Progarchives.com has always (since 2002) relied on banners ads to cover web hosting fees and all.
Please consider supporting us by giving monthly PayPal donations and help keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.
/PAlogo_v2.gif "Progarchives.com Homepage") |
|
Post Reply 
|
Page <123 |
| Author | |||
Rivertree 
Special Collaborator 
Honorary Collaborator / Band Submissions Joined: March 22 2006 Location: Germany Status: Offline Points: 17667 |
 Posted: December 10 2007 at 06:18 |
||
|
For the first moment it's hard to believe. You are working for this site many hours per week and then you are asked for donation.
I'm blocking the ads so personally they are no problem for me - but the costs for running this site are a fact on the other hand. After some hours time to think about this it looks like a solution which is acceptable, but only with a clear policy - donations are strictly voluntary - anonymity and avoidance of any competition like this: 'I'm paying for the site - my words are more important ...' - an easy and secure way to pay - informations about the costs and the donations amount for the promotional side of the story I would prefer to open a poll in the Collab area after some time of discussion ... Edited by Rivertree - December 10 2007 at 06:27 |
|||
 |
|||
 |
|||
|
Raff
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: July 29 2005 Location: None Status: Offline Points: 24439 |
Posted: December 10 2007 at 06:23 |
||
 I second that motion. Please let's avoid ANY opportunity to increase the already existing levels of competition in the Collab ranks. What we all want is our site to prosper and get better and better, not to have any personal gain from this. |
|||
|
|||
|
A B Negative
Forum Senior Member 
Joined: May 02 2006 Location: Methil Republic Status: Offline Points: 1594 |
Posted: December 10 2007 at 06:28 |
||
|
If I'd had to pay to access PA when I first found it, I wouldn't be here now.
|
|||
|
"The disgusting stink of a too-loud electric guitar.... Now, that's my idea of a good time."
|
|||
|
|||
|
Raff
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: July 29 2005 Location: None Status: Offline Points: 24439 |
Posted: December 10 2007 at 06:34 |
||
|
No one is suggesting to make PA a pay site. The contributions would be strictly on a VOLUNTARY basis, and no one would be prevented from participating to the site's life if they choose not to contribute. We don't want to see PA become an exclusive club - we just want to prevent problems that are interfering with people's enjoyment of the site, as well as giving it a bad reputation.
|
|||
|
|||
|
Sean Trane
Special Collaborator
Prog Folk Joined: April 29 2004 Location: Heart of Europe Status: Offline Points: 20682 |
Posted: December 10 2007 at 07:45 |
||
Indeed, Micky's go a good point and so does ManOver.
Furthermore, I'm not sure Admins shouldn't unhook theseaddblocks once in a while to get a full picture of how the site looks to most unintiated members.
This is of course very correct questions... I can see where thousands of housewives have homepages or sites sharing cleaning tricks and cooking tips and cannot imagine that they pay up a lot just to maintain the perfect housewive's vanity .
Ihave no idea how expensive it isin any countrey, but I gather than any site with the .com suffix is not free either and certainly more the a .be or .de address
|
|||
|
let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
|||
|
|||
|
Tony R
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin Joined: July 16 2004 Location: UK Status: Offline Points: 11985 |
Posted: December 10 2007 at 07:59 |
||
|
It is the server that costs money, ie the place where all the pages and databases for the site are stored and maintained. It's like renting apartment space..
As for unhooking the adblocks, not on my own computer no way! I got a virus from here once and it isnt going to happen again. When I visit the gym I use the computer there and I can see all the ads. |
|||
|
|||
|
Sean Trane
Special Collaborator
Prog Folk Joined: April 29 2004 Location: Heart of Europe Status: Offline Points: 20682 |
Posted: December 10 2007 at 08:06 |
||
And I would imagine reserving a large bandwidth for quick loading is not exactly cheap either
OK , fair enough
  |
|||
|
let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
|||
|
|||
|
MikeEnRegalia
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: April 22 2005 Location: Sweden Status: Offline Points: 21820 |
Posted: December 10 2007 at 08:34 |
||
|
^ Of course websites aren't free ... I was trying to explain that when you rent a server at www.hetzner.de all the traffic is free of charge. That's what I do with Ratingfreak.com, and it costs me about 50 EUR / month with no additional cost.
Of course Progarchives.com is a lot bigger than my website, but it's the same principle. |
|||
|
|||
|
MikeEnRegalia
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: April 22 2005 Location: Sweden Status: Offline Points: 21820 |
Posted: December 10 2007 at 11:04 |
||
|
Just out of curiosity: How much traffic are we talking about? If traffic fees are the main issue than much could be safed by replacing mp3 streaming songs with myspace links ...
|
|||
|
|||
|
Peter
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: January 31 2004 Location: Canada Status: Offline Points: 9669 |
Posted: December 10 2007 at 18:48 |
||
|
I'm not quite sure if I'd "pay to play," as it were....
