Possibility: Moving to dedicated hosting

EDIT: THREAD MOVED FROM PRIVATE TO PUBLIC FORUM

In case you havent noticed already, the forums have been running pretty slow lately. This is due to the fact we are on a shared hosting plan. Shared hosting is where you split the cost of running a webserver with other people. Shared hosting can be a good economic plan for smaller scale sites, while it is becoming less and less so for us. The problem isnt bandwidth limits, we have pleanty of bandwidth (we are only utilizing 10% of our limit atm.) The problem is during peak times our site, as well as the other ones hosted on this server, get lots of hits and it bogs down the server CPU. When the server CPU bogs down it can cause slow forum browsing. This really hasnt been much of a problem until recently, as our server usage has increased 60% over the last 2.5 months.

This past week I have been looking into colocated hosting. Colocation is where you basically rent space in a datacenter to hook up your server to a high speed connection. I have a server (currently the freespaceserver) with 15x sufficient tech specs to handle our typical forum browsing as well as whatever Fs2netD traffic that picks up once the SoL and BSG projects are released. It would be sort of like taking this place "to the next level."

The main issue is how much this is gonna cost us, should we decide to do it. Ive done some shopping, and its gonna run us about $50-$80 a month for a 1.5-3mbit line, which should be pleanty of bandwidth for the forums as well as fs2netd to use.

How should we raise the money if we decide to do this?
Ad revenues currently are around $5-$20 per month (they fluxuate quite a bit.) I would be willing to pay about $30-$40 out of pocket. The rest we would need to raise, from either you guys or community patrons. I think that once these big projects begin to come out, finding sponsors will become less of an issue. Until then, it might be pretty tough. I would like to get this set up around September/October if we decide to do it.

Ive posted a poll, and I would really appreciate it if you posted your thoughts on this matter. This is something I would like to do eventually. The extra flexibility of running our own server would be fantastic.

Server specs:
AMD Sempron 3300+ (socket A)
512 MB DDR 400
400GB HDD

Well, I had some problems with the speed of GW in the last time. It's great that GW got a lot bigger, but it also means we need to do something about the speed. If GW keeps beeing slow, we'll probably loose some members soon. It's also a problem for the hosted projects...

Personally I wouldn't mind to spend a few bucks to make GW better. It's a good chance to do something for GW.


I've still one question before I vote. What about ads? Will we still use ads? How much could we possibly earn by adding them?

DaBrain said:

Well, I had some problems with the speed of GW in the last time. It's great that GW got a lot bigger, but it also means we need to do something about the speed. If GW keeps beeing slow, we'll probably loose some members soon. It's also a problem for the hosted projects...

Personally I wouldn't mind to spend a few bucks to make GW better. It's a good chance to do something for GW.


I've still one question before I vote. What about ads? Will we still use ads? How much could we possibly earn by adding them?

Click to expand...

It all depends on how many supplicant donations we get from people. If we get enough, the ads will be removed.

Ad revenue has been increasing lately, and if it continues its current rate it will cover a significant portion of the bill. I am not going to count on it increasing at its current rate. The amount of visitors we get will subsequently drop off if the site gets too slow. Simple fact: less visitors = less clicks.

I would really appreciate some more feedback on this, guys. I see 14 views and only one comment.

I have noticed GW has a bit gotten slower lately (in terms of speed, not activity), so I think an upgrade would be nice. However the upgrade would do no good without the cash to support it.

To bring some incentive into donating, maybe donators could get some mention on the site (This month's suppporters include so and so...), or some special gold star avatar like the BSG crew has.

Sounds like a good idea.
BUT we have to make a clear satement that these donations do not have anything to do with the hosted projects.

Any connection to donations is very dangerous for SoL, BtRL, Robotech and SG-1: ED.

I have now moved this thread from the Staff forum to the public forum in anticipation that I may receive more feedback.

One of the things I would like to add is

Tell us what you think if there were such a thing as a sponsor membership: The sponsor membership may include such bonuses as:

A personal FTP account
Limited SSH access on the new server
Special Forum Access
a MySQL database

Tell us what you think and what you want

As in, I donate cash, I get a better account? >..>;;

well, if i could donate i would, but i cant( dont ask, its a long story), but i can give you a tip, if your getting google ads you shouldnt click on the ad unless theres somthing you want, you dont want the hlp incedent allover again

Is this idea still going? Or are we bumping old threads?

Old thread. If you read the anouncement thread, you'll see that this actually is on its own dedicated server now.