Yeah, really, does it even matter? I subscribe to Trains, pretty sure they're not a non-profit. Would it make a difference if I couldn't write it off on my taxes if I donated $20 to this place? Not at all. I think the 501(c)(3) is only significant if you're donating significant amounts of cash or items of value.

Exactly, when I did contribute funds to RYPN is was help the cause, not to get a tax break. It wasn't enough money, and getting a tax break wasn't the point.

I will point out that Trainorders is still going strong, and it gets most of the steam preservation news scoops, especially out West. So Facebook has not killed the market for public forums.

The thing there is, as much as I hate facebook, I know very few train fans who are paying readers of Trainorders...

Why did I not post my proposal in the public forum?

Because I read and followed instructions, that is why. Any good lawyer should be able to do that.

The instructions as per Doug were to PM him any proposals and to ensure that the topic did not turn into a flaming war as he had on his fire proof undies.....(read all the links)

My proposal included most of the ideas already listed on this thread all the way to page two and this response.

PM Doug and share your ideas. I am most sure they will be fair about reading your ideas.

Kindly,

JohnE.

I honestly am perplexed as to why you have to be so defensive. Your approach reminds me of the 2004 Presidential election, when the loosing major party candidate announced he had policy proposals, but didn't want to give specifics, because he feared they would be attacked.

If you read Mr. Bailey's post in context, he had his asbestos underwear in case a flame war started. Also, there is nothing in his instructions that prohibit people from openly discussing options and ideas. I shared my ideas with him, and in speaking with him, I learned that there have been a number of proposals.

You, on behalf your company decided to announce that you had made a proposal. Since you were willing to announce that, I was curious what you had proposed. You are a longtime RYPN poster, I just thought we could view your perspective.

I guess we will never know.

The public posting of my proposal would insight a flaming war. We were asked not to do that. I understand that many on this page choose only to fight with me....rather than consider all views or realities as they make up their own opinions (generally against me for whatever reason.). I am sure the moderators will post something that suggests the best ideas they have in front of them. If my proposal never makes the first cut, you are right, we will never know and it will have been better that way. I guess.

Kindly,

John,

Why not just start your own bulletin board. I am sure Mike could have it up and running in a few hours.

Matt

And, we're off and running before we even get started.

Can we go back to two things: finding out what the real needs are to resource maintaining the hosting, and considering mechanisms to carry any of them out? All I see right now is a broad and conceptual idea that we could ask for donations of an undefined amount from an undefined group of people and an announcement that due to losing our host something must be done.

John has ideas he won't share because he knows sharing them will create problems. I'm assuming that someplace in there a solution to the problem lies among whatever the other things are - please tell us about just that part, Doug or John, and throw out the rest. I asked my employer who owns many megaterrabytes of data processing capabilities and sells hosting and got an unfavorable response - has anybody else tried this? Many of us have offered to send in small donations without worrying about such things as deductability - just two cups of Starbucks worth a year, probably the majority of contributors of value would also pitch in, if a defined mechanism were provided and a specific amount - probably in the $10 - $20 range - was specified. Can we try this? A suggestion that ATRRM might offer netspace instead of their failed effort to duplicate it is on the table - this has merit, it would be nice to hear from them - the facebook thing is a red herring - facebook isn't a good medium for broad discussions of depth over long times, and that's what we do best amid all the irrelevant noise (which facebook is designed to produce).

Focused specifics please - then perhaps we can find a solution.

So then why did you make it public? I'm so confused...

Meanwhile, we have a 30 day deadline, correct? Find someplace to host the forum, AS IS, at least for the short term, say 6 months or so. Put it on my server, somewhere else, lease space, whatever.

If the migration is done right, there will be a short outage and then it will be just like it is now. Once you have the short term deadline out of the way, you have time to consider the various options and proposals, and make a long term decision at your leisure.

I'll make my offer public, since it's real simple. Free hosting for 6 months on my server. Place a small link somewhere on the page, "Hosted by RailroadForums.com", no other changes, no ads, no paywall, no gotchas. 6 months would allow you plenty of time to find a long term solution, whether it be with me or someplace else.

There is one caveat, if this place gets far more traffic and uses far more bandwidth than I suspect it does, my offer is not valid. However, I don't think it's an issue, and as long as I can host it under my current allotment, it's good.

Cool. Thanks, Bob. Have we quantified the amount of bandwidth and traffic so we have a concrete specification to guide us?

I sent a PM a couple days ago asking for some specifics, but did not get a reply.

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense for them to simply migrate to a paid host and do a "pledge week". I strongly suspect this site uses minimal space and bandwidth. Do a fund raiser to get $500 for a couple of years hosting, and then put a donate button up for future donations. If 25 of us donated $20 (Not unreasonable) the place should be good for a while, and there's no worries about the free hosting going away, or that somebody has an agenda, or whatever.

BTW, I'd suggest simply asking for donations rather than going with a subscription which adds complexity and turns people away. You're not trying to make a profit, hosting is cheap and you have a core group that wants the place to survive. Get a few folks to toss some bucks in the hat and you're good to go.

No need to re-invent the RYPN wheel, Matt. It just needs a good turning, that is all. It has a few flat spots that need to be removed.