Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Website slowness.....

Well, I spoke with JP at length today. We are having issues with our host server. He basically gave me two options. Option one is to go to a dedicated server. That's pretty expensive. It costs $400 a month. He spoke with our current webserving company and they told him they are "upgrading their database" by the end of the week, which will solve the problem, albeit it may be a temporary solution. We aren't big enough for a dedicated server, but that may be the best decision. I plan to wait until the end of the week, see what our current host does, then make a decision. If they do what they say, and it solves our issue, we'll stay. If not, we will go. If we go, we will probably need to charge a fee for access. Ah, the problems of growth. Nonetheless, I would kindly ask you to oblige our little growing pain and we will get it fixed as soon as we can.
I asked JP to chime in and let everyone know what's going on from his perspective, so we should be hearing from him soon. Thanks, dear friends.

Uggghhh. What is the one time cost of a dedicated server ?

RobA discovered we also have some problems with some of the PB links in existing threads.

I just got a message from the host and it looks like the upgrade is happening tomorrow morning. Hopefully this will fix us for a while. If not, we'll get right on the dedicated server options.

I've been through this 3 or 4 times with our Texas Fishing Forum. It's not a fun process ... for us as well as you.

We do always end up solving the problem. Just bear with us while we work through it. I'm trying to keep an eye on the cost factor. As soon as we can get a few advertisers on board with the PB Forum, the expenses will be a little easier for our friends at Pond Boss World Headquarters to justify.

Being able to continue messing with Uncle Dave will be worth additional costs.

JP knows about the server stuff. He will get the website going sooner or later. He has done a great job and in the end it will be a better place to goto. I am all for a pay site too

Oh the fun of running a popular web forum. I run one with about the same traffic levels as here, it chews up quite a bit of resources. Though I have the luxury of dedicated servers, it's not really a requirement. A VPS might be an adequate and cost-effective option for Pond Boss.

Shared hosting is a terrible thing to deal with, I feel for you JP.

A subscribers-only forum sounds like a good idea if affordable hosting can't be arranged, though possibly not easy to get going and maintain. Doing that may boost subscriptions enough to more than cover the hosting costs.

I don't mind paying for what I get.

Bob and JP,
How 'bout a fee for "premeier" members; the pond veterans who have profited from Lusk's and other pros personal gratis email and forum consulting sevices, and free membership for the newbies ....

We don't want to discourage participation from early viewers and future participants.

I'm in - I vote for "hybrid" membership....

My biggest complaint about TFF is the overload of advertising..

As one who would be willing to pay a fee to post on PB, I agree with George that charging all members a mandatory fee would radically change the site. I believe that the two tier membership idea is a fairly common one so it must be somewhat successful.

One thing to consider is to include a DONATE key on the main page as many websites do. I've made a donation at The Forestry Forum using that function.

One advantage that PB has over TTF is that PB has products to sell. The magazine, books, videos, etc. could be promoted more to help pay the bills. Perhaps an icon could be included by a member's name when they are a PB magizine subscriber, or have bought books or made donations. This might serve as a subtle but constant reminder that the forum needs money to stay viable.

There is also the pledge drive method like the one used by National Public Radio. I don't exactly enjoy that time of the year on NPR, but with a forum you could still provide the same content while adding a thread that promotes donations and tracks pledges towards the published goal. This could utilize a "sticky" thread which is one that is always at the top of the section it's in. The title of the thread could be edited regularly to display the progress toward the monetary goal so that it would stay in everyone's mind until the total was reached. At that point the thread could be deleted until next year. NPR gives both "gifts" and public recognition as perks to contributors.

I think there is an advantage in keeping the forum free of mandatory fees and allowing people to donate, with gentle nudging of course.

PS. I'm a PB subscriber and I own Perfect Pond. I encourage anyone who hasn't supported PB yet to do so now. There is no need to wait for a system to be installed to support your favorite forum.

I think the great thing about Pond Boss is that it is free. I am willing to endure (read ignore) banner advertising to keep it free.

I’m confident JP will whip the host into shape and get the site running faster.

I understand what everyone is complaining about with the slowness, but being on dial up I have gotten used to it. I would hate to see the site goto a pay site as many people would just pass it by, and would miss out on such valuable information. I myself would pay to stay here if it wasn't to expensive as I am on a very limited budget, and even a few dollars a month can make a difference. As I have mentioned, I am on disability and my husband has just been approved, we haven't even gotten any money on him as of yet, will soon tho. I have wanted to get the PB mag. and will when he gets his check, I would also like to get some of the other publications. I enjoy this site, and all that are here are a great help and have great camaraderie, it would be a shame if the money issue would cause some to leave or some not to join because of a fee. I understand it is a problem and you will have to do what you can to stay on line, it would be worse if it were to go away compleatly.

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks,

Chris, that's the very reason I suggested a "two teir" system - one volunteer system for those that wish to pay and have benefitted from all the "free" professtioanl advise over the years, and remaining free to all so as to not to discourage anyone from participating.

