Polverone - 4-4-2003 at 10:56
I have been contacting Bravidio (the company hosting sciencemadness) over the past month, reminding them that I need to renew my hosting agreement and
my domain name soon (the domain name expires on the 8th or 9th of April). Each time so far they have responded "oh, yes, we'll attend to
that" and each time they have failed to do anything. This is very frustrating, especially since Bravidio was such a helpful and responsive
company when I signed up a year ago.
If the domain name is not renewed in time, sciencemadness.org may disappear from the web until I can find an alternate host and register the domain
again - assuming it isn't snatched away from me. I am going to try to back up the forum database and other sciencemadness stuff today. Wish me
luck with getting these bozos to respond.
Rhadon - 4-4-2003 at 11:07
Whooooooouuuu!! What an awful surprise, I'd miss this site so much! What can I say... if there is anything I can do to help you, just tell me.
Good luck!
BASF - 4-4-2003 at 11:21
All the best Polverone!........i´m praying this forum will not get the victim of bravidio´s obvious ignorance.
This forum means so much to me, especially since it was the only one attempting to fill the empty space between sheer pyromania and professional
chemistry so far.
well, there is something...
Polverone - 4-4-2003 at 11:27
If Bravidio drops the ball and I have to switch, I'd like to go with http://www.johncompanies.com. I have heard very good things about them. They would allow me root access on a FreeBSD or Linux machine, plus 2 GB
of disk storage, 40 GB transfer per month, and a large number of sub-domains.
The problem: it would cost 65 or 75 dollars per month, which is beyond what I can afford out of my own pocket.
The (possible) solution: if there are enough sciencemadness users who would be willing to pay a little bit each month for hosting in exchange for
their own webspace, the scheme becomes much more affordable.
If there are 13-14 people out there who would be willing and able to pay $5 per month for 100 MB of web space and 2 GB of bandwidth, sciencemadness
would be financially self-sustaining.
Contributors would get their own web space at either YourName.sciencemadness.org or sciencemadness.org/~YourName/, depending on what you desired and
how easily I could set things up. Since I would have root access on the machine, there wouldn't be any problem with me creating additional user
accounts.
Obviously, if somebody wanted (say) 200 MB of disk space and 4 GB transfer, that could be supplied for $10 per month and so on, up until the point
where sciencemadness.org itself is getting pressured for disk/bandwidth.
These prices I'm thinking of are really excellent. Believe me, I've looked at what hosting costs on different sites many times. It is very
difficult to find good hosting at the lower end of bandwidth/disk needs for only $5 a month. And you would have the cachet of having your personal
site associated with sciencemadness 
.
If people wanted to work among themselves to obtain shared space - say Moonmonster and Organikum each needed only 50 megabytes of space - they could
work out a private deal where they get one account on sciencemadness and still pay only $5 a month. But I personally am not going to dice things any
finer than into $5 increments, because the bookkeeping overhead becomes too much trouble beyond that point.
Also, I don't want to have to remind everyone to pay each month, so I think that the minimum hosting time I would accept orders for would be 4
months. I.E. $20 up front would be the required minimum, and that would cover the first 4 months of hosting.
I am well-aware that sciencemadness attracts people from many different geographical regions, and I don't know how easy it would be to make
payments across national borders, or how wary people would be of making such payments. But it's an idea, anyway, if Bravidio drops the ball.
DeusExMachina - 4-4-2003 at 11:29
oi.. I don't know what will happen if this place goes... I have no where else to go. Why don't you just backup the forums and then cancel
your thing with this ocmpany and then register with a new site hosting company right away? I'm you and madscientist can pull that off quickly.
NERV - 4-4-2003 at 12:51
Well if it comes to having to switch the host, I am very willing you pay 5 bucks a month for some space.
Organikum - 4-4-2003 at 13:26
It would be enjoyable and honorable for me to contribute to the existance of the board in this way. 
PM´d you Polverone.
ORG
well...
