It could happen. Sooner than you think.

The subject line of this message isn't a joke. Some changes with PaulH's hosting provider means that he can no longer host this BBS free of charge. We need to find another host before the end of this month (July 2002), if not sooner. Paul is unlikely to be able to pay 50 quid a month to keep hosting it.

Options, anyone?

The provider must support PHP and MySQL, and will need to be able to handle the bandwidth requirements (currently about 5.5 gigabytes a month plus the email subscriptions it sends).

Sorry for the cross-post, I got caught in-between threads...

Unfortunatly that is likely to change now my provider wants to charge me to host the server. I am currently looking into options on what to do with this BBS.

Wow. That's sad news that they want to charge now. I hope you can work out some way to continue to have the BBS free of charge. If not, I think the options would be:

1) If the charges are reasonable, try to solicit donations from the BBS community. The people here have shown a willingness to support good projects with their hard-earned dollars (Mark Lord has received some donations, among many others who've sold empeg-related goods and services.) I am sure there would be a lot of support for a donation campaign if the costs were reasonable and we could be guaranteed the BBS would stay around.

2) Move the BBS to another server. RioCar.org would be the obvious first candidate, but I'll let Tom comment on how feasable that would be.

3) Transfer ownership of the BBS to someone else who has their own free hosting arrangements (or doesn't mind footing the bill.) That's the least preferable option if you ask me.

In any event I look forward to updates on this, and I hope you can find a way to keep the BBS as it is right now.

Tony, how large is the database?

85 megs at the moment. Of course it will expand as time goes on.

I already offered a donation.

If it ends up being hosted on RioCar.org's server, I would transfer ownership of empegbbs.com to Drakino. Or, I would continue to own it (and happily pay it) and just change the DNS servers.

I also have a 768k fractional T here that goes largely under-used, but I think hosting it at my office is a bad idea especially at 5.5GB per month.

I think lots of people would donate. How much is 50 quid anyway?

How much is 50 quid anyway?

According to http://www.xe.com/ucc/ about 76.8605 USD at current exchange rates...

I see. Well, my current provider, while not free, is $75 a year with pretty much unlimited disk space, and 6GB of transfer a month. I've had nothing but good experiences with them.

Of course, no matter what heppens, I'd be happy and willing to make a donation.

$76.85

The reason this cost is so high as it is to host a physical server. If a provider can be found to virtual host it then that may be cheaper.

Greetings!

Count me in for a donation, should you choose to stay here. Just tell me where to PayPal (or other service).

Put me down for a donation. I'll pick up the fee for the next month if we need the time to decide what to do.

I always prefer to stay here. You can send me all the money you like, anyway, though. You can send it to LineMyPockets@bitt.com.

Oh, wait. You were probably talking to PaulH. Nevermind.

Is the 50 pounds on a month-to-month basis or is there a multi-month contract involved? The reason I ask is that I'll bet we could manage to pull together some funds on a temporary basis to make a decision and subsequent transition less rushed much more easily than providing monies on an ongoing basis.

I use Fast.net as my web host because they meet all the requirements I needed for UBBTHREADS. They have serveral plans and offer 24/7 tech support. They only allow you one mySQL database though... Are you guys confident that you can backup the entire board without any problems? I have tried to do a mySQL dump and restore it several times using myphpadmin and haven't been very successful! I wish you all the luck in the world backing up and restoring this great website. I really hope you don't lose any of the posts or messages, it would be horrible to lose all of the information on this site...

I'm good for a donation ... Surely there are at least 12 people willing to pay $75 each to keep things going for another year. I mean, we're all running around with a >$1000 car stereo. How many truly active members are there on the board these days?

Well I'll let everyone know about the possibility of moving it to RioCar.Org shortly.

Out of curiosity, how many would be willing to donate from time to time to help cover bandwith if it was moved? It's an idea that has been tossed around from time to time between me and the owner of the server with RioCar.org. Nothing mandatory, just something to help cover the costs of running the box. It was upgraded to a real server recently, so reliability should be fine.

Edit: the answer is yes. So Riocar.org is available

I would donate.

I would donate as well.

I should add that the web host that I use offers multiple mySQL databases, has everything you need to support a phpBB at least, and best of all, it's run by Brits!

[edit for add-on quote]
"I give you, Britania! With all the glitz and glamour of the British isles. Best of all, all the waitresses and show girls are real Brits! Straight from the streets of Sussex, they are!"
"Freshen your tea, govna?"

I just spoke to a good friend of mine who owns a dedicated server with RackShack. I've got him to offer a discounted hosting deal as a favour: $15 per month with 500MB of space and 20GB per month bandwidth. If you need extra space (within reason), I can probably negotiate that for no extra charge. The account would come with one MySQL account but you can have more if you want. The server's very sparsely populated (currently only one web site with another one or two going on sometime this month).

If you're interested, you can email me directly at greg@nolle.co.uk

Yeah, i'm a Starving College Student who's avoiding getting a summer job, but I'd definitly be willing to throw in some money, if no one comes forward who wants to host it... Don't we have sys admins who can throw a box on their network? The good old days, I guess... We can just make july pledge drive month, and find someone who's willing to collect money with a goal of being able to afford a years worth of hosting fees, I doubt it would take long... Are PaulH and Tony willing to continue with whatever arrangments they have for day to day and emergency duties if the community can come up with the $1000?

Whatever we do, can we just agree to avoid banner adds?

Matthew

Whatever we do, can we just agree to avoid banner adds?

I agree, I'll pay just to avoid those!

I'm trying to get together a co-location setup in chicago, where I can move my server to.. bandwidth in minnesota is just too expensive. I could possibly lost empeg bbs on my current colo. but If i could get a few more people together, I am looking at a full 42U rack space, with possibly 100mbit of bandwidth for around $2000-2500/month. I have about half the people needed to make this happen.. maybe people here would like to join the co-op. (if i can get 15 people, the price is only 150/month for around 5mbit of bandwidth)

I would donate also to keep it going.

I would certainly donate.

Yep .. I'm in (and there are a couple people off of my donation thread up above that said they would be in too).

Hi!

I would also give my contribution...

Alberto

Out of curiosity, how many would be willing to donate from time to time to help cover bandwith if it was moved?

I would donate. I have gotten so much more from this bbs than I will ever be able to repay...

But, if the bbs is to move to a new location, please give serious consideration to access speed. That's a function of bandwidth, I guess. With the volume of new posts to read every day (200+) a fat pipe is essential. I am on a T-1 line at work, and speed of the present connection is adequate, but no more than that. (Most likely the bottleneck is getting the signal in and out of Alaska -- I suspect my connection to the ISP is the fattest link in the whole chain.)

I mean, sure, we could host the bbs for free on a '486 with 8 MB of RAM running in somebody's attic on a 56K dialup... but we wouldn't want to.

tanstaafl.

Um, did you know that RackShack has gotten itself onto most of the anti-spam blocks? I'd doubt that 30% of the people who are on this BBS would be able to get e-mail from the BBS if it moves over to there.

Just my 2 cents.

Oh, and I'd donate to the BBS also.

Count me in to donate to the cause. It would be disasterous to our community if we lost it over a measly 50 quid a month. I'm sure there are enough of us willing to donate to keep it going if that's the only answer.