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raybo3
Administrator Posts: 5,459 admin
Thought it would be a good idea to start a new thread. I have heard back from Rinker and I am now waiting to hear back from Polaris. We are going to do everything we can to save the forum. I will update everyone as soon as I hear back.
2002 342 Fiesta Vee PC Point Of Pines YC Revere MA. popyc.org raybo3@live.com
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Like the song by Johnnie Taylor: Cheaper to keep her.
Check out https://www.cfb51.com ... it's the football site, and its by far the busier. Another is carolina-woodworkers.com , another passion of mine and just recently set up with little activity. This crisis has kept that site from being unveiled except for managers of the club... was supposed to been introduced in the April monthly meeting..
The design or user interface/experience is something I control exclusively and can design it to look however we would want/prefer.... don't think because I'm using similar with those two sites that I can't make it however folks here would like. The cfb51 has a pretty good (and totally custom designed by me) mobile version... the other one I gave up here i just started making it mobile and without much focused effort yet.
They're both fast. The cfb51 one is designed for speed above all else.
The ONLY ads on ANY site i run are those Amazon ads... no pop-ups popunders or pop anything. No audio, video or anything close to invasive. They are in the floating sidebar and that is it, and... if you have ad blocking software you won't even see them as that is something I strongly believe people SHOJLD be able to control.
Vanilla isn't free... I don't know their cost or cost schedule. Servers are strange in that getting set up is expensive, maintaining them is expensive, but the volume of data is of little concern... ie of you have a server with 5TB storage, you may as well use it...
Of it were any other flavor of forum software I could tell you it would be of little concern... but because it is a premium service, and requires professionals to manage, I fear it is over the line for no gain for them... it may be im wrong. I hope I am.
The server this forum or Rinker for that matter use aren't any better than mine... again, mine is a dedicated bit leased server and the annual cost is in the $4k range.... I do all my own work as far as configuration and management as well as software packages such as the forum engine... if I didn't that would be an additional at least $6k annually... so... somewhere in the $10k range for a decent set up. Again, though, once you have the basis in place, the traffic (bandwidth) and storage really doesn't impact anything... the person investing $10k could host hundreds of sites for about the same cost...
I'll build out rinker-owners.com one way or another... I'll have perhaps $300 to $400 into it, and then nothing more than the annual lease costs. Shoot, I may contact rinker/Polaris myself and see if they are interested in letting me sell the labeled parts to eliminate that concern for them, as it will simply require a storefront which would take me a day or two to arrange.... if they go for that then any advertising concerns would be eliminated and we could continue to grow the brand for whomever picks it up (there is zero chance the brand will be left to die in my opinion).
That pretty much sums up my insight at this point.
It wouldn't cost anyone a penny to run it, it would be just as if not more robust than this engine, and the characters in charge would remain the characters in charge... I'd be around for back end stuff, obviously, but I'm a firm believer in hands completely off existing groups. The best thing about it? It will belong to the group... THIS group. And will remain as this group wants....... no answering to corporate interests or influence...
If there are any questions or concerns about that, head over to cfb51 and look up 847badgerfan (who is a big bitakes boater too) and ask him.... he ran a prior group that had the carpet pulled from underneath them and I hooked them up. He is a co-owner on the cdb51 site, and one thing we are crystal clear on: "that won't happen again".
Dream 'Inn III -- 2008 400 Express
go daddy is a mess.... use them at your own peril. they're okay for small operations that don't require dynamic operations or interaction with databases... they will fall over and do under any kind of load, and all that 'unlimited' stuff they sell will find its limits with a quickness- and they won't give a single dang about it... i rescued a guy and run his page for him from godaddy.... his page is https://www.whoanelliecollegefootball.com .... his page is popular, but not near so popular that he would receive an ultimatum from godaddy stating 'upgrade or be tossed'- holding his page ransom.
you guys can do as you choose. it's up to the group here... the amazon ads don't track other than a cookie. if you knew my background, @YYZRC , you'd realize that suggestion is far from accurate.
@Dream_Inn the domain is still on the yahoo servers... i haven't moved it yet.... you shouldn't have any problems seeing the site mentioned above or https://www.cfb51.com , and please let me know if you do. I do only dedicated IP's, all my sites are secured with a robust certification.... i don't play around with it.
