation to IPDB, another site I regularly use.

Sure you do. Your help is invaluable around here, and I don't think anyone would claim that you don't contribute. Thanks for all your time and experience.

The reason a lot of people on here dont donate is because they are just flat out tight asses.

I like the automatic monthly donation that way I can't forget to do it

SMH.

VennDurrragram.png

I donate every year on my anniversary. Coming up on 3 years and have gained an incalculable amount of knowledge here and hopefully given back a little. Where else on line can you find a (relatively speaking) drama and politically free zone with NO ADS??? Yeah. Exactly. I'd pay for that alone. The knowledge is a bonus.

I don't have a clue what Robin's costs are, but I make a monthly donation to the cause. Lots of people donate their time, effort, and knowledge which is why this site is what it is. But like anything else, without cash to keep it alive...well you know.

Check it guys...this site takes in a little bit of cash from the new featured ad concept. Also the ability to donate after a successful sale.

But there are no paid ads...this is really a site that is supported by the community!

We currently have 21,078 registered users. Can you imagine if everyone donated $5 per month? That's $1,264,480 per year!

I am a total information stealer. I love all the info on this forum and the really helpful people who give it

Been meaning to donate for a long time.... never got around to it..... This post finally got me off my butt to do it. I would not likely be "in" this hobby without this site.

Super easy through the link above.

Thanks to the people running pinside and to the people with all the knowledge and experience to share with us newbies.

Pinside rocks!

Definitely, anyone who has bought or sold anything through pinside should donate!!!

I've donated, and rather give money to Robin than to eBay for buying or selling online!!!

I donate each year but just added another donation in honor of the help that folks like Lloyd and others (Vid) have given me

Screenshot_2015-05-31-17-33-57-1.png

Thanks for the post. Motivated me to donate

OP, to be blunt, it is impolite to tell others how to spend their money on a "donations accepted, but not required" situation.

That said, I agree with you regarding vendors. This includes those purporting to build complete, full size pinball machines for profit.

Without a donation pinside cant exist.

Agreed! But what are the annual costs V's donations. As listed above is a previous post, if all members donated $5 it would be over $1 M. What would happen to this money??? JPOP's watching shhhhhhh!

I donate when I noticed I haven't donated in awhile.

I agree though some people here provide more tech support than some companies paid tech support provide! It's a bit harsh expecting some of those guys to donate.

I haven't donated to Pinside in a while but next time I do I promise to create a thread to let everyone know that I did...

This thread reminded me to check how long it had been since I donated. It was 11 months ago, so I donated again. Nice reminder thread!

Donations should buy "off-topic" picture credits, since those take more bandwidth then the tiny bit any large paragrphs would take.

This thread is a waste of bandwidth.....

Yep, it got me to donate.

Me too.

Donating is a snap. I just kicked in $30. Roughly the cost of 20 LEDs. C'mon! Think of the money spent in this hobby and the time/cost that this site has saved you.

Please explain??

Donated US$50-AU$60 when I signed up.Money well spent,I have gleemed tonnes of info and laugh's from this website.Not to mention the pictures(girls of pinball).So thank you Pinside and thank you fellow poster's for making this site what it is.

I make money selling stuff on Pinside. I would feel like a dirt bag if i did not donate.

I just noticed that there are currently 200 "guests" on line now, and over 400 regulars too..

So for our current on-line "guests" that are reading this now, please sign up and start joining the discussions...........it's really not that difficult,..and I am sure you have been enjoying all of the information that has been documented and discussed here, so please start contributing your input, questions, or solutions also... This is the best pinball forum that we have all had for many years...and to now enjoy a total pinball related web site that is so well organized, and which offers all of our needed services, (forum, buying, selling etc.), is just amazing, and certainly appreciated....!!!

So to those that are currently behind the scene, only as guests, and to our regular Pinside lurkers,(only)....please jump in, and also help all of us..to not only contribute a few bucks, (if you can), but most importantly, to please help share and contribute with any of our ongoing pinball related correspondence....

This thread will probably shake a donation from my stingy claws as a thank you for keeping pinside going and growing for these years.

But as posted above, I am not sure if it is "needed" or a "nice to have a this point". I have no idea what the monthly expenses are vs. current donation rate. When I go to say Wikipedia I see they are often running a donation campaign. I have NEVER seen that here.

Just donation praising threads / attempts to shame those who do not donate money.

That'd put hondanut in for around $500/month.

Donatin' is for chumps!

I'll bet there are many that were just not aware. This thread helps!

Out of curiosity, why isn't this site monitized with pinball related ads? I discovered this site as a new pinhead and didn't know where to shop for bulbs and parts. Early on, I got all my stuff from eBay sellers. If a company like Cointaker had a banner ad, I would have for sure gone with them.

I have no idea of costs but the asprin and Tylenol bill for the month of may was.$2345.99 for robin and the mods from the kevin thread alone!

Robin, great idea! Since the owner of the site has to buy stuff too, it would make things easier.

Marco.
Cointaker
BAA
PBR
Etc,etc.

Quality places would be recommended here.

Jeeehhhh... Another give us some money topic.

What about all the children dieing of cancer? Nepal? The tens of thousands of refugees in europe?

There is where my money is going!

Please, no ads.

We've been lurkers forever, only recently came on-line to join the community. Finally took the time to add our pins/locations to the pin-map (and pinballmap.com) in the Rochester, NY area.

Being able to learn how enthusiast and professionals alike prefer one machine over another, how it should be set-up, and the helpful tweaks are crucial. Too often the input of the community doesn't get back to an operator.

I can recall working on a BDK . The steel ramp return to the right flipper would always drop to the outlane. I tried to tweak a dozen different things. Always thinking I had it figured out, it would work a while, then fail. I searched around on Stern's site, found nothing. Talked to my distributor, nothing. Searched here, found out there was a service bulletin published (that wasn't on Stern's site.) Called back the distributor with part number and the problem was fixed.

That alone is worth the price of admission. We'll be donating in the A.M.