RWO for sale....

[EMJ]

Des great job you have done - may you do well in your career and we will miss you and the great job you have done.

Hope we get someone to take over as I connect to the site every day - dont always post but love to read it - especially because talking of our beloved Swans.

[Margie]

Thanks Des, you've done a great job.

I don't post much but always find it interesting to come on and have a read - though a few good contributors seem to have disappeared.

[Nolie]

Originally posted by JF_Bay22_SCG
Can the club help in any way?

Or would we cop the same treatment from the AFL that Hawks Headquarters copped?

Can we have a forum on the club's official website? That way I actually might go there some time.

JF

Why don't we all send an e-mail to the club.

[desredandwhite]

Thanks all, for the messages of support and well wishes.

Some people have PMed me, asking for additional info.

This year, I paid just on $60 for hosting fees. In previous years we have paid anything from 270-400 dollars a year. Of course, to a certain extent you get what you pay for. We've had a couple of outages that have been disruptive, but to be honest, nothing too bad.

Hosting is paid up until about Jan 2007.

Domain rego is about $20-30 a year, so not a big deal. This is paid up until about Jan 2008.

We have a Vbulletin licence (as far as I recall, it is an "owned" licence, so we can use it until whenever). However, if we want to upgrade to vBulletin v3.0 or higher, it might cost more.

Disk usage is currently around 450 MB, including the forum database. If you cull photos etc, you could probably get it down to 300MB, and much less if you archive the old posts in the forum.

Bandwidth normally sits between 3-6 GB/month, depending on the time of year, and if anything interesting is happening. Last September was a bit of an unusual spike. Stenglein free kick, Nick Davis Heroics, BarryGate, grand final etc all combined for an 18GB transfer month.

There are several roles that are up for grabs, I suppose. Bear in mind that one person doesn't have to take care of EVERYTHING.

1) Site owner. Pays the bills.
2) Site Admin. Takes care of the forum installations, additional software, FTP accounts etc etc etc. The cms is called pMachine, and runs off PHP, as does most of the site.
3) Forum Admin. Responsible for the configuration of the forum software. Takes care of user accounts, forum access etc etc. Helps if you can troubleshoot php or mysql, but it is largely screen-based.
4) Content Admin. Responsible for the articles etc of the main site.

mike_b has done a great job at being backup forum admin. If he wants the fulltime job, it's his, although I know his schedule is very almost as busy as mine this year.

Likewise chammond and liz with the articles etc.

[desredandwhite]

Bump! To make sure this is not forgotten

[EMJ]

Has anyone agreed to take on rwo or do we lose this great information and site after Sunday.
Hope someone will step up and help out please.

[swantastic]

Why cant all the registerd users pay $5 per year and guests can only view certain things and if they want to view every thing they pay the $5 thats not to much to ask,is it?Where do i send my check?

[desredandwhite]

Originally posted by swantastic
Why cant all the registerd users pay $5 per year and guests can only view certain things and if they want to view every thing they pay the $5 thats not to much to ask,is it?Where do i send my check?

THAT would be something I'd like to discourage from happening for as long as possible. My belief is that RWO should be free, and ad-free if at all possible. We had a fundraising raffle, and a fundraising trivia night in previous years that worked pretty well. That way, people actually got something for their money APART from access to the site, which is something that I think should be free.

[barry]

Originally posted by swantastic
Why cant all the registerd users pay $5 per year and guests can only view certain things and if they want to view every thing they pay the $5 thats not to much to ask,is it?Where do i send my check?

A sure way to kill a web site. Someone will fire up a free alternative and thats the end.

Websites need to generate their own money. Sponsored, advertisments, or merchandice seem to be the current alternatives.

[barry]

Originally posted by desredandwhite
Thanks all, for the messages of support and well wishes.

Some people have PMed me, asking for additional info.

This year, I paid just on $60 for hosting fees. In previous years we have paid anything from 270-400 dollars a year. Of course, to a certain extent you get what you pay for. We've had a couple of outages that have been disruptive, but to be honest, nothing too bad.

Hosting is paid up until about Jan 2007.

Domain rego is about $20-30 a year, so not a big deal. This is paid up until about Jan 2008.

We have a Vbulletin licence (as far as I recall, it is an "owned" licence, so we can use it until whenever). However, if we want to upgrade to vBulletin v3.0 or higher, it might cost more.

Disk usage is currently around 450 MB, including the forum database. If you cull photos etc, you could probably get it down to 300MB, and much less if you archive the old posts in the forum.

Bandwidth normally sits between 3-6 GB/month, depending on the time of year, and if anything interesting is happening. Last September was a bit of an unusual spike. Stenglein free kick, Nick Davis Heroics, BarryGate, grand final etc all combined for an 18GB transfer month.

There are several roles that are up for grabs, I suppose. Bear in mind that one person doesn't have to take care of EVERYTHING.

1) Site owner. Pays the bills.
2) Site Admin. Takes care of the forum installations, additional software, FTP accounts etc etc etc. The cms is called pMachine, and runs off PHP, as does most of the site.
3) Forum Admin. Responsible for the configuration of the forum software. Takes care of user accounts, forum access etc etc. Helps if you can troubleshoot php or mysql, but it is largely screen-based.
4) Content Admin. Responsible for the articles etc of the main site.

mike_b has done a great job at being backup forum admin. If he wants the fulltime job, it's his, although I know his schedule is very almost as busy as mine this year.

Likewise chammond and liz with the articles etc.

And the cost to the new buyer ?

BTW, Is everyone really against advertising on the site? Covering the $60 hosting could almost be acheived by ads alone.

[cruiser]

I have no problem with just a few ads from relevant sponsors to help cover costs. But please no pop-ups.

[ugg]

From what I understand of the topic, costs aren't the issue at the moment, but rather administration of the site?

[punter257]

yeah some advertising wouldn't be too bad

dockerland is a good example

[Captain]

Yep I wouldn't care about advertising either if it meant keeping the site as is.

Even some of the Swans sponsors could get on board??

[liz]

Originally posted by ugg
From what I understand of the topic, costs aren't the issue at the moment, but rather administration of the site?

Agreed. Costs are relatively trivial and I'm sure we could raise enough with a whip-round of the regulars.

It's more a matter of someone with the time and technical capabilities to run the site.