Sat Feb 10, 2007 11:11 am
New Web Hosting Cooperative
FuitadNET, the troubled little ship that is my current web host is sinking, it will start to break up sooner than later and I need to find new hosting ASAP. Over the past week I looked at several dozen other web hosts but I consistently get the same feeling, they're like greedy little used car dealers. Problem is I can't afford a dedicated server on my own. Seems to me the best solution to this problem is setting up a non-profit web hosting cooperative with one or more dedicated servers.
Hosting prices will be set at cost and all records will be published on the main site (financial and resource usage statements). All community sites will run Google ads and/or accept donations to cover their share of the hosting. All profits will go into a community pool to invest in new hardware.
A single team of volunteer staff members will manage the hosting cooperative community (including server administration) and all other community sites (OL, game/mod forge, and others). General policy will be set by a council of webmasters, consisting of paid account holders and community site senior staff, and chaired by the server admins (myself included). Each community will essentially be a democratic-technocratic hybrid, whereby each staff member is elected based on their having general community respect and the technical competence necessary to be a staff member. Most major community decisions will be handled first by the council and then left up to a general community vote. The paying customers can have as much or as little involvement in the coop community as they see fit, but at minimum will have a equal voice in the council.
I have some more details typed up, mainly based on using The Planet for a server host, but first I want to know who might be interested in being a part of this project. Anyone who is paying for typical commercial web hosting could save some money and at the same time gain more control over their hosting arrangement.
Also, does anyone have a solid alternative to using The Planet or a dedicated server I could use at cost to jump start this project?
EDIT:
Update: The Planet is looking less and less attractive, I talked to a sales rep and posted this thread on their forums. Now I'm looking at XL Host, EZZI, and I-Web as possible alternatives.
For the coop structure, the community sites can't be expected to carry their own weight as a share of the server cost. Instead ad revenue and donations will be used to subsidize a dedicated game/TS/IRC server, provide operating cash for server upgrades, and fund advertising, anything left over will go towards covering server costs. This means higher prices and less hosting resources for people buying into the coop but its going towards a good cause. At the same time community sites will not get a full share of the server resources, so they'll all need to be as streamlined as possible.
With that in mind, MP server communities, clan/groups, and other community sites will be hosted for free in exchange from running ads (subdomain off of the main community site). Mod development communities can get free hosting or be fully incorporated into the game forge site after that site is launched.
Finally, just keep in mind it'll take a while before the coop is ready for business accounts or anything else "mission critical". Expect some minor problems for the first few months.
-MegaBurn
Lead Designer and Webmaster,
Openlancer Project
Edited by - megaburn on 2/12/2007 2:53:56 AM
Hosting prices will be set at cost and all records will be published on the main site (financial and resource usage statements). All community sites will run Google ads and/or accept donations to cover their share of the hosting. All profits will go into a community pool to invest in new hardware.
A single team of volunteer staff members will manage the hosting cooperative community (including server administration) and all other community sites (OL, game/mod forge, and others). General policy will be set by a council of webmasters, consisting of paid account holders and community site senior staff, and chaired by the server admins (myself included). Each community will essentially be a democratic-technocratic hybrid, whereby each staff member is elected based on their having general community respect and the technical competence necessary to be a staff member. Most major community decisions will be handled first by the council and then left up to a general community vote. The paying customers can have as much or as little involvement in the coop community as they see fit, but at minimum will have a equal voice in the council.
I have some more details typed up, mainly based on using The Planet for a server host, but first I want to know who might be interested in being a part of this project. Anyone who is paying for typical commercial web hosting could save some money and at the same time gain more control over their hosting arrangement.
Also, does anyone have a solid alternative to using The Planet or a dedicated server I could use at cost to jump start this project?
EDIT:
Update: The Planet is looking less and less attractive, I talked to a sales rep and posted this thread on their forums. Now I'm looking at XL Host, EZZI, and I-Web as possible alternatives.
For the coop structure, the community sites can't be expected to carry their own weight as a share of the server cost. Instead ad revenue and donations will be used to subsidize a dedicated game/TS/IRC server, provide operating cash for server upgrades, and fund advertising, anything left over will go towards covering server costs. This means higher prices and less hosting resources for people buying into the coop but its going towards a good cause. At the same time community sites will not get a full share of the server resources, so they'll all need to be as streamlined as possible.
With that in mind, MP server communities, clan/groups, and other community sites will be hosted for free in exchange from running ads (subdomain off of the main community site). Mod development communities can get free hosting or be fully incorporated into the game forge site after that site is launched.
Finally, just keep in mind it'll take a while before the coop is ready for business accounts or anything else "mission critical". Expect some minor problems for the first few months.
-MegaBurn
Lead Designer and Webmaster,
Openlancer Project
Edited by - megaburn on 2/12/2007 2:53:56 AM
. RAM and bulk transfer upgrades are the only sticking point for me, 1GB DDR2 ECC RAM upgrade for $25/mo is too much and an extra 1TB/mo for $100/mo is too much, should have smaller increments.