vpsBoard advertisements.
- Thread starter MannDude
- Start date
vanarp
Active Member
TheLinuxBug
New Member
I would like to know the definition of what it costs to keep this going on a monthly/yearly. As easy as ad's are to get some income, I would be interested in knowing if we could create enough money from donations or something similar. If nothing else it would be nice to know what you consider a large enough amount of debt to need ads.
Right now I am still neutral on this, however, I do feel the community should be given an opportunity to sponsor its self first and if that ends up being ad's after reasonable deliberation, so be it.
my two cents.
Cheers!
@TheLinuxBug lets try this: how about we support you from donations? If we all have a good month then you'll eat steak and maybe go see a movie or two (alone). If we all have a bad month then you'll eat milk and cereal (if you're lucky). MannDude spends most of his time, money and energy running this place, so no, he can't be expected to live at the mercy of others. You should give it a try before you suggest this to others, and see how you would like to live at other people's mercy.
Hey @TheLinuxBug, as much as I'd love to agree, in my experience donations have not been a stable form of income for a community to be self-sustainable. I personally sees donations as more of a short-term solution (especially due to the risk involved in the variability of donations and such) and therefore not a viable option for the long-term goal we all wish to plan for and achieve.
Therefore, we've been thinking Advertisement space would allow vpsBoard the ability to reduce the risk being unable to pay our rent plus allowing our fellow active providers an opportunity to show their support to the community!
Although I agree, I feel like it's a better model only on paper and not in practice. From personal experience and from several case studies (although there are also case studies where donation models work I will admit that) I've viewed, the donation model lacks the long-term self-sustainability.
So this is why I support the advertisement method. Although to those who wish to support vpsBoard via other means can probably talk to MannDude directly in order to find out other ways to express their support!
Therefore, we've been thinking Advertisement space would allow vpsBoard the ability to reduce the risk being unable to pay our rent plus allowing our fellow active providers an opportunity to show their support to the community!
Although I agree, I feel like it's a better model only on paper and not in practice. From personal experience and from several case studies (although there are also case studies where donation models work I will admit that) I've viewed, the donation model lacks the long-term self-sustainability.
So this is why I support the advertisement method. Although to those who wish to support vpsBoard via other means can probably talk to MannDude directly in order to find out other ways to express their support!
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I have said you should have adverts a few times, I don't mind how many slots as long as it is done well, I also quite like the format of text adverts in between posts in side threads.
D. Strout
Resident IPv6 Proponent
Then why not both? If the community is doing well enough with adverts, you could either turn off donations or use them for fun stuff, like either paying yourselves or giving back to the community with giveaways and stuff.
Fine with ads too, but since we know there'll be a limit to the number of ads (16 slots), how about having a text "ad" section below the images, which basically will be for people like myself who simply want to support VPSBoard? Something like:
(Monthly Contributors)
HostA
HostB
HostC
UserABlog
UserBBlog
Each item will be a clickable link to the advertiser's designated homepage or none if the contributor doesn't want anything.
(Monthly Contributors)
HostA
HostB
HostC
UserABlog
UserBBlog
Each item will be a clickable link to the advertiser's designated homepage or none if the contributor doesn't want anything.
TheLinuxBug
New Member
Well,
@Marc M.
@HalfEatenPie
What is interesting about this thread in general is when we started bringing people from LET to this community there were promises that the site would not become a commercial venture regardless of the need. This in my opinion includes ads. I believe it was founded based on the idea that we wouldn't need to rely on such to continue to move this community forward. If you believe in this community and the people behind it, then there is no reason as a community we shouldn't be able to cover the expenses of the services needed to run it.
I appreciate that @MannDude, has put a lot of time and effort in here, and same with @Francisco but that is because they are working to help this community. As far as I understood this was not to be the main or only job of either of them, but a side project, so the argument of us needing to pay for him to live should not be a viable one. Now, if there is additional help needed for some reason, I am sure with donations or as stated previously, a similar idea, we could find a way to provide a small stipend for the administrators/moderators if it was really needed.
