Jason,
Thanks for a great site!!!
I too have no objection to paying for this site. Given a choice, I would prefer no advertising as it slows down the site but I am also realistic that somehow the bills must be paid...
What about having an auction? You could contact the folks who were mentioned above for donations and perhaps create an advertising page of links for those who donate. The page would contain info on their particular products and perhaps some other value added info...something that would keep folks checking it on a regular basis... Perhaps on the search engine page???
Anyway, set the recommended bid amount for a particular item in $10 or $20 increments and see what happens...
You might find that you could do this once an year and cover the site expenses for the whole year...
I also like the idea of shirts... Why not come up with either a cool t-shirt or polo shirt and sell them on the site? Go look at the f$ckedcompany.com website to see what pud has done... I don't find the minimal advertising on his site bothersome and the other stuff that he sells or has available is cool!!! Anyway, check it out... He doesn't make any money off the site but the new internal memo's thing is an attempt at it (although not very serious because a large chunk of them are still free)...
Another idea would be create a membership portion of the site. You could strike an agreement with one of the sites that has all of the part specs online that would give the member access to their database. I know for certain that this would be a value added service that I would gladly pay for... The partner site hopefully would also find it advantageous because it would create additional membership for them. A win win situation for all...
I would definitely recommend setting up a way for us to send you money... Whether you use PayPal, BidPay, a physical mailing address, etc - I think it would be interesting to see what the response would be from folks... The problem might just resolve itself... You could also put a statement at the top of the main page and also in big letters on the search page letting folks know that this is a self supporting site and donations are strongly encouraged...
Finally, it wouldn't hurt to ask some of the corporate folks on the site to see if any of them would be willing to host the site on their servers... You never know, someone might say yes...
No matter what you decide, I'm happy to contribute! This site is excellent in every way and is a lot of fun!
Thanks again for all the hard work,
Thanks for a great site!!!
I too have no objection to paying for this site. Given a choice, I would prefer no advertising as it slows down the site but I am also realistic that somehow the bills must be paid...
What about having an auction? You could contact the folks who were mentioned above for donations and perhaps create an advertising page of links for those who donate. The page would contain info on their particular products and perhaps some other value added info...something that would keep folks checking it on a regular basis... Perhaps on the search engine page???
Anyway, set the recommended bid amount for a particular item in $10 or $20 increments and see what happens...
You might find that you could do this once an year and cover the site expenses for the whole year...
I also like the idea of shirts... Why not come up with either a cool t-shirt or polo shirt and sell them on the site? Go look at the f$ckedcompany.com website to see what pud has done... I don't find the minimal advertising on his site bothersome and the other stuff that he sells or has available is cool!!! Anyway, check it out... He doesn't make any money off the site but the new internal memo's thing is an attempt at it (although not very serious because a large chunk of them are still free)...
Another idea would be create a membership portion of the site. You could strike an agreement with one of the sites that has all of the part specs online that would give the member access to their database. I know for certain that this would be a value added service that I would gladly pay for... The partner site hopefully would also find it advantageous because it would create additional membership for them. A win win situation for all...
I would definitely recommend setting up a way for us to send you money... Whether you use PayPal, BidPay, a physical mailing address, etc - I think it would be interesting to see what the response would be from folks... The problem might just resolve itself... You could also put a statement at the top of the main page and also in big letters on the search page letting folks know that this is a self supporting site and donations are strongly encouraged...
Finally, it wouldn't hurt to ask some of the corporate folks on the site to see if any of them would be willing to host the site on their servers... You never know, someone might say yes...
No matter what you decide, I'm happy to contribute! This site is excellent in every way and is a lot of fun!
Thanks again for all the hard work,
Why not? This is a great idea and maybe it`s going to be THE hit.Not sure about going down the pub in a t-shirt saying "I did it myself" or "You can Do It Yourself too", or something.
Or how about something like this?:
SEX&DRUGS&ROCK`n ROLL
(anything else that matters...??)
...Yeah... DIY.Audio.com
According the Nelson Pass Amps designs I would say: KEEP IT SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE.
As I guess Jason has already enough to do in keeping this side up, any additional work as the T-shirts thing might be too much. The shirts not only have to be designed, they have to be manufactured and packed/shipped too.
