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Admin's - Fri, 07/30/2010 - 11:41am
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AllOurQuilts.com has been up for 3+ years, and it looks like it is coming to an end. Our funds are limited and the we will not be able to renew our hosting. We have added a way to contribute some money to keep the site alive! Feel free to donate, or not. The site has never been profitable and we simply do not have the money to continue to pay for it to stay up. We are Therefore giving an opportunity for our users to keep this site up. Feel free to donate, and the money will be used to pay for the upkeep of the site. The total amount listed is for 1 year of service. Thanks for all of your current support, enjoyable times, great conversations and total enjoyment all of you have provided us with.
$108 isn't a horrible amount for a year, but for us to raise it soon enough is what concerns me. I would really hate to see the site die because I know much work has gone into it...and many friendships have been made. I personally have learned much from this site. I don't have many quilting friends in my life, so this site has given that to me. Mike....did you once say the site could generate funds through links? I can't remember really.
We where always hoping the site would generate enough income to support itself, but it doesn't. We actually where past due for over 3 months, and didn't know about it. The hosting company had kept us up and running despite our failure to pay. We didn't know our bill was up (My Fault), and so we paid the $28 to get caught up. We paid this because we wanted to give people a chance to say goodbye, get their pictures off the site, to contact the people they want to remain friends with, and to meet our financial responsibilities to the hosting company. We have the 15 days left, because that was how many days we have after we paid our balance.
I would love to keep the site up. I put thousands of hours into this site. I have made many friends, and have lurked around for the past 6 months, I hate to see it go. We have probably put almost $1,000 worth of advertising, hosting and domain name registration into this site. At some time it had to at least break even or become profitable.
We made some money by people who bought things on Amazon, and who used the advertising. Sadly this revenue has not grown enough to cover the continual cost of the site. The amount we made last year is around $30. How much we made next year is in question. If we get donations, anything we make will go towards additional months of service. Even $7 will give us one month of service. So far no one had donated...
If it comes to shove, we will try to see if we can make a facebook group, and the I will mass mail that to everyone. So that you can continue to contact people from the site. I would also make sure that you get all of the pictures you need.
If you want to contact me, the best way is via facebook http://www.facebook.com/BigGreenJellyBean or email big_green_jelly_bean-<at>-yahoo.com (of course replace the -<at>- with a @)
No one is more hurt by this then I am.
I have thought about donating. I keep checking in to see if anyone has yet. Honestly, many of the old regulars that I got to know, don't even post anymore, and many new people haven't yet started posting. So I have wondered if I do donate some funds....if it is pointless. I am friends with many of the "regular" people that I met here on facebook......but I truly love the fact that this site was seperate from Facebook.....and I have always tried to keep connected to people here instead. I feel very sad for you Mike......you have poured yourself into the site and it is obvious. Again...whether it stays or goes......I have loved every minute here. THANK YOU....are hardly words enough.
I understand, and if someone See the value in keeping the site open then I gave them the option to do so. I guess I would even consider giving the site to someone else, who could maintain it and had the motivation to keep it alive and build a user base.
I believe that the reason the site died down was because the site had become nothing more then a quilt gallery. It never became a place where people could ask questions, get advice, share their experience's with different equipment and techniques, etc. When I was active on the site, I got these topics to surface. I mean look at the number post, it was an extremely easy way to get people involved. I was very impressed with the block exchanges, and am happy that they came out of the users (and not out of the "owners").
I also believe that if I was to upgrade the site (maybe change software), that I could create a better user interface that would promote the activities listed above. I feel that if people started asking these questions and presenting this information, that more people would join in. Maybe people feel uncomfortable asking questions on a site if they are the only ones to do so? Maybe they don't know how to ask questions? Maybe they fear they will be singled out and feel be labeled "stupid"? Maybe a clique formed and people did not feel comfortable joining in?
These are questions I was asking Myself. Some of them are probably user interface issues. Since I am not a quilter I never would of felt comfortable asking legitimate questions if I was not to use the information I requested. I had started to address these issues with a new site, but like I said, My personal life drew my intentions away from the goals I had set forth on this project. I have new projects in the idea machine, but right now I am working hard on the house, enjoying My Wife, and trying to deal with a host of other issues. To transfer all of the work from this site to the new site was a huge task, and was not at all pleasant. I guess My own motivations changed.
I did end up proving what I suspected. That a friendly social environment could be created if certain practices by the owners were followed. In the end, during our entire existence, we had to ban 3 users. One was a creepy guy out to hit on you women, one was a person who signed on only to post some obscene references (which existed for 15 minutes before it and he was deleted), and the third was a hacker attempting to gain access to admin portions of the site (we actually watched him as he was attempting to gain access). Over 4 years, that is amazing! I know of no other social network that has had that track record. People on the Internet can be MEAN, and they seem to careless about what they do or say. Conversations become full of inflammatory remarks, people get very defensive, and the entire network becomes poisoned. To have such a friendly network of people is great!
