New admin needed

[Siliconous Skumins]

Well, from my point of view as a long time forum user.... Wouldn't be too keen on moving permanently to an Ad funded "free" forum. These are not really meant for the large storage and bandwidth requirements of active forums, instead it's meant more as a way to generate the domain owner essentially "free" revenue from visitors to small specific interest groups (pets, unofficial fan based topics, foods, clubhouse / special interest groups from another site, etc).  The adverts generally only pay out for unique "clicks" and tend to either lower funding or stop it altogether once the same IPs are repeatedly being seen by the ad server. This has an impact on what is profitable and not, and you can be sure that ANY forum that is using more storage and data bandwidth than it earns through Ad revenue, will be either restricted or s**t-caned PDQ....

Also if the likes of forummotion or other free forum providers have any technical issues, it is very unlikely that we would be able to report or expect a fix to problems we encounter, given that these sites are often not actively maintained by an individual we can contact. If the site Admins deem the quick / cheapest fix to a problem is to wipe the database, expect this to happen without warning!

Free forums are a lifeboat, or floating debris at best......we need a ship.



My vote would be For Von Corax to take over and arrange new hosting that is more inline with our current requirements. I am happy to help with this however I can.


Sadly I am no longer in touch with someone who could have provided us with a heavily discounted hosting package, and we are talking real 'high tier' commercial grade hosting in the USA too. 
A number of years ago when BG was having issues with bandwidth, I was able to quickly arrange a pretty sweet deal, however the powers that be had already arranged to move BG to a new hosting company (which didn't last too long either - we were a big forum back in the day). I offered twice over the years, but nobody was interested / had other plans, and so I stopped offering my help. I haven't spoken to my contact in about seven years, and no idea where to find them now. 

[SeVeNeVeS]

Sparegoggles has now been handed over.

To who?

Does anyone know if we have a New Admin for  the SpareGoggles ?

yhs
prof marvel

?

[Pheobsky]

Sparegoggles has now been handed over.

To who?

Does anyone know if we have a New Admin for  the SpareGoggles ?

yhs
prof marvel

?

I handed the details to Stella to pop in the general mod forum

[SeVeNeVeS]

So it seems another, not so currently active member as Admin then.

http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=2178

I suppose almost 2 months vacant is better than some.

Many thanks for your efforts of late Pheobsky, much appreciated my friend.

[MWBailey]

High phives all round, then?

omg...That is great! veeeerrrrry cleveeeeerrr! Wish I had said that!  

Pheobsky you phine phellow,  how haph you been? Glad to hear you're phixing up SG!

[J. Wilhelm]

So it seems another, not so currently active member as Admin then.

http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=2178

I suppose almost 2 months vacant is better than some.

Many thanks for your efforts of late Pheobsky, much appreciated my friend.

Unfortunately we haven't heard from Stella yet. The moderator section has no posts on the subject.

[MWBailey]

So it seems another, not so currently active member as Admin then.

http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=2178

I suppose almost 2 months vacant is better than some.

Many thanks for your efforts of late Pheobsky, much appreciated my friend.

Unfortunately we haven't heard from Stella yet. The moderator section has no posts on the subject.

Just shot an email to Stella re this discussion. Haven't corresponded with her since a month past, so not sure how she's faring.

[Stella Gaslight]

Hi long time no see.  My world has been a bit turned upside down for a bit with an ailing husband who passed this year and my own health problems.  I am here but not able to devote as much time as in the past MS is exhausting but I will do what I can to help.

[J. Wilhelm]

Hi long time no see.  My world has been a bit turned upside down for a bit with an ailing husband who passed this year and my own health problems.  I am here but not able to devote as much time as in the past MS is exhausting but I will do what I can to help.

I'm very sorry to hear about your husband, Stella. My condolences. We'll get this BG move sorted out.

[SeVeNeVeS]

So nothing has really changed that much, Stella will just watch the forum, I was kinda hoping a bit of a jiggle might be on the cards, ditch not current mods, maybe a bit of a major makeover....... Not gonna happen then?

Sorry to hear about the loss of your husband, Stella, I add my condolences, sh!t like that is hard, I know from experience.

Well at least the lifeboat floats again, that is good.

[J. Wilhelm]

So nothing has really changed that much, Stella will just watch the forum, I was kinda hoping a bit of a jiggle might be on the cards, ditch not current mods, maybe a bit of a major makeover....... Not gonna happen then?

SNIP

I don't think the structure of the administration has even been settled yet. We threw some ideas around as to what would be good for the new forum, namely at least 3 administrators, elected with a chief executive and a technical engineer to maintain the server or account.

[von Corax]

Just for the record, I've almost run out of excuses; I'm just trying to establish communications with proteus before I definitively say "Yes."