I have to say I´m a little bit concerned about the idea commercialize DIY-Audio in whatever sense (and BTW: this is additional work too) so I`m still vote for simply donating. Paypal would make it fast and easy to manage for everybody without extra costs (Bidpay charges a basic fee). Why not give this a short try first - if it does not work, there are still the other options like banners, T-shirts and so on.
Never change a running system (when not absolutely neccessary)!!
I can`t say anything more besides also THANKS A LOT JASON for Your great efforts!
We are a small community on the internet so we must preserve it Donation of minimum 10$ per year sounds good for me. If people can affort a few music CDs a year, they can affort a donation to keep this site up and running.
Banners can help but I don't want to visit my favorite web site and seeing 140 banners on each page. Look at audioreview.com. In the old days, the first page of this site was the reviews right away and other useful stuff. Now it is full of pop-up, banners, stuff for sale, etc. I think that nobody wants to get the same thing here.
When I registered on this site, it was very very small and I saw it growing very fast, now we have to support it. Paying for the bandwidth is cheap. Think about how many hours Jason has spent on this site for free since the beginning...
Donation of minimum 10$ per year sounds good for me. If people can affort a few music CDs a year, they can affort a donation to keep this site up and running.Banners can help but I don't want to visit my favorite web site and seeing 140 banners on each page. Look at audioreview.com. In the old days, the first page of this site was the reviews right away and other useful stuff. Now it is full of pop-up, banners, stuff for sale, etc. I think that nobody wants to get the same thing here.
When I registered on this site, it was very very small and I saw it growing very fast, now we have to support it. Paying for the bandwidth is cheap. Think about how many hours Jason has spent on this site for free since the beginning...
Free Ride Over
Hi Jason,
I am perfectly willing to pay 5 -10 US$ a year for access to the Diyaudio website. You could arrange it with a password sent by email upon receipt of payment. This will decrease the traffic on this site at first but will also cost less. Maybe it will avoid ephemera from entering and keep would-be posters out.
Please no advertisements or banners! I hate these.
I seldom wear T-shirts. No T-shirts please, also very high shipping cost will add to the price of the T-shirt.
Payment by Pay-Pal or creditcard works very well.
Hi Jason,
I am perfectly willing to pay 5 -10 US$ a year for access to the Diyaudio website. You could arrange it with a password sent by email upon receipt of payment. This will decrease the traffic on this site at first but will also cost less. Maybe it will avoid ephemera from entering and keep would-be posters out.
Please no advertisements or banners! I hate these.
I seldom wear T-shirts. No T-shirts please, also very high shipping cost will add to the price of the T-shirt.
Payment by Pay-Pal or creditcard works very well.
Jason,
t-shirt is an ok idea, it may be a pain to set up, send out, etc etc. Plus I think it would look dorky to the point of no return and completely unwearable to me. I much rather just send in the money. Please no banners!
As another way to cut down costs you should think about downsizing, 95% of the threads is riff-raff that is getting repeated over and over and over anyways. Someone should-could-would probably take the time to distill the little real in formation content there is into the wiki (think group effort here).
I think this idea ties in very well with the moderator announcement. All the threads that have gone south could be cleaned up and sealed off.
t-shirt is an ok idea, it may be a pain to set up, send out, etc etc. Plus I think it would look dorky to the point of no return and completely unwearable to me. I much rather just send in the money. Please no banners!
As another way to cut down costs you should think about downsizing, 95% of the threads is riff-raff that is getting repeated over and over and over anyways. Someone should-could-would probably take the time to distill the little real in formation content there is into the wiki (think group effort here).
I think this idea ties in very well with the moderator announcement. All the threads that have gone south could be cleaned up and sealed off.
Banned
Joined 2002
Thanks everyone for your amazing votes of support! It looks like there should be no problem in keeping the site going, given your commitment and passion.
It looks like JasonL may have found a site for us (Thanks Jason!) and I will be in contact with him to explore that avenue.
The idea of a sponsors yellow pages directory is a good one. Tshirts are probably not a bad idea no matter what happens, and I wouldn't make that the only option if we did go down that avenue.
So, thanks again to everyone, I have really appreciated your kind words.
