Site Funding. Supporting Members. Q & A.

[Guile]

those who lie habitually need to accuse others of lying to shine the spotlight off them hence why Moby constantly writes (forum member name) "busted" ..he got poor Trench now hahaa.

figures he wouldnt put his money where his mouth is. wouldnt even take my bet. johngaunt was right about you.

[Manny]

I.d be willing to be your onsite techie for 24/7  if you take a dirt cheap vps. Together with herrie as your webmaster that should cover 99% of your IT needs

For instance a 1cpu 1gb memory 2tera storage with hetzner.de costs 15 euro/ month. I run my mail relay there and its very good for self service type guys like me

Thanks for the offer, Mark. Your suggestion would involve migrating the site from where we are: UK based, managed servers, with backups, fast response to, and protection from DDOS and similar, with a very reputable firm with first class customer service, and close to zero downtime, to a place I don't know in Germany in a language I'm not good at.

Every time this site has been migrated in the past has been a total nightmare and lots of it broke. Our current host imported the site painlessly and it was a condition of the swap over back then that they did so and fixed anything that broke. We had a lot of problems over the years with cheap hosting.

The offer of volunteer help is always appreciated, of course, and nobody doubts your tech capability, but I'm not keen on the idea of migrating the site elsewhere to save a few quid. Plus I've always found cheap hosting is cheap for a reason. Images will be crawling to open, downtime becomes a thing again, etc. All that stuff is in the past since I started using an expensive host.

For me, a lot of it is about time and not money. I haven't got half a day to fix the site when it breaks or time to spend the whole morning on the phone asking others to do so. I'll pay more to solve a problem painlessly. All the time I've had websites I've had ongoing issues with the host one way or another. With this firm, I don't need to think about it. And that has a price.

[msmoby]

those who lie habitually need to accuse others of lying to shine the spotlight off them

Ah, so one of your crack-pot "I'm obsessed with moby" posts got through ..in the hope I'll respond and then MY post will get moved into obscurity 

[Steveboy]

So I thought I would start a topic on site funding, as it does crop up from time to time, and again today:

How does one become a supporting and or sustaining member.

** Donation Link Here **

That question was as a result of a query about the upload image feature having been turned off some months ago (edit: now switched back on).

So I will dial back first with some history.

When the site was started way back in 2007, it was on the usual few dollars a month 'GoDaddy' shared type of hosting. After moving hosts a few times because such services are crap except for Mom and Pop type sites, traffic was such that we had to use a non-shared environment to avoid lag and downtime. That typically means private servers, dedicated servers or VPS/VDS type deals that cost more. We were hacked once or twice which necessitated off site backups (which are not free). Then we had to move the site out of the US in order to avoid DMCA's, threats of lawsuits from US agencies and other American legal silliness. So we now host in the UK.

Everyone says "Oh, hosting is dirt cheap". Yes it is, if when your site goes down you have to open a ticket, and two days later a bloke called Gupta in India replies it and says "Did you try to reboot your computer?" and then its two days till the next response.     We have a host where if something breaks, I call up, and a bloke called Brian or Geoffrey fixes it while I am on the phone. That level of service has a price tag.

In the 'golden' days of the 'mail order bride' business, which we caught the tail end of, advertisers were coming out of the walls and queuing up to pay our bills. Now the MOB business is a shadow of its former self, we find sites like the huge Aweb and former industry darlings like Elena's don't want to pay their bills to sites like this (or in the latter case need to be chased for 6 months to pay). Why you don't see their ads here any more. We used to use Google to serve ads here too, but Google classed us as an 'adult' site as there are a few photos of scantily clad ladies around the site and other unspecified 'adult' content, so they now refuse to serve ads here. As time allows, I am looking at other ad servers, including adult networks (!), but it takes time to put in place.

Meanwhile, the site trucks along full of eight years of photos and content, growing daily, costing money every month. Our image folders are *huge* and a few months ago when we were again running out of space, I suspended image uploading in order that I can manually review what images we need to keep. For example, an Obama joke image from four years ago in Off Topic on page 75 of a 500 page topic probably isn't important (we need not pay to host that). A blokes photo on a TR of the Potemkin Steps is more relevant, and that can only be done manually. So over a few months, I am up to page 751 of several thousand pages of our images.

It has always been the way that the site must be self-funding. As with any enterprise, it has to pay its own way to be viable. It also has to carry some reserves for ongoing tech work, software upgrades, new ideas, etc.

However it is done, the site needs a little bit of cash every month, generated from itself, to survive without costing me money personally. So a while back, I put a "Donate to RUA" on the ad rotator. So far, only two members have done so as a one off, and earned the heady title of "Supporting Member". I will find the direct link for anyone that wishes to throw a few coins into the bowl and post it on the topic.

