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Thread: Rule Update

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    Default Rule Update

    Austech's rules were updated today. Rule updates require members to agree with our rules.

    The primary purpose of the rule update was to remove Google Adsense rule requirements due to Austech no longer showing Google Ads. This is stated at the bottom of the rules.

    Members who have had avatars removed in the last month is regards to Adsense requirements may replace those avatars if they wish.

    There wont be any further changes to our rules until we have further looked at our legal position.

    We have added a contribution goal meter to the main page. Premium Membership is now our only source of income, so please consider this if you are a regular site user. $20 gets you a year subscription and gets Austech 20% of our absolute minimum monthly bill.




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    Well we got a pretty good response financially. Next months bill is taken care of and maybe the month after if we dont have any other costs.

    For this reason, I am disabling the meter until we really need it again. I dont want to wear out our welcome with people Thank you to those who contributed, I have updated your Premium Member status except for one person who is a staffer and made a sizeable donation. I wont mention his name , but its much appreciated.

    I may use some of the funds to do a giveaway (this was planned 2 months ago) which will benefit the site by a full membership mailout, and benefit a lucky member who scores the prize.

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    Thanks for the info.
    And thanks to all site contributors.

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    I'm pleased to hear that more people have come on board. Just a thought on the rule updates, for those of us who are OCD about reading such things. Could you please highlight changes either as bold or strikethrough whilst we are going through the revise and accept stage of the rules. It saves us the time of reading the whole document again for what is perhaps one new rule. It can then revert normal text once most of us have read and accepted such changes.

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    Quote Originally Posted by lsemmens View Post
    I'm pleased to hear that more people have come on board. Just a thought on the rule updates, for those of us who are OCD about reading such things. Could you please highlight changes either as bold or strikethrough whilst we are going through the revise and accept stage of the rules. It saves us the time of reading the whole document again for what is perhaps one new rule. It can then revert normal text once most of us have read and accepted such changes.

    The primary purpose of the rule update was to remove Google Adsense rule requirements due to Austech no longer showing Google Ads. This is stated at the bottom of the rules.
    I cant highlight changes in bold because the removed section is no longer there. In a nutshell, if you agreed to the rules last time then you wouldnt have a problem this time because it involves removal, not adding.

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    So what is the monthly or annual costs involved in keeping this forum running Andrew?

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    Did I read 4 members / month = $100 ?

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    $100.00 per month, $1200 per year ?? - seems a little expensive but I guess it really depends I suppose on what bang you get for your buck.
    As a company our servers are mostly Melbourne located and admittedly somewhat more expensive, however one of our development sites is US based, unlimited and based on our Melbourne location, really quite fast - yet still half the nominated costs of here.

    But as I said ADMIN really is the only one who knows exactly what it all costs, I only administer and monitor our work servers and whilst I'm cognisant of most of the costs I would be the first to agree there must be dozens of hidden costs.
    In hindsight I should have posted my Facebook status as: "I've blown the head gasket on my 1997 XR3i" rather than "I've just buggered a 14 year old escort".
    The police still haven't seen the funny side, my lap top's been confiscated and the wife has gone off to her mum's.

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    Quote Originally Posted by LeroyPatrol View Post
    Did I read 4 members / month = $100 ?

    Leroy
    No you read
    $20 gets you a year subscription and gets Austech 20% of our absolute minimum monthly bill.
    That would be 5 members/month = $100


    Quote Originally Posted by Seymour Butts View Post
    $100.00 per month, $1200 per year ?? - seems a little expensive but I guess it really depends I suppose on what bang you get for your buck.
    We also have to consider Admins time put into running the forum.

    I just had a quick look thru the Members list & there are well over 100(stopped counting at 115) Premium members in the current list, so I guess bare bones monthly bill is already met. However this is also a constantly changing list as some members don't renew every year.

    If you wish to check the list it's here,
    & it's easiest to count Premium membership if you sort by Reputation as I have done in the link, as there is no sorting ability for Premium members, however most of them are in the high end of Rep.
    EDIT: I did not count Mods as I am not sure they pay membership or not.

    I still think it is not much to ask $20 a year for a forum membership that we all get huge benefit from.
    I know I personally get my $$ worth in information for me; so I like to help when I can as well.

    Sure you get bugger all extra for being a Premium member, however you at least contribute to the survival of the forum - the best Tech forum around.

    I am a member of several forums & none compare to this one.

    There is also now a Contribution List.
    Not sure if the list includes Premium Membership as mine was renewed last week & doesn't show up?
    Last edited by Tiny; 01-11-14 at 04:29 PM.
    Cheers, Tiny
    "You can lead a person to knowledge, but you can't make them think? If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
    The information is out there; you just have to let it in."