Polverone - 4-4-2003 at 13:35
Between Organikum and NERV, that's 6 slots (totalling $30 per month) already verbally committed. If there are at least 5 more people out there
who would like some inexpensive web space, that would bring us up to $60/month. If I can get that level of commitment I will drop Bravidio and go with
johncompanies, since at that point I am personally paying only $15 per month.
But don't volunteer to contribute money in exchange for web space unless you really mean it. The continued existence of sciencemadness in such a
scenario would depend on the reliable and timely payments of its members.
Oh, and I can't allow anything illegal to show up on public web space. I won't pry into password-protected areas unless it becomes a
problem.
BASF - 4-4-2003 at 14:38
I am prepared to contribute to the existance of the forum, if there is no other way, too....and i mean it
Since sciencemadness is really a singularity in its special way, it would be worth the 5$/month.
As you said, there would be only the difficulty of transferring the money........i´m confident that other members would also be willing to contribute
financially.
HLR
Beanspike - 4-4-2003 at 16:08
Alas!
Right now I am not so gainfully unemployed otherwise i could be glad to help out in any i can. Remeber, there would not be much left for us if
this one went down... im sure the death of rogue science left us all teary eyed.....
tangent - 4-4-2003 at 16:48
put me down for $5 worth of space.
-t
Darkfire - 4-4-2003 at 18:11
I wouldnt really be willing to pay money every month because i dont have any income, but id be willing to make some one time payment when ever some
money roles around with really nothing but my existence on the board in return.
CTR
Haggis - 4-4-2003 at 19:20
Yea, I would be willing to make a 'donation' whenever I have the funds, but I couldn't come up with a monthly or even 6 monthly fee.
Perhaps there should be a 'suggested donation'. This way people get to access it, but it isn't a huge sum of money. Perhaps those
users who pay get a different 'status' than the non paying users. Something special avatar wise (no need for anything personalized, a
simple graphic would work) to signify that yes, this person cares about Science Madness and shows it in monetary form. There could be a Paypal
account set up for those overseas. I would personally want to mail my donation in, however.
DeusExMachina - 5-4-2003 at 20:06
well, I wouldn't be able to pay but I can help out with graphics or I can help make a front page. If there is any other way I can help without
money, I'd be glas to do it.
Eliteforum - 6-4-2003 at 03:30
If push comes to shove, I can always host Science Madness. I'm running Windows 2000 Professional. So running a server/HTTP is no problem.
[Edited on 6-4-2003 by Eliteforum]
DeusExMachina - 6-4-2003 at 13:18
well, even without asking polverone or madscientist, I tried out a layout
http://kewlerthanyou.freehosting.net/pics2/Site%20Layout%20f...
I am not done yet and I am just fooling around. If anyone has suggestions for this, I'd be glad to hear them.
update
Polverone - 7-4-2003 at 10:17
It looks like - at long last - Bravidio is responding. We'll see if they truly follow through, though. Part of the delay is that they are
switching to a registrar that would allow users direct control of their domain names, rather than domains being handled through Bravidio, which will
be nice.
I know that there are some people here who were interested in purchasing web space mainly to keep sciencemadness funded and operating; others were
genuinely interested in the low-cost hosting that might be available under the domain of sciencemadness. If people are still interested in purchasing
space, please contact me once more to confirm. I will however need a minimum of 15 slots (each for 100 MB space and 2 GB bandwidth per month) filled
to consider pursuing this plan, since if Bravidio delivers (which it looks like they may) the second area from johncompanies.com would be used
entirely for member space and miscellaneous tasks unrelated to the continued operation of the forum.
I would use it for a full-blown Library, for example, hosting the material that currently appears (and will appear) at http://bcis.pacificu.edu/~polverone. I could also set up a sort of "drop box" account where people could put images or other relatively
small files they wished to share with the world, without needing an individual account. It would need supervision to prevent abuse, of course. Those
are some of the ideas I've had. I think it would be great to have member space available to whoever wants it, but let me repeat myself:
don't sign up out of pity or charity. Your signing up won't benefit me. Do it only if you have some stuff you'd like to put online in
an inexpensive manner.
tangent - 22-4-2003 at 19:05
I'm still interested in a slot or two.
thanks,
-t