Since (as I understand) most of the infrastructure is on BuyVM, my thought would be to have @Francisco let the account be paid yearly and let us know what that cost is, including any DDOS services, and lets put together a donation drive to reach that yearly amount. Unless the numbers are some how astronomical, I believe we can come up with the funds for that. I personally would be willing to put in some money and I am sure others like @D. Strout and @KuJoe would as well.
Making page loads longer and plastering ads all over is not the only answer to this, there are many other viable options to be discussed that could also provide enough to keep vpsBoard alive and rolling. If the cost is really high enough to need some type of ads, okay lets discuss it more, but before we get that far, I want to know what kind of cost we are actually looking at. We need more information about this from @MannDude I feel before this discussion can really be taken much further.
Side Note: I have noticed that the vast amount of people here saying "go ahead with ads" are actually providers, and I am going to put this out there, OF COURSE PROVIDERS WANT ADS. If I were in the low end business, I too would want another avenue to advertise. This however, is still commercialization at its most base definition, even if someone isn't getting rich off it. We know from LET what type of money can be brought in from ads, and it is MUCH more than is needed to just run the site.
my two cents.
Cheers!
@Marc M.
@HalfEatenPie
What is interesting about this thread in general is when we started bringing people from LET to this community there were promises that the site would not become a commercial venture regardless of the need. This in my opinion includes ads. I believe it was founded based on the idea that we wouldn't need to rely on such to continue to move this community forward. If you believe in this community and the people behind it, then there is no reason as a community we shouldn't be able to cover the expenses of the services needed to run it.
I appreciate that @MannDude, has put a lot of time and effort in here, and same with @Francisco but that is because they are working to help this community. As far as I understood this was not to be the main or only job of either of them, but a side project, so the argument of us needing to pay for him to live should not be a viable one. Now, if there is additional help needed for some reason, I am sure with donations or as stated previously, a similar idea, we could find a way to provide a small stipend for the administrators/moderators if it was really needed.
Since (as I understand) most of the infrastructure is on BuyVM, my thought would be to have @Francisco let the account be paid yearly and let us know what that cost is, including any DDOS services, and lets put together a donation drive to reach that yearly amount. Unless the numbers are some how astronomical, I believe we can come up with the funds for that. I personally would be willing to put in some money and I am sure others like @D. Strout and @KuJoe would as well.
Making page loads longer and plastering ads all over is not the only answer to this, there are many other viable options to be discussed that could also provide enough to keep vpsBoard alive and rolling. If the cost is really high enough to need some type of ads, okay lets discuss it more, but before we get that far, I want to know what kind of cost we are actually looking at. We need more information about this from @MannDude I feel before this discussion can really be taken much further.
Side Note: I have noticed that the vast amount of people here saying "go ahead with ads" are actually providers, and I am going to put this out there, OF COURSE PROVIDERS WANT ADS. If I were in the low end business, I too would want another avenue to advertise. This however, is still commercialization at its most base definition, even if someone isn't getting rich off it. We know from LET what type of money can be brought in from ads, and it is MUCH more than is needed to just run the site.
my two cents.
Cheers!
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drmike
100% Tier-1 Gogent
@TheLinuxBug, no doubt. From what we learned on LET/LEB combo is a $10k in ad sales amount (although I think that has fallen with recent outages and traffic being down).
Ads would/should be comparable in expectations and delivery. Typically underneath price factored based on numbers of times the ad is displayed to a real person (CPM).
I'm not a provider and I hate ads. Why? Cause they are nearly always outsourced, often off topic and too often load slow as heck.
So, here they are intending on running their own ad server, managing the ads, reports, etc. all internally and directly serving the ads. Meaning, full control over things and ability to optimize load times and deal with common issues.
