232 replies to this topic

[Tobiasnugent]

J90CVC, on 12 January 2011 - 10:36 AM, said:

SimonF, on 12 January 2011 - 10:25 AM, said:

https://www.vbulleti...order/index.php

?

Plus, "it work" doesn't mean to say it was any good. The forum software it self is shit, and moving to vb isn't going to solve the problem of it being a hugely bloated piece of kit putting immense strain on a server.

On a side note, if CL would to ever close, i would imagine that something else would pop up. Hell, i'd throw something up similar to the plans above.

I didn't mean it didn't cost anything, I just meant there was none of this before we moved to IPB.

I like this layout, ease of use, etc. and the errors aren't that big of a deal but obviously it costs a bit of money. What I don't get is that other forums I'm on that use IPB run perfectly 100% of the time, and some have a lot more traffic and users?

He was still paying out each month though which is why it may close not because of the difference in software

[J90CVC]

Didn't PooM say when we switched over that the software cost more? I was sure he did.

[seanyreeves]

yh i think it does , but the old one couldnt handle the traffic hence the switch. if this place goes down everyone will jus shoot off to the like of hondacivicforum or w.e and the owner of that will have to upgrade to cope with all of us using it aswell, then that will go down cus he wont pay it then well jus move to the next one.

[PunyDeano]

seanyreeves, on 12 January 2011 - 10:27 AM, said:

paid membership wouldnt have to be compulsury, im on pug306.net for info on my winter beater and thtas paid membership of like 5 pounds a year or sumthing, but the tech sections etc are free. If civiclife started off free for new members as it is now but they didnt have all the features i dont see that stoppping people signing up, and then when they need to use the rest of the features when they have the post count to sell etc then theyll have to pay.220 pounds a months really isnt a lot of money for a forum this size, im sure theres atleast 220 active users that could all pay 1 pounds a month.

yes.

[SimonF]

seanyreeves, on 12 January 2011 - 10:43 AM, said:

yh i think it does , but the old one couldnt handle the traffic hence the switch. if this place goes down everyone will jus shoot off to the like of hondacivicforum or w.e and the owner of that will have to upgrade to cope with all of us using it aswell, then that will go down cus he wont pay it then well jus move to the next one.

Sadly, that's the way most forums work. Unless you have a clear business strategy on what sections will need paying, unless you have the software to cope with such subscription demands, then forums will come and go due to financial burdens.

[seanyreeves]

im thinking ill just take the forum over haha, well have a big shake up then, plus POOMs only 2 minutes away from me for when it breaks

[J90CVC]

seanyreeves, on 12 January 2011 - 10:50 AM, said:

im thinking ill just take the forum over haha, well have a big shake up then, plus POOMs only 2 minutes away from me for when it breaks

If you have the cash then go for it

[seanyreeves]

sadly i have no idea on how the forum works lol, but i would of deffinatly considered going halvsies with someone lol

[Lance]

Why dont you just get companies to advertise there products/business on your website using adwords? You have a ton of members all wanting new parts, new stuff etc...That would be the best financially, with just 3 banner ads on the main screen.


Tbh, paid membership will ruin the forum for definate. People will just use somthing else.

[willisek4]

Donated.

I say go for paid membership. I would happily pay £10 a year as people have said.

Edited by willisek4, 12 January 2011 - 11:02 AM.

[J90CVC]

Lance, on 12 January 2011 - 11:00 AM, said:

Why dont you just get companies to advertise there products/business on your website using adwords? You have a ton of members all wanting new parts, new stuff etc...That would be the best financially, with just 3 banner ads on the main screen.

That's what I was gonna suggest.


The traders should be paying a lot more too.

[Jim]

charge anyone logging in £1 once a month,

so, 1st of evry month everyone gets signed out, then cant log in until they have made a £1 donation, that way its cheap, and with 200+ members on everyday will soon cover the costs


OR

remove everyone's selling rights unless they pay £1 a month,

many ways around it, with such a fan/members base shouldnt take long to raise the cash needed,

my other idea,

either a member or trader offer something on a raffle basis, £1 a ticket

Edited by Aero Jim, 12 January 2011 - 11:33 AM.

[SpoonFedVti]

PunyDeano, on 12 January 2011 - 10:08 AM, said:

i believe paid memembership will keep the people of the community that are worth keeping!! would lower the rate of scammers too to be honest. sure it would lose a few people but would you rather lose a few or lose everyone?

X2 dude!

i suggest for paid membership.

[TiCo_87]

iv been saying paid membership since god knows when lol....iv people want/need to use the site im sure they will be more than happy to pay a yearly/monthly membership cost. I paid £20 to subscribe to the 300zx forum (£20 first year, £10 thereafter) could of continued registered but didnt have access to the whole forum....funny thing is dont even a own a 300zx....my dad does BUT he doesnt even use the site!!!
Yes some people win moan and groan about paying the membership fee but when they miss using CL they'll come to their sences lol

[BARGZ..]

How are forums like 4guk funded? They work ok and dont seem to have many problems

[Tobiasnugent]

BARGZ.., on 12 January 2011 - 12:35 PM, said:

How are forums like 4guk funded? They work ok and dont seem to have many problems

there alot smaller

[J90CVC]

BARGZ.., on 12 January 2011 - 12:35 PM, said:

How are forums like 4guk funded? They work ok and dont seem to have many problems

4GUK uses phpBB which is a free and open source software.

[PooM]

Hi there people, thanks for everyone that is giving their advice and opinions, means a lot that you care so much

THE HISTORY

First a bit of history so I can fill everyone in...

CivicLife's goal back in the day was to offer a one-stop shop for every thing Civic...

