URGENT: Donations needed for the forum

Discussion in 'Announcements and suggestions' started by walkman archive, Nov 29, 2024.

  1. walkman archive

    walkman archive Administrator Staff Member

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    Hello all!

    I'm writing you because we have a problem: the disk space in the forum is getting to the 50GB limit. This is due to the amount of photos, videos, files and posts uploaded together with all the files from the old forum.
    We need to upgrade to the 150GB plan and this has a bigger cost monthly (or annually).

    So... I know this is ugly to say but we need more donations. Actually there are only 3-4 people donating but there are dozens, hundreds of users enjoying the forum.

    If you are enjoying all this... can you become a supporter with just a mere 3-5€/$ monthly? This is just what 2 coffees cost and this will let us continue offering everything (remember, uploading photos is easy and free here).

    From now on, and until we get the problem solved, uploading photos and media is disabled.

    Thanks to everyone.
     
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2024
  2. Emiel

    Emiel Well-Known Member S2G Supporter

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    Sad to read I am part of the very small group of contributors.
    WML is not yet running into this issue, but has an even smaller group of financial supporters.
    Feature and model requesters we have plenty of though :)
     
  3. Cassette2go

    Cassette2go Well-Known Member

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    Curious what is the cost of the 150 GB monthly and or annually?
     
  4. Emiel

    Emiel Well-Known Member S2G Supporter

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    Although just a temporary bandage, can you compress all images larger than 1MB? On WML, we are using the CDN option for the majority of the images to most users. The compressed/ web optimized images are actually quite decent.
     
  5. TooCooL4

    TooCooL4 Well-Known Member

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    Hey Hugo

    Sorry did not know things were this bad, anyway just made a little donation. Hope it helps.
     
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  6. Longman

    Longman Well-Known Member S2G Supporter

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    Monthly donation set up. I honestly had no idea how the forum was hosted and clicked on the link expecting Hugo to be saying he needed funds for a bigger hard drive. I have 42GB of catalogues on this PC so can understand how 50GBytes doesn't go far.

    I wonder if Hugo has ever looked at advertising. This is about the only forum I use which never shows any. Tapeheads seems to be sponsored by Pacific Audio. After looking at watches on eBay an economics forum I frequent was showing me watches on the right hand side of the forum posts. Again I have no idea how such Adsense ? placements work but I presume it is how other sites get their funding.

    Good luck and lets hope the site space can be expanded.
     
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  7. walkman archive

    walkman archive Administrator Staff Member

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    Yes, no problem. We need to upgrade to this one, which is the next plan:

    upload_2024-12-12_16-46-19.png
     
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  8. AE_Stereo

    AE_Stereo Active Member S2G Supporter

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    Stereo2go and Boomboxery had been two forums which were proud of being non-ad sites for all these years. Even when the other hi-fi forums with larger user base have been ad supported, these two sites remained ad-free till date.
    But of course, we need to support the team who are upkeeping the site, which I myself didn't do till recently.
     
  9. walkman archive

    walkman archive Administrator Staff Member

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    I guess compressing all the images will be quite a task: find a plugin that does so with Xenforo and recompress them. But I think what differentiates us from the rest is that we offer free image hosting, already with limits that I set up once I installed this foro a few years ago.
    But I'll digg for info about that.
    I think with a few supporters we can reach those 35$/mo. With only 5-6 users donating 5$/mon I'll put the rest.
     
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  10. walkman archive

    walkman archive Administrator Staff Member

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    Thank you guys, I've received several generous donations in the last days and I'm so proud of you who help support this forum.

    The 'problem' here (if I call it problem, but I'll say it's the special feature that makes us different) is that we host any photos or videos without problem and without external services... those services (like Tinypic) who killed thousands of photos in the old forum.
    So I'ld like to keep the image hosting free if we just find a group of supporters that help to pay the bill. For a 2000 user communitty shouldn't be a big issue, right?
     
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  11. walkman archive

    walkman archive Administrator Staff Member

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    Thanks AE_Stereo. We have a few ads but they are free for the owners because I think supporting them we also help the community with their belts, repairs, cassettes and all that.
     
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  12. AE_Stereo

    AE_Stereo Active Member S2G Supporter

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    I will sponsor the cost for Jan-2025. My New Year gift to myself!
     
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  13. Hyperscope

    Hyperscope Well-Known Member

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    OK I donated. Why not. Merry Christmas Stereo2go forums!

    But there should be more strict image file size limits to prevent data size growing too massive in future.
    And video too? I didn't even know that could be done.
    I would remove that feature and let people use youtube :shrug:
     
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  14. Silver965

    Silver965 Well-Known Member

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    I feel guilty... I used a lot of photos even though I almost always stayed within the limits (1200x900)
    I will make my donation as soon as possible
     
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  15. Mister X

    Mister X Moderator Staff Member

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    There might be an anonomous one in there....


    How about ebay links, I don't know how they work but the mega-thread is pretty popular.
     

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