This site, at this point won't draw or ask for LET/LEB type money. The traffic and viewership isn't as high, yet.
As such, I don't see the ads providing a sole source of income for anyone, but rather covering costs outlaid and compensating some for the countless hours here doing for the site.
Now remember LET was a community site and ad-free until 2012. But, LEB had been running ads since 2010. So it wasn't all non-commericial and feeling good about impoverishment of the owner(s).
Ads would/should be comparable in expectations and delivery. Typically underneath price factored based on numbers of times the ad is displayed to a real person (CPM).
I'm not a provider and I hate ads. Why? Cause they are nearly always outsourced, often off topic and too often load slow as heck.
So, here they are intending on running their own ad server, managing the ads, reports, etc. all internally and directly serving the ads. Meaning, full control over things and ability to optimize load times and deal with common issues.
This site, at this point won't draw or ask for LET/LEB type money. The traffic and viewership isn't as high, yet.
As such, I don't see the ads providing a sole source of income for anyone, but rather covering costs outlaid and compensating some for the countless hours here doing for the site.
Now remember LET was a community site and ad-free until 2012. But, LEB had been running ads since 2010. So it wasn't all non-commericial and feeling good about impoverishment of the owner(s).
acd
New Member
I agree with @TheLinuxBug on this. As much as the idea of getting "ACD for President" ads on vpsboard appeals to me, I would rather not have any appear at all.
From buyvm's published prices, the kvm256 that vpsboard runs on should cost about 5 USD per month, plus another 3 USD per month for a DDoS protected IP address, and the per-account offloaded SQL addon for 1 USD per month. BuyVM runs a 6 months for 5 months price discount.
Putting my money where my mouth is here, I'm willing to subscribe to vpsboard monthly for 8 USD to pay for a second DDoS IP and kvm256 and offer any expertise that might be needed to cluster them, though I suspect Fran and company are more than willing to get you set up with some load balancing.
I talked to Aldryic who informed me with approval from @MannDude, he would allow me to donate from my BuyVM acct to his in that effect. So Curtis, where do I send the donations?
From buyvm's published prices, the kvm256 that vpsboard runs on should cost about 5 USD per month, plus another 3 USD per month for a DDoS protected IP address, and the per-account offloaded SQL addon for 1 USD per month. BuyVM runs a 6 months for 5 months price discount.
Putting my money where my mouth is here, I'm willing to subscribe to vpsboard monthly for 8 USD to pay for a second DDoS IP and kvm256 and offer any expertise that might be needed to cluster them, though I suspect Fran and company are more than willing to get you set up with some load balancing.
I talked to Aldryic who informed me with approval from @MannDude, he would allow me to donate from my BuyVM acct to his in that effect. So Curtis, where do I send the donations?
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Great response, was waiting to get a non-provider's opinion.
I do not want vpsBoard to be a 'job', nor did I ever expect having ads would allow me to live without one. I'm 25, live on my own, have rent and bills to pay. I do not in anyway expect to earn enough to live from this site, no way. Keep in mind that what is left over or not used for vpsBoard doesn't just go to my pocket. It'd be split between those who help out (Which is currently Martin and Don) as I'd say our workload is about even. I need adult sized money, and vpsBoard at best would bring in teenage part-time job money. Then it gets split up between others.
BuyVM is great, however their Las Vegas location, geographically speaking, isn't particularly the best location to serve content to the vast majority of the userbase. I could move the site to Buffalo and stay with BuyVM, which may be better considering we've got a lot of you from the UK on here, but then we're on CC's network. I don't wish to give Jon that satisfaction of knowing we're utiilzing their network for this site nor do I want to hear any speculation in regards to being on it from anyone. Eventually, the site is going to require more than what powers it now to keep it up and running as quickly as possible no matter where you're visiting from.
