Liverpool FC Forum

[ivor_the_injun]

One thing I'd definitely, definitely do is clamp down on people quoting the post above them. The number of times a huge image gets posted and the next 3 or 4 posts quote it in its entirety with just a smiley as their own message take the p*ss really. All of those really start to add up when you're talking about bandwidth.

I don't know about on Ikonboard, but my missus runs a site on phpBB which is very similar - there's a modification you can add to the forum software which stops users being able to quote the message directly above them in its entirety.

Also, maybe look into stopping people using gifs on the site. Some of the animations people use as their avatar or in their signatures are f*cking mahoosive. At the very least I'd seriously consider putting a strict kb limit on people's signatures. It's not hard for people to get some of those jpeg file sizes down.

A more radical solution would be to do away with pics in signatures altogether. I never really see the point to having both an avatar and a signature anyway. Some of the pics people have are great, but it's not what we're here for, and I'm sure people would rather do away with them than contribute to the site going down the pan. If people want a Shankly quote, to link to the HJC site or to give a thought to Drummerphil, there's nothing wrong with good old text.

By all means come up with ways of fundraising, but a bit of tweaking of how people can use the board will save you a ton of bandwidth. The missus tightened up her rules in 3 or 4 fairly subtle ways and her monthly usage almost halved.

I'll have a think on the cashflow front as well fella - it's a great community and I'm sure I speak for all of the regulars by saying that we'd hate to have to take our nonsense elsewhere in the long run.

[bigmick]

Can't you just get people's card details when they log in and charge them 10p a post, or 15p to start a thread or something. My average spend per week would be about £1.40 or something like that which if anybody moans about they must be off their head. I suppose though that maybe the admin of such a scheme would cost more than the revenue which is a shame because it would probs raise a few quid though and at least it'd be fair.

[adamnbarrett]

One thing I'd definitely, definitely do is clamp down on people quoting the post above them. The number of times a huge image gets posted and the next 3 or 4 posts quote it in its entirety with just a smiley as their own message take the p*ss really. All of those really start to add up when you're talking about bandwidth.

I don't know about on Ikonboard, but my missus runs a site on phpBB which is very similar - there's a modification you can add to the forum software which stops users being able to quote the message directly above them in its entirety.

Also, maybe look into stopping people using gifs on the site. Some of the animations people use as their avatar or in their signatures are f*cking mahoosive. At the very least I'd seriously consider putting a strict kb limit on people's signatures. It's not hard for people to get some of those jpeg file sizes down.

A more radical solution would be to do away with pics in signatures altogether. I never really see the point to having both an avatar and a signature anyway. Some of the pics people have are great, but it's not what we're here for, and I'm sure people would rather do away with them than contribute to the site going down the pan. If people want a Shankly quote, to link to the HJC site or to give a thought to Drummerphil, there's nothing wrong with good old text.

By all means come up with ways of fundraising, but a bit of tweaking of how people can use the board will save you a ton of bandwidth. The missus tightened up her rules in 3 or 4 fairly subtle ways and her monthly usage almost halved.

I'll have a think on the cashflow front as well fella - it's a great community and I'm sure I speak for all of the regulars by saying that we'd hate to have to take our nonsense elsewhere in the long run.

some great ideas in there.

I'm thinking that 'Live chat' thing that was in the place where the online games were, could that save bandwith by that being removed?

Is there a way to have treads automatically deleted if they are inactive for a long period of time?

if there are no other ways then I suggest asking people to donate to the site because I'm sure there are plenty of people who would do that. But I think members would be lost if a charge for usage was introduced.

[ivor_the_injun]

Can't you just get people's card details when they log in and charge them 10p a post, or 15p to start a thread or something.

If that happened, I'd be off for starters.

Forums that the users have to pay to use need to be very, very exclusive and have something that nowhere else offers, and it's not like the web is short of LFC fan forums. If payment was compulsory to use the site, the forum would die very, very quickly indeed.

Following on from my earlier point, how about doing away completely with avatars and signatures, and only allowing people to have them if they donate a minimum amount of, for example, £5 a year? Don't make it a set amount - if there's a minimum and no maximum, the odd regular user may throw you something extra.

You could keep track of it by adding icons just under where people have their Liverbird icons on the left of the posts. Just make sure the date features in the icon - "Newkit donor season 06/07" for example, and then change the date as each season passes - then this shows if a user puts their hands in their pockets or not. You'll shame dozens of people into donating that way, as stinginess is completely visible.

As seasons pass, the regular donors will rack up a handful of icons, one for each year. Theme the icons on the current season's kit, and I reckon it'd actually look pretty cool.

Here's an example of what I mean and vaguely how it would look...

[ivor_the_injun]

Another idea...

You know the Million Dollar Homepage?

Make the homepage of the site something like that, starting off with a pic of the Shankly gates, the Liverbird or something. Divide the pic into squares (although not quite that many), and offer each one for sale for a set fee - nothing massive, but added up make it considerably more than enough to cover the site's running costs. Some users will go for that, but I'm sure you'll get a ton of LFC-loving businesses into it as well. The buyer of each square then gets to specify a link, so putting the cursor over their square reveals an alt image which can be a business logo, a link to a personal MySpace page...whatever, basically.

Even better, make it a pic of the Hillsborough memorial, bam the price right up, and take the site's running costs off the top and give the second 50% to the HJC.

