funding a dedicated server

Geocaching Australia governance issues
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Coffee and Cache
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Post by Coffee and Cache » 13 August 08 7:49 pm

As has been said before, I don't think you can ignore the fact that many users would be unaware of the issue. I read the forum fairly regularly and this issue didn't register with me until yesterday. If you are away for a while, the number of new posts can be too many to read, and also, it's pretty easy to log in and out again and lose the ability to see posts since you last logged in. <p>
I'd be more than happy to part with up to $50 as has been suggested. If the issue were more obvious, say something on the GCA home page rather than just in the forums, perhaps it would attract the required attention and more cachers would have responded.<p>
You might also consider something like what GC do with their premium membership - perhaps limiting the resource hungry options to those who cough up a few dollars.<p>

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ideology
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Post by ideology » 14 August 08 8:54 am

a message on the homepage sounds like a good idea

as for bandwidth, the figures from jan-jul 08 are:
- bandwidth: 21GB/month, rising in the last three months to 25GB/month (this will reduce this month as we have disabled web crawlers which represent five times more traffic than users!)
- hits: pretty steady at 200,000 per month
- pageviews: 40,000-50,000 per month
(putting these data together indicates that the gca pages have been getting heavier, which is interesting)

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mtrax
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Post by mtrax » 14 August 08 5:53 pm

perhaps some "news" and/or events section on the home page? would be good as suggested.
eg donate paypal button etc..

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caughtatwork
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Post by caughtatwork » 14 August 08 7:16 pm

mtrax wrote:perhaps some "news" and/or events section on the home page? would be good as suggested.
eg donate paypal button etc..
Coding up the donations system would be trivial. That's something CR or I do in an afternoon, so we won't worry about that at the moment although I do have a few prototypes in mind.

Are we getting anywhere with your colo discussions?

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SecretSquirrel-BJC
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Post by SecretSquirrel-BJC » 14 August 08 8:04 pm

How about a very subtle identification on the forum of
(bronze, silver, gold) paid up financial supporters?

Don't call them "premium" - yuk.

They aren't special or better than anybody else, just people prepared to put their money where their mouth is.

I would be happy to pay a small yearly subscription per year.

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caughtatwork
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Post by caughtatwork » 14 August 08 8:59 pm

I'm sure we can also come up with some form of (voluntary) recognition, both in the forum and on the site itself.
Maybe a gold, silver or bronze blow fly?
If you want to donate anonymously, then you can suppress your star.

It certainly looks like there's enough interest to move ahead to a new server, so I'll hang off until mtrax gets back to us on the colo and then we might open up donations with a specific target in mind.

If the colo doesn't work out, we might aim for a different target.

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Big Matt and Shell
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Post by Big Matt and Shell » 14 August 08 10:52 pm

caughtatwork wrote:I'm sure we can also come up with some form of (voluntary) recognition, both in the forum and on the site itself.
Maybe a gold, silver or bronze blow fly?
If you want to donate anonymously, then you can suppress your star.

It certainly looks like there's enough interest to move ahead to a new server, so I'll hang off until mtrax gets back to us on the colo and then we might open up donations with a specific target in mind.

If the colo doesn't work out, we might aim for a different target.
<P>Bring it on! I have more than got my proposed donations worth!

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mtrax
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Post by mtrax » 14 August 08 10:57 pm

I have sent one request to my local ISP and waiting a response...

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caughtatwork
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Post by caughtatwork » 14 August 08 11:07 pm

Thanks mtrax.
Helping us along in this way is, er, um, really helpful.
(I'm sure I could have phrased that better).

Now back to writing some more code.

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Team Piggy
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Post by Team Piggy » 14 August 08 11:54 pm

caughtatwork wrote: Maybe a gold, silver or bronze blow fly?
.
I think coins would be more suitable for a recognition..

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Richary
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Post by Richary » 15 August 08 12:10 am

But not everyone is interested in coins. I don't mind finding them, but won't pay for them off one of the sites. I own one that was a signature item (unactivated coin in a cache) but whether I own any or not wouldn't inspire me to contribute.

My contribution will be a combination of the value I get from the site, compared to how much spare cash I have at the time which isn't as much as I would like!

swampgecko
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Post by swampgecko » 15 August 08 6:43 am

I think just acknowledging the fact that someone has donated to the site by a simple "Financial Supporter of GCA" tag under the Avatar of the member would be enough.

I don't do coins, and to get them made, the site would have to raise extra funds to cover the manufacturing of them as well as funding the server and software. Someone also than has to design a coin and do the legwork on getting them made. Also with the coins, how many do you make? 100, 200, 1000?

Given the poll run sometime back suggests that only a very small number of people are willing to contribute doesn't really make coins a worthwhile venture as a token of thanks in this case.

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CarrollEyre
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Post by CarrollEyre » 15 August 08 7:38 am

Many thanks for all of the great work that you are doing...however you can not live on thanks alone especially if maintaining the website eats into your caching time...
Most dedicated cachers that I have met (not many but still) have said they would be happy to throw some money into the hat as they use the site a lot and really enjoy the past time/obsession. Personally I would prefer a link on the home page that shows website traffic and size and costs. Why? Even though I read the forums regularly I have only really just become aware of the issue because of selective reading.
I would err away from recognition for how much money that each person donates so maybe this would need to be an option. However given the option of being recognised as a "big blowie" or "pesky bush fly" or "huge horsefly" would be much more attractive than"gold, silver or bronze" contributor.
Neil Duncan from http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/ has some thoughts and ideas of how to maintain a popular though small niche website.

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SecretSquirrel-BJC
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Post by SecretSquirrel-BJC » 15 August 08 8:49 am

I think I would like to be a pesky blowfly!

SuperMoosie
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Post by SuperMoosie » 15 August 08 10:02 am

mtrax wrote:I have sent one request to my local ISP and waiting a response...
Since we are a diverse group geographically, we would have a big a variety of ISP Maybe we could ALL approach our ISP's as see what they say?

Maybe mtrax could post the email he sent, so we can tweak it and not reinvent the GPS. Then even the laziest people on here can cut and paste.

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