Web Tech Savy: Please respond!

[12voltyV2.0]

For those who know about such things---what does it take to run a site like this and how much do you think it would cost to start, run and maintain one? What is the tech necessary to do such a thing??

[jem_is_bi]

I doubt that Warren Buffet would ask that question? I suspect that without, at least, a revenue neutral business plan, the rest of us would not be able to sustain the costs. But, to maintain a smaller scale website is relatively cheap.

[pole_smoker]

If you don't know what you're doing in regards to running and maintaining a server, website, don't know PHP/Java/HTML, or other programming languages, and don't have lots of money it's not even worth it.

You would be hypothetically pouring out a lot of money; but unless you made it into a pay site-and people paid you for features, or ran lots of ads that people would click on-you would not be bringing any revenue in at all; but you would be wasting a lot of money.

[void()]

NearlyFreeSpeech (https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/services/hosting) lists their prices for hosting. bbPress (https://bbpress.org/) appears to be fully Open Sourced, freely available to use forum software, which I fairly sure NearlFreeSpeech would support if someone were to install it there. They do support WordPress sites definitively, do not see how there would be too much more adversity in supporting bbPress. I've not looked for an Open Source and freely available chat or IRC type of web interface. Know though that if I did a cursory search, such a beast would be found in minutes. Believe there's even various Java applets which allow integration of say a channel or set of channels off of Freenode IRC servers. And Freenode IRC servers are fairly well open and free for anyone's use, just abide some common sense terms. You may need to offer volunteer 'bouncers' a little something to well, bounce out seriously undesirables. Blogs could be handled by the aforementioned WordPress.

Noting all of the above, yes, it may cost a little money. I do not think though, as some suggest, you would be hemorrhaging out gold bricks. You could feasibly charge a nominal membership fee via any number of freely available to use micro transaction sites, Dowla, Tipsy, Fiver, PennyPay. Would not suggest a high fee for membership as most of the coding and 'heavy lifting' of the back end work you can use freely, and yes this includes your own custom branding and or advert sales. You could use the nominal membership 'kitty' to pay for the site as you went. Part to your chat 'bouncers', part to the web hosting, part to maybe a graphics designer, part to maybe entry page copy writers, and yes even maybe paying writers of articles.

You may also even be able to set up campaigns. "Let's have a meet and greet in Florida. Who is there? Good, they're our contact point and treasurer for this M&G. Next Month we do Nevada. Okay, toss your nickels at So and So's tip jar to help pay for those not able to do the travel costs and party expenses." And yes, keep it local as far as paying travel. So, you'd pay for anyone in Florida to go to the bash. Next month the site pays for Nevada, and so on. And I still do not think the site itself would be a drain in the sense some seem keen to suggest. Sure, it'd take a little organizing skill, time, effort. But I think money wise the site would actually maybe turn over money, as in produce revenue. Most of your code is free, the hosting is nearly free. You'd just need to offer some greasing of a few people to help out, and I do not think it would require as much grease as others may think.

[void()]

If you don't know what you're doing in regards to running and maintaining a server, website, don't know PHP/Java/HTML, or other programming languages, and don't have lots of money it's not even worth it.

And pole, just for you the TL;DR version: I may know a fair amount of which I speak regarding setting up a site. If I lack knowledge, which is ignorance, I do know where to go to find the knowledge needed/required. I recall Henry Ford, who was educated up to third grade, used a similar fashion of being 'educated'. No, not comparing myself to him, merely illustrating a means/method by which one can have knowledge or access to it reasonably quickly.


It took me about two weeks of looking at HTML from clicking view source, to learn it well enough. I then got certified to write/code up HTML 4. Yes, at present the big rave is HTML 5 and yes I understand why. At the time I learned, HTML 3.2 which was code named Wilbur, was the 'present' standard and the W3C was preparing to recommend HTML 4 as the 'new' standard. That's why I went ahead and took the brief 'course', got certified for HTML 4. I almost went on and got certified in CSS 1 but did not as had misgivings, and obviously thoughts in error regarding CSS. *chuckles* "Oh, that's just some fad. Bah, who needs it?"

