Discussing the "Good bye Geekzone." thread

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Ultimate Geek
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#814218 9-May-2013 09:18

I've been on GZ for nearly 9 years now. With my number of posts that makes me mostly a lurker I imagine. I have enjoyed my time here and thoughtlessly started using AdBlock, mostly for FB. It wasn't until MF prompted me that I created an exception for GZ. Ads never bothered me but the OP somehow made me think twice! So, after nearly a decade, I finally subscribed! Thanks @chaitanyamsv :)

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#814219 9-May-2013 09:20

geocom:
Sounddude: This OP pissed me off so much, that I subscribed to prove a point :-)

Sites like these cost a lot to run. Has to be funded somehow, either by ads or subs (or both).

Been siting on the fence for some time and the op pushed me to subscribe as well.

Should've read the thread fully... it seems I wasn't alone :) Admittedly I wasn't sitting on the fence... nowhere near any fences in fact!

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#814222 9-May-2013 09:23

1080p:
KiwiNZ: I was for ten years the Administrator (a founding member) of a large Forum for Linux, we had over 1 million members. These types of Forums take a lot of work and time to keep running. They also cost a lot of money especially if growth rate is high and there flow on need to constantly upgrading hardware.

I see no problems with the owner of this Forum recouping costs from advertising or voluntary subscription, he is running a very good Forum with next to no disruption of service, and that is not easy to achieve.

How many members does GZ have? I work on a site with ~15,000 members which includes a lot more than just forums and it is kept running for slightly less than US$160 p/m. We run zero advertising and it is paid for by donations.

I'm not saying this is the model GZ should adopt but I'm saying that running a larger site can actually be inexpensive if done correctly.

The number of members here is a bit more than that. You have to consider everything and a US$160/month VPS in the USA wouldn't cut for us. We run the database on a 16GB VM, with monitoring server on another 4GB VM, with gigabytes/terabytes of traffic. We try to be as close as possible to majority of our users (60% in NZ, 75% of those are in AKL) so a USA server would be just introducing unnecessary latency.

We work full time in monitoring performance, stability. Then we have giveaways and events to arrange. Add CDNs, DNS, domain registration, software and no, you can't do this at $160 a month.

Every site is different, so please don't try second guessing. Ask some of the mods who know how things happen behind the scenes and you will see it's not that easy.

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#814223 9-May-2013 09:28

Well if nothing else, a few people have subbed up as a result of this thread :) keep up the good work.

SumnerBoy

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#814225 9-May-2013 09:30

Would love to know how many subscriptions have started today - it seems a lot (including myself) have been prompted by the OP's rant to finally start supporting this great forum...maybe it was a Black Flag operation by FM...(kidding)!

freitasm

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#814226 9-May-2013 09:30

ubergeeknz: Well if nothing else, a few people have subbed up as a result of this thread :) keep up the good work.

Actually I haven't seen such a clustered number of new subscriptions being created for some time now.

Thanks everyone for your support!

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nix

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#814230 9-May-2013 09:32

10 year plus lurker who has been meaning to sub up for a while. So I did.

I didn't see the original post but would like to say that I have found the knowledge and support on here absolutely invaluable. Thanks Mauricio and all the mods.

freitasm

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#814231 9-May-2013 09:32

SumnerBoy: Would love to know how many subscriptions have started today - it seems a lot (including myself) have been prompted by the OP's rant to finally start supporting this great forum...maybe it was a Black Flag operation by FM...(kidding)!

Yes, the thought occured to me:

<tinfoilhat>
"freitasm creates fake profile for two years to push people over the edge to create subscriptions with fake grassroots movement".
</tinfoilhat>

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sittingduckz

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#814262 9-May-2013 09:49

Maybe the OP will have second thoughts... there might be a new user signing up called 'TailBetweenLegs'

After that rant I would probably what a new identity too :)

I'm not a complete idiot, I still have some parts missing.

dpw

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#814270 9-May-2013 09:53

sittingduckz: Maybe the OP will have second thoughts... there might be a new user signing up called 'TailBetweenLegs'

After that rant I would probably what a new identity too :)

Well, he sure covered up very quickly. Earlier this morning he tweeted that he's about to post something very interesting on Geekzone. Now his tweets are locked up :)

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Gilco2

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#814275 9-May-2013 09:57

Well after reading his post I had a lot to think about. And thinking over all the years as a lurker then as a member and of the help I have received I thought yes I should subscribe. So extremely reluctantly I bit the bullet and set up a paypal account in order to subscribe. Been very hesitant on a paypal account but all done now and subscribed.
Probably would have still been sitting on the fence had it not been for ops rant

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#814300 9-May-2013 10:13

I have a Paypal account since its creation (when it was a payment service between Palm Pilot users who would "beam" payments to others and then Hotsync these, since mobile Internet wasn't a thing back in the mid-90s) and seriously, it's one of the safest and easiest ways to pay around.

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#814327 9-May-2013 10:33

freitasm: I have a Paypal account since its creation (when it was a payment service between Palm Pilot users who would "beam" payments to others and then Hotsync these, since mobile Internet wasn't a thing back in the mid-90s) and seriously, it's one of the safest and easiest ways to pay around.

Is there any reason I can't pay by Internet Banking? I would be happy to send $25 if I could do it that way.

Last time I registered a card with PayPal it needed to be verified and was a bit of a nuisance, so I haven't bothered setting it up again since the card expired. Pretty much every website accepts payment by Credit Card or Internet Banking these days, so maybe if you gave people at least one of those options, you would get even more subs?

Just a thought anyway, but if you'd prefer to send your bank details by PM, that's equally fine and I will send the $25.

nickb800

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#814352 9-May-2013 10:38

Jeebus can the thread title be changed please? "Good bye Geekzone" posted by freitasm is a bit of a shock to see in the morning

freitasm

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#814366 9-May-2013 10:57

grant_k: Is there any reason I can't pay by Internet Banking? I would be happy to send $25 if I could do it that way.

Sure, just send me a PM and I will pass bank details and activate your subscription manually.

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