dj may
Well-known member
This is the attitude that has made this site successful. It seems to have been a labor of love. Turning it over to someone who will see it as a monetizing opportunity will kill the spirit, in my opinion. Of course the expenses must be paid. I would volunteer to pick up some load to the extent that I am able. Who else will volunteer?
As Bob said, it isn't just about money, though more could solve it. The site costs are not that significant — about $2000 to $2500 annually to host and maintain. The real issue is the background labor and attention required on a daily basis -- and Bob and I are tired of doing it gratis. It requires somebody(s) with forum software prowess to approve and vet new members and approve posts daily from new members until they hit 10 or so -- which is how we keep spammers to a minimum, and yet you see the ones that still make it through even with that. Then it requires somebody with web skills to manage all the site software updates and patches, and then manage malware or hack attacks that can come almost any time day or night. In short, it takes somebody being on deck pretty much 24-7. So that’s the real issue for us: we're tired of doing it and there simply isn’t enough money to outsource those tech parts…
We would be totally open to handing it over to a consortium of folks that want to take all of that on to keep GetDPI alive. We've had a few basic offers to take it over, but they would move the site to a subscription/ad model or merge it with their own existing site -- in the hopes of getting all of our members active on their forum, so they can reap the ad and subscription revenue. In short, it would become all the things we never wanted the site to be...
We love the members -- you've made GetDPI truly a unique community. But we don't see a clear path for us to gracefully depart and keep the flavor the same...