Ads?

[Philip]

I don't like the ads, but I'll get used to them in time. I think that if I were in your position, Jason, I probably would have acted in the same way.

[modelperry]

Thanks for the explanation. I understand the why and will adjust my expectations accordingly.

Greg

[Don Boose]

I am not seeing any ads.

[Jason]

I would really prefer not to have to show ads, so I am open to any suggestion by the membership. Maybe we will review the situation in a month and see how things are going then. Either way, I am all ears.

Jason

[Laurence Finston]

Originally Posted by Jason

I would really prefer not to have to show ads, so I am open to any suggestion by the membership. Maybe we will review the situation in a month and see how things are going then. Either way, I am all ears.
Jason

I'm not sure what to suggest, not knowing what sums of money are involved. I'm guessing that the forum software is a significant expense. If this is the case, then I think that a lot of the money is going for fancy graphics rather than functionality. This is usually the case with software. On the other hand, you might not be able to attract users without the fancy graphics, so I'm not sure suggesting a free or cheaper alternative would be helpful.

I also wonder about the costs of the webspace and storage capacity. I rent a little webspace from my webmail service provider and I don't find the costs to be high at all. On the other hand, the amount of storage I need is probably much less than for this forum, so maybe it's comparing apples and oranges. I just have barebones webspace; I write my HTML files and upload them. I could upload server-side web applications, too, but I haven't started doing this. If I wanted more services, I might have to pay more.

The same applies to cloud storage. I wonder if there are costs involved in services beyond just the storage capacity. If it was me, I would consider not using a cloud server but just buying a server and taking care of the backups myself. However, I haven't researched this problem, although I may do so in the not-too-distant future.

[Jason]

Yeah, storing the backups in the cloud was kind of a luxury, and was the first thing to go. The host takes a weekly backup and I still have the nightly backups run and are stored on the server, but I liked knowing that we had a nightly backup that I could restore off of. In the past, it has saved us when we lost a drive on the server. The nice thing was that it was automated otherwise, I have to remember to log on and download it. Not to mention storing 250 GB files that add up over time.

The bulk of the cost is going to the hosting. Currently, the site runs on a Dedicated Server as at the time I could not find a host that would give us the disk space we needed on a VPS. So we are on a physical server costing $1920 US a year paid upfront or $199 US a month. That said, there are other websites on the server, but the Paper Models Community utilized 80% of the resources and the other sites could run off a VPS that costs less than $50 a month so, over time, I moved everything to the same server to reduce costs. Here is what we currently have, it is a combination of the different options that I worked out with our host. You can find their offerings here here.

Fully managed Dedicated Server
2.4GHz Dual CPU - Quad Core
16 GB RAM
2x 240GB SSD RAID 1
2 TB SATA backup drive
Unlimited Network Bandwidth and SSL certificate

There are also software renewal costs, but generally, I do not renew them unless we need to. That said, the forum software is currently at end-of-life. We can purchase the new version of vBulletin at $250US or another forum software like xenforo for about $160 US plus add-ons. Either way, there will be additional costs as well as time. But you see the picture.

My goal is always to protect and improve the community, but that has come at some costs and over time they really add up.

Jason

[WVA]

I see the ads, and honestly, they are annoying. But, other than that, not a problem. If it pays the bill, go for it! By the way, we all owe Jason a great thanks for the dedication and cost for keeping us going so far! My thanks, Jason.
Jim B

[Laurence Finston]

Thanks for the information. I'm afraid I'm a little out of my depth here. The costs don't seem to be outrageous to me, but for an internet forum that doesn't bring in any revenue, they definitely can't be paid from petty cash.

Thank you for providing this service and I would fully understand if you have to pull the plug at some point. If ads will stave this off, then I would do the same thing. The money has to come from somewhere, after all.

[Ben Duncan]

Jason,

You could introduce paid sponsorships similarly to Model Ship World. We pay to have our banner on the front page. I'm sure there are companies out there willing to have the card model shops or otherwise advertised on your front page.

You could also have a donations box. Patreon is also a good idea as you said.

I would hate to see a site like this shutdown.

[PetworthPilot]

Originally Posted by Jason

There are also software renewal costs, but generally, I do not renew them unless we need to. That said, the forum software is currently at end-of-life. We can purchase the new version of vBulletin at $250US or another forum software like xenforo for about $160 US plus add-ons. Either way, there will be additional costs as well as time. But you see the picture.

My goal is always to protect and improve the community, but that has come at some costs and over time they really add up.

Jason

Isn't there an open source solution to run the forum? I'd be happy to contribute through, Patreon, PayPal, etc. I think many people would be grateful for an opportunity to show their appreciation. I spend so much time on YouTube that I am happy to give them $13 a month. I'd also be happy to see hobby related ads on this web site.