Restructuring of the site - your comments are wanted!! ;)

[Ian_W]

Hi,

 

I will be taking the opportunity of the summer to re-organise the forums here.

 

We continue to grow - but this as it's downside as it means it continues to put a strain on the current server.

 

Currently our costs run to around £250pm - our income from existing adverts is around £5pm - it doesn't take a genius to work out that we are in fact loosing money - or should I say, I am loosing money

 

Therefore we will need to introduce additional advertising to try and generate some necessary income, as the server hardware will need increasing, and so taking the monthly costs to around £350pm.

 

We will NEVER have pop-ups and any advertising will be as discreet as possible - we hope to introduce a Fans Focus Premium service where adverts are reduced to almost zero, in return for a small annual donation towards the running costs - we will offer further benefits to those members.

 

I hope to replace/upgrade the software during the summer as well. I know this has been promised at least once before - but I am reliant upon third parties releasing the software upgrades.

 

My choices are to a) stick with the current software (a new verion is finally due out this summer) to switch to Vbulletin (http://www.vbulletin.com) c) to switch to fusionbb (http://www.fusionbb.com) - I am still undecided on my choice - so feel free to make any comments on this.

 

I will have a re-organisation of the forums - this has already started and will continue - but if you have any comments on how the forums should be organised please let me know.

 

Above all, please remember that Fans Focus is your forum, and your input and suggestions can help mould it into a much better place.

 

Thank you.

[Big J R]

The idea of a small annual donation sounds good Ian.

 

Another site I use, (old school, and all that), did this and it was successful.

 

It would be interesting to see who would be prepared to do this !

 

Why not work out a 'ball-park' figure and start a 'poll' to see what sort of response you might get !

[American FLEET FAN No1]

Typical Chelsea supporter......Money no object..............Just kidding ...<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> I would also be prepared to pay a small fee if you can convert dollars to pounds with no loss to you.

[Guest]

I personally would be prepared to pay a small fee but would miss those that would not or could not pay it.

 

A lot of the real characters on here are kids, would hate to lose them because they cannnot register.

[Guest]

A good way to raise money is to charge Uncle Urchin £1 for every time, he blocks a post that asks awkward questions.

 

Or on a more serious note what about, its free to view and visit your own site but posting on a second site costs £10 per year.

 

That would stop warriors causing rows.

[Guest]

We could then insult people say from another team on our site, they would get so wound up they would not be able to stop themselves paying a tenner to respond.

[Matt H]

Quote:

Ian_W said:
We hope to introduce a Fans Focus Premium service where adverts are reduced to almost zero, in return for a small annual donation towards the running costs - we will offer further benefits to those members.

I'd be willing to pay a small annual fee of around a fiver.

Quote:

Ian_W said:
My choices are to a) stick with the current software (a new verion is finally due out this summer) to switch to Vbulletin (http://www.vbulletin.com) c) to switch to fusionbb (http://www.fusionbb.com) - I am still undecided on my choice - so feel free to make any comments on this.

I'd stick with this or the fusionbb looks good, as long as you can still customise it as much as this site.

Quote:

Ian_W said:
I will have a re-organisation of the forums - this has already started and will continue - but if you have any comments on how the forums should be organised please let me know.

There seems to be hardly, if any Northern teams on here. Perhaps this site should be split accordingly North/South and then within Leagues like it is now. Then if no Northerners appear, suspend that part of the site.

The League forums are the same too, either encourage more people to use them, rather than stick to discussions about League topics in their Club forum or get rid of them entirely.

[ZackBCFC]

i would be prepare to pay the fee because it will help the site. then again wats point in adverts if theres a way to hide them for fee paying people? advertisors wouldnt want to advertise to guests would they so you wouldnt earn much more from ads.

 

how much is advertising anyway? this could be a good place for me to next season

[Burnham Lad]

Ian,

 

This site now provides a very valuable service to non league fans, and I for one would miss it if you ever had to stop operating it. Clearly, you cannot continue for ever sustaining losses at the sort of level you indicate, so if we don't want to lose it then we must find a solution to help you.

 

Just a few thoughts to ponder - should the clubs who have a forum on here make a donation for the privilege, for example. A quick check says around 35 clubs have forums, so if they had a collection amongst users to contribute a tenner a month each, that would see you out of the woods. If necessary, perhaps a sponsored activity to raise funds for the site could be organised or maybe an interleague match organised such as representative Ryman 11 vs Southern League 11 to raise funds or even a fans match.

 

Some of the clubs are now running fundraising activities using the forum as the medium for giving people access to the sales websites, so perhaps a small transaction levy might also make a contribution.

 

I would be prepared to pay a membership fee, but as somebody else said, it would be a shame if it barred some of the younger fans or those with no income. Perhaps it might be worth seeing if a call for donations would help in the way that another does with his site? If you publish a method for making donations, I am sure a lot of us regular users would respond.

 

There is no easy answer, but hopefully people will come up with some creative suggestions.

 

Good luck with this and thanks for all your efforts which give a lot of fun to an increasing number of people.

[ZackBCFC]

Thing is though its not always the clubs offical message board its a unoffical one run by supporters meaning they effectivly pay for it rather than the club. i agree with andrew try a donation thing via paypal or something.

 

This forum is great and you cant make loses like this for ever. it would be a shame if it went off.

i read one of your posts before saying about turning this off because it was affecting your peopple who pay for webhosting. please can i have the website as mine is utter rubbish an i want 2 change from it so thought i would see what it offers. in a way that would kind of help the site as well.

[cantos]

Voluntary donation is the best way in my opinion.

[Ian_W]

This forum is not going anywhere And no-one will be unable to post so no worries there (unless they are banned )

[American FLEET FAN No1]

Andrew S said:Just a few thoughts to ponder - should the clubs who have a forum on here make a donation for the privilege, for example. A quick check says around 35 clubs have forums, so if they had a collection amongst users to contribute a tenner a month each, that would see you out of the woods.

 

Personaly i think that would drive clubs to run members only forums, and people on here to use them. The people who use this forum should be prepared to pay a small fee, if that means they must all register, then so be it!

[Ian_W]

club forums will always be free

[Ian_W]

as will posting

[American FLEET FAN No1]

Just seeing your threatening avatar makes me want to pay something! <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

[Tom]

I move to vBulletin would be awesome. I think this is by far the best piece of forum technology available. It is constantly updated, smooth and very easy to use.

 

You will find a lot of top websites use vBulletin for their forums and there is plently of support if things happen to go wrong, which is very rarely.