This.
When I assign a reasonable market value to my time on OKGovTracker, I'm estimating the cost of operation to end up being around $1800/mo. The hosting will likely be around only $70/mo, but I plan on spending a large amount of my time on it, and possibly paying some people to help with it. Hopefully, it will be able to run off of donations and won't have to be littered with ads, but that depends on acceptance and adoption. But I know to keep it running for any more than through 2012, I'm going to have to find a good way to monetize it, possibly through the ability for users to create custom reports through a few clicks.
My political blog runs me around $350/mo to operate including my time.
I'd imagine that in reality, this forum runs closer to $6-7K/yr to run if a reasonable value is assigned to time.
Based on what Kelly said earlier, I'd say that we need to move to a two server or two VPS system in the same DC, one optimized to handle the DB queries with no public address, and the other optimized to handle http queries. But that requires more money, and it appears that there is not enough income from the site to cover that. A webserver can run pretty lightweight, but at DB server needs a ton of resources. It is impossible to optimize a single VPS or server to do both. You can compromise between them, but it will never be as good as dedicating it to one or the other.
Forums are very difficult to monetize even just enough to break even.
I've been having the same problem for about a week now
I think a different member status could be attributed to contributors. For example, at CarolinaSkiffOwners.com, anyone who donates to the site has the added status of 'CSO Supporter.'
The donations of these members allow CSO to use the latest version of vBulletin, create and sell site decals, etc.
ETA: PayPal sent. Thanks!
The donations of these members allow CSO to use the latest version of vBulletin, create and sell site decals, etc.
ETA: PayPal sent. Thanks!
We should pay per post. 
We should pay per post.
Did you not see that Executive Order from Obama about taxes on our posts here?
Maybe when the forum is down Kelly can have a back up page that just says:
"Go shooting."
Won't display when there's hosting issues.
