Saintsational needs YOUR help!

[battye]

Hi wolfpup,

Often unlimited bandwidth at that sort of cost is because the companies are overselling. Saintsational is far too big to go on a shared server, so we are looking at options that can handle the sort of traffic Saintsational receives

You are absolutely right about going with an American company though. Not so much because of the dollar, but because US companies are simply much better than those from other countries

[Eastern]

I'd also be more than happy to chip in.

An idea; Contact the club to see if they could donate something to auction, possibly something Gilbo and Geary (signed jumper would be nice). If need be, I will put up the purchase price (What does a jumper cost ??? $120) !!

[wolfpup]

yep your are probably right, i am not sure how many hits a day you get, but if it you say that saintsational needs its own dedicated server the figure you are quoting is probably about right.

if you go the US option it might be cheaper, with access to a database, etc, might be worth a sniff around.

anyways, as i said, happy to help with keeping the site going.

have you thought about google adds for some revenue? some people hate them but if you hit rate is high that is also worth looking at it might pay for itself

[Teflon]

Swear jar!

F@rk yeah! you'd have 2 sites in no time.

or

$10 for every stupid post ? (Dodg written out a cheque for $50k already....)

Happy to contribute

[rogerwa]

an informal footy chat with a club identity could be the way to go

the players,coaches,archie etc have got bigger fish to fry its the likes of thommo burkie i'd be focusing on

the club may not like what gets said on here at times but it's a 2 way street, ya cant always have peaches & cream for sweets sometimes ya gotta eat a bit of chyt..we sure know how to dish that up

6 months ago they had all the time in the world to get into office surely now they could find one hour ....after all its our club not just theirs

one way or another every dollar of our 20 mill turnover comes from the supporters...sometimes ya got to give a little back,one hour aint to big a price to pay

one way of finding out if they regard supporters as an asset or a liability...ten bucks a head for an hour or so..good value

split the proceeds
60% to ss,40% to wom & sainters ..they also have costs & provide a valueable service to the club at their expense not the clubs

[doggerel]

I have thought for a while that it would be good if WOM and Saintsational could be combined. I see essentially a WOM start page at the Saintsational domain name, perhaps with latest forum posts embedded in some portion of the screen, and click thru to the full blown forum. Sounds like Battye is suggesting something along those lines? WOM obviously has some issues with the site being down a while and the domain name up for grabs. It would be nigh on impossible to beat WOM for content, so why reinvent the wheel. Merge the sites I say! Oh, and yeah, happy to contribute. Perhaps there could be some premium content for subscribers - get a few of the more opinionated forumites together each week and produce a podcast?

[brown-coat]

The cost of transferring, upgrading and building the new site is obviously a one-off thing, with webhosting being the ongoing costs, paid yearly.

To give people an idea of what is needed, I think $2,000-$3,000 would be enough to cover two years of webhosting as well as the upgrade. Ideally, there would be a little excess to cover any unforeseen issues (sometimes you need to purchase extra bandwidth or upgrade to more RAM etc).

To everyone concerned about charging registration fees (or fees per post, which incidentally is unheard of), there is no need to worry. I have always been against compulsory registration fees.

There have been some great ideas so far, thanks for the input!

happy to chip in.

i am not sure if this site is hosted in australia but some US companies offer really fantastic deals for web hosting with your own share on a dedicated server.
something like $300-400 US for 2 years with effectively unlimited bandwidth.

with the australian dollar being so strong its worthwhile looking at as an option.

let me know if you need further info.

Exactly. Host it in the U.S. There are amazingly cheap plans there with bucket loads of bandwidth.

Steer clear of Australian hosting, if possible. You should be paying about $100-$200 AUD (in the US) for virtually unlimited bandwidth, PHP and MYSQL support and loads of other extras.

Shouldn't need a few thousand!

[brown-coat]

Throw us some numbers here.

Unique hits per month
Bandwidth per month
Average concurrent users during peak time

[joffaboy]

Happy to chip in.

We all need to help to keep this purely voluntary forum up and going.

Keep us informed and will help out.

[battye]

brown-coat, as I said above, webhosts offering those sort of bargain deals for unlimited bandwidth are overselling.

They cram as many sites as they can on to the one server, and it causes everyone to lag and eventually crash.

This isn't a problem if you are on a server with small traffic sites, but as Saintsational has several dozen users online concurrently (we have 45 online right now, needless to say after a match it becomes much more active), we'd find it would be this site causing the server to lag, which is bad for us, and even worse for the other sites on the server.

Hi wolfpup,

Often unlimited bandwidth at that sort of cost is because the companies are overselling. Saintsational is far too big to go on a shared server, so we are looking at options that can handle the sort of traffic Saintsational receives

You are absolutely right about going with an American company though. Not so much because of the dollar, but because US companies are simply much better than those from other countries

[sunsaint]

I have always wondered what the bandwidth for this site would be, and the costs involved.
Firstly cudos to Saintsational for the site.

this is the catch 22
# I would not have intially joined saintsational if I had to pay a membership.
# but as a member of some time now I would be happy to chip in for costs.

I like saintsational because it is not bloated like the clubs/afl websites. (please note posters with animated gifs) So endless animated flash advertising would put me right off.

But I think advertising is the way to go. The cost divied up and covered by four premium sponsors. Each page refresh displays a new advert.

[brown-coat]

Most premium plans in Australia are around $2500 per year for 40-60gb per month. Excess usage is charged at around 0.09 cents per meg over that limit (whatever is lower from inbound and outbound)

Not all US hosts are overselling. It's just a fact that bandwidth in the US is cheaper and they give people cheaper plans.

Probably worth having another look at.

[asiu]

no advertising ....


swear jar is a great idea but








theres gotta be between a hundred and three hundred of us ...........being saintly

10 bucks each = job done for two years



give us a target , a date , an account and ...........its gotta be easy peasy , doesnt it ?

[battye]

Most premium plans in Australia are around $2500 per year for 40-60gb per month. Excess usage is charged at around 0.09 cents per meg over that limit (whatever is lower from inbound and outbound)

Not all US hosts are overselling. It's just a fact that bandwidth in the US is cheaper and they give people cheaper plans.

Probably worth having another look at.

I absolutely agree with you

Australian webhosts are among the most overpriced in the world - certainly the most expensive that I've come had personal experience with.

It's just that when companies are offering unlimited bandwidth (for instance) for $200 a year it is suspicious to say the least. There are good packages out there, but none are that good.

[Sam23]

Sending off an email for maybe a few signed footys from Fergs and Geary?

Since we (not me, but the site) sponsor them i'm sure they'd sign them and would raise a fair bit of money....

[Richter]

How about setting up a Post Review panel. Each cited post to be judged by level of personal abuse..... inanity...... loyalty (FQF clause).

Early guilty plea would receive a 25% deduction in the fine payable.

Now, isn't there a similarly successful system in operation at one of the football codes....

[Mr Magic]

When Harves owned the AFL store in Chadstone, my son's girlfriend went in one day when he was there, bought a jumper, and had him autograph it on the spot. He was happy to oblige and she only paid the retail price of the jumper.

Given that this is possibly (bite my tongue!)Harves' last season, I'm sure a footy/jumper signed by the legend would be something we could auction off on here?

All it would need is for someone in the Frankston area to pop in to Harves' shop when he was there and ask him?

[matrix]

im good for some cash
no way will i use paypal tho.
ill post it or transfer it to someones account but i'll refuse to use paypal.

sorry.

WOM and saintsational as one sounds like a great idea.

[Iceman234]

More than happy to support any system put in place to keep it going.

I'm shaking my head in disbelief that Damien has been paying it out of his own pocket I presume to keep it. I feel embarrassed that some of my crap has taken up bandwidth and money...

Would be a big supporter of a SS night out, raffles, auctions, whatever, donations to an account etc.

I like the SS Flying Mullets idea AOK. Maybe a bit of "Don't Fall in Love" thrown in? (I actually still have the 45 of it )

[Cairnsman]

Happy to chip in.

Would be interested in a business sponsership also.

Let us know.

[saintsrus]

Im happy to chip in too

Some other websites have a subscription where your user name is in green and gives you more fire power over the non subscribers, imagine that here

[saint66au]

Yep..happy contribute as required. I liek the idea of some fundraising too though. Bumper stickers ar a badge can be organised pretty easily, the stickers can be done opn a home PC with the right consumbles and software.

Also fully in favour of a SS/WOM merge...subject to Peanut's approval of course!! A combination of the two would without doubt resuly in the best AFL fan site on the net.

[Duggie]

Count me in. Hope it can be kept simple as I am not a keyboard wizard

[benengel14]

Happy to contribute to costs; maybe sell or even auction the rights to being a mod - there was a thread of one of dooley/ralphy/homework (can't remember which one) seeming pretty keen to join the mod team.

2-3k seems rather expensive for hosting/BW.

Any figures you can give us on Traffic per month (GB) or webspace required?

[markinUSA]

If we can raise enough money to sponsor players, we can also raise money for the site. We'll do it.

Thanks for being open and honest enough to raise this with us.

This and West of Moorabbin are treasured places. We can support them, given the opportunity.