Badges, $upporters of this community

Red.Fans

Administrator
Staff member
First off, thank you to @otis for leading the fund raising efforts for this site this past year. Today I got a bill for $650 to renew the domain. This is just one annual fee that I pay regularly to keep this site going. There are many fees for software, license/subscriptions, software tech support and other development beyond my own time.

I have always wanted to keep this a true community site and not charge anyone. When I first started this site, I was a small business owner and business was booming. It was so good that I had my employees custom building software that was unique to our community. The amount of manhours that went into it in the early years, is astronomical. In addition to that I was doing data entry but also had some awesome volunteers like @espken and @MCNPA doing an amazing amount of data entry like complete stats for all games and all players going back to the early 1900s as well as doing live updates to game scores and box scores to grow the larger database, year after year. Nobody else was doing anything like this.

I have not had a staff to rely upon for about 15 years now. I've been maintaining the site solo and when I hit some obstacle that I cannot tackle, I hire a contractor.

I am grateful to the men who have spent so much time on here volunteering for over quarter century! @espken still does database updates and would probably do more except that I have been the bottleneck in trying to keep the database tech upgraded over the years. @Knight is super diligent in keeping the game threads established and organized. @ohiofan often volunteers to do some of the less pleasant moderation tasks and I am regularly, even after all of these years, shocked that these accomplished men who surely have a lot better things to do, volunteer their time often on a daily basis. With the passing of SJUFAN2 I have felt especially inadequate in expressing this gratitude to these men.

When we transitioned over to this new site last March/April, @otis asked for $upport. And then at the end of the year he made another appeal. And before that a few members had made donations over the years and a select few had become monthly donors. Often times when a donation has been made, the donor includes a note thanking me! Again, I feel inadequate to express my gratitude.

BADGES:
These thing have been on my mind and I've been working on and slowly implementing some new features. The site now includes some badges to recognize members for some special contribution or otherwise and there will be ongoing awards of these badges in different categories and for different reasons.

For those of you who have made a donation in 2022, you will now have a badge recognizing this on your profile page and within the profile box on your forum posts. Another badge will recognize 2023 donors and there are some other new badges being implemented like the very cool and exclusive Moderator badge. What about some recognition for @paultzman for the amazing contributions to the recruiting news and update? It is long and woefully overdue.

Some of you that made a donation, indicated on the donor form that you wanted it to be Anonymous. So if you did that, I removed you from the badge awards. However there may also be some cases where you would like the badge and you can just contact me via private message (the little mail icon) or click on my username: @Red.Fans There were some donors who used email addresses that were different from the email they use for their account here. So I tried matching up some of these manually but I may have missed some.

The donations are processed by donorbox which is a trusted 3rd party organization that does the same for organizations like Habitat for Humanity. There is a link in the main menu "Contribute" which goes to Otis' appeal but I will probably update that and you can also click direct:

Thank you again,
Paul
 
Paul, I already send you a minimal monthly donation. I enjoy reading the comments from the posters, though I wish they could be a little more positive. Anyway, I'll ask the Mrs. to help me flip the couch, gather the change and send it your way. Thanks for doing what you do. Go SJU!
 
Paul my friend. Thank you for the recognition, although not really deserved. We see each other very infrequently and talk not much more, but I have to thank you for what this site has given me: God rest their souls, my friends Northshore and SJUFAN2, my friends redmanorth and Otis and so many others. This is not just a site for SJU fans, but instead a site for friends. How many of us would even have known each other? Thank you again my brother, I just wish I could do more. Prost and salute! Rich
 
Redfans.com (f/k/a “Redmen.com) is not just a college basketball site.

Redfans is a community of individeals who share past life experiences, a love of college basketball and a fondness for St. John’s basketball, which commonalities have produced longtime friendships with other site members, many of whom they have never met.

A few days ago The Honorable MJMahar posted that he “was done”. I replied to MJ “you will be back”. My reply was not in disrespect to MJ but expressed my understanding that MJ, like so many other Redfans had developed multi decade friendships and relationships with others in the RedFan community he cannot leave behind.

We StJohn’s fans are a hearty bunch; we have been beaten down year after year by disappointment , but we nevertheless hold hope for a better next year, which betterment never seems to meet hoped for results.

Decades ago I recall being told by former poster Tom in Simsbury (a/k/a “Tom in Salem” ) that he had met someone named “Paul” through an AOL site who was going to start a basketball internet site dedicated to St. John’s basketball. I never thought that the site would attract the hundreds of thousands of posts that it has.

So thank you for Paul for starting this site decades ago when similar sites on the internet did not exist. Paul has spent thousands of dollars of his own money, and thousands of hours of his time to keep the site going. Over the years I have prodded Paul to be more open to soliciting donations. I suggested to Paul that he accept the invitation to join the Rivals network, or erect a “paywall” but he has desired to keep the site free to all.

Please support this RedFan community site by donating $100 per year, or whatever sum you can afford. In my opinion it is disrespectful for those that visit the site 1, 2 or 3 times a day but refuse or neglect to contribute.

Thank you.



.
 
Redfans.com (f/k/a “Redmen.com) is not just a college basketball site.

Redfans is a community of individeals who share past life experiences, a love of college basketball and a fondness for St. John’s basketball, which commonalities have produced longtime friendships with other site members, many of whom they have never met.

A few days ago The Honorable MJMahar posted that he “was done”. I replied to MJ “you will be back”. My reply was not in disrespect to MJ but expressed my understanding that MJ, like so many other Redfans had developed multi decade friendships and relationships with others in the RedFan community he cannot leave behind.

We StJohn’s fans are a hearty bunch; we have been beaten down year after year by disappointment , but we nevertheless hold hope for a better next year, which betterment never seems to meet hoped for results.

Decades ago I recall being told by former poster Tom in Simsbury (a/k/a “Tom in Salem” ) that he had met someone named “Paul” through an AOL site who was going to start a basketball internet site dedicated to St. John’s basketball. I never thought that the site would attract the hundreds of thousands of posts that it has.

So thank you for Paul for starting this site decades ago when similar sites on the internet did not exist. Paul has spent thousands of dollars of his own money, and thousands of hours of his time to keep the site going. Over the years I have prodded Paul to be more open to soliciting donations. I suggested to Paul that he accept the invitation to join the Rivals network, or erect a “paywall” but he has desired to keep the site free to all.

Please support this RedFan community site by donating $100 per year, or whatever sum you can afford. In my opinion it is disrespectful for those that visit the site 2 or 3 times a day but refuse or neglect to contribute.

Thank you.



.
while I might be done with the program for the time being I'll never be done with my friends all who I have met thru Paul. The badge thing is cool idea but ideally I'd humbly suggest arising meter with points or posts or whatever but have one called supporters of red/fans because Paul pays everything out of his own pocket and being a poster isnt being a supporter. Paul deserves a lot more than what 99% of us do
 
Paul - thank you for posting your message. I feel like you are a friend of mine even though we have never met. Actually I think of you more as a Jedi Master. I was never able to quantify the amount of time and money that goes into this website until recently. One of Otis' posts then hit me where he talked about what this would cost behind a paywall and I will treat it as such going forward. That said I really appreciate that you keep it free. I am sure that brings in more posters and readers that make the site more interesting. I hope enough people will contribute to let that happen.
 
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