Hi All,
Revit Forum is approaching our first birthday in a few months time.
When Klaus first set this up, I am sure he did not imagine that in nine short months we would have over 3,000 members and over 3,000 threads. Indeed, as anyone who looks from time to time at the "Introduce Yourself" thread in the Out There forum would see that we have new members joining up every single day.
Whilst others might disagree, and whilst I might be slightly biased, in my humble opinion, RFO is the preeminent Revit forum on the net.
Despite frequent requests from the other administrators, up to this point, the entire cost of the forum has been met out of Klaus's pocket.
This situation is clearly not sustainable.
Over many months at various times the administrators have discussed the all of the options which are available to secure the ongoing funding of the forum. In a nutshell, these are:
Allow Google Ads on to the forum
Change the forum to a subscription basis
Call for voluntary donations from the members.
All of the administrators are unanimous that we do not wish to see ads in the Forum. All of us intensely dislike the look of Revit City and other such sites which are densely packed with ads. Likewise, as one of the basic precepts of the forum is the free exchange of Revit information, none of us supported the idea of a subscription system, (although, it must be said that a subscription of fifty cents per member would provide more than enough money to maintain the forum. But, as I say, we didn't support this idea in principal.
So, where we are at the moment is to let you know what the issues are, the total amount of money needed to fund the ongoing costs of the forum.
Below is a summary of the current costs based on the current bandwidth usage. In the first instance, we will look to cover those costs only. Given the bandwidth growth path, which has been incredibly steady and does not seem likely to change any time in the near future, it is likely that we might ultimately need to go to a dedicated server at some point in the medium term future. If the growth path continues, once we get nearer to that circumstance we will again seek your opinion and advice as to the best way of dealing with the additional costs.
It is proposed to have a small donation button at the top of the forums which will take you to a separate page where the details of how to donate and options for how much or if you wish, how the set up a periodic donation, will be held. The actual transfer of funds will take place at PayPal, and at no time will anyone at RFO be able to view or access any credit card details or the like.
It should be noted that:
All donations will be anonymous.
All donations will be voluntary.
All donations will be free of expectation for special consideration in return.
We look forward to your comments or suggestions on the donations option or indeed any other model for funding you might suggest.
Historical Costs:
Purchase of VBulletin License - $200
Cost of domain name registration - $150
Cost of hosting
dec.10 - jan.11 = $5/month
feb.11 - aug.11 = $16/month
Total hosting cost to date = $122
Total Historical costs to date (paid for by Klaus) $472
Predicted costs for the next twelve months:
Domain name registration = $150
Allowance for upgrade to VBulletin 5.0 when available (Total cost expected to be around $175 - probably released in the next couple of years) 12 month allowance = $75
Predicted Cost of Hosting
sep.11 - apr.12 = $41/month
may.12 - aug.12 =$123/month
Total predicted hosting cost for next 12 month = $820
Minimum predicted cost for running Revit Forum for the next twelve months = $1045
The major issue we face in terms of hosting costs is due to bandwidth usage. In essence we are victims of our own success - because we are a fantastic resource for Revit users, more people visit the site. Because more people visit the site, our bandwidth usage goes up. Because our bandwidth usage goes up, the costs go up.
We started with the vB200 Plan (Shared Hosting). The anticipation was that this would likely see us through at least the first full year. Due to the increase in users accessing the site, we have, however, for the past few months exceeded our bandwidth allowance quite substantially. Consequently GlobalGold has requested that we need to now upgrade to the vB600 Plan (Virtual Private Server - VPS). Given the amount of bandwidth allowed under that plan, and given the steady growth in the forum, it is expected that we will once again out grow the hosting plan around May next year when we will be required to go to a dedicated server. Given that the new version of Revit is usually released in Mid April, and given the big spike in interest around that time, the upgrade may indeed come a month earlier than predicted.
So, this is where we are up to. As I noted earlier, we welcome your comment and input.
