Closing of web hosting.

[KuroOokamiTsume]

*takes hat off and bows respectfully*

It's sad to see this go, however, I understand why.

[RexWolf]

I have a proposed solution to both the pending loss of web hosting for Furtopia, as well as an idea on how to not only restore the web hosting, but to propel Furtopia to the top of the list of furry websites.

Briefly; the reason that this site, and others like it, suffer from being shut down is simply because there isn't dedicated staff members who are paid to keep it running.  Shepherd has a full time job, as do most furries.  They therefore lack the capability of committing to operating the site full time.  But people who have the time, lack the funds to operate and maintain the site - an expensive prospect no doubt.

The solution is quite simple: provide a service, and provide it for a reasonable fee.  This allows the site to operate, free from disruption, and to provide quality services to all; but also keeps the clutter of advertising down.

My proposal is to purchase the domain and servers from Whiteshepherd, and create a non-profit organization to operate Furtopia.  The model I have in mind utilizes the infrastructure of Furtopia, just about as-is.  My estimate is that it would take up to a year to get the revenue stream up enough to make the site self-sustaining.  But to make it compete with other sites, such as Furaffinity, I propose a change wherein a layer is added on top of the hosted sites.  People can have their own pages and do with them what they wish; and if they wish to have content linked to the main page, they simply put the content into specified folders on their page.  This allows users to completely customize their pages, while still having links to a main gallery for users to browse.  This solves my biggest complaint about Furaffinity and other sites: that you cannot control the content on your own userpage (i.e. you are subject to trolls and the whims of admins - who we know now cannot be completely trusted with the site's security.)  For those users who aren't savy in web design, a set of themed standard sites can be made available, much like the content generator used on Furtopia.

As for how much to charge, and who to charge; that's part of the development.  I believe that people who simply want to browse artwork should be allowed free access, or perhaps pay a small fee, such as to access restricted and adult content; a fee on the order of $5-10 per year.  To further increase revenue, value-added services would be added to the site, such as prime gallery space, an auction site, larger storage space, custom domain names, email services, etc.  These services could be fairly priced.  I'm sure artists such as Blotch and Dark Natasha and other high volume artists would see the value in paying, say, $150/year for a domain, space in the premium gallery, and unlimited auctions.

I think the do the site properly, there should be 1 full time position, and say, 1 or 2 part time positions.  I figure a salary of $45,000/year to start (after the first year of course) would keep the position filled.  And half of that each for part time positions, as needed, would ensure someone is always available to maintain, repair, and upgrade the site.

I can't stress enough that this is intended to be a non-profit venture.  The ONLY reason to charge is to maintain the service, so that it can be there in 2, 5, even 10 or 20 years.   It also isn't a new concept to furries, some of whom pay for paid accounts on sites such as Livejournal.  And any revenue above and beyond what is needed to operate the site can be returned to the fandom either through reductions in prices, or my preference, a trust fund to help needy furries, offer scholarships or art supplies, travel funds, grants to help start conventions, and much more.


Sadly, I have absolutely no income.  I can't purchase the infrastructure from Whiteshepherd, at least not at the present time (I assure you, if I get my disability money soon, I will buy the infrastructure myself.

I'm looking for people who can help.  Currently, I see the need for a programmer, someone who can physically host and maintain the site, corporate officers (three minimum), an initial board of directors (3 minimum, in addition to the 3 officers), and people interested in permanent seats on the Board of Directors (annual or bi-annual seating...permanent refers to the fact that the initial BOD is comprised of people who elect the officers, and then the replacement BOD.)


If anyone wishes to help, please PM me.  I don't know how much Whiteshepherd would want for the site and infrastructure, but I do know that I have no money whatsoever.  I am NOT interested in making this be "Rex's Pet Project."  I will write a business plan, help create the non-profit from my experience nearly starting my own a few years back, and offer ideas on how to get this project off the ground and running.  What I bring to the table on this is an eye for what is good for the fandom, without consideration for personal gain or profit.  I want nothing more than to provide a service to the fandom.  I don't even seek the salaried position.

