Flitterkill

1) Server Reserves has been completely updated. That means some of you might be caught out, either not paid, or a gifted membership I spaced and removed. The former you can deal with yourself. For the latter, if you were GIFTED a membership sometime in the last year, hit up the gifter or someone and we can sort that out. 2) Subscriptions to get GC membership and the server reserve. It seems Stripe is spacing on this for some reason and transactions are choking. It could be a bunch of fraud stuff going down or whatever but it feels more like a bug. So for the time being only PayPal for subscriptions. It'll get sorted eventually. 3) When you do get a subscription, be sure to PM Flitterkill (that's me!) your Steam ID so we can set your reserve.

Open thread for those wanting to put various hats (theirs, others) into the ring for Board Membership (or sole dictatorial) control of GC. No private comms unless you are looking for details of something not covered elsewhere. Do not come to me for blessings, anointments, coronations, ascensions, or any other form of elevation, praise, encouragement you may seek. You want in, speak up, here! You think someone should be in? Throw the name in and state a case. This thread runs concurrently to the open poll. If y'all decide to just slide on out to the Land of Discord and Donations nothing in this thread will mean anything.

Stuff that needs to happen, will happen, after this is all resolved, for those considering taking over or board membership: 1) Whoever is moneybags will need a PayPal account. It will probably have to be a "business" account (note PayPal does not care if you are not a business, doing business as is fine) 1.5) Along with that account get a PayPal Mastercard debit card to easily extract PayPal funds and make payments for GC things (and %1 back unless that has changed with new cards...) 2) Whoever is moneybags will *probably* need a Stripe account. Highly recommended just as a hedge against PayPal. Funds immediately transfer to a bank account after 24 hours (or less?) 3) Whoever is moneybags should have some measure of money and not be broke. Do not assume you will have steady GC income to cover your GC costs. 3.5) If we end up with a new GC board, the all the above can be hashed out by them, but it will need to happen, all of it, so stuff can be transferred over correctly. 4) Do not expect initial funding for the new GC to be forthcoming. Did I mention my PayPal account is tapped? See point #3 above... 5) Account transfers galore. Domains are under a generic GC account so nothing needs to be "transferred" in so much as maybe a few details changed at Namecheap. But forum software, NFOservers, SSDNodes, etc. will need dealing with. 6) Google stuff will be...difficult. Myself and Fatty(Yes!) are still quite, QUITE, intertwined with the domains with our emails and such. Cross that road, etc. when it is time. I think we can save more money by hosting the game server on the web server, the web server stats are fantastic! Ehhh.... NFOServers remain THE name for game hosting. Sure, lots of other players, but NFO has been at this for over two decades and they have heavy-duty DDOS protection. And the L4D2 server does get attacked every now and then. I'd leave it as is. Also running stats and Sourcebans on the same server as the game is hosted on... Not the best idea. But! Once I'm out, I'm out. O. U. T. Whoever/s in charge can do whatever they want...

1) Turn out the lights... Someone can take over server payments of $30/every three months and you can do comms on Discord and SKIP ALL OF THIS. And yes. This is very much an option you should consider. One person could comp $10/month to keep you all happy, Discord is free, and there is *nothing* else to ever worry about again. No management, no structure. You want stats and Sourcebans too? Keep the webserver at $70/year, skip the forums completely and rely on Discord for everything, and then pay $30/year for one of the two GC domains to still have stats and Sourcebans accessible, and that's that. 2) Ideally (!) a group of sane people take over and become the new GC board with a single person nominated as "moneybags" to handle the financial stuff. The old-GC way of things was if you are on the board and things are bad, board members kick in $$$ to keep the lights on. We haven't had an active board in forevers so multiple hands on the wheel would be nice to see. Hell. Specific accounting with all board members kicking in $100/yearly dues to be on the board and you probably have this all covered again and can starting building up once more. For a long time Board members were comped on dues-paying given the amount of time dedicated to overseeing everything, but in return for that comp you were expected to do stuff and also that aforementioned cover-the-bills-if-necessary promise (and funny enough that kind of looks like me the last few years...) 3) Someone takes over for "me", singular. Hope they have money. Hope they are trustworthy.

