Help Support evolt.org

Posted on June 07, 2002

in FAQ

by Marlene Bruce (marlene)

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Marlene Bruce

Member info | Full bio

User since: December 13, 1998

Last login: August 07, 2007

Articles written: 10

Why give?

evolt.org is an all-volunteer organization that relies on the contributions of its members to operate and function. Thanks in part to the generous commitment of the web community, evolt.org provides renowned resources and information without advertisements. Here is a list of some of the services we provide:

The Browser Archive
The largest browser archive available anywhere!
Articles
Articles, tutorials and news items written by our members and available free to any visitor.
List Servs
Numerous email lists to help disseminate knowledge to the web development community, and to help run evolt.org.
The Directory Project
A searchable directory containing links covering web design and development.

The opportunities and services we provide are an increasing drain on evolt.org's limited finances. Bandwidth costs are our biggest expenditure; we currently transfer 250 GB/month, and that usage is growing. Hence, the need to ask for your help.

Financial donations

evolt.org is currently able to take donations online using PayPal, or by snail mail if you prefer. You can donate via PayPal in US dollars no matter what your home currency.

Make an automated monthly donation

Suport evolt.org every month using PayPal subscriptions. (Please note: Due to PayPal transaction fees, we only offer the monthly online donation option in amounts of $10 US or more. If you'd like to give less, we appreciate your funding and encourage you to use the next method.)

You can cancel your subscription at any time using your PayPal account. If you don't have a PayPal account, it's fast and easy to sign up during the registration process.

Make a one-time donation

We're sensitive to the fact that the exchange rate and cost of living is very different in different countries. All gifts, of all sizes, are most welcome and help evolt.org provide its services. You can make a one-time donation online or by snail mail in the amount of your choice:

We also have a snail mail address for those who prefer to send a check, money order, or the like (please do not send cash):

evolt.org
Attn: Treasurer
214A Glenbrook Road
Bartonsville, PA 18321
USA

Please make checks payable to evolt.org. Also, please include your email or snail mail address, so we can send you a confirmation of receipt and our thanks.

Evolt Merchandise

You can buy all manner of evolt-branded merchandise at the evolt.org CafePress Store, including shirts, hats, bags and other fine goods.

Affiliate donations

By using the services of our affiliates, you make a donation to evolt.org at no additional cost to you. We will be adding to this list as new partnerships are formed:

Amazon.com
From technical books to leisure reading, CDs to DVDs, your Amazon purchases can help fund evolt.org everytime you start your shopping by clicking through from our site.
NetWorth Enterprises, Inc.
For information on how NetWorth and evolt.org are related, and more details about hosting features, please see Affiliate Hosting Program Benefits evolt.org.

If you'd like to become an evolt.org affiliate, or have an affiliate suggestion, please contact give@evolt.org.

Google Ads in the Browser Archive

We have begun running Google AdSense ads within the Browser Archive.

If you'd like, you can now advertise exclusively on evolt.org! You can use this link to sign up for a Google AdWords account and target ads to browsers.evolt.org.

Placing an ad on evolt.org benefits both you (if you're trying to reach a high-traffic, high-quality audience of web designers, developers, hobbyists and professionals) and evolt.org too, because site-targeted ads generate more revenue for the care, feeding and hosting of evolt.org.

If you see any ads appear which are inappropriate, or which appear to interfere with your access to the Browser Archive, please let us know as soon as possible.

Technical donations

At the moment we really need browser mirrors hosted on sites which can do the following:

can host at least ~ 6 gigabytes of data
can bitshift at least ~ 50-100 gigabytes per month of traffic
can use rsync to cope with:
- automatic incremental one-way at-most-daily synchronisation of the Archive
- symbolic links within the Archive

If you can do that, let us know.

Knowledge donations

We welcome many types of contributions, and recognise that not all of them will be tangible. We value the evolt.org community members who donate their time, skills, opinions and expertise to our various list servers, articles, and administration and management demands. While evolt.org's financial needs are great, there is no evolt without those contributions.

