WooHoo

[Roan Art]

Here's the WC! Thread on what we did:

http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=239698

I had a thought -- how about we make and sell Rocks with Purple String in the Classifieds area here? Official Aquaria Central Rocks with Purple String All proceeds go to AC

Roan

 

[Hannys_Papa]

I just posted into a different thread before i found this one.
Anyways...

A large technology oriented forum where i am part of the staff gives you 100PMs for a 1 time donation of 5$. Your name shows up in a different colour so everyone can see you supported the page. There are a few little other privilidges aswell.

Additional they have yearly subscriptions. You get 250 PMs for 5$ yearly subscription and 500 for 10$ 1-year subscription plus other things like custom avatar (larger files), other ways to customize your profile, name, info etc.

Now it might not be necessary to go that far - but do the one time 5$ donation for a bigger PM folder and a nice colourful name - and i pay tomorrow. Just an idea....

 

[lokisbuddy]

glad were back in buissness so to speak

i am really glad the site is up and running again!

 

[patoloco]

i'm so glad to have AC back and running. For some reason, I knew it would start working again and Feb 1st.

:=)

A few years ago, another forum I used to visit had the same problem, so the Admin threw out some rules to reduce bandwith. Some recomendations:

1- Don't use AC as your home page. This way, you'll not be sucking up bandwidth everytime you atart your browser.

2- Reduce avatars size. Since that was an artistic forum, almost all the poeple used animated GIF's as avatars, cometimes reqachin up to 250kb each. We were askd to reduce our avatar size to 10kb.

3- Post Pictures only as links, not embedded into the post.

4- Donate $$ to the site.

 

[pedzola]

A variation on the theme:

Car forums often have something called "sponsor members." A sponsor member is somebody who donates to the site. It can be a donation of any size, but is typically $25 for sponsor status.

This membership could give you a myriad of benefits: Access to a special sponsor members forum, a custom signature, more PMs, a quote or nickname under your avatar, a free sticker/mouspad/mug/t-shirt/whatever (maybe based on how much you donate).

This seems to work very well for car forums.
1) You don't have to be a sponsor member to use the forum, but many of those who use the site a lot will feel charitable enough to donate. (which, with the price of bandwidth these days [cheap], should be enough to keep the site running.)

2) It is a one-time fee, so there is no monthly or weekly or yearly tracking to worry about.

3) The site can give away a sponsor membership as a prize in contests or etc, and it costs nothing.


Another $$ generation technique along the same lines is to invite vendors to the forum. There would be a vendor forum where they can post sales, respond to questions about their products, etc. The vendor would pay a monthly or yearly membership fee to the web site for the priveledge of being able to advertise and interact w/their customers.

I think either of the above situations would create a win-win situation for the forum patrons.

 

[flyingfish]

I kind of like the vendor forum idea too - as long as it didn't leak into other forums. I don't need someone telling me to buy this or that to solve my problem just because they sell it.

Donation of anything other than art just isn't an option for me.

 

[DeVitaf]

GREAT IDEA ROAN! I am sure I have something to sell...

Hash Brownies might be difficult to ship....
:laugh:

 

[graphicdesign_r]

Good to be back...

I am in the same boat. Th only thing I could donate would be time etc. $ is tight and looking to get tighter...

 

[tomdkat]

A variation on the theme:

Car forums often have something called "sponsor members." A sponsor member is somebody who donates to the site. It can be a donation of any size, but is typically $25 for sponsor status.

Home Theater SPot does this and it was great until they moved more of the popular forums into the paid area.

If we could strike a good balance between free areas and paid areas, I think this could work out well for all.

How many here would be willing to spend any money to support the site, either through PayPal donations or a paid area?

Peace...

 

[Hannys_Papa]

In connection with my first post in this thread - i dont really like the idea of paid areas. I also believe $25 is way too much.

The other forum i mentioned has almost 100000 members with usually 1000 people on at any given time and the suggested $5 one time fee works out more than well. Even if just 5% of the members pay this it easily covers bandwidth costs and server storage (which i am certain is much more intensive there than it is here).

I am sure with such a system here on AC the page would easily have 10 people a month paing 5$ - and 50$ should easily buy enough bandwidth to keep the page going past the 26th of the month.

Once you start with paid areas or $25 fees the free community becomes a business for the site owner. Of course its up to the owner if thats the way he/ she wants to go - but i didnt have the idea AC was about that at all.