# vpsBoard advertisements.



## MannDude (Jun 25, 2013)

Hey everyone, I think it's time we have a chat. I'd like to get your input on something.

First off, I'm very thankful all of you are here. When people tell me privately, 'congrats' in regards to vpsBoard, I tell them I've really not done anything. This place was just sitting around more or less idle and you flocked here, making this place what it is now. It's great.

Now, as the title would suggest, I am toying with the idea of implementing some advertising to maintain vpsBoard and to ensure that we're always up and running. Some of you likely won't be thrilled, some likely won't care, some indifferent. Gaining your input will help direct me in the proper way to proceed. If you've got questions, I'll also be more than happy to answer them.

Now, for some random tidbits of information for your consideration:

1.) Ads would be served in-house, not via BuySellAds program or anything. The cost saved by not having to give a 3rd party a cut can be passed onto the advertisers.

2.) Non-congested ad spots, meaning less ads in rotation for more exposure for the advertiser.

3.) _Maayybbeee_ will be able to implement 'guest only' ads, where guests and unlogged-in members will see them. Log in, they're gone. Though I am uncertain if that will be sufficient.

4.) You and I both know that if you don't wish to see ads, you _can _block them via browser plugins...

Basically, what I was thinking of adding (4) 125X125 ad spots to the sidebar. You could use the same ads you had designed for LET/LEB and possibly one larger ad at the top of the pages (banner ad). For the 125X125 ad spots, there would likely be 16 spots sold and rotated. If a banner ad at the top is added, likely 5 to 6 of those sold. There would also be a limit on how many ad-spots a provider could purchase, as I don't want all ads displayed be from a single provider. The rates would be competitively low to allow some lesser known providers a chance of advertising.

So, now that it's out in the open. Let's discuss this. Let's see how we can make this work for both vpsBoard and for the visitors and the members that represent companies that frequent here.


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## notFound (Jun 25, 2013)

Personally, I'm totally fine with it as long as it doesn't go into some super-money making activity and the site's focus mainly being on the income *cough*. What you've propsed sounds just fine to me. ;-)


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## MannDude (Jun 25, 2013)

Infinity said:


> Personally, I'm totally fine with it as long as it doesn't go into some super-money making activity and the site's focus mainly being on the income *cough*. What you've propsed sounds just fine to me. ;-)


Yeah, not attempting to rake in anything significant. Whatever is earned will be used to pay for vpsBoard and then split between the helping hands of vpsBoard.


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## BK_ (Jun 25, 2013)

I've got no problem with advertisements _from people that have a presence on the forum._


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## Marc M. (Jun 25, 2013)

+1

I'm all for it and I think that it would be a legitimate way to support the forum. It takes allot of work to properly maintain a forum and keep the quality standards high. As far as being a "money making activity" as *@* called it, I don't think that there would be anything wrong with the staff getting compensated for their work. I mean shoot, at the end of the day this could be a full time job for some of the admins. Keeping a good balance and staying neutral when it comes to, both providers and other community members, is very important.

[edit]



BK_ said:


> I've got no problem with advertisements from people that have a presence on the forum.


I like *@BK_*'s remark as well, he's makes a good point.



MannDude said:


> 3.) Maayybbeee will be able to implement 'guest only' ads, where guests and unlogged-in members will see them. Log in, they're gone. Though I am uncertain if that will be sufficient.


*@**MannDude* they should be on all the time, however ads need to be reviewed before being accepted and ensured that they are done in good taste and in accordance with the high quality standards of this forum. I am saying this because I remember those "cougar/stake/beef/cow" ads from last year on LET.


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## Mun (Jun 25, 2013)

I would rather have you use project wonderful for the ads. The reason being is that anyone can advertise. The other great thing about that, is there is nothing super shady that you gave one person a deal at $5 and another costed $20.

Mun


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## MartinD (Jun 25, 2013)

Is that an affiliate link?


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## BlueVM (Jun 25, 2013)

Lemme know I'll switch our LET ad over here.


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## Mun (Jun 25, 2013)

MartinD said:


> Is that an affiliate link?


Yes remove it if you like.

Also note:

It won't help me unless @manndude starts buying ads. 

"We keep track of everyone you refer, and whenever they spend money you get 3% of what credited to your account, as our way of saying thanks!

In other words, for every $100 they spend, you'll earn $3, for as long as they're members. Plus, that gets multipled across every single person you refer. The more people you refer, the more you earn!

We'll credit your earnings on the first of every month, a little after midnight. Full reports are available to you 24/7!"


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## jarland (Jun 25, 2013)

I think a person should be compensated for their time and work.


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## MartinD (Jun 25, 2013)

Mun said:


> Yes remove it if you like.


Chill pill dude - was just being a troll 

also, re your signature...


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## SkylarM (Jun 25, 2013)

I agree with the active members of the community can do advertising bit. Like the sounds of that


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## Mun (Jun 25, 2013)

MartinD said:


> Chill pill dude - was just being a troll
> 
> also, re your signature...



I'd rather explain then have people freak out over an Aff link. If you don't like it, right click the link, copy link, paste link, and delete the tag statement, thus no aff.

(Transparency: I work for myself?)


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## HalfEatenPie (Jun 25, 2013)

I'd just like to say thanks to all of our community members out there who've helped us grow in the few months we've been in operation!  We hope that this will also reduce the drain on MannDude's accounts (especially since he's currently paying everything out of pocket).  He's the man and has already invested so much of his time and money into vpsBoard!


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## Maximum_VPS (Jun 25, 2013)

jarland said:


> I think a person should be compensated for their time and work.


