Cover expenses on the website

[levinli303]

celestia.mobi is unsurprisingly not free. The expenses are in two parts:

1. the domain celestia.mobi, I purchased the domain on Tencent Cloud and it costs about 20 USD per year
2. server and other infrastructure, the server is on Azure with a pay as you go billing model and costs about 1320 USD per year

I've been paying for 1, and 2 has been free at the moment for some reason but in time I will have to pay to keep it running. I have three options in mind:

1. merge with celestia.space (I personally do not like it because a lot of things are tied with celestia.mobi domain already, and the two sites are built very differently)
2. seek sponsors like fosshost to provide server/domain (I do not know any other than fosshost)
3. ads in celestia (for example add-on pages, I'm not sure if it will cover all the expenses though)

[GurrenLagannTSS]

Personally i like option 2 more, lacking any other options. A cool suggestion would be to add a donation page to help with the server costs.

[TheLostProbe]

this is a scenario in which a celestia patreon could make sense. but for now i think just go with fosshost. i really dont think celestia should ever have ads, and merging mobi with celestia.space would be a very tough undertaking

[SevenSpheres]

Hosting through something like Fosshost would be the best option. In this case, instead of a donation page, there could be a "Donate to Fosshost" link.

[Anthony-B-Russo10]

this is a scenario in which a celestia patreon could make sense. but for now i think just go with fosshost. i really dont think celestia should ever have ads, and merging mobi with celestia.space would be a very tough undertaking

Plus if it did merge, I don't think Levin would have that much control of parts of mobi as OneTwoThree hosts the main site.

[TTarrants]

I may be able to pay the $1320 cost of the mobi site hosting for a year, perhaps further. -- Thomas (Sirius_Alpha).

[levinli303]

I don't think Levin would have that much control of parts of mobi as OneTwoThree hosts the main site.

I have access to celestia.space server although I have not logged in for a long time.

I may be able to pay the $1320 cost of the mobi site hosting for a year, perhaps further.

That's very kind of you. At the moment it is not necessary, as this part of cost is covered. When the time comes it needs of be paid for and we have no other solution, I'll think about it.

For the Fosshost (or other sponsor) solution, i do think having donate button in web pages will be good. But a good questions would be, will they sponsor it?

[TheLostProbe]

well considering that fosshost already hosts celestia.space, i would be very surprised to see them reject the application for celestia.mobi. problem is, fosshost has temporarily stopped accepting applications

[levinli303]

fosshost has temporarily stopped accepting applications

that's a good point. then I think we can go ahead with patreon. I do not know what we can expect but if we receive more money than the website requires I can use it on marketing Celestia, etc.

[TheLostProbe]

great, then i guess we should add a patreon link to celestia.space and celestia.mobi, and also make a topic on the forums. on the topic of marketing celestia, what do you think about creating a celestia youtube channel?

[levinli303]

as for patreon links, I still need to know how it works. if anyone are willing to help out, be my guest.

as for marketing, I don't have very concrete ideas. Some App Stores have ads campaign where they put your app on top in certain search results or other places. that is what I have in mind where money can be spent. creating a YouTube channel should be free.

[TheLostProbe]

patreon links could probably be done by just grabbing a "Become a Patron" or "Support on Patreon" image off the internet (example) and then doing something like: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Celestia"><img src="images/patreon-button.png" /></a> although i think it is possible to use href in <img> elements but i dont remember correctly. if so, there is no need for an <a> element <-- edit: i have confirmed it isnt possible

regarding the youtube channel idea, i know that creating them is free, but im just not very sure who here would be willing to dedicate their time to creating and editing videos to upload on the channel

[Anthony-B-Russo10]

YouTube is free, though if the videos become monetized the project could get an extra cash flow from those videos. Plus we could also use someone who dedicates their time to such a channel who also has really good video editing skills.

[levinli303]

I created a patreon page, https://www.patreon.com/celestiamobi . but it is far from complete, like how to get paid, etc.

[levinli303]

https://www.patreon.com/celestiamobi should be good now, I have set up membership and payment, just need to add an icon to celestia.mobi...

[TheLostProbe]

doing something like: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Celestia"><img src="images/patreon-button.png" /></a>

actually, we can just use the patreon icon from fontawesome and embed a href into it https://fontawesome.com/icons/patreon?s=solid&f=brands

[levinli303]

actually, we can just use the patreon icon from fontawesome and embed a href into it https://fontawesome.com/icons/patreon?s=solid&f=brands

Not gonna embed an entire font for one glyph. I'll just create a simple vector image for this purpose.

[TheLostProbe]

no need to pay for fontawesome to use it, you can just download the single svg here:

[levinli303]

no need to pay for fontawesome to use it, you can just download the single svg here:

it's not really about paying. I just do not really like this icon.

[TheLostProbe]

okay, then what kind of icon do you have in mind?

[DaveBowman2001]

merge with celestia.space (I personally do not like it because a lot of things are tied with celestia.mobi domain already, and the two sites are built very differently)

Well as of today, fosshost is no longer an option ever due to Hosting provider shutting down, new hosting urgently needed - @SevenSpheres, Celestia Forums

[levinli303]

we can host two domains on a same server. but the configuration of the server should be improved.

[levinli303]

okay, then what kind of icon do you have in mind?

I'll create something like this https://digitalbloggers.com/home-based-business/patreon---support-for-artists-and-creators

Change the text a bit, so it will be

SUPPORT Celestia (C is stylized with Celestia icon, I will probably recreate the icon in flattened style suitable for vector image) (Patreon Icon) On Patreon

[TheLostProbe]

great idea! i would recommend doing something akin to this for the celestia logo, but with colour on the "C" and a different font since this is the non-free segoe ui font:

the "elestia" part of it may be too small to read, though

[levinli303]

Two drafts, I'll probably use the first one, a different font will be needed.

