Code push tonight

[mark]

EDIT: Rescheduled for later. Tonight is the season premiere of LOST. I don't think I can skip that.

This is a short notice announcement for a code push tonight at 10PM PST (0600 UTC). This is just under 5 hours from now.

Additionally, the payment system (the store, checkout, etc) will also be down for update. The shop will be down longer (up to a few hours) while we work on rolling out support for Google Checkout.

As always, I will update our @dreamwidth Twitter account and this community before I do it.

Comments

[snowsurrounded]

As much as I appreciate you guys sticking by your principles (seriously, I think you've been awesome through all of this)... I'd really like some other options, to be honest, since Google Checkout apparently doesn't support Maestro and I don't have any other cards. Don't really want to get a credit card just for this, and as franzi1981 said, paying extra and waiting ages for a money order to reach the US doesn't appeal much either.

[pauamma]

Which online payment services (if any) can you use (with or without your card)? Disclaimer: I'm not running DWS, and I can't promise that support for any of them will come (or indeed is feasible), but it would help not to tallk in generalities?

[snowsurrounded]

From a quick google search, Amazon's payment service seems to. It'd also be nice to have the option to pay directly via debit/credit card as franzi1981 suggested.

[cesy]

From what I understand, paying by credit card directly requires a merchant account with a bank. LiveJournal is big enough that it's a reasonable option, but for somewhere as small as Dreamwidth, the overhead is just too big.

[franzi1981]

Err... small bed and breakfasts can do this. That is, a family, essentially.

[denise]

Medium-to-long term, we would like to add the option to pay by credit card directly through using a merchant processor, but it's something we couldn't implement in a week or two. Google Checkout is a way to let the majority of people start paying for accounts again quickly while we investigate other options; ideally we'd like to have a number of payment-processor options in the hope that one of them will work for everyone, but these things take time, money, and effort to implement and we thought it better to start with the easiest solutions and move up!

[helens78]

You guys rock so hard. Thank you for this answer; I was sure there was reasoning behind it and figured you were working on something in the long-term, but it is so cool to actually have you guys speak up and say so! :)

[cesy]

From what I remember, there are complications when you're doing it over the internet (phone and in person are different) and a small business with a standard business bank account dealing with customers in the same country is also slightly different. However, I may be wrong - it's a while since I looked into any of this. It sounds like Denise's answer above is more up-to-date.

[devilc]

But perhaps amazon's payment service considers DW to be kiddy porn lovers just like Pay-Pal.

[snowsurrounded]

... well, if that's so, then there's not much to be done, but has anyone actually looked into it?

[denise]

Medium-to-long term, we would like to add the option to pay by credit card directly through using a merchant processor, but it's something we couldn't implement in a week or two. Google Checkout is a way to let the majority of people start paying for accounts again quickly while we investigate other options; ideally we'd like to have a number of payment-processor options in the hope that one of them will work for everyone, but these things take time, money, and effort to implement and we thought it better to start with the easiest solutions and move up.

[snowsurrounded]

Hm. Well, that's somewhat inconvenient for me, but I appreciate you responding so quickly. My account's paid up til August anyway, so I'll cross my fingers for more options by then. Thanks. :)

[denise]

Google Checkout was the fastest solution we could implement for now, and since nobody's been able to pay for an account for two weeks, we needed to go with fast. It's not the only one we're looking at, and we've wanted all along to have multiple payment options!

There are also a lot of unofficial ways to get payment to us -- sending the money to a friend with a credit card that can be used is one that a lot of people use. And if someone's in a situation where they legitimately can't use their credit card type through whatever payment processor we're using at any given time, and can't find an alternative, they can let us know and we'll see what we can do. For instance, I'd be totally willing to take a traveler's check in USD, and those are easier and cheaper for some people to get than bank checks/money orders in USD; some non-US banks can do a bank check in USD; etc. All else fails, stuff some USD in a greeting card and send it; we don't recommend the method, because if it goes missing in transit there's no way to find it/stop it/refund it, but if it gets here, we'll process the payment.

Long story short, I know it's inconvenient for non-US people to pay us right now, we know about the problem, I think the problem sucks, and there are a lot of possible solutions for us to use -- but many of them cost us a lot of money, and take considerable time and effort to implement. We're totally willing to go through the time and effort to implement them, but they won't be immediate, and some methods have to be off the table until we start doing a greater volume of business, because they cost us too much up front.