+1

Go for it.


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## Mun (Jun 25, 2013)

HalfEatenPie said:


> I'd just like to say thanks to all of our community members out there who've helped us grow in the few months we've been in operation!  We hope that this will also reduce the drain on MannDude's accounts (especially since he's currently paying everything out of pocket).  He's the man and has already invested so much of his time and money into vpsBoard!



Ill give out some cash if he really needs it. PM me manndude if this is the case.


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## MartinD (Jun 25, 2013)

I think an unecessarily dire picture has been painted here - it's really not the case so don't worry!

I'm thinking it's just more to cover the running costs and who knows, if there's money left over there could be competitions and the like I guess!


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## HalfEatenPie (Jun 25, 2013)

Sorry about that guys, I guess I used the wrong wording of that.


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## Mun (Jun 25, 2013)

HalfEatenPie said:


> Sorry about that guys, I guess I used the wrong wording of that.



Where the fuck do I donate. TELL ME NOW HEP!

Mun 

P.S. 400th post


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## earl (Jun 25, 2013)

Hey, I'm all for it.. especially when the AD's are a good deal!


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## D. Strout (Jun 25, 2013)

The amazing thing is, this isn't even necessary. I know of at least three or four people (myself definitely included) who would gladly donate to keep the site online, and I'm sure that reflects the general attitude. Heck, I'm pretty sure Aldryic has said he would host the site on BuyVM for free if you needed it! But it is great for the site to be self-sustaining, so I'm all in favor of ads, especially since the plan put forward here is very provider-neutral and beneficial to all involved.

*Edit:* Aldryic thanked this, so I'm assuming I am correct on BuyVM's generosity


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## wdq (Jun 25, 2013)

I'm also perfectly fine with ads, especially if they relate to these forums.


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## drmike (Jun 25, 2013)

Well, I've been a bug in @MannDude 's ears about getting ads going (in house - run it yourself - open source ad serving).

The reason I've been pushing him are simple:

1. The site costs money to run.

2. When things happen like DDoS or MySQL going on vacation, it requires more engineering + time + paid accounts.

3. MannDude has financed everything to date.

4. MannDude, Martin and Pie spend enough time helping the community for free.  While I expect volunteering,  they should be given something on a monthly basis where they are active and participate.

5. Donations are a swell idea, but they typically don't maintain things.  Hard getting folks to chip in monthly or once at a rate that is significant enough.

6. We've taken the angle of shunning free-vps begging on here and defined this as a provider friendly and often centered site.  

7. Several providers have stated public interest in buying ads.


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## drmike (Jun 25, 2013)

So count me +1 for ads.  Unlike everywhere else I won't be blocking them.  Why?  Because they will be served in house, not some annoying, slow, spy centered 3rd party ad network.


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## mikho (Jun 25, 2013)

For a site like this there are only to options to raide money, donations or ads.


I have nothing against ads (h-ll, I even have them on my own site to pay for my VPS's). I'm only wondering what made you change your mind since you so boldly posted about never displaying ads here?


Not sure if you already thought about how this will bet setup but I'll ask anyway; Will the ads be available for a number of days or a number of views?


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## Epidrive (Jun 25, 2013)

- 4 sidebar ads


- Donation page


- Sticky advertisements


For the donation page maybe you can implement a feature say if person X donated at least $20, he will recieve a donator userbar or an award, or whatever. Something that would encourage us to donate..


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## Marc M. (Jun 25, 2013)

*@* nice ad in your signature there, nothing beats the price of that one I guess ;-)


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## Zen (Jun 25, 2013)

Yarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

I'm a pirate tonight.


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## XFS_Duke (Jun 25, 2013)

I'll buy an ad. I'd also provide services for the forum as well.

MannDude, when you get a chance, message me on Skype.


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## MannDude (Jun 25, 2013)

mikho said:


> For a site like this there are only to options to raide money, donations or ads.
> 
> 
> I have nothing against ads (h-ll, I even have them on my own site to pay for my VPS's). I'm only wondering what made you change your mind since you so boldly posted about never displaying ads here?
> ...


1.) You can say 'hell' 

2.) Truthfully, things are already paid for until 8/01, but this place has grown fast and requires constant watch. Soon it will have outgrown the limits of it's current setup. I'm out of work right now, living off my modest savings, I don't wish to continue to to pay for things out of pocket if I don't have to. But after long thought, and those who have spoke to me about it can confirm, I wasn't very keen on ads initially. I wanted to wait several months to see how things go and ensure that vpsBoard would continue to grow. Well, it has. Much faster than I could have imagined. When mulling it all over, I figure ads aren't too bad. There is a good percentage of active and helpful members here who represent providers. I'm hoping the ads benefit them as much as they do towards the growth of the community.

3.) Ads will probably be setup per number of days, sold on a month to month or quarterly basis. Seems to be the simplest and easiest way.



XFS_Duke said:


> I'll buy an ad. I'd also provide services for the forum as well.
> 
> MannDude, when you get a chance, message me on Skype.


I've had many people offer to 'sponsor' the site, I'm not interested in going down that road, sorry. Nothing against you or anyone who has offered it, but that seems to be too much


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## XFS_Duke (Jun 25, 2013)

MannDude said:


> I've had many people offer to 'sponsor' the site, I'm not interested in going down that road, sorry. Nothing against you or anyone who has offered it, but that seems to be too much


Not a problem. I'm still game to offer a nice VPS to be auctioned off to benefit the board if that is still in the works.


