CentralMOBuck
Assistant Coach
As long as ads don't end up looking like what VwVortex has I am fine with them.
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Jake
Once a Buckeye, always a Buckeye
‘17 The Deuce Champ
Fantasy Baseball Champ
'18 The Deuce Champ
I'm late seeing this but here are my two cents. I work for a 501(c)3 and sit on the boards of two others. I'm not an attorney, but as a CPA I have an idea of how the IRS looks at them. Many people create non-profits solely to avoid taxes so your stated charitable purpose had better be what you say it is, as opposed to a means to operate a sports website. I'm not saying that's your intent, I'm saying they'll see it that way if it benefits their goals and you'll have to prove them wrong. They may not get to you quickly, but they'll get you eventually and the fines/taxes will be retroactive if you don't prevail.
I don't have a problem with ads in that I can't think of a website that doesn't have them. No one "likes" them, but most understand those annoying ads are what make so many sites "free" to the user. It's part of doing business, just like having to sit through 90 minutes of ads to watch the Bucks play 60 minutes of football.
I don't have a problem with ads in that I can't think of a website that doesn't have them. No one "likes" them, but most understand those annoying ads are what make so many sites "free" to the user. It's part of doing business, just like having to sit through 90 minutes of ads to watch the Bucks play 60 minutes of football.
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ExpatAkronite
Cascadia Subduction Zone
I understand the costs involved with running this kind of site but......
I won't use paypal. Maybe I'm the only one. If there was almost any other option I'd use it (shit! even just found one of those paper things with numbers on the bottom....just need the paper thing it goes into....and one of those things you need to lick....and someplace to send it to).
At the same time I see people discounting the opinions of posters because they have no banners. Good or bad that is not a model for growth (if the goal is to remain a free site).
My humble 2 cents (not collectible by paypal).
I won't use paypal. Maybe I'm the only one. If there was almost any other option I'd use it (shit! even just found one of those paper things with numbers on the bottom....just need the paper thing it goes into....and one of those things you need to lick....and someplace to send it to).
At the same time I see people discounting the opinions of posters because they have no banners. Good or bad that is not a model for growth (if the goal is to remain a free site).
My humble 2 cents (not collectible by paypal).
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Curious
How many members have logged in within the last 12 mths?
How many members have contributed within the last 12 mths?
You can point that one straight at me... and only my opinion, I don't think growth is an issue... but a higher contributors/members % is... $8-10K expense per year is not a 'free site' ..
Sincere thanks you're stepping up... and BTW, you've always been an exception for me in reading content without banners cuz we're both ex-Akronites
How many members have logged in within the last 12 mths?
How many members have contributed within the last 12 mths?
You can point that one straight at me... and only my opinion, I don't think growth is an issue... but a higher contributors/members % is... $8-10K expense per year is not a 'free site' ..
Sincere thanks you're stepping up... and BTW, you've always been an exception for me in reading content without banners cuz we're both ex-Akronites
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Please know that payment via PayPal is not a requirement. We have a number of members who prefer to pay via cash or check. If you would still like to donate using one of those methods, let me know and I'll PM you the information. Thank you. :)
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This right here. There's no reason why we have to struggle every year to make the goal.
LB is right. I myself have always sent them a check when making a donation...
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ExpatAkronite
Cascadia Subduction Zone
Well that's good to know. Would have donated a long time ago (might be helpful to put that up somewhere). So, yes PM me the info please. Cheers!
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We're on AWS and off our old boxes. Onward!
I've spent some time tonight fixing little issues here and there; there may be others. If you see something that's borked, please let me know here or in the Administrative forum thread.
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I've spent some time tonight fixing little issues here and there; there may be others. If you see something that's borked, please let me know here or in the Administrative forum thread.
Known issues:
Ads aren't loading
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lowbuck
mark it zero
If you're trying to save money with AWS forget about it. AWS is more expensive than dedicated servers at a colo. The only solutions we opt for AWS is when we need to pay that premium because we have a solution that needs that elasticity to scale up and down, or if it is just a temporary solution so we don't need dedicated solution. For example, if its a site that could get a Reddit or Slashdot front page from time to time, then you need to be able to scale between that average, manageable load and the unmanageable load from a huge traffic surge. When you have a predictable traffic patterns, and I would imagine this forum does, having a dedicated server is the most cost effective approach and I would argue even less maintenance. A lot of savings comes in bandwidth. For instance the company I uses essentially has 100mpbs unmetered included for free on all servers by default. You can transfer at 1gbps, I'm just saying the bandwidth that is included for free would cost you over $2,000/mo with Amazon. For a dedicated server for a forum I would not be colo'ing my own hardware though. You really should be leasing the dedicated server itself.
As far as expenses, I will preface by saying I can't say for certain how much traffic you are getting, but I can try to estimate it based on the on the views against the age of the posts and assume a 50/50 split between registered and unregistered traffic. If my estimates are anywhere close you should be able to easily host this forum for about $400/mo, perhaps as little as $200/mo but no more than $600/mo all-in. Nothing to buy upfront or maintain. You would surprised just how much traffic you can push with modern hardware and a well configured web server with caching (I prefer nginx to Apache or Apache + Varnish for this site), not mention tuning the database. It does not take a cluster of servers to handle a forum of this size when setup well, a single server can be more than adequate.
If you are set on the cloud at give Google a look. GCE is cheaper than EC2 and GCE actually does some things better in the way you can manage storage and such with instances than EC2 does.
If you want drop me a PM and I can put you in touch with a company I've leased many servers from over the last 10 years. Their prices are some of the best around, zero problems and always good support. Heck, I depending on my backlog I could even volunteer to help you configure, migrate and stress test the hell out of it.
As far as expenses, I will preface by saying I can't say for certain how much traffic you are getting, but I can try to estimate it based on the on the views against the age of the posts and assume a 50/50 split between registered and unregistered traffic. If my estimates are anywhere close you should be able to easily host this forum for about $400/mo, perhaps as little as $200/mo but no more than $600/mo all-in. Nothing to buy upfront or maintain. You would surprised just how much traffic you can push with modern hardware and a well configured web server with caching (I prefer nginx to Apache or Apache + Varnish for this site), not mention tuning the database. It does not take a cluster of servers to handle a forum of this size when setup well, a single server can be more than adequate.
If you are set on the cloud at give Google a look. GCE is cheaper than EC2 and GCE actually does some things better in the way you can manage storage and such with instances than EC2 does.
If you want drop me a PM and I can put you in touch with a company I've leased many servers from over the last 10 years. Their prices are some of the best around, zero problems and always good support. Heck, I depending on my backlog I could even volunteer to help you configure, migrate and stress test the hell out of it.
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