Revit Forum is approaching our first birthday in a few months time.
When Klaus first set this up, I am sure he did not imagine that in nine short months we would have over 3,000 members and over 3,000 threads. Indeed, as anyone who looks from time to time at the "Introduce Yourself" thread in the Out There forum would see that we have new members joining up every single day.
Whilst others might disagree, and whilst I might be slightly biased, in my humble opinion, RFO is the preeminent Revit forum on the net.
Despite frequent requests from the other administrators, up to this point, the entire cost of the forum has been met out of Klaus's pocket.
This situation is clearly not sustainable.
Over many months at various times the administrators have discussed the all of the options which are available to secure the ongoing funding of the forum. In a nutshell, these are:
Allow Google Ads on to the forum
Change the forum to a subscription basis
Call for voluntary donations from the members.
All of the administrators are unanimous that we do not wish to see ads in the Forum. All of us intensely dislike the look of Revit City and other such sites which are densely packed with ads. Likewise, as one of the basic precepts of the forum is the free exchange of Revit information, none of us supported the idea of a subscription system, (although, it must be said that a subscription of fifty cents per member would provide more than enough money to maintain the forum. But, as I say, we didn't support this idea in principal.
So, where we are at the moment is to let you know what the issues are, the total amount of money needed to fund the ongoing costs of the forum.
Below is a summary of the current costs based on the current bandwidth usage. In the first instance, we will look to cover those costs only. Given the bandwidth growth path, which has been incredibly steady and does not seem likely to change any time in the near future, it is likely that we might ultimately need to go to a dedicated server at some point in the medium term future. If the growth path continues, once we get nearer to that circumstance we will again seek your opinion and advice as to the best way of dealing with the additional costs.
It is proposed to have a small donation button at the top of the forums which will take you to a separate page where the details of how to donate and options for how much or if you wish, how the set up a periodic donation, will be held. The actual transfer of funds will take place at PayPal, and at no time will anyone at RFO be able to view or access any credit card details or the like.
It should be noted that:
All donations will be anonymous.
All donations will be voluntary.
All donations will be free of expectation for special consideration in return.
We look forward to your comments or suggestions on the donations option or indeed any other model for funding you might suggest.
Historical Costs:
Purchase of VBulletin License - $200
Cost of domain name registration - $150
Cost of hosting
dec.10 - jan.11 = $5/month
feb.11 - aug.11 = $16/month
Total hosting cost to date = $122
Total Historical costs to date (paid for by Klaus) $472
Predicted costs for the next twelve months:
Domain name registration = $150
Allowance for upgrade to VBulletin 5.0 when available (Total cost expected to be around $175 - probably released in the next couple of years) 12 month allowance = $75
Predicted Cost of Hosting
sep.11 - apr.12 = $41/month
may.12 - aug.12 =$123/month
Total predicted hosting cost for next 12 month = $820
Minimum predicted cost for running Revit Forum for the next twelve months = $1045
The major issue we face in terms of hosting costs is due to bandwidth usage. In essence we are victims of our own success - because we are a fantastic resource for Revit users, more people visit the site. Because more people visit the site, our bandwidth usage goes up. Because our bandwidth usage goes up, the costs go up.
We started with the vB200 Plan (Shared Hosting). The anticipation was that this would likely see us through at least the first full year. Due to the increase in users accessing the site, we have, however, for the past few months exceeded our bandwidth allowance quite substantially. Consequently GlobalGold has requested that we need to now upgrade to the vB600 Plan (Virtual Private Server - VPS). Given the amount of bandwidth allowed under that plan, and given the steady growth in the forum, it is expected that we will once again out grow the hosting plan around May next year when we will be required to go to a dedicated server. Given that the new version of Revit is usually released in Mid April, and given the big spike in interest around that time, the upgrade may indeed come a month earlier than predicted.
So, this is where we are up to. As I noted earlier, we welcome your comment and input.
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