IMPORTANT Re: Future of the Forum

Xenoqueen · Post by **Xenoqueen** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:04 pm

Dev has just let me know that he won't be renewing deviant-uprising.com when the next payment is due-- he's not getting anything out of his personal website, so he wants to cut his losses and eliminate a payment.

D-U is paid up until April, though, so everyone has *plenty* of time to start making backups of anything important.

I did, however, pose Dev the option of turning over either the payment-responsibility, or even the entire website account over to us. "Deviant-uprising" might be an odd webspace name, but it would preserve all the data that has already been logged here.

The D-U name is hosted by www.lunarpages.com on the Shuttle Shared Plan, which costs $7.95 a month. That's $95.40 a year, though Dev says it cost him $110.35 for this first year of service.

He says he's willing to work with us and/or find a way to transfer the account, if it's possible for him to remove his personal information from it. So, there's an option.

Again, the site is paid through April, so there isn't an incredible hurry at the moment to decide what to do, but a decision needs to be made, so that's what I'm posing to you, the group. Stay and pay rent? Find someplace new to move to? Resume our old, free ways at the Kshau board?

Come, everyone. Speak up.

Dev · Post by **Dev** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:07 pm

Wha wha wha? That ass hole! =)
Oh wait thats me.
~Dev

Samber · Post by **Samber** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:10 pm

I... like it here. I haven't got any spare cash, though, so... *shrug*

Post by **DragonFlight** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:15 pm

Phe (or Dev), dare I ask, how much bandwidth does this board use?

Indigo · Post by **Indigo** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:17 pm

Bummer. I like this place... and I just got comfy too! :/

Well... if a few people threw in a dollar or so ever month it would be too hard to pay the bills... except there's the problem of off-months. *ponders*

Myrror · Post by **Myrror** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:32 pm

I happen to like this place to.

Of course, if it goes, giveaways would be less and less.....

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:35 pm

I'd be happy to donate 20$ to the cause of renewing the site.

It's way too much hassle to transfer stuff over, and then remember - 'oh crap that was the thread I didn't think was important enough to move!'

Dev · Post by **Dev** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:36 pm

DragonFlight wrote:Phe (or Dev), dare I ask, how much bandwidth does this board use?

The forum uses anywhere from 7 to 24 gb in text sending alone a month.

Use to be around 33% of my total bandwidth a month but I believe my plan just gave me more bandwidth recently since the numbers not anywhere near as high even though forum usage has gone up.
~Dev

Post by **DragonFlight** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:38 pm

Wow. Ok. Thanks. ^^;;; I was going to offer a move to my domain but my plan doesn't cover nearly that much bandwidth, so.....definately not. However, I do like it here, and would not be opposed to donating to help fund it. ^.^

Myrror · Post by **Myrror** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:39 pm

I'd be willing to donate too--since it's April and not this month, I may be able to just cut back on some frivilities and help a bit. ^.^

Xenoqueen · Post by **Xenoqueen** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:41 pm

::checks her pockets:: I can offer $25 for this year-- especially since the Destiny and all my characters are hosted on this space, too! Maybe I can offer a bit more than that, but since I don't have a paying job yet, I can only go by pocket-cash. ^^*

But hey, with me and Shard, that's $45 and almost half already.

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:43 pm

Yup yup. I've got a job, a checking account, and I'm not afraid to use em.

And heck, if we have to front the bills for the site as a group we could *also* set up group-oriented / site funding things like t-shirt sales at cafepress and stuff.

Myrror · Post by **Myrror** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:47 pm

Heck, I'd offer commisions if I thought I was good enough. ^^;

I don't have a checking account, but I have a prepaid debit card and a job. ^.^;

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:52 pm

You should put up stuff on Furbid, a lot of great online artists do comissions through there. Bidding for a comission can lead to quite high amounts.

And yes, darlin', you ARE good enough.

Heck, handing out 5$ sketches at a convention could net you a tidy sum.

Myrror · Post by **Myrror** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:57 pm

Hah, haha, and hah, Shard.

I'm not that good...unless I was to start drawing smut. Which I'm not (people will pay insane amounts for smut, but I have no interest in it. Bleah)

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:58 pm

I betcha I could sell your stuff on Furbid.

heh.

*promises not to start an account in Myrror's name* :p

Myrror · Post by **Myrror** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 10:09 pm

I have an account on Furbid. I just don't use it

hksherra · Post by **hksherra** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 10:15 pm

I'd donate a little money... I do paypal these days!

JKatkina · Post by **JKatkina** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 10:16 pm

I have so many excuses, but really honestly, I'm just a spoiled kid who could probably affort $10 or $15 towards a forum I love. 9.9 Problem is getting it to you.

