Bldrweb

What is this all about?
Since November 2022, Thomas/Dynamodal has been paying for the bldrweb.org hosting costs from his own pocket. It seemed inappropriate and premature at the time to ask for contributions with something that was so experimental. Now that it's clear that people find bldrweb useful, it would be nice if we could collect monthly or annual contributions to fund the server hosting expenses. Open Collective is a platform for collecting those contributions and staying in touch with our contributors.

Why Open Collective?
Hosting resource-hungry websites like Mastodon is expensive and occasionally time consuming. Open Collective is a way to collect contributions from users, members, and supporters of bldrweb in a way that is more transparent than other options. The contributions will help offset the costs of keeping the server up and running, and you'll be able to see where and when we spend the contributions that are given to us (check the Expenses tab of the Budget section). Additionally, Open Collective is free and open source, which aligns with our values.

What is Bldrweb?
One day, we hope bldrweb.org will be a place for multiple tools and platforms that the Boulder community finds useful for collaboration and community building. For now, it's just https://toot.bldrweb.org - a mastodon instance.

What expenses do you have?
Our only real expense at the time of writing is our server hosting costs of ~$58/month. Once Thomas (or a future collaborator...?) finds time, we can probably reconfigure the Mastodon instance a bit to reduce the server resource requirements and save some $$. When that happens, the updated expenses will be shared here. Any other future miscellaneous expenses will be transparently shared in the "Budget" section.

But don't you collect revenue from advertising or selling my data?
That's a big NOPE. Bldrweb, like most Mastodon and other Fediverse instances, does not rely on advertising and does not do anything with your data. Your data is yours. We do our best to protect it for you and definitely have no plans to sell or otherwise profit from it. We believe online collaboration and networking tools should not be confounded by the motives of profit-driven corporations. That is why we need your direct support to ensure the viability of our server.

Why does it say "budget" instead of "pledged contributions"?
IDK - I think budget is a confusing term in this case. I suppose the budget amount is what the collective has to work with each month and/or each year if they were planning their expenses based on available funds, but that's not the way it works for us. I think it should say "budgeted income" so there can be a separate section for "budgeted expenses." That would make make it easier to talk about "balancing the budget."

What is Dynamodal?
Every collective on Open Collective needs a "fiscal host." The fiscal host handles things like paying taxes and managing the bank account on behalf of the collective. Dynamodal is a single-member LLC owned by Thomas (the primary admin of bldrweb) which he uses for his freelance consulting work. Dynamodal is serving as a fiscal host for Bldrweb so we don't have to create a separate legal entity for bldrweb. Some fiscal hosts do charge small fees to the Collectives they host (to cover administrative costs), but Dynamodal is not charging any fees.

Dynamodal's fiscal host page: https://opencollective.com/dynamodal
Thomas's open collective individual page: https://opencollective.com/thomascwells

Who is processing the payments?
Open Collective utilizes Stripe, PayPal, and Wise behind the scenes to actually move the money around. They charge various fees depending on the details, but generally they charge $0.30 + 3% per transaction.

Does Open Collective take a cut? How is OC funded?
Open Collective is free for Bldrweb and free for Dynamodal to use. Open Collective "suggests" and 15% donation when you contribute to a collective. This shows up as a drop down box when you fill out the contribution level. The 15% adder is completely optional (and separate from the payment processing fee), but OC is doing good work and providing free services, so consider throwing them a few bucks from time to time.

Where are the funds held before they are distributed to cover expenses?
As the fiscal host, Dynamodal holds the funds in its bank account which is currently at Elevations Credit Union.

Can I use Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, etc?
Open Collective recently launched support for more payment methods. It's currently a beta feature, but we're working to make it available for bldrweb supporters ASAP! Open Collective replied to our inquiry indicating  they're restricting beta features to "established" fiscal hosts, so I guess we'll need to wait for a while before we can turn those on. In the meantime, credit card payments via Stripe have proven to be smooth and relatively painless.

I don't like Open Collective or literally can't use it for some reason - can I still contribute?
Yes, please contact us and we'll sort something out! Use the "Contact Collective" link below or reach out to one of the team on Mastodon.

This seems pretty cool. I know nothing about Mastodon admin or moderation, but I'd love to help with Open Collective.
Sweet! We could use more people on the team here. Reach out at the link below and/or on Mastodon so we can talk more.