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Welcome to the PMBug forums - a watering hole for folks interested in gold, silver, precious metals, sound money, investing, market and economic news, central bank monetary policies, politics and more. You can visit the forum page to see the list of forum nodes (categories/rooms) for topics.

Please have a look around and if you like what you see, please consider registering an account and joining the discussions. When you register an account and log in, you may enjoy additional benefits including no ads, market data/charts, access to trade/barter with the community and much more. Registering an account is free - you have nothing to lose!

PayPal is the only payment gateway that provides the forum software a working hook to automate the promotion and maintenance of the user group (priviliges).

I know a lot of people do not like PayPal for various reasons, but you can create a PayPal account without tying it to any bank accounts. It can be set up strictly as a credit card processor.
 
I totally missed the premium membership option so far :flushed:

What about setting up a chip-in with a funding goal in addition to the membership? I'd donate :wave:
 
Fortunately, pmbug.com is hosted on a dedicated, managed server (ie. I own the server and the only websites hosted on it are my own, but it's maintained by a 3rd party) that is largely paid for by ad revenues from another website that I own (totally unrelated to pms, investing or politics). As such, I don't have any shortfall in meeting a funding goal for necessary expenses (hosting fees/bandwidth, domain renewal, etc.). Money collected from supporters is generally used in efforts to promote/market the forum (or improve it).
 
* bump *

As GIM2 refugees are joining, I'm being asked questions about the way the site is set up. It's been over a decade since I set this site up and I honestly couldn't remember a lot of the details related to various permissions, so I did some digging this morning. Here's the scoop:

1. Newly registered members are placed in a 'registered' user group that has restricted privileges. This is an anti-troll and anti-spam measure. Folks need to participate in the forum to meet a couple of thresholds before they are automatically promoted to the 'active' users group that has all the normal permissions one would expect from a modern forum (including posting new threads, links, images, attachments, private messages, etc.). I have, just a few minutes ago, lowered the thresholds to enable the influx of GIM2 folk to get over the hump faster (currently requires 5 posts and 2 days of membership).

2. Paid membership options expand on the basic permissions of the 'active' users group including (but not necessarily limited to) expanded rights on the number of members that can be included in a private message conversation and the number of lines, links, images, etc. in a signature.

3. While I still host pmbug on the dedicated server mentioned in the post above, ad revenue from all the sites I own has drastically diminished over the last 10 years. My primary revenue generating site used to easily cover the annual dedicated hosting bill and generate a surplus. That stopped being true several years ago and we paid the hosting bill using the previous years surplus for a while. I'm currently making up the shortfall between ad revenue and hosting out of my own pocket. I do very much appreciate support from the members.
 
I'll get a donation sent in this week. I'm pretty sure the other site costs were covered in very short order within a week every year and many who missed the deadline were kept out of donating until next year.
Once we all get moved over here you can probably just let us know if there is a shortfall and my guess is many will step up to make sure the costs are covered.
 
The software does have an integrated option for one time payments, so I set up a one time payment for a monthly upgrade. The one time payment option allows you to set the amount you would like to pay (minimum $5 just like the subscription option), so you can use it to donate as you like. If there is interest, I could also set up a one time payment for a yearly upgrade option. Let me know what works for you.
 
The software does have an integrated option for one time payments, so I set up a one time payment for a monthly upgrade. The one time payment option allows you to set the amount you would like to pay (minimum $5 just like the subscription option), so you can use it to donate as you like. If there is interest, I could also set up a one time payment for a yearly upgrade option. Let me know what works for you.

Curious why I still show as supporter with no gift upgrade under my name. I know my credit card shows as pending but I imagine everyone else would show the same. The check is good. :cool:
 
The forum auto-updates the accounts when it receives electronic notice from PayPal that the payment has been made. If the payment is still pending, that's your reason.
 
BTW, you might have noticed a "gift upgrade" button underneath member names while reading threads. That button allows you to gift an upgrade to another user. Ie. you can pay the upgrade fee for another member if you want to. You won't see the button by your own name because it's not meant to allow you to gift yourself. You can just use the payment options to do that.
 
The software does have an integrated option for one time payments ......... If there is interest, I could also set up a one time payment for a yearly upgrade option. Let me know what works for you.
I would prefer a one time payment option as I don't maintain a PayPal account with a balance. For each transaction (ex monthly) I would incur a fee. I'd rather not have that happen if possible.
 
