Paying for Sigs
 

Why should people pay for sigs, bigger sizes, or user pages. Most people are already paying for POTCO why this too? I want a sig to post my info. My parents wouldn't let me buy 2 things... I understand you need money for this site but no one will know anything about me or my IGN (In Game Name) on POTCO. even if it is monthly the donation money should be enough. The first 5000 users get a sig though. That is good but, people should also get sigs or everyone should have sigs. I have never seen a site letting people not make sigs. I still like POF and still think it is a great forum though.

Please take this in to consideration. Thanks
~IceMageWiz

Well like you say the money is to keep the site up and running.

But if you want to display your info you do have a profile you can put all your info in there and you can put your Pirates IGN as your usertitle. Some people post their stats under every post like a fake signature.

It would be annoying to do that. Lots of people don't even look at profiles. I only have about 20 views I think. I have a sig from that guildlaunch sig site but I can;t use it...

This is a privately owned site. One of several which Nick owns based on Disney's online games. He's very busy and rarely uses the site but trying to fulfill the need for such a thing since Disney doesn't have any of it's own forums. Since we don't have Disney's big bucks backing us up, the money to keep the site running needs to come from some place. It takes quite a bit these days to pay for a server, domain name, bandwidth, etc. to keep a successful site online. So we ask for donations in the form of subscriptions. We get some funds to help cover the cost of everything and the users get an upgrade to their account.

We have years of experience running successful forums. So this won't be one of those sites here one day and gone the next. We have successfully had www.toontowncentral.com running for about 8 years. About the same amount of time the game has been online. We do our best to keep a good family-friendly based community for everyone to enjoy. So your money is going to a good cause.

Whether you wish to donate is entirely up to you. We do host monthly contests to earn things such as casino cash (which can be used on the site's casino) and will soon be giving away subscriptions like a free year of having a sig, extra PM space, and other subscription. This allows for those unable or unwilling to donate to have a chance at having some of these subscription extras to their account. Everyone is free to join in the fun of the contests and eligible to win.

All donations given to this site is used exclusively to keep the site online and running smoothly. Moderation staff isn't paid for their time. All mods/admins volunteer their time to keeping this a nice safe community for everyone to join.

When I bought a site it was only like $5 a year. Maybe a forum costs more?

$5 doesn't even buy a domain name for a year. The cost is a lot closer to a couple hundred dollars a month to keep it running.

As this is not a free running site - just by using google lets do some numbers:
Lets say you go cheap with a domain name: $15 * Sites * Typo / Alternate Names = $200 / Yr
VBulletin (Forums Software) $155 * Sites (Bulk Price for 6-10 Sites) + $300 Support = $3000 / Yr
Other Software Requirements (Antivirus, Firewall, OS, Support for the above) = $3000 / Yr
Servers and Internet Connections ... Just A Shot In The Dark We Are Using no Free Hosting Site here :D but this number may be way above = $10-20000 / 1-3 Yr

So lets say $20000 for the whole works a year (once again this is a shot-in-the-dark - I know no actual amounts).

So, unless Nick has a money-tree growing in the back-yard of his flat/house/appartment/cardboard box then I would think the money has to come from somewhere :D

so Disney isnt even monitoring this site? and none of our requests for bug fixes are gonna be answered?

I'm sure some of the Disney staff check this site out. They probably even take into consideration some of the suggestions posted here. However, bug reports need to go straight to the official POTCO site. Someone may read it, but they need a report directly to them to do anything about it, ya know...when they get round to it...eventually...someday... ;)

We know that Disney employees look at Nick's sites.
We can't tell you how much they take back with them and consider but they are watching...

... I'm watching you Wazowski, always watching, always...

omg.. $20000????? i bought like $5-10 dollar site from go daddy go.com but it wasn't forum. ok now I understand that we should donate but still not really fair for us . when are the contests going to start?

I can back that up these sites have a 99.999999999999999999999999999999% chance of closing anytime soon unless like some crazy pirate crashed his ship into the room where they have the servers these sites arent going anywhere.

And yea it might be $5 a year for a site but forums are much different and TONS more bandwidth gets used and it has to be reliable so it cant just be a $5 a month server. And holy geeze max i knew nicks bill must have been high but not that high O_o i honestly would donate to the site but my parents wont let me :( :( :( :( :( :(.

yeah my point is my parent's wouldn't let me so now I can't get a sig forever unless I win a contest which is unlikely... and why didn't you just go on freewebs or something? or ipbfree.com those are free forums

With the sites he has and the size of those sites he would run out of bandwidth with in the hour and those servers crash alot and a whole bunch of other technical stuff.

