KOA Funding 2018

[durban]

Thank you Contributors :

Jorn
Lee
Jacob
SteveC
SimonB
Rodolfo
Thor
Ely

Dear all, its been a while since this was posted (2013 I think the last funding post was made)

However you know the drill and whilst it's hardly active these days we still have to pay for the upkeep/domain registration etc.


Link to the KOA Paypal account is on the front page (Home Page)

Donations are NOT expected, nor are they critical to the running of the KOA. We just put this reminder out so you have the OPTION of donating (all year round if you wish) towards the cost of running the KOA - its completely up to you but any donation small or large is ALWAYS appreciated and one day I may even buy a KOA jet to replace the Fun Bus.

Obviously due to no-one visiting the KOA anymore I don't expect a rush on the banks.....

The past couples of years I have been asked to provide 'running' costs for info - So here you go.

Bandwidth : Approx 5.2gb per month (considerably lower than previous years - which is sad as this is now FREE/UNLIMITED)
Disk Space : Approx 2.1gb (up about 60% on previous years)
SQL Databases : 5 (New database created for 2018 WC registration and will be used for all future reg pages)
SQL / Site Backups : 3 x daily (and sent to secondary host 2x per week)
SQL Size : Approx 18.9mb (uplift of around 0.3% year on Year - not much)


Based on this you would be looking at paying approx £6.99 per month for the Space/Bandwidth on something like godaddy or xilo.

Another £1.99 on top to cover the SQL databases and offsite backups.

The cost of the server is approx £20 per calendar month, and the KOA takes up approx 30% of the space/bandwidth of this server so the prices above are quite good valuations.

Thus taking them into consideration we are looking at approx £8 per month to keep the KOA running on the servers alone, which equates to approx £96 per year (however in reality most of these costs are covered by other aspects of the server)

If you have had a recent income tax refund or something and need to hide it away then why not use this as a perfect laundry service
Mark

[Freshmaker]

What Mark said.

[Freshmaker]

Apart from the missing PayPal-button, that is. Mark, get your shit together...

[durban]

Doh things have changed since 2013

I will update in a min

[Freshmaker]

Quality sized PayPal-button now on front-page...

www.ko-gathering.com

[durban]

ok horrible looking button at the bottom for you now...

[Lee W]

about to donate... but just wanna comment first, cause well... it's me innit.

I personally think the koa needs a shakeup, a new lease of life... no one is logging on anymore cause it's so quiet, too many people who're on the inside aren't active enough to keep it alive and kicking... and obviously a few incidents that haven't been pleasant over the years.

no one really knows who does what so no one knows who to ask questions to... I truly believe there are people out there who're dying to find this place, just like i was... it needs a bit of effort to find them instead of just expecting them to find us.

I am not criticising anyone by the way, not at all, I just know what it's like when things get left cause the powers that be are too busy with stuff... oh and before ya think i'm angling for something, i'm definitely not, i have no clue about anything other than lobbing... i just think a bit of transparency and updates etc and an injection of enthusiasm would do us the world of good.

feel free to remove this if ya think it's a bit controversial or whatever, i just felt the need to speak up cause it makes me sad that it's so damn quiet around here

love you guys

[Freshmaker]

Right you are mate. The short story would be that Facebook killed the forums, because we really used to use the forums like we use FB today; sharing tidbits, funny stories, discussing politics etc
But of course, there are other aspects as well. And much if it is about using the forums. For everything that comes to mind. And to make sure to answer on other members' topics. We've all got a responsibility if we wanna keep it alive.

[durban]

My main issue was it got blocked in work, in fact I got a quite nasty bollocking whilst updating the Forums during my lunch.....so I lost my main time to access.

I agree we have resurrected the Forums many times over the years, it has been running on this server for 15 years now and it was only 4 years ago we broke our records for numbers online.

The server is still being used a lot, lots of KOASI access and stuff, its just the forums that we seem to be losing the battle.

We still keep the registration pages for the World Cup on the server, and these are 'useful' and can't be migrated to the Facebook pages, and neither can the forum history - so we have to kinda keep this going regardless of the access (if I deleted this tomorrow lots of people would miss it, even tho they hardly realise its there from day to day)


People like Steve and Nikos still do a lot of work behind the scenes (as do others) we still get around 20 'fake' accounts a day - we have ways of preventing these but it means we lose the occasional legitimate registration (as we found with our new French friend joining recently). Its a horrible battle.

[durban]

Oh and thank you to Jorn, Lee and Jacob for their generous donations

[Lee W]

my pleasure

the post i made wasn't so much about forum activity, but about activity in general and attracting new players... there must be hundreds out there who'd be interested.

I don't know much about advertising n stuff, but I sell quite a few joysticks so I've printed up little 'cards' to drop in the box promoting the koa, might never get a hit, but worth a try.

[Freshmaker]

I promote the koa and the world cup etc any chance I get. However, the forums being as dead as they are leave nothing to temptation for people to start posting etc.

Besides, is it kinda easy to sign up or are people locked out (of heaven)?

[iankay]

"I truly believe there are people out there who're dying to find this place, just like i was..."
Yes yes yes

I've spent more time clipping my toenails than on Facebook in 2018.