Support the GFF

[Roolis]

Hi, Folks,

i was just reading about all those misterious things (computer/serversand ect) I mean mooving from one server to another. What i read is a clear message that it is costy thing and cant lay on one man shoulders. This site is for us and we should at least thing about supporting it, because one day can find nothing..

Martin,

is it possible or allowed from legal side to support this website? dont be shame and say how can i do it. Or maybe you got already the way to do it , but i missed it?

looking to hear

Rolandas

[Martin Joergensen]

Rolandas,

There was no hidden message in my blog posts about GFF having to move server. I'm right now battling our previous host over a couple of invoices in the heavy end. They seem to mean that we have used on the wrong side of 3500 USD of their services during October!. It's the second time since May we had this dispute.

Even though GFF is a large site, which draws several hundred Gigabyte per month, there should be no way that we could reach such a number. GFF is a costly "hobby", but since the site has until now run on the development server that I use for my paid work, I have been able to deduct the expenses. But 3500 USD several times over is simply crazy!

We haven't managed to settle yet, and the bill is still there, so a generous millionaire would sure be a nice thing if you know one. ;-)

We have always said no money involved, when we talked GFF, but I must admit that lately both ads, sponsorships and donations have been on my mind more than once.

Martin

[DistantStreams]

[Roolis]

Martin,

lets see what we have in the end of the day (i mean what sum). And, yes, please develop the possibilitie to support this site if there is no way to wave the costs...

I hope flyfishing comunity will be generous


rgds

[waterdog]

Hi Martin,

I agree with the previous comments, this is such a great site, so many of us spend many educational and entertaining hours on this site, so I see nothing wrong with a "donate here" button.

Secondly with advertising, again personally i would have no problem with seeing adds ( Fly-fishing related, and carefully screened) on this site, with the amount of traffic the site generates I can imagine that a few companies would show interest. And if the site ends up making a profit....then so what.... if you really would feel bad about making money off the site, than perhaps future GFF summits can be subsidised .

How about setting up a poll on the Home page, to get a feeling of how many of us support the idee of donating and adds.

Keep up the good work,

Regards,

Ruan,

[Olle Bulder]

Hi martin could you post some numbers about GFF like size and bandwith use etc. It sounds very strange to me too hear the costs you just posted, not that i doubt you but out of curiosity. If you don t want to you dont have t offcourse.

Maybe someone knows a good cheaper solution.

[Martin Joergensen]

Olle,

GFF has until recently resided on the development server that I use for my work. This is a physical server hosted in a server camp in Denmark.

I'm currently debating with the host about a bill, which is so extreme that it almost makes no sense. Traffic on the server over the summer is supposed to amount to almost 4000 USD! We have discussed such issues before, and I have had a refund before, but this time they stick to theirs. GFF is (was) by far the largest site on the server, but as you can see below, way from a traffic number that should give such bills. We usually pay a couple of hundred dollars a month for the service, which is OK - and deductible in my business. I can deduct th 4000.- too, but it would still hurt to pay!

We have since moved GFF to an almost unlimited bandwidth web host, which charges way less per month.

Traffic for GFF is quite hefty for a non-commercial site. We move about 200 Gb per month in traffic - far most of it outgoing of course. The site takes up about 7 Gb of disk space. The host seems to want us to pay for traffic in the 6-700 Gb range for several months. Their stats say so - our stats say something different.

So it's their tech against ours. We can't see where the traffic leak is. They trust their numbers. I probably have to cough up the money in the end, since I have no finite way of proving them wrong.

GFF is now on a server, which costs way less than this (WAY!), and I have no problems paying for that. But I will surely miss my 4000 USD if I end up paying them. Talk about fly fishing being an expensive hobby!

So it goes.

Martin

[Roolis]

So let try to collect those bloody 4 kilos usd

dont say that we will collect all, but atleast some portion

looking to hear

Roolis

[Martin Joergensen]

Rolandas, GFF-supporters,

We haven't really decided anything about how to do this yet - or whether to do it at all. I am currently looking into some kind of "Support GFF" scheme, and will most likely announce something in the near future. I will have to discuss this with the partners and do it right.

We have always been non-commercial, and hold that principle high, so we want to do this the right way.

Thanks to everybody for their support!

Martin