[SeVeNeVeS]

So nothing has really changed that much, Stella will just watch the forum, I was kinda hoping a bit of a jiggle might be on the cards, ditch not current mods, maybe a bit of a major makeover....... Not gonna happen then?

SNIP

I don't think the structure of the administration has even been settled yet. We threw some ideas around as to what would be good for the new forum, namely at least 3 administrators, elected with a chief executive and a technical engineer to maintain the server or account.

I didn't make myself clear, I was talking about sparegoggles there.

Just for the record, I've almost run out of excuses; I'm just trying to establish communications with proteus before I definitively say "Yes."

Great news, I fully back you 100% if you decide to become our new leader. fingers crossed you can contact the somewhat illusive Proteus.

[Siliconous Skumins]

After looking into various web-hosting companies, I have noticed several that look to be 'interesting' in the prices.  I really need to get in touch with Proteus and find out just how much bandwidth and storage we need for the forum - I have a feeling that we may be able to save a bit of expense due to lower forum usage rates these days...

Von Corax : If you don't continue with the take over, I think I just might be able to find something I can comfortably afford. So that's another option.

[yereverluvinunclebert]

Chaps, I have some hosting experience using TSOhosts. I used to run a lot of sites simultaneously, CMS systems, blogs &c and they had some good hosting plans. More importantly, their support was generally good and they could be flexible, sometimes bending over backwards to help.

Whether the costs are still comparable to others, I can't say anymore as I haven't used them for a while but from my perspective uptime was important and support is vital to maintaining that. A good cpanel was a useful platform for hosting a site and that is what what I would recommend. Cpanel is the command and control centre for your site.

I can offer email/online assistance to anyone setting up some hosting as I had a lot of experience in this area but I can't do it all due to family and business/project commitments elsewhere.

I'd be happy to advise and be part of the team that could work together to pull this off. I'm just offering my help but not more. I've been around BG for a few years here and I'd be happy to donate a one-off donation of say £20-£30 to get the ball rolling.

J.Wilhelm and a few others will vouch for me and my 'puter skills. I was previously a web designer and host myself but that ball has rolled on and I'm into other stuff now.

[yereverluvinunclebert]

Tsohosts offer unlimited bandwidth plans at no extra cost. That would seem to be the way to go. From experience I suggest it would be very wise to let them know the traffic beforehand, both averages and peaks, also the disc space usage. Some CMS systems cache the sites to obtain faster throughput and that can heavily affect disc usage.

I see that Von Corax has the technical side well sorted but I'd be happy to chat if it would help.

Might it be wise to set up a chat somewhere and let the interested parties talk? I am in the UK.

[von Corax]

Stella Gaslight has given me an email address for proteus. I'm just waiting to see him answer; once that happens we'll be able to make solid plans.

[yereverluvinunclebert]

Feel free to include me in on any advisory group you choose to set up. I won't tread on your toes but it might be useful to have someone who knows what you are doing to chat with or assist in some small way. I don't want to take on the whole thing but I'm impressed that you do.

A fee-based site or donations is always a troublesome aspect. Having something that you can get for free is also a turn-off when it comes to donations.

Hopefully, you can get the cost down to something along the lines you quoted. If it was a commercial organisation with the traffic I expect this place generates I would normally suggest a managed VPS and you'd be likely to pay £35-£50 pcm for that. Good Luck.

[Siliconous Skumins]

***BUMP***

So.....any news / progress on anything yet?

[von Corax]

Nothing yet. Still waiting to hear back from proteus.

[J. Wilhelm]

Sorry, I haven't kept up with this thread. I got too many things happening on this side of the pond and south of the northern border 

[von Corax]

Sorry, I haven't kept up with this thread. I got too many things happening on this side of the pond and south of the northern border 

You haven't missed much.

[yereverluvinunclebert]

My penn'orth re: adverts. Several of the forums that I uses regularly have a small amount of advertising space on the right hand side that only appears when listing forums posts &c. The ads are discrete and in text/pictorial form. The ad section can be minimised and an adblocker like Adblock Plus can deal with them if you are really ad-averse.

If that would subsidise the running of the forum and make it self-sufficient then I would be content with advertising appearing on BG.

An example: https://www.vbforums.com/forumdisplay.php?43-CodeBank-Visual-Basic-6-and-earlier

Have we had a poll worded tactfully to see if members 'could' accept such ads? If asked in the right way I feel they would.

[von Corax]

That assumes this is a feature that can be added to the SMF forum software without massive customization of the codebase.

[Siliconous Skumins]

I think there is also some form of agreement with Tinkergirl (the original forum and Blog creator) that BG remains non commercial and free from adverts. I don't think it's a LEGAL document or anything, but still.... it's fair enough.