A rough outline of this site

[Mike]

I'm posting this because Doug and Magpiera need a very clear picture of what they are volunteering to do before they take on the commitment and because a few people have emailed me and asked what is involved in running the site. How much work and at what cost. A couple have even suggested that they run their home page for nothing and have asked why it should cost us anything.

I'll give you a run down of what's on the site.

Bulletin Board:
Powered by Infopop Ultimate Bulletin Board with extensive modifications by me. (<a href=http://www.infopop.com target=_blank>http://www.infopop.com</a>)
This software is currently leased until January. The lease option is not available after this time and the software will have to be purchased. $US199 ($AUS370)
There is a free version available but it has limited forum numbers and does not include essential features such as the ability to edit/delete posts, email notification of posts, private forums etc.
Many of the features on the current bulletin board are hacks of the original software and were included by me - private messaging, separate private forums, membership list, who's online, the chat channel, icq links, home page links etc etc. None of these are available on the purchased software and can only be included by hacking the code. If you have a look at Big Footy (<a href=http://www.bigfooty.com target=_blank>http://www.bigfooty.com</a>), who run a full registered version, you will see the bits that we have that are missing from their board. The software that compiles and sends the nightly mail from the bulletin board is also mine and is not available anywhere else to my knowledge.

The bulletin board is currently getting 4000 hits a day, the site is standing (today) at no.15 on the top100 AFL sites list, ahead of several official sites (<a href=http://www.top100.com.au/aust/sport/afl_football/index1.html target=_blank>http://www.top100.com.au/aust/sport/afl_football/index1.html</a>). All posts generated by that traffic have to be monitored - constantly. If there are problems they have to be fixed quickly and transparently. This is not a bulletin board provided and maintained by someone else (like InsideTheWeb or Ezboard), it is ours, if it breaks, we fix it.
eg. The Chick's Channel disappeared completely twice last month when the system hicupped 2 days running. To all external appearances it just reappeared after a while with one of the topics missing - no big deal. From the inside there was a great deal of work done to recover the forum. Source files for all the topics in the forum had to be identified, the topics had to be rebuilt and re-initiallised and then everything fired up. This has to be done without taking the site down - and then we copped shit for it over the missing topic - you need to have a thicker skin than mine to do this job for nothing.

Live Scoreboard
The code for this was written by me for Nick and I to use and like most code written by a programmer for his own use, is not user friendly. It works so well that it hasn't been modified since it was first written in 1997, but it has the occasional problem as regular live scoreboard users will be aware of and these have to be fixed on the fly. They don't stop the game while you do it.

Databases
All code for managing the scores database and player stats is written by us for our own use. Once again - not user friendly.

All the programs that run this site are written in perl and run through cgi . You either need access to a server or have a very understanding ISP, because you need not only to run your routines on the server, but need access to the code once it's running in order to improve and maintain the operation. Nick's site runs in excess of 30 cgi programs, most operating behind the scenes.

Regular weekly commitment.
Thursday night - update team selection as soon as it becomes available.
Game day - run the live scoreboard and chat channel for the game
After the game - Update individual player stats and scores database

There are also lots of bits and pieces that are done that in the course of a day, fixing something here, tweaking something there that also add up to a significant time input.

Just putting the time aside for a moment - other costs involved in running the site are:

Online costs - 24/7 access to the server, including ftp and telnet - cost depends on who you're dealing with
Domain registration costs - we have several magpies domains, but the main domain (magpies.org.au) cost $60 /year to register.
Domain hosting about $40 / month
Web space. This site is big - It is made up of 2500 separate files and takes up 25 mb. There are not many images on this site (something we get constant complaints about), that's because images take up space and slow the site down. The 25mb currently used by the site is 99% text. That's not much space in computer terms these days, but it's a lot of space on the internet. Internet storage of 25 mb can cost anything from $0 - $1000 per annum - depending on how you have arranged your domain hosting. That 25mb grows everytime somebody posts to one of the interactive areas of the site (bulletin board, guestbook), so you have to allow room for expansion.

This post is to help you understand what it takes to run a large dynamic site, it is not a complaint about the job - we have done it willingly and happily for 5 years and have met many wonderful people in the process. It has just grown to the point of being too big to be a hobby, and I need you to understand that it's not just a matter of swapping skippers - unless we're very lucky.

[Mike]

Spidergirl asked me in another thread when the site is to close. I realise that I haven't mentioned timing, but that wasn't deliberate, it was just that I wasn't clear in my own mind.

There is no reason why the Bulletin Board shouldn't stay up until the software expires (in January), so that gives us some time to get used to the idea and for someone to set up a replacement. The rest of the site will not be maintained or updated during that time though.

If someone wants to provide an alternative and get it going in the meantime, please do so and advertise it on this site. It's not disloyal, the community that has been established here is obviously closeknit and important to its members. The last thing I want is for the creation of a replacement to be inhibited by some false sense of loyalty.

I realise that the bulletin board is not the whole of the site, but it's the part that brings us together. This bulletin board wasn't created by Nick and I, we just provided a location and some software, you people are the bulletin board and it will work where-ever it is.

[Spidergirl]

January --->mad-ass!!! will have 2 B on my best behaviour then ay so i dont get kicked off (Girls sharpen yer nails)! ~and my aim till January => 1000 posts~

???

[nikki]

Ok, we all want this site to keep going, so why cant we just have the Bullitan board i mean that waht most of us use this board and want the mose so couldnt we just have that just the bb would that cut down some fo the costs???????? Just a thought

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GO THE MIGHTY PIES
SAV & ANTHONY LEGENDS FOREVER!!!
GO ROGAN, JOSH YOUR MY HERO..

[Broadie]

Spidey - 1000 posts!

I'm just hoping to get to 300 so I can get life membership of the BB (does this mean it will expire in Jan, though? )