Nik - KOTM
2015-09-26 10:17:35
As some of you may know, the owner of the website, Tomp, has emigrated. Due to circumstances out of his control he was unable to pay for the upkeep of the site for a short time.
Let me say from the outset, thank you to Tomp for setting up this forum 11 years ago, and has been paying for it out of his own pocket all this time and refused any offer of financial help at any stage.
As most of you know, Mo and myself have been looking after the place while he has been away. Basically, Tomp is not really in a position to keep the site alive and is looking to pass it on.
Due to some personal issues he is unable to just pass on the owner administration passwords for the website, which is fair enough.
So we need to move, Tomp is happy to pass on the codes for this website to the new owner.... we just have to decide where we need to go.
I looked at getting a new Gator host webpage but they want a huge sum of money just to get the site up and running $288.00 for the basic package ... that's a lot but it will cover three years of web time.
If anyone is able to take the site on let us know what you can offer, or if you are prepared to dip into your pocket to keep it here on a new domain page.
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To let you know what has been going on in a nutshell (a big nut) over the past years, Tomp made me an administrator about nine years ago due to the prolific amount of posts I hit it with, back in those days membership was automatic.
When I figured out how the site worked, I started to play around with the limited access, hence the other pages not having much if any input from me, but I did have access to control of the forum. I created a few of the other pages, some successful some not. I introduced moderators to look after pages and things went on happily for a few years....
Then came the trolls and barrage of irrelevant spam adverts.
At one point it was getting ridiculous, we were getting to the point of removing anywhere up to 120 adverts every day, this went on for some weeks when I had to change the automatic membership to one of application acceptance, at the same time I removed all the moderators as they were no longer required. Initially I was deleting about 80% of the applicants, though this has dropped to a minimal 1 or 2 applications per month. I was grateful for their time and assistance while they were there.
After about 6 months, I invited Mo to become a co-administrator, not because I wanted help as such, but it was more to point of if something happened to me, at least the site would still have an administrator and keep it alive.
Mo has been a godsend, and thank you for your help.
I usually pop in every day, when I am on line to look around dust out some of the corners and shelves.
On to the future I suppose
Dartymoor
2015-09-26 11:57:34
Some of you know I offered to host the site on facebook during the last outage.
If a new host is wanted, I offer a home.
- Free hosting on my home linux server here on Dartmoor, indefinitely. This is not fed by a fast internet connection, but this is not a high traffic or bandwidth site and most people would not notice any real difference.
- I would offer to fund the domain renewals myself if transferred. (A few quid a year won't be a problem)
About me: Used to letterbox a lot, but now more of a geocacher. I live on the moor and walk and bike on it most weeks, it's my favourite place and has been all my life. I'm also a geek who hosts and maintains several websites.
I have no problem giving admin/moderator account to existing admins on the forums, but I won't offer filesystem access (I've been bitten before, sorry. I'd need to be given the existing filebase and database and for the DNS A-record to be amended or transferred)
So - it's an offer. I won't be offended at all if it's not taken up or somebody else makes a better one! I just think this is a useful reference and am in a position to help if it's needed. Even if the existing hosting is used now it's renewed and I'm contacted some point in the future, that's fine too.
Sowerby Streaker
2015-09-27 12:55:52
Thanks Dartymoor thats a great offer. But not being a computer geek myself not sure what it involves re transfer of files etc...
Regarding financing the site - I would like to perhaps sugggest a membership fee of say £1 or even £5 per annun to all members. This would then raise enough money to run the site and not just rely on the generousity of one or two people. This would not be difficult to collect as I'm sure we have all heard of Paypal or BACS.
Also I know we have hundreds of members on here, but not all actually take part in the posts but look at the site as an encylopedia of information on Dartmoor. Since the site has been down there have been quite a few posts and emails going back and forth mainly saying how much the site is missed. Therefore if only a quarter of all members paid a fee, even to just read through the pages, the site could run on for a few more years without these constant interuptions by the site hosts.
Just a few thoughts - lets now hear from the members how you would like us to move forward with this. :)
whoisthechallenger
2015-09-27 15:33:51
I am not much of an IT expert, so much of the discussion so far has gone right over my head. However, I do understand the human aspects, the financial implications, and above all, the importance of keeping the site going. I am happy to contribute financially to support the 'dartmoorletterboxing.org' website if others are too.
I must say that I would hope that an investment of time, money and attention would re-energise the
dorset john
2015-09-29 12:04:27
Hi All,
I am one of the letterboxers who have never posted a comment on the forum, but I do regularly read and obtain information.
I find the forum very informative, and it would be a great loss if it disappeared.
Like the Sowerby Streaker, if it is a question of finance, then I believe that a small annual fee should/could be charged to cover costs.
Can I just add, a big Thank You to all those involved in maintaining the site.
Nik - KOTM
2015-09-30 05:56:06
The problem with a fee to keep it going, would fall upon a small number of people, most of the members on here stopped posting years ago. I suspect most of them have forgotten about the site.
It would have to be either a total relocation of a host or willing donates to keep it going. I am happy to keep it going, but realistically I think we are going to have to move.
If we move, Tomp is happy to put a forwarding link to redirect everyone involved.
I have noticed comments about the other pages not being updated, it has irritated the hell out of me. Desperately wanting to update the pages to make it more attractive. I seem to remember there was a blog page at one point... something I occasionally wrote on....
Dartymoor
2015-10-13 16:49:14
Just to follow up on my offer; I would not charge at all even if others wanted to contribute, I would ask them to give time rather than money to generate content.
Domain renewals are cheap, if this domain were to be transferred. It's more hassle to collect money than just pay a .org renewal that's less that £10 a year.
Hosting is what's causing a problem for the current owner, which can range from free to seriously expensive, and having seen the figures mentioned, this one looks to be firmly in the latter camp. By putting it on my own server, this would be completely free to me (I would be running the server and using the internet connection anyway) so it would not be right to charge others for it.
But - this would need two things:
1. The current owner to transfer stuff across. (Or allow me access to run backups so that if it goes down again, I'm in a position to pop up a replacement site if he's unable to get the original back up himself)
2. More activity on the site to make it worthwhile. (Actually, I don't mind running a site with low traffic - there have now been no new posts for two weeks, but it does ask the question why if it's not being used!)
smartieb
2015-10-19 22:12:33
Think just need to thank thomp for financing this site over the years, from the sound of it out of his own pocket.
I hope all those people involved in organising the relocation of this site are successful and manage to keep it going for a number of years to come. I find it a wealth of information and even spend time looking through the older posts to see what I missed out on in the days before a started boxing.
Good luck to you all and just wish I had some technical knowledge to be able to help.
Hope you succeed in keeping it away from face book