TP and the rest,
I don't want to make this process difficult. I am simply asking that you donate what you feel TSPN is worth to you. Does it really matter that I tell you what my monthly expenses are in order for you to give?
At the time of this post, there are 794 registered users on the board. If all 794 were to donate just $2.00 a month, we would be in great shape. But we all know that is not likely. Some will donate, most will not! It just is not that important for some of you.
Some of you have proposed charging an annual fee of $25/year. I can tell you now, that will not work. TSPN would certainly be out of business. All of you will not pay to use this service. And even if we did charge an annual fee, it would certainly be more than $25 a year. To be honest, you would be better off with a donation than a mandatory monthly/annual fee. You may donate "X" amount of dollars one month, but only be in a position to less or more the next month. Hopfully, there will be someone else that can donate a little more than you that month to ensure that the web site is up and running.
I don't think that I should have to give dollar for dollar details on what I spend to keep this web site running, but I will give you some idea if it is that important to you. And I promise you, I am not exaggerating on these numbers.
The monthly server fee that this web site sits on is $115.00. It was just $105.00 at one time, but thanks to Kema for shuting the board down, I had to pay more because I needed to install more memory to make sure that the server could handle the load. The expense to upgrade the memory alone was $60.00
That $115.00 that I pay does not include any additional money that I may have to pay if I exceed my bandwith limit. At the rate we are going now (and this is the slowest time of the year for TSPN) I will easily exceed that limit by the time fall gets here. If you guys are posting the way you are now on small talk, just think of how things will be in the fall when the Sports Board, the Band Board, Small Talk, and the Smack Board are at their peaks.
That $115.00 that I pay does not include the monthly back ups that are needed if the web site crashes. The cost for that is $50.00/month. Remember those times in the past when the server crashed and all the data on the message board was lost? I can tell you now, if the board crashed right now and came back up, you all would be some upset people. I can't afford to pay for backups!
This message board software requires "PHP" and "mySQL" databases in order to operate. I know nothing about that stuff. I was able to install it intially, but knew that I would need to hire the services of someone else if maintenance would be needed. When the message board upgrade was recently made I hired someone else to do it. While he was doing the work, he found some other minor problems on the server that could have led to more serious problems down the road. In case you didn't notice, when the upgrade was made, no data was lost. The cost to upgrade the board and fix those minor problems ....$25.00/hour! It took 7 hours to do the work. You do the math.
The above cost are just for the server!
Lets not talk about the money I still owe Tara for her work on Swacpage.net and other things she has done for this board. Ever since that web site was launch, it has not been updated because I cannot afford to pay her for her work. And we all know she has skills!
Other things!
There is the cost of equipment that I have to purchase, software that I need to purchase, the annual cost to renew the lease on this message board software, and the cost to renew the domain names (Swacpage.com & Swacpage.net) on an annual basis.
The biggest expense of all is my time! I don't think some of you have any idea how much time is required to run this operation. It takes time to answer your email, time to update the information on the website, and time to monitor this board.
I am not hiding the fact that I am trying to make money, because I am. I am looking for a return on my investment (which includes time and money). After all it is a business, and thats what businesses do. I have invested a lot of money into this over the last 4 years and so far my investment isn't paying off. Thats not good business. Normally the wise thing to do is to fold to prevent from losing any more money. And I am trying to prevent that from happening by asking you for your support.
As OW said, advertising revenue simply doesn't do the job anymore. See Rivals.com and Totalsports.com, no longer in existence. Netzero is offering paid internet services and Yahoo has said that in the near future will will have to start paying for some of their premium services that are currently free.
I hope I have given you the information you request. I think I have gone deeper than I needed to.
