This has turned in to a very good guitar site and the membership is always growing. The last thing we would like to see is it's disappearance. A donation from members will help keep this from happening and help the mods keep the board in tip/top shape. And they accept paypal.... already made my donation.
The little forum that could...
Over the last year the forum has slowly been getting it's feet off the ground. As of today our membership is 1600.
Scott (aka. GuitarsCanada) started the site a little over a year ago now. It was something he did for the fun of it, but it gets a little traffic now.
:banana:
Unfortunately he foots the bill for the most part. He does get some monetary help from those pesky Google Ads we have all come to love. A few dealers have also done some advertising. A few members have already made donations. That said the 1 year bill for internet bandwidth alone was $900.
So I was hoping that maybe some of our members could make small donations to help cover the cost. No benefits or preferred status comes from these donations, it's just a gift to keep a forum you enjoy running.
Scott really didn't want to ask for money, and has no intentions of closing the forum either way, so I decided to start the thread on his behalf. I've also discussed with him disclosing funds raised to make everyone feel like a team. It's good to know the money is being spent on the forum not his numerous trips with the lovely Marnacious. :tongue:
For those interested, there's a donation button available on the main forum page. Every little bit helps.
One last thing:
We do have more contests lined up once the current one ends Mar 31st. And we will try to keep them coming to the best of our ability. And please support our dealers that are nice enough to donate prizes whenever you can!
Jeff
Scott (aka. GuitarsCanada) started the site a little over a year ago now. It was something he did for the fun of it, but it gets a little traffic now.
:banana:
Unfortunately he foots the bill for the most part. He does get some monetary help from those pesky Google Ads we have all come to love. A few dealers have also done some advertising. A few members have already made donations. That said the 1 year bill for internet bandwidth alone was $900.
So I was hoping that maybe some of our members could make small donations to help cover the cost. No benefits or preferred status comes from these donations, it's just a gift to keep a forum you enjoy running.
Scott really didn't want to ask for money, and has no intentions of closing the forum either way, so I decided to start the thread on his behalf. I've also discussed with him disclosing funds raised to make everyone feel like a team. It's good to know the money is being spent on the forum not his numerous trips with the lovely Marnacious. :tongue:
For those interested, there's a donation button available on the main forum page. Every little bit helps.
One last thing:
We do have more contests lined up once the current one ends Mar 31st. And we will try to keep them coming to the best of our ability. And please support our dealers that are nice enough to donate prizes whenever you can!
Jeff
1 - 20 of 43 Posts
I haven't posted here very often, but I check in several times a day. It's great to see the site do well and many of the folks on it have some very good info. Keep it going, donation made. :smilie_flagge17:
Jeff snuck that one in there on me. But he speaks the truth. As this thing grows, so does the bandwidth and cost. We are also planning upgrades to the server and continued updates to vBulletin. There are also add ons that can be done in the future to make it even better for everyone.
Would be nice to make enough dough to offset our trips.... but that will never happen. The intention is strictly to keep the forum going. I would certainly be willing to share any financial data obtained from donations etc.
Would be nice to make enough dough to offset our trips.... but that will never happen. The intention is strictly to keep the forum going. I would certainly be willing to share any financial data obtained from donations etc.
I remember a little over a year ago TheGearPage almost went down because of financial and technical problems and I never want to see that happen to the good people that run this site. I'm honored that I can make a donation to help out this great forum and I hope that others will jump on the wagon.
Very kind words, and much appreciated. We have been very fortunate to get a lot of great people here. It has so far gone beyond our expectations. We will continue to try and make it a safe harbour for all.
$900, 1600 members? $1/ member = $1600, $2/member =$3200
If 10% of members use it most, $10 / high use member = $1600
This is really not very much considering the size of the membership. Cheap
If 10% of members use it most, $10 / high use member = $1600
This is really not very much considering the size of the membership. Cheap
I own a small IT Consulting /web hosting company (www.hammtech.ca), I would be willing to donate time, space and bandwidth to the cause.
(edit: remove the "if statement' from the following paragraph)
If that does not work for you, I would not be opposed to the idea that dealers should pay a monthly or yearly membership fee. This forum is a valuable resource for me and I make some business decisions based on some of the information that I find in it regarding what players like, dislike and may want in a product.
