What can we do to keep the boards up?

[Henrix]

As many surely have noticed, the boards have gone down a couple of times the last few days.

A discussion here at the temporary boards asked why, and what we can do about it.

Why do they go down? Well, essentially there are too many of us
The current servers at EN World cannot take the load, in particular during US prime time (late afternoon, early evening).

So, in essence, EN World needs money for upgrades.
How can we best assure that it gets that money?

There are a lot of us here at EN World, and somebody said, overat the temporary boards, that all it takes is about $1 a month from each of us.


[Edited link so that it works.]

 

[EricNoah]

Some possibilities... though not necessarily good ideas.

* Arrange a "deal" with a big network, like I did with RPG Planet. Drawback is you have no control over your advertisements, "unlimited bandwidth" means "as much as we can give you and when you take an 'unfair amount' we'll shut down your message boards when we feel like it," and no guarantee that Russ would be able to arrange a deal to bring in income.

*Arrange a "deal" with a big network, but only have part of the site there. Like maybe *just* the message boards. Some of the same problems as above. My thoughts would be something like GamingReport -- see if they're interested in hosting forums in exchange for something Russ can provide.

*Get the people who benefit most to cough up some cash. I think we all know who they are.

*try to get more advertising. Probably not hugely realistic. But the great untapped market I see is getting advertisers who DON'T do d20 products. Miniatures companies. The battle mat people. Other games. DVDs/Videos, etc.

*Branch out into more merchandising options. I don't know what Russ's deal is with RPG Shop but I made a pretty big chunk of money doing Amazon.com. Maybe he should consider a sweeter deal.

*accept the fact that the boards will die during certain times of the day and plan for it. Simply plan on always shutting the boards down between noon and 4pm central or somesuch, except maybe on weekends.

*look for other providers who might be cheaper.

*Help me win the lottery. I will donate a big chunk to this "charity."

*stop hosting message boards. Accept the fact that they just hog too many resources.

 

[Pillars of Hercules]

How can we help? Paypal?

Morrus,

Just let us know how to contribute. I'll pledge $25. Let me know how I can get it to you. Many thanks for all you do and all these boards mean to the community.

 

[EricNoah]

I'm not sure why but your link wasn't working. Here's the one that worked for me:

http://pub82.ezboard.com/fenworldfrm19.showMessage?topicID=1.topic

 

[Henrix]

Re: How can we help? Paypal?

Morrus,

Just let us know how to contribute. I'll pledge $25. Let me know how I can get it to you. Many thanks for all you do and all these boards mean to the community.

There's a Support EN World page

 

[EricNoah]

Re: How can we help? Paypal?

Morrus,

Just let us know how to contribute. I'll pledge $25. Let me know how I can get it to you. Many thanks for all you do and all these boards mean to the community.

One of the very first links on the main page at http://www.enworld.org/ says Support EN World -- that's the link you want.

 

[Henrix]

I'm not sure why but your link wasn't working. Here's the one that worked for me:

http://pub82.ezboard.com/fenworldfrm19.showMessage?topicID=1.topic

Thanks, Eric!
I must have fumbled my Cut'n'paste skill!

(I have edited my link in the first post.)

 

[CRGreathouse]

Some possibilities... though not necessarily good ideas.

Most of these ideas make sense - though I'd hate to accept many of them. Still, it's good to know there are options out there.

try to get more advertising. Probably not hugely realistic. But the great untapped market I see is getting advertisers who DON'T do d20 products. Miniatures companies. The battle mat people. Other games. DVDs/Videos, etc.

This is a good point. I've often thought about advertising, but figured that the d20 companies were all but tapped out. Sure, the ads help them (increasing brand awareness and sales), but it takes time to realize this benefit. What can be done to increase our ad base?

I know that video games are also a good "related" field - is there any way to attract them?

 

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Any thought to maybe doing some kind of fund raiser, maybe a raffle or some such thing. Maybe try and talk some of the RPG "celebrties" that post here into donating some autographed books and then raffle them off.

I think the whole situation has really reminded folks about donating too, so i'm sure that anyone able to will be donating, which should help a bunch.

I hope if we all work at this we can find a solution, so keep us in the know.

 

[Morrus]

Thanks for all the thoughts, guys. It really means a lot to me.

One thing that I do promise is this - the boards will NOT disappear, no matter what I have to do! These are my opinions on "methods", though:

*Advertising is one option - I don't mind admitting that I'm not very good at that sort of thing, which is why the site probably doesn't get as much from ads as it could. I've tried hiring "ad managers" etc, but that doesn't tend to work out either. I'm definitely giving it more thought, though. The "other markets" thought is a good one, although I'm not sure how I'd go about it.

*Signing up with some other network is the very last option I want to consider. It may sound silly, but I'm proud of the fact that the site has to follow nobody's "rules". Especially since some of the networks etc. out there are very "business" oriented rather than fan-oriented.

*All of the fund-raising ideas are cool, but they are mainly short-term solutions. What needs to be somehow established is a steady income rather than a sudden influx of donations etc. We really need to look at this long-term rather than as an immediate problem that we're having right now.

*As has been suggested elsewhere - I will never require money from anyone to use the site or the boards etc. I am very, very strongly opposed to that idea.

*Affiliate programs etc. - as Eric mentioned, I have a deal with RPGShop. I really don't think I could get a better deal. It does bring in a noticeable amount of money, but nothing compared to the site's running costs. It's a drop in the ocean, to be honest (well, more than a drop - a sizeable splash, but still not somehting that really makes a big difference in the long run).

*Other providers - I'm currently using CI Host, which is the cheap-and-not-terribly-good end of the pricing scale. When you're already shopping at

Options that have been suggested that I'm considering (but have definitely not made a decision on) are:

*A voluntary periodic donation which earns users a cool custom title. This is feasible if it is embraced en-masse, but not if only a few people join in. The main drawback si that, although I can imagine initial enthusiasm for such an idea, I don't know if it would be maintained. And if it's not maintained and the (then increased) server payment can't be met one month then we're all, frankly, screwed. That one is a little too close to a gamble for my liking.

*The auction/lottery idea - I don't know if it would work. We'd need cooperation of all the publishers (and, to be honest, for somehting like that we'd need WotC onboard) and, like the previous option, it would need to be sustained.

Get the people who benefit most to cough up some cash. I think we all know who they are.

If you're referring to who I think you are, I can't see it happening. It would be nice, though.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. With things like Natural 20 Press going on, there will reach a point one day where it brings in a sizeable chunk of money. This is probably a good while off yet - the hard part is getting there!

You guys are all great. We'll be OK, don't worry about that. We've all been through harder times on this site, and we survived. We'll do it again. And again, f need be. We're going to be here for a long time to come!