I hope our Jim approved. I searched for it the other night when our FReepathon was lagging and I was planning to use it as a separate thread to *fire-up* our troops.
Wait till our FRiend tubebender sees post #1000....LOL.
Posted on 01/11/2011 5:28:06 AM PST by paulycy
FYI -
Here are statements from Jim about the future of FreeRepublic.com for those who missed them. They are quite serious.
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"Well, I can say that there are definitely two things that will never happen. 1) Banner ads. 2) Oracle [a completely new database system.] And a third is a total replacement [of the current damaged system.] Don’t have the financial wherewithal."
"To those who wish to leave because of it, see ya."
"If FR dies, that’s that."
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[To: paulycy]
Hey, you want us to get an all new system with all new software and add a few more pricey techs, system programmers and database administrators to keep it all working 100% of the time 24/7/365? Well, start coughing up the big bucks.
It’s going to take tens of thousands of donations and many with at least three zeros each after the comma to accomplish the task. And that would be EVERY month like clock work to make the payroll. Once you take on a big load of expensive overhead, there’s no going back. As it is, we get a couple thousand donations per quarter averaging about $30 bucks each and there’s no guarantees we can cover this quarter’s expenses much less next quarter. We’re on a pay as we go system and we have zero employees.We just ask for enough to pay the bills.
Throwing more money at the problem won’t solve it. [This latest glitch] was a technical issue and we just had to keep troubleshooting until we found it. And no, we’re not going to invite a bunch of strangers in to get their hands on our secure systems. John has been programming since he was 14 and he’s pushing 40 now. He built these systems and he’s an expert in them.
And no, we are not going to throw out our software and rewrite it and no we’re not going to move on to some other database system. There are no guarantees that any other system can do a better job and not without hiring a staff to build and maintain it and that’s for sure. And we don’t have the financial wherewithal to do any of that anyway. Maybe if we had a couple million bucks at our disposal and a couple years to do it in we could build an iron-clad system. And maybe not.
All I can say is, if someone else can do it better and cheaper, then please step right on up and get ‘er done!! I’ll bow out and retire. Thankyouverymuch.
Hit it boys:
https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/
And no, we have no plans of taking FR commercial. I like it the way it is. Not sure I could handle getting rich.
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- Jim Robinson
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2653583/posts?page=168#168
No rest for the weary. THAT is a scary thought!
That it is!
That message is coming through loud and clear, at least to some of us.
What about specific goals for donations though? What about a specific goal to replace the 8th server, for instance? What about a price and a timeline to get that up and running? That would give us a concrete goal to donate for, and something that we could see as an accomplishment once it is up and running.
I, for one, have no illusion about forcing anything down anyone's throat here, especially yours Jim. We are powerless as we should be.
But I think there are a lot of people who can kick in more money and more in-kind services without destroying your vision of FR. Is it possible for us to do so?
at the risk of overuse on this thread . . .
He actually stated it in post #588, but I didn't fully duplicate it the first time around. He's got some valid concerns there.
That said, I've seen lots of other websites and blogs with paid advertising that have links to articles and excerpts embedded in posts. It would be informative to know how they're dealing with the 'fair use' issues that Jim raised.
Much agree.
My students don’t get out ‘alive’ without knowing a LOT about attachment disorder.
LOL.
How nice to see the percentage jump up since just this morning!!!!
Time for the only member of the “Loose Change Club” to jump in and make her ‘club’ donation. The total since the last Freepathon was $42.86, but I did round it up to $60.
How this works is ——— at the end of each week I count how much loose change I have in my change purse. It usually runs to around $3+. Putting that amount aside, and adding up each week till the next Freepathon, it comes to a nice amount for a donation —— and all I have to give is about $3/week. Using my LazMath that is about 42 cents/day. For what I get out of Free Republic, that is a pittance!
But the thing is -—— it is an easy and painless way to save for a donation. I just wish I could have some other Freepers join in with me!!
Any takers??