[Kobuk]

Before you go planning any more details, you may wish to contact WS and Kada-Ru directly via PM with your proposal.

However, I will say this: This is just my opinion, but I think the reason Furtopia has managed to do so well and last so long is because it's free. We're not charging the members anything to be here. And the staff here are all devoting their time voluntarily. There's really nothing wrong with the forums. They will stay as is. It's just the hosting of sites that will close.

[Kada-Ru]

Uhm considering WS has already talked to Rex over the phone a couple of days ago.

[Avan]

I'll likely have my server up and running by friday (have not been able to get to it due to illness and whatnot)

Personally, I would very much love to keep furtopia completely free, though it /is/ a possible alternative plan. (If so, I would be willing to volunteer for whatever I would be most useful doing)

[RexWolf]

I think the reason Furtopia has managed to do so well and last so long is because it's free. We're not charging the members anything to be here. And the staff here are all devoting their time voluntarily. There's really nothing wrong with the forums. They will stay as is. It's just the hosting of sites that will close. [/color]

That's understandable.  But think a tad beyond that to the reality we have today: that Furtopia's web-hosting services are being shut down.  Sure, someone could pick up the job and carry it on, but for how long? How many months, or years, before one day, you read a message that the site is once again being shut down?

For this site to be dependable, there has to be an income stream to operate it, period.  Oh, you could always have someone try using advertising revenue to keep the site open, but the quality of the site would diminish.  And you could follow Livejournal's model, and charge for pages without advertising, and require advertising for free pages, but that's not sustainable either.  And I for one don't want to have to bow down to advertising revenue, not when that advertising is open beyond the fandom, and the content isn't subject to the site's approval.


I have thought this problem through for many, many years.  The best solution is to charge, where possible, for the services.  It solves a great many problems, not the least of which is sustainability of the site.  The best things in life aren't free.  A service like Furtopia must be paid for if it is to be around in the future.  And as I stated in my description above, there will be the intent for free, or at least nearly free pages.  The site's revenue would be largely based on premium services.  The details of who would pay, how much they would pay, etc. is up to the board of directors and executive staff who create the organization.


As for talking to Whiteshepherd about the idea, I spoke to him over the phone.  He asked me to give him my user ID for this forum and he'd invite me to chat with the staff about the idea - under the prospect of just having the current staff take on my idea.  For whatever reason, I never heard back from Whiteshepherd.  But my idea is a good one, and rather than waiting for Whiteshepherd to get back to me, or for him to singlehandedly decide its not a good idea; I wanted to present my idea to see if there was anyone out there willing to help make it happen.

[RexWolf]

I'll likely have my server up and running by friday (have not been able to get to it due to illness and whatnot)

Personally, I would very much love to keep furtopia completely free, though it /is/ a possible alternative plan. (If so, I would be willing to volunteer for whatever I would be most useful doing)

Trust me, I want more than anything to make the site free.  But free means someone else has to pay.  And that's not fair to the someone else, in this case, it has been the staff and mostly Whiteshepherd.  Perhaps it wasn't made clear, but I am not wanting to take on this project for financial reasons, nor will I be asking for a salary or compensation for my work in making this project happen.  But someone has to be paid to keep a site like this going.  And since one person won't always be able to keep it going, creation of a salaried position, or two, would ensure that the site can continue to run forever by paying a position, rather than a person, to keep the site going.

And like I said, aside from paying for the services necessary to keep the site going (web hosting, bandwidth, operation/maintenance), the money collected, if above the costs of operation, would be returned, 100%, to the fandom.  I'd have to check with discrimination laws, but I believe we can limit employment for the position to within the furry fandom; or at least give preference to furries.  So, aside from paying the communication company for the bandwidth, and the suppliers for the equipment; all revenue would be kept within the fandom.  Of the fandom, by the fandom, for the fandom.


