MAJOR CHANGES TO WP

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MAJOR CHANGES TO WP

I've been talking with Alex over the last few days about the evolution of the WP site. He has asked me to put a post together with his ideas and to gather feedback. I'm putting it in the 'Random' forum as this is where many regular WP users tend to congregate.

As you are probably aware, WP is near the end of its useful life. The site is struggling with user demand and frequently has periods where it slows to a standstill. The software and hardware WP is based on needs a major upgrade. It is currently running on phpBB2 and Alex wants to upgrade to phpBB3 and also use a faster server. This is not cheap to implement however, and ways need to be investigated to raise more money to do this and to maintain the site on an ongoing basis. Alex has suggested the following possibilities:

Introduce a membership fee. For example $10 per year for under 18's and $20 per year for those 18 and over.

However, this may not be fair to those who rarely post, so an alternative strategy he is considering is 'pay per post'. So for example every post would cost 10 cents (US). There would be a feature to allow users to top up their credit periodically.

Another fund raising strategy is to adopt a more intensive Google advertising scheme. One of the options available is to allow Google to tag adverts on to the end of every post. It would work similar to Google mail, where the contents is scanned by Google and a text based advert is attached related to the words in the posting. Another possibility with this approach is to allow Google to directly email posters about products and services related to their posts, but may be less popular.

The upgrade to the WP site and server is pencilled in for August as it will have least impact then due to many people being away on holidays. So WP will be closed for the duration of August to implement the upgrade.

If you have any feedback on the upgrade, please add your comments to this thread. Alex will make his decision in a weeks time from today (April 1st).

Until the upgrade alleviates the pressure on WP a temporary measure is being considered to limit login and posting to five hours per day. This will be based on each users time zone and posts can be made from 5pm to 10pm inclusive. Outside of those times it will still be possible to view posts and to login but not to post. While this restriction is not an ideal solution, it should make WP more responsive and usable to a wider number of users. The posting restriction is likely to be implemented in a couple of weeks time.

Last edited by TallyMan on 01 Apr 2009, 7:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

I think the Google ad option where ads are put in like gmail is the best one because not all the heavy posters will either want orhave the means to pay for posting. Another way if you do go ahead with membership is to have members only perks to thank members for their support of the site without restricting whole parts of the site.

Paying for posts or membership would send everyone away. Seriously. =| I couldn't pay.

I have no actual means of paying for my membership. I may have enough funds for an annual fee, but how would I pay them to Alex? I do not have a credit card or Visa debit card, nor do I wish to.

Wait a ****ing moment. This is an April Fool's joke. B*****d!

Tallyman, this is brilliant. On an Aspie site, you can get away with something like this because we're all so naive and literal-minded. However, you should be a bit more careful: the fees you listed are far too high to be plausible.

Oh. April Fools. Right. My bad.

I couldn't get through to Alex, as he is still on Earth at the moment,
but all the moderators I could speak to said this is a Fantastic idea!

we also decided that anyone who disagreed with it would be immediately banned.

sorry, Quatermass, you are banned.

Orwell, banned.

buryuntime, you should have shut up, but anyway, you can't pay, sorry, banned.

Thundaeagle, you are going to get the benefit of the doubt for the moment,
but you had better work a lot harder on your game plan!



Tallyman, I can't believe some of the libelous comments you made!
This is blatant SEDITION!
You are banned!

Alex, for agreeing to this, Banned!

syzygyish, I am Banning you too!

(and boy didn't I have That coming!)

*Removes syzgyish's helmet and leaves him to suffocate in the vacuum of space*

Eat cold vacuum, smartass.

That was absolutely brilliant. You should have seen the panic on my face at the thought of having to have my posts limited to certain hours and then WP being down in August.

^
Same here. Good one, Tallyman.

(I s*ck at this April fool bizz. Both ways)

Wow nicley done, you really had me going there, April Fools

Great April fools joke.

...hee.

I hope it's a joke, though.

After all, if they cut off posting from 5-10pm in my time zone, I'd end up going even more insane than I already am.

oh cool april fools joke you guys

At your suggestion I knocked down the adult fee from $50 to $20. Also added a bit about limited hours posting which seems to have got some people wound up nicely.

Oh, you almost got me.