Forum lifespan, new ownership & management?

[bgsengine]

Well finally , hosting costs of the forum have jumped up and bit me again - Can't really afford $240 a year any more, what with having closed business & retired. Ideally I'd like to find someone willing to take over entirely , you'd need to get your own hosting account and arrange (or figure out) moving the forum to the new hosting - (You'd also want to replace the google adsense codes with your own) While the ads that exist generate a small amount of income, it isn't really enough to cover all the expenses (hosting, domain renewals, etc). I imagine it would be possible to make some changes (and perhaps boost SEO somehow or the other) such that ad revenue would even show a profit, but honestly I no longer have the desire or motivation to try..

New owner would get: The domain (Transferred to you) , and the forums and website (such as it is) and full privileges to modify, alter or upgrade or change any or all of the forums and website as you see fit.

I'd be asking $240 (Venmo, check or money order) to recover the most recent hosting renewal cost. And I reserve the right to reject any and all offers, as I still want to secure members' privacy as much as possible, so I would not sell to just anybody... and should the sale go through, members would have 30 to 60 days at minimum to request deletion of their information, account, posts, etc.

If interested in becoming the new ownership of ppeten.com just drop me a P.M.

At the moment I am undecided what to do in the future, but I will be making that decision before next year's renewal is up - If I am unable to offload it in some way, I likely may choose to let it expire and shut down (and sadly, delete) the forums.

[creia]

Brian,
Completely understood about the costs you incur. If your costs could be covered by some members contributing would you consider remaining on and running the show?
I for one would be more than happy to help out with your costs and make a contribution. I wo0uld bet that there are others that would as well. I have been helped out so much by this forum!
Michael

[bgsengine]

It may be an option to consider, TBH, I'd have to think on how it may affect me tax-wise (It'd be counted as income, but couldn't simply deduct expenses without filing schedule C, and SE, which then complicates things at tax time)

Ideally would like to find someone technically minded (it isn't difficult to run a shared hosting server nowadays.. the big thing is maintaining the code that runs the forums - However if forums could be easily converted to new version that could be customized via a dashboard template, that would eliminate that issue as well.) that could take over - It would not be difficult to get hosting, set up a new forum (assuming the new forum software could import from this older version and convert) and import these forums content to the new hosting... It'd just be a matter of having the incentive and desire to do so (and the time to take to learn the ins and outs of managing everything) , and once that changeover was managed, simple matter to re-point the domain to the new location.

I'd have to take some time and sit down and crunch some numbers and figure out if the donations thing would be do-able, I guess.. Hate to just let the hosting run out, and domain expire...

[bgsengine]

Well for those who wish to donate, send me a P.M. and I can send you my Venmo or personal Paypal email address, or if you rather write a check and send it, my mailing address... like I said, we're OK for about a year, but this next year, I'm gonna have to make a decision on renewal... be a shame to close up for good, but it may become my only option.. so just in case, anything you feel is valuable to you, might want to do a bunch of copy/pasting to your notes...

[creia]

I just donated using PayPal- very easy to do. I am extending a CHALLENGE to all of my sister and brother members using this wonderful forum to do the same! Will you rise to the challenge? I have received so much education and help with my projects from some very knowledgeable and gracious members here, as many of you have. Brian should not have to incur a personal financial burden just to keep the lights on- it should be member/user supported. Let's all help out and keep this forum going.
Michael

[bertsmobilerepairs]

When I finished this session I will send you $ 5 ( Aus )
Because Oz is small population wise a lot of the groups I am in are pay only, usually a very small fee $ 1 to $ 5 ( Aus )
While it does drive some traffic away ,people who want everything for free are not quality members or even reasonable human beings .
Now the good bit about pay to join is almost zero spam and no web bots or crawlers so the moderators have no problems keeping the forums free from spammers .
Some that have big PDF archives are free to join but only paid members can download and others are free to join & post to general/ tech sections but pay to access the buy & sell or specialized forums .
On top of that as they run at a small profit ( ignoring the time of administrators & moderators ) there is no need to subscribe to the really intrusive add placement platforms and several of them have no adds at all which makes being on them a pleasure and of course allows pages to load so much quicker .
Just some thought.
If the purpose of this forum is to allow technicians to communicate with each other and help each other solve problems as the name implies then pay to join should not be a hard sell.
If I save 1 minute a day not waiting for pages to respond because of all of the advertisements or reading spam posts that is 365 minutes a year or 6 billing hours which is a lot more than $ 5.00
Like wise if the forum can keep a comprehensive list of service information, available only to techs ( so it does not breech copyright ) then that would save techs hundreds of hours a year , even if it is a negative result so I can quickly find out that Stihl manual 11-222-333-444 is not available & can not be downloaded nor purchased so I do not waste 20 hours trying to find one .

I know I am new here but these are my thoughts
I am happy to pay if I am deriving a benefit to my business & saving time
So much easier for me if I can ask how to do something and either be instructed , be given access to the relevent manual pages ( not the entire manual ) or even directed to a You tube clip that is correct .
When I first bought the repair run I blew my download limit every month for a couple of years and the bulk of what I watched on You Tube was total trash

[KE4AVB]

Well some of us do provide support for this forum without pay. It the same that I do over on ODK. I get very benefit out providing support as nearly all my current questions when I need help are never answered. I have basically given on getting support from forums.

[creia]

I am bumping this topic/thread in the hope that others will donate to help support this great forum. I have a feeling that Brian may be close to shutting it down if he does not get some help soon.
Michael

[bgsengine]

I am bumping this topic/thread in the hope that others will donate to help support this great forum. I have a feeling that Brian may be close to shutting it down if he does not get some help soon.
Michael

Thanks, and you'd be correct- Especially if , as I understand it, the ads revenue comes to a standstill (Google sent an email about having to upgrade forums or some such due to EU regulations, As you may have noticed many websites these days now are hanging those bottom-row notices about cookies, ad choices, and such - This forum software (and myself) are a tad long in the tooth to be able to support such a thing, so I am not going to bother.)

So, I am taking a wait and see - Ad revenue this year was just about enough to almost pay for one more year of hosting, coming due this fall, (doesn't cover domain renewals, and other related expenses) leaving me about another 50 bucks short of the goal..

However, if ad revenue stops entirely, I won't have much of a choice left (I can't afford to be spending $300-$350 a year on this place any more. Hosting, domain renewals, what have you..) , other than to talk with another forum (possibly one I have been frequenting for Wheel Horse specific stuff called Red Square, or if one of the other forums y'all frequent were to have any interest in taking over and merging, I'd be all for it - I'd probably sell the domain fairly cheap too, if interested, otherwise I'd just renew domain another year or maybe 2 and redirect)

[creia]

I just made another donation to help keep the forum up and running. I am again extending my challenge to others to do the same. I know that there are lots of "lurkers" out there that have directly benefited from the collective knowledge and experience from the fabulous members who so graciously and repeatedly answer our questions that helps us with our projects.Come on guys and gals let's help Brian keep the lights on!
Michael