Message Board Costs Update

[stainesranger]

Hope everyone is enjoying the summer break. This is just a quick update on the finances of the message board.

We’ve currently got a balance of £223.41, I.e. enough for another two months (and a bit) of hosting fees at the current cost of £79.20 p/m.

As well as another generous donation, ActonArthur has kindly offered to help out on the tech side and, along with DG, we’re investigating ways of getting the hosting costs down for next season.

A couple of months ago DG offered to provide a back up of the message board that we can use if we want to switch to get a better deal with another hosting provider. As soon as we get that back up, we can start looking at alternatives. We’ll also see if we can get a better deal with the current provider, but we’re not currently site administrators, so we’re also waiting for some info from DG on traffic requirements etc. As soon as we have any news on either of those fronts, I’ll post an update here.

All my communication with DG has been via DMs on this message board. If any posters know DG personally, or how to get in touch with him please do drop me an email at qprdotorg2022@gmail.com.

In the meantime, if you’d like to help keep the site running at the current costs (£79.20 p/m), you can make a donation to this account:

A/c: 78313104
S/c: 04-00-75

Thanks to everyone who’s donated up until now to keep things going last season.

[222gers]

Count me in Staines - I'll pass a few quid over tomorrow.

[WA Hoop]

Donation heading your way.

[bwhoops]

A donation will come from me as well. However, my bank won't let me set up a payment transfer unless I can also fill in First and Last name. Can you help with this info as well please.

[SuperHoopsa]

As the forum is open to all now is there any reason not to move to something like reddit or discord for the forum now..?

I not saying you should, I'm just curious why.

[Andy_N19]

Another donation just made Staines.

[Nw6ranger]

Was wondering what was happening. Thanks for the update fella. Will donate too.

[222gers]

A donation will come from me as well. However, my bank won't let me set up a payment transfer unless I can also fill in First and Last name. Can you help with this info as well please.

I need the name as well Staines - you gave it to me last year but I no longer have it. You could email it to me via hazles172@gmail.com.

[deadendjob]

Is there a paypal version mate? It's a bit of a ballache to transfer from NZ to UK.

[stainesranger]

Thanks everyone- will email my name across and send some PayPal details.

Was thinking about the Reddit thing, and I’m sure it would would work well, but I’d worry about the community disappearing if we transferred across. I expect there already are lots of QPR subreddits already.

[deadendjob]

Thanks everyone- will email my name across and send some PayPal details.

Was thinking about the Reddit thing, and I’m sure it would would work well, but I’d worry about the community disappearing if we transferred across. I expect there already are lots of QPR subreddits already.

There's already a QPR page:
https://www.reddit.com/r/superhoops?utm ... _content=1

[stainesranger]

I’ve sent my name and PayPal details etc across now to those asking.

If anyone else has any questions or thoughts you can dm me or email me on the email address above.

Will keep the board updated with balance etc every few months!

Thanks again to everyone donating.

[bwhoops]

Thanks everyone- will email my name across and send some PayPal details.

Was thinking about the Reddit thing, and I’m sure it would would work well, but I’d worry about the community disappearing if we transferred across. I expect there already are lots of QPR subreddits already.

One of the things I most like about this message board platform is that there are no adverts, pop-ups, moving images across the screen, etc. It has a nice, clean, simple layout.

If it requires continuing to pay extra each month to keep clutter from our screens then I’m all for it.

It would only take 12 of us to commit to paying one months fees per year, and we could keep everything as it is, which would surely be much easier than transferring everything to a different platform

[stainesranger]

Just to update you, the money from the last round of generous contributions is about to run out. We’ve got the next couple of months covered, but that’s it.

We’ve done really well to keep things going this long at this high cost (ie £80 pcm for hosting fees), but I don’t think it’s likely to be sustainable in the longer term.

I’ve tried to negotiate with the hosting company but they won’t talk figures with me because I’m not the named individual on the contract and I’ve not been able to get in touch with DG.

With all that in mind, ActonArthur and I have had a chat and (unless there are any objections/better ideas) we think that the best way forward is for us to set up a duplicate website where we are the named counter parties on the contract and see if we can get much cheaper hosting fees. We’d have to use a new (similar but slightly different) domain name. It’s a shame, but I think that might be be only way forward.

We have the necessary files to duplicate the message board and hope that we can get the whole site including historic posts and user details copied across. I should say we’ve never duplicated a website before so can’t make any promises about exactly what it’ll be like once we’ve copied it over. We’ve looked at the usage for the site and we’re hopeful that we can get costs down significantly, though we won’t know for certain until we do the duplication.

In the meantime, I suggest we try to keep things going on this version at the current high cost until the end of the season. We have one month in the bank and I’m planning on sticking another month’s worth in now, so we’d need another 6 months’ worth of contributions to get us to the end of the season.

I realise this is a lot of money, which is why with ActonArthur’s help on the IT side we’re doing our best to get costs down.

I hope that all sounds alright, but if any regular posters/donors have a view or any ideas they’d like to share, please feel free to get in touch with me to discuss:

qprdotorg2022@gmail.com

Thanks again to everyone for donating and contributing to the site.

[222gers]

No problem, I'll send a few quid over.