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BGAFD Future and site hosting

Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2001 9:06 am
by Phil K
I'm pleased to say that the bgafd appears to be going from strength to strength, the activity levels in the forum over recent months tend to indicate the site is getting more and more popular as we grow and the feedback we are getting suggests that we're providing a resource that is wanted and useful.

The downside to the success of the site is that the web host that we're currently using are unlikely to be up to the job of handling the future demand that we're going to see - as this weekend's problems with the site demonstrate.

Alec, myself, John, etc. run bgafd purely as a hobby. None of us have any desire to make any form of profit from it - in fact the complexity of maintaining a set of accounts for the site coupled with the fact that we all wish to maintain at least some degree of anonymity means that this is something we would actually prefer to avoid if at all possible. As a result, our hosting fees are currently paid out of our own pockets. We don't pay much, so we don't get a great service.

What we'd ideally like is some kind of site backer who believes in what we're trying to achieve and would either provide us
with web space or else cover our hosting costs without us having to get involved in the finance side at all. It doesn't take a genius to see that suppliers/producers etc. are getting some benefit from what we're doing here. Anyone who helps us out should see some decent returns from doing so by means of the increased exposure we could give them through the site.

On a more technical level, as far as our web hosting needs are concerned, I'm basically looking for something like 100-200mb
space (to allow for growth over the next few months) along with support for php, a mySQL database, server side includes and access to a shell account for maintaining features such as the search engine.

Anyone who has any suggestions or comments then please either contribute to this thread or email us direct.

Phil

Re: BGAFD Future and site hosting

Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2001 9:27 am
by surferoo
If you haven't already, why not approach sites directly.
The thing that amazes me is how unprofessional uk prods/distribs
are at marketing.
You have a fantastic resource here and if I were one, i'd be falling over myself to form a strong link.
The fact someone hasn't yet done so rather proves my point
WAKE UP OUT THERE !

Re: BGAFD Future and site hosting

Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2001 2:03 pm
by joey
Phil, any idea what the monthly bandwidth consumption of the
site is?

Also, are you currently on a dedicated server, or sharing it?

And, an unreasonable, but necessary, question: what are
your current hosting costs?

(I should make it clear I'm not a prospective sponsor (sorry!) but I think this information would be useful for those trying to help...)

Also, and now I'm just being curious.. what do you use for the forum software - home-brewed, freeware or commercial? It has some excellent features, I think.

Re: BGAFD Future and site hosting

Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2001 3:33 pm
by Phil K
All good questions, but ones I'd prefer to discuss by email if that's ok.

The forum software is from . The next release should have improvements including floating any threads with new replies to the top of the list (to save paging through the forum the for new posts) and a preview before post button, which should be welcomed by anyone who puts html in their messages.