DescentBB

Something must happen and must happen soon.

We have been offered sharing a dedicated server with a DBB user, another DBB user has offered up a server in Germany and a few others have offered donations.

I'm not sure which way to turn, I feel very strongly though that the DBB Community should burden the operational costs of the DBB not any one individual.

At the same time we need to get the most bang for our buck. I am thinking that this is a good time to implement the new BB as it has the ability to accept and reconize donations to the commmunity.

Thoughts/Ideas/Concerns anyone?

2 cents
5 cents a
dimes worth, pipe in and pipe in now, please tell ALL DBB'rs to pop in an give feedback!

Private/public server, doesnt matter. I'll chip in a few bucks to help out.

I am thinking that this is a good time to implement the new BB as it has the ability to accept and reconize donations to the commmunity.

You mean like switching BB software (again)?

Bullwad, how much does hosting cost now? I will pay for hosting. DBB should be free to users.

Topher,
I had always felt the same way, but my kids and thier needs come first.
I want to see the DBB stay but not if it takes food from the table or clothes off my kids back.

Vin,
The DBB software hasn't changed in several years. I am talking about the version I have been working on and some have seen.

KB

I'll pay for hosting.

Or, if enough others insist, we'll split hosting costs. Whatever. There are enough people here in the community who have both the resources and the desire that we can cover the costs of the DBB.

If this host totally gives out I could offer emergency hosting for a short time if nessasary, the shorter a time the better though.

Actually Mike, the DBB software hasn't changed in over a year. The phpBB DBB was launched last December. I shut down the test site in early December at Xciter's request.

That being said, paying for membership should not be required. Making it required would kill this board faster than a nuclear strike. I don't mind chipping in every now and then, but I won't pay a monthly fee for access.

Also, if you're going to start a donation drive, I'd think about what incentives you could place to make it worthwhile to donate. Kinda like "if you donate, you get such and such functionality added. Even if its just a little image next to their name showing that they donated.

I'll donate what I can, don't care about added stuff for my account. Just don't want the DBB to die off.

MD-2389 wrote:if you're going to start a donation drive, I'd think about what incentives you could place to make it worthwhile to donate. Kinda like "if you donate, you get such and such functionality added. Even if its just a little image next to their name showing that they donated.

I know how expensive it is to run these servers but requiring people to pay to post would kill it for sure. I'm sure we have enough people here that would love to help out with the expenses and making a way for them to donate to help the operator off set the expenses wouldn't hurt how ever I have mixed feeling about setting up a system that point out the people that don't donate to others. By pointing out those that do donate you are you saying that the ones that can't are less of a person? Maybe some people wouldn't want others to know. Putting an icon or score board in their profile could be a problem.

I don?t know? I could settle for a simple icon but a score board is out of the question.


RC

The poll question sould be a little more simple:

Will you donate money to help keep the DBB alive?

[] Yes
[] No


RC

lol RC so true and yes you can see my evasiveness in the poll options as to how I felt about the whole subject I would never consider a pay for use site, hell even the thought of people donating turns my stomache. But the thought of a hobbled DBB or worse no DBB is so horrible a concept that I cringe at the thought.

I would imagine that nearly any hosted environment will have it's ups and downs but since we've been here there's hardly any positive moments. I am sure there are better options.

I've spoken to a few people and they say donations can't be counted on from year to year so be careful.

Several people have been so gracious as to offer space, cash or a server, some for nothing and some for a small understandable fee.

To all of you, your thoughts and offers are graciously appreciated. Happy Holidays to EACH AND EVERYONE!

KB

Xciter wrote:I'll pay for the next year of hosting or split it the bill with others... betwen me, Topher and Lothar, we could easily get on a dedicated server somewhere.

...

I'd rather not see members pay to use the DBB.

Ok, I'll provide the hardware. Lets see some green. I co-locate at www.peer1.com .

Richard Cranium wrote:

Xciter wrote:I'll pay for the next year of hosting or split it the bill with others... betwen me, Topher and Lothar, we could easily get on a dedicated server somewhere.

Another option is hosting out of my place... I'm on an 10/1 connect from Brighthouse and can get a 15/2 line if I get there digital phone for $40 a month. It's not as fast/clean as my FIOS was, but it would be a dedicated dual CPU server, 4GB's of RAM, all SCSI and on some huge battery backups.