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## Aldryic C'boas (Jun 25, 2013)

D. Strout said:


> Edit: Aldryic thanked this, so I'm assuming I am correct on BuyVM's generosity


Right, and that offer will always stand if he wants to go that route;  but like the man said, he doesn't want to do sponsorships/etc, so I wasn't gonna keep bringing it up


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## MannDude (Jun 25, 2013)

Aldryic C said:


> Right, and that offer will always stand if he wants to go that route;  but like the man said, he doesn't want to do sponsorships/etc, so I wasn't gonna keep bringing it up


It's not that I wouldn't enjoy free service, just doesn't feel right. Besides, I bug you and Fran enough as it is. I know I send him messages on Skype semi-often with stuff like, "Hey, are we getting DDoSed?" and whatnot. I don't want this place to be a burden on any provider.


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## D. Strout (Jun 25, 2013)

MannDude said:


> I don't want this place to be a burden on any provider.


In my opinion, any "bugging" or "burdening" you do is offset by far by the service you're providing keeping this place online.


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## Marc M. (Jun 25, 2013)

*@**MannDude* considering that this takes up a big chunk of your life I think that it would be more than fair for you to be compensated for your work.


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## mikho (Jun 25, 2013)

MannDude said:


> 1.) You can say 'hell'
> 
> 
> 2.) Truthfully, things are already paid for until 8/01, but this place has grown fast and requires constant watch. Soon it will have outgrown the limits of it's current setup. I'm out of work right now, living off my modest savings, I don't wish to continue to to pay for things out of pocket if I don't have to. But after long thought, and those who have spoke to me about it can confirm, I wasn't very keen on ads initially. I wanted to wait several months to see how things go and ensure that vpsBoard would continue to grow. Well, it has. Much faster than I could have imagined. When mulling it all over, I figure ads aren't too bad. There is a good percentage of active and helpful members here who represent providers. I'm hoping the ads benefit them as much as they do towards the growth of the community.
> ...


1. I could but I won't . In "real" life I try to remain calm and refrain from using strong words and I'll try the same online.


2. Sad to hear that you are still looking for work and living on savings. I'm fortunate that I never have been unemployed so I can't say that I know the feeling. Hope it sorts out soon enough. I think it goes without saying that I'm also in line to give a helping hand i needed. I do not represent a provider, no sure if that's a good or bad thing. 


3. Monthly would probably be the best and easiest option if you are not going for something as Buyandsell or the likes.


Hope it didn't sound like I was trying to pick a fight or something. I'm always curious when people change their mind about some topic and what made them change their mind.


Ads would be probably be the most "provider neutral" road to take to avoid the drama about being in someones pocket.


The hard part about looking for alternatives for buyvm (nothing against buyvm at all, it's only that LV is far away from me) is the ddosing that happens from time to time. Not many providers that offers protection can live up to expectations.


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## drmike (Jun 25, 2013)

MannDude said:


> It's not that I wouldn't enjoy free service, just doesn't feel right...


If that other site most of use to frequent was only a bit more like MannDude and most here, what happened never would have (i.e. provider covert takeover of the community).

Because of that history, it's really necessary to keep an arms length distance from the providers and be sure the monthly payments for hosting are in said hand.

I think most here agree 

So how long before you think ad spots will be available for purchase?


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## KuJoe (Jun 26, 2013)

Why not just give the site to CC? They can monetize it nicely for you. 

[/joke]

[serious]

Just tell me where to send a check to.


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## kaniini (Jun 26, 2013)

If you all launch ads, we will likely buy some adspace.


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## vanarp (Jun 26, 2013)

+1 for Ads. Ads should be shown to all (members/guests and all). Please ensure that *no *ads are placed at top of the page and in-between the posts.

*@MannDude*, I think you should reconsider posting some periodic stats on traffic like total hits / direct hits / organic hits / referral hits etc. from Google Analytics.

I propose for two 250x250 format ads to appear below the 125x125 formats. This helps better revenue from those can afford and also fill the sidebar space evenly. However 125 formats should be above the fold giving them priority.

Does the current theme offer the sidebar feature with Ads widgets? I also suggest for trying a different theme so that the Ads do not look too bright from main content area. At least you can add more themes allowing the users to switch on their own.


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## Ivan (Jun 26, 2013)

I'm good with ads. I have to admit, I use Ad Block, but I do add sites I frequent a lot (eg. forums, communities) to the "show ads" list.

During my day 1 on VPSBoard, I've already added this site to the list where Ad Block does not take in effect.


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## vanarp (Jun 26, 2013)

Ivan said:


> I use Ad Block, but I do add sites I frequent a lot (eg. forums, communities) to the "show ads" list.


 
You are a good human


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## TheLinuxBug (Jun 26, 2013)

D. Strout said:


> he amazing thing is, this isn't even necessary. I know of at least three or four people (myself definitely included) who would gladly donate to keep the site online, and I'm sure that reflects the general attitude.


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!


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## Marc M. (Jun 26, 2013)

TheLinuxBug said:


> I would be interested in knowing if we could create enough money from donations or something similar.


*@**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.


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## HalfEatenPie (Jun 26, 2013)

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!


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## JDiggity (Jun 26, 2013)

I love the ads but think to purchase them you should have to be an active member of the community.  So people like Serverhub, Linode, Hostdime and such who don't participate shouldn't be allowed to by ads


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## AnthonySmith (Jun 26, 2013)

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.


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## D. Strout (Jun 26, 2013)

HalfEatenPie said:


> 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.


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.


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## sv01 (Jun 26, 2013)

please don't allow affiliate link, I'm fine with ads.


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## Kenshin (Jun 26, 2013)

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.


