Those Ads...

[Myr]

As you have no doubt noticed by now, some ads suggesting you support Gay Authors have cropped up in various places.

 

We are growing mightily fast right now. This might be due to our Google ranking or because of our steady work to bring authors and readers together. Whatever the reason, we have already outgrown two servers. We are now on a dedicated server. This month, if we keep going at our current rate, will hit a staggering 14 GB of transfer. This is just 1 GB shy of our limit. This is up 4 GB from last month. Our first server was limited to 5 GB. Our second was limited to 10 GB. This one is limited to 15 GB at this pay level. This pay level isn't so cheap, but the next level up is not something I can afford myself.

 

Solution:

We need support. Send $5. Send $10. Whatever you can afford. In the meantime, I will be setting up a few (hopefully) ads that will generate moeny to help deflect some costs. If you make online purchases, consider buying from Amazon by clicking on links from here. We get a small kickback. Every little bit helps folks.

 

If we continue at our current rate without some support from members, I will be forced to close Gay Authors.

 

I would like to thanks those folks that have already donated some money. It helps, trust me.

 

I also plan to setup a "Support Services" style thing that will accept credit cards. What you'll get from support services (besides helping to keep us open) are a hosted blog, and increase in PM capacity. I'm looking into some other things, and I'm open to suggestions. Post them here.

 

Myr

[Ibsu]

I also plan to setup a "Support Services" style thing that will accept credit cards.  What you'll get from support services (besides helping to keep us open) are a hosted blog, and increase in PM capacity.  I'm looking into some other things, and I'm open to suggestions.  Post them here.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'd love to see your webalizer reports to see where the bandwidth is coming from. If it's like my board, your message board is the large portion of the bandwidth. Check to see if you can turn off some of the <!-- --> comments in the PHP, for example. (It's only needed during debugging.) That's a little bit on the extreme side, bu that kind of optimization through the site might save you a GB.

 

I mean, you're using CSS and your html is pretty tight (at least, from looking at your main page) so I don't know that it'd be the problem.

 

I did notice on dk's "Do Over" that he has a

before each paragraph. A popular enough story might be able to trim off a couple megabytes over a month. Cross this across the board and you might be able to stave off problems with bandwidth for a bit.

 

Do you have a paypal account? It might not be this month, though...

[Myr]

Paypal is very anti-gay and cancels accounts of such...

As for for breakdown, this site is pretty big (about 500 mb) Comicality's site accounts for about 5 gb of transfer. The main gayauthors site accounts for 5.6 gb (this includes the board at about 3.5 gb). The rest is made up of all the other author sites.

 

I have already started to go through all the code and trim things. So I'm one step ahead of you there. As for Dan's stuff... I haven't optimized his code yet. Comicality's stuff is pretty clean. Mine is. Nav's is. Etc.

[Guest kevinm1949]

I'm new to this group, so forgive me if I ask "dumb" questions.

I would like to support the group with a (small) contribution, but haven't seen a mailing address to send my check?

[Ibsu]

Paypal is very anti-gay and cancels accounts of such...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Forgotten about that... doh. (Actually, I'd only heard that it was pissy about porn and gambling, but I guess this counts. )

 

I'll admit that I'm amazed that the board is burning up 3.5gb. I get more posts on consr.us/forum and we usually only burn through a GB a month with phpbb, and we have pictures. (Of course, you might have more lurkers. If that's the case, post people, dammit! )

 

But you're on a dedicated server at 15gb of space? That seems odd to me. Perhaps our cheap/not so cheap values are different, but I'm on shared hosting with pair.com for 30/month and that's 30gb of bandwidth a month. If you buy it for a year in advance, that's 300 bucks a year with the special they're running right now. (I don't remember them not running the prepayment special, though, and it'll probably be running if you decide to switch in the future.)

 

But then again, the 17.95/mo plan is 15gb, so you could just be on pair.com already. (feel free to delete and pm if this is too personal of info on the board for you.)

 

But if we're talking raising 350-600 / year at this point, I'd hope between the authors and readers we could do so with a quarterly fundraising drive!

 

PS - have you heard of any such problems with the Amazon tip jar? I haven't kept up with that... I know for a while there was a fit about them recording who bought what, but that's it. There's also the patent boycott, but hey.

 

*trying to be helpful* --Eric

[Ibsu]

PS - regardless, I'll try to get that money order in in the next week or two.

[Crackerwriter]

It's been a tight fornight, but I haven't forgotten my promise, and I'll send some as soon as I can. Pity about the Paypal thing, that would have made it so easy.

I found out during the week that my "boss" hosts the site that hosts Gayauthors!! So if you need to cut out the middle man........!!! LOL

[Myr]

Getting more bandwidth bang for out buck might be nice

 

As for what our host provides, it's quite a bit. The site gets well over 1 million hits a month. And remember, that much of the site is made up of larger html files.

 

Kevin, welcome to the group. Click the banner on top of the pages that says "Support Gay Authors". That will bring you to the support page which has the PO Box you can mail things too.

 

As for why we are where we are, we put a hell of a strain on a server. The boards and other things. We have some other features that are nice. (in other words, I'm happy where we are)

[Crackerwriter]

In that case, you'll be happy to hear that we're going over to 'load balancing' in order to prevent any future crashes. We had a Windows server down for four days because of hard drive failure. Never again!! Correct me if I'm wrong but if GA's host is hosted by us, then that should make the site a damn sight more secure? A donation will be on it's way to you before long. That's a promise, and glad to see the 'Support' banner. I think that's a good idea

[ethan thorn]

I really wish i could but right now money is still real tight I hope to have something soon.

[JulienGregg]

I'll be sending a money order fairly soon. I'm kind of t'd off to admit that Paypal has already struck me, but not for being gay. It was something to do with my bank. At any rate, they won't let me use my account. If I can swing it, I could send money orders fairly regularly. After all, its the least I can do.

[Myr]

Just remember... leave the name line on a money order blank...

[Myr]

FYI...

November saw about 2,200,000 hits on the entire site. We transferred about 12 GB.

This was up about 1 GB and 150,000 hits from October.

 

We also now have some sort of webscrawler on the site pretty much all the time. (Google, MSN and Inktomi (Yahoo) seem to be the most prevelant)

[Radames]

... We also now have some sort of webscrawler on the site pretty much all the time. (Google, MSN and Inktomi (Yahoo) seem to be the most prevelant)

Myr,

It's only been a few weeks, and I've already forgotten how I found gayauthors.org. Sigh. It might have been a Yahoo search, though, so I guess I'm supportive of webcrawlers in general.

 

However, are webcrawlers able to get in restricted areas such as Sneak Peeks?

[Forloyn]

(about 500 mb)

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I can't give moneies as I am barly aflote myself but IF and I do mean IF it comes to shutting down Gay Authors, I have room on my server for it's content.

[Myr]

The webcrawlers don't have access to certain areas.

 

I doubt we'll have to close.

[Pyro]

Hey Myr i'll see what I can do, I still need to send Forloyn some money for my site and then I will see about sending you something for GA. I wish that paypal wasn't such a pain that would be so much easier, is there any other online pay services that we can use?? Just wondering. Also I will ask Forloyn to put a support GayAUthors sign on my website.

 

Pyro :-)

[Forloyn]

the banner is in rotation on the /geraldle/pyro/ site. I might put it in my adserver and rotate it on my whole network but that takes a lot of code work so we will see