I am okay in the language of C. Not really a C programmer, still far too much to learn there. But I have a reasonable 'working' knowledge of it. I used to comprehend Ascii macro language. Don't ask, it's a very secretive arcane virus hacker's pipe dream. I learned about what is now EMC script or Javascript shortly after that, realizing it could couple with HTML, realizing Javascript is object oriented like C. I was okay with Javascript too, but again not really script kiddie either. The language which still calls me like a siren at times remains Lisp. I'm fairly decent with it, good working knowledge with a little plus mark. I have been dubbed a hacker by others using this language, not that I really feel that dubbing is warranted or merited.

I used to set up Apache servers before they were actually were Apache servers. *chuckles* To me they were just servers, old code cobbled from the CERN created http deamons. And http is Hyper Text Transfer Protocol, it's what delivers the web pages you see, the Hyper Text Mark-Up Language files. HTML, is a subset of SGML, Standard Generalized Markup Language. SGML was once a standard accepted by the government, U.S. and other governments. If I recall correctly SGML was born from troff, nroff, TeX, LaTeX, dvi (device view independent), and created as a 'formally' agreed on way to communicate electronically. Then, Adobe tossed out PDF (Portable Document Format), which drove some academics a bit wonky. Tada! One of the academics created HTML, to wiggle into SGML as a means to bring the 'Latin' to the common users. And then we got the Web draping all over the Inter-tubes.

I still check out Gopher, FTP sites at times. I get nostalgic I guess. And yeah, there are still active Gopher sites with more coming 'online' all the time. I can even fetch my local weather report from a text based gopher 'service' called Groundhog. I have set up a zenity bash script to fetch it, show it to me in a text dialog box. zenity is a nice little gui scripting language in most Linux distros. Bash is the default GNU/Linux shell, if you're using Windows and still able to use Dos or the terminal, you can think command line prompt. A bash script is kind of like a batch file in Windows/Dos. Zenity lets you use aspects of say Visual Basic without actually using Visual Basic, in my case parts of C without using C for 'real'. ;)

But nah, got no idea about all this whiz bang stuff. Kids these days, I tell ya. All they want is a sexy green command line, some hot coffee, broadband access, blurring of six to eight programming languages, hot pockets and color television. Bah, all the same rather still be in Philly. ;)


Please no inquiries for me to work as a programer/software engineer/troubleshooter on a professional level. What I do, I do as a hobby only. I am well aware of my capacities and 'making the grade' professionally is beyond them, so far. I continue learning in my hobby and will continue to do so, but only as a hobby. Professionalism would destroy my love and interest in doing it. Thanks for understanding.

*chuckles* "Yes, i am the child in the midst of the coded void. i seek to remain that child. i love dwelling in the void, it reminds me of the IS and loves me dwelling in itself."

[12voltyV2.0]

Of course Pole Smoker would have to post up a negative comment---- you do have to wonder: Does that man have any joy at all in his life??? I guess he gets his jollies from being such a sour stick in the mud!!

Gotta feel kinda sorry in a way for the Old Sod!!

He must live one miserable life and worse---he probably makes life a living hell for all those who have to live around him!!

Got to REALLY feel sorry for them!! :bounce:

[AGuyIKnow]

Of course Pole Smoker would have to post up a negative comment...
Got to wonder how many friends he really has. I tried and gave up. I no longer see his posts.

[pole_smoker]

My post is not "negative" it's truthful.


As usual 12volty and others who don't even know me, or never actually tried to get to know me post wrong assumptions about me; but that's their problem. :rolleyes:


But there are a few trolls/stalkers on this site who tend to troll/harass me since I tell it like it is.

