Tech Section

[BUSHWHACKER]

interesting

Too many doors.

[mick p]

Vince, hows the transplant going?

[BUSHWHACKER]

Vince, hows the transplant going?

The nurse says I should be able to wee standing up soon!

[gwh200]

The nurse says I should be able to wee standing up soon!

in or out of a bag ??

(hows baby and jo btw)

[Woodzie]

interesting

Surfenstein is doing the real thing

[Woodzie]

How about a family membership as alot of otherhalf's / children are members too ??

[Guest]

Just to add a bit of clarity here to anyone who thinks that this is a cheap site to run and that anyone make money on it.

The current server that we are running on is a shared server and is relatively cheap. However because of the size of the forum now with the number of attachments and the way the server is set up (of which we have little control because it is a shared server), we have had to make some changes with how the forum handles things and because of this it will not last in any level of reliability for much longer (2 or 3 months at most) before it falls over big time.

So the next thing will be to move back to a dedicated server. The previous dedictated server provider was the cheapest available at the time but was still far more expensive than the money coming in. To be more clear, the cost of the forum and other parts of the site was between £150 and £250 per month and the income from subscription was between £30 and £40 on a good month - bear in mind that not all of the £10 annual subscription can be allocated to the running of the forum as there are stickers to pay for out of this.

Between Nigel and Myself we have funded this forum over the last 5 years in excess of £5000 which we are currently recouping with the low cost server at the rate of about £10 a month.

A new Dedicated server that offers the neccessary features and software build (Mysql and PHP 5) will cost as a minimum around £70 and at the current income rate we will be back to being in the hole for £30- £40 per month.

While there is a shop on the site, to carry enough stock to make it worthwhile will mean storage space (cost) and significant time to make it work to generate cash enough to make it worthwhile.

We have always strived to keep the site free from adverts except for ones from members of the forum or friends of members of the forum. The problem with sites with significant levels of advertising is that it detracts from the independence of the site and also involves significant extra time to go and find the right sort of sponsors / advertisers. This is time that neither Nigel or I have to give.

The alternative is to run it more like a business, have a committee of members who each have tasks to go away and do things to generate income and take tasks to reduce the overall individual workload. Frankly not sure I can see this working but heh that's only my opinion.

Some sites ask considerably more than the £10 annual subscription and make it mandantory to pay to post. They are then able to generate enough income to mean that they can run this as their job and take a salary from it. This is not what Nigel is proposing.

I don't know about anyone else, but the first time I posted on this forum before Nigel and I ran it, the answer I got saved me at least 10 times the £10 subscription charge proposed.

Everyone has a right to an opinion, that is the beauty of an internet forum - free speach in all it's glory, however the only ones who really know the facts on how much money and time it takes to run this forum are the ones who actually do run this forum.

I don't want to labour on this too much however I think some of the long term members will remember the site way back when it was on a free internet forum site with a maximum number of posts of 4000 before they started to be overwritten, plus no gallery, tech articles, videos, shop etc etc...

The site has grown out of all proportion and that is based on the amount of work done by Nigel, myself and a few other people who have helped and also down to the enthusiasm of a lot of members of the forum to use it in the way it was intended.

Bottom line is to keep the forum going costs time and money, this goes up the bigger the forum gets and if it really is to be viable long term to keep it going and not lose everything that has been built up then something has to change.

Finally someone asked how Yotatech and others keep it free well the answer is...

They have paid subscriptions as well, plus they have lots of advertisers. Remember that Yotatech is based in the States, Off roading is very big business and they have made the decision to allow limited advertising - the difference is that due to the size of the market their limits allow them more scope than we do.

[truckarms]

hey you guys to a great job.
I agree with making some sections for paid members only.
As most people say 10 quid is not much these days and it has saved me more than that every year easily.

[chaiwalla]

I love this place , don't post a lot but spend a lot of time hanging out here reading up on stuff, looking at pics, laughing at the banter. Learnt soo much about my surf already and will rely on it in the future for info on maintenance and modifications. I think one of the best aspects of the site is the depth of info, the number of posts and pictures. All this takes up more space, hence more overhead.

