Message Board Options

Posted by MrExcel on October 01, 2001 4:04 AM

Hello Everyone,

The fine folks at PlanetNet finally checked up on my disk usage. The message board is not taking up 600MB of disk space, way beyond my 10MB quota.

For me to continue to offer the message board and all archives, the cost would be over $7200 per year, up from the current $120 per year.

It is a bit ridiculous, in the days of 20GB hard drives costing $150 to pay $1 per MB of disk storage per month.

Does anyone know of cheaper hosting plans? Any recommendations would be welcome. If not, what would be the preferable option? Do I keep the message board running but only keep the last month of posts?

Post your thoughts here, or send them to consult@MrExcel.com.

Thanks

Bill

Posted by Eric on October 01, 2001 6:49 AM

Aagh! Don't lost the board- bring back the pop-ups if you have to

I'll ask a couple of friends if they know of a cheaper solution,
vipsnet looks like it might be a bit cheaper than what you are looking at now, url here:

http://www.vipsnet.com/order.html

Barring that, I think your idea about the last month would be great. It's a shame though, your board is one of the busiest and best run I've seen, should be getting more $ for those banners!

Posted by Tom Urtis on October 01, 2001 8:26 AM

Keep the board with 4 week history and an idea:

Hi Bill --

Barring a cheaper hosting plan, my vote would be to keep the board, and as you suggested maintain only the past month. Albeit I'm a frequent visitor, but I almost never scroll past the last 7 days anyway. I wonder how far back other visitors go, so maybe even 2 weeks back would suffice depending on what feedback you get from others.

The only drawback might be an increase in repeat questions from people who are new to the board and can only search backwards for 4 weeks to see if their question has been asked. If this happens, perhaps we could assemble a "most commonly asked" section, with the answers. My sense is that many users have an immediate need through their job or school project, and don't have the luxury of enough time to search anyway.

I enjoy your site and wish you success in finding the most cost-effective solution.

Tom Urtis

Posted by MrExcel on October 01, 2001 3:21 PM

Not the Pop-Ups

Those pop-ups sure were annoying. They slipped in by accident. The hassle with advertising is that since the crash of the new economy, advertising rates are in a downward spiral. Those annoying banner ads generated $116 this year - enough to cover the old $120 plan, but not a drop in the bucket compared to the new plan.

Thanks for your input. I'll investigate some alternatives.

Bill