• Welcome to the Land Rover UK Forums

    You are currently viewing the site as a guest and some content may not be available to you.

    Registration is quick and easy and will give you full access to the site and allow you to ask questions or make comments and join in on the conversation. If you would like to register then please Register Now

Your Forum Needs You.

Big Sandy

Big Sandy

Administrator
Staff member
Site Donor
You may or may not have noticed some downtime this morning.

In short, owing to memory usage, caching etc (not my real knowledge this tech stuff) we are finally running out of memory on the servers we are using now. We need to move up a tier, get more memory and storage, etc.

We have been on this level of server for the last two years despite the fact that we have actually outgrown it, to prevent costs spiraling (waste of time really when energy bills shot up) but we now need to look at the possibility of moving up a tier. Full marks and much Kudos to @Bryan for keeping us ticking along as long as we have.

I'm not entirely sure what this is going to mean long term, but it looks like we are needing a minimum of £50 a month extra to stay with our current hosts and move up a tier. We were getting by at £100 a month, just, so we're looking at £150 per month to be safe.

Yes, we could look for cheaper hosts, but at the risk of losing service and security, the hassle and costs if moving the whole thing over, losing data, and who knows what else. Better to stay with a supplier we trust I think.

At the moment we are squeezing the very last space we can out of what we have. You may soon start to see slower response times when posting, loading pages etc.

Unless we do something soon, we may end up shutting the forum down, or heading towards advertising, which ideally we don't want to do.

This is not the kind of thing I like to discuss, nor is it really my forte. I'm not in charge of finances, but am, I suppose, the public face of the forum.

So, here I am asking for your support, please.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and thank you to all of you who have supported us thus far. It is, and always has been, greatly appreciated.
 
Big Sandy said:
You may or may not have noticed some downtime this morning.

In short, owing to memory usage, caching etc (not my real knowledge this tech stuff) we are finally running out of memory on the servers we are using now. We need to move up a tier, get more memory and storage, etc.

We have been on this level of server for the last two years despite the fact that we have actually outgrown it, to prevent costs spiraling (waste of time really when energy bills shot up) but we now need to look at the possibility of moving up a tier. Full marks and much Kudos to @Bryan for keeping us ticking along as long as we have.

I'm not entirely sure what this is going to mean long term, but it looks like we are needing a minimum of £50 a month extra to stay with our current hosts and move up a tier. We were getting by at £100 a month, just, so we're looking at £150 per month to be safe.

Yes, we could look for cheaper hosts, but at the risk of losing service and security, the hassle and costs if moving the whole thing over, losing data, and who knows what else. Better to stay with a supplier we trust I think.

At the moment we are squeezing the very last space we can out of what we have. You may soon start to see slower response times when posting, loading pages etc.

Unless we do something soon, we may end up shutting the forum down, or heading towards advertising, which ideally we don't want to do.

This is not the kind of thing I like to discuss, nor is it really my forte. I'm not in charge of finances, but am, I suppose, the public face of the forum.

So, here I am asking for your support, please.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and thank you to all of you who have supported us thus far. It is, and always has been, greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

Are you talking trying to raise the cash through the current voluntary donation process?? Or have other options been discussed?
 
Other options. Would like to keep things voluntary, don't like to force folk to pay up, and don't like asking for money either...

Advertising. Which we have avoided for 20+ years... We did try affiliate schemes, but didn't really work. Not enough click throughs. (Folk actually complained about the 'tracking' it used, and bypassed it.)

Can't think of anything else yet ...ideas are always good.

Currently breaking even at the £120 a month, but if costs need to go up by £50, then we'd need £170 a month. More is always good, would allow for improvement.

Active users...it's hovering between 150/200 a day. Obviously some don't post... And not necessarily the same users..but 200+ posts a day as a rough average.

Not everybody wants to put a hand in pocket, I get that. Totally, times is tight, and there's the problem. Not really much more I can say.
 
I think the worry with advertising is the lack of control over the content that gets pushed.

You can end up with some very touchy or weird subjects coming up, when all people want to do is complain they drew blood trying to calibrate their PDWA cut-off pressure on the bias spring.

I'd love a demographic of donations by vehicle types owned. Might lead to some finger pointing...but i'm always curious!
 
Of the other fora I frequent, I see:

1. Advertising - as BS says, can be v annoying
2. Donations - never quite sure how much I should be putting in
3. Hybrid - supported by ads but can be avoided for a small annual fee, which gets you ad-free mode

Whichever was the site goes, it usually ends up a tradeoff for the admins between convenience and risk so we need to consider them as well.
 
The boys football team and school association both do a monthly raffle . £1 or £2 a month with the winnings being half of the money raised and the other half going to the school / team.

We sign up by direct debut every year .
 
No 47 said:
Can donations only be made as individual payments and not, for example, as monthly direct debits?
Click to expand...
We used to do a monthly direct debit, but it never really took off. Five pounds a month would be the very minimum as as you know PayPal takes a % so it turns into about £4.40 ish. At the time there was very limited take up.

There's a few things we could do, for subscribers...but it means cutting things for non-subscribers, as at the moment we all get the things (like unlimited PMs, signatures, your own choice of avatar and such like, no charges for selling stuff etc,).It would also be separate to the Donation campaign already running, which is voluntary, and that would be interesting to combine to say the least. At least the campaign page shows where we are up to.

