Forum ideas......

[Slideblues]

If ya been following Tom,s Ideas? message box on the upper right, He has been offering up some solutions to the forum probs, let's discuss it some:

I dont care as long as its a solution that will work in the long run, Yabb has been a pain as far as upgrades workin right, But this version currently running seems OK so far,

Gene ;D

Next? Chime in Dudes its yer forum here.........

Tom, What is still not workin on this version?

 

[Jack Garcia]

Tom , as I said in my Email, I'll go along with the fee.

I.W. has become addictive.

 

[TomMoorehouse]

a ton of things on the administration side are not working currently. I actually might be able to fix it with an upgrade but as someon else said.... it does not leave a lot of room for the forum..... it kinda annoys me also.

I was thinking of a hosted invision power board? possibly by them or by another voulnteer. the downside would be a less interactive main page..... no users online or latest posts type of stuff..... or so i think.

or should i try to fix this one? it would be free and i think i can do it..... but it will take me some time.

a reason for a hosted solution would be less headaches for me.... especially if it was done professionally.... aka for $$$.... everything should work..... like lost passwords and forgot passwords and "can't logins"

any ideas at this point appreciated.

tom

 

[Jimmy Whitbeck]

Tom how a bout doing like jim's boat dock did with ez-board? as the members over thare donate. and i know it cost about 700. year. surly the steady members of this board can do that. . I do know the pic. forum is hosted privetly. as this would make it easer for you .

But any way just a idea.

Jimmy

 

[Slideblues]

Problem is there, Jim's has a much higher active membership than IW, Actual active membership here is a much smaller number than the 1036 that is listed,

Gene ;D

That poses a good question though, How many members that are active, lets say 20 posts in the last 60 days are willing to pay for membership?

If it goes as high as 20 bucks a month, I think the membership will fall considerable.

Again just my 2 cents

 

[TomMoorehouse]

$700 a year! woo wee! i dont think we could support that.... if it were like 100-200 maybe...

 

[TomMoorehouse]

message i recieved from my inquiry about professinal hosting.... and converting our current forum:

Hello,
Yes we cetainly can do this.

There is a $85 charge for the conversion, and a $60 charge for the transfer.

When you reply to this it will automatically re-open.

Regards,

Alex Duggan

Invision Power Services - Support Technician

more info here:

http://www.ipshosting.com/?forumhosting

i don't know what service level we would need basic advanced or more?

I also have a line on someone else that might be able to host our foum possibly for free with the same software

 

[Ron Olson]

Are we talking $20.00 or so a month for the service or per person? If it's for the whole shooting works, people could "Sponsor" the the site for a month or more. I'd take a month if it was reasonable.

 

[izitbrokeyet?]

maybe we can "kill two birds with one stone" by charging by the post, and charging double for "useless posts" and triple for anonymous posts ;D

(Prima facia that I never post anonymously)

Seriously though:

I’d be happy to pay a small administrative fee in order to use this board

 

[TomMoorehouse]

it would be a month

 

[pro27]

How would someone go about making a payment?

If it were by credit card, that could leave some people out. Maybe only a very small minority, but that minority would include myself, as I don't use plastic monies.

I have not posted much myself, but I follow the boards on a regular basis and have gotten much useful info here and would hate to miss out.

I would go along with a donation type set-up as long as there were a differrent way to pay.

 

[TimD]

I'd be for donating too.

I can't pay by the post tho' : I'd have to shut up!

 

[izitbrokeyet?]

I was just kidding about the $/post thing, It would probably next to impossible to administrate.

the board is looking pretty good at the moment.....where do I donate?

 

[Slideblues]

OK so its 85 for the transfer, 60 for the conversion and then 10-20 per month for the whole forum, Correct?

Now is that using this forum software? Or another version?

Gene ;D

Is that at a fixed rate for bandwidth, or does it change with the amount of traffic?

From Tom: I have a line on someone else who might possibly host our forum for free with the same software

Or do you go with the above?

 

[TomMoorehouse]

i might be able to get invision board to work here..... i got it running and the converter almost works.....

 

[Mike G]

Just wanted to correct a few things.

Ezboard is free, but there is a down side, POP-ups!

At Jim's we pay to keep the POP-ups off, that is it.

Ezboard charges by the amount of useage, it used to be $200/ year, now it is about $700 per year but the board over there gets up to 10,000 hits per day! They just went over 8 million hits. That is a heck of a lot of traffic.

Most donations over there are between $5-$10 per YEAR, not per month.

Picture hosting has been a lot of headaches and currently it is donated by a very very generous person, we did have a free sight but it was sabotaged with porn.

 

[RUNNERX]

I really like the new look here, but I don't think it is right for Tom to have to spend more time working on it than enjoying it.

What about paying someone to get this working right?

 

[CySlyde]

honestly i don't see the need for anymore than advanced service this board is not as large as some others i post on... you could prolly get away with basic... but it's always good to leave some room (needs analysis page 22), your best bet is to get with one of thier reps and see what type of service he thinks best fits your needs with curent board statistics. I agree with teh statement that if you start charging per month your hits will more than likely drop. and for that fact posts too...

I know that at this moment i would not be able to afford another $10 a month on web fees. maybe after the new year, but at this point i could not justify the costs. though i might be able for a few freebies

maybe you could set up a small store with your hats and tees, stickers, props batteries ect.. to help you recoup the costs of going to a hosted forum. i know that would mean more moneies initally but in the long run it might bee good, maybe you could team up with grimm or climate.

there are several other free boards out there two.. and alot of them are better than ezboads...

neways thats my .02 hope it helps some

 

[TomMoorehouse]

just in case there is any confusion..... its not $10 per person.... thats a total for everyone.

at this point i'm really trying to keep everything free.... i have invision board runnning on our server... i have all the members stuff converted. I'm having trouble converting the posts.... invision board looks real goos so far.... a lot more professional than yabbse

i just need to get the conversion to work and a know nothing about php and mysql ???

 

[CySlyde]

sorry php and sql was the only class i bombed on... but if it's not 10 per person how were you thinking of splitting it up?