Thanks!

If you have questions, please contact give@evolt.org. Regardless of what or how much you choose to contribute to evolt.org, it is sincerely appreciated.

A founder of evolt.org, Marlene (say "Mar-lay-nuh") currently lives in Virginia and is a web and print designer, massage therapist, photographer, artist, burner (person who attends Burning Man), dancer, activist and yogini. In years past Marlene served as evolt.org's executive director and treasurer, though she's not much involved these days. But she still encourages visitors to give to evolt.org.

Marlene began exploring computer-generated graphics with a purchase of the first Mac 128K in 1984. She's subsequently been involved in print design, illustration, and since 1995, professional web design and development. Her other skills are information architecture, usability testing and site management (the largest at 14,000+ pages). Additionally, she's taught seminars, has been published on A List Apart, and contributed to and reviewed a chapter on evolt.org which appears in Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Designing Large Scale Web Sites.

Check out her portfolio at DigitizeThis.com.

29 comments on this article. Log in to add your comment | Rate this article:

Optional service fee might do the job

Submitted by mondial on June 13, 2002 - 16:11.

I find evolt.org being one of the finest sources of information and opinions in my field of work. Therefore, it would be natural for my firm to contribute financially to evolt. But our accountant wouldn't be happy if we sent money "cause we like evolt", so perhaps inventing a (optional) service fee for companies could be a solution. I could give money out of my own wallet, but if the contribution was deductible the sum would be much higher.

We operate in Sweden, but I guess this goes for most countries' tax legislation.

Register as a charity

Submitted by pwaring on July 3, 2002 - 06:43.

If you register as a charity in the UK then you can claim tax back on all donations (up to 40%), so long as the donators say that they are tax payers. Perhaps having a treasurer in the UK who sends funds over to the US every month or so (depending on how much is received) would be a good idea, because it's very difficult for me to send money to the US - first of all you have to pay the exchange rate, then your bank may charge for making the transfer (or you'll be charged if you send it by post). I won't use PayPal because they only have offices in the US as far as I can ascertain, so if I ever have a problem (money goes missing or whatever - not that I'm saying that it will), it would be very difficult for me to resolve it.

Non-US options?

Submitted by MartinB on July 3, 2002 - 12:36.

One of the things we're actively considering is having evolt's finances based in the UK for a number of reasons (not least because it's easier to have a bank account for evolt.org without going through the formalities of tax registration.

This will make UK payments fairly easy, using services like EggPay as well as PayPal.

You've also pinpointed the main advantage to registering as a charity. There are some downsides, however, not least the additional administrative burden involved, and that we could only claim back income tax at the basic rate from UK taxpayers.

The subject is still open, however, and there are a range of views on the matter. If you've got any knowledge and/or expertise in Non-profit finance, then we'd love to have you in the evolt.org finance group. Here's the signup.

UK based

Submitted by pwaring on July 29, 2002 - 17:54.

The problem of only being able to claim tax back from UK taxpayers could be resolved by having a treasurer in the US (where most of evolt's users probably live), and one in the UK. That way, you get the best of both worlds and can switch between the two as a HQ depending on the cirumstances - e.g. if interest rates in the UK are higher than those in the US.

Whether you could register as a charity or not is another matter, there will be a stringent selection process to make sure that no-one tries registering themself as a charity and then avoiding income tax.

Yes, there will be costs involved, just as is the case with a private/public limited company you will have to be audited and publish your annual accounts, this can cost hundreds or indeed thousands of pounds if you're not careful.

I've not got any "expertise" as such in non-profit finance as such, although I do have a grasp of the concepts involved. The signup link leads to a 404 error page though. :(

Finance group signup

Submitted by MartinB on July 29, 2002 - 18:01.

Thanks for noticing the broken link. It's fixed now.

Charity Commissions

Submitted by pwaring on August 1, 2002 - 12:33.