[levinli303]

I figured that eventually I want to use only the icon and have the text in HTML, I used the color from patreon website as the background. An example page.

[levinli303]

let me know what you think. The CSS I used here is

 .patreon-icon {
       height:calc(100% - 16px);
       margin-left: 8px;
       margin-right: 4px;
   }

   .patreon-text {
       color: white;
       font-size: 20px;
       font-weight: 600;
       margin-right: 10px;
        white-space: nowrap;
        overflow: hidden;
        text-overflow: ellipsis;
   }

   .patreon-banner {
       display:inline-flex;
       align-items:center;
       background-color: #eb5354;
       height: 44px;
       max-width: calc(100%);
       border-radius: 12px;
       -webkit-user-select:none;
       -moz-user-select:none;
       -ms-user-select:none;
       user-select:none;
   }

   .patreon-banner:hover {
       text-decoration:none
   }

   .patreon-banner:visited {
       text-decoration:none
   }

HTML

<p><a class="patreon-banner" href="#"><img class="patreon-icon" src="https://cdn.astroweather.cn/celestia/v1/img/celestia-vectorized-icon.svg"><span class="patreon-text">Support Us on Patreon</span></a></p>

[TheLostProbe]

it looks really great! i think it would look better on the right side, since there is a lot of free space there and filling that space in looks better:

[levinli303]

it looks really great! i think it would look better on the right side, since there is a lot of free space there and filling that space in looks better:

on mobile there is no such text on the left. and not much space

[levinli303]

the patreon button now is live on all add-on/article pages

[TheLostProbe]

and not much space

true, it looks better on mobile because the width is much less than on desktop, so the free space on the right doesnt look as odd

btw i was wondering if this should be linked on the main site, and also if we should announce this in the news page on both celestia.mobi and celestia.space

[levinli303]

btw i was wondering if this should be linked on the main site, and also if we should announce this in the news page on both celestia.mobi and celestia.space

we should not add this as news on celestia.space as celestia.mobi operates independently. however a news page on celestia.mobi would be good

[levinli303]

im planning to remove the Patreon button as this has not turned out to be effective.

[levinli303]

im planning to remove the Patreon button as this has not turned out to be effective.

It has been largely unsuccessful, i do think that most users don't have or want to create a patreon account just for this occasion. Another option would be tipping through in-app purchase but that would require me to write code for each platform (and possibly for each app stores) to support in-app purchase all all frontends.

[Anthony-B-Russo10]

One way to make money is with a monetized YouTube account, but we would need someone who can run it.

[levinli303]

One way to make money is with a monetized YouTube account, but we would need someone who can run it.

i really doubt that one can monetize on YouTube without a significant number of views, but i could be wrong.

On a side note, I have received several emails from people who wanted to promote Celestia on their TikTok/YouTube about astronomy. I declined their offers because I suppose they would ask for money for promotion.

[Anthony-B-Russo10]

Yeah, you would have to get into the YouTube partner program and meet certain thresholds (which for base level monetization is 500 subs, 3 public videos in the past 90 days, and 3000 watch hours on long form videos in the past 365 days). Though it can be worth a shot as any way of getting Celestia out into the public space helps. On paid promotions, you would have to pay the content creators for them to promote the program.

[levinli303]

Yeah, you would have to get into the YouTube partner program and meet certain thresholds (which for base level monetization is 500 subs, 3 public videos in the past 90 days, and 3000 watch hours on long form videos in the past 365 days). Though it can be worth a shot as any way of getting Celestia out into the public space helps. On paid promotions, you would have to pay the content creators for them to promote the program.

well we would still need people who run these accounts.

[TheLostProbe]

well we would still need people who run these accounts.

I can run a YouTube account, but I'm not sure about recording the videos and editing them, since my computer's not very powerful. I do know that zelario from the discord server has editing experience

[levinli303]

well we would still need people who run these accounts.

I can run a YouTube account, but I'm not sure about recording the videos and editing them, since my computer's not very powerful. I do know that zelario from the discord server has editing experience

i think good ideas are more important than skills 😉. If we have the right folks, i will open accounts for celestia.mobi officially and advertise them in app too.

[Anthony-B-Russo10]

well we would still need people who run these accounts.

I can run a YouTube account, but I'm not sure about recording the videos and editing them, since my computer's not very powerful. I do know that zelario from the discord server has editing experience

Celestia has an inbuilt video recorder, but the only way to get good quality videos from it is to have the video uncompressed which results in videos larger then a gigabyte commonly. So it is best to try and find a screen recorder that is much lighter then Celestia's. In terms of video editors, the one I have experience with (that isn't Windows Movie Maker) is OpenShot which has a minimum spec requirement that I can run it on a laptop that is from pre-2017, so you should be fine with it (albeit it not being the absolute best video editor out there).

[levinli303]

i do wonder if it is possible to do editing on phones if we go for short videos. let's say if we want to make YouTube Shorts, would apps on the phones suffice for editing?

[TheLostProbe]

there are plenty of capable video editing apps for android and ios so yes

[TheLostProbe]

thinking about creating a Celestia YouTube channel some time soon, potentially a TikTok as well but I am not sure

we should also get a Facebook account at some point (not too sure about Instagram just yet, and I don't know who would want to manage either of them), and maybe even a Mastodon and/or Bluesky account

[DaveBowman2001]

I can help with the Facebook/Instagram accounts

[levinli303]

created a separate issue for promoting Celestia #73 .

Let's keep this issue for monetization.

[levinli303]

spent another $22 on extending the expiry of celestia.mobi domain 🙃

[levinli303]

i'm planning to remove patreon soon.