Compatibility update - Orchid Board

Marty · #21 01-22-2017, 09:07 PM

regarding cost of running the forum, it's little tricky as it's not very clear and it's down right complicated. I had to get a more powerful option that runs several of my sites. Still most needy is OrchidBoard as it gets many concurrent viewers. In the past I "played" with few other sites and forums and while some died orchidboard and geckosunlimited are both alive and doing well....although I am largely absent from both. Then I'm also running MistKing.com and recently we opened up a warehouse in Europe and MistKing.eu

Currently since MistKing is also running from the same server as OrchidBoard it picks up the cost and anything we get from forum supporters definitely helps to offset any bills. If MistKing wasn't there I would not be able to pay for the cost of OB myself - no way! MistKing isn't really resource intense as it's just a store so I literally could host it for next to nothing. However the server, is basically a car payment every month to keep OB running.

I'm always greatful to anyone that supports OB financially as it helps to share in the cost of all the expenses. To make things worse, when I had my 'close call' I dropped the ball on any advertising and just did few ads for friends free of charge. I may need to restart and offer some paid ad space as well for anyone that wants to advertise on OB. Also may not be a bad idea to monetize on classifieds somehow, I see that there are repeat advertisers that are pushing some large equipment. I don't mind hobbyists selling stuff, but commercial companies should definitely start paying for the ability to reach our audience. I remember back in the day google ads paid a large chunk of forum hosting, but google decided to cut their payments by about 75%. All I can say thanks to MistKing for keeping it going all these years. I just realized that OB is 11 years old !