Development List for britishtennis.net

Salmon · Tennis legend

RE: Development List for britishtennis.net

steven · Tennis legend

I'd been having intermittent trouble uploading the pick 'em results and the top 25 stats yesterday and today so checked on Freewebs and found out that we had already used up nearly all of the 5 GB monthly bandwidth (which is supposed to last us until 16 September) in just 12 days.

We were therefore facing the whole site (apart from the activeboard bit) being down in a couple of days' time, so I've upgraded the account to 25 GB bandwidth (the next level) but that's now costing 100$ a year - so much for 'Free'webs.

I don't mind funding it since the amount of pleasure people seem to get from the comps that are responsible for the bandwidth usage is easily worth $100/yr and that's nothing compared to the time that goes into it, but if we're starting to pay this much to Freewebs, might it not be better if we thought about moving to a better quality hosting service before we get too close to the next renewal? I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to find something for a similar price with a lot better uptime, perhaps even an SQL database which someone could make use of sometime, and which might also in time allow new features to be added to the site more easily. Perhaps even a self-hosted forum that runs a bit faster directly on the bt.net domain, who knows.

What it would need if people were in favour is someone who knows about this kind of thing to manage a switchover (I won't have the time) - basically, they'd need to make sure it was possible to replicate and/or improve what we've already got here, bearing in mind that a very important thing about this site is that it needs to allow lots of people to work on the main pages (news, etc) co-operatively.

Anyway, just thought I'd mention the possibility now so that people can think about it well in advance of the next time I need to feed the Freewebs 'meter'!

-- Edited by steven at 02:03, 2008-08-29

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

Wow, that's good of you, Steven. PM me if you would like a contribution towards it.

Sheddie is the one who set all this up, so he is the main one who needs to be consulted on this decision. If you can find him, that is. I'm thinking he should change his username to "Scarlet Pimpernel". . .

Count Zero · Tennis legend

i had to upgarde boggo's site too, the 'free'webs arnt for much traffic really, as soon as i added vid clips to the site for me the bandwith usage shot up.

Salmon · Tennis legend

That's a lot of money! Big thanks for this, Steven.

I'd contribute if I was earning anything.

steven · Tennis legend

Don't worry, it's not about the money (£1 a week is hardly a lot to pay for a site of this quality!), except in the sense that if it's costing this much to get the site hosted on 'free'webs, then there's no real reason to stay with freewebs when there are web hosting services that offer a far better service for a similar price.

I spoke to Sheddie about this the first time the pick 'ems made us need to upgrade (in that case from 1 GB per month bandwidth to 5 GB, now from 5 GB to 25 GB) and without wanting to put words into his mouth (or even his shed!), I got the impression he'd be in favour if someone had the time to sort it out.

It really just needs someone who knows (or has time to find out) enough about these things to be able to find a better quality hosting service that would still allow us to do what we do already without losing anything (e.g. it might be necessary to use an external program, probably free, to alow things like the homepage to continue to be created as a blog like it is at the moment, or there might be a much better way to continue to do it co-operatively that we haven't thought of yet) as well as giving us the option to do more ambitious things in the future.

I'm not trying to say we should go down this route, just that we should think about it long before the Freewebs payment comes up for renewal again so we don't decide we want to change just after we've paid another $100.

-- Edited by steven at 12:22, 2008-08-29

Count Zero · Tennis legend

guys you realise there is nothing about murray betaing rafa then losing to fed on the main BT page, last article is the win over jmdp.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

i think the davis cup intro should be bumped to the main page. at the moment anyone viewing the site has to use their own inititive to click the DC link amongst all the others (even with the banner providing a hint). and you dont want to allow people to use that

Drew · Sep 16, 2008

Count Zero wrote:

i think the davis cup intro should be bumped to the main page. at the moment anyone viewing the site has to use their own inititive to click the DC link amongst all the others (even with the banner providing a hint). and you dont want to allow people to use that

Done.

janeInScotland · Social player

I came onto this thread because I didn't know where to post my query - but have read the posts on this page and am amazed that you haven't asked Andy to donate a little (peanuts to him) or LTA (peanuts to them) to help maintain the site - you guys should not be funding it yourselves. If you can't approach Andy directly may the am.com Mods can - not sure about conduits to LTA - but there are some.

(almost forgot) My query is: I typed up a post on one of the new Andy Murray threads that ended up with line length (for 6-7 lines) of about 12-20 characters. Unfortunately I lost the post (don't know how)

I haven't managed to repeat it - but may try again

The emoticons that seemed to cause the problem are:

and then the line length went to pot

steven · Tennis legend

janeInScotland wrote:
I came onto this thread because I didn't know where to post my query - but have read the posts on this page and am amazed that you haven't asked Andy to donate a little (peanuts to him) or LTA (peanuts to them) to help maintain the site - you guys should not be funding it yourselves. If you can't approach Andy directly may the am.com Mods can - not sure about conduits to LTA - but there are some.
(almost forgot) My query is: I typed up a post on one of the new Andy Murray threads that ended up with line length (for 6-7 lines) of about 12-20 characters. Unfortunately I lost the post (don't know how)
I haven't managed to repeat it - but may try again
The emoticons that seemed to cause the problem are:
and then the line length went to pot

I'm not sure I've even seen those smilies used on the site before biggrin so it may not be possible to help, but can I just check first whether you composed the problem post in:

- the Quick Reply box at the bottom of the screen

or

- in the Advanced Editor, which has the compose/edit box near the top of the screen once it is activated - it is also the default editing mode when you click Edit on a post or you click Reply or Quote on someone else's post

Re. financing - I guess Sheddie wouldn't say no if somebody offered wink but I think we quite value our independence (and hence the fact that none of us feel any obligation to do anything we don't want to do), so it would have to come without too many strings attached. LOL

As it is, I'm pretty sure the forum doesn't cost anything and the website itself (i.e. everything other than the forum) has hardly been in use for months apart from the bits I use for all the stats and for BOTB/pick 'em, and as implied in an earlier post, it's easier to fund that myself than to try and get other people to pay. Even if more stuff started to be put on the site again, it would probably only take up a fraction of the space and bandwidth that the stats and BOTB use so it would be unlikely to increase the cost.

It's always been quite tempting to move away from (not-so-Free)webs and/or Activeboard (since they are a bit rubbish at times!), but it would need someone to find the time to sort it all out and I fear most of us would probably rather spend out free 'tennis time' doing something more tennisy. wink

-- Edited by steven on Sunday 21st of August 2011 10:38:32 PM

indiana · Tennis legend

There's also the ( not particularly major ) debate that sometimes comes up about to what degree we are a site supporting British tennis players almost whatever ( with comments that remember some of them read our ramblings ) and to what degree yes, we ( well, I presume just about all of us ) certainly want them to do well, but are going to lace our remarks with occasional honest ( and indeed sometimes quite frank ) criticism.

I'm much for the latter of these, and I have very rarely seen someone go too far, and would not think players looking objectively ( no doubt, sometimes difficult ) would think we go too far.

If this site accepted the LTA's support, that maybe would make many feel more obliged to be more ( unnaturally ) positive re players and indeed the LTA itself. While not setting out to be LTA bashing, the LTA itself is probably what finds most vehement critisism here on different issues, rightly or wrongly So maybe best that we are totally independant of them.T

Similar in some ways goes re Andy. Could we still occasionally let rip ( in the nicest possible way, and still, generally in frustrated support smile ) about something related to his tennis, while accepting his pennies ? And of course, this is a much more general British tennis site and has much less focus on Andy than it once did.

-- Edited by indiana on Monday 22nd of August 2011 12:24:36 PM