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    Quote Originally Posted by Seymour Butts View Post
    $100.00 per month, $1200 per year ?? - seems a little expensive but I guess it really depends I suppose on what bang you get for your buck.
    As a company our servers are mostly Melbourne located and admittedly somewhat more expensive, however one of our development sites is US based, unlimited and based on our Melbourne location, really quite fast - yet still half the nominated costs of here.
    You would be lucky to find a quality dedicated server capable of handling forum loads for $50 a month from a reputable company. Forums with traffic dont run on shared hosting accounts due to the large amount of resources they require. Our current VPS is of very high specs including SSD's. Any site offering "unlimited" would be ringing warning bells for me.

    We dont not have an IT department, we dont have anyone apart from me. Which is why we use managed servers these days, there are endless software upgrades that we have no way of keeping up with.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tiny View Post
    I just had a quick look thru the Members list & there are well over 100(stopped counting at 115) Premium members in the current list, so I guess bare bones monthly bill is already met.
    If they all paid right now that might be the case. What we might have got paid over the last year makes no difference now. Hosting is one bill. The donate software addon that I bought costs money. Paying a professional to remove our old unsupported SEO software and make thousands of redirects without losing us traffic was another large cost. The mailer software I bought is another. Paying a professional to sort out a major problem with our addons, Vbulletin and the latest version of PHP is another. Thats just recently......and without me looking.

    Regardless, if we need money the donate bar will go up. If the minimum required amount of Premium Members renew in a month, it wont go up. But either way, thats up to me to deal with. Of course if we get any other pressing bills I might put it up. But I am not going to leave it up as people will just take it for granted.




    *I have removed the link you posted and changed access to the donator list you posted as I have already had one donator me asking that their donation not be public, which i think is fair enough. Yours isnt on there as I changed to new software which incorporates a donate bar.

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    Quote Originally Posted by admin View Post
    The donate software addon that I bought costs money
    You cant be serious Andrew? donate software is free and available through vBulletin.org, you get access to all the addons when you buy vbulletin software, someones pulling the wool over your eyes.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rick View Post
    You cant be serious Andrew? donate software is free and available through vBulletin.org, you get access to all the addons when you buy vbulletin software someones pulling the wool over your eyes.
    Really ? Who is offering uptodate free software that runs correctly on the current version of Vbulletin and the latest version of PHP ? No one.

    I have been a member of Vbulletin.org for over 10 years.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tiny View Post



    We also have to consider Admins time put into running the forum.
    Rubbish, If someone creates and runs any forum, is purely made on their own donated time, ive built 3 forums and have never once expected members to pay for my time and efforts, forums are purely built on giving people somewhere to share and to learn and more importantly a place to belong.

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    Quote Originally Posted by admin View Post
    Really ? Who is offering uptodate free software that runs correctly on the current version of Vbulletin and the latest version of PHP ? No one.

    I have been a member of Vbulletin.org for over 10 years.
    Currently running on one of my sites with no problem also Bills paypal donate software works great

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    And thats exactly what we are running, the paid version, supporting the LAST VBulletin developer thats bothering to produce addons for Vbulletin.

    Or maybe we could go with the unsupported version on there that the developer hasnt touched for a year that has an SQL injection where hackers can change the paypal payment address ?


    Lets see, which one would you prefer members ?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tiny View Post
    Sure you get bugger all extra for being a Premium member, however you at least contribute to the survival of the forum - the best Tech forum around.
    Forums don't survive because of the number of premium members or Google adsense. They survive because of the contributions by way of threads that members and non-members make. Without those contributions you would have a dead forum
    Last edited by Hillsbysa; 01-11-14 at 06:30 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tiny View Post
    No you read

    That would be 5 members/month = $100
    I was never good at math

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hillsbysa View Post
    Forums don't survive because of the number of premium members or Google adsense. They survive because of the contributions by way of threads that members and non-members make. Without those contributions you would have a dead forum
    Actually, you need both member contributions and an income.

    Not much point having members willing to contribute threads if the site doesn't exist because we can't pay the bills to host and maintain it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by mtv View Post
    Actually, you need both member contributions and an income.

    Not much point having members willing to contribute threads if the site doesn't exist because we can't pay the bills to host and maintain it.
    Really? And this is why social media is taking over, because you can create a group on say facebook at no cost or maintenance, just simply admin a odd post or member from time to time. Anyone who buys a hosting package then buys a vbulletin license then creates a forum purely do it because they want to create something and somewhere where people can engage, not whinge about who or if members should foot the bill, because lately to me it seems nearly every thread on austech is directed at taking up a premium membership, is this forum about the people or who's donating what?

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