The Forge was down for a day on Oct 13-14, 2003. I need to comment on it, although I'm on the road, and won't be able to read comments until Thursday.

Here's what happened:

- The Forge, as well as associated sites, is on a shared server, which means other sites by other people are on it.
- We started taking up over half the server load. That's very bad, considering we're one of over 100 sites on the machine.
- I got a nasty-gram from my webhost warning me that they were isolating indie-rpgs.com to another server and that I need to move to a dedicated server, one just for the Forge.
- During that move, they messed up Domain Name Service, closing down the site.

The symptoms are fixed, but not the problem: we are too big. I'm not sure what to do about this: to move to a dedicated server is $199/month, and that's if I pay for a year in advance. There is cheaper dedicated hosting out there, but I don't want to move away from Dreamhost, my webhost. Even with their foibles, they fixed the problem 10 minutes after I alerted them, and that's damn good service.

I'm stuck at an odd point here, with three solutions:
a) Eat a huge bill each month.
b) Start aggressively trying to make money and get donations for the Forge.
c) Beg to see if someone can provide us with bandwidth. If you work somewhere that will give us large bandwidth, I will pay for a machine to be shipped to you and installed there.

---

Lastly, apologies for the downtime. I've been travelling all month, and could have contacted Dreamhost earlier had I known. I will find a solution to this problem, even if it means I get a cellphone.

Having absolutely no experience running a high-bandwidth public site, I of course feel completely qualified to comment =)

The only two things that occur to me are:

At the very least, you could stick in a PayPal tip jar. Likewise, do you guys charge for the use of the Forge Bookshelf? Seems like one or both of those might help, at least a little.

The other thing that I wonder about is places like rpg.net. Would it be possible to make the Forge a 'sub-board' of someplace like that? I'm assuming your bandwidth is a drop-in-the-bucket in comparison to theirs. Tangency alone must eat up an enormous pile of change...

However, that would of course depend on them being amenable to something like that, and whether or not you and Ron would be able to maintain editorial oversite with that sort of an arrangement.

Anyway, those're my Cr0.02. Anybody else got any clever ideas?

According to Ralph's latest stats, there are 47 posters with, what, 200 plus posts? If all 47 chipped in $5 a month, that would cover the cost of the server, right? I'd be willing to chip in $5 a month for this site to go on.

Would charging $5 a month to be a Forge member drive down posting? How many people would quit the Forge if they had to pay $5 a month?

With other sites out there with some fraction of the Forge's quality, I would definitely quit. I really wouldn't want too, though.

It would DEFINITELY drive off new posters.

I may be unique in my position, though, as I am a minor (14 years old), and don't have much (read: any) spare cash, nor complete control over where what little I do have is spent.

And yeah. Nice to be back. :^)

There is a tip jar on the About the Forge page, although it is well hidden...

Thoughts on covering hosting costs:

1) Everyone pledges to stop hitting "refresh" in their browser as much ;)

2) $199 a month? Service loyalty is understandable, but that seems a bit... non competative... Shouldn't we shop around? Just how much load *are* we generating?

3) The local NPR station is running a pledge drive. Maybe we could do the same. If 20 people ponied up $10 a month, that would cover hosting costs. Put out names on the about page (esteemed supporters of our endevour) and call it good.

Once a year, you could have every other link at the forge return a "please call and make your pledge now" web page instead of somebody's post for a week. Free copies of KPFS and OctaNe for people who pledge at the $120 level.

Okay, now I'm getting wack, but I think there are enough people who would be willing to spread the cost that we could make it pretty painless. Anyway, I'll step up right now and pledge $10/month x 12 = $120.

-wilhelm

To prevent time wasted discussing it, and scaring the young'uns:

The Forge will never charge to use it. Ever.

I'll spend 24 hours on an exercise bike generating electricity to power it first.

RPG.net has a store thing that goes through RPGShop.com. Why not set up something similar with the Forge?

