The Hall of Fire Webzine and its Website

[Tomcat]

Hello Everyone,

First of all I would like to say thanks to all of you for your support of the Hall of Fire Webzine. It pleases us all on the writing team that the webzine is of interest and being enjoyed. So far, our site has had 824 hits (subtracting at least 24 hits for the times I have to go to check the html in action to see if its all working right) - that is at least 400 hits per issue! As we continue this number can only grow. It actually is probably larger than what we truly show due to the bandwidth issues we have been dealing with with the release of the first two issues.

This is the point of this thread. GandalfOfBorg and I have been speaking regarding this issue and I have researched what it would take to get rid of all bandwidth challenges so that everyone can go to the site at anytime to download both current and past issues. The cost of upgrading our package (to a non-free) account is $9.95 per month ($10.50 with all applicable taxes) or $126 per year. (All money is given in US Dollars).

I have provided a Poll below that I request everyone who enjoys the to please answer so that GOB and I can determine the next step. I will be checking the results of this poll by the release date of the February issue (roughly 2/10/04) and use the information to see what our next step will be.

Thanks for your participation...

[Tomcat]

A quick note:

To have this poll be of any value to us, we will need a good cross-sampling of at least 100+ voters so please do not just read this thread and move on. Take the two seconds to give us your interests via the poll.

[JDHMorgan]

Tomcat, you missed one option. Really like the webzine (haven't been able to view the webpage), but don't have the funds to contribute. One reason I'm not complaining about the slow release schedule. Maybe in a couple of months, I might be able to manage a contribution.

[Liquidator Queeg]

Have you guys looked into a yahoo group page? You could use the "files" section of the group as an online placeholder for the e-zine. Even if you use your own pages as the magazine's online home, you could direct downloads to the yahoo group with a link.

I don't recall if you can adjust the settings to allow any visitor to download documents or if only yahoo members are allowed to download.

Might be worth considering as a temporary measure until you can sort out a long-term plan. I wouldn't recommend it as a "nice" way to get bandwidth. :-)

LQ

[GandalfOfBorg]

I do keep copies of <i>The Hall of Fire</i> on my CODA RPG Tools website, but Yahoo! Groups allow up to only 20 MB of storage space which can get limiting quite fast. On a lighter note, they just aren't as pretty as Doug's

[Grimbeorn]

I might be able to offer some space (50 mb or so, take the might as almost sure) of webspace for archiving of the older fanzines. I think 50 mb would take a while to fill. The fanzine is interesting, got a few bits that i might be submitting.

[Tomcat]

Everyone's input is highly appreciated to be sure but our chief problem right now is daily bandwidth. We would like it to be so that the page does not get shut down on the first few days of a release.

Understand that if the poll proves that there is not enough interest to create a cost, we will still use the site for both storage and news (even message boards for those that want to start conversations) - we all just may need to be a little patient during the first few days of a new issue release, that's all.

We still want to keep this game alive and we as players can bring some good content through this webzine, so keep up the submissions.

Any results from this poll will be determined in February - thanks again for all of your suggestions and if it gets down to a situation that another website can piggy back us, that will be great too.

Doug

[Dan Gurden]

Originally posted by JDHMorgan
Tomcat, you missed one option. Really like the webzine (haven't been able to view the webpage), but don't have the funds to contribute. One reason I'm not complaining about the slow release schedule. Maybe in a couple of months, I might be able to manage a contribution.

You will have to put me down for.

Not seen the webpage, seen one issue of the fanzine, but was unaware of newer editions. Would love to support you, but dont have enough funds for myself while trying to buy a house, and so am unable to.

Your options were too black/white to be accurate to my position.

[Tomcat]

The poll ends in four days.

We have had 235 views of this site - lets say 210 because I have checked it often to see the poll results. We have had 20 voters from those viewers; that is only 9.5% of the viewers.

Though most of our voters have been kind enough to offer their support for our ongoing webzine resource, we still did not kindle enough interest to answer a simple poll.

So, I will be talking to GoB, but it appears that no matter what the remaining results of the poll, it is not going to yield any great changes. From this barometer of interest, I can say that I will continue to put my time into the Hall of FIre webzine but I cannot see us putting in our money to host a greater bandwidth capacity for the site.

With this being said, please continue to read and support our webzine, but you may have to wait if the site is overwhelmed with viewers that day. Or you may simply look for the webzine at other sources, such as Valinor or here at the froum.trek-rpg.net.

Thanks for your help.