I've been a member for one of those sites for about a year. never crashed.. Does bandwidth mean space?

Hey - no worries Chris :) Nick's sites understand not eveyone has the money - as Bat mentions thats why contests wil be opening up options like winning accounts and the like :)

AS fot the 20,000 - its a big number which I'm just drawing rough conclusions... if Nick purchases his hosting sites (I doubt he'd use some $5 a month hosting service - so lets say $500) even then your looking up to about 5-10 k... still not cheap :)

Yeah that is still expensive. I'm still sad..

Ok, your situation is understood. I'm sure there are many members under similar circumstances.

Most compare running a series of forums such at Nick does to a typical website that we all can get somewhat inexpensively. This is not a fair comparison.

First lets review "free" sites.
Free sites generally do not offer any sort of forum software adequate to run a forum anywhere near this scale. Those that do offer forums restrict modifications, security tracking, and usually force THIER advertising content on you. Nick is adamant about maintaining appropriate content for a family safe environment, not having enough control over content eliminates this option.

Inexpensive hosts (typical that we general users all may get)
These sites may seem to have all that would be necessary, but often lack the ability to load a forum package such as vBulletin in the form necessary to run a set of fansite forums of this magnitude (AND PERFORMANCE). Most sites that recieve this volume of traffic will likely be getting cancelled by hosts, or getting addition bills for resources they did not anticipate you using. Implementing forum software would still require licensing for an adequate forum package (ie vBulletin). There are still limitations on what one can do, because these are also usually in a 'shared' environment, sharing hosting resources with the webhosts other customers.

Professional hosts (high end, full server/web boxes, multiple site management).
Full access, do everything you need to do, modify, secure, manage to your hearts content (THIS COST $$$ BTW). This would be the solution necessary to run sites of this nature, traffic, and magnitude. Licensing of the forum software, etc not being included runs up costs. Inclusive bandwidth, and possibility of costs for bandwidth over alloted amounts may come in to play. The can install/configure/modify as the owner/operator wishs.



Simply put, the free/inexpensive options adequate enough to run almost everyones personal pages or guild site, are just not adequate enough to run sites of this size and magnitude. Thier features, and access/abilities to manage them are simply not a grand enough scope to maintain forums in the manner Nick's forums sites have been known for, and will continue to strive for.

well I give up on this then i'm not getting it any time soon

Of course this is not a disney site ( like not made from the disney creators) But i'm sure if you send in a request they may reply

Nick Makes a lot of money for the site with the advertising fee 100$ a month I believe.

He doesn't make money? Advertising saves him a little money but not a lot

Actually he probably makes some money from this site if he spends 10k to 12k each year then he probably makes 13k to 15k each year per site.

How would he make that money? He can't get it all by advertising?

Yes but people donate and they pay for advertising then they subscribe for a sig option this site has what 20000 members if half of them subcribed to even the lowest option that be 3.3k
then another 500 subscribe to the highest option thats 6.5k then another 500 donate 5 dollars thats another 2.5k then 250 people are fealing generous and they donate 10 dollars thats another 2.5k then 25 people want to advertise their site another 2.5k all together that equals $17,300 he made that year subtract 12k he made 5.3k per site that year.

But we don't have that many that donate to this site. We have closer to 23 users that have so far. We make just about $1 a day off the ads. The bills are roughly $200+ a month to keep the site running. So if you figure that up, we're coming up REALLY short on funds each month.

Donate if you want. If not, don't worry about it.

http://batleth.toontowncentral.com/f...opicClosed.gif

Actually these sites don't cost anything cuz we run them on Kid Bugs' old PS2 and the bandwidth we pirate off of the wi-fi at $tarbux and what we really need the $$$ for is to pay for Pepto Bismol for Batleth after he ate all the ghaa anything left over goes to my carrot fund oh and Nick doesn't live in a "flat/house/appartment/cardboard box" cuz he's auusie so the proper term for where he lives is "pouch".

-ekb-

Currently we have 0 people signed up for advertising on all our sites.

So the $100 a month we charge we are not getting anyway.


We get a few donations here and there but those mainly are on ToonTownCentral.

Google ads bring in a few dollars a day and do help.

P.S. our server costs a few hundred a month plus other fees.

The reason we pay so much is because we are paying for the speed of the server eg. how much ram, the CPU etc...

Forums use alot of computer resources and therefore any forum that has over 30 users on at any time will struggle to load the pages quickly on a free or shared server.

Our current server has Dual Opteron processors with 8gb ram and two 32gb scsi drives in raid config.