Forum Status and Future Direction

[Matt93SE]

Ron, I'll keep that in mind, but I get the impression Mr Webmaster is familiar with the system. I'll certainly suggest that to him, though.

I'm with Ron on that extent.. I know guys that play with this stuff every day. it makes sense to enlist a pro that knows all of the little details and can upgrade the software and close some loopholes in a few minutes or hours where it may take the current folks a day or two and multiple tries to get it right.

As much as I like doing things myself, sometimes I find it more prudent to call in an expert. It it means I drop in $40 to the pot vs $20, then I'm OK with that..

[webhound]

Lol. I love crapcan, street tires and the brown board.

But leave this exactly as is. Do a minimal upgrade if it's needed for security and/or spammers.

I'll kick in some money to keep it here, wherever here is...

Will

[Greg Amy]

Ok, so here's the deal.

As I noted before, Bill does not want to give or sell the rights to the domain ImprovedTouring.com (nothing rude, just has other needs for the domain) and he wants to keep it a "community site" (his words). However, he has offered to continue hosting the forum at its current location, upgrade the forum software, and give me - and those I knight - full administrative rights to this forum. In exchange, he asks that we cover the upgrade and ongoing expenses.

I estimate the software upgrade will cost about $300 (we can't get the "upgrade" price because it's too old, it'll be the same price now as a new buy) and that he estimates the ongoing costs, with further software upgrades, will cost about $150-200 per year (which actually seems awful low). Contrary to popular belief, there's not a lot of advertising revenue as he's not been charging the banner advertisers lately (they've been getting a free ride simply because he hasn't bothered to follow up) and the Google isn't much.

Bill has pledged to use 100% of any payments to the health, well-being, and maintenance of this forum. Ask around, he's well-known and has a very good reputation.

So, if we want to do this, it's time to dig deep into your pockets and let's get some money flowing. Bill is now accepting PayPal payments to [email protected]. He's told me that once we gets at least half the amount needed for the software upgrade then we can discuss timeframes for doing the work (he'll do the upgrade work for free). If you want, you can send a PM to me on the amount sent and I can keep a running tally on our progress.

Thanks, and let me know if you have any questions.

Greg

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[mossaidis]

Just saw this... I would add $ for mobile options as well. Do we need funds for consultants? Also, for those that do give through PayPal, EMAIL Greg!

[RSTPerformance]

Please recomend a "respectful" donation recommendation.... Some people have deep pockets here and some have empty ones but we all want to help.

Raymond "Glad I will still have a place to post my success with Street Tires " Blethen

[Greg Amy]

Please recomend a "respectful" donation recommendation....

No recommendations. Give what you think it's worth, I assure you that all funds will go back into the forum.

The only suggestion I have is that this initial pledge drive is for the upgrades; anything extra can help to get "extra" features added. Then we're likely to ask again each year to keep the lights on.

- GA

[tdw6974]

Funds Sent!

[JLawton]

Really? Only half way? I would have guessed we'd be way ahead by now.........

Paid mine!!

[gran racing]

Yeah, me too Jeff. Or maybe the final amount is different than I thought.

[Flyinglizard]

GA please state the mission for this site.

Thanks, MM.

[Greg Amy]

Really? Only half way? I would have guessed we'd be way ahead by now...

No, what I said at the time was "we easily met the halfway mark" which was Mr Webmaster's benchmark before he'd begin committing the time and money for the upgrade.

I had a brief email exchange with him last night, and we've met our funding goals, with enough left over to cover operating costs. Thanks to everyone! Mr Webmaster has purchased the software and is beginning the planning process for the upgrade; he assures me that he's done several of these and is well-versed on the process. We have no schedule yet, but once something is nailed down I'll let you know when.

There will be one maintenance task that I'll need help on. If you go to the user list you'll see that we have something like 15,000 registered users, the vast majority of which have no posts. In addition, you can usually pick out the spammers, which have random characters or obvious advertising in their userID (e.g., "All AmericanStorage" and "plquumber5f"). We'll need to prune all those outta there. No way one person can do it. So at some point I'll be asking the current admin staff to clean these up on a regular basis (no rush, long term process) and ask if anyone else wishes to help.

I'm also likely to purge out old classified ads, ones that have been inactive for over a year or so, clean up the database.

Other than that, we'll get upgraded, add in some challenges to reduce spammers, and move forward.

Greg

Edit: Although we made our 2014 funding goal, please do not hesitate to donate if you've been procrastinating. 100% of that you send, no matter how large or small, goes toward current and future costs of the forum, and is sincerely appreciated. Mr Webmaster is hosting and doing all the work himself without charge, and your administrator staff here is all voluntary.

[Bill Miller]

I realize that I'm a little late to this. Greg, I know many of the folks that run VWVortex, a REALLY big VBulletin site. I can speak to them and get any tips/pointers/etc. if you or Bill would like. I'll be sending some $$ later.