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Dear BCFers (sorry if this gets long),
Please accept my apologies for the rather abrupt happenings on the forum as of late. It is obvious that I should have done things differently and for that I am truly sorry. I will confess to being human (I know, hard to believe) and letting some of my frustrations over things that have nothing to do with you sometimes get the better of me and I take it out on the forum (better than kicking the cat). Some of my issues are personal but some deal with the forum – it is the latter that I’ll focus on here. This note is my feeble attempt, not only to apologize, but also to try and explain my dilemma and my frustration a bit (those related to the forum anyway) – you deserve that much.
When I first started BCF eight years ago, I honestly had no idea what it would become. I remember the day the membership went over 500 and I thought we had hit the big time! I just did it as a hobby and really didn’t know what I was getting into or how important it would become to a lot of folks. For the first (approximately) five years I think, I did everything out of pocket and would not even accept donations despite many folks wanting to donate. In the early days, I just ran it on a normal web-hosting service, which wasn’t too expensive and I was able to handle the costs myself – it was just a hobby after all.
As time went on and membership grew, I eventually had to move to what is called a “Virtual Private Server.” A VPS is like having your own server in that you have root access and can do anything a real server can do, but it was really just a “slice” of a server that you shared with some number of other users (and the more users the less system resources available to our site). The VPS was more expensive, but still not more than I could personally handle, so I did (except by that time I think I was accepting voluntary donations which helped). Eventually, even the VPS wasn’t cutting it and people were complaining of slow speeds on the forum, so I decided to make the leap to a dedicated server.
I felt at the time that if I was going to move to a dedicated server I wanted to get one of sufficient power (and hence cost) to handle lots of future growth and also I wanted to have the band-width necessary (more cost) to handle anything we could throw at it and still have room to grow.
So, a while back (I forget now exactly when) I moved to a fairly decent (not top of the line, but not bottom either) dedicated multi-core server and also a plan that gives me more than adequate dedicated bandwidth to accommodate not only the BCF, but also many other web sites that we might host. My thought (hope) was, I’d offer web hosting to enough members that would result in some reasonable cash flow, not only to pay to keep the server on line, but to finally start providing me with some compensation for the time I’ve already put into this forum and continue to put into it on a daily basis.
Anyone who thinks I just turn on the switch and sit back and do nothing, simply hasn’t a clue what I do behind the scenes – beyond just tweaking and trying to add new features. As Rosanne Rosanadana (Gilda Radner) would say “it’s always something!” Somewhere along the line I also started offering what I thought was reasonably-priced advertising and, something I never really wanted to do – offer optional subscriptions to members.
Initially, things looked hopeful and I was kind of excited because there was an initial influx of subscribers and advertisers, and a few members hosting on my server. That initial influx really helped for several months, but then things started to peter off and the new member subscriptions were few and far between, and as you can tell we’ve had no new vendor sponsors in a very long time. Likewise, new folks signing up to host their web sites here have pretty much stopped as well. The net result is, that after the initial few months, the cash flow dried up and on balance, if I’m in the green it isn’t by much and if you counted my time as worth anything (even ½ minimum wage) then I’m surely deep in the red. So this is not a “new” crisis, it’s simply a re-emergence of the original crisis.
Some have asked how much it takes to keep the forum running. Well, to be honest, as I’m sure would be the case with any business (I'm now an LLC mostly for legal protections), I’m reluctant to start discussing those kinds of financial details with 9000 mostly strangers (nothing personal). However, I can tell you, as you might guess, that it is not cheap to lease a fairly decent multi-core server and a fair amount of band width (those things alone are more than a couple hundred dollars per month). But I also pay a server management company to monitor things 24/7. They can reboot the server in the event of a crash and have full access to the root to provide UNIX-level services as needed, take actions to keep the server secure as much as possible, etc. Then there is the cost of keeping the server backed up and I also have numerous other assorted forum-related expenses, some dealing with paying for online high-end DNS tools, and keeping licenses current (not only for the forum software but for other things like the Classifieds Software, the Photo Gallery, and a number of things running at the root level behind the scenes. There are other nit-noids that I won’t bother to list, but suffice it to say it all adds up.
None of these expenses take into account the value of my time, which I’d like to think is worth at least minimum wage. The thousands of hours I’ve invested over the years to date is sunk cost, but then I didn’t really start this to be a business so I can’t complain. However, going forward it was my hope that I might be able to not only keep the server online and pay for the other out-of pocket expenses, but also realize a modicum of income for my efforts. As mentioned, the cash flow has been scarce of late and some things have happened related to that (which I don’t feel at liberty to discuss) that further set me back and I began to get frustrated. Again, I apologize for seeming to take out my frustration on you all, I should not have done that – but as I said, it was better than kicking the cat across the room.
So, where does that leave us? Well, I have read many great suggestions and it is obvious that several of you are willing to help, and don’t think I don’t appreciate that because I do. Obviously I can’t respond to every individual suggestion, nor can I implement every suggestion. However, I am certainly considering all the great ideas I’ve seen. I am discussing things behind the scenes with a number of folks who I know well and trust in an effort to come up with a viable game plan that possibly keeps the forum alive and provides me with at least a modicum of cash flow, without “requiring” anything from the members.
Again, I apologize for allowing my frustration to manifest itself on the forum, but I hope you can understand and have patience with me as I work through these issues and hopefully come up with a long-term solution and not just another band-aid.