The UK Charity Commission web site has lots of information about whether you can/should register a charity and what it involves.

How about Amazon's gift certificate system?

Submitted by ramdak on January 13, 2003 - 06:32.

I don't know too many details about Amazon's system, but I once used this to donate to a technical writer who runs a very useful site (www.jeanweber.com) on technical writing and editing. It took me just a couple of minutes using my credit card and Amazon login. Also, they have been very careful with security so far.

I wouldn't touch PayPal with a bargepole. Seeing that name as the payment option here was enough to make me change my mind permanently. I will wait until a better option becomes available. I daresay PayPal is what is holding up Evolt's donation drive.

Regarding Amazon

Submitted by marlene on January 16, 2003 - 12:11.

Hi Ramdak. Some people are very happy with PayPal, some aren't (I daresay some feel both ways about Amazon, but to each his own). That said, I'll look into what Amazon offers. I looked through Jean Weber's site (through the site index) and couldn't find anything about Amazon except a link to buy an Amazon gift certificate for her (though I did see two links to PayPal :o). Thanks for the suggestion, I'll update here if we sign up.

Amazon again...

Submitted by marlene on January 16, 2003 - 12:21.

Wow, Amazon takes a flat 15% of each payment received, plus 15 cents! Compared with PayPal (at 0.7% + 30� �to��2.9% + 30�, with international slightly higher) that's highway robbery. That's way worse than a decent credit card would charge for an outstanding balance.

I have to run this by the Finance committee before I commit to going with Amazon's so-called Honor System.

mirrored hosting ?

Submitted by jinesh.m on March 15, 2003 - 03:44.

the first thing i was told when starting out as a developer was to browse evolt everyday :) i'm glad to see the drive going well...just a suggestion, have you thought about mirrored hosting ?

Mirrored hosting

Submitted by MartinB on May 16, 2003 - 06:26.

Jinesh, we do currently mirror our browser archive, which is helping our bandwidth usage quite a bit.

Mirror in India

Submitted by swhiz10 on June 3, 2003 - 03:16.

Do you need a FREE mirror hosting in India.? What is your bandwidh consumption, web space and OS requirements. Intimate me. I might work out something.

Mirror requirements

Submitted by neuro on August 4, 2003 - 03:16.

At the moment we really need browser mirrors hosted on sites which can do the following:

can host at least ~ 6 gigabytes of data
can bitshift at least ~ 50-100 gigabytes per month of traffic
can use rsync to cope with:
- automatic incremental one-way at-most-daily synchronisation of the Archive
- symbolic links within the Archive

If you can do that, let us know.

Tax deductible

Submitted by Kobe_B on August 4, 2003 - 13:35.

hi i have some money to give but i have to ask are you taxdeductible? thanks

Expensive bandwidth and error in page...

Submitted by WorldNomad on October 6, 2003 - 21:29.

First this page show contact "someone@evolt.org" but that e-mail does not exist and messages get bounced...

Second, 10K for 250GB bandwidth seems awfully steep.. perhaps getting a new hosting provider is part of the solution. You state "Bandwidth costs are our biggest expenditure; we currently transfer 250 GB/month"... and show that you want $10,000 in donations...

There are many hosting providers now that are providing 500GB per month transfer (or more) in their base packages. I know there are many other considerations for a hosting provider, but if as you say, bandwidth is your biggest expenditure, then a switch of hosting providers should enable you to halve (or more) your ongoing costs.

Take a look at www.serverbeach, www.rackshack.net (now www.ev1servers.net), or www.maxxxhosting.com. Rackshack always gets very good reviews on all of the hosting review boards. Note: I am not affiliated with any of these companies.

Maybe you can also re-negotiate with your current service provider and if they don't give you a better deal then possibly look at changing hosts...

Only Just Noticed

Submitted by richardhmorris on October 22, 2003 - 05:01.