You're talking to a guy who despises profit, period.  I gave up a lucrative career as a programmer to work with wolves in a non-profit manner.  I don't care for money, period.  But money is necessary if a site like Furtopia is to remain operational down the road.  And wouldn't it feel good, knowing that the $5/year, or even the $150/year you pay goes to employ a furry?

Oh yeah, pardon my lead-poisoned brain, but I forgot to mention (if I can just remember it now...*waits*...) Ah, right...  The premium services would be charged of people who profit from use of this site.  Imagine all the money changing hands on FA for example, from commissions and sales of prints, fursuits (ahem...I would know, I sold a fursuit recently in part because of FA).  This site has the potential to become highly valuable for someone who makes money from their artwork or other craft.  So those people would be more than willing to pay for a premium service, and most importantly, to get the kinds of services and quality you don't get from a free site.  And because the organization behind the site would be comprised of furries, and those furries can come to the Board of Directors and have a say in how this site would operate; there is assurance that this site would always be for the benefit of furries.

[Arbutus]

WhiteShepherd has opened up a discussion about your proposal with all Furtopia staff members, and we'll get back to you once we've hashed it all out.

[RexWolf]

WhiteShepherd has opened up a discussion about your proposal with all Furtopia staff members, and we'll get back to you once we've hashed it all out.

Thanks.  Please remember its but the framework of an idea.  If you have any questions or aren't sure about any aspects of the idea, be sure to let me know.  Email might be the best way to reach me since I don't appear to have notification of PMs turned on.  But I will try to turn that on.

[redyoshi49q]

Email might be the best way to reach me since I don't appear to have notification of PMs turned on.  But I will try to turn that on.

You can turn on PM notification via Profile -> Personal message options -> Notify by email every time you receive a personal message: Always

If this option is set, a notification email will be sent to the address under Profile -> Account Settings every time you get a PM.

I hope that helps.

(*edit*) Also, there is a "Notify" link at the top of all threads.  If you click one, you'll also get email notifications when a post is made to the corresponding thread.

[Mazz]

There are those of us who would still be SOL if Furtopia charged a fee because of the lack of extra cash those of us living paycheck to paycheck have. Not that it's a bad idea but and it would solve the problem for those who can afford to pay for web hosting.

There's the having Ads option as well but then it would be like pretty much any other free web host and lose what a lot of us like about it.. lack of Ads being thrown at us.

[Avan]

Nomatter what happens in the end, as either a continuation of Furtopia's own hosting, or as my own spinoff, I'll still be continuing the free hosting on my own server, to the best of my abilities

[WhiteShepherd]

RexWolf thank you for taking the time to think of your offer and approach us.  The mods and the staff looked over your offer as well as your posts and voted not to accept the offer.

Furtopia has been a non-commercial for nearly a decade.  At the heart of our service we are just that a non-commercial true .org community service.  We are not trying to replace/top any other service or prove we are better.  We are a very different kind of community that provides help and services to those who need it free of charge because many do need it.  After discussion we do not feel that should change.

Many of your ideas have merit and with good management would make a useful commercial service to the furry community.  I know it is not easy getting started but we do wish you the best of luck in building your dream.

  WhiteShepherd

[Avan]

Whoo! server is up and operational, but due to relatives and whatnot coming over, and then work next week, I won't begin transferring over my own sites to my server until later next week.