It looks like JasonL may have found a site for us (Thanks Jason!) and I will be in contact with him to explore that avenue.
The idea of a sponsors yellow pages directory is a good one. Tshirts are probably not a bad idea no matter what happens, and I wouldn't make that the only option if we did go down that avenue.
So, thanks again to everyone, I have really appreciated your kind words.
Banned
Joined 2002
I would be happy to contribute $ to the cause.
Here in the US, we're asked by our Public radio stations to become a 'member' each year. They do a fund drive several times each year, and ask the members to contribute $40 as a basic membership. "membership" doesn't get you much other than the satisfaction that you did the right thing.
Maybe you could try a simple fund-raising drive for about two weeks' time. Suggested contribution of $US25-30. I don't think that is too much for the typical hobbyst who spends $500 to $1000 per year. See how much you get. I think selling T-shirts is too impractical. I would rather give money than buy a T-shirt.
Perhaps a simple "financial contributor" in addition to the Newbie, Acolyte, Elder... status would be a soft encouragement for people to contribute.
I would be glad to ante up to avoid advertising of any kind. Now maybe you could solicit larger donations from corporate sponsors, who would get a nice mention with a link on the main page.
eg.
"Please patronize our Corporate Sponsors, all of whom have made contributions of $200 or more:"
Audiolingua www.palpablebull.com
Passing Lane Labs www.outofmyway.com
Kiddie Kable www.wiresforkids.com
etc.
More or less like Eric's Yellow pages idea.
On the bandwidth reduction efforts, I for one am disappointed with the limited ability of the searching function. The ability to search for strings of specific words (complete phrases), especially within a single post rather than in an entire thread would be HUGE in terms of reducing the amount of repetition in questions and answers.
I have not been a great contributor, but I've been reading a lot and I believe that as new members come on, tons of info that we have here in the threads gets covered again. Better searching would not only reduce the bandwidth requirement, but it would help to retain some of our old members who were so knowledgeable. I think some of them simply got tired from the percieved lack of advancement of knowledge.
I realize that you didn't write all this software, and perhaps the search engine is built-in and there isn't much you can do about it, but boy oh boy, do I wish!....
Thank you for all your work!
Here in the US, we're asked by our Public radio stations to become a 'member' each year. They do a fund drive several times each year, and ask the members to contribute $40 as a basic membership. "membership" doesn't get you much other than the satisfaction that you did the right thing.
Maybe you could try a simple fund-raising drive for about two weeks' time. Suggested contribution of $US25-30. I don't think that is too much for the typical hobbyst who spends $500 to $1000 per year. See how much you get. I think selling T-shirts is too impractical. I would rather give money than buy a T-shirt.
Perhaps a simple "financial contributor" in addition to the Newbie, Acolyte, Elder... status would be a soft encouragement for people to contribute.
I would be glad to ante up to avoid advertising of any kind. Now maybe you could solicit larger donations from corporate sponsors, who would get a nice mention with a link on the main page.
eg.
"Please patronize our Corporate Sponsors, all of whom have made contributions of $200 or more:"
Audiolingua www.palpablebull.com
Passing Lane Labs www.outofmyway.com
Kiddie Kable www.wiresforkids.com
etc.
More or less like Eric's Yellow pages idea.
On the bandwidth reduction efforts, I for one am disappointed with the limited ability of the searching function. The ability to search for strings of specific words (complete phrases), especially within a single post rather than in an entire thread would be HUGE in terms of reducing the amount of repetition in questions and answers.
I have not been a great contributor, but I've been reading a lot and I believe that as new members come on, tons of info that we have here in the threads gets covered again. Better searching would not only reduce the bandwidth requirement, but it would help to retain some of our old members who were so knowledgeable. I think some of them simply got tired from the percieved lack of advancement of knowledge.
I realize that you didn't write all this software, and perhaps the search engine is built-in and there isn't much you can do about it, but boy oh boy, do I wish!....
Thank you for all your work!
Re: DIY Yellow pages
I think you are a bit too idealistic here. Experience tells me once you start down this road, and people realise they can make MONEY by posting here, things will never be the same. In fact, they will become progressively worse. Call me a realist.
