Hey administrators, this is the second time this week that your site timed me out for too many connections on your bandwidth at once. How many connections are triggered to get that message? Five? Fifty? What a paradox: the better the site, the more people goes to it, and the more expensive it is to maintain it.
…bitch, bitch, bitch… 
It’s not enough for you that they finally closed the chink in the vB armor where the sock puppets were getting through? It’s not enough that the boards don’t keep crashing once a day, or have to be “taken down for maintenance”? It’s not enough that this is the best place on the Web, bar none, and so maybe you have to sit there and wait a couple minutes to be served?
Sheesh. If you’re in that big a hurry, go over to http://www.marthastewart.com and talk about macaroni and cheese.
P.S. The bandwidth issue was recently covered in a great many threads right here in ATMB. Use Search, and I bet you’ll be amazed at the info that comes up.
We already put in a new T-1 line, bought a second processor for the server, and installed new software. This for a site that makes no money. So you know what, bubba? Deal with it.
You know, I wouldn’t mind giving a few bucks to SD to improve the hardware driving the boards. If just a couple hundred people gave a few bucks each towards better hardware we could make this site kick butt. Agree?
Not a bad idea Silo. I’d send $20. Maybe this site should have a fund drive. Everyone can send in money and they could pick a winner. With a prize of a signed copy of the straight dope or something.
Really as a matter of convenience I think many here would be willing to drop a few bills to get the site running smooth. I’ll throw in $20 (like oldscratch). Who else is in?
Sure, I’ll kick in $20.
How much would we need to raise to do what?
All right I’ll pop in $15 myself.
Sure, me too. What are we buying, anyway?
Is it deductible? 
Peace,
mangeorge
OK, I still want to hear some details about just exactly what we might do for how much money - Jerry Davis might be the guy to answer that question.
But to pique a bit of interest here, let me borrow from my local National Public Radio station’s fund-raising drives.
Besides the $20 I already kicked in, I’ll add another $50 for every $1000 we can get pledged from the Dopers before, say, one month from now, 7/30/2000, up to $4000 (limits me to $220).
Ed, Tuba, Jerry - does this work for y’all?
What good can we do for the system with $4220?
Very generous sentiments folks. But not practical. I for one could not stand the whinging which would ensue, for example, “You trolls, go away and harrass some other board, don’t you know that I paid good money for this board”…
Well I think someone technical that knows the hardware on this board should give us the lowdown on the exact equipment we currently have. Then we can determine how much it would take to up-grade parts, lines, routers etc… Just think another year from now we may have 13,000 members. The time to nip the problem in the but is now. So if someone could come out of the woodwork and lay down on the table the exact equipment we have we can start from there. So heads up!
Probably a good point, android. I don’t think my personality is such that I’d likely start feeling proprietary about the board, but somebody could. One aspect of the griping that’s always bugged me is the fact that nobody pays for this and, as Ed pointed out, it generates zip income.
Perhaps an anonymous fund drive?
Well, I asked my dad if he would help technically, and he said if someone can provide what equipment you have running this place and an explanation/schematic of how it’s configured. He is a top noch graduate of MIT and solves quarter billion dollar problems on a daily basis. He said if someone can provide the information he will look at it and say what needs done. Maybe you guys could get a used 250 Sun server from Sun for agreeing to put their ads here. I think the bus in the current server is the problem. Every site has limited I/0 capibilities. So what kinda server do we have? Mabye we could trade it in.
Hmm, sort of like PBS on the Web… It could work, I think. If a fund drive gets going, I’d be willing to pitch in, as I mentioned once before.
DAMN Somebody always says what I was going to say. I guess that’s why my post count is so low. I hate all those me too’s. Anyway I know I’ll contribute a buck or two if needed.
Folks, we appreciate the thought, but we’ve done pretty much all the cheap hardware fixes we can think of. The next step, I gather from Jerry, would be to upgrade to some kind of industrial-strength server costing 40 grand. You’d have to pass a mighty big hat to pay for that.
40k isnt totally out of the question. You could set up a page with one of those thermometer type displays like in “Breakin 2: the Electric Boogaloo” and we could all watch as it got closer to the goal. With this many devoted members how long could it take?
I think still too long, cainxinth. Personnally, I haven’t been having too much trouble lately - when they start to time out, I’m reminded to go do something in real life
Although…I haven’t heard any news about subscription in a long while. Is that on the backburner, or still being looked at?
And these mega old threads are being bumped why?