I have an important announcement about the future of the NLSC. Our current host will be closing their hosting services as of July 7th, so we’ve been making preparations to move to a new home before that happens. I’m pleased to say that we have made the necessary arrangements, and will be moving to a new server in the near future. There will be some downtime while this happens, but everything will be moving across. I’ll try to keep everyone informed as best as possible, via the NLSC Facebook and Twitter accounts.
To keep doing what we’re doing – specifically, providing a Downloads section with upload facilities – the NLSC requires dedicated hosting. Until now, we have received such hosting in exchange for advertising space, which has been a very generous offer to say the least. Unfortunately, there aren’t any deals like that on the table these days, so we are now paying for our own hosting.
Because dedicated hosting is more expensive, and we have been a non-profit website for close to twenty years now, after much thought and consideration, I’ve decided to ask the community for assistance with our hosting costs. At present, we’re looking to raise at least $100 USD per month, which would allow us to cover hosting costs, and put some money towards things like giveaways and content creation.
Let me stress before I go any further: we will not be charging for content! We can’t legally charge for mods (so we certainly won’t be), download and upload facilities will still be free, registration for the Forum will be free, and all our articles and other content will be free. We will not be providing premium content behind a paywall, or making any other sweeping changes. We just need some help paying the bills, because our modding community requires some facilities that we just can’t offer if we’re on cheaper, shared hosting.
Basically, if we can get twenty people donating at least $5 USD per month, we’ll be able to cover our expenses. As I said, should the community’s generosity extend beyond that, I have plans to use those funds for things like monthly giveaways, and new content.
If you’re willing and able to support us, you can do so through Patreon or GoFundMe. I understand the controversy in making an appeal like this, but I do not want to see us go off the air, or lose important features such as our Downloads section and its upload facilities.
On behalf of the NLSC Team, I thank you for your consideration, any contributions you are willing and able to make, and your continued support of everything we do here. Once again, I will try to keep everyone informed about the impending move, which hopefully shouldn’t cause too much of an interruption. I realise that some of you may have some further questions that need concise answers, so please see below for more information. Also, a huge thanks to our current host for all the support, and essentially saving us some eight years ago when we needed to find a new home.
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