We have just 3 more donations to be ponied up for and I figured it might be a plan to get this out the way before that happens. This will also be going in the FAQ, but I think posting in here too is going to make sure as many people as possible see it. Okay, so, here's another one on the "so now we're big enough to need this section defining" pile. The pile maybe needs a better name.

( Complaints )

I think everyone taking part in this is awesome but I'm not quite so naive as to think there won't be conflicts of some kind, or that everyone's reason for taking part - as bidder or as Ho - are the same. But it's also a pretty rare case where some kind of miscommunication hasn't occurred, and if everyone's willing to work together to see where it all went pear shaped, something can be sorted out. Yes, I am a starry-eyed idealist, pleased to meet you.

As Sweet Charity has grown and, wow has it grown - we had 25 Hos in the first auction, people - then it's by necessity become more complex. It's hard to anticipate what policies are going to be needed and I'm perhaps over-hesitant to introduce them until absolutely necessary ... and that's probably doing more harm than good. Man, I'd make a horrible parent o_0.

So, I know that some way of ticking off when a goodie has been delivered on is something people want (though not a rating system), and I'm going to try and work something out to make that happen. But are there any other policies that need outlining more clearly, or any additions that could make the whole SC time more fun for people? As always, suggestions are love.

SC is about, at the end of the day, money going to charity. But I'm getting to understand that's not all it is, and I will do my best to accommodate that if people point me in the right direction.

Wow that got long. Geez. Okay, the next time I pop up should be with the final tally and a confirmation of receipt from RAINN. After that, we're back in September.

But I may be back before that because I had this idea *shifty eyes* ...

The first run of donation slots run out in a couple hours. Apart from the notification email, I even stalked a couple people over to their LJs but I think we're going to have a second run. I'll be leaving it until the evening today to send the alerts to a) make the deadline better for people not in the UK *cough* and b) give some time because there's always someone who contacts me two hours after their slot has run out and now I'm taking the hint. *g*

In the mean time, I'll be sending out the missing notification emails again :)

As the title kind of implies, I've sent out donation reminders on all the unpaid bids that aren't already under extension. If I've hit someone up who asked for an extension, sorry! Email me and I'll get it sorted out :) And I'm sorry people who got many reminders - it's manual process and I do it per record rather than per bidder to make sure nothing is missed.

If you think you should have gotten an email and didn't, comment here and I'll send your details in reply.

Right now, Hos whose bidders asked for extensions include: Amara, cherryscott, Demona, shrift, swtalmnd, themarisa, kalypso, Black Regalia, girlfan, Melissa Shelton, lingeringmemories, makesmewannadie, Lillian13, sorchasilver, morgandawn, icsbanana and lovestar.

Hos whose bidders don't make their bid payment for one reason or another, don't worry - I send the opportunity to the second highest bidder and so on until cold hard donations have been exchanged :)

If you made a successful donation and didn't get your confirmation email with your Ho's details, or if you're a Ho who's been successfully donated for and didn't get an email with your bidder's details, let me know and I'll re-send.

( Wild abuse of modly powers )

Just a drive by update that we have over half the bids made good on - that's a new best for this time, thanks for the speedy guys!

Thank you also all those not using SC Paypal unless necessary, the PCoD is looking small and weak and not, for instance, over $600. Awesome.

And last but not least on the thank you list, thank you ever so much for the lovely star, amara_m!

Celebrations were premature - the RAINN donation area is possessed by devils for at least two people and I imagine that number will go up. So, I am opening the SC Paypal donation area but ask pretty please with sugar on top don't use it unless you have to.

Good morning! Really, really early morning? Or afternoon. Evening.

Hi!

All the donation notification emails have left the building and should be arriving in emails soon if they haven't done so already. So, if Bidness says you've won but you get no notification, let me know and I'll get it to you.

This is the first auction we're 100% able to donate direct to charity - RAINN now has a payment system that allows custom amounts, Paypal and Credit Card. No Paypal Cut of Despair \o/ But, also, no instant "yay, you donated, here's your Ho!", I'll be doing it all by hand so it might take a little longer than usual.

You? Raised $8,803.28 in pledges.

