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Name: Keno
E-Mail: keno@fairpoint.net
Subject: Gasland's days could be numbered (all please read)
Date: Monday, February 1, 2010
Time: 12:07:34 AM
Remote Address: 66.243.196.97
Message ID: 251405
Parent ID: 0
Thread ID: 251405
Gasland needs your help real bad! The fact I have to even write what I just did in this post's title, or make this post, kills me, but we do have a problem.
Gasland has been a great outlet for Stones fans for what seems like forever. It's a Gas, Gas, Gas is the oldest and longest running Stones board on the web. Heck, it is one of the oldest, continuous web boards out there! But its death, as far as being an active board goes, is near, unless somebody, or a major group of you Gassers and lurkers, help out ASAP to save it.
Please let me explain where we are at. BTW, this is a long post, but please read it all if you care!
Three years ago my host (AIT) threaten to drop my domain, keno.org - where Gasland is located, because the domain was regularly crashing the shared sever that I rented out from them. You see, there were around 200 other domain on that same server and every time my domain crashed the server, every other domain went off line, too (sometimes for more than a day!). The only reason why keno.org was crashing the server was directly because of Gasland, plain and simple. This board is very busy and popular! Perhaps right now we are not as busy as it gets here when the Stones tour, but even today with only half the posts showing up everyday, we carry a heavy load. Gasx3 still has almost as many lurkers here reading the board every day, as when the Stones are touring.
So we needed to be placed on a much more expensive sever - called a dedicated sever, which only keno.org uses. But even back 3 years ago I could not afford such a server. So enter my friend (and many of yours), Undercover, who told me he would cover the difference in costs for a stand alone server. He did and what a total difference we saw instantly when we made the switch over! Instead of Gasland and the domain going off line sometimes twice a week because of us damaging the shared server we were on (Gasx3 flat-out killed two of AIT’s shared servers in 5 years!), since we switched to a dedicated server we have never once gone off line for that reason! In the past year, keno.org has been off line 4 times – and all four times was because all of the servers that AIT uses, were off line because of issues that had nothing to do with keno.org or Gasland. Yes, a stand alone server works for us and this board!
As most of you know, Undercover hasn't posted here in well over a year, yet he still paid for this place regardless. He hasn't been well, that is why he hasn't been posting. But once a year he would send me in the payment for the entire year for the extra money it took to use this server, and I would paid the balance myself for the rest of the domain. AIT gives me a discount if I pay the entire package in advance once a year. If I didn't do that, the same server monthly would be much more costly per month.
Do understand, running GGG MB costs a lot more than just the money Undercover and I pay AIT. Just working to keep order at Gasland going monthly sometimes is a FT job, then I got all of the others sites up on the domain to maintain, too. But with Gasland alone, I work this joint for free. Actually, I lose lots of money each month if you go by the hourly rate I make running or building other people's websites. Sometimes the work isn't fun either. Gasx3 is a fun place for those who read it, sometimes it is for me too, but when I come here 6 days a week, it is also a job to me, not just fun. When I have to put up with problem posters, the job plain out sucks. But at least that happens at most a couple of times a year. 99% of all Gassers are cool people and my friends.
Undercover promised me he would pay his share for keeping Gasland going as long as he lived, and as long as I wanted to keep it going. I've run it so long and I'm so used to doing this work, that as long as the support is there, I'll keep watching over Gasland as long as I'm around to run it. But sadly, Undercover is no longer around. I do not know for sure what has happened to him, but it seems nobody else can find him either. He has dropped off the web I guess. For the longest time, each month, and then of late, every two months, I would write him a thank you email for his help. I have not gotten a direct reply email from him since around November of 2008. But up until last September or so, I would get a return receipt from him (which I always request) letting me know he did get my email. Sometimes it would take 2 or 3 months to get that return receipt, which told me he wasn't spending too much time at all online. But now I have not even gotten any return receipt in almost 5 months. He's never gone that long to get back to me. So I don't known what is up with him and I of course am concerned for his well being. I do hope he is okay and that I will hear from him again soon.
So, at this point, because Undercover is unreachable, I cannot plan on expecting to see the once a year donation he sends to help pay for our yearly bill - which is due on April 1. He still could send it in to me again, but I can't sit around and wait and hope that it will appear again. Normally I would have received it by now. I did try writing him about this, but again, I received no reply back.
Because I am low on funds, I'm at the point where I have started to cut as many costs in my life as possible. There is just no way I can play for this dedicated server on my own, and there is no way we can operate Gasland on a shared sever again. Even if I can find a host would take the domain on such a sever, I will not allow that to happen. I just can't put myself through that again. I can't tell you how much extra work it involves for me. I got to clean the board twice as many times a month on a shared sever. Then the extra work hours involved in dealing with a domain that goes off line every week takes up even more time. And boy does that play on one's nerves. Back when we were on a shared sever, I used to have to check up on the board twice a day just to make sure it hadn't crashed. Plus those of you who were around 3 plus years ago, know posting at a place that is off line often, just isn't the same. So I cannot and will not run the board or domain in that way again on such a server.
