It would be nice to see some donations if you enjoy the forum. Lately only magicstar was kind enough to help out with the costs back in May 
Hey Zeus,
How is the whole donation suggestion going buddy, any luck?
To be totally honest, if the server has moved from slow shared hosting to fast dedicate hosting then I personally have not noticed any difference?
There Was No Need To Move?Were you aware, that you did not need to move the Squeeze Queen server from cheap as chips shared hosting to fast and more costly dedicated hosting, you just needed to start getting realistic about the membership intent from those who access it. You see, the hosting provider only issued warnings to you when you started to suck up large amounts of shared bandwidth and as such, your find most providers will try and cap the amount of traffic your site gets, so that others get a fair share. However, because your forum has become a real success going by the number of registered members it has acquired, it has also become increasingly expensive to manage and as such, become a monthly payment burden.
You see Zeus, having an open forum membership where ongoing membership requires little or no participation has always had its issues, mostly in the servers running costs and as such, has never offered a sustained future objective and as a result, your having to front the costs each and every month in order to keep the engine running. You can plead with your members for assistance towards meeting these running costs and in doing so, will grab the limited attention of the small few who will want to help keep the engine greased and with it, they will attempt to dig deep into their pockets and supply a donation but as my friend found out, it lacked the repetitive aspects required to meet monthly funding needs.
Personally, I love Squeeze Queens, and feel you have created a truly excellent resource for everyone to enjoy but hold on a minute, its only because you and a few others that it exists at all which is why you have to consider the option laid out below. Let me ask you a couple of questions, (1) did you ever aspect it to become as successful as it has become and (2), did you ever aspect it to self sustain its own future growth. I can understand that you have a life long passion for combat we all have, but taking your love for something and creating an Internet related resource sadly costs dollars, that is why your have to decide where Squeeze Queens goes from here on.
Future Options Available?Option 1: Continue to support the forum by paying for its existence with both your personal and donation support?
Option 2: Continue to support your own creation by supplying its existence with your own financial assistance?
Option 3: Reduce the membership award levels needed to be obtained to increase personal recognition?
Option 4: Remove leaching members by terminating accounts of those who have failed to participate?
Option 5: Enforce a probationary period on all NEW members relating to active participation?
Option 6: Grant instant HQ access to remaining members offering regular donations?
You see, a good friend of mine started and runs a successful Play Station games forum and has done now for many years. However like you, he started out with shared hosting account with a known service provider as it was allot cheaper than a dedicated version and as a result, wanted to keep his costs within an ongoing realistic level. However, as the FREE membership option to his forum grew from hundreds of members to many thousands, so did the traffic and soon, he became face to face with shared bandwidth usage warnings and just like you, was forced to move his forum over to a much higher priced alternative solution.
My friend continued to run the Play Station server for as long as he could afford it however, he soon realized that running the forum out of his own pocket was a monthly cost that needed to be addressed if the forum was going to continue and as such, he decided the time was right to implement three of the six options detailed above which by all accounts had the desired effect. Firstly option 4, where he began by running an in depth database search for all members of his forum who had not given Karma, made limited posts, or failed to uploaded content and then banned them. This action alone had a reduced effect on traffic flow through the server and as a result, outlined the fact that he could now afford to return back to shared hosting if he wanted.
The next was option (5), where he decided to operate a one month probation period on all NEW signups whereby, each NEW applicant would have to prove they were active participants and as such, deserved the right to be apart of the forum. The probationary process itself included levels towards the giving of karma, and of course the regular commitment given towards the posting of both comments and content. The last option (6), was the introduction of a private VIP section filled with none public media and downloads which as a matter of course, could only be accessed by VIP members. He made two methods available in order to become a VIP member, (1) obtain personal recognition towards being an above average participant, (much like that operated today). (2) Supply a minimum monthly $10 dollar donation payment and in return, subscribers would obtain 30 day access to the HQ section.
Posting Summery?Zeus, I would like to finalize this posting with hopes that the above information becomes helpful to you in the future operation of this forum. It matters not in which direction you decide to advance and what the future holds. I can only offer you and your administrators the experiences suffered by my friend which are in essence, similar to those described in this topic. However, if your happy with the way the forum is managed, and can afford the hosting costs associated with its online existence, then simply disregard the content of this post, as I was only trying to help :-)