Ultimately it comes down to this.
The main initial reason for this site was to have some fun and to have the opportunity to give a bit of joy to so many. This was a wonderful blessing. I know that this is what God wants of me, and so I was more then happy to have had this wonderful chance! I find that if I put My life in Gods hands, that if I try to help my fellow woman & man, and if I expect nothing in return I am rewarded a hundred fold.
This has been a great site, and have made some good friends. It will be hard not to see how they are doing.
I understand what Mike has to do, he has no money and even a little over $100.00 is alot for him. I will be more than willing to help with some money.
We need to find a way to get more people involved in posting again......There are so few of us posting on a regular basis.
Mike...thanks for everything!!!
I just sent a donation also, and do appreciate very much Mr. Madman, everything you've done, and am praying that we get the next $53.00 to keep up the site!!
Woooo hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. I am not going to lose my quilting friends afterall!! MADMAN......I may need to get your address to send a check....I don't have paypal and I rarely if ever use my credit card.
And now that the site is half way up for the year.......QUILTERS.....please keep posting. We need to once again, get this site to what we all came to love. Encouragement, hope, inspiration, a place for joy, and a place to cry. As I said....I only have one friend who quilts......and she is not a devouted quilter....I NEED you guys!!!
Do you have My Moms address from one of the quilting block exchanges? If not send me a Private Message via My Profile and I will get an address to you:)
I confess, I have not used the site very much in recent months. It just seemed as if I was always busy or when I did check the site, there just wasn't very many new postings and it didn't keep my attention very long. I do feel as though I have made very good friends on here and I would be sad to see it close down. I can't afford to send anything right now since my unemployment has come to an end and we are still trying to save up money for the house. In addition, we have property taxes due next month that we did not save for, back income taxes, and an attorney bill to pay off (for our short sale that never happened. The bank has now foreclosed, but we still have to pay for the atty.) Boy, I could throw myself a pity party!! I have just finished the quilt top that I was commissioned to make and will be taking it to the quilters tomorrow. She is sending me a check this week. I have also made 2 baby quilts that were ordered by a friend at church and he will be paying me for those soon. This is my vacation money for my quilting vacation coming up in October, but I can spare a little bit when that money comes in. Mike, I'll be sending you an email when I can send a check to get your address. I think we need to do some posting. So, how about posting what projects you are working on, anything you've finished lately, what you've been doing this summer, etc. I was thinking about maybe a posting to trade any UFOs we don't want to finish. Anyone have any of those that they'd like to get rid of?? I've been working on mine, but I think I have one or two UFOs that I have lost interest in and would be willing to sell or trade if someone could get excited about them! I know I need to take some pictures this week and get some stuff posted.
We are in the Same boat. Single income and house needs up keeping.
Mike.....perhaps this was answered. Do we need the whole $108 before Aug. 16th?? Welcome back Pam.......I missed you
Well I get a discount if I buy the entire year, but I can add months to My account.
Does anyone have any idea why people don't ask questions on how to do something with quilting? I haven't seen a single question. Getting People to post is rather easy. All you have to do is ask or post interesting things like "What is your favorite quilting technique?" or "How do you use the color wheel to pick better colors?". All it takes is a few people to post a few questions and then more people post more, and the site gains in activity.
Allot of the active members who use to post regularly have allot of computer experience. I always wondered if the site was too tough to use, I asked the question a few times, but no one ever told Me how to improve the site, or what was wrong with it. Also, drawing new members in was very difficult, I am sure there are LOTS of places I could be adding the AllOurQuilts.com link too, but I just don't visit too many quilting sites. I always wanted an on-line quilting supply store to take interest in it, hoping that would pay the bills, but unfortunately the sites I did visit where not interested in doing this. Another site, like ours, is run by a quilting store!
I must admit that I have kinda left the site dormant too. Now that I see people are actually interested in seeing the site stay up, I feel more energized about it.
It is nice to see the interest in this site. I love it and miss not hearing from everyone. The cost is very low to cover the hosting, etc. and Mike and Wendi are not in the position to pay for it. They do not make any money from this site, it is all from the love of their mom and her joy of quilting. Mike was not working on the site after he got married with life items to take care of. It is nice to see that he now is getting the interest back.
Maybe if we all bug him, and they will post a picture of the wedding.
lady bugs, grasshoppers, spiders, gnats, flies, bees, fleas, beetles, june bugs, moths, etc.......ok....I am BUGGING Mike to post some photos of the wedding!!
With the donated $55, I was able to pay up until April 14th, 2011... I think we will have to renew our domain name before then,so I will make a new chipin widget!
Thank you for every for their donations.
BTW, Im haveing issues with the Wedding pictures, but I will get them up asap.