| Jason |
Dear friends,
Well, the free ride is over. My company which has kindly hosted diyAudio for free for the past 3 years is now getting billed for bandwidth at US$3 / GB.
diyAudio uses 20GB a month presently and is growing at 2-3 GB per month. Last month the site served 1.3 million pages. That means I need to find AUS$200 a month (AUS$2400 a year), increasing each month, or find another host that will host it for free whilst at the same time providing a great level of service.
As I manage the box this is on (I am a linux network and sysadmin who specialises in Apache/PHP/MySQL) I know that the site is rarely down, that the drives are RAID, there are offsite tape backups, etc.
I would hate to move to another host with a lower level of service.
If I can't find a new host within a month I am going to have to either shut the site down (over my dead body!) or find some way to make it pay for itself. I simply can't afford $200 a month in my current financial situation.
I have been thinking about different kinds of advertiser sponsorship models, getting the community to donate, maybe some cafepress diyAudio Tshirts with a decent markup (US$1200/pa could be paid for with 120xUS$10 tshirt profits (or 60x$20).
But ideally I would just like to find another (decent) host.
Any suggestions welcome! |
|
|
| trigon |
I would like to have a new DIY-Audio Tshirt every year.;)
Or direct donation over the PayPal $10-15 with pleasure every year.
Trigon. |
|
|
| cowanrg |
i would be willing to donate.
but, i dont think advertising is out of the question at all. many people complain about it, and say how great no advertising is...
i personally think it sux. you need to make money (or at LEAST break even) for your efforts here. |
|
|
| sparky1 |
| This is my first post. I have been gathering lots of info over the past few months and I would be happy to pay for it if necessary(as long as the price is not out of my reach).:D |
|
|
| roddyama |
Jason,
You've done a fantastic job with this site and I have to first thank you for your efforts and dedication.
On to business.
My suggestion is to first post (in a prominate spot on the site) a formal request for donations. This could be of the thread form or just a link to an information page or donation form. Collect donations for a week, or a month, or how ever long it takes to determine if this method would be sufficient to support the forum. If it works the first year, you could repeat it every year like,... yeah, like PBS! if a donation is greater then $XX dollars then the contributor receives a "gift" like,... yeah, like a t-shirt!:D
Or, let us know where to send it and I'll pitch in.
If 20% of the members contributes $5 each, you'd be covered for a year (just make the T-shirt $15 or $20).
Regards,
Rodd Yamas***a |
|
|
| AudioFreak |
| Yeah I'd be willing to shell out AU$40 on a diyAudio.com T-shirt. Suggest you run it as a business dealing rather than a collection as the later may be difficult for some people in some circumstances. |
|
|
| sparky1 |
I'm with roddyama. That is a great idea.
Glenn |
|
|
| Altaic |
Jason,
You've done a marvelous job with this site and I'd hate to see it go away.
-Donations. Only problem is that people usually don't donate on a regular basis. But, it would definitely be a great idea to have it in addition to another form of diyaudio income.
-Ad banners. Please please please no popups; they are an undeniable pain-in-the-***, and rightly despised by all. I don't mind banners, though, so long as they are tasteful.
-Souvenirs. The only problem is coming up with new ideas people will buy after they've already bought the old idea.
-Membership. You could provide a membership area for accessing special resources. If you collect schematics, pcb layouts, etc, I'm sure lots of people would be interested in checking them out. Or even a "forum pictures" section, which would allow the quick browsing of all the (very useful) pics.
Going on that idea a bit more, you could use the forum hierarchy so people could better navigate the collection. In addition, add a description text box on the posting form, so the description can be displayed in the forum pictures section. I'm thinking one would list the threads with pictures in them followed by the number of pictures in parens. When one clicks the picture thread, it displays all the pictures as (pregenerated) thumbnails, with a link (with an optional description) to the full-size pictures. The full sized pictures could be linked to the thread they came from for context.
Also, if you utilized the search engine to show psuedo catagories, that'd be cool. "Quick Search," or something. For instance, you could have a list on the side showing ESP, Leach, Pass, various popular tube designs (not sure what they are), DSP, projectors, projector screens. One would click them and it'd just utilize the search engine (ESP would use the search terms "ESP", "3A", and "Elliott Sound Products") without the highlighting.
A notifier which emails you when given search terms are in a new post (perhaps restricted to a given section), I think might be useful. Again, sort of a search engine thing. If done right it might not gobble up all your system resources. Ie, have a compilation list of all members' search strings to look for, and upon a post submission, send that list to the user who is posting, do a client side search, and have them send back a list of matching strings which can be compared with each member's list. Also, put a checker to make sure all the search terms sent back were sent in the first place; you don't want to have a DOS exploit.
