give up control of sciforums?

[cato]

I think control of sciforums should be given up to moderators, or someone/anyone who will keep it from crashing.

the appeal of this site is that you can have an idea and within 5 minutes jump on the net and ask people what they think about it. that can hardly be done when the site is down.

what do you think??

[dsdsds]

sciforums coup d'état!

[cato]

yeah? so? its either that or we move to thescienceforum.com.

p.s. I am not sure dave realizes how much we care about this site. I think he needs to share his problems more.

[§outh§tar]

Well I'm not sure is that easy. Payment and upkeep of this site have to be considered.

cato, are you able to (help) pay for this sites upkeep?

With the number of members we have, if every member contributed 75 cents a month I think any administrator would have incentive to be a little more.. caring? I don't think any of our current mods are willing to take up the burden.

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

[Porfiry]

You wanna pay for it, it's all yours.

[cato]

lol, good response =]. when I posted it I was under the impression that you didn't care about the site anymore. financial difficulties are a different story.

[Cris]

Dave,

What are the costs?

[vslayer]

$3000/year, which wolud be possible if every active member donated $2/month

[cato]

is it really 3k a year? what did the google banners bring in when they were up? maybe we could all make a pact to click a few times every visit. come to think of it, why can't we get google banners back again? they shut them off, but did they ban you from having banners?

p.s. my dsl gives me a new ip every time I turn it off and on, I could generate $2 a day at .05 a click easy (I imagine you have to be a unique hit to count).

p.p.s. (in)sanity says he has server space, talk to him and see if he has enough to host your for less than 3k/yr

[Porfiry]

maybe we could all make a pact to click a few times every visit. come to think of it, why can't we get google banners back again?

You answered your own question. It's called fraud. It was precisely this zealotry by our own members that ruined it all for everyone.

[everneo]

Its funny. Are we supposed to click the ads or not? Can explain how it is a fraud to visit the page an ad redirects?!

[cato]

wait, but wasn't it just the sudden increase in clicks that cause the problem? in that case, if we gradually increase the clicks it should be fine, shouldn't it? or was it that people only visited the advertised websites for a few seconds? or was it that the same IP addresses repeatedly clicked?

question for profry: can you get google adds back? or was it a permanent thing?

[sargentlard]

Why not make payment a mandatory thing after a certain amount of posts. Let's say 300. If you still feel like being around after 300 posts then pay up....something minimal.

Sock puppets will be banned.

[dsdsds]

Again, simply put a donation button! And a Fund-O-Meter indicating progress for the yearly goal.

[Avatar]

Why not make payment a mandatory thing after a certain amount of posts. Let's say 300. If you still feel like being around after 300 posts then pay up....something minimal.

Sock puppets will be banned.

And what about members who don't have a credit card or live in a country supported by PayPal?

[Hoth]

It shouldn't cost $3000/year, so long as search engine spiders are controlled to prevent excessive load. A decent dedicated server should only be $1000-$1500/year, and I expect the forums could run on a good VPS for $500/year.

[Closet Philosopher]

Can someone clarify something please?

Is the forum going down for good? or not?

[cato]

I don't know. I would like to know that and how short we are of banner sustainment. if the banners got us 80% then people might be willing to donate the extra 20 (or 30 or whatever)

[Cris]

I don't believe money is the real issue here. Dave has been running this site for quite a few years now but I am sure he has many other interests, he is a very bright individual, so it is quite reasonable to assume he has lost interest in this particular venture for the moment.

And I have observed that he doesn't particularly want to share the site, or info about the site, with anyone else. If the cost had been a real hardship for him then this site would have closed long ago. I suspect he is gaining some benefit from "owning such a site" and perhaps there is a longer term benefit.

For my part I have enjoyed being a guest here and the many years of reliable uninterrupted service, until recently. The recent downtime has encouraged me to seek other sites, although none are quite as good as this site has been, but they can evolve and grow as this did. I find that high availability is high priority since I enjoy being able to drop in at any time and read and post as I feel inclined. The recent very long downtimes have been significantly inconvenient and I do not see any guarantee forthcoming that they won't occur again soon.

The site exists because Dave gains some pleasure from it so I don't feel I owe him anything and he doesn't owe me anything. And without some indication of future reliable service I am certainly not inclined to engage in any serious debates that I have in the past, and risk losing access to many hours of creative writing.

So with that in mind I believe I will pursue activities at www.thescienceforum.com instead, where the owner does appear to be actively engaged and genuninely enthusiastic.

Cris

[Neildo]

Heck, I'm all for tossing in $2 a month as that's nothing compared to the wealth of knowledge I learn on these forums. Heck, that's a little more than the price of a Sunday's newspaper. Lemme weigh the two. Info gained in a Sundays paper vs info gained on Sciforums. No question about it! I feel I've lost a few IQ points each time Sciforums has been shut down, heh.

- N