Free...or not?

[Calandale]

Okay - we're in the process of setting up a replacement site before this place gets too big.

I doubt I can move the db. Thought I might be able to with a $25 one month fee, but this place seems to run on an old
version. I'm not locking things down here for a while, but be warned not to put too much effort in right now.

Ok - sign up here: http://thegamebox.gamesontables.com/







The place is coming to some size, and I want to hack around the idea of a not free site.

I'm honestly not sure I want to put the effort into actually administrating a forum where I have
to deal with the full effort (backups et al), but I'm open to the thought. One reason to bring
it up so early is that there's essentially no way to MOVE to a different site (and paying here
is a bad option - costs a lot and still doesn't give full control).

Personally, keeping this a free site pretty much meets my needs; but, I'd like to hear any
arguments of why a few bucks a month AND someone's significant effort, might be worthwhile.

Hosting here is something like $30/month. GoDaddy runs under $5. Other sites are in between.

[kira1y]

I think things are working out just fine the way they are.

[NthPower]

Free seems to be fine.  Are there any great benefits of the non-free version? 
If you chose to go non-free, I wouldn't mind chipping in a few bucks here and there.
I generally like the conventional SMF set-up anyways, free or not.  Not as many quirks as BGG or CSW. 

[Calandale]

The ads are shut off on the non free version at this site. The word filter
comes under our control. Beyond that, I dunno. Wasn't really thinking of
that as a reasonable option, when we could fully set up an SMF site on
a blank host like Godaddy (though they don't have the best rep).

With the latter option, we'd be able to mod SMF directly. That's very powerful,
both in terms of established stuff out there and even (perhaps) making our own.

[Rockhopper]

Well there is the potential that this becomes THE place for chatting about boardgames. And who knows, could also become valuable for resources and info, in the line of BGG or CSW. Not likely, of course, but the potential is there. So getting going on it might be worth doing because we may already be producing an archive worth keeping.

I'd certainly support it as soon as the mechanism to do so appeared.

[usrlocal]

I'd be happy to kick in some support too, if things go that way. The ad-free version would be good - especially for those who don't use Adblock or other things to keep them out.

Would the non-free version be more extensible with plugins? You may even be able to get that per-post thumb thing going.

On the other hand, like Jim sez, it's also pretty good as-is.

[billyboy]

I'd rather kick in a few bucks here than give BGG a dime 

[usrlocal]

I'd rather kick in a few bucks here than give BGG a dime 

Exactly.

[Calandale]

Would the non-free version be more extensible with plugins? You may even be able to get that per-post thumb thing going.

The fully hosted version here would not be moddable.

A set-up on another host would. But, the big problem there would be losing all that is here now.
I am surprised, but I cannot find a screen-scraping means of pulling content over.

[The Grinch]

I think free works best for a forum by itself.  If you want to expand in to a full web site (not a bad idea for blogs and videos), I used Fatcow.com and had no complaints.  At the time they had the best combination of price and user ratings.  Maybe this could be funded by a tip jar or even a Kickstarter.

[S Trauth]

I am pretty familiar with GodDaddy as hosting - they have several messageboard options there, although I don't run one myself (the one linked on my site is actually mainly for developing title projects for John Tiller - almost all of the actual action is hidden -and I don't think it is hosted at GD.

That being said I did set up a couple of phpbb boards which were pretty easy, plus as part of a hosting account you can also set up Gallery and allow users access. I never had any problem with either - in fact GD sets those up for you. I did have an issue with the software I used for SPW's Download area -that being because it was open source or something - I didn't (or wasn't able to) want to mess around with it - and the guy who developed it was basically using it as a resume builder ... then he got a job I guess, and stopped maintaining it - so basically it has some bugs and that's that...

The real reason I wanted to post this is - I have found even in my fairly limited site that donations have been able to cover my expenses - the first year it happened like 2 days after I opened my 'donation drive' - and then this year it actually happened before I 'opened' a drive - I was only talking about it - and boom ... done. - Mind you I think you have a larger audience than I do (although I guess it is tough to tell because I don't actually run a board -so I don't know what the comparable stats might be in that regard.).

I do understand about the board admin aspect of it - been there... done that - was a mod for awhile with one of the major history as a commodity plus reviews used as advertisements magazines. I did some admin work for what used to be called World War II Online (the Axis board there...). and of course did Schroeder's site for several years - and frankly I would rather always now be my own boss - so I get what you mean. but also the challenges.

One of the biggest one I have is - it is very tough to get volunteer help that actually hangs around. I had one guy, once, that I let run an AAR blog - he decided to host all of his images on his own  -and then after a couple of months sold off his domain (and all of the AARs became broken and useless.). It taught me a lesson there - don't be someone else's traffic source - as they can be interested in other things -and you can end up left hanging at the end of the day.

I don't actually have the money to pay for sites- mainly because I have to be in a position to foot the entire bill for my own site -probably more so since as I am engaged in a design project that takes precedence, the site itself I run is not being updated like it had been before I got that project.

[Calandale]

Okay - we're in the process of setting up a replacement site before this place gets too big.

I doubt I can move the db. Thought I might be able to with a $25 one month fee, but this place seems to run on an old
version. I'm not locking things down here for a while, but be warned not to put too much effort in right now.

[Calandale]

I'm debating whether to manually try and duplicate threads. It seems like a lot of work to little use.

New sign ups are here: http://thegamebox.gamesontables.com/

[usrlocal]

Godspeed, young Jedi!

[rstites25]

I don't care about posts...I just want to make sure my hard earned Karma transfers.