OK, I've had my fun. I was envisaging poor ol' Gixer in PC World asking to buy some disks and RAM, and a blank look on his face as he's then bombarded with questions about types, size, specs etc

. I think we all know, despite all his wealth of talent and knowledge, very little of it lays with computing

My own personal feelings, and not necessarily the view of the Admin Team, on the subject of donations or subscriptions are that it causes division that fractures the community. Our members are more than capable of causing division without the admins building brick walls to assist

Donations cause a problem in that it creates a conflict of interest when a donator steps outside the rules.
Subscriptions need to give something "extra" in order to entice members to subscribe. Those that wish not to subscribe therefore lose out, thus creating 2 tiers. I've spoken at length about this before, so won't repeat, other than reiterate that everyone here is equal, from 77k post verterans to todays Newbies.
So, to clarify, I'm against the idea. But I am just 1 of 6 members of the Admin Team. So my thoughts count for abround 17%

We have accepted a hardware donation from a member, sadly not on so much now. So to say donations are a complete no-no isn't entirely correct. If you work in the right arena and have access to certain parts that would otherwise be thrown out, or can be purchased (by OOF) cheap, we're all ears. BUT it must not cost the member anything, and will have no impact on their membership/status here.