It’s not the cost, it’s more about the time. John has redistributed and balanced the load over our existing servers and has the situation well under control. We typically replace part of our plant every couple of years or so. We just added two big new servers a couple years ago and added a whole lot more memory and disk resources. I’ve asked John to get some quotes on a major system upgrade, but he hasn’t got a round tuit yet. I was thinking earlier that he’d probably be in a hurry to replace the dead server but he doesn’t seem to be. He did hint a year or so ago that he might like to replace a big part of our system, but haven’t heard much from him about it since. I’m guessing now that he’ll just wait until our next major upgrade. He’s even more tight lipped about this stuff than I am. Typically answers my questions with one word or grunt (if at all). Yes, no, ok, done, not now, etc.
And actually I’ve lost count of the exact number of servers in our system. At one time I believe we had as many as twelve. Over the years we’ve added some new larger and more powerful servers and rotated out some of the older ones. Whether the current number is 7 or 8 or even nine or ten I don’t know and don’t know if it makes any difference.
When John decides to tackle the update project, I’m sure he will and then it’ll happen in a hurry. He’s my major partner and that’s his part of the business and I trust him completely
Ha, ha.......I guess I’m too old; I was thinking more along the lines of the WWII Pinup girls.
Yea, without the Christians, this site would lose half or more it’s patrons.
Great idea! Thanks so much for the donation. It really counts.
Crazy, isn't it, when you think what Wikileaks get away with!
Out of interest, some forums avoid the fair use issue by changing the thread creation screen. Have you considered doing that?
A maximum limit on the Title of thread (ideally NOT HTML enabled), and body of thread (again ideally NOT HTML enabled), with the Source and Source URL fields left as the are, is more than sufficient for anyone to open a discussion topic, provide a link to the source article, offer an opening question or viewpoint and so on.
I don't know if this is possible in your configuration but one of my customers had a forum where new threads could have full HTML in the opening posts - and a spammer created an iframe and hosted some really pornographic content in it so visitors to the site opened an innocent conversation only to see at the top of the page, a pretty offensive pornographic video. What's worse, the video was actually uploaded to his site so his bandwidth usage went through the roof.
I'm only thinking, there's no real need for people to quote verbatim from news sites, or reproduce the HTML, or even excerpt, from a copyrighted source so if you wanted to stamp that out you could possibly just turn the HTML and excerpt options off, on new threads.
We’re here as long as you are! Thanks for all that you, John, Amy and Chris do for free speech! It is a pleasure
to be able to come here and feel safe!
Righthaven been going after a lot of posting sites. Darn sharks.
Good! There's not enough of us doing that. I have a son who doesn't realize his importance in his childrens lives. We came to verbal blows yesterday. He isn't speaking to me today. He'll get over it.
My friend, FR is far too valuable a resource to adopt such a fatalistic attitude about the existing business model. If it no longer works, then it needs to be upgraded to one that does.
Now, what that is, is up to Jim. Be it far from me to tell him what will work best for his site. That said, I've seen some very good ideas for improvements to the existing business model expressed on this thread today.
Jim has expressed extreme reservations about my particular suggestion, and I fully appreciate them, but there is a definite need for a better solution of some kind. It's my hope that one or more worthy ones will come out of this discussion.
Understood that right away.
Jim, I want to thank you quite publicly for sharing this information with all of us. This is EXACTLY the kind of info we all were looking for and that we argue ENDLESSLY about until you, the Big Boss, fills us in.
We want only what we've already said a hundred times - a thriving FR in the vision that you've set up already. We want to do more if more is needed.
Lacking this information, you KNOW what we FReepers are going to do... we are going to fight about it. ;0) Under the circumstances though it was my opinion that it wasn't helpful to do so, so I spoke up. That's all.
I request that we keep talking and asking questions and clearing the air of whatever is appropriate for public consumption. But it's just a request. Brainstorming helps. A lot of ideas, and a few or even one good idea that furthers the cause. That's what I believe in.
Thanks again. (Please also consider a bit more formal succession plan for the website...?)
Thank you very, very much. This means a lot to a lot of people.
Thank you. I honestly find this “behind the scenes” stuff interesting.
Actually, I like our system pretty much just the way it is. We may have some upgrades in mind, but I’m not thinking of making any major changes in the way we operate. It works. In fact it works very well. And I’m not worried in the least about our funding. I’m not in it to get rich and our users are providing plenty of money to cover our needs.
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