MechSpecs Moving to a VPS Soon. Want to help out?

You should do this as a big announcements so every mmber and non-member can see it.

A condom with the mechspecs logo on it, with the slogan "Always Min/Max"

 

Hahahhahahaha mmmmm NO... If the Condom fails someone is gonna come and blame us for the new addition(s) to the family

 

the banner ads are a bit of a pain, but back before i left dhb we were in a meeting about the website (at one time had about 10,000 unique ip's per month) and they had an analysis done on banner ads that said it would net them between 200-450 usd per month.

if all you need is people clicking on banners, then the site remains completely free, its not like if you are using chrome you can't just adblock them away anyway.

 

We will try the Google Adsense... I've got those already up on the MechSpecs videos but they've only made about $36.00 so far so I will see what putting them on the site will do. It may take a couple of days for the site to be approved.

 

You will notice the empty space at the top of the index page? That is where they will go. Assuming that all works, after approval from Google, I will add them to the message index pages as well as the board index page.

 

OK, I will unblock on this site and help click. Just as long as there is no sound. (It would be distracting at work, to say the least)

 

Please use the ad crap as little as possible. It clutters up any site no matter whether you have ad blockers or not -- especially if it'll be at the top of every page. Even having that placeholder blank space on the index is ugly.

Donations are good, as is merchandise. But I'd prefer MechSpecs to be as uncluttered as possible -- ad-free would be ideal. I put in a donation to that effect.

 

I've changed the goal to $420 for October as that is the 12 month cost of the VPS. Whatever isn't raised in October I will transfer to Novembers goal. It is just easier for everyone to track how we are doing.

 

420 sounds nice right now. we should call it the "mechspecs 420 fund"
We are halfway there now.

 

I didn't even THINK about that until you just mentioned it!!!! 35 x 12 = 420 LOL

I'm changing the name of the Event Fund on the Donations Page to MechSpecs 420 Fund LOL

Also, once the banner ads are showing I can REMOVE the ads from Benefactors view and only have it for people who haven't donated and / or guests. There is a section in the Benefactors Bar for you guys to vote on if you want them removed or not. Since you all have donated already I have ZERO qualms about removing them for you guys.

If necessary I can set up TWO Benefactors Access Levels; 1 that can see the ads (and click on them if they wish) and 1 that will NOT see the ads.

 

I voted Donations, but I would have selected Merchandising as well if I could.

 

I personally wouldn't mind non-obtrusive advertisements (GoogleAd is ideal.) Also, I have been meaning to donate for a while, and all this tells I might want to get to it soon. Unfortunately, I'm quite broke, but as you said earlier Michael, even $5 helps.

 

This is very true Draconian; every little bit helps and don't worry I can relate to being broke!!! We Space Poors gotta stick together!

 

So yesterday we had 6500 unique visitors blowing away the previous record of 5300. We also broke our old concurrent users (in a 15 minute period) of 128 with a respectable 198. Talk about busy day for MWO.

Finally, we also incurred another 15$ penalty for hogging more than our fair share of CPU minutes; that was our 4th one in the last 60 days. Fun fun. When I saw 6500 users I didn't even bother looking at the CPU I just went and paid it with my head hung low LOL

I will deduct that out of the VPS

 

We are at 62% of our VPS 420 Goal ($420... No, the 420 wasn't intentional; 35x12=420 lol)

Yesterday we hit 152 CPU minutes (52 mins OVER our allotment) and we received another penalty. Sooner or later these are gonna bite us in the butt. So if you are in a position to donate to the cause please do so, if you can't spare any coins then click on the sponsor banners (the total amount gets paid November 15th; crappy but that is the earliest we can expect to see revenue from Google) if something interests you and if you can do both, great, do both!!!

 

I totally wouldn't mind donating. Merch materials and items are also a cool idea and can both be implemented. Perhaps a shirt or mousepad design contest can gather momentum with users and incentivize the winners to some other exciting things can also work. The contests can be monthly or bi weekly once this gets going. Maybe you can do a barter deal with the hosting provider to advertise them in return for a discount for their ad space here... Just some thoughts. Keep up the awesome work and kudos to everyone for getting MSpecs to where it is today.

 

The current host DOES offer VPS but its for like major companies or something. Managed VPS is like 299.00 a month for them. Ummmm no matter how much you slice it that won't work. So we are looking at a few different hosting options right now.

Merch materials are a great idea and I would love to have them but I am running into the cost barrier with those online stores charging so much for base materials that the revenue generated from them would be negligible. Sadly. Cause I wanted a Coffee Cup lol

 

Yes, I could probably find a local brick and mortar supplier but then I have to warehouse all the stuff, have an inventory and do the shipping myself. This could become problematic on both counts. Still I will look into it and see if there are minimum orders on stuff like that; I refuse to store 100 coffee mugs