Clinton R. Nixon wrote: To prevent time wasted discussing it, and scaring the young'uns:

The Forge will never charge to use it. Ever.

I'll spend 24 hours on an exercise bike generating electricity to power it first.

This is a first guess after going over some stats, but the over-use seems to have occured because one IP address viewed the Forge twice as much as the average daily load of all users by itself on October 10th.

I will be contacting the owner of this IP.

I submit this discussion from earlier this year on paying for the Forge.

I hereby repeat the proposal I made at that time, with due adjustments for changes.

1) $200/mnth is about $46/week. $40-50 being about the limit on what most people* would and should be willing to cough up.

2) If I were Clinton I'd start at the top of the most posters list and just go down one by one sending a PM "Are you willing to commit to paying $46 once per year to cover the costs of the Forge. Please pick a week to sponsor" and just keep going down the list until 52 people sign up. Then simply set up an bot to send an email out each week to the appropriate party with a paypal donation link. Voila problem solved. I'd be tremendously disappointed if there are 52 Forge members willing to pony up some dough.

Hell I'd do it if Clinton would be uncomfortable about it.



Edited after Clinton's discovery. Even if this means the dedicated server isn't necessary yet, it probably will be one day. I'd start the ball rolling even if we only need 12 members to cover current costs.

All thanks to Clinton!

For some perspective, everyone, consider the old'uns' experiences with other sites during 1998-99. Server crashes, poor backup habits, and insufficient hacking-security led to thousands of lost posts and dialogues, as well as weeks down at a time.

One day ain't so bad.

Best,
Ron

Hm. What was I doing on Friday?

I sure hope it wasn't me...(gulp).

It wasn't you, Dana. It was someone on the unsx.net network, housed in St. Petersburg, Russia.

I still have to confer with my webhost about this, though: the dedicated server might still be necessary. We'll see.

Whew!

I find that very interesting, actually. I direct your attention to http://shop.rpg.net/ , where there is a notice saying:

We are currently battling a hacker/sitebot from IP 217.69.120.34 who is hitting our multiple servers for days now. If you are annoyed by the lag and downtime, then hack him back or help us find out who he is...

dana@toaster:~$ host 217.69.120.34
217.69.120.34 does not exist (Authoritative answer)
dana@toaster:~$ whois 217.69.120.34
% This is the RIPE Whois server.
% The objects are in RPSL format.
%
% Rights restricted by copyright.
% See http://www.ripe.net/ripencc/pub-services/db/copyright.html

inetnum: 217.69.120.0 - 217.69.120.255
netname: UNSX
descr: UNSX customer network
country: RU
admin-c: SNI2-RIPE
tech-c: ZAA8-RIPE
status: ASSIGNED PA
notify: noc@unsx.com
mnt-by: DSC-MNT
changed: admin@teletube.net 20030828
source: RIPE

route: 217.69.120.0/24
descr: UNSX
origin: AS29352
notify: noc@unsx.net
mnt-by: DSC-MNT
changed: admin@teletube.net 20030828
source: RIPE

person: Smirnoff Nokolai Ivanovich
address: UNSX
address: St.Petersburg, Nevsky 32, 191187,
phone: +7 812 384 25 71
e-mail: sni@unsx.com
nic-hdl: SNI2-RIPE
mnt-by: DSC-MNT
changed: admin@unsx.net 20030728
source: RIPE

person: Zhil Aleksandr Aleksandrovuch
address: UNSX
address: St.Petersburg, Nevsky 32, 191187,
phone: +7 812 384 25 71
e-mail: zaa@unsx.com
nic-hdl: ZAA8-RIPE
mnt-by: DSC-MNT
changed: admin@unsx.net 20030728
source: RIPE

I understand (and completely agree) that the Forge is a no-charge forum.

But there's no reason why you couldn't have something special for those willing to pay a little. Maybe some extra pay-only forums? Maybe paying people get their username in a different color? etc.