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## TheLinuxBug (Jun 26, 2013)

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!


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## drmike (Jun 26, 2013)

@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).


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## acd (Jun 26, 2013)

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?


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## MannDude (Jun 26, 2013)

TheLinuxBug said:


> Well,
> 
> *@Marc M.*
> 
> ...


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


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## MannDude (Jun 26, 2013)

And as always, vpsBoard is for the community. I'll post a poll later on and go with whatever the community votes for. I don't wish to upset anyone here, and most certainly do not wish to make you think this is just 'another LET'.


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## TheLinuxBug (Jun 26, 2013)

MannDude said:


> Even if the site's growth is cut in half over the next 3 months, we'll likely have outgrown our current setup.





MannDude said:


> 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.



*@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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## HalfEatenPie (Jun 26, 2013)

MannDude said:


> 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.



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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## Marc M. (Jun 26, 2013)

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.


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## D. Strout (Jun 26, 2013)

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


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## MartinD (Jun 26, 2013)

Just to jump in here.. I'm not interested in being compensated in any way. I'm doing this because I want to so if there was ever a slice that was 'due' to me I'd want that put back in the pot or donated to charity.


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## Marc M. (Jun 26, 2013)

MartinD said:


> Just to jump in here.. I'm not interested in being compensated in any way. I'm doing this because I want to so if there was ever a slice that was 'due' to me I'd want that put back in the pot or donated to charity.


*@MartinD* I wasn't thinking about you  - I was thinking about Curtis. He dedicates a very large chunk of his time to this forum, and supports it out of his pocket.

Keeping the forum provider neutral while monetizing it at the same time for future growth could make vpsBoard the best hosting forum there is. No "Proudly Hosted by ACME VPS Inc." type of B.S. Heck, even WHT has a "Hosted by LiquidWeb" ad right at the top. Now that forum is plastered with ads to the point of making someone puke, not to mention the dead - zombie like - color scheme. Maybe it's trying to convey a message? I don't know. What I do know is that ads would most likely be kept to a minimum and they would be done in good taste here.

I'd say that fixed donation amounts and in house ads are the way to go. For example no member or provider could donate more than say $5/mo. Or you can make it $5 for members, $10 for providers (just spit-balling numbers here). As long as the ads are done in good taste and reviewed by the staff before being approved there shouldn't be any problem.

Anyway, this is my view on things, everyone is entitled to their own.


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## Kenshin (Jun 26, 2013)

I agree with Marc, how many non-providers are willing to shell out the cash to keep the forums running assuming the costs go up due to having more users? Almost every other large forum/site has targeted ads, the ads at least keep the website hosted, profit aside. Without the site up, there won't be users. Vicious cycle yes, but end of the day it's the business owners in the forum/site that would be more than willing to shell out the cash, while some business owners would want something back in kind (ads), others at least want the site to be up so that their forum offers gain exposure.

TLDR; I believe it's in everyone's interest (business owners or users) for the site to remain up, but the fact is that mainly the providers would be happy to shell the cash.

Redundant/distributed on a geographical level may not be suitable for a forum that has high writes due to MySQL updates. The latency would probably kill performance and cause more problems that it's worth. Once the site grows beyond the current infrastructure (VPSes) we're looking at a significant bump in costs since we all know we can get a decent VPS at $7/m, but can you really get a decent dedicated at that price?

TLDR; Site needs $$ to grow

Not accepting service donations from providers for the actual site hosting is actually a good thing in my opinion, but it also means that cold hard cash is king to allow MannDude to select whichever provider he wants to work with. BuyVM's DDOS protection is pretty necessary at this point, but it could also easily be tunneled to a dedicated server for the raw performance improvement. The cash from ads could fund all these.

TLDR; Cash from ads is king, allows MannDude to pay any provider necessary

However, one way I can think of that service donations (from providers or users) can help would be a varnish cache for the static elements. That would help offload some bandwidth and processing power and possibly create a community effort. Rage4 DNS + uptimerobot should do pretty good magic for this. PHP/MySQL load can continue to be served from a VPS/Dedi behind BuyVM's DDOS protected IP.

TLDR; Community CDN for static elements FTW?

*PS* Sorry if the points are all over the place and some of them conflicting, can't figure out how to string my post together so I ended up just TLDR-ing every paragraph.


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## drmike (Jun 26, 2013)

The site has been running good lately.  But, there is a growth/use limit no doubt.  

With injecting self ran ad program, there is a cost (another VPS in same datacenter most likely).

Fair to foresee the need to bump up to a dedicated server.

There is the geography issue as US West Coast isn't best for latency for Europe.

CDN certainly becomes necessary as we all clutter things with more graphics  



Kenshin said:


> Rage4 DNS + uptimerobot should do pretty good magic for this.


Rage4 indeed is the route to go I think.  Plus they are members on here (I think).  That's a $20+/- USD new charge a month on the unlimited provider plan.  UptimeRobot = not real reliable and 5 minute checks which is way too high.   So probably needing another API enabled monitoring service that is likely paid also = more cashola each month.

Realistic budgeting should be $200+ a month a few months out just for server + VPS + DDoS + CDN + monitoring + ???


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## drmike (Jun 26, 2013)

Whew and we are back...

Yeah, we need to get redundancy built into VPSBoard ASAP.


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## drmike (Jun 27, 2013)

buffalooed said:


> redundancy


Redundancy should include a totally separate US East Coast instance with DDoS protection.

Will help for delays those in Europe might still be experiencing and *if* Vegas goes down again, the site can keep rolling on.