What will happen if I don’t pay that bill come April? Well, I can still afford the amount I’ve been paying without Undercover's help, therefore, keno.org is safe. But Gasx3 isn't, plain and simple. Gasland's life as an active board would be over if I have to place the domain on a shared server again. The archives would all still be there to view and perhaps I might make the GGG Board into a bulletin board where I would perhaps once a week post any Stones news I came across and still post the new weekly polls, although chances are the weekly Stones poll might have its days numbered too, since I’m running out of questions to ask after 10 plus years of running it weekly. But if I ran Gasx3 in this way, I would be the only person who would be able to post stuff to the board. So more important, our long running Stones family would have to find a new home somewhere else to still post to each other. That alone would kill me, to see everybody going to another domain, plus it would not be Gasland. But my hands are totally tied, without some kind of help, Gasland's days as an active board is numbered.
So what can be done? One of two things: 1) Somebody else could take over for Undercover. 2) I can hold a fund-raising drive and beg all of you to help.
The best bet would be to go with #2. If only half of the Gassers who have passwords were to send me just $5.00 each between now and April, there would be enough money to pay for this current sever for several years. If only half the lurkers who visit here everyday were to sent in that same amount, we would have enough money to keep going for the next decade at least! Yes, a mere $5.00! But that is nothing but a dream. Things are bad for so many people right now money wise, and whenever such fund-raising drives takes place anywhere, nowhere near all the people who could help, ever do, even in asking for just five bucks.
As you might know, I started to take donations back in 2001. But since that day, I have never again asked any of you for any money. On average, 4 or 5 Gassers send in money to help with the board a year. Unlike in the past, Gasland cannot stay afloat any longer with that kind of support. The click-thru ads just don't pay as much as they used to do, and sales from Amazon and the Poster/T-shirt stores are way down. Where I had 5 different ticket brokers buying text ads for a good price on the domain, with the Stones not touring, well, all of those ads have been dropped. Sure, when the Stones start to tour again they will come crawling back, but in the meanwhile that doesn't help us any.
So I guess it is time for me to beg for your help. If you love this place and wish to see it keep going, can you please send as little as $5.00 to me, or whatever larger amount you can afford? Every bit will go towards paying off that upcoming bill. Let's just say the goal is to raise $800.00 by April (Gasland actually can be saved for a bit less than that). If April 1 comes around and we are not close to the amount needed to pay the yearly bill, and lets say we are half way there, I then would just start to play them monthly with what has come in. Since I have gotten in one donation this year (well, month) I will apply that, so we are good to go now till May. But, if I pay once a month, the cost will go up and I will need around 25% more a month to pay for the joint, since I will not get any discount. In that case, our yearly goal would have to be closer to $1,000.00. So even if only a few hundred dollars comes in by April the GGG Board can keep going for a few more months at least. But I do not want to have to beg for money year round, either. I rather not take on that job FT. Would you? So the bill really needs to be paid off in April to save the Land of Gas.
To help save Gasland, you can click on the Help Gasland link that is near the top of Gasland's Home Page (with the other links). I guess I will have to update that page soon to explain the challenging times we are facing here. Perhaps I can place something in there that shows where we are at in this fund-raising drive….. I guess I will need to put up a banner for this, too, it will be the only way to remind everybody that Gasland is on life support right now and will not make it past the spring if help isn't forthcoming.
Our board is just too popular and that is what has lead to its possible doom. It really sucks when a place is so popular for so long and yet can't stay open, but that does happen and sadly is happening to us here.
How else can you help out Gasland? Well we got stores and ads you can click on. When a person clicks on the Google ads, they pay the domain a small amount each time that takes place (as long as it isn't spammed by one person). So those ads help without anybody but the advertisers paying for them. But I'm not allowed to ask you to click on these Google ads, either, so I will not (what I just wrote was me only explaining how those ads work). The non-Google ads only pay the domain if you buy something from them. The Poster/T-shirt stores pay me the highest commission percentage; where as Amazon.com pays the lowest (they could not be any cheaper in the way they pay their affiliates). Anyway, sales from those stores have almost totally dried up. In fact, January saw the worst ever sales for a 30 day period for my different Amazon stores and links, and I've been with them since '98! Yes, we are still in a deep recession, no question.
So it is up to you Gassers and lurkers to save our Stones home. I really can't think of anything else that will save our Stones community/family here at Gasland. They say everything has to come to an end at sometime, but I’m not ready to give up on this place - this long running Stones fan's soap opera that we got here, but it isn't up to me at this point. I would like to run this place till the day I die and and have plans in place to see that it might still live on even without me. But the bottom line is, it takes money to do some of that, and my savings are totally gone. I don't have the means to pay for the Gasland's upkeep myself any longer. So the Land of Gas needs your support ASAP! Can you please help save Gasland today?
Thanks for reading this,
Keno
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