• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

    =====================
    Posted 08/15/2025
    =====================


    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

    =====================
    Addendum: 01/10/2026
    =====================


    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

Upgrade to benefactor??

Jeremy Letkey

Jeremy Letkey

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I was curious what the criteria or the cut off for those that were upgraded to the benefactor status. Was it a $100 donation or just giving before it was asked. Like I said just curious. I've seen alot more yellow names around lately and that is a good thing.
 
Jeremy Letkey said:
I was curious what the criteria or the cut off for those that were upgraded to the benefactor status. Was it a $100 donation or just giving before it was asked. Like I said just curious. I've seen alot more yellow names around lately and that is a good thing.
Click to expand...

Both.

I believe I mentioned it somewhere that I was going to be giving all of the original members who signed up for the Contributors level membership (remember that green colored medallion?) an automatic upgrade as a thank you for their support before I initiated the new multi level paid membership plan. This was a big THANK YOU for those people who decided to make a contribution before it became mandatory in order to access a few of the forums here for write access. I just thought they deserved a "thank you" from me in return for their showing of support.

And yes, some of those with the benefactor status actually paid for theirs as well. Yeah, I guess it would be a REALLY great thing to have so many people actually pay that $100 membership donation! But I felt I had made a committment and that's what I did. I would have gone whole hog up to the Endowment level, but that had the potential to cause me some grief from quite a number of emails and PMs asking about that free website hosting.... So I decided to just to a single level upgrade instead.

Hope that explains what my thought processes were.
 
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Thank you for the gold coins! It is nice to be appreciated :)
 
go for the gold!!!

Rich, I would either like to be upgraded to the Benefactor level, or know what the pro-rated $ amount would be to attain this level from my existing level.

Thanks!!!
 
OK, my coins are still silver. I did donate before the switchover, but anyway, how do I get some gold??! :) :) :) :) :)
 
leaftail said:
Thank you for the gold coins! It is nice to be appreciated :)
Click to expand...
Ditto! Thanks again Rich! I like the gold coins so I think I’m going to have to keep them. :D
 
OK, here's the scoop on this mess.

Remember the green medallion for the Contributors I set up a while back? That was a custom programming job done on an older version of this message board software. Everything about it was customized into the code. Displaying the medallion, expiration date, etc., etc. Well sometime last winter (November, I think) we did a major system upgrade to this software which also included a BUNCH of custom coding carried over from the older system. However, the Contributor stuff really didn't need to be included, as this was now a basic feature in the new version. However I did have the programmer do a conversion to copy over those older system Contributors into the new system.

It didn't work 100 percent. Even worse, the starting and expiration dates did not carry over with anything near accuracy. So some of you are carrying the medallion from that older system right now, while others are completely on the new system. So yeah, there are some glitches that are going to show up here and there. For instance, I know Robin was displayed the new medallion from a recent subscription, but for some reason it was gone when I just looked at it. Yet it was logged properly within the subscription system. I fixed that, but this isn't the first time it has happened.

So what I need you all to do if you were tied into the old system is to give me a date of that previous contribution and I will set things right. All you have to do is to let me know, and I will make it right.

Sorry about the glitches, but they are just par for the course in a complicated system. This system has a LOT of custom programming in the background, and it is pretty much impossible to have all this complexity without things going awry here and there occasionally.

Thanks.
 
progeckos said:
Ditto! Thanks again Rich! I like the gold coins so I think I’m going to have to keep them. :D
Click to expand...


Yeah, I hear you. I actually think they are much classier looking then the Endowment coins. Maybe I need to play around with the colors to those. Or maybe just make them gold but with the three coins. Yeah, maybe that would look better..... Sure wish my crystal ball wasn't on the fritz so I would know what is best to do sometimes......
 
WebSlave said:
Yeah, I hear you. I actually think they are much classier looking then the Endowment coins. Maybe I need to play around with the colors to those. Or maybe just make them gold but with the three coins. Yeah, maybe that would look better..... Sure wish my crystal ball wasn't on the fritz so I would know what is best to do sometimes......
Click to expand...

I say go with:

$10 = Green
$25 = Bronze
$100 = Silver
$250 = Gold
 
For instance, I know Robin was displayed the new medallion from a recent subscription, but for some reason it was gone when I just looked at it. Yet it was logged properly within the subscription system. I fixed that, but this isn't the first time it has happened.
Click to expand...
well i got an email that said my subscription was up so i paid my $25 just a day or so ago... thats when i noticed my silver coins were gone and i was just a pauper LOL

I say go with:

$10 = Green
$25 = Bronze
$100 = Silver
$250 = Gold
Click to expand...

i say do it like the ski slopes
$10 - green
$25- blue
$100 - black
$250 - platinum or gold
and maybe make em a tad smaller so they dont wink at you everytime you open a page LOL
 
robin s. said:
and maybe make em a tad smaller so they dont wink at you everytime you open a page LOL
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Hmm, I guess you all need to get higher resolution monitors. On a 1600x1200 screen they ARE small! :laugh:
 
I'm afraid I just don't know~ so I'm posting to see what coin shows up.

I know I've been in the habit of making a donation "once in while" but I never keep track of exact dates. Didn't weem like it had been all that long ago when I got a note in my e-mail the other day informing me my subscription had run out.

I thought about complaining that I didn't think it had been all that long~ but I figured Rich puts up with enough whining e-mails~ so I just sent another $25 and made a note of the date this time.
 
Cheryl Marchek AKA JM said:
hhhhmmmm.......
No coin at all of any color. I just sent another $25 on 3-2-05.
Click to expand...

Cheryl,

Did you make a "donation" or did you send money to become a contributor? They are two things. To become a contributor you can either follow the link in my signature or click on any contributing members coin. If you sent money using the "make a donation" you wouldn't have a coin showing. If you want the coin you will probably have to get with Rich about that.
 
I don't have time to deal with it just now~ so I'll just wait and hope Rich notices it. I just checked my paypal~ and I sent
$25 to be a contributor here on 3-2-05
$25 "donation" to Rich on Cornsnakes.com on 2-11-05
$ 1 for a highlighted add subscription on 2-4-05
$50 to sponsor a forum on 1-31-05

Thats as far back as my paypal history is going~ but I have made previous donations as well, and used to have a coin next to my name. I just can't afford another donation right now~ so I guess thats all.
 
Cheryl Marchek AKA JM said:
I don't have time to deal with it just now~ so I'll just wait and hope Rich notices it. I just checked my paypal~ and I sent
$25 to be a contributor here on 3-2-05
$25 "donation" to Rich on Cornsnakes.com on 2-11-05
$ 1 for a highlighted add subscription on 2-4-05
$50 to sponsor a forum on 1-31-05

Thats as far back as my paypal history is going~ but I have made previous donations as well, and used to have a coin next to my name. I just can't afford another donation right now~ so I guess thats all.
Click to expand...

Well this one is a perfect example of what I talked about earlier. Cheryl, your medallion was being displayed under the old system transported from the previous version of this software. It was set to expire on March 4th. Apparently when that older one expired, it took out the NEW contribution (03-02-05) you made at the same time. Evidently the custom coding put in earlier is not interfacing correctly with the new system, or maybe that's just the way it is supposed to work. I have a tendency to push software a bit past what they were designed to do. :)

Anyway, I expect this is going to be a pain in the butt for a while, but the good thing is that it will be over and done with as soon as those older contributor memberships expire and people notify me about their medallion disappearing. I just don't see any feasible way of dealing with it proactively the way the system is designed. So I just have to deal with them as I run across them.

Sorry about this, but I'm doing the best I can to stay on top of it.
 
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