[SpaceBass]

bagsbee wrote:

...I see you mention that you're spending $360/month on hosting, which seems....high. Especially considering that that cost is eaten up by CPU and DB transactions, and not bandwidth?!? Forgive me if this has already been discussed elsewhere (I know there are a lot of technically inclined folks here), but there are numerous caching strategies that would alleviate a lot of that, not the least of which would be to upgrade the forum software - currently it looks like you're using 2.0, version 3.0.x has all kinds of built-in caching, etc, etc...anyway just wondering if that might be a simple way to save some $.

We're running a heavily modified version that includes pretty a comprehensive caching system as well as a lot of function and query optimizations, so even without all the other mods we've added it's not really fair to compare with vanilla phpBB.

[October]

bagsbee wrote:

Except for t-shirts, I mean c'mon.

>.> I would buy a coffee mug...

[bagsbee]

I just read through this entire thread, all the while trying to formulate my thoughts to post a coherent and reasonably useful post (btw, your post at the end of page 4 was like watching a master class in Effective Forum Posting, Spacely....I particularly liked the liberal f-bomb usage), and then I see you mention that you're spending $360/month on hosting, which seems....high. Especially considering that that cost is eaten up by CPU and DB transactions, and not bandwidth?!? Forgive me if this has already been discussed elsewhere (I know there are a lot of technically inclined folks here), but there are numerous caching strategies that would alleviate a lot of that, not the least of which would be to upgrade the forum software - currently it looks like you're using 2.0, version 3.0.x has all kinds of built-in caching, etc, etc...anyway just wondering if that might be a simple way to save some $.

Other than that I agree with everyone. Except for t-shirts, I mean c'mon.

ETA: OK so after speaking with folk in IRC, of course it's not as simple as all that, what with the incompatible plugins, etc. But even given all the issues, is upgrading something that's ever been realistically considered? In the end it might be worth the trouble. Just saying.

[Broklynite]

SpaceBass wrote:

Something I forgot to consider when calculating the above, however, was the overhead for running as a business, which we incorporated when Andy Darley made his generous donation from his Perplex City winnings, and which we did so that his gift wouldn't be eaten up by taxes and more of it could go to support the site costs.

Hm. I would assume that you incorporated as a non-profit? If so, there are a couple of government grants you may want to take a look at (no seriously). Especially if you could leverage funds enough to pay people for their work for the site, you could argue that you're providing jobs.

https://www.cfda.gov/index?s=program&mode=form&tab=step1&id=6f7b47fddbfa58ec6255619c128c3319

This is the best one I could find, but I think with a little work, you might be able to pull it off.

[Broklynite]

Just a thought, but what about a voluntary subscription? Rock Paper Shotgun has one, where users pay 2 bucks a month to help support the website. I have no idea how they deal with paypal fees, but I think many of us would be happy to do something like that, where it is a small amount automatically paid every month. It's kind of a pain in the butt for someone to go through paypal all the time to transfer money, but setting it up to automatically happen has a certain attraction.

Edit: I'm sorry, I know I've been babbling a lot, but I really love this community and really want to help keep it alive.

[Broklynite]

SpaceBass wrote:

I could envision this swag trading thing as an escrow service where two people who have agreed to a trade send their items to uF and uF holds them until both arrive, then swaps and sends them along, or returns one if the other trader did not follow through. However, I don't think this would be cost-effective for most traders as they would need to pay double the shipping costs, once to get the item to uF and again to get it from uF to the other trader (or to get their own item back in the case of a failed trade). I kind of doubt this service would only be worth a buck at a time, too. Perhaps a great idea whose time has not yet come?

They made a good point about this- where would you send it? Is it fair to ask mods and admins to take the time to look over other people's stuff? And besides, I hate to say it but what happens if a mod decides to go bad and take stuff? You think we get shitstorms now, something like that would break the community, I think.

