Habitat-talk. How long will it last?

Bill

Administrator
I've been asked questions about this more than a few times over the past few days. So I thought I'd just put up a post about it.

It seemed strange to me at first. Why would someone wonder if we are going to be here today and gone tomorrow. But I get it. Your best friend just told you can't come over anymore because his third wife doesn't care for you. (Husband for AD)

If that's a concern, know that HT started 2 years ago as a vision from a few long time "mother site" users that had enough. We wanted a place without a corporate $ drive and an agenda that we didn't really understand, John at Big Rock Trees gave us that. We've been through some ups and downs. Real downs to be perfectly honest. But through it all we're still here and there has never been talk of charging for the privilege of posting or pop up ads.

Just wanted to put some fears at ease. In the last two weeks there have been a couple offers to buy out our site. Flattering but not what John started the place for. He doesn't post much and may not even be here much but this is a passion of his.

If you want to PM me and ask about how long the site will last please feel free. But I'm here to tell you HT is in it for the long haul.

Also not trying to slight any of the other sites that have started up. We have to respect what their doing because we've been there. Good luck and best wishes to them, the more places for our passion the better.

PS
I may be slow with responses today. Visiting colleges with my son.
 
Your boy staying out east for college Bill?

NW Missouri State would be good......if he likes hunting that is!
 
Looking all over. But I ain't paying for his butt to hunt :D

Actually fishing is where I need to be careful. He'd blow off a class on nano second if the bite was good.

My only real stipulations are show me the paying job at the end. And you're not going to an indoctrination for the left with safe places on campus to discuss micro aggression, check your privilege and other such drivel.

The later is quite hard to find.
 
My son was recruited for football by small D-I, and all D-II and D-III schools. He chose a school in SW MN to get a AG degree mostly paid for by football. He soon found out all the girls were not in AG classes. He came home with degrees in kniseology, sports managment, and a business major. 6 years post college, He now works as a Labor foreman for a union construction company. Bigger money working construction around here right now.
 
Thanks for all your hard work Bill and good luck on the college hunt. I would reccomend where I went to school Wisconsin Green Bay but if he likes fishing that could be a problem. Walleyes on Green Bay and Winnebago, smallies up around Door County, salmon and trout on Lake Michigan, ect.
 
Very welcome news Bill. Transplants don't be afraid to setup roots here.
 
It is inexpensive and easy to install a small forum. There are two critical factors in my opinion, critical mass and financial backing. Without a critical mass of a user base, the forums have little value. Forums like XenForo are easy to administer and can be installed on shared hosting sites. The first problem comes in after the forum hits critical mass. If performance slows too much, users get frustrated and do elsewhere. On a shared hosting server, your web site affect the performance of other web sites on the same server and if one site crashes the OS, all sites go down while it reboots. Depending on the hosting service they may or may not put too many users on one server so performance can vary. However, shared hosting is a great and inexpensive way to get off the ground. Any individual can afford to do this and it takes few computer skills to manage because you only have access to a few parameters via some control panel. You don't need to manage the OS.

If a forum is going to last, it needs a plan to move from shared hosting once it sees performance issues. Depending on the amount of traffic and what is going on, the hosting service may actually kick you off. If you look at the fine print of the TOS, even though they often call plans "Unlimited", they actually have language in the TOS that lets them kick you off for anything they decide negatively impact other sites on the server, even if the real reason is that they have too many sites on one server. I personally went through this with Godaddy and looked in to alternatives. All shared hosting plans I found had similar fine print in the TOS.

So, the next step is a hypervisor type service. This is where a large server is divided into chunks (memory, disk, bandwidth, etc.) by a hypervisor and multiple copies of the operating system are installed under the hypervisor. In this case you pay for the amount of the server that is allocated to you. So, you may rent 2 cores, 16 gb memory, 100 GB of disk for one price per month and more for another price per month. The performance of your system is balancing the hardware with the active use base. You probably start at around $20 a month for this, but that and move to $60/mo fairly quickly if the user base grows. The other issue with this is you need more technical expertise to manage it. You need to install all the applications and manage the entire OS in addition to the forum, not just a few control panel parameters. Eventually if the site grows large enough you need to rent a dedicated server.