Just something minor that makes it look like folk are getting something for their money. IME that's what usually makes the difference between folk ponying up a little cash and not.

Just random thoughts, not necessarily well thought out.

Brian.

Maybe paying people get their username in a different color?

But there's no reason why you couldn't have something special for those willing to pay a little. Maybe some extra pay-only forums? Maybe paying people get their username in a different color? etc

"We pay, you don't and look we're better than you for it." Certainly not the intention, but that's the impression that would convey. Certainly to my mind.

Ralph,

The donate button (and other methods of donating, like getting web space here and whatnot) will soon be more prominent. I've put it off long enough, mainly because of personal pride.

While last week's spike, now considered malicious (thanks, Anya, for letting me know about rpg.net's similar situation), caused a lot of these problems, moving to a bigger server will let the Forge expand. (I still have not heard from my webhost whether the usage problems occured just last week, or if they were looking at monthly average data.) As is, I can't take any more hosting jobs because it would use too many resources. There's a few solutions I've found, and all should get me down in the range of $99/month, which I can handle, especially if I make donations more visible.

Ron and I did set a policy long ago about not releasing information on who donates in any form, however, so colored names and whatnot won't be happening. I am trying to think of something nice we can do, though.

Y'know, support does start at home... How about this, I personally pledge to donate $50 a year to the Forge, in addition to what I'm paying Clinton to host the 1001 Designs site. I would encourage any other designers who are or will eventually be making profits based on materials either developed on the Forge or supported/marketed here (in your own forum or otherwise) to think about doing something similar. It's karma baby. What could make more sense than tithing some of your profits to support the community that's supporting you?

On the other hand, I think people who are simply looking for a place to talk about their ideas, who aren't at the point of publishing or making money off them, should always have a home here and shouldn't feel the need to donate at all. How's that?

Hey Guys,

I just mostly want to chime in and say thanks to Clinton. The Forge handles outage professionally, something I can't say of a lot of very well funded sites I deal with in my work.

-Tim

Hello,

I consider all public announcements of "I'm going to donate" or "I have donated" regarding the Forge to be unacceptable. The intent behind the post, however laudable, is irrelevant to this point.

Such posts are absolutely not permitted.

Best,
Ron

I was just curious... Would it be possible to institute some sort of non-visible reward system for donors? (I totally agree that differentiating donors from non-donors is counterproductive publicly) What about some sort of access to small scale PDFs? Supplements, simple game ideas, that sort of thing. These may be donated too... I don't know if that's practical or not. Regardless, i want you guys to know that i support the Forge enough to chip in some money...

Thomas

Er, I'm going out on a limb, here, but wouldn't the 'benefit' to people who pony up a donation be that the Forge continues?

I mean, would your name in a different color (or whatever) really make anybody more likely to donate than the realization that the Forge might go away altogether (like it did for a day, there) if we don't help Ron and Clinton defray the costs of running the place?

Yes, that would mean that some people are 'freeloading'. But I think the whole point is that by keeping the Forge freely accessable, donors get access to the resulting conversations, interactions, and debate.

Or am I missing something?

Edit: fixed speling

The best reward-style idea I've seen in here so far, imho, is the concept of a "members only" forum. It gives people who've paid a tangible benefit (access to the forum) and is relatively/completely invisible to non-members (as hidden forums are wont to do).

Yes, donating to the forge is its own reward. But even pointless rewards like a pretty avatar can be the "cookie" encouraging people to donate. It's silly, but it still has a psychological impact.

Sigh ...

Well, folks, all of the discussion is valuable, and I appreciate everyone's input so far. As a survey revealing that people have very different views, it's great.

My own views are very much in line with Dana's point (AnyatheBlue). I welcome further input to the thread, as people seem to want to provide it, but just so you know, I strongly doubt you're going to see any change in those views or in how Clinton and I are going to handle acknowledging donations.

