site changes

[SuperJETT]

I'm tweaking some stuff to decrease our server load. Some items may have to be nixed, like the Who's Online.

 

[sjkawgirl]

I hate to see " who's online" go away. I would rather see the newest member go away and even the calendar of upcoming events LISTINGS on the front page could go. All we have to do is click on the calendar tab at the top to see the info.

 

[SuperJETT]

I hate to see " who's online" go away. I would rather see the newest member go away and even the calendar of upcoming events LISTINGS on the front page could go. All we have to do is click on the calendar tab at the top to see the info.

Believe it or not, those are going away ALSO until I get the server load under control, then I'll start adding things back.

 

[SuperJETT]

Ok, I'm disabling more and more things to see what our minimum load *can* be.

However, from talking with another webmaster running vbulletin on Dreamhost, it sounds like we won't be able to get within their limits on cpu usage due to how they have php setup to run.

So, where do we go?

Possibly to another host the runs php as an Apache module instead of cgi so that the cpu minutes will be much lower. This would still be a shared server. Price-wise, probably a little more but within our advertising $$ for now.

Possibly to a dedicated server, but those are $150+ per month. No way can we afford it unless we run the site as a subscription-based thing for like $1/month maybe. If we went that route, we could do away with advertising because the subscriptions would pay for the hosting and as before any extra goes back to the events, not our pockets.

Temporarily if we get suspended, I can move the site to a server at my work but it's only a T1 connection so I'd have to severely limit attachments or do away with them and let everyone use off-site image hosting. I'd rather not go that route.

Feedback? BTW, it's not just a "throw more money at them" deal, Dreamhost doesn't have any dedicated servers available currently, and you can't just pay for more cpu usage.

 

[Moondance]

I say do whatever it takes to keep it fast, exciting, enticing & home to a growing group of enthusiasts. This is a great & unique site & I for one will be willing do pay a subscription fee to keep it on top.

 

[njfl]

The dedicated server/subscription sounds like a reasonable possibility. Would this allow us to be able to post large pictures once again? It's kind of a pain to crop and resize pictures to post them within the allowable limits.

Would there be any other added-benefits of the dedicated server route?

 

[Mark44]

Do what ever it takes, I will pay right now! I do believe if it is a pay site it may be harder to get new users.

I really have no idea what all the tech info means that you posted just keep up the good work.

Mark44

 

[Rickster]

$1 per month, what a rip off!:biggrin:

I have no problems paying for speed and usability. Make it a little bit more per year, and throw in some X-H2O stickers in as well.:biggthumpup:

 

[SuperJETT]

I forgot to add the final option, shut the site down and we all go back to pwctoday, sea-doo.net, jetskinews, wherever.

 

[The Penguin]

uhhhhh....NO

 

[Frosty]

If it means you will be able to enable some of the other lost features... then I'm ok with Pay Per View... I liked seeing the who's on line area, and I liked the number of posts since my last visit counter... so, whatever it takes bro... I'm in.

Instead of $12/year ($1/month) maybe make it $25/year and when you subscribe you get a decal and a t-shirt or something... just a thought.. that might help with luring newbies to the site who might otherwise be detured from wanted to join.

 

[Moondance]

I forgot to add the final option, shut the site down and we all go back to pwctoday, sea-doo.net, jetskinews, wherever.

:haha: :haha: :haha: :haha: ........wait, you're kidding, right?!?!?!


(hehe, yu so funna)

 

[Mark44]

I forgot to add the final option, shut the site down and we all go back to pwctoday, sea-doo.net, jetskinews, wherever.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKK............:bigeyes: :bigeyes: :bigeyes: :bigeyes:

Mark44

 

[SXIPro]

I forgot to add the final option, shut the site down and we all go back to pwctoday, sea-doo.net, jetskinews, wherever.

:banghead: God Forbid...pwcyesterday is no fun anymore, and jetskinews gets about 1 new post a week...

I'm willing to pay to play...

 

[njfl]

Keep in mind that although you state $1/month, you would probably want to do a once-a-year charge of $12.00 to reduce administrative hassles of keeping up with who is up to date on payment.

 

[SuperJETT]

Keep in mind that although you state $1/month, you would probably want to do a once-a-year charge of $12.00 to reduce administrative hassles of keeping up with who is up to date on payment.

yes, but that's an administrative issue to be figured out later on. there are a lot of options on payments. I'd rather not get into the t-shirt/sticker thing because we'd be sending out a TON of them every week. We don't run this site to make money, so anything that makes more work for us just makes it more of a job without pay.

 

[T-bone]

would it help if you got ride of the upload and just used a image hosting service? its easy enough to use something like imagevenue.

 

[onesojourner]

I wouldnt mind paying but if I was new no way in heck would I pay for a forum. I wouldnt mind loosing the attachments we always have places like imageshack.us that would work great to host our pics. I think paying should be a last resort.

 

[SuperJETT]

would it help if you got ride of the upload and just used a image hosting service? its easy enough to use something like imagevenue.

No, we're averaging 125,000 pages/day or so with peaks around 150,000 and the way they have PHP set to run causes high cpu usage. We're just becoming a big site and need a hosting package to match, the problem is we're too big for a shared package probably but not big enough to really need a dedicated yet, and definitely don't have enough money coming in to pay for a dedicated.

 

[T-bone]

:banghead: God Forbid...pwcyesterday is no fun anymore, and jetskinews gets about 1 new post a week...

I'm willing to pay to play...

can you imagine if one day we all showed up posting there, the polaris/honda/tigershark guys would have a cow...........i mean we would be starting all these new threads about our freashly washed sj's and howto gwt along with the enviroment more.