So, aside from the technical expertise, one needs the financial commitment. Often sites move to advertising to offset cost, but I'm guessing that this form grew from an aversion to that since I see no adds. Another option is membership fees, but folks using internet seem adverse to paying for access to information. They expect it free. So, if you start having paying members only access, the user base dwindles and you lose critical mass. Another option is voluntary user support. I don't see any "Support this site" link that would all folks to voluntarily contribute to offset the cost. Another option is a White Knight.

So, perhaps the questions revolve around the level of commitment and resources. How far is John willing and able to carry this? At what point does he need to look to others for financial support for the site? When that point comes, what is the plan? Advertising? Donations? Membership fees? Something else?

These are the things that will drive the utility and longevity of the forum.

Thanks,

Jack
 
Looking all over. But I ain't paying for his butt to hunt :D

Actually fishing is where I need to be careful. He'd blow off a class on nano second if the bite was good.

My only real stipulations are show me the paying job at the end. And you're not going to an indoctrination for the left with safe places on campus to discuss micro aggression, check your privilege and other such drivel.

The later is quite hard to find.

Your all over it Bill
I cannot tell you how many people I went to school with that ran off an paid top dollar for some useless degree with no plan. Hasn't worked out well for many of them.
 
It is inexpensive and easy to install a small forum. There are two critical factors in my opinion, critical mass and financial backing. Without a critical mass of a user base, the forums have little value. Forums like XenForo are easy to administer and can be installed on shared hosting sites. The first problem comes in after the forum hits critical mass. If performance slows too much, users get frustrated and do elsewhere. On a shared hosting server, your web site affect the performance of other web sites on the same server and if one site crashes the OS, all sites go down while it reboots. Depending on the hosting service they may or may not put too many users on one server so performance can vary. However, shared hosting is a great and inexpensive way to get off the ground. Any individual can afford to do this and it takes few computer skills to manage because you only have access to a few parameters via some control panel. You don't need to manage the OS.

If a forum is going to last, it needs a plan to move from shared hosting once it sees performance issues. Depending on the amount of traffic and what is going on, the hosting service may actually kick you off. If you look at the fine print of the TOS, even though they often call plans "Unlimited", they actually have language in the TOS that lets them kick you off for anything they decide negatively impact other sites on the server, even if the real reason is that they have too many sites on one server. I personally went through this with Godaddy and looked in to alternatives. All shared hosting plans I found had similar fine print in the TOS.

So, the next step is a hypervisor type service. This is where a large server is divided into chunks (memory, disk, bandwidth, etc.) by a hypervisor and multiple copies of the operating system are installed under the hypervisor. In this case you pay for the amount of the server that is allocated to you. So, you may rent 2 cores, 16 gb memory, 100 GB of disk for one price per month and more for another price per month. The performance of your system is balancing the hardware with the active use base. You probably start at around $20 a month for this, but that and move to $60/mo fairly quickly if the user base grows. The other issue with this is you need more technical expertise to manage it. You need to install all the applications and manage the entire OS in addition to the forum, not just a few control panel parameters. Eventually if the site grows large enough you need to rent a dedicated server.

So, aside from the technical expertise, one needs the financial commitment. Often sites move to advertising to offset cost, but I'm guessing that this form grew from an aversion to that since I see no adds. Another option is membership fees, but folks using internet seem adverse to paying for access to information. They expect it free. So, if you start having paying members only access, the user base dwindles and you lose critical mass. Another option is voluntary user support. I don't see any "Support this site" link that would all folks to voluntarily contribute to offset the cost. Another option is a White Knight.

So, perhaps the questions revolve around the level of commitment and resources. How far is John willing and able to carry this? At what point does he need to look to others for financial support for the site? When that point comes, what is the plan? Advertising? Donations? Membership fees? Something else?

These are the things that will drive the utility and longevity of the forum.

Thanks,

Jack

Good evening Jack - It's obvious you have been down this path before and know your stuff. I'll do my best to answer your questions, feel free to reply if I miss anything.

I am fully committed to the future of the forum. As I've said in the past, all I was trying to create here in the 1st place was somewhere to hang out with friends. In the "good old days" I met many of you at another forum and truly enjoyed sharing information and learning from people's experiences while managing their property.

I've proven since I started this forum that I am not the right guy to run the day to day operations. I've made some mistakes that cost the forum dearly. I can say in good faith that the decisions I made were in an effort to make this place better but didn't necessarily have that result!