Regards,
Basil
Please accept my apologies for the rather abrupt happenings on the forum as of late. It is obvious that I should have done things differently and for that I am truly sorry. I will confess to being human (I know, hard to believe) and letting some of my frustrations over things that have nothing to do with you sometimes get the better of me and I take it out on the forum (better than kicking the cat). Some of my issues are personal but some deal with the forum – it is the latter that I’ll focus on here. This note is my feeble attempt, not only to apologize, but also to try and explain my dilemma and my frustration a bit (those related to the forum anyway) – you deserve that much.
When I first started BCF eight years ago, I honestly had no idea what it would become. I remember the day the membership went over 500 and I thought we had hit the big time! I just did it as a hobby and really didn’t know what I was getting into or how important it would become to a lot of folks. For the first (approximately) five years I think, I did everything out of pocket and would not even accept donations despite many folks wanting to donate. In the early days, I just ran it on a normal web-hosting service, which wasn’t too expensive and I was able to handle the costs myself – it was just a hobby after all.
As time went on and membership grew, I eventually had to move to what is called a “Virtual Private Server.” A VPS is like having your own server in that you have root access and can do anything a real server can do, but it was really just a “slice” of a server that you shared with some number of other users (and the more users the less system resources available to our site). The VPS was more expensive, but still not more than I could personally handle, so I did (except by that time I think I was accepting voluntary donations which helped). Eventually, even the VPS wasn’t cutting it and people were complaining of slow speeds on the forum, so I decided to make the leap to a dedicated server.
I felt at the time that if I was going to move to a dedicated server I wanted to get one of sufficient power (and hence cost) to handle lots of future growth and also I wanted to have the band-width necessary (more cost) to handle anything we could throw at it and still have room to grow.
So, a while back (I forget now exactly when) I moved to a fairly decent (not top of the line, but not bottom either) dedicated multi-core server and also a plan that gives me more than adequate dedicated bandwidth to accommodate not only the BCF, but also many other web sites that we might host. My thought (hope) was, I’d offer web hosting to enough members that would result in some reasonable cash flow, not only to pay to keep the server on line, but to finally start providing me with some compensation for the time I’ve already put into this forum and continue to put into it on a daily basis.
Anyone who thinks I just turn on the switch and sit back and do nothing, simply hasn’t a clue what I do behind the scenes – beyond just tweaking and trying to add new features. As Rosanne Rosanadana (Gilda Radner) would say “it’s always something!” Somewhere along the line I also started offering what I thought was reasonably-priced advertising and, something I never really wanted to do – offer optional subscriptions to members.
Initially, things looked hopeful and I was kind of excited because there was an initial influx of subscribers and advertisers, and a few members hosting on my server. That initial influx really helped for several months, but then things started to peter off and the new member subscriptions were few and far between, and as you can tell we’ve had no new vendor sponsors in a very long time. Likewise, new folks signing up to host their web sites here have pretty much stopped as well. The net result is, that after the initial few months, the cash flow dried up and on balance, if I’m in the green it isn’t by much and if you counted my time as worth anything (even ½ minimum wage) then I’m surely deep in the red. So this is not a “new” crisis, it’s simply a re-emergence of the original crisis.
Some have asked how much it takes to keep the forum running. Well, to be honest, as I’m sure would be the case with any business (I'm now an LLC mostly for legal protections), I’m reluctant to start discussing those kinds of financial details with 9000 mostly strangers (nothing personal). However, I can tell you, as you might guess, that it is not cheap to lease a fairly decent multi-core server and a fair amount of band width (those things alone are more than a couple hundred dollars per month). But I also pay a server management company to monitor things 24/7. They can reboot the server in the event of a crash and have full access to the root to provide UNIX-level services as needed, take actions to keep the server secure as much as possible, etc. Then there is the cost of keeping the server backed up and I also have numerous other assorted forum-related expenses, some dealing with paying for online high-end DNS tools, and keeping licenses current (not only for the forum software but for other things like the Classifieds Software, the Photo Gallery, and a number of things running at the root level behind the scenes. There are other nit-noids that I won’t bother to list, but suffice it to say it all adds up.
None of these expenses take into account the value of my time, which I’d like to think is worth at least minimum wage. The thousands of hours I’ve invested over the years to date is sunk cost, but then I didn’t really start this to be a business so I can’t complain. However, going forward it was my hope that I might be able to not only keep the server online and pay for the other out-of pocket expenses, but also realize a modicum of income for my efforts. As mentioned, the cash flow has been scarce of late and some things have happened related to that (which I don’t feel at liberty to discuss) that further set me back and I began to get frustrated. Again, I apologize for seeming to take out my frustration on you all, I should not have done that – but as I said, it was better than kicking the cat across the room.
So, where does that leave us? Well, I have read many great suggestions and it is obvious that several of you are willing to help, and don’t think I don’t appreciate that because I do. Obviously I can’t respond to every individual suggestion, nor can I implement every suggestion. However, I am certainly considering all the great ideas I’ve seen. I am discussing things behind the scenes with a number of folks who I know well and trust in an effort to come up with a viable game plan that possibly keeps the forum alive and provides me with at least a modicum of cash flow, without “requiring” anything from the members.
Again, I apologize for allowing my frustration to manifest itself on the forum, but I hope you can understand and have patience with me as I work through these issues and hopefully come up with a long-term solution and not just another band-aid.
Regards,
Basil
"Go to a 100% membership mode Boss and charge REAL membership fees."
