Help is needed!

Billy,

Thanks for all that you do for us, your additional children! Donation is made...thank you for continuing to provide this site for us. I appreciate it!

Sue

Done!

Really appreciate having this site!

Sarah

Done!

Thank you!

Bill, If you don't mind, could you give us a ball park estimate of what you are spending to keep this site alive? I think it is important for folks to know. I know that you have some numbers on the donation page, but I suspect it has grown beyond that.

Also, would it be a good idea to solicit help from members who have experience in website administration to possibly seek a partnership with a medical foundation, or something similar? I am just wondering if j-pouch.org might need to branch out...

Jan

Donation made. I wish I could give more but I know every little bit helps. I don't know what my family and I would have done without this site.

Is Bill J hosting this on his own server? Is that why the expenses listed are nearly $5,000/year? The site hasn't "evolved" in looks/etc. since I joined in 2007, so upkeep of how it *looks* shouldn't be a major issue, as long as it remains the same. I appreciate the site though, and thank you for starting it. I like Jan's request for ballpark estimates. I'm not trying to be a snob about it, the only expense I'm sort of "Huh?" over is the $400 to send the host to educational seminars. Not sure that's necessary anymore, since his "voice" is quiet here... maybe $400 to send Jan?... j/k.

We could probably close the chat room too, since we haven't had a moderated chat for years. Most folks can chat through IM.

Jan

Facebook? There is one there, is it you, Bill?

Keep that at the top so when I get paid next week, I can "go there."

I've made a donation to the cause as I really appreciate all the helpful information I've come across on this site over the years. Reading what other people go through makes me realize that my problems are minor compared to what others have had to endure. Keep up the good work, Bill & thank-you!

That estimate hasn't been updated in years.
The last two months of hosting cost me over $600. That came out of my own pocket. I can't afford that.
You can change the discussion board estimate to $3000.
In the past I have tried to attend as many educational seminars, workshops, discussion panels and support groups as I could to get information for patients. I don't have time for that anymore so you can disregard that.
My biggest expense is bandwidth and disk space.
Last month we had over 3 million page-views. I try to keep as many posts on the site as I can and we went way over our disk space limit.
Unfortunately I will have to prune some posts and topics, even if I get some donations.

Yes, the 'J-Pouch Group Facebook page is mine. We could substitute that for the site if that is what you suggest. No problem.

Thanks to those who have supported the site.

Good suggestion about the chat. I will cancel the account.
Thanks!

Bill,
Let me say that I think the j-pouch forum is unique and would be greatly missed if it went away. I'm not a frequent poster, but read it quite often.
I know that web hosting has changed dramatically in the last few years. Would you be able to more the forums over to something like GoDaddy or similar provider? For $5/mo they offer unlimited bandwidth and storage. Domain could be transferred over as well. Just a thought.

Thank you for the great job you are doing!!!

That is a lot for hosting even with high traffic. I do this for a living and that price is insane. Forums are kind of oldschool though and facebook groups are more frequented so perhaps turn to social media outlets. Can market thise easily as well. That was you can have an open discussion section with rest of topics sent to FB.

Bill, if you are interested in exporting to a new discussion board, this one seems pretty affordable and not too complex for transfer? It also seems very similar to this site:

http://www.websitetoolbox.com/...iscussion_board.html

Jan

Agreed about the price. Hubby works for a university, and says those prices are kinda steep. I think there are cheaper ways to go these days, especially with all the social media outlets.

There might be a concern with switching to facebook for a lot of people. The linking between this board and my personal life would become too close for my comfort and I'm guessing a lot of others. It's also (I think) not public or searchable. I originally found this board through a web search.

What about a small member fee? I don't know the board statistics but I'd be willing to pay a nominal amount per year to keep it going. A lot of charities are going to scheduled micro donations as well but it would depend on what your member base looks like. I think for example I'm currently giving NPR $2 a month.

Jan,
Thanks for this info. I don't see an option to transfer my files and past topics and discussions over to this it. Am I missing that? I would hate to lose over 50,000 discussions and over 8000 member profiles.
Thanks again for all of your help

bluemusic4us, thanks for the GoDaddy tip.
I'll look into it. My problem now is time. I don't have any time to do all this myself. So what I will do is look into hiring someone to do this for me.
I'll keep you all posted.

vanessavy, "Forums are oldschool" exactly what I was thinking so I was shocked to see that this site is more popular than ever, now averaging around 3 million page-views per month. Go figure!
Thanks for your suggestions.

I think the benefit of a forum vs a social media site like Facebook for me is the ease of viewing posts and topics. Facebook is very linear and I don't know that you can get the grouping of topics/discussions that you do hear. I don't post much these days but I do browse still and it is easy to skim through topics and pick and choose what to read. I would be afraid of topics getting lost on FB especially with the volume of traffic we get.

Bill,

It took a little looking, but I found how you import data files on Web Toolbox. In the support section it talks about a manual data import with a maximum cost of $149, regardless of the number of data files you have. This is for those who are setting up a new discussion board. Sounds like a real deal, since they do the data transfer, not you.
http://www.websitetoolbox.com/support/99

Another thing I liked about Web Toolbox was that it was optimized for international use, with built in translators. Doesn't come upmuch, but sometimes we have non-English speakers here and we have a tough time communicating.

I haven't looked into the GoDaddy site much, but at first glance it looks more in tune with website development, blogs, that sort of thing. I didn't see discussion board as a feature. But, I may not have looked deep enough.