Currently some months we cover costs, sometimes there's a bit left over to go into the next month, and sometimes there's a shortfall. Now the costs are going up, the shortfall is getting bigger.

Anyway, this breaks it down a bit. Its the current campaign for donations.

I like the idea of a raffle, but I'm not entirely sure where we stand legally, as 'technically' it would count as online gambling. Need to look into that.
 
I have no idea who is responsible for or owns the forum
Likewise no idea what is involved in running or paying for a forum..
Are the costs largely predictable or are there variations in outgoings..
Really what is needed is a breakdown of outgoings on a monthly /yearly basis or whatever.. Publish that and give the members a chance to make donations on that basis.. Rather than just a list of people who have donated.. That's not really helpful in terms of what the surplus or shortfall is..
Maybe that's a bit over simplistic.. But to me seems like a good starting point if you want members to pay for costs and avoid advertising.. Or charging for membership..
 
Costs are predictable (well, year by year, excepting things like price hikes by suppliers. We have all had that this year. Electrickery being a good example)

Outgoings = Server and software licence costs. Currently £150 a month. That's it. That's why we need to source £150 a month. Basically we are renting server space. That's the costs right there .

Owners:- Lighting90 and myself. Bryan is our tech advisor. None of us make any money from this, in fact quite the opposite. We have put a lot of time, effort, and money into this forum. For 20+ years in fact. We get nothing back from it financially. The only folk who gain financially are the owners of the servers, and the software licences (which we pay for annually). Falls into the monthly breakdown.

Perhaps showing how much money is needed to keep online month by month and how much has been raised per month rather than an annual target might be better.

Not much more I can say, really. Other than maybe I could add that running and moderating a forum is not as easy and fun as you might think it is. Not just financially, but it takes a lot of time each day, and there can often be an amount of stress involved. We always really appreciate the nice comments thanking us for what gets done behind the scenes, and for that I/we thank you.
 
Would it free up space on the servers if the amount of information that is available to casual browsers was limited. Correct me if I'm wrong but just about everything technical and Q and A wise is visible for the world to see? Don't have a clue about the workings of the intetnet but just thinking out loud.
 
There's the rub, it's stored on the servers regardless of access....bit like having your phone full of photos, it's in the storage and you might not access it very often, but storing it uses up the available free memory you need for running other things

That's my understanding anyway.
 
i really wish i could offer more support. i donate when i can but i genuinely have months where £10 is a fight.

a couple of thoughts. to save on/make more space in archive space, could you set the system to erase any thread with less than 5 replies after a set length of time? i would say most of them tend to be simple questions that are already answered elsewhere. perhaps that could lighten the load whilst also streamlining things.
perhaps also an annual autojumble. can be done through the forum rather than in person to maximise interaction. sellers could put 50% each way or give 100% (minus postage) to the forum. could just be a fundraising event in general and not just parts. i have sold the majority of my spares over the last couple of years but i could put in some of my woodworking stuff fairly readily.
could sponsorship be an option? i freely admit i take issue with the way advertising works these days, but maybe one site sponsor would be passable. for the sake of example, if just Paddocks had space it would avoid the worst of the invasive ads as they would have the banner on every page so it wouldnt need to be massive thing or piles of smaller things.
 
Your efforts are more than appreciated, and the fantastic resource that you have created is a real treasure. It would be a tragedy if it were lost. I have often wondered though why the forum allows large file sized photos, etc., since they take up so much space on the server. I use an image hosting site for my own photos that I use to illustrate the majority of my posts. Obviously this is less convenient than just just attaching an image, but the space that the vast library of images (many quite silly or superfluous) consumes is surely the reason for the problem. It doesn't seem a viable solution to continue accumulating what amounts to junk (jokes, memes, etc.) and to keep on increasing the server storage space each time it fills up; there has to be a limit sometime.
Having said that, This forum wins hands down over so many others because of it's ease of use and relaxed attitude, not to mention the great contributors that it has attracted. Nothing quite a like reasonably minded group of enthusiasts exchanging ideas, problems, solutions, and laughs.
An annual fund raiser seems a reasonable way to fill the koffers as we can each contribute whatever we feel we can afford, although the appeal does need to be made and there is always the risk that it comes up short. I wouldn't be averse to an annual sub.
Another thought I forgot to mention is that when members are selling things cheap, or giving them away to other forum members, there is always an option to ask for a donation to the forum rather than taking payment, etc.
 
Count me in for supporting the cause... @BigSandy
How about (as you and I had discussed before) making a subscription of a fixed figure per month, say £3. for those that can and voluntary donations for those that prefer that route.
I think a regular payment can be set up through folks PayPal accounts. I am sure @Bryan will know how that works.
Only twenty members on the monthly payment would give the Forum a regular cash flow of £60. a month.
 
Thanks for the breakdown sandy.. I really had no idea, but suspected it was a labour of love for some👍
It's a great forum.. And I think a dedicated area where folk can go see what is needed or any surplus would be a good move.. I don't think that would deter folk from making a contribution because the balance looked healthy.. I'm sure folk donate because they feel grateful to have had help, regardless
I've had a lot of help from the more experienced lads...
Thanks again..
 
Back
Top Bottom