24 Hours left for Donation Site

[Otebon Albrecht]

Attention all Furry Forum Members!

The admins of this site (Tweak and WZ) have an independent donation site running for this where you can get great perks if you donate to a certain level up to and through getting a 5-page story of your creation from me!

Go here and donate so you can get a cool perk and help the forum at the same time!

You've only got about 24 hours though, so HURRY!

[Beatnory]

sorry but I think this server is too expensive. I still don't understand why it is so expensive. a server like this can coast mabye 40 euro/year.
until I don't know why the server is so expensive, I won't donate.

[anoni]

Beatnory, the server is really expensive because the site is currently not run on a VPS, or a virtual private server. The server itself is completely physical, which means an entire computer is being reserved just for this site and that costs a lot of money. However, there is almost no benefit for not using a VPS, except that hardware can be easily changed, but as the server itself is located by an external company, changing the hardware is not usually an issue. I believe Tweak will be using a VPS now for the site, so the cost of the server will be considerably smaller and there will be almost no change to the site.

  That said we still haven't made the cost of the VPS (If we are in-fact going with a VPS) and Zephyr is going to pay for the rest of the stuff herself, she really wants people to donate as it would reduce the financial load on her. So there's a lot of reasons to donate.

  Though to be honest if we're not going with a VPS I really have some questions...

[Timmy Fox]

I literally burned $2000 just two days ago... I have like $2 left on my account now....
Too bad this doesn't last til' the end of the month...

[Beatnory]

okay I will donate. still I think that the server have to swicht to a cheap hosting.

[Tweak]

Can I just remind people that I am actually an IT professional - I do know what I'm doing.

The expense is what it is, whilst it may not be the cheapest there are distinct advantages and disadvantages to using the hardware we do use and the hardware we don't. If the forums load slowly or not correctly then it's an issue, just as much as cost is. I could get a server for $40 a month but if it isn't reliable, doesn't have good specs or has a poor network throughput we'll face more issues.

I ask for donations to help cover the cost of the hardware, something I've footed for a good few years, but they are just that - donations.

Whilst I will use any donations sparingly there are a lot of costs associated with running the forums and anything donated helps lift the financial burden from myself and Zeph. I am investigating lower-cost options but will not do anything that will negatively the forum performance.

If you don't wish to donate because you feel it isn't worth it, then don't feel you have to, the cost for something to keep everything going will be found somehow. Things are coinciding badly at present, I don't anticipate any financial issues after this year - in fact I anticipate some big changes which will make things even better. It just so happens that right now the bill is due and I don't have an income right now.

I could undoubtedly reduce costs with some work but I have very limited time, I'm spending most of my time sorting out my future income. Any spare money I do have to going towards feeding my family and keeping the lights on. Last year I was comfortable and was asking for donations so people could show their support and let me buy things for myself. This year I've emigrated to a new country and the job I have lined up and waiting is taking longer to get going than I hoped.

But trust me, the forums will benefit once I have a large enough income to afford everything. The donations this time around may well be the last we ever ask for but everything given in this round of donations will be used to keep things as they are - so that I have the time to get things improved.

Just bare with us. I wouldn't ask if it wasn't worth it and $10 from you is better than nothing. I don't expect one person to donate the entire bill. Zeph and I will put in the extra we can afford. But $10 from 200 people covers it. $1 from 2000 people does. And if you feel like giving $100, then we only need 20 people. Those people will be supporting an entire community and helping us reach out to everyone we can continue to be here for. Those supporters will not be forgotten, it's those people as well as the community which keep everything running.

[WingedZephyr]

I literally burned $2000 just two days ago... I have like $2 left on my account now....
Too bad this doesn't last til' the end of the month...

You can still donate through the forum homepage after the fundraiser is over and it will still go toward the server cost. The payment is due at the end of this month though, so it would be best if donations could be sent in before then.

[Kamoku]

I was just wondering; why not try a hosting service like GoDaddy.com?  I'm pretty sure they're not all that expensive (although I could be wrong), but I've heard a lot of good things about them.

But from what I've read it's only about $10 a month for hosting on GoDaddy.com.  Not sure about the domain and such, but I don't think domains are all that expensive either

I don't know all that much about them though, I've heard they're good, but I'm not sure if they'd be better than your current setup.  I was just trying to help (I'm not sure if this helps or not).


As for donating, I'd donate but I'm kinda broke :v (*will see what I can do though*).

[Otebon Albrecht]

And... to move away from the debate and return to the original intent...

There's only about 2 hours left! GOGOGO!

This is your last chance to get some great stuff here. Go forth and grab it!

[Timmy Fox]

Can I just remind people that I am actually an IT professional - I do know what I'm doing.

The expense is what it is, whilst it may not be the cheapest there are distinct advantages and disadvantages to using the hardware we do use and the hardware we don't. If the forums load slowly or not correctly then it's an issue, just as much as cost is. I could get a server for $40 a month but if it isn't reliable, doesn't have good specs or has a poor network throughput we'll face more issues.

I ask for donations to help cover the cost of the hardware, something I've footed for a good few years, but they are just that - donations.

Whilst I will use any donations sparingly there are a lot of costs associated with running the forums and anything donated helps lift the financial burden from myself and Zeph. I am investigating lower-cost options but will not do anything that will negatively the forum performance.

If you don't wish to donate because you feel it isn't worth it, then don't feel you have to, the cost for something to keep everything going will be found somehow. Things are coinciding badly at present, I don't anticipate any financial issues after this year - in fact I anticipate some big changes which will make things even better. It just so happens that right now the bill is due and I don't have an income right now.

I could undoubtedly reduce costs with some work but I have very limited time, I'm spending most of my time sorting out my future income. Any spare money I do have to going towards feeding my family and keeping the lights on. Last year I was comfortable and was asking for donations so people could show their support and let me buy things for myself. This year I've emigrated to a new country and the job I have lined up and waiting is taking longer to get going than I hoped.

But trust me, the forums will benefit once I have a large enough income to afford everything. The donations this time around may well be the last we ever ask for but everything given in this round of donations will be used to keep things as they are - so that I have the time to get things improved.

I understand you and I don't mind that.
The problem is that every now and then I've seen the forum go down on random times and I've had several "Internal Server Error" and 404's at times trying to access the site... Also sometimes trying to access certain pages I get errors saying the servers are under high load [...] try again later. Which I personally think with the numbers we've seen so far shouldn't really happen so much...
Just my personal opinion though..

EDIT: Just today I've had various of mentioned issues several times throughout a period of 3-4 horus.

[Nrein]

Just to add to what Timmy says, let's not forget any time there's maybe two people on, and you can't open half the pages because of "High server stress" or whatever the exact message is.