Mar 3, 2011 11:19PM - edited Mar 3, 2011 11:20PM by Shrek4

As a web developer who also has quie a few websites out on the market, I can tell you approximately how much a website like BCO incurs in monthly costs. For this high number of members it has to have a private server, and depending on the hosting provider, it could be anywhere from $200 to $400 a month. Anything above that would be a ripoff. The software platform used is of a type that doesn't use too many resources in terms of server, mostly it would be the space taken by all the forums themselves and the members profiles, as well as the bandwidth.

As for hiring people to do the necessary changes - that wouldnt' be THAT bad. Very easy to find someone on Elance to do them for a very affordable price.

A few advertisements, as long as they are targeted for what we need, would be acceptable. Heck, even a Google AdSense module or two - from my experience, that only and it would cover the costs, and the ads are targeted on the keywords (words most frequently found in the forum), so things that we probably would find of interest. Also, when setting the Adsense module, lots of things can be tweaked so it would only bring ads related to what we are interested in.

Mar 4, 2011 10:36AM River_Rat wrote:

I think targeted ads would be fine.  I would also be willing to donate if I saw something being done but after reading old threads and seeing how long this has been going on I'm not comfortable donating money until I hear of a plan.

Mar 4, 2011 05:43PM 1Athena1 wrote:

bump!

I told myself I wouldn't post on this thread again unless I was able to give a second donation....which I am afraid is not the case at the moment... However, in recognition of deleter Fridays and unmoderated weekends, it is a good idea to write a bit of my usual tripe to get atop the active topics list.

Actually, I was hoping our dedicated funding will help us to avoid having to put up with advertising.

So let's hear it for a moderation fund to see if the problems that people say have been going on for years can finally be addressed with everyone's help. I totally understand the skepticism - I am a natural skeptic, but on the other hand, if we don't give it a try and see whether we can contribute something towards the effort, we shouldn't complain.

Anyone have any ideas about how we would call this fund? I can think of all sorts of law-enforcement-related terms or terms going from the silly to the soppy. The Justice For All Fund, or the BCO in the Sunshine Fund (as in "government in the sunshine")...or simply, the BCO Community Forum Moderation Fund. Bleh - not feeling imaginative today.

Mar 4, 2011 10:12PM - edited Mar 4, 2011 10:14PM by palaminoridesagain

Mar 4, 2011 10:22PM Enjoyful wrote:

Bump.  And a check's in the mail, so to speak.