But looking forward, with a shortage of advertisers that want to actually pay, and with minimal member contributions, apart from ads like "Wet Chloe Wants You Tonight on Cam" how does a site like this generate a few thousand dollars a year in order to be self funding in light of the MOB industry being on its last legs?

So, lets discuss, and I will happily answer questions.

how does a site like this generate a few thousand dollars a year in order to be self funding in light of the MOB industry being on its last legs?

Blimey thats easy!!

1. Diversify into an International dating forum..for all niches. less politics and bickering more dating

2. Take all the members from the "Other " forum

3. Do some SEO there are not many dating relationship forums so search is easy to fix..

4. Get some serious traffic , get plenty of adsence and get your banners onto as many dating sites as possible

5. Get some good reviews, everyone want's to talk dating!

Diversify move with the times or die..

[Manny]

Manny, I appreciate that you - and others - DO point in a lot of work behind the scenes and would WILLINGLY contribute - via paypal  (  ) a regular contribution - if you can accept that your definition of a 'troll' covers most of us - including yourself .

Above is a comment from Moby several years ago.......

Of course he paid $0.

And here is the reality in 2019.

I'll give you a number ... 20 Lari .. 

There we have it folks, Moby saving thousands of pounds due to info on this site, and causing years of moderation work is worth 20 GEL, £5.41 or $6.75 to him. In the future of course.

What a cheapskate loser.

Moby values this site at under $7, or about 50c a year. 

Why this site now won't give him one inch of latitude.

And look what happened then.............

On the basis that Manny expects to see an 80% reduction in Moby content I have just dobbed in $80 as my contribution to the cost of policing our forum's indigent and most time consuming member. I hope that those others who offered to help defray the costs of policing that member will also follow through.

I look forward to seeing a huge decrease in threads that are effectively closed by Moby, threads where he is the last poster.

Good move Manny.

Oh, and then this:



The site has collected over $260 in donations in 24 hours since we said we would sh!t can the worst of Moby ongoing. But Moby himself offered 50c a YEAR and didn't even pay that.

The next couple of months hosting is paid by two members in one day. 

[andrewfi]

Who else can you auction off? Some might suggest me, but I won't contribute to my own demise.

[Manny]

That and the topic here is demonstrative of how people DON'T want Moby's trolling though, eh?

[shakespear]

I'll chip in $50

[Dogsoldier]

My contribution is in the kitty too.

[rosco]

I've chucked a couple of quid your way too!

[Manny]

Thanks to Shakey, DS and Rosco. 

[andrewfi]

Moby, worth more dead than alive. 

[Manny]

Moby, worth more dead than alive. 

We have another forum donation from HoundDaddyLee. 

[andrewfi]

So, how many Moby posts have been deleted or blocked today? Is he maintaining his onslaught of puerile, poxy, posts?

[NS1]

I will get to it, away for weekend and 15 hour days don't allow much time at the moment.
Even though the deal was to eliminate Moby for money, I will contribute 100 us to the cause by weekend.
Will try to post more as well, but not much into arguing politics.

[Manny]

So, how many Moby posts have been deleted or blocked today? Is he maintaining his onslaught of puerile, poxy, posts?

I think it would be indiscreet to say. But some that didn't pass the test didn't get through. What I said, I meant.

Any post that references other forums (including alleged names elsewhere), negatively references other members, or is trolling or off topic in any way at all wont be approved.

On topic, useful, helpful and friendly posts only will be approved. Any element in the post that doesn't follow that will render the whole post null and void and be unapproved.

And on a further positive note, the donations we have had the last few days has made it possible to turn back on image uploading as we now have some more storage space on the server. 

Also, as mentioned on topics elsewhere, some of the slow load times with new posts, edits, etc. are being investigated and will be fixed.

[Manny]

I will contribute 100 us to the cause by weekend.
Will try to post more as well, but not much into arguing politics.

Received today. Thanks for your support.

[NS1]

I will contribute 100 us to the cause by weekend.
Will try to post more as well, but not much into arguing politics.

Received today. Thanks for your support.

Your welcome, if your successful with the Moby venture I will do again
Still offer up bottle of fine whisky to hardest working mod LOL.

[Manny]

A chap just donated to the running costs and added this note:

Message to RUAdventures. com: Hi thanks for getting rid of Moby.

 

[Lord of the Dance]

A chap just donated to the running costs and added this note:

Message to RUAdventures. com: Hi thanks for getting rid of Moby.

 

The gift that keeps on giving! 

[Manny]

It must be said, the RUA experience is so much nicer now. Interaction is much more civil. People who haven’t been around for ages are drifting back.

I looked in across the street and he’s running amok there. They’re welcome to it.

[B.B.]

A chap just donated to the running costs and added this note:

Message to RUAdventures. com: Hi thanks for getting rid of Moby.

 

I didn't realize he was in ze kuhler.

That inspired me to send you a C-note.

B/B