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I may get shot down for this, firstly those prices to keep this forum alive seem crazy surely it can be done cheaper than this ?
Some one did tell you of another company they use for far much less in your post about advert clicking, but you must have missed it as you never replied to their post. Or how about opening the forum to other bikes ? Maybe stay with Yamaha WR,MT etc It's is going to be increasingly hard to keep it open when we cater for two bikes essentially (I'm looking at the R and X being similar) |
I run a few bike related forums so know what you are going through. Some have almost been completely killd off as a result of Facebook which is not the right platform if you want to be able to actually find any usefull information.
Over the years, I amanaged the costs by using a webhost like one.com (�30-ish/yr) and then using an open source forum engine which is free. It seems to me like a big chunk of the problem is the v-bulletin forum and costs. The more they have a grip of you the harder it is to get away. There are convertion tool available to allow you to convert the v-bulletin forum configuration to an open source forum engine like Simple Machines forum ( http://www.simplemachines.org). The V-Strom.co.uk did exactly that a few years ago for the same reasons. ( http://www.v-strom.co.uk/smf/index.php) The only thing about that is that you make have to accept loosing some of the cusomisation of the forum and probably the likes of the user gallery integration but the value of the forum is in the posts themselves and the information they contain not in the bells and whistles. Al. P.S. I use phpBB3 for all my forums and try and keep them fairly vanilla for maintainability (see VTR1000.org ) for example. I've done a bit of searching around and there are 3rd part companies that offer a conversion service for a reasonable one off cost - http://gconverters.com/start/ Al. |
I also think that is the right way to go.
And it will also really reduce the costs of the site because v-bulletin is expensive. phpBB is a good and free alternative. If you need any help with this just ask. |
I have no issue paying a bit more of a subscription,where are we at with regards to what we need to raise at the min?
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Plus 1. I have donated before and i will do so again. If all forum members together worldwide would donate equally, then this GBP 1200 cannot be a dealbreaker, can it?
And with an annual contribution it should be possible to keep this great forum alive. That is my opinion at least. Make it an international XT club perhaps and start with some annual contribution. Nothing wrong with the Captain getting some payment in return for all of your efforts here on this forum. |
I never think about donating as I never see the key for it..
i come into the forum hit the new posts tab... I very rearly go anywhere ealse in the forum... Maybe it needs to be moved so it's in yer face... ... |
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Surely everyone would pay towards it,it�s got far too much info help to just die like that?! Keep us informed as to what we could do to keep it ok? |
As I've said several times, without putting your hand in your pockets and donating your hard earned cash you can provide
A LOT of help if you were all to spend at least 10 min of your day, every day or every other day clicking randomly on our advert banners as explained in this link
https://www.xt660.com/showthread.php?t=20688 If you do that regularly this generates an average of �100 per month which covers the running costs but not the money I have invested in the website by hiring a tight arsed website developer that charged me for every letter, comma and dot written on that page. What happens next is people see this request to click on the banner they do it for a day or two then they get bored and we dip right back into the red. Look there's a lot of members in this forum which are active, a large numbers are dormant or have moved on to greener pastures, sold their bikes or other and are not bothering to log in? Soon enough we will carry a purge, deleting all members that have not visited nor logged in the forum for the last 4 years. That's a long enough period of time and means they are no longer interested after all if they want to come back they can always re-join. But I can't stress enough if these banners are not used and the revenues are not received than I have to implement my closure plan as I cannot keep on running this at a loss. |
Francis, it is a human habit to forget about things we don't really like to do, like clicking banners. Indeed that will work for 2 days max, then fades away.
I would like to suggest to first make sure with ALL active XT660.com members that you get back the money you have lost in running this show. If we all join in, that should not be an issue, it will only be a small amount per person. Have one less beer in the pub and donate that amount i would say. You are running a wonderful forum for the whole XT660-community and it makes no sense that you should lose money doing all this. I am in to cover for the expenses made so far. Who else is in? Second: i would agree with a small annual contribution for every user of this forum, to take this problem out of the world in the future. Again, i am in... Would be a shame to see this site going down forever. |
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