Contingency Plan - HELP!

[TraderJake]

We're not in the business of deliberately crashing our site and subsequently the entire server. Unfortunately, we at RF Generation sometimes do things thinking that it will not have an adverse affect on our site, only to find out that the site is dead. LONG LIVE THE SITE!. Oh, sorry, I digress.

It's been a Rocky Road ever since our previous host realized that we were using their shared network to the most it possibly could be utilized. Moving to a VPS, we thought things would be okay. Turns out that we can kill a VPS just as well if we let bots view our site.

Of course, we've learned from our two little stints of downtime on our new host. We've learned how yahoo is really good at essentially doing a DoS attack on a server, and how certain pages can take down the server when being accessed by said robot. We don't like the prospect of going down one bit, and we're doing everything possible, with the help of our current, awesome host, to ensure that we can stay on the VPS, but there is always the what if, and the what if is a scary thought.

What happens if the site goes down again? Well, we're not in the business of taking a site permanently offline. I just don't think that would go over very well with the community. So, don't fret, the site just won't disappear. Too many people have put so much into this site to have it just go away. So, yeah, we're here, and damnit, we'll still be here for years to come.

So, that brings me to the point of this little thread. We're in the process of writing a contingency plan for instances where the site goes down, which hopefully is not going to happen again. But, the possibility is there. So, that's why we're writing this, so that we have some idea of what to do in the event that the site goes down, and you guys have somewhere to go for information if the site goes down. As I said, we certainly hope that we don't go down again, but we have to prepare for this possibility. After all, we sure didn't think we'd be down for three days this week.

So, what happens if we go down again? Well, going down again guarantees that we are too big for a VPS, which is what we are on now. The next step is a dedicated server, and those are not cheap. Currently, the cost of a VPS can be covered, but if we have to go to a dedicated box, all bets are off. So, what then do we do? Do we have a bunch of people willing to make consistent donations to keep RFG afloat? The more people who do that, the less the donation amount would have to be. We could also severely castrate the site. I don't really want to do that. We got a good thing going, and there are a lot of cool ideas in the pipeline that could come to fruition some day. But, if we're forced elsewhere, it's extremely likely that we'll come back castrated. The third option is to rely on a mixture of donations and ads. I absolutely abhor the idea of ads on our little site. They don't generate a lot of money, and it's not  necessarily a consistent source of income.

So, what do you think we should do in the event that we go down again? I've laid the options. Let me know what you think. If you have a better idea, let me know that as well. We all want to keep this site going, we just need to ensure that we can afford to do so in the long run.

[BadEnoughDude]

What kind of donations are we talking about? If we're looking at $5 a month or so, I would have absolutely no problem what that at all. Anything to avoid banners and ads on the site.

[Fuyukaze]

Just some ideas to toss around so please dont bite the messanger.

1.define what features are possible for cutting off and what ones are not.  then place those that are up for vote by either staff or members or a combination of the two.

2.last resort but have adds.  we dont need adds from every posible thing, just gaming related.  it may not drum up alot of revenue but if the cost is so extreme, we may just have to cross that bridge.  if anything though, atleast we can control the type of adds to exclude any that are aggresive.  pop ups and such are horrible and i'd rather not deal with them.  also, i hate home loan adds with a pashion.  same for credit score.

3.keep the nasty bots away.

4.have a pledge drive where people comit to donating x amount x months.  offering up something like a bumper sticker, t-shirt, coffie mug, or variations of them as a gift at the end of the pledge period may help incite some to donating.

like i said, these are just ideas.  please dont kill the messanger even though they are simular to what has already been said.

[NES_Rules]

I honestly wouldn't mind having an ad or two on the site, at least if its at the bottom of a page where we don't have to look at it constantly. Also, as long as they are game related ads, I don't think it would detract from the quality look of the site or anything, but if the ads are for Viagra or something, then its a different story.

I think it would be great to have the site paid for by donations from users, but I don't think it's going to happen. Right now, there are 11 users with Donor status, that's less than 1% of the total users. We need another incentive to get people to donate.

Maybe we could put ads on the site and for those who donate, don't get the ads. It seems a lot of sites have done that and it usually works well.

[TraderJake]

Just some ideas to toss around so please dont bite the messanger.

1.define what features are possible for cutting off and what ones are not.  then place those that are up for vote by either staff or members or a combination of the two.

The most intensive scripts are the popular scripts. Features from popular scripts would likely be cut.

2.last resort but have adds.  we dont need adds from every posible thing, just gaming related.  it may not drum up alot of revenue but if the cost is so extreme, we may just have to cross that bridge.  if anything though, atleast we can control the type of adds to exclude any that are aggresive.  pop ups and such are horrible and i'd rather not deal with them.  also, i hate home loan adds with a pashion.  same for credit score.

3.keep the nasty bots away.

Bots are not inherently evil, and we did get a lot of referring traffic from search engines. There is just one bot more evil than others. Also, we're more aware of what can bring the site to its knees

4.have a pledge drive where people comit to donating x amount x months.  offering up something like a bumper sticker, t-shirt, coffie mug, or variations of them as a gift at the end of the pledge period may help incite some to donating.

We actually did that with the donation drive. We'll be doing it again when we do the next drive, which I wanted to do soon.

like i said, these are just ideas.  please dont kill the messanger even though they are simular to what has already been said.

[pepsidrinker]

I would be willing to make a donation a month.

[Ghost Soldier]

I would be willing to make a donation a month.

^I'd be willing as well.

[St0rmTK421]

I think we're going to see how donations go for right now, but ads would be another option if that doesn't work out completely.  Does anyone know how much ads actually bring in?  One option if we have to go that route would be to only show ads for people who aren't logged in.  Most people who frequent the forum are usually logged in anyways, so they wouldn't have to bother with them.  I'll have to check if we have stats on what percentage of our visits are from guests.  If we get real desparate we could allow only donors to have an ad-free site, but I'm hoping we don't have to go there.

I know a lot of you would be more than generous with donations, and we really appreciate it.  However, we don't want you guys to be paying an arm and a leg either, so maybe a mixture of donations and minimal ads would be the best route.  We'll see.

[TraderJake]

I can absolutely guarantee that if we have to go with the ads route donors will not see ads.

[darko55]

Ad's can make quite a bit (I've made as high as $25CND Per Month with a website that got less then 1000 Hits a day.) I suggest useing:
 http://www.adbrite.com/
 https://adwords.google.co...select/Signup1/index.html

Just two of a few good sites out there for ads.


I'm also willing to donate a few $'s when I can.

[St0rmTK421]

Wow, that's good to hear.  We're not trying to turn a profit, just trying to recover operating costs, so it sounds like just a few ads may be able to bring in the money we need.  We've got enough donations to cover the next several months, so the ad decision will still be a little ways off.  Again if we go this route, donors will never see ads, regular members will see them as a last resort.

[Funk_Buddy]

I should have some extra money for a donation next month, but adds would not bother me one way or the other.