[Broklynite]

Pixiestix wrote:

Broklynite wrote: That seems fair enough, but what about people putting up a buck to have their stuff listed on a swag swap page? [SNIP] Keeping in mind that people can still use the forums for free trade, hti is just to get your stuff a little easier to find. I personally hate when you go to sites where people pay a premium to have their stuff listed at the top of a list. This would be a thread viewable to all but editable by only mods and admins. *bolded for emphasis by me* forgive me, but.... you are suggesting something you personally hate? {the semantics of "top of list" vs "specific thread" seem negligible, btw, lol} Since i don't know how adding a fee to UF for providing that type of service would affect our legal responsibilities regarding foul play, IF it doesn't give us any legal responsibilities, i'm for that idea {despite being anti-swaghunters}. To play Devil's Advocate for a moment, I do however wonder if it would actually make us any money - i people can do free trading still, would they willing paypal us $ to post their trade info? And how much could be charged so that paypal wouldn't reap more benefits than us while still being fair to the users?

Not quite. I'm not talking about sponsored posts pushing out regular posts. This would be an area freely accesable to everyone, but you'd have to pay to get your stuff listed. People could still do free trading and swapping like normal. But if you want your stuff listed so that it isn't sitting in the middle of a 15 page long thread, there you go.

You are right though- I'd forgotten how much paypal charges. As I said, I'd been thinking an amount around a dollar. It wouldn't be much, but a little here and there helps, right? But to make up for paypal it would have to be around five dollars, and nobody is going to pay five bucks to have their item listed in a thread.

Well, it was an idea anyway. Thanks for taking the time to explain, I appreciate it.

[SpaceBass]

I could envision this swag trading thing as an escrow service where two people who have agreed to a trade send their items to uF and uF holds them until both arrive, then swaps and sends them along, or returns one if the other trader did not follow through. However, I don't think this would be cost-effective for most traders as they would need to pay double the shipping costs, once to get the item to uF and again to get it from uF to the other trader (or to get their own item back in the case of a failed trade). I kind of doubt this service would only be worth a buck at a time, too. Perhaps a great idea whose time has not yet come?

[Pixiestix]

Broklynite wrote:

That seems fair enough, but what about people putting up a buck to have their stuff listed on a swag swap page? [SNIP] Keeping in mind that people can still use the forums for free trade, hti is just to get your stuff a little easier to find. I personally hate when you go to sites where people pay a premium to have their stuff listed at the top of a list. This would be a thread viewable to all but editable by only mods and admins.

*bolded for emphasis by me*

forgive me, but.... you are suggesting something you personally hate? {the semantics of "top of list" vs "specific thread" seem negligible, btw, lol}

Since i don't know how adding a fee to UF for providing that type of service would affect our legal responsibilities regarding foul play, IF it doesn't give us any legal responsibilities, i'm for that idea {despite being anti-swaghunters}. To play Devil's Advocate for a moment, I do however wonder if it would actually make us any money - i people can do free trading still, would they willing paypal us $ to post their trade info? And how much could be charged so that paypal wouldn't reap more benefits than us while still being fair to the users?

[Broklynite]

Pixiestix wrote:

Broklynite wrote: I still like my ideas of people paying a small fee to trade thru UF. I don't think it would bring in much, but it would help. If I had something to trade and it cost me a dollar to make sure I didn't get screwed, I'd go for it. It would be completely optional tho, keep in mind. Also paying a dollar to have what you have and what you want in trade in a specific trading thread- it would help keep currently available items visible and out front. Personally, i was opposed to using the forums for trading swag at all, especially when there were cries of foul and "your website, do something about the bs in this trade" - but my opinion wasn't the popular one, and so far we've been able to say "not our problem" when things go wrong between users on that. But okay, say we do that - now we, the admins/mods, have to baby sit swag trading. That isn't a very simple task. How much would have to go into creating an ebay like subsite? Not to mention what happens when someone decides to stiff someone else {which HAS already happened}? now we have to REALLY go track down a user and do what? With what legal department? a legal department that would drain any of those profits, and more so.

That seems fair enough, but what about people putting up a buck to have their stuff listed on a swag swap page? No responcibility on UF's part, expect to put up or take down something reading like:

Broklynite - Have: Poland Spring bottle. Wanted: Coca Cola bottle.

Keeping in mind that people can still use the forums for free trade, hti is just to get your stuff a little easier to find. I personally hate when you go to sites where people pay a premium to have their stuff listed at the top of a list. This would be a thread viewable to all but editable by only mods and admins.