[Werewolfhero]

Abit late since its already been voted on, but Rexwolf Ihink rather than do it with ads probably would've been better to suggest a premium for space exceeding 300-500 megs, like alot of other free addless mysql hosting services do. Ads are annoying and can become potential spyware/malware issue.  Maybe they or anyone else could keep that option in mind later on in lue of the advertisement route (since its not as in your face as advertisements)

[Twizler the skunk]

wonder if something as simple as a donate button would help?  *peeks in his paypal*

[RexWolf]

Abit late since its already been voted on, but Rexwolf Ihink rather than do it with ads probably would've been better to suggest a premium for space exceeding 300-500 megs, like alot of other free addless mysql hosting services do. Ads are annoying and can become potential spyware/malware issue.  Maybe they or anyone else could keep that option in mind later on in lue of the advertisement route (since its not as in your face as advertisements)

If you read my posts, you'll see I already stated quite clearly that the idea is to have people who make money on the site carry most of the cost.  And Whiteshepherd is quite mistaken in his assessment that my proposal is to turn Furtopia into a commercial site.  I adamantly stated that it is to be a NON-PROFIT site.  The ONLY way to offer something for free is to rely on advertising revenue, period.  Donations WILL NOT CARRY a site through the years.

I think its sad that Whiteshepherd chose to respond to my proposal here.  To me, that really speaks to his devotion to providing a service to furries, as does his flat-out rejection of a proposal without a lick of discussion.

Sadly, Furtopia is going to die off.  There is no successful model that mirrors Whiteshepherd's idea of how to run this site, period. IT MUST BE PAID FOR IF IT IS GOING TO LAST.  Kindness and donations only go so far.

And if you don't believe that this model doesn't work, you have only to look at the title of this topic.  The ONLY way to keep web hosting alive, is to have it funded.  My proposal was to keep web hosting alive the ONLY way possible.  And that proposal has been flatly rejected, without reasonable explanation.  No Gene, this won't be a commercial site, but it also won't be a site either.   How sad indeed.


And if you wonder why I seem upset, it is because I am frustrated with the lack of intelligence displayed, and with the setback in my efforts to see furries provided with valuable, reliable, effective services.  Selfishness, laziness, ignorance, and greed continue to get in the way.

No matter.  I'll have my disability money soon, and I'll start the site myself and fund it myself.  And as I promised, if I cannot find help, and have to do it by myself, I will make it a for-profit site, and keep the profits for myself and make a nice living off of it (rather like Dragoneer does, or didn't people know Dragoneer pockets the profits from FA, which is a FOR PROFIT, COMMERCIAL SITE!)


Bleah.


At least I have a couple months to find the $60/year I need to host my furry site myself (or decide to put it on my already-available homepage on my ISPs site.)

[Acton]

Not to be flippant but nothing lost. The problem is cost to run a reliable web host and to provided the tools needed. Running  a web host is more that just running Apache on a home computer. Besides most users on the Internet left the personal web page model for Live Journal , Fur affinity or blogs a la Wordpress. If anything furtopia can continue allocate resources on the forum and leave hosting to somebody else.  There are plenty of free and for pay alternatives. For example, all my pages are hosted on my own site. I pay only 10.00 a month for three domain names plus $10.00 annually for domain registration. If I wanted one domain I pay only 5.00 a month.
My hosting comes with email, php and mysql; all i needed to install Wordpress and I am in business.

for example look below at my signature.

[Kobuk]

Not sure I'll be able to effectively put my thoughts into words here, but I'm going to try anyway. What I have to say is of my own opinion. I am not speaking for WS, the other staff, or the Furtopia membership.

Rex, Nobody is saying that your ideas are all bad. As WS said in his reply, Some of your ideas have merit and I hope they'll work out for you in the future. But to be honest, I don't think a lot of what you proposed is needed for Furtopia nor will it work for Furtopia. I wish I could elaborate more, but economics and business planning was not my strong suit back in my school days nor is it right now.  
As I said in an earlier post of mine, I feel that the reason Furtopia has lasted so long and done so well is because it's free. IMO, Furtopia has a certain "charm" or "atmosphere" that you just can't get anywhere else. I think if Furtopia were to implement any of the changes you proposed, then we'd lose what makes this place unique. And what is unique about Furtopia? Well, we're:
* Free
* Family oriented
* Friendly
* Fun
Can any other furry website community say the same? Not likely. Granted, Furtopia may not be 100% perfect, but I truely believe the members and staff really do care about this place. Making money/profit is not what Furtopia is all about. Our "core" value here is just providing a decent and friendly place where people can come to meet and discuss various aspects of the furry fandom. As soon as fees, profit, Board of Directors, etc. are inserted into the equation, then I believe that Furtopia would lose not just it's uniqueness, but probably a lot of it's memberbase as well. Furtopia is not a business. Furtopia is not a company. Furtopia is a community.

