What do you think?

[buffalo_bill]

Ready to contribute, for example 40 USD/year which would require another 9 combatantes. Did I get the math right Mekong?

[Coss]

Because I'm the plonker who started this thread, I thought maybe we'd better have a time frame for this collection of thoughts. 

On the one hand we need time to collect all, from the members, on the other hand if someone has not posted in a year, do we wait?

I propose that after a week, I'll do a summation and a poll and then report to your good selves.

[Redbaron]

Keeping an eye with much interest - hoping should this place go the way of the dodo we can find somewhere else to catch up / talk shit / whatever. There are a few other similar places that seem quite active so surely the market is there. Having said that people like us tend to enjoy the comfort of the place they are currently sitting rather than somewhere new. amright? 

[buffalo_bill]

2 hours ago, Redbaron said:

Keeping an eye with much interest - hoping should this place go the way of the dodo we can find somewhere else to catch up / talk shit / whatever. There are a few other similar places that seem quite active so surely the market is there. Having said that people like us tend to enjoy the comfort of the place they are currently sitting rather than somewhere new. amright? 

We are too old to adjust to unknown territories

[Mekong]

On 7/2/2024 at 1:48 AM, buffalo_bill said:

Ready to contribute, for example 40 USD/year which would require another 9 combatantes. Did I get the math right Mekong?

Why you asking me about your calculations, can’t you use a calculator?

[jigger]

I see no reason to hide my activity here.  When KS and I started this site on a lark sometime in the 1990's, he lived here and I was living in Hong Kong and visiting Thailand whenever I could.  He enjoyed being the official voice of the site and I stayed in the background.  Now both the site and I are US-based, so the privacy concerns are reduced.

We started out an early social network called Delphi, then a free bulletin board system called IPBoard running on a server on Soi 23.  IPBoard morphed somewhere along the line into a for-profit  product called Invision Community.  They charge $80 for support and maintenance, which isn't too bad. It costs about $25/mo for the current setup in AWS, but I have plans to move it to a cheaper and simpler hosting solution shortly.  So the cost isn't a big issue.

Ever the optimist, I feel like there is a viable niche for info sharing and camaraderie among farang visitors (and locals, and alumnae) to the Thai entertainment scene.  I see a lot of "guest" users browsing, and a lot of search-engine queries looking for things we have online.  But to convert any of those browsers into members will require, at the least, some updated content. 

For some time now, the centrally-controlled advertising-rich social networks like Facebook, Twitter, etc., have been stealing all the activity and eyeballs- but that industry has peaked.  People are tired of being pawns in various billionaire's games.  So this may leave a little room for grassroots efforts like ours going forward.

Jigger

[Mekong]

Jigger

Coss and I have been bouncing around a couple of ideas, one of which being the hosting. Given the traffic this site gets do we really require dedicated hosting or would the cheaper shared hosting route be considered as an alternative.

AFiK shared hosting allows for up to 40,000 visits per month and at present we are less than 10% of that. Only worth considering if the whole board content can be migrated onto a new server since most guest visits are for the archives.

Note for Bubi & Others 

My good sir, , do not worry about this change, for the user the change would be invisible and seamless, the board would operate identical to how it does now. Think of it like changing your Electricity Supplier from Vattenfall to E.ON or RWE, the bill payer (in the boards case Jigger) pays a different company but the user at home still plugs into same sockets and the devices all work the same 

[Coss]

 a "niche for info sharing and camaraderie among farang visitors (and locals, and alumnae) to the Thai entertainment scene. "

Best descriptor I've seen, thanks Jigger.

[jigger]

I will be running an experimental migration of the site to a "shared hosting" account sometime soon.  Back when the site was busier, we had problems with running out of memory- so I'll have to see how it goes.

[Old Hippie]

Overall, how are the rest of the thailand nightlife boards going these days? See remember Bangkok nights Baron bong Bangkok tonight and a few others… I don’t know if any of them are even still around anymore. The same goes for the dedicated Pattaya boards. Either way I’m willing to kick in a few bucks to keep it all going. Who knows there may even be a resurgence at some point.