Spring Fundraiser and a New Server (Merged)

[jlb1705]

By the way, what in the hell is there on this site that caused this place to pop up when someone Googled "biggest scrotum"? Furthermore, Am I making this problem worse by submitting a post that has "biggest scrotum" in it twice? Who is the guy who Googled that, anyway? It wasn't "biggest goat scrotum", so we know it wasn't Tibor. Perhaps NDChump? Bret? That assclown who got booted from the Recruiting forum today? Is my post now gonna make BP show up in Tibor's future "biggest goat scrotum" searches?

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

It includes Tshirt sales-to-date...SIMV is confident he can sell the rest which should add approximately $1000

That would put us over $6,600, which would take a huge chunk out of the cost of a new server, based on what we've priced so far...

 

[jwinslow]

If you have any more questions about the t's and what happened send me a PM... what was the final cost of the server needs? I would think it would fully cover it...

 

[BuckeyeNation27]

By the way, what in the hell is there on this site that caused this place to pop up when someone Googled "biggest scrotum"? Furthermore, Am I making this problem worse by submitting a post that has "biggest scrotum" in it twice? Who is the guy who Googled that, anyway? It wasn't "biggest goat scrotum", so we know it wasn't Tibor. Perhaps NDChump? Bret? That assclown who got booted from the Recruiting forum today? Is my post now gonna make BP show up in Tibor's future "biggest goat scrotum" searches?

what are you talking about?

 

[jlb1705]

I'm talking about this, from the previous page...

Random points of interest. 10am is our busiest time of the day (at least that's true for the 19th), 8 people found us by searching Google for "college athletes should not be paid", 4 found us by "college athletes should be paid", 2 found us by "bustyournuts", 1 by "biggest scrotum" (bet they were disappointed -- let's keep it that way). The most widely used search term that directed people from Google to us? "Buckeye Planet". Good deal.

 

[BuckeyeNation27]

ah....i dont read things...........so theres that.

 

[CharlotteBuckeye62]

If we can sell the rest of the T shirts and we can get the total up to about $6600, I'll kick in another $400 or so so we can at least get the total up to $7000.

That means we all need to help Scarlet IMV sell the rest of the shirts.

I'm putting another carriot out there to see if we can make this horse run a little faster.

Any way we can make my offer a little more prominant rather than get it lost in this thread.
Like a PM to all which would include the info needed to get a TShirt?

Also, is the old server worth anything in the market place?

 

[ScarletInMyVeins]

From everything that I have read in the "Official Server Discussion" thread in the Open Discussion forum, we have enough money as it is for the server that Dryden and BMax spec'd out. Any further donations and t-shirt money would go into reserve for any problems that could arrise or for future upgrades to the server.

 

[justanotherbuck]

I see that the fundraiser is closed and I'm a little late to the party, but I figured you guys would still take the money so..............

I'm still a baby to this site, but after reading this thread and from what I've seen with content and the quality of posters(weeding out the jackasses), I feel a $50 contribution(Amazon link was very easy) is the least I can do to keep myself entertained by this well thought out site. Hopefully I can spend more time here in the future as I get more and more tired of the forums on BN's.

EDIT: I noticed the x-box logo on the top of some peoples posts, does this come from the gamers forum thread about online players here at BP? I signed up with my screen id. I just figured I'd ask this question here because somebody important might see it.

 

[CharlotteBuckeye62]

Thanks SIMV, I'll sleep better tonight.
I'll still kick in another $400 this fall when you sell the rest of them.

 

[jwinslow]

Thanks SIMV, I'll sleep better tonight.
I'll still kick in another $400 this fall when you sell the rest of them.

Thanks so much for leading by example when few were doing so. While we may not have brought in too many big payments, I know you inspired a lot of smaller ones. That in conjunction with everything else helped us reach our goal. From the sounds of it our initial total was too high and was what Dell would have charged for less of a server than we'll have.

 

[ScarletInMyVeins]

I think you've kicked in enough already.

 

[BuckeyeNation27]

I think you've kicked in enough already.

I agree. I don't know how everybody else feels but you are definately the man. charlotte should get dibs on naming the new onw.

