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Howdy all. We've been on our new server for 3 months now. Everything seems to be working well. I've been monitoring our server usage, and we're in the green! So that's great news. Thanks everybody for your patience as I went through these severe growing pains. Naturally, when a little site like SSV begins to grow, things get more complicated and considerably more expensive. @Scrappile suggested a good idea in offering different levels of support for SSV patrons. So I thought I'd give it a try and see how it goes. I have created 3 levels of support for SSV Patrons; Bronze, Silver, and Gold. The 3 levels offer the exact same benefits. The only difference is the supporter title and the color of the supporter badge below your avatar. Bronze is $10/year and is the same one we've always had (still says SSV Patron). Silver is $3/month (cost of a cup of good coffee). Gold is $5/month (cost of a cup of fancy Starbucks coffee). I'm using a new payment processor that can handle recurring payments. So these new subscriptions will auto-pay until you cancel it. So you don't have to worry about trying to remember to resubscribe. None of the credit card information is stored on my server and I don't have visibility into your information. Payments are processed by Stripe which is embedded into SSV. You can upgrade and downgrade your plans at any time. Upgrades will charge the prorated difference between the two plans. Downgrades are also prorated with the difference given as account credit. I'm going to give this a try for awhile. If it becomes more trouble than it's worth, I'll revert back to the old way. But if it does work, it is a nice way to pitch in a few extra bucks to cover the cost of running SSV. If you're interested in becoming an SSV Patron, or you want to upgrade, you can find the new badges here. Thank you everybody for your continued support! I really appreciate it.

I had a couple people ask about the SSV Supporter renewal. The supporter badge (and benefits) doesn't automatically renew every year. I hate it when I subscribe to something and the website automatically assumes I want to renew and charges my credit card. I'm sure you're the same way. So SSV doesn't make those assumptions. I have it set up to where you get notified that it's time to renew, but won't automatically renew. You'll have to come in and add it to the cart and check out, etc. to extend your support. If your membership expires, your renewal email won't work. It'll say something to the order of the invoice is expired or has been paid. All you need to do is click the Support SSV link in the navigation bar (or click the Remove This Ad link below one of the ads) to go to the store. Add the supporter badge to the cart, then check out like you normally do. For those who don't know what the SSV Supporter badge is, basically it is a way to show support for SSV so we can keep the lights on. We don't have the luxury of being backed by a major publishing company. The servers, domains, maintenance, software updates, etc takes a lot of time an money. This is just one of the ways we can offset these costs. When you support SSV, you get some nice perks too. You can find out more info here. I want to thank everybody who has supported SSV, both monetarily and in participation. I really appreciate your help. I love seeing the great interaction of friends who share the same passions. Every year, you guys amaze me with your talent and friendship. Happy Scrolling!