I'd rather not see members pay to use the DBB.

Ok, I'll provide the hardware. Lets see some green. I co-locate at www.peer1.com .

Judging from the quality of RC's servers, I'm on board with this plan. I'll provide some financial backing...

You know what's a ★■◆●! The next year is already paid for it wasn't until after the 30 days I I recall really seeing a problem.

But then early in that stage Topher was trying to get the BB moved and it wasn't until the 29th day that I actually got it working. SO we really didn't get any experience with this host.

I think we need to get together on teamspeak. Let's talk this out rather than type it out.

KB

KoolBear wrote:You know what's a *****! The next year is already paid for it wasn't until after the 30 days I I recall really seeing a problem.

But then early in that stage Topher was trying to get the BB moved and it wasn't until the 29th day that I actually got it working. SO we really didn't get any experience with this host.

I think we need to get together on teamspeak. Let's talk this out rather than type it out.

KB

Well if that's the case we either demand better service or demand a refund.

Anyway, aim is TopherTheGreat2, I don't know what team speak so someone will need to enlighten me when our meeting is taking place...

my 2 cents (if i am qualified to give it)

i beleive in free dbb for everyone... but obviously (and i was in similar shoes kb, i was paying for a game server and couldn't get any help. i finally pulled the plug before the 'clan' got the idea. kids first, severs second) one person should not be made the foot the bill.

it sounds like you guys are looking at some good hosts. test something... figure out the costs, set up a donatiion link and a fair donation amount, and i will kick in what i can.

i would suggest finding a host you are comfortable with that offers a year of service. figure out how much, and what it would take to pay for it. let us donate... then resort it out next year.

I dont post much but I come here and read the posts 2 or 3 times a day. But PM me an addy to send a donation and I will.

You're free to use my Teamspeak server. KB has the IP and if he doesn't. just send me a pvt msg and I'll send it to you.

Topher, TS is a voice chat program like Roger Wilco.

My Teamspeak server is avalible too. It's address is ts.vonclan.net

Now we just need a time and date.

RC

I would like to propose this weekend, say saturday evening the later the better.

11pm cst ok for everyone?

bah... now I'm going to have to buy a microphone.

Lothar,

You can always sit there and listen

Topher,
Teamspeak is here http://www.goteamspeak.com or a direct link to the download page is http://www.goteamspeak.com/index.php?page=downloads

Agenda

11:00-11:20 - Open Floor - Gathering
11:20- Hosting Issues to donate or not to donate
If to donate then decided then how are funds to be handled

Currently Our Options available are
KoolBear has paid for 1 year in adavance till 11/06 Domain name paid until 11/2010
Richard Cranium has offered to setup a dedicated server and host the DBB on it for ~28$ a month.
ccb056 has offered to co-host the DBB on his dedicated server for a small fee. UPDATE $10 bucks a month
CDN_Merlin has offered to donate funds
ferno has offer to pay for a year of hosting
Jim (Xciter) has offered to cover hosting fees and or spilt dedicated hosting fees.
Lothar has offered finacial support.
TopWop has offered space and bandwidth
Cuda68-2 Has offered finical support
fryephile will kick in what he can
MD-2389 will donate
Krom offer of emergency space if required
Vindicator will chip in a few bucks...

* UPDATE - Oversite
jakee308 will donate
Cuda68-2 will donate

These are just from this thread alone. I hope to see each and everyone of you at the meeting.

Does that time/date conflict with anyone?

KB

We as a community need to decide what we want. I will promise and guarentee the DBB will be here. At whatever the cost, but the funds I can afford to do it with may not meet your expectations. If you; the community want more then we can figure out what that is and decide how to aquire/generate the funds to meet those expectations. My concern is if we strap ourselves with a BIG monthly fee now what happens next year when life requires the donations to dry up, at that point we would force to step back to a shared hosting plan. We are still paid up at this host for eleven more months so this isn't a do or die situation YET!

KB

I'll chip in. How would be interesting as we're not allowed private credit cards on the kibbutz, but i'll get the dosh to the right place somehow.


....wait a mo'. I'd actually pay to listen to some of the crap y'all come out with?? G-D i'm sad!!!