Right now it's just a couple KVM VPSes in Las Vegas w/DDoS protection, and a backup VPS. The cost right now is low. I had CloudFlare Pro bought, but it was disabled automatically 4 hours after buying it due to DDoS and was disabled by CF for a week. I re-enabled it, hoping to speed things up for some of you overseas. It sort of worked, from what I gathered from a couple people, but then I get people messaging random errors on the forum from where CF messes stuff up and have been instructed that CF may be messing with filtering. I'm not paying for CF anymore as I could never tell if it was actually doing anything and I as enabling/disabling it all the time anyway to see if CF was the cause of other problems/issues.
Even if the site's growth is cut in half over the next 3 months, we'll likely have outgrown our current setup. My thinking behind all of this is it'd be nice to get setup properly to best serve those who visit the site. Ads allow me raise funds to do that while also giving providers (who make up some of the great content here that visitors enjoy, that bring in traffic from Google, etc) an incentive for purchasing them. They get something in return, those who don't purchase ads get something in return ( hopefully a faster/more stable and quicker growing community ) and I may have a little change in my pocket left over after splitting whatever is left to buy a pizza and drink a beer while I respond to everything that is directed to me about vpsBoard on IRC, Skype, G+, and PMs here.
Accepting donations just ads to the stress of having to deal with more people communicating with me and the fear of them expecting things in return for their donation other than what it is being applied for. I already get random people and members messaging me because they said something in a thread and then someone else said something they don't agree with. "Hey man I said [this] in [this] thread and then [so and so] is being a dick to me because he used to work for [this guy] and [that guy] never liked me because of [some story] so can you please remove his response it's not needed?" The short answer is 9 times out of 10 "No" unless it's really called for. If people start donating then my fear is they're just going to expect more than just a faster loading site. With ads, those buying them just expect to have their ad in rotation. That's all. With donations, I don't want upset members thinking they bought special privileges or thinking they can do whatever because they've donated.
That sort of my mindset on everything right now. Sorry if I didn't touch base on something or overlooked something. I just woke up and like everyday start it by responding to things on here. Still in bed. Will be happier/friendlier after I get up and cleaned up and food in my belly
TheLinuxBug
New Member
@MannDude, We should get together and discuss this a bit, I have been working a lot with setting up redundant setups recently using MySQL replication, Apache (or nginx), Varnish and Haproxy. There are A LOT of available options here. Also, I can understand we may exceed the current VPS's resources, but setting up a fully redundant, even geo-located setup, is actually not that hard and could be done across several medium sized VPS.
Instead of even dealing with people, I think you should setup a paypal account with donation link, let us know the goal (the amount needed to sustain the infrastructure and put a reasonable stipend in the pockets of our administration/moderation team) and I am sure we can come up with that amount. I can not imagine this amount being much more than $1000-$2000/year? Also in the thread you use for this donation process make it known that there is ABSOLUTELY NO FAVORITISM given based on donations. Personally I would never expect anything but an awesome and well run forum anyways, but making that known to people before they donate I believe should be sufficient enough in this situation.
One other thing I wanted to put out there:
Personally I would have no problem with asking some of the providers here to donate some servers to use in our redundant cluster, but my stipulation would be that other than an honorable mention in the donations thread ONCE, there would be no other mention or advertisement that they are providing said service. In other words, if BuyVM feels like donating the server we use to us, as long as their name isn't plastered all over the site and they are not using it as advertising FUD to make more money off the community, then that is absolutely acceptable to me.
As I said before, I think there is still a lot more to be discussed before any decision is made on this. You said we have until August anyhow, and I do not think we should make any drastic move on this for a least a months time to allow other options to be presented.
my two cents.
Cheers!
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I could not have said it better myself. We all get PMs and reports like this constantly (especially on IRC), but it is part of being on staff I suppose.
Edit: Honestly as long as we don't turn this into Wikipedia's "Personal Plea" type donation campaign I'm all ears.