Jan Didden
mrfeedback said:
I think you are a bit too idealistic here. Experience tells me once you start down this road, and people realise they can make MONEY by posting here, things will never be the same. In fact, they will become progressively worse. Call me a realist.
Jan Didden
Jason, and by extension, our need here was not unexpected. We had a small conversation about the need to get external assistance with maintaining a site who's very success is proving to be a big liability, I am having the same sort of problem (i'll get into that later in this post).
This forum has far too much valuable information to let it evaporate. And besides i am nowhere near getting at my mini-A yet, and i'm such a klutz with the delicate SS stuff that there is no way i'd get it done without letting the smoke out large number of devices not being able to tap those here for whom it is 2nd nature.
IMO Jason doesn't really need a new server, he needs to be able to raise the funds to maintain the site where it is (unless he envisions himself not working there in the near future). My reasoning on this is that 1/ there are untold side benefits of being able to reach out and touch your "own" server and have administrative control over it, 2/ $3USD/GB of traffic represents a substantial inadvertant benefit by being able to ride on top of what must be a very substantial amount of traffic the company Jason works for generates (i for instance pay something like 5x this amount). Now i may be totally off-base here and JasonLs generous offer may be just what is needed.
Of the ideas tossed around:
1/ t-shirts are a nice idea, but there is way too much work involved to arrange, design, make, collect, keep track, and ship, not to mentiaon that unless manufacture is local shipping far outweighs the value of the t-shirt. ie if there was a downloadable graphic and everyone went and made their own shirt and then sent the amount they would have paid for postage for one from Oz, Jason would end up with more money than any profit from t-shirts.
2/ yellow pages. this is a good idea if done right. It gives vendors in this community a way of letting others in the community know they exist. It is potentially a tricky thing to get right.
3/ the opportunity to buy a title (or renew or change). this is my favorite. I would like to formally reserve Frugal-phile(tm). Where do i send my $10 (seems to be the amount most commonly bandied about). Default titles could be re-jigged so that as you do more posts they get more "offensive" to encourage people to anti-up. Your unique title would also be the proof that you had contributed financially to the community. For some $10 is nothing and they could if they wish pay more. For some, particularly in developing countries, $10 may be an insurmountable amount, so some mechanism for dealing with this would be good.
4/ banner ads -- works for some sites, but i see it as a last resort. pop-ups are just plain rude.
5/ donations. works, but like public television you may end up doing an annual or semi-annual fund-raising drive (i think 3/ creates a "donation" mechanism which is self-promoting and provides a self-choosen reward)
6/ Compacting the site. You could go thru and clean-up the threads, but who decides what gets tossed & what gets kept? Traffic is generated by people reading threads. And i suspect much of it is people coming in to read new posts. Preemptive action has already been taken to try to make sure that new posts from now on are more content oriented and a little more on topic. So that leaves us with the traffic generated by those exploring old threads/posts for information. If, as a community, we take a little effort to mine those posts and take what is precious, refine it, and put it on display in the Wiki (and promote the Wiki), then people can start there leaving all the irrelavant posts in the archive on the hard disks rarely viewed and therefore not generating traffic, but still there in case a gem was missed.
You can start by copying any really good new post you make into the Wiki yourself. Or if you are exporing a topic, you could take the posts (or bits of posts) you find useful and make sure they are in the Wiki. This may even be used to enable those less well off to earn an exemption to buy their title (/3). Application is made. "what are you interested in?" -- " go mine these threads - when you are done and the good stuff is in the Wiki, we will grant you your title", saving bandwidth is as good as sending money.
7/ i haven't seen this one. Be careful when you edit your posts, particularily when quoting someone. Each extra word is extra traffic. Sort of the watch the grams and the kilos will take care of themselves to use a motorcycle analogy, except that in the case of the forum every word is multiplied by the number of times someone views that post.
7a/ corollary 1: if the number of posts per page is reduced (is this a user option or globally set by the Uber Fanatic?) there will be an instant reduction in bandwidth usage. At least if most people follow threads the way i do. As soon as i get the email that says new post, i double click it and go read the post. But i am also downloading, but not reading every previous post on that page. If there were fewer posts/page the amount i download would be reduced. This would also be a boon to those on slower connections.
7b/ corollary 2: if that email i was responding to was edited for brevity, that would also reduce bandwidth.
