April 30, 2025 outage

[P2B]

Ditto.

Me too.

 

[pkhoury]

I nominate p2b, oilhammer, nuje, and few others. (I would support whom are the longest active members on here without being biased) I can think of others to nominate but my mind isn't in the right mode.

But right now I am working on my 2nd 2014 JSW to get her back together and fire her up and unlock the stuck rear brakes so I can move her to middle of the driveway so I can put her into service mode to replace the failed radiator (this was not expected when I parked her).

I'd suggest @burpod too, since he has a degree in computer science, but I know he's already super busy as it is. Definitely @oilhammer, who is a true asset to this forum.

 

[thechoochlyman]

I'm just glad that this site is privately owned and hosted, unlike any of the Aut0guide forums that have gone far, far downhill in the last few years. Ads everywhere, bulky interfaces, and exorbitant fees to become a vendor on the site - or just a "premium" user. I tried to subscribe as a vendor on a few Cummins diesel forums years ago, and it was hundreds of dollars. Not nearly worth it for the amount of business I do.

 

[ecala001]

I think the club could bring in small but reasonable revenue with merchandise sales. I used to order something once a year just to send Fred some cash, and a lot of TDI owners I meet aren't active on here, but would love to have a TDIclub hat, or sticker, or shirt. I'm not suggesting Fred take this on, but we have a wealth of members who might be willing to do so/help. Items could ship from both CAN and the US, which might help in shipping costs. I know there was a post a few weeks back where someone ordered some items and didn't have any acknowledgement at all, which is a concern, and can really injure club reputation/goodwill. The other thing I do is donate a few dollars when I sell something through the club classifieds. If we passed this spirit around, we would have another source to help with a budget. Lastly, I would be in favor of US$1 charge to post in the cars/items classifieds.

Love this idea! Bring in new merch to help with revenue for Fred. I know there are some sites that do direct ship to customer once we add a design then the sales goes to Fred.

For example:

Sell Shirts Online | Design & Sell T-Shirts Without Inventory | Bonfire

Sell custom shirts online for free through a Bonfire campaign. Simply design your shirt and set prices. We’ll send you the profits and ship directly to buyers.

www.bonfire.com

 

[Tuheeden]

It would also really be nice to do a reoccurring donation. Even $5 or $10 a month. It's hard to remember when the last time I donated so I would prefer autopilot!!

 

[P2B]

I don't know whether financial support is a problem, to my mind the key issue raised by the outage is resilience. I may be ill informed, but it seems the forums may be dependent on one data center and one individual.

I for one would like to understand how we might help to address potential single points of failure in order to prevent future outages. I recently retired from a career doing exactly that - ensuring high availability of global network applications - and am willing to help if I can.

 

[compu_85]

Glad the lights are back on!

 

[Judson]

I love merch as a way of also donating to the cause, but all of the above suggestions work for me as well.
While in this day and age the amount of money that goes out to all of the forums, youtube, apple, netflix, hulu, amazon and more really add up, I think ai spend as much time in these forums on aggregate and the knowledge gained is of a far higher caliber. So, a monthly recurring fee donation is justified.

 

[Judson]

I love merch as a way of also donating to the cause, but all of the above suggestions work for me as well.
While in this day and age the amount of money that goes out to all of the forums, youtube, apple, netflix, hulu, amazon and more really add up, I think ai spend as much time in these forums on aggregate and the knowledge gained is of a far higher caliber. So, a monthly recurring fee donation is justified.

 

[Nuje]

Another way to look at it: How much money has this site SAVED you, even just for your most recent issue?
If not outright dollars ("I do all my own work"), then the value of your time in getting a good answer to your question quickly, either from search results, or direct replies to your posted question.
Those other services you listed provide entertainment / distraction and cost money; whereas this site (while yes - I'll browse here while avoiding doing my taxes or whatever) keeps money in my wallet.

 

[hskrdu]

And to be clear, I wasn't suggesting the outage was either due to a lack of funds, or that increased funding would be a substitute for redundancy. Rather, I was suggesting that having a small but growing TDIClub "savings" account might help in the future when needed, either in terms of unexpected costs, or helping to put the "longevity" of our old masthead into action. (Plus I've always thought that $1 per F/S ad would reduce some of the scammers who join, cross post to CL or FBM, and tell us how rare their TDI is...)


And looking at the new posts: Holy Spamstorm! Maybe $1 to post your first time would cut down on spam!