Admin
10-18-2008, 12:00 PM
As many of you know, Car-Seat.Org was down overnight on Thursday and into Friday ( http://www.car-seat.org/showthread.php?t=61158 ). We were given notice of this maintenance downtime a couple days in advance, but it extended much longer than estimated. In that no data was lost and that our provider has been exceptional in terms of overall technical support, I am not considering a move to a new provider at this time. The speed of the forums has also been very good, excluding a couple periods attributed to a denial of service attack.
Forum activity has finally leveled off this year after a few years of exponential growth. Donations have also leveled off over the last few months, presumably due to the economy in general. Even so, there is a modest surplus of funds from subscriptions. This should help pay for the increased costs that would almost certainly be charged at a new provider for a forum of this size and activity. I plan to start looking again at competitors in case of future problems with our current provider.
For now, as a thank you to all our donors, every member with an active subscription as of yesterday had one month added to their term. If you notice an error in your subscription, please send me a PM. Thank you to all those who have donated to Car-Seat.Org or helped the forums by supporting our premier sponsors ( www.elitecarseats.com and www.couponsurfers.com ), sponsors ( http://www.car-seat.org/forumdisplay.php?f=20 ), using our Amazon.Com affiliate store ( via www.carseatcoupons.com ) and visiting our advertisers whose banners and links appear through the Google Ad network.
A few other notes:
There was a large purge of inactive accounts, generally those not used in a year and having very few posts. If your account was removed, I do apologize for the inconvenience. Please feel free to register again with the same username or a new one.
A few accounts were credited twice for subscriptions, even though the Paypal log only indicates one payment. I am still looking into this, but it appears to be related to a system hiccup on or around August 16-17th. I will send an email and/or PM to any users affected when their subscriptions are adjusted.
Finally, I do not forsee any need to increase subscription donation amounts going into next year, unless there is a significant increase in costs from our current provider, a need to move to a new provider or a large drop in subscriptions/donations.
Forum activity has finally leveled off this year after a few years of exponential growth. Donations have also leveled off over the last few months, presumably due to the economy in general. Even so, there is a modest surplus of funds from subscriptions. This should help pay for the increased costs that would almost certainly be charged at a new provider for a forum of this size and activity. I plan to start looking again at competitors in case of future problems with our current provider.
For now, as a thank you to all our donors, every member with an active subscription as of yesterday had one month added to their term. If you notice an error in your subscription, please send me a PM. Thank you to all those who have donated to Car-Seat.Org or helped the forums by supporting our premier sponsors ( www.elitecarseats.com and www.couponsurfers.com ), sponsors ( http://www.car-seat.org/forumdisplay.php?f=20 ), using our Amazon.Com affiliate store ( via www.carseatcoupons.com ) and visiting our advertisers whose banners and links appear through the Google Ad network.
A few other notes:
There was a large purge of inactive accounts, generally those not used in a year and having very few posts. If your account was removed, I do apologize for the inconvenience. Please feel free to register again with the same username or a new one.
A few accounts were credited twice for subscriptions, even though the Paypal log only indicates one payment. I am still looking into this, but it appears to be related to a system hiccup on or around August 16-17th. I will send an email and/or PM to any users affected when their subscriptions are adjusted.
Finally, I do not forsee any need to increase subscription donation amounts going into next year, unless there is a significant increase in costs from our current provider, a need to move to a new provider or a large drop in subscriptions/donations.