[admin]

As everyone knows, the Forum experienced downtime on Friday April 1st 2005 up until April 2nd 2005 mainly due to the high traffic and server load caused by the IRS leak story.

We have also had an unusual amount of traffic on the Forum in the last few weeks since other GNR related forums have been down because of hosting problems.

I will have to move from a "Professional host" ($$ per month) to a "dedicated host" (US$219 minimum per month).

I will have to find ways to keep the Forum financially viable. In other words, I will have to find ways to generate (hopefully) as much money as I will be charged monthly. This could include having discrete ads, putting up a small link ad (non sexual) that links to an XXX links website, putting up casino ads, and/or charging members to have a signature or increased PM storage space for example. No decisions have been taken yet, so I don't exclude any possibility.

If I could avoid ads I would. The "donations" trial came up with only $10 in the last 7 days. Needless to say, this does not even cover a fraction of what I will need to cover the monthly hosting charges. On a few occasions, some people have thought that I was making money running the Forum, this is not the case. And anyone who knows websites and hosting knows it's not the case.

Having popup ads is out of the question. I hate those. I would prefer having something small that members can easily ignore if they choose to.

Over the years (and in the past month) other popular GNR related Forums have run into the exact same problem because of the hosting problems/costs. Some Forums have even closed for this reason.

GNR FANS enjoy having access to "good" and "popular" Forums where everyone can go to (the COMMUNITY), but the problem is that as the Forum gets real popular, it gets extremely costly for their Webmasters to pay the monthly hosting charges.

Before moving to the dedicated hosting, I need to find a viable way to sustain the high monthly charges.

Any ideas/comments/suggestions from members are appreciated

-what do you think?
-have any ideas?
-think you can help?

I thank everyone of you for your continued support.

Let it be clear that it is my intention to continue to run the most popular GNR related Forum but that losing a minimum of US$219 per month is out of my budget.

[GnRmaniac]

Looks like were all going to have to make a donation,if we want to keep the forum.

[Binge_And_Slash]

I could live with pop-ups and casino ads, but you hate them, and as you said are out of the equation.

Links up the top could cover it.
Or you could...........Sell the message board to GnRonline.com (or another company)

[Lindy]

GnRmaniac, on Apr 3 2005, 08:23 PM, said:

Looks like were all going to have to make a donation,if we want to keep the forum.

It seems a bit like it yeah.
Although, it's a bit hard because many of us are young people who doesn't have like 100 kr to throw out on the forum everyday (100kr is around 10 pounds anyway! Don't know in dollars though.).
I do also think that it can be kind of hard for people from other places than the United States of America to donate, although that is just a guess.
I don't know much about money and all, but ha, I figure Eric can't do much with some weird kind of money, other than dollars.
Like I said though, it's just a thought, I have no idea.

[Cynebearn]

if you have adds for big companies with loads of monney it will probably cover it. and when the yget to know that the forum has a shitload of members they will probably have no problem finansing the site for you. (if they get a good add)

edit: 1 dollar is about 7 kroner (norwegian value. swedish is almost the same)

This post has been edited by Cynebearn: 03 April 2005 - 02:31 PM

[*bad obsession*]

whatever u need to do to keep it up.

[Lindy]

Binge_And_Slash, on Apr 3 2005, 08:26 PM, said:

Or you could...........Sell the message board to GnRonline.com (or another company)

Actually that doesn't sound too dumb.
Mand Eric you should try that really you know.
Like let you rule it and them owning it.
That's nearly even clever.

[Shia0bundan]

I would make a donation, but I don't have a paypal account, and there's no way my parents would ever set up and account for me to donate to an internet forum.

I know Eric isn't trying to make money off of us (people on other forums imply this ). Lots of forums do this.

I don't mind extra ads on the forum at all. They probably would bother some people, but its definately better than not having a forum!

[Aqueous_Transmission]

i guess if they money isnt raised then pop ups and adds will be the only way to keep the forum up and running. However people like moi (too young to get a proper job) just dont have enough money to dish out over the internet i know myself im not allowed to just fill in my bank details over the net and give money and im sure its the same with a few others

anyways i think having popups and adds is better than no forum at all - i hope it wont end up like that

[funky_metal]

i think you would loose alot of members if you started to charge but asking peple to dontate a little is a good idea

[madison]

funky_metal, on Apr 3 2005, 03:08 PM, said:

i think you would loose alot of members if you started to charge but asking peple to dontate a little is a good idea

Eric is not talking about charging members.
One of his options was to charge if a member wanted extra storage space for pms. Regular members who don't want or need extra storage space would not be charged.

However, he does want people's opinions about ads -- the kind of ads that members would consider OK -- whether it's casinos, T-Shirts, or whatever. One of his proposals suggests links to porn ads (which I strongly disagree with since many members are under the age of 18).

Also, if there are other ways that anyone knows about to help Eric raise the cash to cover the higher hosting costs, that would be greatly appreciated. There are some sites that have banner ads, etc. -- so if anyone has any suggestions, that would be great.

[atto]

I disagree with the idea of XXX ads as well. Even links to those sites.

But banners, and square ads of other types wouldn't bother me. As long as they don't have any kind of Adware/Spyware, I'm fine.

[matt_barker]

are non-members allowed to browse the forum?

[DopeSickGirl]

I'd be happy to donate if thats what will keep the forum going. I don't mind the idea of ads either as long as theres no wiruses/spywere n stuff like that.

[yesilikegnr]

This sucks. I'd be willing to donate a bit, but I'm not so sure my parents would go for it.

As for the ads I don't really mind them, XXX ads might not be good for some people though.