Fundraise for Black Zero

Dear Challengers,

As you might know BlackZero is down and "for-sale".

If you like to help fundraising for BlackZero, ie: like to donate to keep it alive, please vote here.
The initial goal is $150.

Hosting can be done by myself (or maybe someone else). Compensating the runnings costs (DNS) is not covered by this thread.

Also i think we could give the src to all people that donated $N and choose some admins and moderators. (maybe donators are at least moderator)

Also i am sure the new staff would be able to handle the lock-picking challs, more or less.


I will create a poll now, check back soon.



Edit:
I can offer to host it, collect the donations and help to fix stuff, etc.
Also i am willing to donate $20 by myself, but i have no time for the community and stuff.

I don't see the point in selling a community website. Does he needs some money to pay the host or the domain ? At the moment, without knowing why the Black Zero admin needs money, I won't donate anything more than a bier.

I have sent a further email to the admin, and i think/hope it`s ok to show them here:

Quote from gizmore

Hello (Name),

I announced the fundraise for your site a few days ago, and there was
not that much response yet.
At least one user is eager to keep the site alive. (got a PM today)
Some others would like to know the reason why it`s for sale.
It would be nice if you could answer these questions:

1) Why do you want to give the site off your hands?
2) Is there a special reason why you need the money?

i guess the fundraise is at $50 now and will keep you up to date.

Quote from admin@blackzero

Gizmore,

I really appreciate you going out of your way to consider taking over
Black-Zero.

To answer the questions:

1) I have a shared host where I host several other sites that are very
important to my work, and unfortunately if someone happens to get a backdoor
on Black-Zero they will have access to all my other sites. I can't risk
hosting a site that will attract people who could possibly take down my
other sites.

2) Although I'm not in dire need of the money, I would like to be somewhat
compensated for the hard work that went into the site. I spent hours each
day over the span of about a year getting the site up and running and I
don't think I'd be ready to just give it away for free. Also, the site can
bring in $20 - $30 a month in ad revenue when it gets active so I hope you
could make back the money you spent if a few admins/moderators get the site
going again and promote it.

If there's anything else you'd like to know, feel free to ask.

I hope it answers some of our questions.

If that statement about the ad revenue is correct, the site would pay for its own hosting. We would have to work out what happens to the rest of the money though-- split it among active admins/moderators or something like that.

The owner's reason's for wanting to sell the site make sense to me. I sympathize. I'd be tempted to try to sell the site if it were mine.

Ok, here is the plan for Blackzero so far:

f1sH is going to "take over" the site, which means he is going to do the hosting and does the administration.
He is known to the old admin, a trusted member of the site, and all agreed that it`s a good idea.

From today on, you may send money via paypal to gizmore@gizmore.org. The account is else unused. In maybe 2 weeks i will transfer the money to the old admin. Currently we got assured from 3 persons to donate, in total around $60.

All donators will at least receive a "Donator Badge".
If you donate at least $15, you become moderator on Blackzero, unless you abuse your powers. (Please note your nickname in donation)
Donators (and possible people that like to help with coding) may get the sourcecode (without challenges) on request. Final decisions are left to f1sH here.


There is no real plan yet about the lock-picking challenges. But i am sure the new staff can handle it, even if they have no experience in that topic.


Sadly there is currently no other way to donate, but i could think of some. If you like to donate and don`t have paypal, please PM me.

We got the first official donation from shadum.

Thank you from my side!

You will surely get a donator badge and moderator priviledges as soon as f1sH can take over the site ;)



Edit:
Btw it is not planned by f1sH to have ads in the first place.
Of course that will be his decision, as well as refreshing the domain and hosting the site is up to him.
Ads might be planned in the future tho, when maybe the site is more settled again (according to him, iirc)

hi community.

a big thanks to shadum for his donation.

also vbms confirmed to contribute 20 $ for the fundraise so the goal is coming closer, also thanks to you and Gizmore.

I had a lot of fun on BlackZero so it's on us to provide a future for the project and the community. I think we are on the right path.

Greetings
f1sH

As some of you might already know, here are some news about BlackZero:

We recently did the money transactions and got our hands on the source and db backup.

f1sh successfully installed it on his localhost, and the first tests seem to work fine, and within the next week(s) the site will be back

I like to thank all the people involved, for their trust and making things possible.

Happy Challenging!


EDIT:
Before i forget.
If you still like to donate (and get a donator badge+possible moderator priviledges),
you can still donate money to the old admin. If you like to do so, please leave me a PM.

Any news? The site is still "Temporarily down"..

Two months ago we got a database and script backup from Michael.
Sadly this backup is one year old, and even some of the latest challenges are missing.

We have sent emails to Michael and requested the latest backup, but no repsonse yet.

I think we have to relaunch an outdated site soon, and maybe merge a newer backup in case we get one.