The Future of this site

[Rossm]

I too am happy to make a donation.

However, I wonder whether that is a suitable long term strategy.
I'm not sure how much it costs to run a site like this, particularly as it scales up to additional users.

If the site survival is reliant on a number of people donating, then that's fine today, and probably for some months, but it's difficult to guarantee that those same people will be in a position to donate in 12-24-36 months time.


I like this site and I want it to survive, and if that means donating a bit every few months, then I'm happy with that

It doesn't cost a great deal to run it.  And I'm pretty sure the ad revenue from what we have more than covers that.  So assuming that people can work around a few google ads then we should be good.  It's more the migrating to a better solution is gonna incur some costs.

It's all just ideas at the moment, I just want to know how people feel so I can hopefully make the right decisions...

If that's the current situation, VV, then I'd stick with what you have at the moment. It's a far superior interface to SportsNetwork and the whole atmosphere and posters are so much more pleasant. Only switch if the problems become intolerable.

BTW: I'm still wondering how DW hasn't gone down again, as there have been no recent articles.

[Raggs]

I think if it can run off ads that's the better solution. Currently they are very unobtrusive. Those with blockers, most blockers allow you to add exceptions, which would obviously help this place.

[Wiltshire Wasp]

Yes to keeping it going and yes to contributing towards the costs.

You are doing loads, seems unreasonable to expect you to also unilaterally cough up for the "privilege".

Agree completely.

+1 and welcome back.

[welsh wasp]

Agree it’s worth paying something to keep this site going if that’s the way we have to go.

[jamestaylor002]

Happy to contribute what I can. I feel far more comfortable to discuss all things Wasps on here without fear of judgement that I don't know what I'm talking about (which happens often)!

[Chunky24]

Happy to get involved, appreciate all involved efforts.

[GD]

Seldom if ever post but do visit here often so would be happy for a small subscription

[RBB]

I would be happy to contribute, I like the fact that opinions and viewpoints are respected. No one tries to take the 'I know more than you do' high ground!

[mike909]

You guys are awesome, it's nice to know that this place has such support.

What I'm thinking might be the simplest option is to use a different forum system like phpBB, and pay for a custom theme to make it look "Wasps".  That way it would keep the costs down, I could have some ads to cover the hosting like now, and we'd still have a nice place to hang out and talk about the club we all love.

We should also be able to migrate the existing threads and user accounts over so we don't lose any information.

And me - brilliant forum - good attitude

Ads no problems - happy to go along with the majority!

[westwaleswasp]

Happy to pay- I guess Paypal is ideal?
As for the software, if it is on anything later than an 8 bit I am unlikely to be of much help.........

[Vespula Vulgaris]

So what I'm thinking now is that I will look to migrate the entire site as it is to a more reliable and robust hosting platform.  If we can keep it pretty much as it is I#d be happy with that, but I did have a very interesting conversation earlier about a future possibility...

What I don't want to do is create a two tier site, the reason this place works as well as it does is because there is mutual respect from everyone here and I want to make sure that it stays that way and we don't risk making it elitist.

So I would rather add in an option for people to donate whatever they feel is reasonable, it won't be compulsory, and nobody will know if you have or haven't donated.  It should be simple to set-up a paypal donate option here.  If you don't want to donate anything that's fine, but I'd appreciate it if you disabled any adblocker you might be using for this site.

What do you think?

[Tervueren]

Sounds fine to me. Thank you for all of your efforts.

[Neils]

Sounds fine to me. Thank you for all of your efforts.

+1

[RBB]

Sounds fine to me. Thank you for all of your efforts.

Agree

[NellyWellyWaspy]

Seems fine to me.