VOD out of bandwidth

[Tony]

Looks like it's down again, which is annoying as I had just typed a long response to the guy looking for a new Xantia about the pump's anti-tamper plate.

[Keef]

I don't really understand the problem. The bandwidth gets exeeded, we have a whipround, it gets sorted. Why does the whole thing happen again the following month.

I thought the whipround was to cover upgrading the bandwidth to a more suitable level on a permanent basis, not for just one month. As much as I enjoy the forum, I'm certainly not bunging in £5 every month. Or have I misunderstood something?

[mon]

Trouble being we aren't really sure on what the forum is using and what plan paddy is on, I would be surprised if the plan has actually changed.

Guess paddy needs to be a bit more open or maybe delegate administration to someone else?

I'm in agreement with max, we are all in it to save money and £5 a month is ridiculous when you think of the actual costs involved.
 

[Keef]

Also the whole idea of hosting a forum on your website is to increase traffic to your site and hopefully create more revenue through sales.

To then not provide sufficient bandwidth to the point where users have to donate to keep things going seems a bit like lending someone a free hall for a party because your going to make your money at the bar and then halfway through the party asking the guests to chip in for the electricity.

I do value the VOC and was quite happy donating to the Paddy fund on an as and when basis but as bandwidth figures of £5 - £30 per month were being banded about, I did expect it to be sorted for the long term.

Would it work if the forum part of the site was given to the members to run (maybe the mods running it day to day with Paddy having the final say) who might give us a clearer picture of what is going on.

[mon]

Yea the idea of the moderators on the forum running it would be a good idea;

Back to the cost, it seems doing a who is on the vod points to it being hosted united hosting, with plans going from £5 to £69 per month.

References:
http://www.unitedhosting.co.uk/hosting.php
http://www.unitedhosting.co.uk/resellers.php

I can't remember the amount of traffic paddy quoted on the thread last month.
I am amazed that paddy does not put the effort in the forum to drive sales? , I get the feeling its not high on his list, when maybe it should be.

[Tony]

It was 30gb a month - not very much in the grand scheme of things - certainly should be covered by whatever advertising deals he's got.  Maybe just doesn't have time to faff around finding a suitable host?

[Keef]

It was 30gb a month - not very much in the grand scheme of things - certainly should be covered by whatever advertising deals he's got.  Maybe just doesn't have time to faff around finding a suitable host?

Another use for the "hitting the nail on the head" smiley there Tony. On reflection, I don't think it is anything to do with money but Paddy has probably got higher priority stuff to be doing.

Maybe it would benefit him and us if he delegated some of these lower priority jobs to someone with more time to resolve the issues. After all, without the forum he's got just another low to medium hit site that the advertisers wouldn't normally be interested in.

[Julian]

Is it possible there are other sites or processes using bandwidth besides Paddy's bio site and the forum?