Best,
Ron

Ron, thanks for the update. Let me go ahead and state that no matter what you guys end up deciding to do i'm pretty sure that people will donate. I know that personally i just never really thought about the cost involved, but now that it's been brought to my attention i'm perfectly willing to invest in the Forge. The benifits i get from the Forge's existence are well worth some money. I guess what i'm saying is that i'll be donating no matter what you guys do (unless you axe donations, it might be hard to donate then...).

Thomas

The capitalist in me rears its ugly head:

Your revenue needs to come from your strengths. The big strengths are quality of content, game-specific forums and raw readership. The last is driven by the previous two.

The obvious solution to me is advertising sales. Advertising doesn't have to be a spastic flashing banner at the top of the page (and God willing it won't be). You could mandate text-only ads, jpeg-only (which doesn't support animation or other spastic behavior), or just review each ad to make sure it isn't obnoxious. You have a prime market for advertising rpg-specific items, especially for non-mainstream games. Companies that make products useful to the independent game publisher are also a good bet. Serif Software makes a publishing suite that several of us here use and recommend. Profantasy and NBOS make mapping programs that are widely used. Contact those companies and see if they're interested in the kind of market you have to offer. They're advertising on RPG.net already, and that audience is far less targetted.

Alternately you need to sell something that people are interested in buying and generates a decent margin. I will submit that Cafe Press isn't the way to go about it, because the margins stink. Charging for game specific forums might be the answer, especially if the game or supporting products are being sold instead of freely downloaded. Producing and selling Cafe-Press like items might be a better answer. You can find a local company to product such items at a significantly lower cost than what Cafe Press is asking (and if you can't, contact me and I'll get you prices from somebody who can).

Ron Edwards wrote:
I consider all public announcements of "I'm going to donate" or "I have donated" regarding the Forge to be unacceptable. The intent behind the post, however laudable, is irrelevant to this point.

Hey folks,

I hope those of you that can donate will do so, but I'm not so keen on all the special "membership" type privileges. Once you start doing that, it can go strange places. I'm not sure if it would even be a donation once you start offering something in return for payments. Then, next thing you know, members who have paid start wielding power or expect favoritism ("I might not renew my subscription unless I get what I want.") I work in a church part time, and we see this type of thing often. A donation is a donation.

I've privately messaged Clinton about the possibility of RPGShelf.com being a solution to this, and I also know of some local places in my area that do pretty cheap co-location. I'm not quite sure how much bandwidth the Forge is using at the moment. There might be other options to decrease bandwidth usage. For example, if you have the ability, you could consider limiting connections during peak hours. It sucks, but if it keeps things under quota, then that may be the best solution.

Hope I can help.

Thanks,
Nathan

Clay wrote: The capitalist in me rears its ugly head:

Your revenue needs to come from your strengths. The big strengths are quality of content, game-specific forums and raw readership. The last is driven by the previous two.

Hi folks,

Speaking as a moderator, despite my previous post, I'm a little torn about prohibiting proclamations of donations or intentions to donate. It's perilously close to saying that my personal standards of conduct shall become enforced at the community level. I decided to back off and think about it from the community perspective.

I reluctantly come down on the side that such posts have way too much potential to become a subject of rivalry, resentment, interpretation, and general distraction from the purpose of the site. So, everyone, the rule is, for everywhere, please keep information about your donations (do, do not, how little, how much, how often, etc) to yourselves.

Best,
Ron

Not that my particular opinion on the topic makes a difference, but so that Ron doesn't sound like the lone grumpy voice harshing everybody's buzz, I want to point out that I completely agree with him.

At the very least, it could lead to peer pressure and snarky behavior. The point of the Forge, as I understand it, is not to shame others into helping to pay for it. If you find the reasons and economics compelling, donate. If you don't, don't. And let everybody else make that decision based on their own reasoning, feelings, and personal situation, too.

It's not a matter of convincing. It's a matter of deciding. We all (now) know the facts. Nobody should be criticized for the decision they make based on them.