Thanks to the BuyVM crew, again.  Had to be hectic with nodes down and damage.


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## Marc M. (Jun 27, 2013)

buffalooed said:


> Yeah, we need to get redundancy built into VPSBoard ASAP.


*@* I'm sure that a few donations will cover that in no time... wait, what if next month there won't be any or not enough?


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## Tux (Jun 27, 2013)

I personally use Project Wonderful. It's very flexible so it takes away the need to do ads in-house, although I'm sure you'll stay in-house.

Anyway, I say go for it if it's not obnoxiously in your face. A nice small text ad on the sidebar or at the top would be fine.


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## HalfEatenPie (Jun 27, 2013)

And... this is why we require better funding.  I'd prefer advertisements or fundraising to be started earlier rather than later so that we can begin redundancy in addition to the DDoS protection vpsBoard needs.  

Situation: 

FiberHub Datacenter had a loss of power today.  The USPs the server was on kicked in but due to the backup generators not starting up on-time the batteries ran out.  The backup generators had to be started by hand and when they did kick in several servers did not automatically boot up.  Because of this all servers had to be manually started and from there BuyVM had to manually start each KVM container.

This is my understanding of the situation.  If there's a more up-to-date clarification that'd be much appreciated.


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## drmike (Jun 27, 2013)

Pie hit the situation head on.

There is an incident report that Fiberhub will produce at some point probably tomorrow indicating the failure, scope and what corrective actions they intend on taking.  When it shows up in public, one of us will get it over here.

Fiberhub has prior electric issues like this.  This makes the fourth time I believe.


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## Marc M. (Jun 27, 2013)

buffalooed said:


> Fiberhub has prior electric issues like this. This makes the fourth time I believe.


*@* seems like someone's cutting corners somewhere. I wonder how much their own report can be trusted.


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## acd (Jun 27, 2013)

HalfEatenPie said:


> Because of this all servers had to be manually started and from there BuyVM had to manually start each KVM container.


My understanding is the HNs didn't power back on automatically on a few KVM nodes, and needed intervention by Fiberhub, who as you can imagine were pretty busy. Once they booted, it just took a while for fsck and however many VMs to start up automatically. I dunno how much fran, bz and aldryic had to do manual-like.


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## Marc M. (Jun 27, 2013)

I don't think that we should derail the thread with Fiberhub's electrical issues. I'm glad that Francisco and Aldryic were on top of it and everything is back to normal.

That being said, if there was anything that today's incident has shown us then it is that this forum needs proper funding so that it can run on a dedicated server with proper redundancies in place. We all love vpsBoard, so lets help it improve and grow!


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## mikho (Jun 27, 2013)

HalfEatenPie said:


> And... this is why we require better funding. I'd prefer advertisements or fundraising to be started earlier rather than later so that we can begin redundancy in addition to the DDoS protection vpsBoard needs.
> 
> 
> Situation:
> ...


And as you already read multiple times, people are more then willing to cough up the money.


So if this is something that needs to be done right now, setup an account where money can be sent and start working.


Fix the ad parts later on when the redundancy is finished.


If you can get a quote on the things you need for 6 months (should be enough to get the ads part rolling) and I'll probably can arrange that funding. Not being associated with any provider (except being moderator on lowendspirit) there would be no discussion on having providers pitching in and the board "getting hosted for free" discussions.


Rambling but it's hot here and I need to take swim now .


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## drmike (Jun 27, 2013)

Marc M. said:


> I wonder how much their own report can be trusted.


Well Fran was already in line with cash and gear ready to be ordered for second leg of power - to prevent single feed failure.  Just heard recently (prior to this) that he was leaving Rob T. alone for a bit about the electricity stuff.  This shuffled the deck priority for sure.

Rob is an honest guy.  I am wondering if he still is using the same electrician/company though.   That was one of the prior issues  Electrician did something boo boo.

Possible Fiberhub had multiple feeds brownout and auto transfer stuff safety stopped from spinning up gen set and transitioning over.  Would be rare, but temperatures are 100+ and 90's at night now in Vegas.  Grid out there has been getting banged up for days (well California mainly). 

There was a large breaker in the facility that was replaced last time that someone was unsure about if damaged.  

Will be interesting since cascading failures on several things.


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## Marc M. (Jun 27, 2013)

mikho said:


> Rambling but it's hot here and I need to take swim now .


Vacation must be awesome! I envy you *@**mikho*


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## Marc M. (Jun 27, 2013)

*@* as you'd imagine I don't know anything about Fiberhub so I said what anyone would say that's just observing things. Anyway, Vegas can't ever get enough electricity to feed it's hunger for power. So it's not that big of a surprise that it happened there. From what I know about Vegas (and I haven't been there but maybe three times), they have to negotiate for electricity on a daily basis due to high consumption.


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## peterw (Jun 27, 2013)

What about taxes? I think there is a difference between donations and income out of ads. Would that not make the tax return complicated?


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## drmike (Jun 27, 2013)

Marc M. said:


> they have to negotiate for electricity on a daily basis due to high consumption.


 

Welll the way the local utility talks, 70% of that utility's power which covers Vegas and areas up north around Battle Mountain generates 70% of their power from their own natural gas gen plants.  30% gap comes from Hoover Dam.

The California grid operator thing I looked at seemed to have enough headroom and proper forecasting for peaks all day.

I couldn't find any official outage, but I am not familiar with the utilities and reporting mechanisms out there.

Vegas does have a power addiction issue.  But having California slurp out Hoover's generation is part of the issue along with local utility not having any generation at Hoover (they have to buy/trade for it).

