HD Columbus Raffle Question

[Scott]

I'd like to know what the interest level would be from the community if we were to hold a raffle drawing to help offset some of the costs of running this site.

Ads haven't faired so well and the sponsorhip program hasn't really caught on either. So, my original thoughts were to sell my 17" Viewsonic LCD (see sig) on eBay to help; however, I'm not confident I'd recoup 70% of what I'd paid for it last year.

So... My thought was to offer it up here, in a raffle drawing with my D* H10 included with the hopes we'd secure enough moolah to help maintain this site, purchase our yearly vBulletin license, pay for hosting, bandwidth, and the Google ads we run on their engine for the upcoming year. All together, it would be a $650 retail package brand new--not a bad pickup for a $15-$20 raffle ticket.

I'm looking into a module for vBulletin that would be able to pull this off; however, I won't invest too much time if the interest isn't there.

It sucks to sell my own stuff--but ideally in the future I hope to get a Circuit City or HH involved with donating or sponsoring a raffling event (if this catches on).

We'd probably need about 25 tickets sold ($20 each) in order for this to work for the year.

So take a vote--your opinion counts!

[zelig2]

How much is everything costing you?

I just set up a forum on a server in my basement for my family to post messages and contact eachother. My only cost (other than the spare computer I wasn't using) was the $6 a year domain name fee. If you like we could try to put hdcolumbus.net on my server. I've only got 500kbps for my upload speed so things aren't super fast but I would imagine it could handle the load (maybe). I've got three different domain names pointing to the server with virtual domain abilities in apache so that each address has it's own independent file section. Works great so far. The computer has been up for 26 days straight now with all the mucking around I've done of the server. It had been ages since I had run a linix box so it took a short while to get back into the swing of it. I tested out about 5 different distros to figure out which one I liked the best. At the end I settled on Kubuntu (a flavor of Ubuntu) as I like the KDE desktop more than anything else right now. After about a week or two I got my own mailserver up and running (also using the virtual domains) which I'm quite pleased with at the moment. Spam filtering & virus scanning all working on each email.

Have you posted any recent stats for the site?

[Scott]

We had been cruisng along at about $50 every three months for hosting; however, I just got hit with a $150 tab because our SQL DB space had swelled past my allocated amount included with my $50 every three plan. They moved us into a business class tier which I fought--as I was able to get the used space back down below the quota for our tier by adjusting some settings in the DB (like not storing pictures and attachments in it). Our annual subscription to the vBulletin license is about $100--and we could skip it; however, we miss out on any security patches, upgrades, etc. I've throttled back the advertising allowance for Google's AdWords from $20 per month to $10 per month as we're finally starting to get indexed (we didn't show up at all in Google searches for months so I had get us out there somehow). Because I fought the hosting bill yesterday, I was able get us back to where we should be; however, it's inevitible that we'll keep growing.

As for stats, I hadn't posted any in awhile as I was unhappy with the software I was using. After researching the logs, I found that it was giving us erroneous data. After repeated phonecalls to Google, I finally got us invited to the Google Analytics program. I just installed it last week and I hope to post the stats for August in September.

Thank you for offering up your hardware and bandwidth for the forum; however, I'm a little hesitant to move it at this point. My original intent was to set it up this way, but, after the issues with .org, I steered away from the idea.

[zelig2]

After what happened with .org I don't blame you for putting the site on a dedicated hosting server. The server in my basement is only a dual P3 machine but seems to be able to handle the load associated with the small sites I've started. At work I've disabled javascript from GoogleAnalytics for security reasons. At home though I participate in it. Security updates are definately a nice thing to have to avoid what happened to .org before.

Back to the Raffle discussion: How about the winner gets a free dinner for whenever we have a hdcolumbus.net group meet?

[Scott]

Back to the Raffle discussion: How about the winner gets a free dinner for whenever we have a hdcolumbus.net group meet?

Sounds like a great idea!

[Scott]

[back off topic for a moment]

...At work I've disabled javascript from GoogleAnalytics for security reasons. At home though I participate in it.

I need to update the privacy policy on the site--just haven't got around to it yet. So, did you know the day I dropped the code in?

[zelig2]

I didn't notice the exact day that you added GoogleAnalytics. I have Firefox at work with the NoScript plugin installed. That plugin allows me to pick and choose what servers I will accept javascript from. Right now on this page I'm allowing hdcolumbus and xbox but I'm blocking google-analytics, googlesyndication & alexa. They don't like me using Firefox here at work because they don't support it so as long as I keep it updated and use plugins like this and other I feel I'm actually much safer than IE.

[nakedeye]

I still say step three PROFIT!


I wonder how many people will actualy show up for a raffel. in the .org days we got maybee 4 people at most.... and then we didnt know who was who and ended up not knowing we were there!

[jchiso]

After what happened with .org I don't blame you for putting the site on a dedicated hosting server...

We were never told exactly "what happened with .org". The sketchy details made it sound like the administrator was hauled off to federal prison.

[nakedeye]

Jon had a dispute with the host and told them to go **** off basicaly

[snodgrass23]

I still say step three PROFIT!


I wonder how many people will actualy show up for a raffel. in the .org days we got maybee 4 people at most.... and then we didnt know who was who and ended up not knowing we were there!

Not sure what the profit comment is about as I didn't see a step one or two listed and I also don't see anyone even attempting to make a profit. Scott would just like to not spend near as much of his own money. That's how most boards die, the host gets tired of paying for it as it gets bigger and more expensive.

For the raffle, I don't think anyone has to show up for anything. I believe the idea was to do it online and either drop off or ship the prize to the winner.

[Timcredible]

It had been ages since I had run a linix box so it took a short while to get back into the swing of it. I tested out about 5 different distros to figure out which one I liked the best. At the end I settled on Kubuntu (a flavor of Ubuntu) as I like the KDE desktop more than anything else right now.

if you end up putting this site on linux, let me know, i can help with the admin of it, been using linux as my only desktop os for about 5 years now (yes, that means no windows for 5 years). i also use solaris at work. however, my skill set keeps decreasing with every new distro i use because the GUIs keep getting better. try pclinuxos 0.92 - it's much better than kubuntu.

[nakedeye]

Not sure what the profit comment is about as I didn't see a step one or two listed and I also don't see anyone even attempting to make a profit. Scott would just like to not spend near as much of his own money. That's how most boards die, the host gets tired of paying for it as it gets bigger and more expensive.

For the raffle, I don't think anyone has to show up for anything. I believe the idea was to do it online and either drop off or ship the prize to the winner.


HaHa its from south park. Step one, collect underpants. Step three profit!

[Smak Runner 2K]

What is step 2?

Step 1: Collect underpants!

Step 3: profit!

That's great...but what is step 2?

Step 1: Collect underpants!

[snodgrass23]

HaHa its from south park. Step one, collect underpants. Step three profit!

That's cool. I knew where the reference came from, just wasn't sure what provoked the post. Plus, a lot of people wouldn't "get it" and would therefore misinterpret the intent.

There is no step two.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underpants_Gnomes

[nakedeye]

That's cool. I knew where the reference came from, just wasn't sure what provoked the post. Plus, a lot of people wouldn't "get it" and would therefore misinterpret the intent.

There is no step two.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underpants_Gnomes



;)

[Timcredible]

I was looking to start a forum for something else and found that google hosts forums for free. I don't know if the cost of this site is still an issue, but http://groups-beta.google.com/ is a very easy-to-setup forum, if you need it. There are actually a lot of free forum sites, just search for 'free forums' and you'll get quite a few hits.