I think you can quite justifiably put up the price for membership.

Not sure about banning non paying members from certain functionality or content, maybe as suggested earlier, pop up reminders or more obvious links to membership would be better. I agree with Matt about the freedom of the internet, but also feel strongly that those who have invested time energy and money to making and maintaining this great site should not be going out of pocket. I for one would hate to loose any part of this great resource and would happily pay more to make sure that its still here when i need it!

Keep up the good work

and if you haven't paid your subs yet, maybe now would be a good time

[Sancho]

How about some kind of shop facility that linked back to Roughtrax, LAS and Milners so that rather than people saying 'where do I buy this' they search for it on here and it tells them where they can get it and how much for. Each of the shops could pay, say, 5% of each sale to the forum towards running costs.

[Webbo]

I would'nt mind coughing up a bit more dough now and again, the money i,ve saved by visiting the tech sites is vastly over my £10 sub, let alone the sheer entertainment to be had ! Also if it helps I think it would be a good idea to limit access to tech sites till 10 squid been paid.

CZ 452 IS BEST............Webbo !

[Apache]

How about some kind of shop facility that linked back to Roughtrax, LAS and Milners so that rather than people saying 'where do I buy this' they search for it on here and it tells them where they can get it and how much for. Each of the shops could pay, say, 5% of each sale to the forum towards running costs.

Would it be possible for there to be portals to places like Milners, Roughtrax, LAS etc on here, which automatically billed the referred to site a nominal amount for every hit? Lets face it, those guys ARE getting business from referrals from here, and I'm sure they'd all think it to be a fair proposal if the technicalities could be worked out.

[Osborne]

Would it be possible for there to be portals to places like Milners, Roughtrax, LAS etc on here, which automatically billed the referred to site a nominal amount for every hit? Lets face it, those guys ARE getting business from referrals from here, and I'm sure they'd all think it to be a fair proposal if the technicalities could be worked out.

Isn't that how google ad sense works? I was under the impression that every time you used the link to a site then spent money on a purchase the site hosting the original ad got a percentage as it's fee or am I looking at this all backwards...

[MattF]

Just to add a bit of clarity here to anyone who thinks that this is a cheap site to run and that anyone make money on it.

I'll just add first. Never thought or suggested that. I'll just add by the way that what yourself, Nigel and the others have done is an achievement and has led to a good tech archive being achieved.

Some sites ask considerably more than the £10 annual subscription and make it mandantory to pay to post. They are then able to generate enough income to mean that they can run this as their job and take a salary from it. This is not what Nigel is proposing.

Never thought it was inferred in that vein.

They have paid subscriptions as well, plus they have lots of advertisers. Remember that Yotatech is based in the States, Off roading is very big business and they have made the decision to allow limited advertising - the difference is that due to the size of the market their limits allow them more scope than we do.

But, they do use subscriptions in the same fashion as has been used here upto just. They are a choice, and not a requirement. There are multiple avenues to at least explore before automatically going in for the subscription kill point, as, in all honesty, it sounds is going to be the case regardless.

I'll rephrase my previous 'observations', slightly more subtly. It is not good to limit peoples access to the forum in a detrimental way. You may as well just start gradually winding down. It's not that the forum is not worth subscribing to, (as shown by the fact that I and many others do subscribe), but it should remain a choice, not a requirement. Also, my apologies if I have an overly pessimistic opinion of what you're final decision will be, but you'll honestly be an exception in this area if you do decide to go with other alternatives than enforced subscription or limiting facilities to non-subscribers. Much as I'd like to believe otherwise, I'll be the first to admit that I'll be damned surprised if you even attempt another alternative first. One hopes that you do, however.

[MattF]

Isn't that how google ad sense works? I was under the impression that every time you used the link to a site then spent money on a purchase the site hosting the original ad got a percentage as it's fee or am I looking at this all backwards...

With those forms of advertising, however, they really are lowest on the lists of preference and returns.