Electric outages due to pricing games are just that. Enron anyone?


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## drmike (Jun 27, 2013)

peterw said:


> What about taxes? I think there is a difference between donations and income out of ads. Would that not make the tax return complicated?


Income is income, even if donations are source of it.  The tax nazis don't care if the income is from selling dope, humans or from robbing school children.

Donations are only handled differently where IRS has issued non profit 501©(x) status.  That's multiple years of begging, pleading and conning.  Thousands of dollars also to get there.


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## mikho (Jun 27, 2013)

Marc M. said:


> Vacation must be awesome! I envy you *@mikho*


Its been good to me, gone from 12-14 cups of coffee /day to 1-2 in the morning.


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## Jack (Jun 27, 2013)

Hey MannDude!

Looks like we can move to the EU: http://forum.ovh.co.uk/showthread.php?p=46133#post46133


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## scv (Jun 27, 2013)

As long as they're non-obtrusive, ads aren't an issue.


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## Ruchirablog (Jun 27, 2013)

Just do it manndude! Every webmaster should benefit for their work


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## XFS_Duke (Jun 27, 2013)

What are you thinking about for pricing MannDude?

I'm thinking the low rotation would be $20/month and higher rotations would be more, depending on ad size and so forth.

BuySellAds.com is just too high.. lol


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## drmike (Jun 27, 2013)

XFS_Duke said:


> BuySellAds.com is just too high.. lol


 

Yeah too high since they are taking 25% of the price of the ad.

Rates for the ads should be fair and based on viewers accepting/viewing the ads during prior month(s).  Certainly less than what BSA and the other sites are selling at.


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## Naruto (Jun 28, 2013)

Can only providers buy ads or can people buy ads for their non-VPS-related sites?


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## Pete M. (Jun 28, 2013)

I support ads as well. My opinion is that community members should be allowed to buy ads in order to support the forum. If there is room left, then maybe businesses who don't participate very often here. It should not be limited to hosting providers only. There are others who may offer web design, consulting, and so on. This is just an opinion of course.


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## drmike (Jun 28, 2013)

Naruto said:


> Can only providers buy ads or can people buy ads for their non-VPS-related sites?


 

I haven't heard any rules on the ads yet.  I am hoping the ads are limited to providers (all data services) and services/products owned/sold by members.

Meaning non VPS related sites, sure, so long as not adult content or a few other common agitators of mASSES.   

We'll have to wait and see what MannDude, Martin and Pie cobble together though   Good to ask.


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## XFS_Duke (Jun 30, 2013)

Any update on this? Just curious.


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## vanarp (Jul 1, 2013)

*@MannDude* Almost a week since this thread started. Are you still waiting for more feedback?


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## HalfEatenPie (Jul 1, 2013)

Well there's many things going on at the moment.  One of the major things we're working on behind the scene is fixing the archiving and loss of posts issue (cosmetic wise, they're still in the database).  We're also having internal discussions about advertising/donations, but our primary objective at the moment is to fix this issue.  If there is more feedback on this topic though we'd very much appreciate it!


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## A Jump From Let (Jul 1, 2013)

I'd also like to see ads. It's normal, and is even more suitable at vpsboard.


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## MannDude (Jul 1, 2013)

Sorry for the delay. Been testing out a couple solutions with no great luck in finding one I like yet.

Anyone care to suggest a self-hosted ad publishing script that will allow me to do this with relative ease?


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## A Jump From Let (Jul 1, 2013)

vanarp said:


> *@MannDude* Almost a week since this thread started. Are you still waiting for more feedback?


I believe was waiting for my *order*.  opcorn:


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## A Jump From Let (Jul 1, 2013)

MannDude said:


> Sorry for the delay. Been testing out a couple solutions with no great luck in finding one I like yet.
> 
> Anyone care to suggest a self-hosted ad publishing script that will allow me to do this with relative ease?


With a look into my scripts dir, I've found one, _openx / phpAdsNew_.


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## HalfEatenPie (Jul 1, 2013)

A Jump From Let said:


> With a look into my scripts dir, I've found one, openx / phpAdsNew.


 

We've already considered OpenX/phpAdsNew.  If there's any other alternatives that'd be much appreciated


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## mikho (Jul 1, 2013)

Have you looked at: http://www.invisionpower.com/apps/nexus/


And btw... My offer still stands.


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## MannDude (Jul 2, 2013)

mikho said:


> Have you looked at: http://www.invisionpower.com/apps/nexus/
> 
> 
> And btw... My offer still stands.


That's not a bad idea but trying to scout a free platform that'd also allow those purchasing ad spots can have some control over their account (see stats and do things themselves like uploading banners, etc)

I've got a couple things to try out later on including http://orbitopenadserver.com/ and http://www.inclick.net/pageid/demo.html

Open to other suggestions too.


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## MannDude (Jul 2, 2013)

Also, who would seriously be interested in ad-space?

I'm not going to reserve spots and this isn't you 'signing up', just trying to get a rough idea of who is interested so I can plan accordingly. Pricing not yet decided nor have restrictions (may limit ad spots to 2 spots per advertiser to prevent LET style wall of URPad or CVPS ads).


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## vanarp (Jul 2, 2013)

*@**MannDude*, Are you decided that there will only be 125x125 ad slots? Only graphics or text allowed?


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## earl (Jul 2, 2013)

Personally I like ADS.. especially if it's a good deal not sure why you want to reinvent the wheel sort to speak just to save a few bucks.. I would go with BSA and the exposure you get from being listed on their site alone will probably compensate the 25% that they charge for commission..That and the fact that you would not need to worry about setting up your own software for ADs and they take care of billings for you seems worth it IMO.