Why is it more expensive to buy a year than if you paid monthly? A year is $100 but if my math is correct 12 months @ $5/mo = $60. Usually you get a discount when you do whole year.
 
Why is it more expensive to buy a year than if you paid monthly? A year is $100 but if my math is correct 12 months @ $5/mo = $60. Usually you get a discount when you do whole year.

We have already explained that clearly.


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The answer is counterintuitive but stems from members wanting options to give more than just $5 a month back when I didn't have one off variable amount options.

I could lower the minimum on the one time yearly payment if you like.
 
PM, by you accepting the GIM2 refugees you will have no problem keeping the lights on. The polar bear would open funding for only a few days to cover the annual nut and he always had a surplus.

One big questioni is, are us refugees like those fleeing the nazis in the 1930s or are we closer to the mexis and guats hopping the southern border?

Another is, why would I want to join a forum that would want me as a member in the first place?
 
PM, by you accepting the GIM2 refugees you will have no problem keeping the lights on. The polar bear would open funding for only a few days to cover the annual nut and he always had a surplus.

One big questioni is, are us refugees like those fleeing the nazis in the 1930s or are we closer to the mexis and guats hopping the southern border?

Another is, why would I want to join a forum that would want me as a member in the first place?


 
Do you, PM, or anyone, need a private message or email to track who's sending what?

I have a PayPal account; but it's tied to a different email than the one I used to register here. I'd be happy to tell you who's sending "my" money...let me know.
 
Do you, PM, or anyone, need a private message or email to track who's sending what?

I have a PayPal account; but it's tied to a different email than the one I used to register here. ...

The point of the integrated, automated system was to free me from the shackles of manually managing upgrade states for untold numbers of members.

I would suggest either adding your registration email to your existing PayPal account, or creating a new PayPal account with your registration email.

FYI to everyone, you don't have to add a bank acct to your PayPal accts. It works fine as just a credit card processor.
 
I am banned from PayPal

is there another way I can upgrade my membership and make a donation?

personal check , cc , FaceBook Pay , ??
 
I am banned from PayPal

Well, that's unfortunate.

is there another way I can upgrade my membership and make a donation?

personal check , cc , FaceBook Pay , ??

I don't have a merchant account to handle credit cards. PayPal is supposed to be that conduit.

I don't do anything Facebook related. I will not be assimilated by the Zuck.

Embarrassingly, it has only just occurred to me that it is possible for me to accept personal checks and not have to manually keep track of membership upgrades if I (or anyone) just used the gift upgrade button to facilitate the upgrade. I would need some time to have my bank set up a separate account for the forum stuff as, to date, I've just been managing all forum related finances (inflows and expenses) from my PayPal account.

In the meantime, if you are good enough friends with any other GIM2 refugees (that have a working PayPal account), you could have them gift you an upgrade and reimburse them.
 
In the meantime, if you are good enough friends with any other GIM2 refugees (that have a working PayPal account), you could have them gift you an upgrade and reimburse them.
I could assist you Spinal. We live pretty close.
 
Thanks to all the GIM2 refugees that have opted for helping to support this site with account upgrades. Most of you have had your transactions processed without any issue.

However, there are 3 members (so far?) that have paid for membership upgrades that have not received them. I've been investigating the issue for the better part of the day and from what I've seen:

1. Payments were processed correctly.
2. PayPal sent IPN to the forum correctly
3. Forum did not recognize member when receiving the IPN (Instant Payment Notification).

I tried resending the notifications from the PayPal side, but the forum is ignoring repeat notifications. I'm reaching out to Xenforo folks for a solution to fix this. Please be patient.
 
1 of the 3 payments received actually used an email address that does not match an existing registration. I don't know who that belongs to. If you paid for an upgrade and didn't receive it (other than SandBlaster and agcoacres), send me a PM with the email address on your PayPal account. Thanks.
 
Our of an abundance of caution, I have adjusted the permissions on accessing/ordering upgraded memberships until new members have validated their registrations. I suspect, but can't confirm yet, that the issues Sandblaster and agcoacres [and one other] experienced might be because they ordered the upgrade almost immediately upon registering. Goldhedge was the latest upgrade to process as of the time of this post and everything worked as expected, so I think everything should be fine moving forward. Once again, thanks to everyone for your support. :)
 
It's cheaper than a good psychiatrist.

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