11/1/04 - Admin notice re speeds

[admin]

The speeds have been improved.<br><br>The message boards have been running since 1996.<br><br>Though we have never charged for access - they are not<br>free for us to run. Each month we receive very high charges for bandwidth usage.<br><br>In order to keep the board up and free we had to reduce bandwidth to keep our costs down. <br><br>We apologize for the extreme slowness this caused. I realize it made the board practically unusable.<br><br>It was however disappointing to read a number of responses from users who complained about a proposal<br>to offer a pay service for a minimal charge.<br><br>We plan to keep the boards free - but if we want to be able to keep them running at all we have to be able to cover bandwidth costs. While we certainly appreciate your loyalty in purchasing our products-  sales alone from   established/repeat visitors do not cover the ongoing bandwidth costs each month. <br><br>We posted a proposal at forums.newart.com - stating the boards would remain free but that we were going to offer a lightning fast version for a small fee. This would be entirely optional.  If someone found it worthwhile to have faster access they could pay a small charge for faster images, higher resolution pictures, and access to some image galleries, and several other enhancements... <br><br>We've always tried out best to be fair and honest here. The boards have been free and will remain free - but as we said - they are not free for us to run - so we don't think it unreasonable to offer - as many sites do - optional "premium" services or access with added features....<br><br>The message about the premium service was posted prematurely - we were only testing two versions of the board and the system has not been implemented or completed however this optional service will be offered in the near future.<br><br>We thank you for your support over the years.<br><br>Admin<br><br>

[xavier]

I can understand your costs but you have kept members in the dark for a long time!<br><br>             X

[admin]

You are correct - we will try and do a better job of keeping everyone informed....<br><br>Admin

[alilnut]

Admin Folks:<br><br>Thank you for finally coming to the table with an explanation. However, I can only wonder how much revenue has been lost with inefficient order processing. I personally have the experience of not having my order filled for several days, no return call and no explanation was offered when I cancelled my order which was over $150. I don't know what your profit margin is, however I would be surprised if I were the only person with that experience. How much have you lost there alone??<br><br>Less bandwitdth would be required if you simply deleted posts that are more than X days/weeks/months old. Yes, we like to be able to go back and pull info from the past. But, it has been my experience that most of the topics that are replied to are on the first two or three pages. Once the topic decends past the third page, it is out of the loop. For a faster and free site, I think most here would give up having 100+ pages of posts.<br><br>Finally, $120 a year is not a "minimal" amount to pay, in my opinion.  As a business person, I perfectly well understand that you need cost recovery and you have a breakeven point. However, I would think that that point is far below $60,000 per year (500 members @ $10 p/mo). Often times in business, the bottom line can be increased, not always by increasing cash, but by managing what you have. I think more people might be willing to pay, if at all, $40 or so dollars for the year. You would probably do better - smaller amount more people - maybe everybody  :).<br><br>Peace,<br>  -A<br><br>

[hornytoads]

i agree, delete all messages that are 4 or 5 months old, and make room for new ones, we don't go back that far, plus, most of the pics are deleted anyway<br>

[smanqu]

My suggestion launches off of the previous ones: I'd recommend having the limited history only in the free section, with primo membership you'd be able to see/search all past posts/pics.<br>One of my big frustrations is going back to try to see the pics everyone was talking about and finding they've been deleted by Newart. <br>A second biggie for me would be if all the vids people have posted could be made available for download in one gallery/index (with links to the original post).<br> If the older posts with pics and a vid DL page could be  available for the premium service I'd pay 10 or 20 bucks a year.  <br>Annnnd....<br>A sugestion I've made before and which is brought to mind by the slow way this preview page loads:  <br>LOSE THE SMILIES, TAGS AND SPECIAL ICONS!  I sat here watching them slowly pop in one by one over my 500kps connection.  All these tiny graphics don't add that much but really slow things down.  They also make it harder to follow the forum format and find the date and whatnot.

[gerardt]

admin,<br><br>there are some really well thought through suggestions on these posts, what are your thoughts on them? i have been here for some time and have posted at least 1000 pics, thats not easy to do. but i most certainly understand the resources involved in storing all 185 quadrillion bits of info necessary to do so. the purging suggestion sounds like a valid plan.<br><br>membership, a cash obligation, to a site would really limit the number of posts and the amount of interaction on the board we all enjoy right now. so the dilemma is how to float the boat without oarsmen.<br><br>man thats a tough one. any comments?<br><br>jerry <br><br>ps: can the title for someone listed as "god" now be changed to like " been here too long/ old dude/ lifetime member??????????

