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[Corbeau]

I think the current arrangement is working fine.

Oh, ok. I got the impression things were a bit tight, but I probably got it wrong. My mistake.

[AndreasR]

The message is that Freeciv-web depends on donations to operate. Some users choose to contribute to the project by donating, while others don't.

If you have seen the ads on Wikipedia where they ask for donations, this is basically the same thing.

[cazfi]

- Our income is from donations and adsense adverts on play.freeciv.org
- During the first half of the year, we gained about the same amount as we spent
- Adsense income has had clear downward trend (good: we used to get more than we spent, so we do have some reserves at the moment. bad: if this trend continues, we start getting less than we spend)

We need to do some updates to freeciv.org servers this year, but with finances like this at least I'll be voting against increasing spending by moving to better servers. (And as I said earlier, this is about long-term planning, so if there's an increase to income by some campaign, we need to estimate if it's something that lasts or is it just short-term increase)

[AndreasR]

Cazfi: I'm not sure that anyone has requested increased spending. However, the price of server hardware goes down over time, so I have been suggesting that we regularly (eg every 3 years) replace the server to get a better deal on server costs, so that the income is spent as efficiently as possible.

[Corbeau]

Still, it would really, REALLY help if you guys made public some numbers. Like:

- now we have X
- regular maintenance by the end of the year needed: Y
- we wish to upgrade which would cost us: Z

For example, I'll make stuff up: if you have 2500 and you need to spend 500 by the end of the year, then people are simply going to shrug it off, conclude that you have enough for the next 2-3 years and forget about it. But if you add that you wish to spend another 3000 for better servers, which would mean more disk space, more speed and better service, then that's a good call to donate.

And then simply refresh those numbers once a month (because people need to be reminded).