Author: Omid David Tabibi
Date: 15:15:17 08/25/04
Go up one level in this thread
On August 25, 2004 at 11:13:48, Steven Schwartz wrote: >Hi Everyone, >First of all, thanks for all the kind words about my company. Although there is >one person who seems to feel that we run CCC/CTF off ICD bandwidth - which we do >not, and believes that the message board brings us lots of customers - which it >does not. > >As far as the issue about hosting CCC (and CTF) is concerned.... >I took a quick count of the responses to the choices I laid out. Here are the >results (wasn't easy to count since some people made no specific letter choice >but rather made general comments), at least as far as members who posted their >choices as of now: > >12 a) some other organization can take over the responsibility of hosting > 4 b) CCC and CTF can be disbanded and members can rejoin the USENET >44 c) members can pay a yearly fee to belong > 5 d) members can voluntarily contribute Of the above options choice C looks most reasonable. You have done a great job running these forums, and if not managed by you, this place won't be the same thing. However, I'm afraid option C will result in a gradual death of the forum, as many of those who post only occasionally will cease their membership, and also almost no new members will join the forum. I guess that bandwidth is the most expensive part of running the forums, and I think we can cut down in that part considerably by limiting the lengths of the posts. Just look at the huge number of posts which are in reply to the reply of another reply of... in a thread, which carry with themselves large amounts of text from previous posts in the thread which has nothing to do with the post itself. If we just look at the current posts here, the majority of text is wasted text, which has nothing to do with the post, and is just left over from previous posts in the thread. By limiting the length of posts in a reasonable way, this forum will consume much less bandwidth, and also storage space. Of course the members must get used to avoiding the bad habit of carrying all the text from previous posts in their reply (oops, I just did the same thing in this post!). This should bring the bandwidth (and storage) cost to a reasonably low level. Those costs can be covered by putting some advertisements on top of the forum. Google ads seem to be the best option (e.g., look at chessbase.com, at the left side). They are non-intrusive plain text ads. If you could give us an average monthly bandwidth (in GB) used for the two forums, we can make a more accurate calculation of costs. > >There were, as usual, many, many differing opinions about how to fix the >problem, but I thought Ed posted about the issue most eloquently: > >"Think about the work involved, first the daily work of making the archives, the >complaints by email about moderation issues, the legal threats some people make >when they are banned, can the person really stand the heat, or will be shut down >the website? Then the work involved regarding 2 mod elections a year. Then so >now and then the site will go down, suppose the person is on vacation or ill? > >Here is some more, the person fells in love, priorities change, goodbye with the >forum. People move to other cities, get a new and very busy job, people get >sick, become a father, change priorities all the time -> there goes the forum >again. The end result is so predictable.... CTF will run from pillar to post, 2 >times a year at least. > >Wanna bet? >Ed :)" > > >Some of you have been with us since the beginning of CCC almost 7 years ago. >Certainly it is the members who make a forum interesting and exciting, but it is >like a Broadway show. The play goes on and is a big hit not only because of the >actors out front but also because of the people who do the work "behind the >scenes". Hosting is only a small part of what needs to be done to have these >forums run correctly. I would never want my company to ever be associated with >anything that was not run correctly. But time has come for some change. The >market has dictated that. I think I may have a solution that might please most >(you can never please everyone). Let me refine it and make a proposal later. > >In the meantime, as usual, I welcome feedback. > >Steve >ICD/Your Move Chess & Games
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