$8,803.28!

How did you even do that?! It's only a month since you raised over $20k!

I'm sort of falling asleep at the keyboard here and it's hard to flail with your nose, so this one's short and sweet. Thank you.

You can see the end of bidding info at Bidness as usual and I'll start sending out the notifications tomorrow.

$8,803.28! o_0

Yeesh, getting ready to make OMG HOW MUCH?! post and the site goes screwy. This is what I get for not obsessively checking it every 5 minutes - I'm on it!

Where was I? Right!

OMG, HOW MUCH?!

$4,540.69 MUCH

Guys. I mean. Even if it wasn't just one month after everyone was showing the WGF their love, the amount pledged would be amazing - this is phenomenal. And we've still got 5 days to go!

I've been lax on this auction and I'm really sorry about that because you deserve better. It just turns out that life has no respect of fannish awesome and the admin side ate up the time I had. But, 5 days, I can make it up to you!

1. Do you want the Grande Pimp pushing the boat out? Several lovely souls have already pimped the auction out and about but we haven't really done the big write ups.

2. Would you like personalised Buy Me buttons? If someone with mad graphic skillz, some time and innate loveliness were to give me some designs with blanks where a name could go, this could be arranged.

Edit thank you ever so much for my lovely star, anonymous lovely person! My profile is shiny \o/

The auction, she is aliiiive. With 146 Hos. You are mighty.

You'll notice a few changes (especially if you bid), but one that isn't immediately obvious is the filter made of Ho. If you want the auction page to show just a single Ho's goodies, use the URL http://www.sweet-charity.net/index.php?set=auction&buyme=USERNAME (so mine would be http://www.sweet-charity.net/index.php?set=auction&buyme=lithiumdoll)

I can't pull my usual shift baby sitting the site for the night, so if there are any problems do please post in here and I'll bug bust with both zeal and fervour tomorrow.

Thank you all again and I hope you have a great time!

We went from $2 to $16 while I was writing this o_0

Honestly? I was thrilled when we hit 20 sign ups. So 109 Hos later and I've finally stopped the flail. It's, like, seismic. o_0 And we don't end sign ups for another 10-ish hours. Seriously. How are you so awesome?

Thank you so much to all the Hos who've come back to sell out again, it's really incredible to see how many names come up again and again and I almost never get to actually thank people properly but familiar faces (ok, fine, icons) are fantabulous to see.

And hi, new Hos! It is can be scary to sell yourself (and .. actually that terror kinda sticks with you, but I promise we're all there. We may be considering some kind of support group o_0). Thank you for giving this a go, I promise whatever you raise, you'll be helping someone. $1 can mean the difference between a phone line - a life line - being open, or being closed.

Bidding starts at midnight GMT and I'm taking bets on how long before the server succumbs to the awesome this time...

Just a heads up the sign ups are open and they'll close 19th March 22:00 GMT. As usual, it's fantabulous to see returning Hos and new Hos and the squee is endless. If you're giving this auction a miss, wow do I understand - we're back in September!

Ratings won't be showing up on the site as the overwhelming preference is to FLEE, which is all good. I will keep trying to figure out a way to have some kind of yes/no on the Ho's goodie production though.

Currency is a closer run poll, but the majority have the whatever, so this auction I'll leave things as they stand and look at it again next auction.

Anyone who's wandered by the site recently will have noticed the current auction has ticked over to RAINN and sign ups will start on 15th March for those wanting to get their Ho on.

I'd say I anticipate a smaller auction but every time I do that your numbers double. Which. Wait. I anticipate a smaller auction \o/.

There have been a few changes, I'm still working on them. I don't know if I'm going to be able to get the "donate for all bids at once" up and running in time, but I'm poking it as we speak. With sticks. Radioactive sticks with bees in their mouths. /Izzard.

( Questions, always questions (Ratings & Currency) )

Hee. POLL \o/

The fancy, clicky as it takes you.

Poll #1152432
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Ho ratings

Mono-currency

Just show me the results

This one's a little specific and specialised so I'm putting it in here so it can be, you know, considered. If you think you can help comment with your email or send me an email at lithiumdoll@sweet-charity.net and I'll love you long time get more details to you.