 

[3yardsandacloud]

Many thanks to all who contributed!

From the sounds of it our initial total was too high and was what Dell would have charged for less of a server than we'll have.

A little yes and a little no on that account Bfs. Dell was a good bit higher, but they were also charging for things that we'll now be doing on our own. Dryden and BrutusMaximus have really stepped to the plate to save us some real money by offering to build the server from the basic components. They will also be doing the software installs, optimization and testing. This all comes at a price from Dell (or any of the others manufacturers). Additionally, I believe we've scaled back our RAM allocation from 8GB to 4GB. That accounts for another BIG savings. The current thinking is that 4GB will be plenty of RAM ... for now. There is just no way to tell what that need will look like once the Stats Engine comes on line. But the system we're putting together (Clarity, Dryden, BrutusMaximus) will have the needed room to expand RAM. The larger RAM chips (2GB) should also be falling in price during the interim.

So while we seem to be in good shape with the basic costs, there are still needs in the short term. I believe that all the different software components need upgrading, shipping to the host site, installation at the host site and from what I'm aware there is no service agreement in place. I'm not as familiar (as Clarity, Dryden, BrutusMaximus) with the costs and needs that are still to be addressed, but I believe that we have very little (if any) surplus ... if fact, we may still be short. All of this, of course, can be addressed by staying flexible. Just as the RAM was adjusted to 4GB instead of 8GB, I'm guessing Clarity is using the funds to best maximize our purchase and other features may need to be addressed at a later date.

I've been procrastinating on another contribution, but I think it's something I'll be sending this weekend. Clarity would like to put this project behind us and (hopefully) not be forced to have a fall fundraising drive. He knows this has been stressful on everyone and would like to give everyone a deserved break. Every little bit helps in that regard.

Additionally, I do have some autographed items that were donated to BuckeyePlanet from 2 members ... very nice stuff. The original plan was to auction/raffle them in May to finish off the fundraiser. Those plans are somewhat up in the air at the moment. Several reasons. We'd rather raffle them at the beginning of this coming football season as our traffic will be much higher. We'd like to give everyone a break from the (seemingly) constant pressure to raise money over the past month or two. Running a raffle (in May) would have just extended that pressure another month or so. Waiting will give those folks who donated for the spring a chance to save up a few bucks for a fall raffle/auction. I'm sure many of them would like to participate, but may not be able to afford it right on the heels of the Spring Drive. Of course, the only reason to consider delaying the raffle/auctin is that we (again, hopefully) can squeek by on the funds that we have currently collected for the new server.

I've rambled enough.

 

[Dryden]

So while we seem to be in good shape with the basic costs, there are still needs in the short term. I believe that all the different software components need upgrading, shipping to the host site, installation at the host site and from what I'm aware there is no service agreement in place.

I've been procrastinating on another contribution, but I think it's something I'll be sending this weekend. Clarity would like to put this project behind us and (hopefully) not be forced to have a fall fundraising drive. He knows this has been stressful on everyone and would like to give everyone a deserved break. Every little bit helps in that regard.

The bulk of the software upgrades will be free, as most everything aside from the vBulletin package itself is FOSS (Free/Open Source Software).

Where additional funds will be required is in the realm of support contracts with the hosting company in Arizona as well as routine maintenance on the server. If something in the server should fail, such as a hard drive, memory module, or power supply unit, there will need to be at least $300 in reserve, and that only covers one single item. If there were some catastrophic failure that required replacement of the motherboard and a couple of drives ... we're all of a sudden looking at a $1000 service bill for replacement parts, unless everyone is OK with BP being offline for about 30 days while we send parts back in for warranty service.

BP can't very well hold another fund raising drive after a severe problem arises, especially if there were no more BP to communicate the message through, even under the assumption that the current server which hosts BP will be relagated to being a back-up.

When all is said and done, we're all at the mercy of a computer. In building the server I've recommended as many redundant and fault-tolerant features as I could conceive, and what we're going to have in place soon is going to be a monster. However, it's still just a computer, and we should accordingly always plan for the worst.