I might.
 Just wondering, and as a non-techno type guy, how much bandwidth/computer space stuff those big pictures in every second poster's signatures eat up? I know that pages can take quite a while to load at work, and when I see what the reason for the delay is, it's a photo (or photos).
Would curtailing the use of sig photos help reduce operating costs? (I ask mainly because I don't know how to add one to my sig
 -- that, plus I get sick of looking at the same photos over and over! )How about removing all metal from the site?
 Just KIDDING, Mike!
 |
|||
|
"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' He chortled in his joy. |
|||
|
|||
|
Padraic
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: February 16 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Status: Offline Points: 31169 |
Posted: December 10 2007 at 19:02 |
||
Doesn't seem like it would be a tremendous bandwidth hog, and the sig images are links to other websites...no images are actually stored on the progarchives server. Costs probably reflect the sheer number of visitors, and since it's a worldwide audience it's on a 24/7 basis (no real lulls). |
|||
|
|||
|
Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: December 10 2007 at 19:06 |
||
First, you need a great big magnet...
 |
|||
|
What?
|
|||
|
|||
|
stonebeard
Forum Senior Member
Joined: May 27 2005 Location: NE Indiana Status: Offline Points: 28057 |
Posted: December 11 2007 at 00:03 |
||
|
Delete all the Velvet rooms and posts. That'll save a good $15,000/day.
|
|||
|
|||
|
Easy Money
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin Joined: August 11 2007 Location: Memphis Status: Offline Points: 10743 |
Posted: December 11 2007 at 00:28 |
||
|
Yeah its easy to get attacked by a virus on this site, but after a while you learn what to do and not to do.
Never go to the "silly story" via email notification, in fact going to anything via email notification is always risky. If I do get hit by a virus I move fast to shut it down, no big deal. I think Darqdean's previous post hit on some truly "progressive" solutions. The post on page 1 that is, not the "magnet solution" on page 3. Edited by Easy Money - December 11 2007 at 00:32 |
|||
|
|||
|
Sean Trane
Special Collaborator
Prog Folk Joined: April 29 2004 Location: Heart of Europe Status: Offline Points: 20682 |
Posted: December 11 2007 at 05:58 |
||
but then again,PA would not only lose its #83 place of most visted music sites, but drop out of the top 2000 with such a tuseless raffic loss
|
|||
|
let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
|||
|
|||
|
MikeEnRegalia
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: April 22 2005 Location: Sweden Status: Offline Points: 21820 |
Posted: December 11 2007 at 06:57 |
||
I guess we could try to replace the heavy metal with lighter materials like aluminum ... |
|||
|
|||
|
Tapfret
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin Joined: August 12 2007 Location: Bryant, Wa Status: Offline Points: 8641 |
Posted: December 11 2007 at 11:36 |
||
Problem is, then you could really only build a "Soft Machine".
BTW, isn't the donation option alrerady available?
|
|||
|
|||
|
Sean Trane
Special Collaborator
Prog Folk Joined: April 29 2004 Location: Heart of Europe Status: Offline Points: 20682 |
Posted: December 11 2007 at 11:39 |
||
Micky had said so in page 1 or 2 of this thread.
|
|||
|
let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
|||
|
|||
|
Easy Livin
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin Joined: February 21 2004 Location: Scotland Status: Offline Points: 15585 |
Posted: December 11 2007 at 14:38 |
||
|
Thanks for all the feedback folks, it has been very useful. At the moment, it looks like the site will continue to be funded by Ads, but the food for thought provided here may lead to some more inventive solutions in the future.
M@x has taken steps to eradicate the recent Malware incident which affected us. We were by no means the only major site to be affected, it was sophisticated attack on the Internet. More information on it can be found here:http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/13/doubleclick_distributes_malware/
Please keep the thoughts on this subject coming, they are appreciated.
I think we should recognise M@x's commitment here to listening to the site membership. There are few websites of this size where the views of the memebrs are taken so seriously.
|
|||
|
|||
|
micky
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: October 02 2005 Location: . Status: Offline Points: 46843 |
Posted: December 11 2007 at 23:13 |
||
|
I applaud M@X for at least listening ..again.. to our suggestions... and hope
that sicking with these ads doesn't bite the site in the ass in
the long run.... if this problem... in another form... comes back
again. Imagine how stupid the people that defended this site
might feel....... Donations would have worked... but M@X
knows best. and we move on to other issues.
Edited by micky - December 11 2007 at 23:15 |
|||
|
The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip
|
|||
|
|||
|
Post Reply
|
Page <123 |
| Forum Jump | Forum Permissions You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot create polls in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum |
Ads or subscriptions?
Topic Options
Rivertree wrote:
