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Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 4:51 pm
by Oren
jason wrote:The key word here is "required." I'm not required to link back to them.
Yes, that's what I thought was the case here. I just felt like mentioning this, that's ok though... I'm not saying anything bad here, I'd probably do the same if someone hosted me for free :wink:

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 5:12 pm
by Arawn
I never would've notice the Ads if someone hadn't gone and pointed them out! :lol: Glad to see the Google Search ... that I noticed.

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 5:26 pm
by Benjamin
I have sent the CEO of jaguarpc.com a message requesting that he host the forums for free.

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 5:59 pm
by s.dot
I don't mind the ads because the relevancy is pretty awesome. If I'm interested in a particular topic, there may be more info in one of the ads. Works for me.

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 10:56 pm
by Benjamin
Just got a message back from jag. They said they will be more than happy to host the site.

Exact words:
"We would be happy to donate a hosting home for it, we just
need to know what all it needs to get started. Anything else, main site,
etc? We would like to become one of, if not "the" mainstream
sponser for as many large scale php based communities as we can."
If this is inline with what needs to be done, let me know and I'll send you contact information.

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 5:51 am
by The Phoenix
jason wrote:mHosted at least provides hosting without any requirement of advertising. If someone wants to host us for free, the expectation is that we are just like a paying customer, except we don't pay anything. Most people don't like that deal).
I'm sure that there are many companies that would happily host the site. Do you have any figures on bandwidth use, and the like?

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 6:43 am
by JayBird
The Phoenix wrote:I'm sure that there are many companies that would happily host the site. Do you have any figures on bandwidth use, and the like?
Current user base:
c. 31,000

Unique visits per month:
average 27,384 - peak 42,441 (2006)
average 43,225 - peak 51,837 (2007 to date)

Bandwidth usage per month:
average 23.23gb - peak 47.72gb (2006)
average 27.54gb - peak 46.51gb (2007 to date)

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 8:56 am
by jason
Other things to keep in mind is that I have other sites hosted on this account. Remember, it didn't start out as free hosting. So while I'm all for this move, it really would need to include the freedom to host additional sites that have no relationship to DevNetwork. (For example, piera has her piera.ca domain hosted here, and I am letting a WoW guild host here as well (http://www.crimson-guild.org)).

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 9:30 am
by jason
Oh, and to add another point, I'd like to stress that this is merely testing the waters. Part of that test includes the Google Search functionality at the top. I'm not to happy with the quality of the ads being displayed on the site so far (was hoping for more targetted advertising). I'll give it a few more days to improve (as it suggests on Google), but if things don't improve, I'll be removing the ads.

That being said, the search functionality kicks ass, imo. Goes a long way to making things easier to find.

Anyways, keep discussing ideas and what not of things you miss from DevNetwork. These forums were a community long before Web 2.0 and the whole social networking things became big.

Maybe this is a good question: If you wanted to add one new feature to the site as a whole, what would it be? Doesn't have to be forum related, just something that you honestly want to have here on DevNetwork. Keep in mind that while it would be nice to have something like weekly tutorials or daily blogs, it's easy to suggest these things but difficult to implement. I mean, someone has to actually do the work for that. The forums work well because people need information, and the forums provide that information.

Other such ideas I've been playing around with is thinning out the forums a bit. Assuming I removed the ads, I'd mostly take the upper portion of the forums and decrease the size it takes up. The logo would be slimmed down, and basically, the header would be smaller.

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:28 am
by Ollie Saunders
If you wanted to add one new feature to the site as a whole, what would it be?
Open out the opportunity for writing tutorials to everyone and encourage people to do it collaboratively.

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:30 am
by feyd
ole wrote:Open out the opportunity for writing tutorials to everyone and encourage people to do it collaboratively.
Tutorials can be written by anyone. Few have attempted to submit any to us however.

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:33 am
by jason
feyd wrote:
ole wrote:Open out the opportunity for writing tutorials to everyone and encourage people to do it collaboratively.
Tutorials can be written by anyone. Few have attempted to submit any to us however.
Reminds me of the Wiki. :D

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:38 am
by feyd
jason wrote:Reminds me of the Wiki. :D
Indeed.

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:40 am
by Ollie Saunders
Well perhaps these things need to be integrated more seamlessly and obviously and made a part of the culture.

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 11:22 am
by jason
ole wrote:Well perhaps these things need to be integrated more seamlessly and obviously and made a part of the culture.
While it's a good idea, it's easier said than done. It's like suggesting that we need to improve our science program, and the solution is to just land a man on mars (not that I'm suggesting that integrating the forums with other areas seamlessly is as difficult as landing on mars).

Obviously tutorials and how-tos are popular.

Let's brainstorm for a moment. Let's say how-tos and tutorials are topical. They need to solve real problems. These forums solve real problems every day. On many occasions, threads become highly detailed discussions. What if we made a simple way to promote/vote a thread into a how-to/tutorial status and organized these threads/tutorails/how-tos in another location? This offsets the difficulty of having to write new how-tos and tutorials, and makes it a natural part of solving problems on the forum. This also helps to promote older, quality content, and keeps it from getting lost (which has always troubled me).