I agree about the ease of use of a discussion board over the FB option, unless FB can become more like the discussion board. I think the reason this has continued to be popular is because it is geared more for people looking for information, than just social interaction. Probably attracts different audiences, as many people come and go based on their need for information and advice.

Jan

The other problem with FB is that it's mining data and taking information from its users.

I agree that this site is much more valuable than FB. The other problem with FB is that either the group is public or it is private. I believe that the original j-pouch group was public and there was a complete ass on there who had to be removed and then the group went private. That doesn't help all those who need information and don't know how to be part of that group.

If GoDaddy supports discussion boards, that would be great. GoDaddy has one of the best support systems I've encountered.

I wonder if you could set up automatic monthly payments. That might be easier for some people. A small (or large!) amount each month might work for many people.

kathy

I would pay a monthly fee..This forum has helped me through a lot!!

How come the sponsors ended their patronage? One would think that the vastly increased traffic to the site would make them more eager to advertise here.

I also have no problem with instituting monthly payments for members if that's what it takes.

there are so many users on this board, that if you only asked $5 or so for an annual membership, seems like you could get it covered! i would gladly pay a small fee as this forum has been so beneficial!

Yes, clz, and it would also stop the spammers and trolls. Unless they're willing to pay repeatedly that is.

quote:

there are so many users on this board, that if you only asked $5 or so for an annual membership, seems like you could get it covered! i would gladly pay a small fee as this forum has been so beneficial!

Agreed. In fact, I was actually going to suggest this. I was a member of a special interest forum a few years ago, that was successfuly kept online by nominal user fees - $5-$10 per user per year. Most people didn't have a problem paying it.

As for Facebook, I agree that I would not prefer that type of forum. The way Facebook organizes their topics and replies, I think it would quickly get chaotic and confusing (I'm also not sure if/how a search function would work). The current message board format is much better suited to the types of discussions we have, so if we can keep this forum or something similar, it would be ideal.

Another thought just occurred to me. Perhaps to save bandwidth, we could "sticky" some of the most commonly asked questions/common topics to the top of the general discussion forum (e.g.. diet questions, pouchitis symptom questions, general surgery questions, imodium use, etc). That would help prevent the starting of multiple threads that essentially cover the same topics.

This is the best support group I've seen. It is different than FB, which is a good one, in that we can search and can remain as secret as we choose.

It is better than "Healing Well" or "Patients Like Me" to name a few. Plus PLM is run by a for profit entity.

It is nice for all of you techos to help Bill cut costs but the fact remains that he has already spent out of his own pocket over $1,200 for the past 2 months and whatever he decides to do will take time. So please those of us that can afford it contribute.

Thanks again Bill, Jan and this site.

I read about a tip on this site almost 10 years ago and I use that information every day. However you choose to go forward, I do hope this forum continues and I have sent a donation to help a bit.
Perhaps an automatic reminder each year, asking for donations, would alert people like me to help regularly.

Here's an option, maybe.

https://www.ning.com/what-is-ning/

100,000 members for $99/month

https://www.ning.com/pricing/

Ning seems expensive to me.

I have no personal interest in Website Toolbox, but the limits are very high for a low price: unlimited members, unlimited page hits, and only $19.99/month (save 35% with annual billing).

So that would be less than $240 a year with monthly billing or $156 with annual billing.

I haven't looked into too many others, but this seems like a very good deal, and good support too (especially if they will import all the data from this site).

http://www.websitetoolbox.com/support/8

Jan

had another thought if you do decide to go the route of a charge/membership kind of thing. for people really just browsing the website, getting familiar, and not asking any questions, they should still be able to do that for free. but once you want to start participating in the forums, then you would need to create an ID, and pay the nominal fee. i think maybe it's like that now (where you can read forums without an ID), but it's been so long, i can't rememeber.

Throwing my voice into the ring... Have you ever considered using Google AdSense ads rather than just the direct paid sponsors at the top? I think you mentioned those sponsors aren't actually contributing anymore so it wouldn't be necessary to add any ad space to the site at all, just replace the banner at the top with ads that actually pay. With 3MM hits per month that would generate serious revenue and defray partially or completely the cost of running the site.

I'd also like to echo the request that we please NOT switch to Facebook. There are many here who prefer to keep their "j-pouch life" separate from real life for personal or professional reasons and I am one of them. This community is invaluable and I would hate to lose access to it.

That Website Toolbox that Jan posted about seems like a really good option.

Thank you all so much for the thoughtful, KIND suggestions. I will look into all of this.
I'm sorry I haven't been able to devote much time to the site but I will definitely be making some changes.
All of my best to all of you.
Bill

Thanks Bill, for starting this site and keeping it alive all these years. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help!

Jan

Bill, please let us know if the contributions that are coming in look like they are going to be enough to keep the site open. You should not have to foot the cost for this.

Thanks

I agree about Facebook - especially if you are not a pro with it - there are certain groups of which I belong health related - it may just be me - but a few times it may have popped up - but exceptional - their pulmonary group is great - and closed - and there are a few others GI involved. And I had to join - butno matter what or where - there is a desperate need for people to talk to each other search under clon cancer and see what you fin - there is even one group; the stomamates - something else regarding Poop - nothing rude - and interesting - I was at Hopkins Monday with daughter and there is a lady who does not even have a stomach or gall bladder - the childs cancer floor is _________so I at least feel lucky