You should consider putting together a dealer package to at least cover your costs. I for one have no problem with the owners and admins making a profit for the time that they invest in keeping this fourm up and running, in fact I think you should be compensated for your efforts.
I obviously can't speak for any other dealers, but I would not have any problem paying the site directly for things like my banner ads (I pay google and have targeted this site directly). A monthly fee is definately not out of the question for me.
(edit: remove the "if statement' from the following paragraph)
If that does not work for you, I would not be opposed to the idea that dealers should pay a monthly or yearly membership fee. This forum is a valuable resource for me and I make some business decisions based on some of the information that I find in it regarding what players like, dislike and may want in a product.
You should consider putting together a dealer package to at least cover your costs. I for one have no problem with the owners and admins making a profit for the time that they invest in keeping this fourm up and running, in fact I think you should be compensated for your efforts.
I obviously can't speak for any other dealers, but I would not have any problem paying the site directly for things like my banner ads (I pay google and have targeted this site directly). A monthly fee is definately not out of the question for me.
Absolutely wonderful forum. Period.
Lot's of good ideas and suggestions. All are welcome too. It's still all new to me and I need to sit down and look hard at what the best options are. I am going to talk to my current providers. They are friends of mine from London and helped me launch the original site years ago. The usage was always pretty steady and while it grew the first 4 years it is nothing like what this forum has done. They recently contacted me about moving to a new server, upgraded service. I will discuss with them the pricing structure and see what the best thing is.
I have stayed away from charging anyone anything, either for the for sale forum, memberships or dealers. Would prefer to keep it that way if we can. I will take a hard look at things and see what we can do.
I have stayed away from charging anyone anything, either for the for sale forum, memberships or dealers. Would prefer to keep it that way if we can. I will take a hard look at things and see what we can do.
The TDPRI forums has a great system for fundraisers. The dealers/advertisers donate a few prizes, and they have a raffle. You pay a certain amount for an entry (or multiple entries). I know they do really well with their fundraising that way. The dealers get advertising, the members get a chance to win prizes, and the forum gets funding. Everyone is happy.
Also a very good idea, we could do that kind of thing here. Lot's of good ideas. Appreciate them all.
I would guess they get around by the wording of it. It's not called a "raffle', just a 'donation drive' I believe. I don't know all of the specifics, but that site has a massive user base (13,000 members), and they have been doing it for years. So there has to be some way they do it.
Great forums, I'd donate, but i'm sort of broke, jobless, and a teenager.
And you thought your fourties were tough
And you thought your fourties were tough
Ain't that the truth?jroberts said:Trust me, when you're in your fourties, you'll wish you were a broke, jobless teenager again.
Regarding bandwidth usage, an administrator at another forum I frequent says linking images uses more bandwidth then uploading images directly to the site?
This might be something to consider?
This might be something to consider?
Interesting, I assumed the opposite. But I guess that makes sense. Uploading the file is using file space, not bandwidth. Drawing in all these pictures and stuff would use bandwidth.
He's wrong. The source of the picture is providing the bandwidth not the forum.ne1roc said:Regarding bandwidth usage, an administrator at another forum I frequent says linking images uses more bandwidth then uploading images directly to the site?
This might be something to consider?
A picture is a simple html link, the forum doesn't grab the picture and then redisplay it.
Jeff's is right, the pictures that are externally linked should not be using GC's bandwidth as it is using client side bandwidth to pull thoses images from elsewhere.
If you want to know where the bandwidth is going, check your server logs. There are a tonne of packages (webalizer being installed by default on most apache servers) that will allow you to view your logs graphically and determine where changes would be most appropriate.
If you want to know where the bandwidth is going, check your server logs. There are a tonne of packages (webalizer being installed by default on most apache servers) that will allow you to view your logs graphically and determine where changes would be most appropriate.
I thought that was already set at 50. I will see what it is.jroberts said:It would be nice if PM limits could be raised for those who donate. Maybe from 15 to 50 or something.
1 - 20 of 43 Posts
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