[hudson9]

As people have said, there are plenty of off-the-shelf packages these days that can create a site like this. Ongoing costs come down to hosting, cost of which can depend on bandwidth requirements (how much traffic the site actually creates), moderators to keep an eye on things, and tech support for the inevitable glitches. But if you're not actually looking to make a lot of money, or create a lot of expensive content, I can't imagine it would be much $$. And I, for one, would be open to contributing a nominal membership fee to get the site back to something more like it used to be -- w/ free chat, etc.

[void()]

As usual 12volty and others who don't even know me, or never actually tried to get to know me post wrong assumptions about me; but that's their problem. :rolleyes:

I was responding to the idea you posited. Mainly, that creating and maintaining a site akin to this one would require vast knowledge and financing, that a site akin to this one would only be a negative investment.

I disagree with the idea you posit. There really is not much knowledge required. In fact my nine year old nephew could figure out the notion of creating, maintaining such a site akin to this. Granted my nine year old nephew is doing college level calculus and will soon be into doing trigonometry. Still, if a child can manage the knowledge aspects of creation and carrying on, don't see why an adult could not process it and form it actually create positive revenue influx.

Maybe it is simply a matter of intent? No adult wants to be bothered. With folks continually positing negative ideas regarding the site, clear to see why they may not desire to be bothered. Why dream when all others step on those dreams? So, I disagree with the negative you posted. I could not care if you were say, the Pope and posted such an idea. The idea itself was negative. I followed the site rules, disagreed with the idea, not the person. You could be Drew, or Joe Shmuck, Regis Philburn, Sally Maybell, Holly Vinito, Jessica Albi, to me it didn't matter who you were/are/will be, you as a user posted a negative idea. I disagreed with the idea.

Do not need to know you to see the idea you posted was negative. The idea was expressed here to stand on its own merit. It proved itself negative. Tether yourself to the idea as you seem doing now, really presents you negatively as well. It's an idea f**k it, ideas don't live or die, they're merely things which are neutral, not living nor dead. You expressed the idea. Okay, your part in it is done. Walk away. You did not though, you stayed to assault others who saw no merit in your idea. It should be the idea, not your idea. You chose your limitations, now live with them.

[void()]

As people have said, there are plenty of off-the-shelf packages these days that can create a site like this. Ongoing costs come down to hosting, cost of which can depend on bandwidth requirements (how much traffic the site actually creates), moderators to keep an eye on things, and tech support for the inevitable glitches. But if you're not actually looking to make a lot of money, or create a lot of expensive content, I can't imagine it would be much $$. And I, for one, would be open to contributing a nominal membership fee to get the site back to something more like it used to be -- w/ free chat, etc.

Quoting you because this is really the crux of it. In all earnest, it would not cost a lot to create or maintain. A lot of the back-end coding you can use freely as Open Source, or General Public License. The financial transaction sites are the only real major thorny issue. They prefer to not be associated with what is 'commonly deemed' pornographic, adult, mature content. If they are so associated a web master has to abide their conditions. In some degree one can be understanding of that.

Abiding the 'conditions' becomes the bane then of carrying on the site. This can be 'handled' by moderation. And yes you may need a small crew of technical 'nerds' in the background. They can help the moderators, 'we need to block this specific IP number as they are listed as a sex offender', 'need to reset a user account in the forums'. Drew has people who are adequately capable if he but asks. As far as I'm aware he never really has asked, some of us did the testing bit for the newer pay version here. We got a free month to see how the paid version compared as compensation.

In my view it was not worth paying to access the site's 'extra' features. Others see there is value to that, fine, they can pay. I do not see that my lack of paying harms the continuing of the site. It doesn't really cost much to continue it, a few dozen users can cover the costs and then some. The site could even offer paid moderators, writers, coders. Not sure it does at this point. Not sure it doesn't either. Drew seems a bit not forthcoming. Excuse me, need to go live life. :)