I would prefer no ads, and I would be willing to pay an annual subscription for no ads. I would also happily accept a slower site on a shared server over a faster site on a dedicated server if the faster site had ads. There are several forum members who sell their products on here - they should also support with a vendor subscription!
Perhaps the ideal outcome would be that Rinker provides the Vanilla data dump (without user information) to anyone who wants it and a few new boards emerge with the historical data. Users would ultimately migrate to the platform they prefer.
shared hosts are a bust... i don't care to educate folks on that nor explain the difference in what a person will, with certainty, discover on their own when using a shared environment (especially the lucrative but straight BS 'unlimited' oversold shared hosting traps). they work great for folks who have no idea what they're up against, and who after a year turn and say 'well, i gave it a shot' and dump it. if that is the goal of attempting to maintain this community, then have at it.
you are hinged on the adverts i mentioned... have you even looked at them? i invite everyone to do so... i don't make a penny unless someone buys something from amazon and through those links or using that particular search.... they 'appear', they don't 'track'... they appear in that ONE location. i used google ads on that page and promptly kicked them off because they ARE invasive... go talk to the members over there... do so before prresenting me as some sort of extortionist.
that community was 'saved' during the transition between Scout.com and 247sports.com... 24/7 (CBS) at least gave us notice they were going to dump the site, which gave me and the person who ran that site (as an unpaid moderator) opportunity to react- and we did... we offer a clean and very functional site that far surpasses the offering from scout... go look at 247's sites- they are the opposite... they beat you about the heads and shoulders with adverts- invasive video ads, audio ads, ads you must respond to in order to see content... all that crap... WE DO NOT AND NEVER WILL.
furhtermore, every single one of those members there will tell you the same story i will- that site is OWNED AND OPERATED by the GROUP... NOT a corporate interest... it's not going anywhere and it's ours to do with as we see fit... members sell stuff all the time- members take care of other members and the networking is legitimate there.... you guys speak here of a rarity of 'community', but you have nothing on them.... close, but not... and why? because we VALUE each other- and have followed each other through first College Football News, then Fox when they bought them out, then Scout when scout bought them out, then when the house pulled the carpet- we built OUR OWN where that won't happen again.
there will be an amazon advert if i do it. there will also be opportunity (free of cost) for TRUE members of this group to sell directly off the site... but most importantly? I have resources i KNOW, beyond doubt, can handle a dynamic interface using up to 600 concurrent 'workers' (meaning 600 people hit the 'post' button at the precise same moment) and withstand up to 90k persons on that page at one time.
re:speed.... speed is nice... it's also required by indexers such as google to differentiate between flimsy fly by night sites and real ones. cfb51 ranks in the 20's, worldwide, in it's family of sites..... competing with the likes of ESPN, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox for that market... it's successful because it isn't a cardboard box. it's a real site.
whether you realize it or not a forum engine, which interacts with script and database for each call and has everyone assigned a session (so it's generating sometimes thousands of different 'interfaces' per second) are extremely taxing on a server and a site even half as busy as this one would most likely get kicked off a shared server pretty quickly... or forced to upgrade at the least...
look, bottom line- if you guys want it, the offer stands... it doesn't matter to me one way or the other- it means a lot of work on my end, yeah, but which i'm happy to do (for this group just like for that other mentioned)... go talk to them... register an account there and see the capabilities... for whatever reason several are hung up on ads- not all ads are the same and i don't tolerate invasive ones.
it's up to the collective here... peace out.
@212rowboat - I can see your cfb site from here, which is fantastic. I also think it is great what you are offering for us here! I even like the rinker owners link. Thank you so much for what you are offering! Hoping we can stay put and be ok, but I do think we need to keep alternatives in mind. We'll see what Raybo digs up, he is the man!
@YYZRC - thank you as well for the offer. I think a repeat of above goes your way as well. We will see if we can stay here.
This is what makes everyone here like family! & we want to keep that feeling! It's tough enough right now with the way things are! I certainly don't want to lose this connection here with all of you!
Dream 'Inn III -- 2008 400 Express
PC BYC, Holland, MI