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## concerto49 (Jul 2, 2013)

MannDude said:


> Also, who would seriously be interested in ad-space?
> 
> I'm not going to reserve spots and this isn't you 'signing up', just trying to get a rough idea of who is interested so I can plan accordingly. Pricing not yet decided nor have restrictions (may limit ad spots to 2 spots per advertiser to prevent LET style wall of URPad or CVPS ads).


It depends on hits and likely conversion ratios, so possibly.


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## MannDude (Jul 2, 2013)

concerto49 said:


> It depends on hits and likely conversion ratios, so possibly.


No idea what would be likely conversions or click through, but here are some stats:

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/vpsboard.com



About the spike in traffic between May 30th and June 7th: A member here decided to purchase 'traffic' from Fiverr to 'increase the SEO' or something. I found this out after mentioning (offsite) that the traffic for the past couple days was really high where I was then informed about their 'gift'. I wasn't happy as I was hoping to be able to have accurate reporting of traffic in case I needed to share the stats. Proof: http://i.imgur.com/Wykvj0c.png

This was only for one week thankfully. The rest of the traffic stats after that date are accurate.

Anything else I should include or address?


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## vanarp (Jul 2, 2013)

If you are not concerned, I would like to see Organic vs Referral vs Direct visitor counts.


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## MannDude (Jul 2, 2013)

vanarp said:


> If you are not concerned, I would like to see Organic vs Referral vs Direct visitor counts.



I believe this is a more accurate depiction of traffic during that fake traffic spike at the end of May:





vanarp said:


> If you are not concerned, I would like to see Organic vs Referral vs Direct visitor counts.


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## mikho (Jul 2, 2013)

MannDude said:


> That's not a bad idea but trying to scout a free platform that'd also allow those purchasing ad spots can have some control over their account (see stats and do things themselves like uploading banners, etc)


Not to rain on your parade but there are rarely free products that do all that and would integrate without problems.


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## XFS_Duke (Jul 2, 2013)

@MannDude, we'll purchase ad space when it's up and running.


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## ChrisM (Jul 2, 2013)

MannDude said:


> Also, who would seriously be interested in ad-space?
> 
> I'm not going to reserve spots and this isn't you 'signing up', just trying to get a rough idea of who is interested so I can plan accordingly. Pricing not yet decided nor have restrictions (may limit ad spots to 2 spots per advertiser to prevent LET style wall of URPad or CVPS ads).



You already know I am interested in a couple for my new non-hosting related project.


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## D. Strout (Jul 2, 2013)

Chris Miller said:


> You already know I am interested in a couple for my new non-hosting related project.


Yeah, what is/will be the policy on non-hosting ads?


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## ChrisM (Jul 2, 2013)

D. Strout said:


> Yeah, what is/will be the policy on non-hosting ads?



Unless the non-hosting related advertisements will be advertising on how to increase your penis size I don't see why there would be an issue for it.


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## texteditor (Jul 2, 2013)

Chris Miller said:


> Unless the non-hosting related advertisements will be advertising on how to increase your penis size I don't see why there would be an issue for it.


What about people like me, who are interested in VPS offers_ and_ increasing my penis size?


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## ChrisM (Jul 2, 2013)

texteditor said:


> What about people like me, who are interested in VPS offers_ and_ increasing my penis size?


I will share a well known method with you.

Step 1: Locate a low end vps

Step 2: Buy said low end vps

Step 3: Run io tests on low end vps until you get the lowest result

Step 4: Post review threads containing such low result.

Step 5: Wait for trolls to reply.

Step 6: Enjoy your enlarged body part.


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## Marc M. (Jul 2, 2013)

*@**texteditor* just give Dr. Christian Troy down in Miami a call, he'll take very good care of you :lol:


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## MannDude (Jul 2, 2013)

What do you guys think about the ad-placement? I'm not sold on the top one yet but have had interest from providers in it so I will consider it.

1 header ad spot and 4 sidebar ad spots. Using an ad pulled from WHT for the banner and obviously LET ones for the example in the sidebar. There will be less ads in rotation so despite the fact that LET has more visitors, I am hoping that by having less ads in rotation will allow better exposure of the advertisers and more clicks for you.


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## MannDude (Jul 2, 2013)

earl said:


> Personally I like ADS.. especially if it's a good deal not sure why you want to reinvent the wheel sort to speak just to save a few bucks.. I would go with BSA and the exposure you get from being listed on their site alone will probably compensate the 25% that they charge for commission..That and the fact that you would not need to worry about setting up your own software for ADs and they take care of billings for you seems worth it IMO.


Well, BuySell Ads has already denied vpsboard for some reason. I submitted the property and never heard anything, so re-submitted it the following day and was told in an error message I'd have to wait another 30 days. I submitted a ticket to ask for a reason as to why, and never heard back. I was interested in seeing their platform and what not, but I can live without. My only guess is that it wasn't accepted due to there being a lot of talk (at the time) of the SolusVM Exploit, of the CVPS and Ramnode Hack, etc. It probably made it look like this was a sketchy forum or something. I don't know.



mikho said:


> Not to rain on your parade but there are rarely free products that do all that and would integrate without problems.


Yeah, probably will just go with IP. Nexus. Wasn't necessarily looking for a free product, but depending on what I hear back from IPB clients on the IPB Client forum then I'll proceed with getting IP.Nexus for this.



D. Strout said:


> Yeah, what is/will be the policy on non-hosting ads?


