05-02-2017, 02:32 PM
As you may (or may not) have noticed, my friends and I decided to make the move to a new VPS, mostly because Chris has decided to call it quits with his hosting business, and I don't want to burden him even further either. I mean, he's fine with hosting our site for a while, but that got a little overboard as a server move is long overdue.
We could've gotten away with using a free hosting service, but that presents problems due to how inherently limited they are (after all, they're being sold at a loss anyway). Hence the move to a new host, specifically a VPS from HostUS per Chris' recommendation on a cheap provider. I don't feel like paying per month, let alone per hour, so an annual subscription is the way to go.
And as such my friends and I are planning on putting up a revenue system to make up for any losses incurred, as it definitely isn't cheap to run a website, no matter how small it is. Banner ads from Project Wonderful seem to be a viable idea given how you have complete control on which ads to display, and isn't as corporate-run as the ones from Google so you can leave Adblock off for this site. A Patreon campaign may also do the trick, but getting the audience is no easy task given the niche nature of this forum.
Which brings up to the direction we're taking as a site. Most of us have moved on from the Strawberry Shortcake franchise, and as such we don't feel like discussing about it as much as we used to as key members have either left or went for other commitments. What I'm thinking of is to turn this site to a more technologically-focused message board, though the SSC-related subforums, and the site name itself, will still remain as it is out of convenience as moving to a different domain is a pain and a half as it is.
So what do you guys think about it?
We could've gotten away with using a free hosting service, but that presents problems due to how inherently limited they are (after all, they're being sold at a loss anyway). Hence the move to a new host, specifically a VPS from HostUS per Chris' recommendation on a cheap provider. I don't feel like paying per month, let alone per hour, so an annual subscription is the way to go.
And as such my friends and I are planning on putting up a revenue system to make up for any losses incurred, as it definitely isn't cheap to run a website, no matter how small it is. Banner ads from Project Wonderful seem to be a viable idea given how you have complete control on which ads to display, and isn't as corporate-run as the ones from Google so you can leave Adblock off for this site. A Patreon campaign may also do the trick, but getting the audience is no easy task given the niche nature of this forum.
Which brings up to the direction we're taking as a site. Most of us have moved on from the Strawberry Shortcake franchise, and as such we don't feel like discussing about it as much as we used to as key members have either left or went for other commitments. What I'm thinking of is to turn this site to a more technologically-focused message board, though the SSC-related subforums, and the site name itself, will still remain as it is out of convenience as moving to a different domain is a pain and a half as it is.
So what do you guys think about it?