-Optimize. Instead of showing picture attachments in the forum, show a text link to the picture, or a pregenerated thumbnail. Make the search engine more effective (or encourage it's use), so less browsing is done.
That's all I could come up with off the top of my head. It might be more trouble than it's worth to do all that programming, but either way, making a site profitable without being intrusive is tough.
Best of luck,
Will |
|
|
| cocolino |
| quote: | | i would be willing to donate. |
me too - count me in! (but PLEASE: no advertising) |
|
|
| Lisandro_P |
I think banners are a good option (PLEASE, no popups. Popups are the devil!); and donations would help a lot also.
And, once again, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR EFFORTS. I love this site, and aprecciate the work and time you put into it. |
|
|
| BrianGT |
I have an idea... create a method of donating money, and in exchange for donating money ($10 would be reasonable), you can change the text under your name, and create your own title. It would be an interesting addition to the board.
or if you really want to make it interesting, donating $20 would allow you to change someone else's title.. imagine the chaos that this would create.
--
Brian |
|
|
| Electro |
* Like everybody, I hate pop-up ads although I don't mind ad banners that are position on the top or bottom of the site. Many audio companies have visited this site and posted, so there shouldn't be any problems having companies paying you to advertise their banners.
* Pay for a membership to access circuit archive. I don't mind paying for a fee to see exotic circuits.
* Other people that said 10 US dollars for donations is asking a little too much. Many sites that I visited has the same hit count and bandwidth as this site and they are asking for a minimum of 1 US dollar .
Jason, be careful setting up and using PayPal.
Take a look at http://www.aboutpaypal.org/ |
|
|
| Jean |
| quote: | Originally posted by BrianGT
I have an idea... create a method of donating money, and in exchange for donating money ($10 would be reasonable), you can change the text under your name, and create your own title. It would be an interesting addition to the board.
or if you really want to make it interesting, donating $20 would allow you to change someone else's title.. imagine the chaos that this would create.
--
Brian |
That would be something ! :) I am in on donation / shirt deal . |
|
|
| janneman |
I'm willing to donate, but since I am oversees make sure that this is possible for me. I don't know paypal, maybe that's the solution.
I don't think membership is a solution, before you know it you spend your time bookkeeping and writing invoices etc. I would try volunteer donations. If only a fraction on the membership reacts your (back) in business. Newcomers could be prodded after they have accessed the site some time by reminding them that now it is time to contribute.
And please, no ads or banners! This site is one of the very few remaining on the net where we are between ourselves, with no outsiders intruding. I'm willing to pay something extra to keep it that way!
Cheers, Jan Didden |
|
|
| swede |
I'm in for donations and banners (no popups).
T-shirt is cool with me!
A webpage, that shows the donators, amount and date would probably be a good bate for most people.
Are there any other resources needed? I have all kinds of **** laying around in my boxes.
//magnus |
|
|
| bawang |
| Count me in. As I don't know/never use/ignorant of PayPal, I'll be using my credit card. Jason, do your calculations (ie costing) and keep me informed. And, NO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE! |
|
|
| peterr |
I'm all for T-shirts! If you have a fresh design made every year there will be an extra incentive to get one each year.
However, since I live in Europe there will be a lot of cost for postage and they might get too expensive.
If the T-shirt scheme is not feasable I am more than happy to donate something.
All the best, Peter |
|
|
| Schaef |
First, let me say, getting a T-shirt is NOT an incentive for me. I have enough of those things lying around, I don't need another. As to the advertising, I agree with the others in regards to pop-ups, they're evil, and I will go out of my way to AVOID spending money at any site that uses those evil vile things.
However, banner ads, if done right are perfectly fine with me. (I see no problem with advertising, as long as its not shoved down my throat) As examples, take a look at sites like www.tomshardware.com or www.thedigitalbits.com they both have advertising, and both make sure the ads that appear on their site are specifically for what they relate to. However, given the current economy and attitude towards online advertising, I don't think this will generate enough income to make the hassle worthwhile. Besides, most people already know how to get a hold of the people that would advertise on this site. (I'm think Mouser, Digikey, Parts Express, and the like) I really doubt that Nelson Pass would pay to advertise on this site. (Why should he, everyone already knows all about him!!) So, I just don't think advertising would work.
As for subscribers, or special sections for people who donate, those are good ideas as well. This is one of the few sites that I read that I would think about subscribing to. If you make it a donation site, you'll have a lot of people do what I would end up doing, waiting for round tuits! (No offense, I just keep thinking, I'll do it later) Also, someone else mentioned that $10 was too high, I'm sorry, that's not too high, $1 is WAY too LOW! If that person doesn't feel that they've gotten $10 worth of information out of this site, then they shouldn't subscribe. I personally feel $10 a year is not unreasonable, and even though I haven't actually USED the information I've read here, I feel as if I've learned a lot of things!
