Donations are still thin, so I am running a few ad trials at the request of Council to help pad our bank account so the server can survive. I am usually very anti-advertising. So please bear with me.
The first trial is with an ad agency called Chitika. If you can please disable any ad-blocking on our site (
http://elementscommunity.org/), you will see a single banner ad at the top of the forums. Any clicks this receives should allow us to earn money from Chitika for getting clicks on their ads. I will report any statistics back to you.
I want this to be a transparent process. You, the forum member, has much higher priority over these ads. If the ads are offensive or cause any other issue, there is keyword filtering that I can activate. Please let me know about the issue and I will do my best to resolve it. If the ads bother you, it is absolutely okay to say so and post that here. If these ads from Chitika are not working out, I will remove them. If we aren't earning enough money from Chitika to justify the annoyance, I will remove them. If I get the sense that there is a majority wish to remove the ads, I will remove them.
During this trial, if you are willing, please click on the ads, even if just once per visit. I will let you know how that is working out by the end of the month (March 2015).
We are still accepting and encouraging donations. We have not yet received any money for hosting these ads. If we do reach a point where the ads are able to cover costs, I will disable donations. Currently we still owe a great deal to the wonderful members who have donated so far, they are the ones keeping us alive. If you are able to donate, it is still greatly appreciated and is the primary method for covering server costs.
You can read more about server costs and donations here:
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/forum-news-and-announcements/forum-hosting-status/Thank you all for your patience and support.
Cat tax:
