Future website development???

[admin]

Hi folks, i've copied and pasted this from the Website seems slow thread, as i thought it may be good to have a development thread. I have to say, i'm really pleased with how the forum is going and how it has been received - i really didn't expect it to go so swimmingly. Unlike the last forum, this one is truly yours, so i'm all ears on how you'd like to see it improve and develop. Obviously not every suggestion will become reality, but if there is an idea which has lots of support behind it, then the admins will certainly consider it.

First up though, i'm quite keen to keep this forum small - the old one became quite rambling, with separate forums for all manner of things. This is fine, but if it gets too big, it becomes difficult to read all of it. Therefore, i'd appreciate it if we keep the forum count low, but the threads and posts high (if you see what i mean).

Here's a few ideas i've had as to making the forum better over the coming months - be warned though, the first is inevitably about money...

As you know, i've set up this forum off my own back and with my own cash. I'm happy to do this, as i felt that canning the old forum wasn't the right thing to do. We can go into the rights or wrongs here, but there's no point as it happened, and we all have to move on. Thanks for the offers of contributions - many of the admins have suggested that i add a donate button, and i may well do that. I don't really want to go down the route of adding advertising to the site, but it may well be that i have to in the future if we get big enough, just to secure the sites future.

This isn't a money making exercise (far from it!) but it would be nice to get the money i've invested in the site back and perhaps expand it a little. I've been concerned that i may run over my data allowance on my hosting site, but switching to permanent ip address would solve this - but again it's at a price.

I've also been toying with adding a wordpress blog onto the site that would be open to anyone willing to post updates about their projects from time to time, or just to add a little flavour of what they do and what owning a classic means to them. Much like we had on the old website. The beauty of a Wordpress blog would be that you could all have your individual logins and usernames so you could post yourself whenever you felt like it - unlike the old blog set up when contributors had to email me their pictures and words (pictures that i would have to resize six times and upload into five separate folders on the server i hasten to add, which used to take up loads of time because of the old clunky system we used).

As a result, i had to upload the blogs on their behalf, so if i wasn't here it didn't get done and then i would get emails asking me if the blogs weren't good enough and this is bound to have annoyed those who took the time to contribute, so for that i apologise. Many of you have got in touch about project updates, and i feel a blog attached to the forum would be more suitable for this, as we'd be able to search by subject or user much more efficiently.

What do you all think of this? Anyone interested?

Neil

[M Paul Lloyd]

Sounds like a wise plan keeping it simple. From my own experience of phpBB sites (we ran one as an 'off topic' forum for the BBC Focus site a while back) is that they can get a bit unstable after a while and crash, which is really annoying.
I recommend regular pruning/archiving of old and irrelevant stuff from time to time?
As for imposing a charge, that might be tricky as it often puts people off and you have to be careful the inland revenue don't hit you hard (I know, I've been there) and you might be better asking for voluntary donations? Possibly via Paypal so its nice and secure?
Just an idea or two.

[admin]

Oh yes, i have no intention of charging to use the forum - it will always be free to use. The suggestion made to me was some sort of paypal donation button as you rightly said, just to keep the site ticking over. It's always tricky when it comes to money, and it really hasn't cost a lot to set up in the grand scheme of things, but i did have many people emailing me offering to contribute when the forum started up, which was really nice of them to do and most unexpected. It just goes to show how much people appreciated the setting up of a new forum, which is payment in itself!

Cheers, Neil

[SirTainleyBarking]

Many forum sites have a donate button. If its optional where's the harm?
If it helps pay for the hosting so you're not out of pocket.

Certainly once things take off bandwidth charges can become a bit more burdonsome.

[M Paul Lloyd]

I would accept those offers 'admin' and you can add mine to the pot.
Thing is as Sir Tainly points out bandwidth is an issue and having some finacial clought might be all to important in the years to come, The internets founders believed it should always be open surce but the reality is somewhat (and sadly) more financially based.

[chrissyboy]

I dont mind a bit of advertising as long as its not most of the screen, and you dont get those bl**dy stupid popups etc. May be a good way to bring some money in.

[rich.]

ok for the paypal thingy, keep it simple so i can use the site. can you charge the mag for free advertising??

ps thanks again for all your hard work!!