Let us know what you decide, and put me down for a round tuit on donations! (No T-shirt please, I have enough rags as it is) |
|
|
| JasonL |
ill pitch in some doe too.. this site rules and has ever thing a personthat is into diy would need..
J' |
|
|
| mrfeedback |
Hi Jason, I am sure that we all well understand your position, and we would all lament should DIY evaporate.
There are a number of members here who in addition to being audio enthusiasts, manufacture and sell audio equipment, components and modifications.
These guys, sportingly so far have been reasonably subtle about mentioning their commecial interests.
I propose a DIY Yellow Pages section, where these guys could post a formal advertisement giving details of the services that they offer.
In their postings signature, they could be entitled to include a summary of what they offer, a line saying "Generous DIY website financial contributor" or something similarly suitable, and a hyperlink to their entry in the DIY Yellow pages.
This might encourage other members to preferrentially consult to the advertised service providers, especially if they are touted as as being charitable to the DIYaudio Forum website maintenance costs.
If an order were to go via the DIY website, a small discount might apply, and/or a small commission go to DIY, and/or orders over say $300 get a free DIY T-shirt - anything to encourage the buyer to buy via DIY and help to sustain the good cause here.
Jason is there a website admin way to do this.?
This could also entitle these advertisers to recomend their services as is appropriate in the threads, and without the threat of cries of spam etc, and the moderators and not other members could privately address over zealousness or auto-naysayers.
Complaining other members would communicate privately to the appropriate section moderators.
Constructive opinions, advice and comments would be beneficial to the advertisers and other forum members alike.
Some quick thought experiments give these examples -
Kendrick could shamelessly say "I am selling my Aussie made really fine and economical interconnects - I can custom make the long line level cables that you need".
Hugh might add "My amplifier modules work really well with your speakers - click my link below and email me for more info".
Elso could say "My Kwak Clock module is a really well worthwhile improvement to the CD-63 - $100 and you can have it in 7 days - please see my advert link below".
Dave could say in a response "You need Mumetal sheet for this - I sell it - see my link below."
KM could say "I also offer pre-built Class D amplifier modules that I believe are an excellent soloution".
Harry or Jocko could say "I have modified a heap of these - I charge $250 to transform your machine - see my signature ".
Nelson could add "I am selling my factory built guaranteed spec amps at a small discount through DIY - this would save you a lot of time and give you the results you want - and you get a free DIY T-shirt".
Etc, Etc - so long as this is done sensitively and responsibly I think that it would be perfectly acceptable in the spirit of the forum, and would indeed differentiate DIY from other forums by the vested involvement of these member/contributors.
$3000 per annum divided by, say 20 advertisers would keep it in the well affordable range for most of these, particularly our US colleagues, and very likely amply reward these contributors, through this increased advertising.
Compared to real Yellow Pages advertising, this is pretty cheap.
I know that this means DIY going commercial, but if done thoughtfully could enable DIY to succeed and triumph.
Eric.
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. :D
Any worthwhile contributions of T-shirt artworks are welcome I am sure. |
|
|
| Apogee |
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, |
|
|
| cocolino |
| quote: | | 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. :D |
Why not? This is a great idea and maybe it`s going to be THE hit.:D
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.| quote: | | 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... |
Never change a running system (when not absolutely neccessary)!!| quote: | | No matter what you decide, I'm happy to contribute! This site is excellent in every way and is a lot of fun! |
I can`t say anything more besides also THANKS A LOT JASON for Your great efforts! |
|
|
| François |
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... |
|
|
| Elso Kwak |
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.:) |
|
|
| grataku |
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. |
|
|
| dkimble |
Count me in as a paying subscriber. Keep it simple. I have only been a member for a short time, and I could easily justify paying for this!
David j kimble Jr |
|
|
| Helix |
me three!
i am quite happy to pay £5 a moth or whatever for a fantastic resource
where else in the world could i ask Nelson Pass and Anthony Holton stoopid questions |
|
|
| JasonL |
| quote: | Originally posted by Helix
me three!
i am quite happy to pay £5 a moth or whatever for a fantastic resource
where else in the world could i ask Nelson Pass and Anthony Holton stoopid questions |
HEH i do the same as this too and i will pay a fee but also i could host the webpage for free as i have unlimited bandwidth and can have up to 1000 gigs a month free..
and i doubble cheacked that too and it is ok..
