recent downtime, and a reminder

Questions, comments, etc about UMassHoops.com.
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MikeUMA
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recent downtime, and a reminder

Post by MikeUMA » Wed Nov 04, 2009 11:05 pm

Board is back up. It wasn't broken, I just turned it off for a little while.

Some have already realized that maybe it's time to drop some coin in the hat again. For those who have stepped up, I appreciate it.

Folks, I pay for this site out of my own pocket. I don't get a dime for advertising. You won't see any banners from your local car dealer, exclamations that you just won a free iPod, or pop-ups about finding your long lost classmates. They’re annoying, and we deserve a place without them. But I gotta pay the bills somehow.

So if you enjoy the site, and especially the board, which is clearly the main attraction, consider helping out and making a donation. Didn’t you miss it over the last couple days?

A link to PayPal is on the <a target="_blank">home page</a>. If you’re old school, e-mail me if you want to mail it in.

Thanks,
Mike

PS. I know I have some updating to do (new roster, etc). Been busy with a 6-week old terror that consumes 99% of my free time.

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jj
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Post by jj » Wed Nov 04, 2009 11:08 pm

If you use it, love it, or like it, it's time to kick up to the man!

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Berkman
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Post by Berkman » Wed Nov 04, 2009 11:33 pm

Those of you that post many times a day need to help keep the message board solvent so that you can continue to post on the best message board in the country. Time to make a donation no matter how small. I am old fashion so mine is going in the mail in the morning.

LooneyGoon
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Post by LooneyGoon » Thu Nov 05, 2009 12:09 am

While the site was down I did a little research on how much it cost to run a message board. Its not cheap. I read this site almost daily, most of the time, multiple times a day. I think everyone who is as frequent of a reader/poster as me should really make a donation and keep this board running. This is the place I come for my UM Basketball news. And it is by far the best. $1/week for a year is a good place to start in my mind.

Thanks Mike, I just sent the paypal donation a few minutes ago.

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OutlawPete
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Post by OutlawPete » Thu Nov 05, 2009 1:27 am

Thank you Mike for running this site. It is the only place to talk UMass on the Internet. I am running low on money but after Christmas I will be sure to make some sort of contribution to the board.

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Post by TheInsider » Thu Nov 05, 2009 6:33 am

i guess after years of enjoyment and 900+ posts i should give a little.. I guess you dont realize how much you use something untill its gone.. $$ comin your way mike!! you do a great job!

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Old Cage
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Post by Old Cage » Thu Nov 05, 2009 7:35 am

Let's have at least 50 folks step up. Where else will you waste as much of your employer's time? :)
"Jack didn’t have any envy in him," Calipari said. "He was the greatest coach to ever coach here."

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Post by Roadtrip » Thu Nov 05, 2009 7:40 am

((((((((BOARD))))))) YER BACK!!!

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npt3
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Post by npt3 » Thu Nov 05, 2009 8:29 am

Old Cage wrote:Let's have at least 50 folks step up. Where else will you waste as much of your employer's time? :)
Make that 49 now... 8)
"All life we work, but work is a bore. If life's for living, what's living for?" - Ray Davies

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InnervisionsUMASS
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Post by InnervisionsUMASS » Thu Nov 05, 2009 9:04 am

I stepped up, but I think it is time that we move to having some advertising on the board. That is just my opinion.

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jj
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Post by jj » Thu Nov 05, 2009 9:43 am

Here's why advertising doesn't work (in the case of this site):


One, Mike doesn't want it.

Beyond that:

This site exists on my server, which is housed at One Wilshire (arguably the most connected and important non-military Datacenter on the planet). It ain't cheap. It runs on premium bandwidth, and I subsidize the costs of this site for Mike. Mike pays me my cost to keep it operational, and I make zero profit for hosting it. If all things were equal, I would certainly choose to make money on this thing, as it occupies space and transfer that I could otherwise allocate to my mission-critical customers.

Advertising does several things:

It does bring in money, but it also increases MY costs in the form of time spent eyeballing scripts. It also increases Mike's time monitoring performance, because I'm going to make his life miserable if the server bogs on a Google App or anything else. Bottom line, I'm not going to pay someone $50 an hour to troubleshoot the site's performance on the server or jeopardize the performance of any of my other sites. Server load is VERY important to me.

So, my only option if Mike decided that he wanted to run advertisers on the site would be to boot the site to a separate server in an East Coast datacenter. The site wouldn't run anywhere near as fast as it does now. Uptime would also not be as good as it currently has been. You guys have to admit, the site generally flies and uptime is typically stellar on this thing.

Mike and I are busy dudes- I think I can speak for both of us that we don't need to invest any more time (or money) in this board than we currently do.

So anyway, it's not quite a simple as slapping a couple of ads up and calling it good.

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InnervisionsUMASS
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Post by InnervisionsUMASS » Thu Nov 05, 2009 10:14 am

I appreciate the explanation. I'm wondering if there is someone else out there who would be willing to pitch in and help on the day-to-day end, or already has? That might make life easier, no?

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Post by shovelhd » Thu Nov 05, 2009 11:05 am

I would be happy to help if needed.

Payday is tomorrow. My annual contribution will be sent soon.

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Post by Floyd » Thu Nov 05, 2009 5:14 pm

Time to hit EVERYONE up for $20/yr at least. If you want to send more that's cool. $20/yr. is nothing for our enjoyment
Time to Win

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Post by Minutemaniac74 » Thu Nov 05, 2009 5:42 pm

just donated for the first time :oops:

Thank you very much Mike for this outstanding forum!

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