[Pixiestix]

Broklynite wrote:

I still like my ideas of people paying a small fee to trade thru UF. I don't think it would bring in much, but it would help. If I had something to trade and it cost me a dollar to make sure I didn't get screwed, I'd go for it. It would be completely optional tho, keep in mind. Also paying a dollar to have what you have and what you want in trade in a specific trading thread- it would help keep currently available items visible and out front.

Personally, i was opposed to using the forums for trading swag at all, especially when there were cries of foul and "your website, do something about the bs in this trade" - but my opinion wasn't the popular one, and so far we've been able to say "not our problem" when things go wrong between users on that.
But okay, say we do that - now we, the admins/mods, have to baby sit swag trading. That isn't a very simple task. How much would have to go into creating an ebay like subsite? Not to mention what happens when someone decides to stiff someone else {which HAS already happened}? now we have to REALLY go track down a user and do what? With what legal department? a legal department that would drain any of those profits, and more so.

[Broklynite]

SpaceBass wrote:

Broklynite: If you have auction items to donate, send us a message through the contact page on the main site to set something up. ljm: The $500 is all costs, including domain names, software, hosting for all sites besides the forums, etc. (but not including business overhead). The forums hosting is about $360 of that because we're running them on multiple dedicated servers. We have tons of excess bandwidth that does not get used because the real problem is CPU cycles for the DB and PHP rendering, as well as concurrent connections of users. The forums would run fine on shared hosting somewhere as long as only a few people were hitting them at any one time. With the dedicated servers, we have the extra capacity to keep the forums snappy even with dozens of simultaneous users when traffic rises. Currently, we do not have enough excess to keep them running well during high traffic spikes, which apparently is when it really matters to people for some reason.

I don't at this time, I'm afraid. What I meant was that had I known of this sort of thing, I would have grabbed extra swag to donate. I will for the future, but that doesn't really help now.

[jessie1326]

Sorry for the randomness, but I just wanted to chime in with a t-shirt thought: uF needs trout t-shirts.

[SpaceBass]

Broklynite: If you have auction items to donate, send us a message through the contact page on the main site to set something up.

ljm: The $500 is all costs, including domain names, software, hosting for all sites besides the forums, etc. (but not including business overhead). The forums hosting is about $360 of that because we're running them on multiple dedicated servers. We have tons of excess bandwidth that does not get used because the real problem is CPU cycles for the DB and PHP rendering, as well as concurrent connections of users. The forums would run fine on shared hosting somewhere as long as only a few people were hitting them at any one time. With the dedicated servers, we have the extra capacity to keep the forums snappy even with dozens of simultaneous users when traffic rises. Currently, we do not have enough excess to keep them running well during high traffic spikes, which apparently is when it really matters to people for some reason.

[ljm]

I posted links to the other community where I mod/admin earlier, and have talked with my friend who is the webmaster/owner of the site and he had a few things to say.

First of all, our site/community isn't nearly as large (in bandwidth or members) as uF, so it's not a direct comparison, but go with me for a second.

We have literally one ad per page, a top banner ad that's above the content frame of the site... nobody cares about it, it's not a problem. In fact, including the ad, our overall header is actually about the same or even shorter than uF's, so there's that.

But more importantly, that one ad, for our smaller community, pays more than the server costs per year, every year, and has for the past 4 years or so also generated enough income to cover our software licenses and all other back end costs.

When I raised this with him to ask for advice, he had a few comments... one, he was surprised at how much your hosting costs, even though we're both aware that this is a substantially larger site than what we work with, it $500/month seems pretty egregious. I guess the bandwidth demands are stronger than I'm understanding from the surface.

Secondly, and more importantly, he suggested that if the bandwidth is that large, that means the readership MUST be pretty damn significant, in which case you should have NO problem covering your hosting costs with ad revenue. The only way that you have high bandwidth with a proportionately small reader base is if the constant posting of huge pictures/files on the boards really mauls the bandwidth. If it does, make people host their own files or link to outside sources (of which there are plenty to choose from for all file types), then pay less bandwidth and generate ad revenue that should cover your lower costs.

Bass, I'd be happy to put you in touch with our webmaster if you'd like to see what our numbers are like.