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Bar Italia Forum -> Bar Italia Forum -> $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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TOPIC: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
Steve Devereux


This Space For Rent

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Posts: 271
Date:
$135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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Hello everyone,

I've not posted for a long time following the summer shows, as you may or may not have noticed (as well as work and other writing, I have had a lot of family stuff on, I became a dad last year and my son is now one and a big (but pleasant! but big!) handful, etc etc), but I do still try and check in as and when I can.

The site has been ticking over financially for a while, until very recently.  I don't know what's happened over the last two months, but the board's financial situation seems to have gone into total meltdown, with Sparklit choosing to bill me 67 dollars a month for both October and November.  I'm guessing the reunion brought a huge amount of traffic into the site or something, and maybe the billing's only just caught up?  Anyway, I just had an e-mail from them demanding the cash, which induced a bit of a mild shock.

As with the last time something like this happened, I'm appealing to anyone who finds the site useful to please help out.  Unlike the last time something like this happened, I AM now quite openly begging for cash.

I don't have a spare $135 to spend on this, and unless anyone can show me what I'm doing wrong, it doesn't appear possible to "downgrade" with Sparklit from a paid board to a free ad-supported one, raising the unappealing prospect of having to delete this entire thing and start from scratch with a rather less good alternative (and with me still facing a bill for $135 on top, of course).

Any money anyone wants to kick into the "Community Funding Tip Jar" at the bottom of the page would be very helpful. 

Cheers,

Steve



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VoxPop


Loss Adjuster

Status: Offline
Posts: 367
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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Where do we donate? Don't see any link.

As for last time, do you get confirmation of each donation? Hate to think you're(we're) being scammed.



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Steve Devereux


This Space For Rent

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Posts: 271
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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It's at the bottom of the main page - I get an e-mail telling me the amount donated, and the person's screen name if they chose to leave it, and the same details appear on the main page for the last donation. It's not a scam, Sparklit/Activeboard are a proper company (and Canadians like your good self...), and the money goes straight to them - I have no involvement at all. Thank you so much to everyone who's donated so far!

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ArrGee


Quantum Theorist

Status: Offline
Posts: 1330
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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Steve Devereux wrote:
I don't have a spare $135 to spend on this, and unless anyone can show me what I'm doing wrong, it doesn't appear possible to "downgrade" with Sparklit from a paid board to a free ad-supported one, raising the unappealing prospect of having to delete this entire thing and start from scratch with a rather less good alternative (and with me still facing a bill for $135 on top, of course).

 The problem with sparklit is once views go up, it costs. A lot.   And most of the views are from bots and google doing all its data mining,

There are a couple of things that can help.

i) Ban ips, especially from spammers.  (With my moderator hat on, when I see a spam I block ip before deleting user)

ii) Set the enrollment to email and captcha, so it stops spammers a bit.

iii) For the handling of banned ips, deny them access to the board entirely rather than having it read only.

Now as it happens, google tends to use this range of ip addresses

74.125.0.0  to  74.125.255.255

Deny these and you may find the views reduce substantially.

May be worth contacting sparklit to find out who is accessing the forum.  It's not right to pay when google et al are simply data mining.

http://www.coolwhois.com/d/74.125.255.255


 



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ArrGee


Quantum Theorist

Status: Offline
Posts: 1330
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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Looking at the current "guests" they are probably data mining and increasing the views.
User
Last Active
Connected From
ArrGeeTue Dec 6 1:47 PM, 2011--
JazzaTue Dec 6 1:47 PM, 2011f_GB.gif United Kingdom
GuestTue Dec 6 1:45 PM, 2011f_US.gif United States
GuestTue Dec 6 1:44 PM, 2011f_US.gif United States
GuestTue Dec 6 1:43 PM, 2011f_US.gif United States
weenerTue Dec 6 1:42 PM, 2011f_GB.gif United Kingdom
GuestTue Dec 6 1:41 PM, 2011f_US.gif United States
GuestTue Dec 6 1:41 PM, 2011f_US.gif United States
GuestTue Dec 6 1:40 PM, 2011f_US.gif United States
GuestTue Dec 6 1:40 PM, 2011f_US.gif United States
GuestTue Dec 6 1:40 PM, 2011f_US.gif United States
GuestTue Dec 6 1:40 PM, 2011f_GB.gif United Kingdom
GuestTue Dec 6 1:39 PM, 2011f_US.gif United States
GuestTue Dec 6 1:39 PM, 2011f_US.gif United States


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alphi


Professional

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Posts: 70
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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£135 for a board ???!!!