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I will say this: business is being conducted on this forum. Ultimately providers are here to connect with other providers and with the community. Asking for vpsBoard to be run on donations is like asking the Four Seasons in NYC to exist at the mercy of their guests, but keep the same high quality food and services available. The staff running this forum should be compensated. Just to give you an example, if this were an anime forum, or a Lego forum, or a computer hardware enthusiast forum (never mind, even those display ads and are commercially supported, eg. forum.hardocp.com), then sure, it could be moderated by volunteers and what not. However it is not easy to find good admins and moderators like MannDude, Martin and HalfEatenPie (amongst others of course). The man of the hour is MannDude, he had the idea, he set it up, he supported it out of his own pocket. The expenses run higher than just the cost of hosting. Time is something that no one can give him back, it is a limited resource that you can't really put a monetary value on.
The biggest idea that MannDude had was to keep the forum provider neutral. So he pays for hosting at BuyVM and has turned down any free hosting offers. We have offered to host the forum as well for free and he turned the offer down. And he is right, he does this because he loves being here and serving the community, however none of us has the right to ask him to sacrifice himself and do this for free. He is a great person, a very reasonable guy and he is wise beyond his years.
My personal opinion is that the forum should function on both donations and ads. However ads should have a fixed priced and be purchased via the forum (there is plugin for IP.Board that adds a limited type of shopping cart functionality). Donations should be limited as well so that the original idea stays intact: keep the forum provider neutral. Not only as a provider, but as a regular community member I would not expect a place were business is conducted on a daily bases to be run by volunteers for free.
Or you can look it this way: Linux is free, open source software. Support for Linux is not because it costs time and money to provide it.
The biggest idea that MannDude had was to keep the forum provider neutral. So he pays for hosting at BuyVM and has turned down any free hosting offers. We have offered to host the forum as well for free and he turned the offer down. And he is right, he does this because he loves being here and serving the community, however none of us has the right to ask him to sacrifice himself and do this for free. He is a great person, a very reasonable guy and he is wise beyond his years.
My personal opinion is that the forum should function on both donations and ads. However ads should have a fixed priced and be purchased via the forum (there is plugin for IP.Board that adds a limited type of shopping cart functionality). Donations should be limited as well so that the original idea stays intact: keep the forum provider neutral. Not only as a provider, but as a regular community member I would not expect a place were business is conducted on a daily bases to be run by volunteers for free.
Or you can look it this way: Linux is free, open source software. Support for Linux is not because it costs time and money to provide it.
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D. Strout
Resident IPv6 Proponent
As I see it, here are the pros and cons of various methods.
Donations
Pros: Many people are willing, has potential to provide large amount
Cons: Uncertain income, feelings of entitlement
Target amount for donations
Pros: Gives donators something to shoot for, many people are willing
Cons: MannDude will have to make an estimate about how much this forum and his time are worth, which some might see as unfair, and he might not be willing to do, still might not provide enough, possible feelings of entitlement
Hosts sponsoring the server
Pros: Saves MannDude from having to foot the bill
Cons: Makes the forum seem less neutral, no actual income to give something to the staff
Ads
Pros: Brings in steady income, no loss of neutrality or feelings of entitlement
Cons: Ads have to be run in-house which does involve setup and possibly additional outlay, some may turn off ads, people usually don't like ads
Donations
Pros: Many people are willing, has potential to provide large amount
Cons: Uncertain income, feelings of entitlement
Target amount for donations
Pros: Gives donators something to shoot for, many people are willing
Cons: MannDude will have to make an estimate about how much this forum and his time are worth, which some might see as unfair, and he might not be willing to do, still might not provide enough, possible feelings of entitlement
Hosts sponsoring the server
Pros: Saves MannDude from having to foot the bill
Cons: Makes the forum seem less neutral, no actual income to give something to the staff
Ads
Pros: Brings in steady income, no loss of neutrality or feelings of entitlement
Cons: Ads have to be run in-house which does involve setup and possibly additional outlay, some may turn off ads, people usually don't like ads
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