› Forums › Flags on the 48 Information › General Discussion › Time to pay the piper

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  • Stephen
    Participant
      September 16, 2004 at 1:52 pm
      Post count: 759
      #47019 |

      Well, now that we’ve got a sucessful annual memorial, and a high-class designed web site (kudos to Greg!) it’s now time to consider the cost.

      The annual expenses work out as such:

      Hosting: $179.40
      Domain Registration: $26.25 (.com, .org and .info)
      Design & maintenance: Free (Greg & Stephen)

      We basically have 2 options:

      1) We place some non-intrusive advertising
      2) People donate to defray the costs.

      I am able to offer some incentives for donations, such as an @flagsonthe48.org e-mail address (either pop3 or forwarded alias), and even your own personal webarea (http://silentcal.flagsonthe48.org) and ftp account on the site. We could host a supporters page as well, to give recognition.

      Please vote above. Thanks.

      -Stephen

      Greg
        September 16, 2004 at 2:13 pm
        Post count: 397
        #50378

        So you’ve estimated $205.65 to support the site for one year? If site traffic remains high, I don’t think you’ll have much of a problem attaining that through the Google AdSense program. In time, they will do a pretty good job of serving related advertisements. Perhaps we can all agree to scan the Google Ads during each visit and click on one of the “sponsors” from time to time. I could put them in the blue left border under “Let Freedom Ring…” and try to make it as unintrusive as possible.

        However, your offer of Web space and an Email address to site donators is interesting. If you could get 10 people to donate 20 bucks for that, you’re set. I think that’s a pretty good deal, but just watch the disk space and bandwith used. You don’t want to increase operational costs.

        I think either approach is reasonable, but I voted for ads as it’s easiest to implement and administer.

        Stephen
        Participant
          September 16, 2004 at 2:27 pm
          Post count: 759
          #50379

          What I had in mind was something tiered, kind of like this:

          $5 – mention on supporter’s page
          $10 – Forwarded e-mail address
          $20 – Pop3 e-mail address, 10 MB storage
          $30- Pop3 e-mail address, 20 MB storage
          $50- pop3 e-mail address, 50 MB storage, FTP access
          $75 or more- same as $50 plus http://yourname.flagsonthe48.org site

          rbhayes
            September 16, 2004 at 2:29 pm
            Post count: 69
            #50380

            We would be happy to make a donation, but another idea we have is:

            What about seeking out a sponsor to cover the costs of the Web Space and a banner that could be used for planning meetings and the Post event gathering. Companies that come to mind are ski companies, hiking related companies (REI, EMS, etc..) $500 a year would be cheap advertising dollars for them.

            Stephen
            Participant
              September 16, 2004 at 2:48 pm
              Post count: 759
              #50381

              @rbhayes wrote:

              We would be happy to make a donation, but another idea we have is:

              What about seeking out a sponsor to cover the costs of the Web Space and a banner that could be used for planning meetings and the Post event gathering. Companies that come to mind are ski companies, hiking related companies (REI, EMS, etc..) $500 a year would be cheap advertising dollars for them.

              We’ll have to wait a few weeks to get an idea of our stats and the views that the company could expect.

              Our renewal will come up before then. But this is a good thought.

              The drawback is the fear that the event would start to be commercialized. Of course, if the reader of that statement has that fear, the good news is that they have an opportunity to avoid all that by donating, right? :flag:

              -Stephen

              TenPeaks
                September 16, 2004 at 3:06 pm
                Post count: 43
                #50382

                Have you thought about using a cheaper host? Here’s the company I use for my personal site. http://www2.handinhandcomputing.com/?cifmh=620151

                I’ve been with them for about a year and never had a problem.

                mmChris
                Keymaster
                  September 16, 2004 at 3:21 pm
                  Post count: 884
                  #50383

                  I’m willing to add the FOT48 site to my hosting plan, making it completely free. The registration would be $15 a year, but that’s all the cost we would incur. Let me know if FREE is an acceptable option. 🙂

                  Oh, BTW, we can still offer subdomains and email, etc to defray the $15 if that makes sense…

                  MichaelJ
                  Participant
                    September 16, 2004 at 3:25 pm
                    Post count: 839
                    #50384

                    I’m certainly willing to donate a significant amount. I do like the idea of the “supporters” page, too. We could have fun with the titles, much like the post count titles.

                    Pucknuts
                    Participant
                      September 16, 2004 at 3:42 pm
                      Post count: 54
                      #50385

                      $10 a Peak to register. Any left over $$ goes to owners for all their time and effort just answering my emails! 😉

                      MichaelJ
                      Participant
                        September 16, 2004 at 4:03 pm
                        Post count: 839
                        #50386

                        Unfortunately, that would make for very bad PR.

                        If we do the group thing for post-hike next year, with a set rate per person, we could scrape a little off the top there to cover the web site expenses.

                        rbhayes
                          September 16, 2004 at 5:42 pm
                          Post count: 69
                          #50387

                          Maybe it would be a good idea to have a 2005 planning meeting in the next month or two while everything is fresh in everyones minds. This could be one of the topics.

                          Just like MichaelJ – we would be glad to donate a significant amount as well.

                          SilentCal
                          Moderator
                            September 16, 2004 at 6:25 pm
                            Post count: 1307
                            #50388

                            I’m willing to help out as well. This computer jargon doesn’t register with me so just let me know what’s going on in english when it’s figured out. A planning meeting hiking get-together might not be a bad idea.

                            Outtabreath
                            Participant
                              September 16, 2004 at 10:34 pm
                              Post count: 64
                              #50389

                              I would have no problem donating or sponsoring or whatever is needed to keep it going $100 or $200. I would rather not have a registration fee for climbing the mountain.

                              Stephen
                              Participant
                                September 16, 2004 at 11:20 pm
                                Post count: 759
                                #50390

                                @Outtabreath wrote:

                                I would have no problem donating or sponsoring or whatever is needed to keep it going $100 or $200. I would rather not have a registration fee for climbing the mountain.

                                No fears there… it was just an idea, but probably not one we’d see happen, to charge per peak.

                                -Stephen

                                Alpinista
                                  September 16, 2004 at 11:38 pm
                                  Post count: 45
                                  #50391

                                  I like the idea of a planning meeting to try to hash out some ideas. Thoughts on a locale?

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