It needs to be relevant to the interests of the community. This could be blogs, physical hardware, review sites, or whatever.


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## HalfEatenPie (Jul 2, 2013)

D. Strout said:


> Yeah, what is/will be the policy on non-hosting ads?


Well, just stating this so that people realize how advertisers work...

The advertisers want a return on their investments.  This is usually done by viewing what kind of traffic a website gets (e.g. tech savvy individuals, hosting, etc.) and then displaying hopefully relevant advertisement for majority of the userbase.  

This means that most of them should be able to make a better educated judgement on what kind of advertisements they want to display/should be displayed.  Hell it could even be a new VPS Control Panel company that wants more brand awareness or such.  So I don't see any issues with non-hosting related websites if the owner/advertiser believes them in terms of traffic.  

Bottom line though, will probably be PG/PG-13 advertisements only.


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## TheLinuxBug (Jul 2, 2013)

You know, maybe I am just annoyed in general, but seriously you invited us all here and said this wasn't going to be a commercial venture and you said that you were able to support it regardless of its size and here we are playing the lets put ads on the site game? More than a few people have offered money, time and expertise to help with the site. Here I thought that was the meaning of a community, everyone coming together to make something work?  Instead, much like a large portion of this thread, it seems like all everyone is seeing is $$$$$$$$.  

 

I have no doubt that every provider here is ready to pitch money for ads, after all, who wouldn't want their name all over a forum.  Do some psychological research, if you put flashy items on a site and promote it as "good" and the customer values the forum content, this is an automatic endorsement of said item.  So, people will tend to spend their money on it because they think the ads reflect the opinions of said community. Do we get a say in which ads get posted? Unless of course this is a commercial venture and not a community?  With WHT and LET now, it is common knowledge, they are there for among all other reasons, to make money, is that the goal here as well?  I thought it was to provide people a free and open source of information about this industry, its providers and to help people learn? 

 

 I will restate what I said before, I do not believe this site is actually costing you that much money to sustain, and before you proceed to put ads on it, I would like an explanation of what those costs are that you are unable to afford? I have a sneaking suspicion with a few reasonable contributors you could pay for the whole thing without need of ads. Please, prove me wrong. 

 

Cheers!


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## MannDude (Jul 2, 2013)

TheLinuxBug said:


> You know, maybe I am just annoyed in general, but seriously you invited us all here and said this wasn't going to be a commercial venture and you said that you were able to support it regardless of its size and here we are playing the lets put ads on the site game? More than a few people have offered money, time and expertise to help with the site. Here I thought that was the meaning of a community, everyone coming together to make something work?  Instead, much like a large portion of this thread, it seems like all everyone is seeing is $$$$$$$$.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Your concerns are valid and I feel are shared among many here. You're likely not alone in thinking this and I'm glad you mentioned it.

Basically, I'm a situation where I need to re-evaluate things. I didn't expect the site to grow this fast.

The cost of hosting right now is low, very low. There is no denying it. BuyVM is great, but geographically speaking, Las Vegas is not a good location for the visitor base here. People complain too often of poor performance, poor loading speeds, etc. But I stay here because of the affordable DDoS protection, which is something very much needed.

I'd _like to_ move elsewhere, closer to the visitors. Or at the very least, be able to afford a better setup to have content closer to those accessing it. That I can not do out of pocket.

Many have offered donations and services, but then what happens? I've had more offers for free stuff than I can count, and while I am grateful, I am hesitant. I don't want to deal with explaining to XYZ host why I took the plan from ZYX host instead of theirs. I dont want the community to think I'm in bed with ZYX host because they're hosting us for free (and honestly, half the offers for free hosting are in locations not that ideal for the site). Donations I was open to, but what happens on the months when there are none? Assuming, for example, the site is hosted elsewhere and we were using $200/mo DDoS protection from Cloudflare, where does that money come from?

I'm not wanting to make a living off this, but I'd like to be able to afford a better setup to serve content to the visitors better.

Keep in mind when I started this forum I was working at URPad, and people didn't want to come here because of that thinking it was going to be to promote that. I made good money there, but left after the company sold and wanted me to relocate to Houston, TX. The 30th of May was my last day there, and I have been living off of savings since then. On a personal note, my savings wasn't that big. My lease is almost up and I will be moving out of this house into a cheaper apartment downtown. I just started a part time temporary job yesterday working for another company and that will be a 4-6 week job. What is left over at the end of the month after upgrading things it will be split between myself and Don. Martin says he doesn't want any, but I was going to split the leftovers with those who keep this place running. (Unlike LET/WHT).

I'm trying to keep things honest and trying to keep things good. I can accept free stuff and deal with speculation and the possibility that the site may be up/down due to moving around often if donations are insufficient month to month or I can sell ad-space, do so honestly, get a much better setup so this place can remain stable, fast, and grow and get compensated very poorly with what is left over for the amount of time and effort I put into here dealing with stuff.


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## XFS_Duke (Jul 2, 2013)

MannDude said:


> Your concerns are valid and I feel are shared among many here. You're likely not alone in thinking this and I'm glad you mentioned it.
> 
> Basically, I'm a situation where I need to re-evaluate things. I didn't expect the site to grow this fast.
> 
> ...


I think this is the proper way of doing it. I think 90% of the providers and users here are willing to donate something or purchase ad space. Just keep it affordable for everyone even the smaller providers. I know I'm willing to help out as much as I can without any request for special treatment or anything like that. I just want to see this community get bigger and better. Bottom line is you're doing a great job along with everyone else that is helping run this community. Don't let the negative comments make you change anything at all.


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