The site doesn't have to be lightning fast but it does have to at least be adequate and more important functional. I posted one post yesterday. It took over two minutes to load the main page, over two minutes to load the "questions and observations" page, a couple of minutes to load the "Help us JP thread" and I composed a post hit send and after three minutes the site timed out and I was booted off. Fortunately my post did in fact get posted. All together it took about 10-12 minutes to post one post (not including the time it took me to actually write the thread).

Here's a portion of my post....


How the other site handled the fee was that it was a voluntary contribution, no one was required to contribute. The year that the equipment was upgraded a larger contribution ($50) was suggested (minimum of $10 was requested but absolutely nothing was required) and it dropped to $25 thereafter annually. That forum is significantly larger than this forum (members in the hundreds of thousands) so this level on contribution worked. If you contributed the $50 then below your name a phrase that was something like "Forum Sponsor" appeared. I realize that not everyone would be able to contribute and certainly would not want anyone that was not able to contribute be barred from enjoying this forum. That being said if I were Mr. Lusk (which unfortunately I'm not - stupid, stupid karma) and I certainly am not authorized to speak for him (if you've read many of my posts you can easily determine why that is so) but I can tell you as a businessman that I would not commit to a $400 per month expense to facilitate the continuation of this forum.

I posted the post above merely to let Mr. Lusk know that I both have the ability and willingness to contribute to a forum fund to ensure this site will be here in the future. I'm sure that JP will find a solution and that the forum will be back up to speed. If contributions are requested I'll gladly contribute. For those that are not able to I would hope that the forum would still be available. Personally I would prefer that no one gets locked out.

If just 100 members of this forum contributed $50 that would pay for one year of dedicated server. Although forum has over 3,700 members I'm guessing only a very small fraction of that are regularly active. But if we could get just 100 to pony up $50 that would by us a year of band width. I'm one that will, only 99 to go.

As a final note to New, believe me in my profession I have seen first hand the financial devastation that can come from unforeseen circumstances and I would not want you to not be able to participate. That is why I suggest a voluntary contribution. I realize that some members would not be able to contribute and I have absolutely no problem what so ever with that. There is no shame in being prudent about where you spend your funds.

If this is the route taken I will contribute for both Gail and myself. 97 to go.

Has anyone looked at other hosts? The hosting business is cutthroat, and there are a lot of them out there that are good and want your business. If the deal to have either a dedicated server, or at least a minimum bandwidth were agreed upon up front, you might find it wouldn't cost much more than it does today. Just my 2c.

At work, Godaddy has served us well. Best price in town with good name and service.
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Heck, I run the LNP website thru them as an entry level account; couldn't afford NOT to. Oddly, we get more traffic than I ever thought might occur...and I still can't get past using well less than 1% of our allotted bandwidth. Hey...I know. A new forum! One dedicated to goofin' and clownin', with an occasional outsider interjecting pertinent, intelligent thoughts. I might need moderators...hmmmm. Maybe JHAP, Burger....
What would we call the forum?

At one time I was researching webhosting sites. I found this link which seemed to give great advice about various services:

http://whreviews.com/

The same person also runs a forum about webhosting issues.

http://whrforums.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=6309bed4d9227d6904f568421d443504&board=6.0

Brettski -
Does Donnaski know about this?

I frequent a site that is a pay/donation type that has a counter that runs on the side of the screen that gives a running balance for the dept for the month, kinda helps remind those that want to donate.

On a different thought.. I realize the old software was out dated and there wasnt any support for it but dang it seemed to be running good for me. What in the new software is taxing the system so bad that it has everything slowed down, Why has the bandwidth usage changed?

Bandwidth usage I'm sure hasn't changed (and is actually probably lower, I'm sure most of us aren't spending nearly as much time on here recently). What seems to be taking a lot of time is certain database queries and inserts. If you're geeky enough to know which pages likely require the most database work, you'll see the slowest parts of the site tend to be those areas, while pages that require less database access are much faster. It's near impossible to say without access to the server, but it appears to strictly be a database issue.

It makes me wonder if there's a bad index in one or some of the tables, or some other data problem in the database. It seems far too slow, especially during the middle of the night when the servers are probably very lightly loaded, to be strictly a problem with the server being overloaded. It took literally over 3 minutes (my FasterFox extension times page loads, so that's exact) after I hit "Submit" for my post to show up yesterday at 1:00 AM Eastern time.

But I trust those who run the place know exactly what's going on, so I'm going to shut up now. If you guys would like another opinion from a guy that runs a significant hosting environment, feel free to email me. I don't want to sound like a back seat driver.

I'm another that thinks a paypal donation button to help with hosting costs is a good idea. Also Google AdSense is at least worth considering. A similarly sized forum I run makes $300+ a month off AdSense.

I don't think making it pay-only is a good idea for the same reasons some others mentioned.

Well, seems like it's better tonight actually, though not great. That post showed up in just over 3 seconds.

cmb, I sent you a pm for information help.

Dave

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...you gotta be kiddin' me! I'm still cleanin' up from her niece's sleep-over last weekend!
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HeeHee. "Her niece's"...

I can't tell much difference from Monday. A little faster but still way slower than pre-move.