7c/ corrollary 3: if some of the fixed iconic graphics were replaced with text it MIGHT reduce bandwidth (ie the profile button is 4k bytes, the word profile should only take up 7 bytes, but the graphic tends to stay locally in your cache).
Enuff for now, this is turning into a Dice45-like post. Chew on those guys. And i said i'd have a word on my situation... i'll put that in the next post, so that it isn't buried at the end of this my longest post to date.
dave
This forum has far too much valuable information to let it evaporate. And besides i am nowhere near getting at my mini-A yet, and i'm such a klutz with the delicate SS stuff that there is no way i'd get it done without letting the smoke out large number of devices not being able to tap those here for whom it is 2nd nature.
IMO Jason doesn't really need a new server, he needs to be able to raise the funds to maintain the site where it is (unless he envisions himself not working there in the near future). My reasoning on this is that 1/ there are untold side benefits of being able to reach out and touch your "own" server and have administrative control over it, 2/ $3USD/GB of traffic represents a substantial inadvertant benefit by being able to ride on top of what must be a very substantial amount of traffic the company Jason works for generates (i for instance pay something like 5x this amount). Now i may be totally off-base here and JasonLs generous offer may be just what is needed.
Of the ideas tossed around:
1/ t-shirts are a nice idea, but there is way too much work involved to arrange, design, make, collect, keep track, and ship, not to mentiaon that unless manufacture is local shipping far outweighs the value of the t-shirt. ie if there was a downloadable graphic and everyone went and made their own shirt and then sent the amount they would have paid for postage for one from Oz, Jason would end up with more money than any profit from t-shirts.
2/ yellow pages. this is a good idea if done right. It gives vendors in this community a way of letting others in the community know they exist. It is potentially a tricky thing to get right.
3/ the opportunity to buy a title (or renew or change). this is my favorite. I would like to formally reserve Frugal-phile(tm). Where do i send my $10 (seems to be the amount most commonly bandied about). Default titles could be re-jigged so that as you do more posts they get more "offensive" to encourage people to anti-up. Your unique title would also be the proof that you had contributed financially to the community. For some $10 is nothing and they could if they wish pay more. For some, particularly in developing countries, $10 may be an insurmountable amount, so some mechanism for dealing with this would be good.
4/ banner ads -- works for some sites, but i see it as a last resort. pop-ups are just plain rude.
5/ donations. works, but like public television you may end up doing an annual or semi-annual fund-raising drive (i think 3/ creates a "donation" mechanism which is self-promoting and provides a self-choosen reward)
6/ Compacting the site. You could go thru and clean-up the threads, but who decides what gets tossed & what gets kept? Traffic is generated by people reading threads. And i suspect much of it is people coming in to read new posts. Preemptive action has already been taken to try to make sure that new posts from now on are more content oriented and a little more on topic. So that leaves us with the traffic generated by those exploring old threads/posts for information. If, as a community, we take a little effort to mine those posts and take what is precious, refine it, and put it on display in the Wiki (and promote the Wiki), then people can start there leaving all the irrelavant posts in the archive on the hard disks rarely viewed and therefore not generating traffic, but still there in case a gem was missed.
You can start by copying any really good new post you make into the Wiki yourself. Or if you are exporing a topic, you could take the posts (or bits of posts) you find useful and make sure they are in the Wiki. This may even be used to enable those less well off to earn an exemption to buy their title (/3). Application is made. "what are you interested in?" -- " go mine these threads - when you are done and the good stuff is in the Wiki, we will grant you your title", saving bandwidth is as good as sending money.
7/ i haven't seen this one. Be careful when you edit your posts, particularily when quoting someone. Each extra word is extra traffic. Sort of the watch the grams and the kilos will take care of themselves to use a motorcycle analogy, except that in the case of the forum every word is multiplied by the number of times someone views that post.
7a/ corollary 1: if the number of posts per page is reduced (is this a user option or globally set by the Uber Fanatic?) there will be an instant reduction in bandwidth usage. At least if most people follow threads the way i do. As soon as i get the email that says new post, i double click it and go read the post. But i am also downloading, but not reading every previous post on that page. If there were fewer posts/page the amount i download would be reduced. This would also be a boon to those on slower connections.