Jason L |
|
|
| Jason |
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. |
|
|
| vpharris |
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! |
|
|
| janneman |
| quote: | Originally posted by mrfeedback
[snip]
Etc, Etc - so long as this is done sensitively and responsibly I think that it would be perfectly acceptable in the spirit of the forum, and would indeed differentiate DIY from other forums by the vested involvement of these member/contributors.
$3000 per annum divided by, say 20 advertisers would keep it in the well affordable range for most of these, particularly our US colleagues, and very likely amply reward these contributors, through this increased advertising.
Compared to real Yellow Pages advertising, this is pretty cheap.
I know that this means DIY going commercial, but if done thoughtfully could enable DIY to succeed and triumph.
[snip] |
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 |
|
|
| planet10 |
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 |
|
|
| planet10 |
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 |
|
|
| Vivek |
I have been hooked to DIYaudio.com for quite sometime now. I do not go to any other forum and will remain so. I am willing to donate something to help. Advertisement banners are okay with me.
Vivek |
|
|
| dice45 |
Dave,| quote: | | ... this is turning into a Dice45-like post. |
ouch!! :o 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} |
|
|
| Persig |
| Site=Brilliant. Loss=Unthinkable. Donations=Yes. Other ideas=extra workfor Jason. |
|
|
| raul_77 |
Hi all,
Jason, many of us don't like credit cards, and don't know pay pal.
What not a PO Box for send the money directly?
Happy days,
Raúl Couto |
|
|
| François |
| quote: | Originally posted by planet10
...
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.
dave |
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, |
|
|
| planet10 |
| quote: | Originally posted by dice45
and next time you accuse me of posting drivel. :) |
I have never seen you post drivel :^)
| quote: | 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. |
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.
| quote: | | 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} |
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 |
|
|
| planet10 |
| quote: | Originally posted by François
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. |
This i don't understand. Currently there is a hierarchy based on number of posts, being able to buy a title of your own choosing would destroy that hierarchy.
I did say that a way had to be figured to accomodate people for whom $10* is unreachable so that titles would, somehow, be attainable by anyone.
*(still just a figure pulled from the air -- it could be just a donation of your choosing)
Having it known that you have made a donation visible as a unique title is no different than your name on a list of sponsors, except that it should be more fun, and will act as an advertisement for new users that they can contribute monetarily as well as content-wise.
dave |
|
|
| mrfeedback |
Bernard, yes this is why I placed the starter links in the Wiki.
For example "BJT CCS - Info, Tips, Schematics and Links" with the text "Condensed Knowlege To Be Inserted Here".
Threads and quotes from threads were part of my intention.
Alas I intended to do some copy and paste myself, and inspire others to fling appropriate stuff into the Wiki.
I just haven't got a round tuit. :o
Eric. |
|
|
| ergo |
Jason, how big is the site approximately at the moment (in Mb)?
I'm asking as I have a small idea that it should be possible to make the site readable offline and then burn it to CD....
I for one would be interested in such copy and would pay some sum of money for the effort and also to support the site. Yes, the site is up and readable, but many have slow connections etc. etc. and if there is a offline version it's at the same time a kind of a backup of the information on the site upto now, which is a huge "pile" of knowledge and in many parts such knowledge that you can not find from a book for example.
Anyway, feel free to love or hate the idea : )
Ergo |
|
|
| JasonL |
i like it but you would have to buy a cd every month. or sinchroize it with the cd.. or mabey jason can make a iso that somepeople can download and burn to cd to update the older one.. i am still wating for jason to email me about the server..
j' |
|
|
| pinkmouse |
In brief ( see Dave's posts),
Where do I pay my ten bucks...( worth every penny!!!) |
|
|
| Jason |
Good news!
SitePoint has now offered to host diyAudio temporarily on its other bartered server which has a more generous free-bandwidth allowance (hosted at venturesonline, instead of rackspace) which will keep it free for the next few months anyway. The site will be moving in the next 2 weeks so it will probably be down or doing some kind of crazy ip redirection thing for one of those days while the DNS system sorts itself out.
This will give me a little more time up my sleeve to assess other options. Thanks very much to JasonL for his kind offer, I may still need to take you up on it! :D
Since you asked... stats:
DataBase - 160MB
Website - 7MB
Traffic - 20GB / mo
1.3M Page views on 100k Visits from 35K Uniques (dedicated lot aren't you? ;) |
|
|
| Jason |
| Ok we're live with the new server. Please let me know of any glitches. If you're accessing this via the ip address you'll need to re-login because your cookie login was only valid for old domain, not the new ip. If you wait for the DNS to propogate your old cookie will become active again. |
|
|
| Lisandro_P |
| Thanks once again for all your effort jason! |
|
|
|