This one's got a big red "Urgent" stamp on it.

( SPN/DA x-over fic )

We have confirmation letter! WGFISF_letter_2008.pdf (rightclicksave)

( The totals, they are different. Why? WHY? )

And while I'm darkening your doorstop anyway...

Ch-ch-changes
Coming next auction, we're going to have a few changes in the auction set up. Most of them are ease-of-use, a couple are more fundemental.

( Shiny and New )

( Flaunting and Defaulting Clarifications )

( In conclusion: KINKS. (Not that kind of kink, taserpornerati) )

Update! Well, more ... state of the us, possibly.

The bidding page says just 1 more donation pending but, unfortunately, it's not quite accurate - there's actually 5 or 6 3 2 (yaaaay) still coming. As we're now so far beyond the horizon of extension city, I'm taking what we have and donating that and further donations will go as they come in. Because I don't know which of those will be Paypal-made, the cut will also go off after the fact.

Cascade, I'm sorry, I'm still trying to reach your bidder - if I hear nothing by this evening, it will go on. I just have that thing where I know as soon as I flip the switch, I'll get an email. I'm really sorry for the delay.

... and, 7 hours later, the cat has gotten bored and wandered off, the calculator is rebelling and she's finished "V for Videos". AH-hahahahhah DONE!

Well, when I say that, I mean not quite done. What I've been doing is going through those who donated directly and adding anything over and above the bid amount to the "Donations" section of the Bidness page. This is actually kind of complicated because of the various ways people could donate (singly, putting their Hos together under one big donation, putting all the receipts in one place, spreading them out, paying a bit via Paypal etc etc). These were all perfectly valid ways of doing it and I'll have a better system in place next auction, but as you can imagine doing the tally is quite complex. So, if you were a direct donor, can you check the Bidness page and see if I've put you down right? It would be very much appreciated.

And if anyone looking spots something weird, let me know! I checked myself twice but by the end the numbers were twisting into wild shapes and possibly mocking me.

Tomorrow, I'll be going through and doing something cunning with the donations that were made to cover final amounts from direct donations. Right now they're actually distorting the count a little because they're being counted twice so don't take the total as read, it will go down a little bit once they're taken out.

Also, some people have very kindly donated towards The Paypal Cut Of Despair. (For those just joining us, Paypal takes a transaction fee from all money going through it. So that none of the bidder donations are touched, volunteers cover the cut.) If you did this, can you tell me what email you used and the amount you donated? Either comment here, or you can email me at lithiumdoll@sweet-charity.net. If you donated towards the cut with a donation towards a Ho, this auction it cannot count and will go in as a straight up donation.

While we're here, if you've donated via the site to the auction (not for a Ho, just a straight up donation), and you don't see yourself listed under Donations on the Bidness page can you contact me with the email and amount again? There have been glitches where people haven't been verified properly and I don't want to lose anyone in the cracks! I am checking through emails but over the auction I got a couple thousand and it's taking a while.

I've started on the tallying, which is basically me, a calculator, TextEdit and a cat. The cat isn't vital, but she's reassuringly heavy and it's not like you really need circulation below the knee. I'm not even close to done - I just past Cloth Merchants, I never realised how horribly close to the beginning of the alphabet it is.

Which is to say, unless you like cats or have a calculator fetish, nothing that interesting.

Until you hit refresh on the Bidness page.

We?

ARE OVER $20K \o/

... Happy Monday.

Well, wow. 16 bids to get in and we're all done! I keep going over to the Bidness page and being blinded by the win o_0

There are some extensions, all bids won't be in until the 9th or so. Those affected by that include:

Cascade (cloth merchants), Amara (fiction), Doodle (fiction), ryuutchi (fiction x2), Blackclaude (fiction), Afterism (graphics), Dodificus (miscellaneous), Candygramme (miscellaneous x2)

I'm going to start going over the records and getting things tallied. This will include adding donations for those who went above and beyond donating directly, and removing those who made a Paypal cut donation from the list of regular donations. I suspect this one's going to take me a couple days because the records are many and I'm an obsessive double checker, but there should be something like a final total coming your way next week.