This is not expensive at all, why are you leaving? The costs in the pinned post are what they are NOW. Fall 2023 they were a few hundred more per year. The Fall 2022 and prior to that they were a couple hundred more on top of that. The drain was heavier by far. And I took it. That does not answer the question... It does partially. I may have mentioned in the past that this is not the only org where I've been carrying financial weight. I've looked back over the last decade or so and I've done myself no favors at all. Specific to this org, even while I've been cutting to the bone, I have to throw out flares to get any income coming in. If the org cannot sustain itself even at this low of a burn rate it deserves to end; or in this case, let someone else/others deal with the mess. Whether that is through rallying troops or personal deeper pockets is no matter to me. This removal of myself has been gestating since at least the pandemic but a specific situation has forced this to being a now-thing. That thing being my PayPal account is wiped. Oh I'm not broke, but when the primary utility for GC payments is tapped that's a message (see below for why it's tapped) I'll point out income into GC comes via PayPal transfers or credit card payments via Stripe. The Stripe stuff has been primary dormant, just like PayPal, and in the distant past when I'd make a big payment out of PayPal for GC stuff I'd just move the Stripe stuff which is in its own bank account over to my other usual account to cover. No big deal. But as I said, Stripe is mostly dead (thank you $30 dollar donator from a few days ago via Stripe ) So setting aside Stripe, there's PayPal. And when no one is renewing memberships and admins and the like, there is little revenue there. No big deal, I've got other direct-revenue streams into PayPal. Or at least I did... And that's the way its gone the last five years. As long as PayPal has been "up" I've used it for occasional personal bullpoop and the rest goes to my orgs and I've never had to pay attention to it, whether people were giving me money for these orgs or not. Then eBay stopped pushing to PayPal in favor of direct bank deposits. And then another larger, steadier, $$$ stream from a different work pile of mine also stopped with PayPal. And now, with GC payments all coming from this PayPal card, its so very expletively noticeable that there is nothing here any more. Because the card is drained. Cost are so low now, can't you just keep running things... Sure, I would not be surprised if I kept the truest of accounting that over the course of the year we have enough from the few who do kick in to cover the $200-ish amount needed on the low end, needed NOW, Spring 2024, that is. Sure, I could also switch to my other bank cards for server payments and carry on. But that's not what this is all about. As I said, this is not the only org I'm carrying and it needs to change. Specifically, the other org also pulls from PayPal so, with expletive-all for income into PayPal, everything is so very crystal clear on all fronts. I gotta get out and take care of me and not others for awhile. They say you know when you know. I know. I knew during the pandemic that it was coming, and now the sign has appeared. I have not played a GC online game since the late 2000s but I was happy to keep things organized and going in the 2010's at least through the mids when this was all a very nice distraction while other (repeated) cancer things were going on with multiple close people in my life. Late 2010s well, the cancer life stuff resolved..., then all the pandemic stuff and honestly I have no idea what time is any more, but I'm feeling it now, and now's the time. The fundamental nature of GC has always been self-hosted online game servers, competitive play, leave all the witching, moaning, cussing, somewhere else. That was 2002. Online servers except for CSGO and L4D2 are gone (Minecraft and a few newer unicorns excepted). And now it's 2024. Closing Thoughts: <broken record> For years I asked people to just start new servers. We had so much unused funds in the early 2010's. Not a peep. No one wanted to or maybe already most new games never came with self-hosted online servers, and Minecraft never took off here though people did enjoy the servers for a time. After that it was a decade+ of just static payments, dwindling income, and indifference </broken record> All organizations come to an end. And GC, for what it was, and is now, is long past that point. You let organizations just carry on past their primary mission and you can end up with some unfortunate things. I'm old enough to remember when PETA was primarily about not testing on animals and the NRA was for responsible firearm ownership AND sensible, restrictive gun laws. And then the primary mission gets accomplished (or not...) and people age out from the initial organizational population, and whats left behind takes over and.... well... GC needs to either end or a new board takes over to do "something" that at least adheres to some of the principles of what GC stood for. I'd rather close shop than let others take over the GC name and decide that none of those standards matter any more. No Pottervilles here thank you! Before I shuffle off I'll probably harvest a bunch of UT2K4 things in the forums, copy out the maps redirect FTP for same though there is a UT2K4 online archive now so that helps... not that I've actually played that game in a decade but still. When I depart, whether that is through turning out the lights or handing over to a newly populated board, I'll have some more words but for now, it's just good memories. That's the measure of it, for my part.

What it is NOW (as opposed to what it was a few months ago or a few years ago...) Game Server (singular): $120/year - Next renewal April 23rd-ish Hosts L4D2. Renews quarterly @$30 (so $120 a year...) Web Server: $75/year - Next renewal November 24th, 2024 Hosts the web site, Source Bans, L4D2 Stats, and the map redirect (if that is even used any more) Domains: $30-45/year gamerscoalition.com - renews December 18th, 2024 gcftw.com - renews March 24th, 2024 frgafestohio.com (optional, renews January 17, 2025) gamrs.co is NOT included (even though it is in use here now) Forum Software: $200/year Due whenever, optional if you want to renew - you can just use the current version for as long as you like So approximately $250 to $450 a year plus whatever miscellaneous bullpoop appears from time to time.