Why don't you use a free php hosting and set up a phpBB. You could get an ad-free forum without paying any quid. Or I guess Will can help you with the hosting. But you shouldn't accept to pay that much, I pay even less for my 'short site'.

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Freek


Loss Adjuster

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Posts: 368
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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I want to donate but I really don't see the button anywhere on the pages

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Stephen


The Only Way is Down

Status: Offline
Posts: 2300
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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Whenever I've looked at the guest list for this place, it's permanently full of nameless 'guests'. I would agree with ArrGee that a bit of protection would probably get the costs down...

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twiggy


Loss Adjuster

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Posts: 321
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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Freek wrote:

I want to donate but I really don't see the button anywhere on the pages

It's only on the main page, I think.  Click on "Main Page" on the menu bar up there, then there's a section for "Community Funding" under the topic list and Forum Statistics.



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weed


Quantum Theorist

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Posts: 1355
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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I try to chuck a few quid into the pot every now and then when I have some spare cash. I'm sure if all regular posters do the same Steve wouldn't have to worry so much about these big bills hitting his inbox every now and then. This board is definately worth a fiver every 3 months or so?!

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"oh well, that and the tea "
Eamonn


The Only Way is Down

Status: Offline
Posts: 4715
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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I've either been jobless or scraping a living the last couple of years so haven't contributed like I should.
Started a new job today so I'll put some money in the pot. I am at 1,400+ posts after all (and ''200% and Bloodthirsty'' apparently)!

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Deebs


Hardcore

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Posts: 146
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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Always happy to contribute to this forum as I consider it one of the best things on the internet.



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Steve Devereux


This Space For Rent

Status: Offline
Posts: 271
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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Thank you all so so much for clearing that bill so quickly - I find people's amazing generosity very heartening!

ArrGee - thank you for the tips, I've banned the IP range in question and set verification to email+CAPTCHA - I'll be speaking to Sparklit to see what else I can do to reduce the chances of this happening again.

Thank you all again. Pulp fans: officially THE BEST.

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blueowl0708


Different Class

Status: Offline
Posts: 234
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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I'll chip in for this in the new year.. can't afford it right now :-/

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fredthe3rd


200% and Bloody Thirsty

Status: Offline
Posts: 1420
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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Liking the new design of the mobile site!

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fredthe3rd


200% and Bloody Thirsty

Status: Offline
Posts: 1420
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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I'm happy to pay some money, BUT: is it paypal? Because if it is I can't. That sounds like A shit excuse... Can't avoid that. But I REALLY wanted to buy that Jarvis compilation released because of the riots and couldn't because of an issue with paypal and my debit card that I CAN'T RESOLVE! I'm even tempted to open a new account to try and solve it. I've driven myself mad on the paypal site with this.

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Jazza


Someone Like The Moon

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Posts: 891
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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what? there's a mobile site? I like the new minilogo thing that comes up by the website url

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mixcloud.com/jasminelightfoot/
fredthe3rd


200% and Bloody Thirsty

Status: Offline
Posts: 1420
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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Yeah if you've got such a device scroll down to the bottom of the screen and there's a link saying 'switch to active board mobile' - soon you'll have as many posts as me!

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fredthe3rd


200% and Bloody Thirsty

Status: Offline
Posts: 1420
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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Hold up! We all just paid our contributions mere minutes ago it seems and it's already on minus sixty-odd dollars!

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clodia


Hardcore

Status: Offline
Posts: 170
Date:
$135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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I think phpbb can import activeboard data ...

you could even point the domain name if there still is one to the server so it'd be something like forum.baritalia.tld



-- Edited by clodia on Saturday 4th of February 2012 01:17:39 PM

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clodia


Hardcore

Status: Offline
Posts: 170
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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i have a server with some space if you want to consider moving?

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fredthe3rd


200% and Bloody Thirsty

Status: Offline
Posts: 1420
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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I think the hosts of the website also provide the structure of the forum. So I'm not sure how feasible moving is (although I'm not very technically minded and may be talking nonsense)... Anyone know how to contact Steve?

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fredthe3rd


200% and Bloody Thirsty

Status: Offline
Posts: 1420
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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Maybe... It's all down to Steve though. Has he got some sort of equivalent to the bat signal?

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clodia


Hardcore

Status: Offline
Posts: 170
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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I have no idea I might message .... it's just a bit horrifying to see the costs each month, when that is about what I pay for my server with a lot more freedom per YEAR

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andy


Master Of The Universe

Status: Offline
Posts: 1261
Date:
RE: $135?! - or, the Bar Italia Fundraising Telethon 2011
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Arent proboards free or really really cheap ? Just saying. I wouldnt mind ads and stuff really, as long as this board can carry on

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