It's been suggested to me that I consider taking donations for the website. I think this might be a good idea, as it would allow me to commission art more quickly, but I really want to avoid it being at all off-putting. If I did accept donations, I would do so under the following standards:
* Every cent donated would go toward commissioning art and/or music (as opposed to server costs, which I cover myself, and in addition to the art commissions I'm already covering myself). This may change if my bandwidth needs skyrocket, but at the moment I've got way more than enough.
* I'll never have any sort of "premium membership" or incentive for someone to donate, except perhaps recognition of doners who would like to be recognized. Since the point of OpenGameArt is to provide art to developers at no cost, any sort of for-pay premium benefit would be counter to what this site is about.
For the record, I have the budget and desire to run this site myself pretty much indefinitely without any kind of assistance. It's just that a bigger budget will bring in more art for the community, so it's worth looking into.
Thoughts, anyone?
Comments
I think this is a wonderful idea, as commissioned work will help bring unique content to the site, as well as increasing notability.
When I begin to start using this site for things, I'm sure I can find some money to put up.
-Wolfgang Wozniak
www.operagamingnetwork.com
Donations are a good thing, especially since you are offering to manage them to pay for commissions. - Finding artists and assigning work to them is no tiny task and I'd gladly donate and keep donating if the commissions turn out to be valuable for the community :)
another thing on donations: I think http://ardour.org/node does a wonderful job with it's graph of monthly donations! (top-mid right of the page)