7b/ corollary 2: if that email i was responding to was edited for brevity, that would also reduce bandwidth.
7c/ corrollary 3: if some of the fixed iconic graphics were replaced with text it MIGHT reduce bandwidth (ie the profile button is 4k bytes, the word profile should only take up 7 bytes, but the graphic tends to stay locally in your cache).
Enuff for now, this is turning into a Dice45-like post. Chew on those guys. And i said i'd have a word on my situation... i'll put that in the next post, so that it isn't buried at the end of this my longest post to date.
dave
Part II
The success of my site has also become a financial burden... as those who have been following the link in my signature may have noticed (and i know you have been coming -- i am up 50-100 visitors a day since i put my URL in my sig) i am also in a sponsorship drive.
The quantity of donations hasn't been high but the quality has been -- and each one brings an appreciative response. I have even gotten help from a couple of celebrities, Joe Roberts of Sound Practises fame and the spiritual leader of this forum, Nelson Pass.
I would encourage anyone reading this to 1st send money to Jason, but if you visit my site, find it useful, and have some money left over, i will be pleased with donations of any size.
humbly yours,
dave
The success of my site has also become a financial burden... as those who have been following the link in my signature may have noticed (and i know you have been coming -- i am up 50-100 visitors a day since i put my URL in my sig) i am also in a sponsorship drive.
The quantity of donations hasn't been high but the quality has been -- and each one brings an appreciative response. I have even gotten help from a couple of celebrities, Joe Roberts of Sound Practises fame and the spiritual leader of this forum, Nelson Pass.
I would encourage anyone reading this to 1st send money to Jason, but if you visit my site, find it useful, and have some money left over, i will be pleased with donations of any size.
humbly yours,
dave
Dave,
and next time you accuse me of posting drivel.
Selling titles is a great idea. To have donated by buying a title and let anyone else see it ... is good for lifting spirit and self confidence. Having done the right thing and anyone can see it. This is good for the good part of the ego. Rewarding for the donator, rewarding for the diyAudio community.
I am with you, i would not suggest to sell diyAudio merchandises, there are no means of buying them cheap but in appealing quality and then making a profit of it, all time and effort and shipping considered. Count is simply too small.
Your suggestions for reducing bandwidth are welcome and seconded.
Except that i do not see anyone having the resources for weeding out the drivel from old posts and threads. And search engine would be pointless then.
Maybe there is a way to store old threads on a compressed hard disk area, no idea how this can be achieved however. And this would boost search time.
Moving valuable posts or parts of to the wiki is very good. But who does execute the discipline (or should i say self-discipline) to do this? {sigh}
ouch!!
and next time you accuse me of posting drivel. Selling titles is a great idea.
To have donated by buying a title and let anyone else see it ... is good for lifting spirit and self confidence. Having done the right thing and anyone can see it. This is good for the good part of the ego. Rewarding for the donator, rewarding for the diyAudio community.I am with you, i would not suggest to sell diyAudio merchandises, there are no means of buying them cheap but in appealing quality and then making a profit of it, all time and effort and shipping considered. Count is simply too small.
Your suggestions for reducing bandwidth are welcome and seconded.
Except that i do not see anyone having the resources for weeding out the drivel from old posts and threads. And search engine would be pointless then.
Maybe there is a way to store old threads on a compressed hard disk area, no idea how this can be achieved however. And this would boost search time.
Moving valuable posts or parts of to the wiki is very good. But who does execute the discipline (or should i say self-discipline) to do this? {sigh}
planet10 said:
I disagree with that: title introduce an hierarchy and destroy the communication between people. People will compare each other or will know who has more money
I think the quality of the answers does not depends on how many posts you did since the beginning; it is not a race to win the "highest number of posts award". Paying for title will be like buying a social status. Some people will have a BMW, some other a bicycle The communication will be more difficult.Regards,
dice45 said:and next time you accuse me of posting drivel.
I have never seen you post drivel :^)
My intention was to indicate that the threads be left in-tact. That by moving pertinent data to the Wiki where it will be easier to find and more compact, people will do there 1st and result in less wading thru the threads.
Yes it will require a little more effort on the part of us, the users, but it is a small price for helping maintain this forum and making it a more useful place.
dave
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