Let me give you an analogy.
There are lots of big box retailer chain stores in America and the world. Examples like Wal-Mart, Kohls, Target, Home Depot, Lowes, Menards, etc., etc. All these big box stores claim to offer bigger assortments, more services, and better deals than what smaller businesses and Mom & Pop stores can. To a "certain degree", they can. BUT.......they'll never truely know what a customer is like and what their "true" wants and needs are. They don't know their customers on a "personal" level. Furtopia represents the "small business" so to speak. We know our members, What they like, Don't like, etc. We listen to them and try to work with them to the best of our abilities and resources. Big box retailers IMO, don't care about their customers. They just push the products and services that "they think" the customers will want.

WS said in his opening post of this thread the following: (Parts in yellow highlighted by me.)

After about a decade of web hosting we will be putting on hold the hosting of Furtopia.  Increasing costs and loss of support staff to RL have added to the timing of this.  However should things improve we may reopen it when updates are finally in place.  I plan to keep web hosting live for 3 more months to give members time to fetch any files they may need.  Users in difficult times/position may request an extension of hosting time if needed (will be reviewed case by case).  It's been a good run.

Note: I will NOT be shutting down the Furtopia forums or IRC.  These services will be continue as normal.

The web hosting isn't going away permanently. At some future time when things are better, it will come back.

[Avan]

Also, from pm conversations, I was told it was not a money issue (Well, not really)

[Mazz]

Avan, those of us that totally can't afford to pay for a site totally appreciate the length your going through to help out Furtopia.

It's appreciated and makes me actually debate on going back to update my site now that I have my computer up and running again.

Let me know how things go.
--

I like your analogy there btw Kobuk. It's true. I spend the extra 50cents to support the small locally owned coffee shop over Starbucks simply because on the rare occasion I can afford a cup of coffee I'd rather have the friendly atmosphere where I can stay and talk to the employees than the rushed get me in and out one the larger chain store has.

[Kada-Ru]

I couldn't have said it better, Kobuk.

I recently started watching a tv series on Netflix called, 'Undercover Boss'.  The one basic thing these CEO's/owners found while going under cover in their businesses is that the depts/stores that flourished were the ones with the personal touch.  I remember one of the episodes, the owner had gone in and see that the manager knew EVERYONE by their names!  The customers loved the manager and went out of their way to go to her store because of the personal touch.  She was like a 'grandma/mother' to a lot of the customers.  Why?  Because SHE cared about her customers.  Knew them personally and knew about their personal lives.

When WS or I have talked to members they are quite surprised that we are normal just like them.  Just people.  They are surprised that we, as owners of Furtopia, actually talk to them. LOL

So, I agree totally with what you posted Kobuk.  A friendly family atmosphere.

Oh, and to make one point clear, the only one that pays for Furtopia is WS.  No other members pay for it and that is the way WS wants it. That way it is TOTALLY free to all.

[489109]

But donations are good for your Kharma.

[Kobuk]

Thank You, Mazz and Kada. *hugs*

[Kay Alett]

Kobuk, excellent analogy. i totally consider this site akin to the smaller retail chains in both personal touches and the friendly atmosphere. It's what drew me here and kept me here for the years i've been a part of this community. In my time of absence i felt like i was away from home and upon coming back i felt as though i was returning to that home. I don't think any other sites can give members that feeling.