Ok, you can get on the Vonclan teamspeak server by just clicking here if you have Teamspeak already installed. teamspeak://ts.vonclan.net

Actually, my offer was to pay for hosting for as long as we (the community) use the board. Five years, ten years, twenty years. It doesn't make a difference. I'll foot the bill.

You must make lotsa money there Ferno buddy. Care to pay my airfare to BC and let me visit?

heheh.. sorry you gotta do that yourself.

put up link for donations via paypal. make it voluntary.
see how it goes. if donations fall short for future payment, notify the hardcore members and i'm sure any shortfall will be made up. if shortfall using donations occurs too often, THEN decide if monthly fee required. problem with fee of course is people who can't/won't pay. can't shoot'em and don't want to revoke membership. i say wait and see if it becomes a problem. enough people have volunteered to pay that if you had each person pay for 1 month it would be awhile b4 you got back to them for next round. i see donation links all the time and if i've gotten some value out of what they have on their site, i kick in some $$. try it, can't make things worse. myself i feel 3$ @ month/ 30 Yrly is more than reasonable and certainly doable for me. $30 X (hardcore = 30?) = $900 yearly = dedicated server all to our lonesome. that hardcore figure i'd bet is a lowball number.

I like that idea a lot!

I suggest we get a good server (go with RC's hardware offer, and colo where he suggested) and then take donations via Paypal or something... and then whatever doesn't get covered each month by donation, those of us who've offered can either split or pick months to cover it. As the fall-back plan... I'm not willing to let the DBB fail due to lack of money, so I'll cover it whenever nobody else does, even if it's like $80 a month.

x4 lothar

p.s. the beauty of using paypal as money bucket, you never have to touch the money. keep it in paypal and pay the hosting isp from paypal acct.

any extra is left in for next years payment.

payments by members can be put in from bank account or credit card or if you use paypal in business/trading then direct transfer if you have a + balance.

It's sort of sounding like a decision is about to be made.

I'll start working on setting up this server just incase we decide to go that way.

RC

RC,

What type of machine are you thinking about setting up? I'd like some specifics before you go off half cocked

If we are going dedicated I would also like to discuss some other things with you, what's a good time to call?

KB

KoolBear wrote:RC,

What type of machine are you thinking about setting up? I'd like some specifics before you go off half cocked

If we are going dedicated I would also like to discuss some other things with you, what's a good time to call?

KB

The server I'm going to setup is an Intel P4 2.0 GHz with a fair amount of RAM (don't remember how much really). It's more than enough server for phpBB.

I'm usually on our Teamspeak server every night. Check there and if I'm not on just wait for a little while.

RC

Heh, guess I got here too late. Oh well. I still don't see a need for donations, my offer is to pay for the DBB in full.

Why to late? We are metting tonight, I value your opinion Topher. SUrely you can grab teampseak and join us on RC's Von Team Speak server

Definitely not going to be here tonight, sorry . It's ok, let me know how things turn out.

Good meeting guys, good meeting. Sorry the rest of you couldn't make it.

It was a good meeting thank you to those in attendance. It would have been nice to have a broader representation of DBBr's but it was Saturady night

Richard Cranium
Ferno
MD-2389
SuperSheep
Duper

As I've mentioned before I will make sure the DBB is here as long as there are DBB'rs. That said I can only provide a shared hosting environment.

I'll attempt to sum it up for everyone.

It was agreed to open for discussion the potential for the community to upgrade the DBB to a semi-dedicated server.

Richard Cranium has offered a server for $28 bucks a month and it will be a semi-dedicated environment similar to what Kevin was providing but at a must reduced rate.

So, since I had planned on maintaining the DBB anyway, I had previously budgeted $60 bucks a year plus domain name fees.

To cover the additional operating fees associated with a semi-dedicated server we decided to open the DBB to "VOLUNTARY" donations.

Assuming everyone really feels a dedicated server is in order then we will establish a paypal account for donations to be placed into to cover hosting fees.

We can elect to cover 6 months or a year. If it's 1 year the community donations will need to total $276. In an effort to assure traceability of DBB donation funds a paypal account will be established and 2-3 DBB'rs in addition to myself will have the ability to view account transactions.

Those able to offer support and wish to do so depending on level of sponsorship will have a Special Title and or image.

More information will follow; as many valued opinions were not at the meeting tonight.

Regards,

KoolBear

who voted the "change something and ill shoot you!"