I wanted to give all friends of ATARN notice that I shall retire from my employment in April 2011 and from that time on I shall be living on a pension.
At present, the operation of ATARN.ORG and ATARN.NET costs a total of US$280 per month. I do not anticipate being able to continue this level of subsidy after my retirement. I would also not be able to set up a system to collect membership fees on behalf of Members or to rely on voluntary donations. Given the wide geographical range of our membership, and the very different economic backgrounds of Asian archers, it would not be practical to do so.
I will therefore consider over the coming months how to pass the websites into the hands of a commercial organization or hand it over to a consortium of Members who wish to fund and operate the websites in the future.
Your proposals would be welcome. Thank for your support over the fifteen years that ATARN has been operating.
Stephen
Bede
Congratulations on surviving your employment.
I suppose there are several options depending on how the site is structured. You could relocate the hosting to a less expensive ISP and raise the finance by approaching cultural associations for grants if the site was easily moved. That depends on site architecture and what kind of database is in use.
I know in Australia that web site hosting can cost as low as AU$99 per year, but it is dependent on traffic and what other services you use. If the site is constructed on Apache and uses MySQL for the database, there will be many potential hosts at the lower end of the cost range.
temren
I agree with Bede, you should be able to reduce your hosting/storage etc costs considerably. I' d be willing to lend a hand regarding web development as much as I can.
daryush
Congrats Stephen!
There is a web host in the UK who can do stuff for less than ? 5 per month, but I'm not sure how good it is for a big website like ATARN.
I'll be willing to help out with anything I can as well
atarno
Thanks for the support.
There are website hosting services that would host a website for free. But I have been buying high capacity, security, and freedom from being blacklisted for spam or internet crime. Verio used to be in the US Southeast; but when Hurricane Katerina struck, they moved the whole operation up north.
If anyone wants to take over ATARNet and develop it (I think that transforming it into a Wiki should be a priority task), I suggest we be very careful about cost-cutting.
Stephen
jack farrell
I sent a suggestion to Mr Won at WTAF that the Koreans sponsor the ATARN forum. This would seem to be a good marriage of purposes.
on a friends machine free of charge and I think I can host this forum there too, if you think that is good solution (it has 540 mebers, atarn has 590 members, which may or may not correspond to the amount of traffic). I can install there also MediaWiki (read wikipedia), but I am not intrested in taking active role in content management etc...
The machine is virtualised linux machine physically located in Finland in a hosting center. The hosting center belogs to company my friend owns. You can check if it gives ok speed to our purposes. AFAIK it has not been listen on SPAM etc lists, but you can check that yourself it you like. I think the machine has duplicated disks and there is possibility of backups.
I can host the atarn.org web pages too, but they can be edited by named persons using ssh only. No special XYZ update things. Alternatively they could be hosted anywhere else by anyone else and only the forum hosted on the mentioned site. Also I am not intrested in taking active role in editing the content, like fixing broken links etc.
I will not be serving @atarn.org email service to anyone for any purpose. This could be done by somebody else elsewhere tough.
Other:
This board is running phpbb2 . That program is usually run using Apache+modPhp+MySql (and can be runned using those regardless of what it is running NOW), but there are other possibilities as well.
The forum with messages and such can be moved as is without changes how it lucks/feels. (Downtime is off course needed.)
About myself:
I am hobbyist bower and regular reader on the forum. I am admin on domestic bower forum perinnejousi.fi running on the same software.
I am computer professional and have programmed systems like this for living in the past. I am not planning investing a great deal of my time in this, nor do I anticipate that such would be needed.
NOTE: This is not yet a promise on my behalf, but just a proposal. If you are seriously intrested in this then I can check things and then probably promise the above.)
Stephen Selby
Thank you for the idea. Let's continue to consider it. :)
stiventiger
my personal opinion:
3 month for free rigisatrate member,then each year :5-10$ memebership
with pm contact info,website shown on profile etc,if this way can keep forum go ahead.and 5-10$ for 99.99% is just breakfast or 1 pack of cigarette cost.and memebers can learn each other and chat and make friendship also can do dealing via members.
MJuingong
I can handle a membership fee of $5 to $10 a year.
But I have to have a "real" address to send it to. I don't handle my finances over the'net.
Justin Ma
Hey folks, the time is nearing. Have we settled on a game plan for transitioning the Web hosting of atarn.org and ATARNet?
jiao
the best we can has our atarn fund, money form us , use for us ,it not need limit how much you pay or not pay anythings, did you mind you has a pool archery friend in Asia ?
if money less, we can choose cheap project, in china forums we can endure the host computer walkout once need 1-4 day for repair in one month.make cheap call made in china ,649 members is too a few heavy-laden
if money more, we can use these money do more greet, for do the research in Asia, for shere bows to pool area, for members buy cheeply bows or material .
that will be the glory which greet article at the end sign: this article use atarn member fund, or bow is donative by us
if all members agree this, let us try count how much we can donate, or some one need a hugeness money amount for some plan for the future?
whatever happens, i am sure , has no a member feel along and helpless, the glory is our team!
stiventiger
I hope Mr. Stephen Selby as manager of atarn forum always.and i hope this great forum always survive without money problems,at least i learn alot from this great forum.
jkekoni
BTW: I am also available for moving/setting this up, on other hosting location, if wanted.
jiao
thomas said he pay less than $100/year for his website's hosting
two china bow forum can help atarn for free
also there are some free hosting
for the cheap has no any problem, sorry for my bad ideas,this is all i can do for this
Stephen Selby
Actually, I can carry on until the end of 2011, then someone else will need to take over. ATARN needs to be hosted on a good quality service which is not blocked in China.