[doniger_guy]

ADMIN<br><br>OK NOW<br>      I am happy to see that the administrator is back! <br><br>This forum is the best resource that I have found on this topic. I think that all of the above comments by other members are worth hearing.<br><br>Hears mine.<br><br>Speed<br>The bandwidth issue has got to be the biggest challenge. If there is any way to max it out with out any fee this would be great. Every time that the board is slow, the posting drops off bad. That is exactly what we all do not want. Maybe if 6 month or older up loaded files could be segregated and there down load limited to a daily download limit from that sever. You could find a web host to come up with a package to get you a bargain. Look around. This is a very common problem, I bet.<br><br>File size<br>Hey, is there any way for the YaBB app to automatically resize or compress the members uploads? That would cut down on over head in more than one way!<br><br>Fees<br>WOW dont do it. Free flow of information is bases on a free forum. If you truly need $60,000 a year to run this, OK I must be stupid. But do what you can on this.<br><br>Limited access<br>If you come up with a fast and free forum for the recent uploads, see above, speed and limit the download of the actual picks and movies to an individual member to 2 or 3 Megs a week or something like that. That would be great. A member could keep up on the current stuff while if he needs something from a year ago he would need to be selective about what he chose to actually download to see. <br>Keep every thing! The info is a great resource!<br><br>Text only<br>This forum should have super fast text only performance! This would help a great deal to keep the participation up. Please do this as soon as possible. <br><br>Closing down<br>STOP Please dont do that. Just take a look at your forum. This is a big ONE. You had an upgraded version of the YaBB product up for a day or two recently. Do the upgrade if their isnt any down side. KEEP THE BOARD GOEING.<br><br>Help from members<br>Keep talking to us, we will help you on this. Just keep us up dated. I have been discouraged and have not been pumping for a while. This topic is a very private mater for a lot of members. Many of us are alone except for the board. So tale to us a bout the plans for us.<br><br>Congratulations<br>YOUV GOT SOMTHIJNG HEAR PLEASE KEEP IT GOEING! I HOPE YOU CAN MAKE IT WORTH YOUR WHAIL! & OURS<br><br>doniger_guy<br> <br>PS I have a week vacation coming next week. I hope that I will be able to participate in the forum with my pumping results for then.<br>

[admin]

Personally I don't think the public discussion forum is the best way to resolve a problem you may have experienced with an order. I don't think hundreds of people reading about an incident with one client is really appropriate. I don't think it gives a true representation of the thousands of orders that we have delivered to clients who had no problems at all.<br><br>Mistakes will sometimes be made - and I'm sorry to hear that you had a negative experience with us. The majority of clients have no problems.  As is the case with many things -  often the only time someone takes time to write is if they are angry, or frustrated.  For every single person that complains I can assure you there are dozens of others who had a good experience with our company...  We strive to be fair, honest, offer quality products at prices which are competitive.<br><br>We appreciate your feedback and opinions. There will always remain a free board. We realize that making the site membership only would be a dumb thing to do - and have no intention of that. We don't think it unreasonalble to offer an optional service that would give those willing to pay for the advantages of it some improved features. It's only going to be an option. No has to pay a nickel for it if they choose not to... Entirely optional.... <br><br>Thanks,<br>Admin<br>

[hornytoads]

admin....i am glad you are talking to us,,,it kinda makes us feel like we are wanted here  i just hope we can all have a good time with out chats and informative posts and that you will make enough money to keep it worth your while to keep this site open.  it has been around for a long time and has a huge number of people coming to it.  its kinda like a landmark...<br>

[steve C]

your speed still suck - have you noticesd far less users and far less posts????<br><br>I am assumming that newart.com that sells product benefits from this... you do need to speed it up or folks will go elswhere...<br>have newart.com pay for it!!

[pumpin60]

Since I've been a member of this site since it started up just about,  let me throw in an observation or two. <br>1.  Newart products are well made, I have two tubes that have lasted now for several years.<br>2.  The forums have always been fun and where i learned a lot about how to pump in the first place. <br>3.  The size of the pics that members submit are often WAY too big.  All of the pics should be resized to 640 x480 or less. <br>How about the possibility of posting from an outside source like fototime using HTML  <img src=the image you want>  <br>4.   How about having automatic resizing for members pics although resizing from larger digital pics causes a loss of sharpening.  <br>5.  and thank you for your making available this service for so many years for free. <br><br>and Steve, go elsewhere. <br><br>