I’m a carer, but I can find a few dollars.

I like what’s going on here, it’s worth a few dollars

Edit: and thanks.

Thanks heaps for making this community and keeping it running for 3 years Lodion. Ill admit that I had drifted away from Lemmy recently since joining shortly after Reddit killed the 3rd party apps, but am happy I opened it just now to see this post.

Even as the irregular user I have become, I would be happy to chuck in a small amount to support the running costs of the site as its good to have this quiet and conscientious community to participate in when I feel up to engaging.

I am semi tech literate, and will hopefully be getting diagnosed with the ADHD in the near future so if that helps me organise my time better I would be happy to try and support with the operation of the site itself, as well as hopefully contributing within the community here more as my current shit dopamine seeking habit is the endless instagram doomscroll, which isn’t ideal!

Wishing you the best and I hope everything goes as well as it can in your personal life, and understand how that takes the priority!

If anyone knows of above board methods to establish a crowd funded piggy bank for something like this, I’m all ears.

For crowd funding, I’m a fan of Liberapay and fund a lot of my favourite people and projects that way.

I’ll reiterate that this place has been a safe space. Much nicer than reddit, a much happier place I’d rather be. Thankyou, every ounce has been appreciated even if you think it not :)

I registered here as the first place when I ditched Reddit. Lemmy cured an addiction for me. I don’t really have much energy for Lemmy now either. I’m almost totally social media-less. I take this as a win.

When I get an urge I open here and I get a clean good (if quiet) feed. I appreciate that you’ve freely given me this space on your servers and if you sign off and hand everything over, all I have is good memories and all I can give is my best wishes.

Thank you.

Please if you don’t feel like being part of this anymore, know you’re not indebted to us users. If I care to move, that’s not that hard on Lemmy. Especially because the points don’t exist, a new account somewhere else is trivial even if I don’t migrate my ID because I don’t notice a message telling me it might go offline. It’s not that bad.

Firstly, massive thank you Lodian. This is such a safe haven on the internet and I have seen it actively help people and been helped by the kind souls here myself. That’s because you gave a shit and built a space. I really appreciate it staying free of ads.

I don’t always have a ton of time but I do have tech skills to be a backup on bits and pieces and I am happy to offer skills on the tracking/mod/admin/group funding slide of things. Feel free to chuck me a DM Nath and I can see where I can help.

Hello everyone,

First up, this site was Lodion’s baby. We are all here because of him. He decided a Lemmy instance for Australians needed to exist, mostly free of the dramas of the wider Internet. He set up the whole show and like the Field of Dreams, we all came. I was just a regular user sign-up. I didn’t know he had set any of this up, I was just a Reddit exile when they brought in their API changes that both killed third-party apps, and essentially began the whole “We’re going to sell all your comments to AI companies”. Lodion and I go way back more than 20 years, and when I spotted he was the admin, I volunteered to help out with running the site.

It’s you. All of you. You all have made this community what it is. Take you guys away and it’s all just a bunch of files on a disk and an empty database. Together, we have all built the site that I still see as an oasis that connects to the globe, but you can dip in as little or as much as you like. Even in Lemmy space, Aussie.Zone is not a huge instance. We’ve never tried to be. I still don’t especially want us to be. I’d rather grow by 10 regulars per month who are all chill and easy to help out than see an influx of 20,000 people who would cause a whole pile of new problems that we just aren’t equipped to deal with. I’ve been the more visible of the two of us on the site, but in terms of “management”, my load is maybe 15 minutes per day. Which is great! Because I don’t always have much more than that to give on any given day. 90% of the time, I’m just a regular user with that little red “A” next to my name - nothing more.

Lodion and I have been chatting about him stepping away for a while now. I’m willing to take on the stuff he’s been doing - but he’s been funding the site out of pocket to the tune of around $60ish per month (I haven’t seen the raw finances yet, but the last time Lodion mentioned it, the site was costing something in the ballpark of $100 per month to run) for about a year now - and I am not in a place where I can do that. For what this site is, $100/month is a bargain!

So, I disagree with Lodion. This is going to end up being a call for donors. We (all of us) are going to need to find that money. I would say that personally, I easily get $5/month value from the site - and there’s 5% all by itself. I believe we can find 20 people who would chip in that much. Frankly, I reckon we could find twice that without getting whiny. Ads are off the table. I hate them. Users hate them. Our users are all smart enough to run adblocks anyway, so I’d only annoy prospective people who aren’t members. I have a couple of ideas for incentives for donors, to hopefully make donating more attractive.

There are a couple of things I could use a hand with, and I might take a few of you up on these offers to help. Things like monitoring finances and reporting incoming/outgoing costs. The Molly project also needs help as well. Stuff I haven’t really had the chance to prioritise.

Before Lodion fades away, I would love to see this thread turn into a bit of a love fest. Shit’s real in his world right now - and a bombardment of love from us all, telling him how much of a difference this site makes to us all, and how grateful we are to him for what he built is in order.

Thank you, mate. I know very well that you don’t personally feel like you have done all that much to make this site what it is - and in some aspects, that is true. But it also wouldn’t be what it is without you. I have laughed, cried, but most importantly, I have found a community here that I love. This instance has been a daily part of my life for over three years now, and perhaps you didn’t make all that - but you made that possible. 100% you. Truly, thank you. ❤️

@lodion@aussie.zone mate, this community has been a godsend for me. Thank you so much for setting it up and keeping it running while you had the space for it in your life.

It’s been such a joy to feel like I have an extra set of friends to shoot this shit with online, make jokes, make political arguments, nerd out with and generally have a gab.

Wishing you all the best mate, and thanks again.

I’d hate to see AZ shut down and I’m happy to setup regular donations.

There are few places left on the internet where any degree of disagreement is tolerated and overall I have found AZ and its community mods to be reasonable.

As I said 3 years ago Lodion, this is your house and you make the rules.
Those rules have been fair, generous even, and have shaped the community that has grown here.
I hope it can continue to live up to your ideals.

I’d be happy to do a recurring donation. I’d like to help out as well but I don’t have the most technical background, I’d love to learn but I just need to find the time

Just tell us how we can support you.

Patreon perhaps?

Let us know about recurring donations, if we can see funding goals easily, we can decide how much we’d like to contribute to make sure running costs are met.

Thank you so much for hosting this lovely place. It has been a peaceful place from all the louder places of the web and it still is.

Thanks for all you’ve been doing.