[LFC]

For sometime now member have only been able to upload small images to the site, all of the big images/graphics in posts and signatures should be coming from remote sites like imageshack and photobucket etc. so I don't think I can cut down much more on bandwidth usage this way.

I like the donation icon idea I think that could be pretty cool for members to have a slick icon next to their name and I also like the million pixel page idea, I'll look into both of these and see what could be done. Keep the ideas coming!

[J*o*n*D*o*e]

i was going to add the icon idea yesterday but wasnt sure how people would take it, personally i think its a great idea and whilst i dont think it will embarrass anyone into donating it will certainly bring it to the attention of everyone.

having not run a forum before, well not one ive had to pay for how much are we looking at collecting each month, not sure if you want to release this info but just trying to see how much of a hole where digging

with no football to discuss hopefully we can get something sorted before the new season.

[Sabre]

Ivor the Injun has spoken lot of sense in his posts.

The too long embedded quotes is something that in the usenet forums (oldest internet forums, work since the eighties) is taken in consideration. Stats are taken of what's the percentage that a poster quotes, and writes himself. Of course the point is to write yourself as much as you can, and not have high percentages of quoted messages.

Maybe traffic-wise it doesn't help much because it's text and compared to an image that's nothing, but it saves new pages to the database, and improves aswell the reading of the forum (you don't have to scroll down a lot).

The icon thing is nice, although I must say our left panel would seem the jacket of a colonel with so many icons, which leads me to the question if the whole idea of "Premium Membership" should be reviewed.

For instace, and without giving names, there are "green" normal users that knows more football than me, have better english, and posts are genuine (Ivor, for instance), where as there are "orange" users who's footie input is scarce, and shíte (place your favourite name here). The whole premium member thing is freezed right now it seems, and the advanced debate area isn't used, despite Feeney had some good ideas to use it.

So maybe the donor icon, and the premier member icon could be somehow merged?

[Scottbot]

The whole premium member thing is freezed right now it seems, and the advanced debate area isn't used, despite Feeney had some good ideas to use it.

Yeah..the advanced user idea/forum never really took off but that is largely due to the fact it feels a little bit elitist to tha majority of posters. however, it does still remain a bit of a safe haven for times when the board gets absolutely rammed with idiots, spammers and WUMS after a big win or defeat.

[jonnymac1979]

Million Dollar LFC page is a belting idea.

[dawson99]

how much do we need? im good with numbers, could help out. if you need a hand with figures feel free to pick my brain. theres always ways...

just an offer

[Sabre]

LFC, the new banners that can be seen in the top of the pages, do you get paid for click or for view?

If it's the former, it wouldn't take much we all do a couple of clicks everyday...

[simolonge]

I noticed on a PM that I was asked to donate, will this get me a nice new icon or what ?

[LFC2007]

That special offer sign at the top was f*cking HUGE until it got modifed, random observation, not a complaint.

Sabre is correct although web space does cost it is the traffic that leads to bandwidth usage that is more expensive we are now using over 30GB of transfer per month even after taking extensive measures to reduce bandwidth usage such as restricting the size of images that we host in the site etc and the more popular the forum gets the more we will use. Also the message board system is dynamic, database driven and each page view or search query demands processing power from the server so this will eventually mean that the site may need to be moved to bigger/better/faster servers overtime.

I am also looking at one of two imminent things both of which cost in sense of time and money:

- Upgrading the actual forum system to introduce new features into the community

- Having a much more profession look and feel for the site created

I really want this site to continue to grow and I am happy to keep investing in time, effort etc

To answer you peewee, I am not looking to sell the site, it has taken years for the site to grow to where it is now, we have loads of page 1 position 1 Google search results for this site which is driving more and more traffic, even forgetting the years that it has taken to get the site to where it is now the cost of advertising on Google to obtain the positions the site is enjoying would cost hundreds or thousands of pounds, we are now positioned in a really good place for the future. Also a bit of history for you not too sure how many of you will know this however this domain liverpoolfc-newkit.co.uk was actually the original OFFICIAL Liverpool FC web site for several years, long before .tv was a twinkle in the clubs eyes!

The cost of running the site is virtually certain to increase way beyond where it is now so I am just trying to plan for the future!

Any update on this?

Has the site been moved to bigger, better, faster servers?

Presumably the ad's at the top of the page are now enough to fund the site?

Any future plans/changes/updates/aims/objectives?


[/nosey]

[Sabre]

Any update on this?

Has the site been moved to bigger, better, faster servers?

Presumably the ad's at the top of the page are now enough to fund the site?

Any future plans/changes/updates/aims/objectives?

I'm not LFC, but I have an opinion about some things.

Presumably the ad's at the top of the page won't pay even a dairy coke for our administrator who provides this free service. It would be a big surprise for me, because as far as I can tell, no relevant money is won thanks to that kind of internet advertising. Hopefully I'm wrong.

I know for a fact that LFC was working on a new server and new software for the forum layout. Problem is mate, that let's say that after many years there are many configurations and hacks that make the administration of the forum viable, such as the measures that keep spammers off, for instance. While you can export messages and all that in quite a straightforward way, configuring the server in order to have our current stable situation might be tricky and time consuming. All this, is my hunch.

So I guess some patience is required. For what we pay, it's a good service. Donations is the way this kind of site with lots of users use to finance. While I have donated for other newkit noble causes, I still I haven't done so in this one. But I promise I will once I go through the nightmare of marrying close friends that is destroying my economy  as of late. (gifts, the wedding itself, the "goodbye to freedom" fiesta, etc).