Kviljo
Good!
Aming for a transition into a Wiki sounds like a very good idea.
stiventiger
jkekoni wrote:
BTW: I am also available for moving/setting this up, on other hosting location, if wanted.
as if many people already prepare enough for future.i should not worry any more
Stephen Selby
This is a summary of the work I do to run ATARN:
- Log on daily to ATARNet (unless work or remote travel makes it impossible to do so) and read all posts. I will edit or delete posts that are likely to cause offense (very few of these) or infringe copyright. I also edit posts that may contain words that will result in ATARN being blocked in Mainland China (also rare).
- Receive applications for ATARNet membership automatically referred by the system (two to three per week). I check each one to assess whether the applicant is likely to be a spammer and check the applicant's IP address (which is caught automatically by the system) to see whether it is from an anonymizer or has been blacklisted for spam. When in doubt, I refuse them. Each gets an email explaining the refusal and they can respond to object. Usually, I put back those with a reasonable explanation.
- Pay the hosting bills. Two separate sites at US$129.95 quarterly = US$1,039.60 per year.
- Maintain ATARN as a registered small business in Hong Kong, file tax returns and pay business profits tax (none in reality - we don't make a profit.)
- Gratefully receive donations from generous members. Maintain a business bank account for the purpose. Issue official receipts.
- Answer inquiries through email from Members or members of the public, the press and academics.
- Try and think up new things for ATARN to do. Meet ATARN members face-to-face if possible.
So taking over ATARN is not a matter of just paying the bills, nor of raising funds to help pay them. I shall be happy to keep up a lot of the work after my retirement; but I wonder if it's time for fresh ideas.
Boghadair
how can I donate? Paypal?
Stephen Selby
Thank you for asking. I have an Atarn Paypal account using the email address [email protected] .
jiao
Stephen Selby wrote:
This is a summary of the work I do to run ATARN:
- Log on daily to ATARNet (unless work or remote travel makes it impossible to do so) and read all posts. I will edit or delete posts that are likely to cause offense (very few of these) or infringe copyright. I also edit posts that may contain words that will result in ATARN being blocked in Mainland China (also rare).
- Receive applications for ATARNet membership automatically referred by the system (two to three per week). I check each one to assess whether the applicant is likely to be a spammer and check the applicant's IP address (which is caught automatically by the system) to see whether it is from an anonymizer or has been blacklisted for spam. When in doubt, I refuse them. Each gets an email explaining the refusal and they can respond to object. Usually, I put back those with a reasonable explanation.
- Pay the hosting bills. Two separate sites at US$129.95 quarterly = US$1,039.60 per year.
- Maintain ATARN as a registered small business in Hong Kong, file tax returns and pay business profits tax (none in reality - we don't make a profit.)
- Gratefully receive donations from generous members. Maintain a business bank account for the purpose. Issue official receipts.
- Answer inquiries through email from Members or members of the public, the press and academics.
- Try and think up new things for ATARN to do. Meet ATARN members face-to-face if possible.
So taking over ATARN is not a matter of just paying the bills, nor of raising funds to help pay them. I shall be happy to keep up a lot of the work after my retirement; but I wonder if it's time for fresh ideas.
i need you write these words as a chinese copy in new post on atarn also add the reason your retirement, the best you can has a bank card on in Mainland China, in china the wife control all money and most man has a bank in bureaux/arrows/computer/dog's home and he can use this for drink and eat when meeting friend :) ,so you need keep this as a secret dont say thank you to his family and not need official receipts send to his home
jkekoni
Stephen Selby wrote:
- Log on daily to ATARNet ...
Quite the same what I do in perinnejousi. I do have to worry about any goverment oppinnions tough, and I have not minded about copied images, since no owner has ever complained.
Perinnejousi has however been bombed by 1000 copies of soviet constitution by an internationally known domestic bower mostly not known about medical condition that has an effect to his personality.
- Receive applications for ATARNet membership ...
I found that most spammers do not even want to post anything. they
can just registered their http;//www.buyconteirfietV1egraAndRollex.com
domain, this link is visible and thus gets search engine ranking regardless is they get permission to post. So I have skipped me having to click them open, and just delete bad accounts when i see them.
Also prechecking is not enough to keep a troll away, since the troll can just always get a new email and ip-address.
- Pay the hosting bills. Two separate sites at US$129.95 quarterly = US$1,039.60 per year.
I can get free hosting, since a friend of mine owns a hosting business related company. With this you may not need to own a business, but just run the rest of stuff on your name.
- Answer inquiries through email from Members or members of the public, the press and academics.
I speak veryvery little chinese and I am not historian, so most of this
would be better of by someone else. Can answer to board related stuff and general bow stuff up to a point tough.
