Jump to content

What hosting does this site use and how much does it cost per year?

 Loading...

Alex K Chen

Recommended Posts

I'm pretty sure nobody who actively participates on this forum knows how it is hosted or maintained. Last time it was down (back in May), Saul and I tried emailing the person we believed to be the admin (Tim Calmeyn) but both of the emails addresses we had for him bounced.

Michael Rae may know more, but as far as I can tell this forum exists on borrowed time out of the goodness of some unknown person's heart. It could go away without warning at anytime :-(.  Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong.

--Dean

Link to comment
10 minutes ago, Dean Pomerleau said:

Michael Rae may know more, but as far as I can tell this forum exists on borrowed time out of the goodness of some unknown person's heart. It could go away without warning at anytime :-(.  Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong.

These forums underwent a substantial makeover fairly recently giving me the impression of being well supported, at least better than Yahoo Groups and perhaps Parler, although I know nothing of the details.

Link to comment

There should be some mechanism for disbursing funds and presumably this goes in part towards server maintenance expenses.

For example, when I made the donation to became a "Supporting Member" of the CRSociety, this payment was made to an established account, and presumably distributed in an organized manner towards operating expenses. I agree with the sentiment that one or more kind individuals must taking the time to keep the web domain etc. subscriptions renewed. But the organizational structure of what remains of CRSociety is a bit of a mystery to me.

Edited by Mechanism
Link to comment
8 hours ago, Mechanism said:

But the organizational structure of what remains of CRSociety is a bit of a mystery to me.

I used to be part of that structure. As far as I can tell, none of it remains. For example, I'm privy to two other private forums here called "Administrative Issues" and "501c3 Room". The first hasn't had a new post in nearly three years. The second hasn't had any activity in the past five years.

It is mysterious how this forum keeps running. I suspect it is Tim C behind the scenes. He was the last person to post to the administrative issues board (about accidentally deleted posts) but that was in April 2018 and he now seems unreachable. 

Edit: I posted to the "Administrative Issues" forum to see if anyone is still monitoring it and if they know how these forums are supported. I'll let you know if anyone responds.

--Dean 

Link to comment

Hi Dean!

Definitely Tim Camelyn is the administrator of the Forums.  We can't reach him -- only members of the CR Society Board, of which Tim is a member, can reach him.  That definitely includes Michael Rae.  So, when there is a Forums administrative problem, let Michael know about it.

(There are other Board members who come to mind -- but I don't know the extent to which they are participating.)

  --  Saul

Link to comment
On 1/17/2021 at 2:11 PM, Dean Pomerleau said:

Huh? What are you referring to Todd? I've seen no evidence of significant changes to these forums in many years.

Perhaps I'm imagining things but it seemed like maybe a year or two ago the site was down for a bit and then when I got back on there were new menu options for things like "My Activity Streams".

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

Wow! I didn't realize that there was such a mystery behind this board. Exciting! :)

But as some argued elsewhere, we all "live" in a simulation, so perhaps this is run by the same powers that run the multiverse and is the secret portal to them.... Did FabricationSpecialties create our world?


1229447716_ScreenShot2021-01-31at17_48_00.png.cf6e47c96f521e334ae4f82e23df4dae.png

Whatever the powers that be may be, thank you!
 

Edited by Ron Put
Link to comment
  • 3 weeks later...

I got a response to the thread I started on the Admin board from James Cain, one of the CR Society Board members. He confirmed a lot of what I already knew - the CR Society Board has been dormant for a few years and the members of the Board check these forums very sporatically, if at all.

He did have helpful info about the software that runs the forums. It is called "Invision Community" and costs $45/mo for the level that we use:

https://invisioncommunity.com/buy/cic/

He agrees that Tim C must still be the person maintaining it, but he isn't sure how much effort or time Tim is will to spend keeping it going, in case something goes wrong. He is going to reach out to Tim and the other Board members to see the status and Tim's level of commitment, as well as how much money the CR Society has in its coffers to continue paying for these forums. I'll let you know if I learn anything more.

--Dean

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

Good news!

James was able to reach Tim C, the admin for these forums. Tim posted very helpful and encouraging details about the forums situation, including:

  1. There is a enough money in the CR Society bank account to pay for the hosting costs for the foreseeable future.
  2. He shared his contact info with me so I could reach him if/when these forums go down.
  3. He is willing to continue providing the minimal administrative efforts required to keep the forums going, including looking at a set of updates coming from the software provider to make sure it won't break anything.

So thankfully it looks like the forums are in good hands and should remain viable for quite some time.

--Dean

 

Link to comment
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×