I had this crazy idea of getting in with Honda and other traders, so I could great a kind of epic resource base. There would be blueprints of all Civic generations, you could click on a part of the car, ie. brakes, it would then show you all the components that make up the brakes (calipers, pad, discs, lines etc), you would then click on calipers and it would show you the spec of the standard calipers, article on how brake calipers work, tutorials on how to service then, parts numbers for Honda for replacement parts, links to traders that offer uprated calipers, articles on Honda brakes and what are interchangeable from other Hondas, etc.

This would be available for every single part on each Honda generation....

As you can imagine this was a mammoth project and was totally out of reach.

So to begin with we just started with a forum to get a user base up first and see what other people thought. The forum was so friendly that people were happy and settled, and preferred it to other Civic forums. So I concentrated on the forum and making it a better place for people.

Now since were on the subject of forums, I will give you a little history of what forums we have used and why we have moved....

2004-2005: phpBB - We used this forum first as it was free and the most popular one at the time. However towards the middle/end of 2005 it started to show its true colours and there was speculation of it being easy to hack etc (which I still think is true)

2005-2006: We moved over to Simple Machines Forum (SMF), this was the most stable forum of the lot, but it was still early days when we moved over to them, and they didn't offer that many features.

2006-2009: We then moved over to vBulletin as this was the favourite forum at the time, had loads of features available as standard, and if it didn't then you could easily download a modification. Also the skins were awesome, this was when CL was in its prime.

Server Move - 2008-2009: At this time CivicSportsClub shut down for good, and our traffic increased ALOT, we had 3x the amount of traffic we normally had. Our server couldn't handle it, so that's when I decided to move to MediaTemple for a beefier server.

The Big Forum Move - 2009: Jelsoft the creators of vBulletin got sold out to another company called Internet Brands back in 2007. So Jelsoft hadn't done any new forums since 2007. In 2009, InvisionPower took a big leap forward with their new forum software that made vBulletin look crap. So Jelsoft rushed their new vBulletin 4 to compete with IPB. They even got a new website up and running with screenshots of their new software and an option to pre-order. I was so excited about it, that I pre-ordered. A month or so went by and there was still no launch date and loads of speculation going about, on what they could offer. So in this panic, Jelsoft released a Beta version on their main site, it was shocking, worse than the old version, I was totally put off as were thousands of other people.
On that basis I looked towards IPB. I was extremely impressed with that they do and their dedication towards the forum communities. They have loads of good products that the offer and they plan to offer in the future.
The big one for me was their software allows thirdparty applications to be hooked into their system, which was exciting for me, as I could create my own applications especially for CL. (which I still want to do)

So we moved over to IPB at the middle-end of 2009.

2010: Our server still couldn't handle the amount of traffic and on top of that the forum was a lot more chunky in terms of features and things that would take up more memory on the server. At this time, I was fed up of fixing the forum myself and rooting through the database to find problems etc.
So I looked towards InvisionPower's own hosting service, which includes a fully managed forum, where they look after everything, even forum upgrades etc. However this has come at a cost of £220 a month. Which is what I am struggling with.

Sorry for blabbering, but I think that was worth getting out first of all so you realise where we have come form.

I really don't want to go back to SMF, as I really want to give CL the ability to easily add more features, which could add value to the site and offer the opportunity to charge for new features, that other sites don't have, etc. I know it's bloated but that's for good reason. Also the fact that InvisionPower are a really dedicated team who love bringing new exciting features to forums and improving the over all user experience, rather than Jelsoft who just want peoples money.

SOLUTIONS TO MONEY ISSUES

Moving onto how we can solve the money issues...

1. Donations - I agree that these are not a good permanent option, as it's not a consistent and reliable source of income.

2. Paid Membership - I'm not sure what we can offer people as part of a membership, I don't really wanna lock forums down that you can already use. I would rather offer a Premium Membership where you get MORE than what you currently get, that way people that are FREE members wont really care, as they aren't losing anything that they currently have.

3. Classifieds - I think this is the best source of income if we started charging for each advert. I was thinking something along the lines of:

• Parts - £2 per advert
  
• Cars - £5 per car
  
• Breaking a car - £15 (maybe more?)

Google Adsense - Yes good idea. However, I have looked into it and the adverts are not specific enough to performance Honda's etc. So because Google Adsense works by earning money every time someone clicks on a banner. I don't think there is any benefit in having banners with the wrong kind of adverts.

General Trader Banner Advertising - This is something that I am adding but need to get the time to setup it up properly. So this will help. I was thinking £5 per banner advert per month.

More coverage for traders - I had this plan ages ago, and put it off as I didn't think traders would be too interested in this. Basically going to offer a section totally separate from the forum, where traders can advertise their products, much like they do on the forum. This way I will be able to charge a higher monthly rate as the amount of potential sales would increase.

Now my lunch break is over, I can't talk any more lol. Please keep posting, I will check back in a little bit.

Cheers again guys! Long live CL!

[BARGZ..]

they're alot smaller eh.. as in amount of members? or the amount of use they get daily?
it'd be a shame if CL shutdown.. its a good'n

EDIT - PooM, you are one sick kinda guy

Edited by BARGZ.., 12 January 2011 - 12:53 PM.

[J90CVC]

Good explanation as to why you've switched from the different forum software

PooM, on 12 January 2011 - 12:45 PM, said:

3. Classifieds - I think this is the best source of income if we started charging for each advert. I was thinking something along the lines of:

• Parts - £2 per advert
  
• Cars - £5 per car
  
• Breaking a car - £15 (maybe more?)

Best idea IMO.

Edited by J90CVC, 12 January 2011 - 12:54 PM.