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If this doesn't belong in .general, feel free to just direct it to .publish.
As some of you may know, Brinkster.com, which is where I and many other
LEGO builders host our websites, has recently announced that it will be
adding advertisments to its General Plan, as of 10/24. I, and I'm sure all
the rest of you that use Brinkster, only received the notificatio email
this morning. This affects more than just me and my circle of friends, I'm
sure. There are a lot of Brinkster sites out there.
Oh, if you want, you can pay $1.94/mo to get rid of the ads, but who wants
that? Brinkster was rather limited in the first place. Larger sites like a
few I could name exceed bandwidth practically daily, often early in the day
(one fellow I know exceeded every day before noon). If you announce
somethign on a Brinkster site you can be assured of exceeding your resources.
So when I opened up and read the email stating that advertisments (it
didn't say whether that means popups or banners) were on their way, the
first thing that I thought was "I'm moving!" And I am, even if I have to
move to a subdirectory of RoboticsResources.com. (which I don't want to do
because of resource issues. I also use way too many parenthesis) Anyway, so
the next thought was a totally new idea. Okay, maybe it's not new, but it
doesn't exist today in the LEGO community.
In a nutshell it's shared, paid hosting. The idea is simple: someone or a
group of people buy a server somewhere and a solid connection. They outfit
this server with anything the average LEGO user could possibly need and
hang out the shingle. Only LEGO users may join and use this service.
Ideally bandwidth would be unlimited, though storage space may be.
The fun part comes with the payment: each member of the service pays
monthly. The cool thing about that is that the payment is reevaluated and
split equally each month among all the members. That means that the more
members there are, the less each member pays each month. They're guaranteed
uptime and great service for what could potentially be a very, very small
amount of money. As new members sign up each month, the monthly payment of
the members gets gradually smaller. Linking from high-traffic places like
LUGNET or BrickLink could help recruit more members. If desired, a system
could be set up so that members who wished to support the system more could
pay a share equivalent to two members.
Basically it would be run, supported and used exclusively by and for the
LEGO community. As demands on the system increase, warranting
bigger-better-more-expensive, monetary demands would increase only slightly
per person, since it's spread out over many people. You won't find many web
hosts out there that offer everything for $1.50/mo with no ads and
unlimited resources. (and FTP)
So what's the general reaction? Good idea? Needs improvement? Bad idea?
Would you join? I've gotten two positive responses privately, so I'm
anxious to hear what you all think. My family members are so far evenly
split optimistic/pessimistic.
If desired a moderation system could be set up similar to Brickshelf where
all new uploads could be run by a moderation team. This would assure
potential members that all content should be appropriate for all ages (as
LEGO should be, right?!) Some details I can think of right now:
The URL would be, if possible, a subdomain (http://you.luhost.com or
similiar domain). If a sub isn't possible it would definitely be a
root-level directory or if you prefer it could be an organized subdirectory
(like .com/train/you/ or .com/robotics/theotherguy/). Unlimited FTP,
bandwidth and storage. Who uses 300MB of space anyway? (okay, maybe some of
you filmers) Available to people worldwide, of course. Payments could be
made through check, PayPal or possibly credit card. BTW: every month the
cost of operation is reevaluated and the per-person cost is adjusted
accordingly.
If no-one else would like to, I'm willing to assume position of
President/Go-fer and take care of the main responsibilities. I'm more than
willing to let someone else do that, though.
And, of course, PLMKWYT.
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: Web Host Concept
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| (...) Why equally split? Suppose I have a high traffic site that hosts movies and therefore consumes lots of bandwidth. Why should I get to pay the same as some guy who hosts a few highly compressed gifs and doesn't get a lot of traffic. Very unfair (...) (21 years ago, 31-Oct-03, to lugnet.general, lugnet.publish, lugnet.animation)
| | | Re: Web Host Concept
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| The problem with this model is that the "organization" has a certain limited amount of space, let's say 100 GB for example. Now, let's say two people join. Do you give them each 50 GB? Then no one else can sign on. Or do you give them 10 GB to use, (...) (21 years ago, 5-Nov-03, to lugnet.general, lugnet.publish, lugnet.animation)
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