I've temporarily unsubscribed from the mailing list so I've only just seen this and made a small donation from my morris.co.uk addy.

Bandwidth..

Submitted by terminal on January 3, 2004 - 03:14.

As WorldNomad mentioned above, EV1Servers ( previously rackshack ) would be a good place to get some quality hosting. Free2Code.net ( run by myself and Jester [ who is registered here and has posted some articles] ) uses them, and they are great. 700GB of bandwidth monthly, too. I greatly suggest you get a server from them, as they only cost about $120US/month. They are doing our site fine. Good luck and keep up the good work ;)

Donation

Submitted by nainil on April 24, 2004 - 21:58.

Hi,

I find Evolt really important to all web developers as it provides an insite on the governing dynamics of the Internet. Ours being a web hosting company can sponsor the domain name completely. You may please contact us at nainil.c@eliteral.com

Translate articles on this site into Chinese

Submitted by ideawu on December 10, 2005 - 13:51.

I want to translate articles on this site into Chinese, and put them on my webpage: http://www.ideawu.net. May I get your permission to do so?

Permission from Authors

Submitted by MartinB on December 14, 2005 - 10:26.

All content on this site is owned by the authors - you'd need to get permission for each article from its author.

At some point, however, we plan to have the capability to hold translations on this site; Chinese is a language I'd very much like to support, and we wouldn't have as much difficulty over author permission if translated articles were published here.

Would having Chinese-translated articles on evolt.org rather than your site be helpful to you?

yeah, it is me again!

Submitted by algogocom on October 7, 2006 - 03:05.

I am a new member and happy to come here and learn much more from you guys. Rgds, http://www.algogo.com

Great Site!

Submitted by EngrTun on April 10, 2007 - 03:45.

I have been in the internet marketing for years, but found this website today. I am amazed how such a big heap of knowledge was hidden from me. I am happy I found this.

Very nice site!

Submitted by Marcel Feenstra on April 21, 2007 - 09:12.

I've stumbled upon Evolt a few days ago and found that it contains a wealth of information...

I've just made a small financial contribution through PayPal; I hope to be able to contribute in other ways (e.g., by submitting articles) in the future. Also, I'm planning to add a section about web design and development to my site Voor Beginners (in Dutch), and I will certainly mention Evolt as a very useful reference!

Donation

Submitted by Tjeerd Kramer on May 7, 2007 - 14:39.

I've made a financial contribution to this site. Thanks for providing the community with such a great website!

I love your site, and

Submitted by Tjeerd Kramer on May 8, 2007 - 19:03.

I love your site, and therefore would like to express my concerns with the following statement:

"We have begun a trial of Google TextAds within the Browser Archive. In the same way as our affiliate donations do, clicking on an ad that interests you makes a donation to us at no cost to yourself."

According to the Adsense TOS, stimulating users to click your ads is a valid reason for an instant ban.

Just thought I'd warn you...

Kind regards,
Tjeerd Kramer
www.designaweb.nl

Thanks and thanks

Submitted by dkaufman on May 9, 2007 - 00:57.

Hi Tjeerd,

You are, of course, absolutely right -- stimulating our visitors in that way would be wrong; thank you for bringing the matter to our attention. Also, thanks for your donation!

I'm sure the author added that section to the page with the best of intentions but, yes, suggesting that visitors click on ads, especially as a form of "donation" would be unethical even if it did not also happen to be a violation of the AdSense terms of service. I have re-written the section in question.

Thanks again for pointing that out, for your kind words and, of course, for supporting evolt.org "the old fashioned way" :-)

-dave

Thanks evolt!

Submitted by maxbear on July 17, 2007 - 18:19.

I just found evolt and I think it's one of the best community site for web development. I think they use drupal as the backend is a good choice. I love drupal but I never use it in production environment. I use wordpress most of the time instead :-).

I just wrote an article about wordpress and hope to contribute to this community. Keep up the good work evolt

Max www.case4htpc.com

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