I do have a constructive suggestion. Might it be possible for the unappreciated web-lackeys to make available an aggregate "bandwidth used this month by The Forge" and "estimated charge for it" page? Just so there's transparency on the issue of how much money is needed on a regular basis? I'm waffling on the idea of also indicating the total that has been donated to defray the charge. It would give everybody access to the three pertinent numbers, but it might also be perceived as trying to shame people into donating.

Ultimately, though I feel transparency is valuable. Knowing the Forge has a surplus in it's coffers, or is in dire need of operating funds, is useful in deciding if a donation is going to be useful, necessary, or important.

There are good arguments for not making this information public, too. I feel it would help, if done right.

AnyaTheBlue wrote: If you find the reasons and economics compelling, donate. If you don't, don't. And let everybody else make that decision based on their own reasoning, feelings, and personal situation, too.

This is my current plan. Realize this is formulated solely by me, on the road, with little sleep, attending a funeral for my grandpa tomorrow. (Condolences are off-topic, by the way. PMs are fine.)

* I've been connected with a cheap, reliable, good dedicated hosting site. http://www.johncompanies.com. I will probably move the Forge and associated sites to them. If I do, and you host with me, I'll e-mail you.
* I will be changing the system by which articles, and static pages, are generated, making it easier for me to post information. Expect Forge static pages to grow, with more information about how it runs, why, and what it costs. This suggestion from Anya is good.
* There will be no acknowledgement of donors. I am torn as to a page like "Our hosting costs this month: $X. Total donated: $Y." This may or may not happen.
* There will be no special features for donors. However, there will be new features all around, which you might consider donating for. One thought right now is a Jabber server. This is like private ICQ, AOL Messenger, and whatnot. You can instant message anyone else connected to the indie-rpgs.com Jabber server.
* I am going to work out a deal with whoever I end up using as my host so that donations go directly to them, credited to my account. I don't like the fact that donations go to my personal PayPal account, but you can't set up separate accounts with the same bank account.

Hey Clinton.

Could you add an automatic subscription-style donation, for those of us who're able to donate a small monthly amount but who forget?

-Vincent

This is a suggestion that might promote the community spirit without pressuring anyone:

Put up some kind of meter/goal odometer to show what's been donated and what's needed to run the site. That way a hypothetical me can wander by and see that the Forge needs another $15, and I can think to myself, hey, I can spare $5 of that.

Or maybe something like "this week X people have donated Y money."

Some sort of feedback generator like that usually works well to encourage participation.

A quick weigh-in: I like the idea of a "we need X, we have Y" page, and/or a "X number of people donated" page.

I would LOVE for there to be a Jabber server.

And Vincent's idea is an excellent one. I'm willing to bet a lot of people could probably donate to the Forge consistently if they were charged, say, $1 a month or something. I donate to several charities that way. Might be too difficult to set up, but it's worth looking into.

certainly if an autocharge is to tricky it would be dead easy to sign up to get sent an email once a month that says "hey! time to hit the tip jar at the Forge!"

I'm with Clinton and Ron on the idea of pledge drives, incentives or rewards for donations, and similar in regards to the Forge. All such are Very Bad Ideas(TM), for the reasons Dana has listed.

Clinton R. Nixon wrote: I am torn as to a page like "Our hosting costs this month: $X. Total donated: $Y." This may or may not happen.

This is like private ICQ, AOL Messenger, and whatnot. You can instant message anyone else connected to the indie-rpgs.com Jabber server.

It would seem to me that the suggestion for passive advertising is quite good. RPGnet uses something that is unobtrusive and nets them some portion of their operational costs.

I would also suggest that you ask those who have game-specific forums here to chip in something.

Open that up to other Indie producers who don't have forums here if they'd like to have their own forum for $X. (Gee, I wonder who might be interested... :) )

What kind of a line does Forge need for bandwidth? Are we talking T-1? Multiple T-1s? T-3? Mutliple T-3s?

That gets pretty costly...

paypal buttons are my friends!