Xalia · Post by **Xalia** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 10:30 pm

I'm currently checking up on my bandwidth allotments as I've completely forgotten what they are. If they're high enough I'd be perfectly willing to host the site on my domain for free...just give me 'til tomorrow to hear back from my hosting provider!

Mystic Dragon · Post by **Mystic Dragon** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 10:43 pm

I don't have a job yet, but I DO have a Visa card. I can donate too.

Some of us sell artwork, right? Maybe we can set up a site on the deviant-uprising domain geared towards raising money for the board. We can have a PayPal service linked to there and people can donate stuff to be sold so that we're not always taking out of our own pockets.

LakotaWolf · Post by **LakotaWolf** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 10:45 pm

I could host the board on one of my three Panelhosting accounts as well if needed... there's pretty much unlimited bandwdith on it and two of them I hardly use.

I will also donate some money towards keeping it alive if we choose to keep it elsewhere and host it :}

Astra · Post by **Astra** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 11:11 pm

My question is how much bandwidth is allotted by most of the free board hosting sites out there today? I mean, it seems strange to me that this community survived just fine on free providers before Knux came along with the old forum; I don't see why a few annoying banner ads would really hamper things TOO badly. We could also move things to a livejournal community, it would take some getting used to, but as someone (Skysong, maybe) said, it's just like a whole lot of small message boards hosted on one big server. Of course I would gladly pitch in to renew the name, but I just have to ask if it's worth it to have to start paying to do dragoning when there could be options, more friendly to the starving student many of us are, available. I have seen lots of great communities turn pay site, and it seems kind of a bummer that a lot of people who have been adopting dragons for close to a decade should have to start paying for their internet hobby. Sorry if I offended anyone, of course I will pay if it comes down to it, I just question the necessity. If all else fails, there's always Shard's yahoo group

Post by **Dray** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 11:15 pm

Smut, on furbid?! :O Who would have thought (*ducks flying objects*) XD I can probably donate $10, even if it cuts into food-monies. >_>" I love the forums and don't want to see them disappear! Besides... once I get through with all of my current image-things, perhaps I can set something up with those '$5 sketch' commishes. X3

*hugs Dev* sorry we cause ya so much traffic, and thanks for hosting us as long as you have! It really is wundabar to have such an awesome forum with such privileges! <3!

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 11:34 pm

Myself I won't use LJ for this kind of thing. It's far too badly linked and confusing to me, and yeah even though it's free and all? I can't make my way around. maybe I'm old and hard of learning.

I do have space and essentially unlimited bandwidth on my ex's site Reductio.com, though myself I have *no* idea how to even upload my own stuff let alone manage a forum board. Not sure how many people he wants having access to his account.

I wish that the geocities paid site which I have droppin-the-fork.com on wasn't limited by the geocities abilities. There's no CGI bin, so no forms, and I'd definitely say putting a forum on it would make yahoo drop a brick. I don't think we'll have any trouble scraping up enough funds to keep the domain / forum here for at least a year the way it's looking. Why don't we try for a goal of collecting about a hundred bucks for it, send what we can to whoever needs to hand it off? We've got a couple months, I don't really see a difficulty.

Xenoqueen · Post by **Xenoqueen** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 11:37 pm

Certainly, moving to a free board is an option. The primary motivation in paying for this one is so that we don't have to lose any of the information (which is a LOT) currently posted here.

The only free forum-style message-board service I know is ezboard, but that one is FLOODED with ads, so I don't recommend it at all. If anyone knows any other decent free servers, feel free to suggest them!

Cacopheny · Post by **Cacopheny** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 11:51 pm

:: waves a hand :: I kin donate ^^ $20-$25 depending on what's needed. Though as Kitty said, gotta figure out how to get it to people, and who to get it to....

Post by **DragonFlight** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 11:55 pm

I have issues with the fact that:

1) Free boards don't do backups very often. If they have a crash, we're far worse off. If anyone knows GryphonIce and her forum, Battle Prides, like two years+ worth of roleplaying history got trashed in twenty four hours because the free board backups were THAT OLD.

2) I've had free board pop ups attempt to deliver trojans onto my computer. -_-

Neishai · Post by **Neishai** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 11:59 pm

Who would we send the moolah to, Phe or Dev? I'd pitch in a few bucks here and there myself. I don't have income, but my current situation allows for spending from time to time. :3

I definitely would like to see this forum stay put, if possible. Or, if we do move, I'd like to see that we remain in a a relatively *permanent* place. For archival and linking purposes... ^^; x_x;

Xenoqueen · Post by **Xenoqueen** » Sat Jan 07, 2006 12:14 am

Currently, monies would have to be sent to Dev. I only have access to the webspace-- Dev is the one in control of the web account. We don't know yet if he could transfer it over, be it to me, or Shard, or whoever!