Who manages the forum?

[JPL-ACE]

I was wondering who manages the forum? Who is paying the rent? Is it MCM? I ask because I want to know how likely it will fold? It seems like a very nice forum with lots of comradery and I would like to invest my time here. Someone must be paying for the ISP and storage and upkeep. Thanks for any thoughts on this.

[Danno]

Short answer:   Gregg Hutchings.

Long answer:   Gregg Hutchings.

 

Mahalo nui loa, Gregg!

Edited May 30, 2021 by Danno

[peteski]

23 hours ago, JPL-ACE said:

It seems like a very nice forum with lots of comradery and I would like to invest my time here.

That is an interesting view.  Almost sounds like you want to to utilize the forum to record and host your legacy, or maybe that you are doing everybody a favor by leaving your "mark" here.  This forum has been around since at least 2006, so I find it interesting that anybody would question its longevity now.

Also remember that nothing on the Internet is guaranteed to exist forever, regardless of whether the service is free, or you pay for it.. For example some photo hosting sites (like Imageshack or Photobucket) change their policies and photos hosted there get lost, which makes the photos disappear from threads here, if people used those sites to host photos in their posts.

If you do like this place, you might consider sticking around and showing off your modeling, and whatever other wisdom you choose to share with us.  Many others have been doing just that for long time, and we are not sorry that we stopped in and decoded to stay.

[JPL-ACE]

Thanks for the answer Peter,

I am a relative newbie to the site (27 posts) and I would like to upload some WIP, Drawings and Finished (I have loaded 1 WIP and 1 Final). I have not built models for 50 years or so but got rear ended and need delicate work to retrain so I am taking up models again. I had a big box of leftovers and it is working out well. Because the internet is so ephemeral (as you point out) I was wondering how long it might keep the forum alive. The Magazine looks very shaky in my view (no offense meant, lots of mags are). Since this is their forum, I wondered, do they need to be financially sound to keep the servers of the forum running?

Some one mentioned Gregg is managing the forum. I guess I will ask him. Because I do like the place.

[Tom Geiger]

A valid question.  There is a pod cast done by the stamp collecting community on this subject. There are a lot of valuable studies that are recorded on the Internet and no cohesive effort to capture and preserve the data as websites go away. 

I immediately thought of this hobby and the similarities.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Tom Geiger

[JPL-ACE]

Tom,

Didnt google archive some or a lot in the past? Saved websites? No more?

[peteski]

While I have no specific info, I think a large part of the operating cost is covered by the ads displayed here. The Model Cars Mag. was on shaky ground for some years, and this forum thrived during that time. The magazine seems to have made a come back, so the prognosis seems positive.  To be honest, if the site became pay-to-play (maybe couple of bucks per month from all the active members would hopefully eliminate the need for advertising), I wouldn't mind paying.  But I have no idea how much it costs to run the side, so I might be way off base.

[Dave Ambrose]

I think I can provide an authoritative answer. 

This site is supported by ad revenue. It covers the bill, plus a little. In effect, nobody is getting paid for their work.

This site will keep going for a long time. There are backup plans in place. Gregg can obviously step in if I have a catastrophic SCUBA accident, and I have the capability of stepping in should something happen to Gregg. 

This site requires a dedicated server, so operating costs are substantial, especially when software maintenance gets factored in. We've tried to avoid the pay for play track. Part of the magazine's mission is to support the community, and a free to use forum is a key part of that mission. 

[Can-Con]

On 5/30/2021 at 10:52 PM, Tom Geiger said:

A valid question.  There is a pod cast done by the stamp collecting community on this subject. There are a lot of valuable studies that are recorded on the Internet and no cohesive effort to capture and preserve the data as websites go away. 

I immediately thought of this hobby and the similarities.

Tom, have you heard of the "Internet Archive" ? 

There's a lot of stuff saved by those people.

https://archive.org/

[peteski]

I also like the idea of being able to  donate some funds to the forum.  I suspect that some members would be willing to throw in few bucks to help with the costs of running this forum.

As for the Internet Archive (wayback machine), I'm not sure how successful it is archiving forums (or any websites that are database-based).  Have you actually checked how much of the forum's contents is there (without it pointing back to the live version)?

[Bugatti Fan]

Steve Milberry mentioned the 'Internet Archive' in his post. It would be interesting to see if the Scale Auto forum activity was archived there when that site closed, or if all the years of contributions were simply wiped out.

[thatz4u]

7 hours ago, Bugatti Fan said:

Steve Milberry mentioned the 'Internet Archive' in his post. It would be interesting to see if the Scale Auto forum activity was archived there when that site closed, or if all the years of contributions were simply wiped out.

SAE is there, I did not dig too deeply, short on time today

[Bugatti Fan]

Thanks for the feedback Al.        I will take a look see!

It really would have been a great pity it all those years of contributions to the SA forum had been wiped out.