Fortunately Bill has stepped up to fill that roll. Bill has full authority with how the forum is run. If it doesn't go well we can all blame him this time :)

As far as technical resources go, I don't expect any issues. But I'm prepared to scale the forum as necessary to support the needs. Currently the forum is hosted on a shared server that I monitor the resource consumption closely. We aren't even scratching the surface so far.

If I start to hear from the host, I'll simply upgrade (they have a seamless path all the way to dedicated servers). None of them are cost prohibitive.

I would like to keep the forum free. I've intentionally not added a "support this site" option. People have already sent me money (often in lieu of a membership they have paid to another organization in the past). I really appreciate the support, but would rather everyone here contribute their knowledge not their money :)

I hope that sums it up.

Thanks,

-John
 
Don't send him to UW Madison. I went there and they will do all they can to indoctrinate the liberal agenda.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Good evening Jack - It's obvious you have been down this path before and know your stuff. I'll do my best to answer your questions, feel free to reply if I miss anything.

I am fully committed to the future of the forum. As I've said in the past, all I was trying to create here in the 1st place was somewhere to hang out with friends. In the "good old days" I met many of you at another forum and truly enjoyed sharing information and learning from people's experiences while managing their property.

I've proven since I started this forum that I am not the right guy to run the day to day operations. I've made some mistakes that cost the forum dearly. I can say in good faith that the decisions I made were in an effort to make this place better but didn't necessarily have that result!

Fortunately Bill has stepped up to fill that roll. Bill has full authority with how the forum is run. If it doesn't go well we can all blame him this time :)

As far as technical resources go, I don't expect any issues. But I'm prepared to scale the forum as necessary to support the needs. Currently the forum is hosted on a shared server that I monitor the resource consumption closely. We aren't even scratching the surface so far.

If I start to hear from the host, I'll simply upgrade (they have a seamless path all the way to dedicated servers). None of them are cost prohibitive.

I would like to keep the forum free. I've intentionally not added a "support this site" option. People have already sent me money (often in lieu of a membership they have paid to another organization in the past). I really appreciate the support, but would rather everyone here contribute their knowledge not their money :)

I hope that sums it up.

Thanks,

-John

Outstanding! It is very reassuring to here. QDMA has created a void that really needs to be filled. While my dealings with you have been on a small scale, you have always gone above and beyond the call. I've vectored many folks your direction because of that.

If you have the White Knight financial wherewithal to take this clear to a dedicated server if an when necessary, my concerns have been significantly assuaged. Consider me fully onboard!

Thanks,

Jack
 
Don't send him to UW Madison. I went there and they will do all they can to indoctrinate the liberal agenda.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

He's a tough kid.
Currently involved in Rightly political club in H.S. I'm not so much worried about them getting to him as much as I am having them punish him for what where once normal views in the country. He's pretty good about letting people talk, then politely telling them the error of thier ways.

Had a LGBT"BLT" proff from penn state come to his HS this year to talk about white privledge. He shamed her off the stage speechless.

Wants to be a teacher, which I'm behind. This country could use some more non PC teachers. But I want him to have a Real major and a teaching cert after that.
 
He's a tough kid.
Currently involved in Rightly political club in H.S. I'm not so much worried about them getting to him as much as I am having them punish him for what where once normal views in the country. He's pretty good about letting people talk, then politely telling them the error of thier ways.

Had a LGBT"BLT" proff from penn state come to his HS this year to talk about white privledge. He shamed her off the stage speechless.

Wants to be a teacher, which I'm behind. This country could use some more non PC teachers. But I want him to have a Real major and a teaching cert after that.

Great thinking on the path of study... A stand alone major with a teaching cert will open up multiple doors and give him a fall back plan. I am republican and when I was at UW I definitely had the fear that my work would be less well received simply because of my political stance. So I guess I took the easy way out and wrote more neutral papers, etc. I wish I would have stuck to my guns a bit more. Sounds like that won't be an issue for him.

Funny thing is now that I've graduated and have a full-time tax paying job I'm more than willing to speak my mind on politics!
 
you did what you had to. And I tell him about that.

At this point he's 17. He gets it. All I can do now "and often do" is say "don't forget your principals." Do what you have to to get by for now and don't forget your roots.
 
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