modelengine.co.uk

[the_viffer]

I'm tempted to do a poll on this one but so far resisted.

I'm coming up to the end of the hosting agreement for www.modelengine.co.uk and I'm wondering whether to carry on with it in its current form.

As it is a picture site there is quite a lot of bandwidth and disk space needed which makes it a little expensive.

I'm not asking for contributions (other than of pictures!) and I'm not prepared to put ads on the site.

I'd rather like people to say candidly whether it is a useful resource which they'd miss or not. If people genuinely are interested and find it useful then I'll probably keep it up but if you are not bothered then I may adopt Plan B.

[3405jimmy]

Well I am regretting this already, and I am sure I will miss it but if its costing you hard earned I would go for plan B

Jim

[chris vine]

I like it but then I am not paying for it!!

Thanks Chris.

[Uzzy]

I must admit the pictures are great my interest is in the technical bits like how to? and other things, could the written bit find somewhere where us mortals can still access it if you should decide to stop this site.

[houstonceng]

On a straight vote for this site or nothing - I'll take this site. It has proved useful to me and, I hope, I have been able to assist others via the medium.

On a vote between this format and the "old" Yahoo Groups - with auto E-mail to members if requested - I'd take the Yahoo version.

If you're contemplating closing it down for financial reasons, find a way of allowing payment - for example PayPal - and, so long as it's not too expensive, I'd be willing to pay an annual fee. Lets face it, with 600+ members the cost per member can't be that high - can it ?

For pity's sake, do NOT allow adverts on this site .

Andy

[the_viffer]

houstonceng said:

On a straight vote for this site or nothing - I'll take this site. It has proved useful to me and, I hope, I have been able to assist others via the medium.

On a vote between this format and the "old" Yahoo Groups - with auto E-mail to members if requested - I'd take the Yahoo version.

If you're contemplating closing it down for financial reasons, find a way of allowing payment - for example PayPal - and, so long as it's not too expensive, I'd be willing to pay an annual fee. Lets face it, with 600+ members the cost per member can't be that high - can it ?

For pity's sake, do NOT allow adverts on this site .

Andy

Andy, I think some confusion here.

You are, I think, talking about this site Andy Clarke's www.modeleng.org. Despite my postings to it I think it is great site. I don't know Andy's plans for it. I hope it will long continue.

I was talking about www.modelengine.co.uk which these days hosts pictures prinicipally of ME shows. It started off a few years ago as a potential business that was stillborn due to events some good some bad that I need not trouble you with.

Alan Stepney was looking for a place to host some pictures he'd taken and as the site and bandwidth were not being used I invited him to use them. It has grown a bit from there.

I'm coming up to the time to renew the hosting agreement and I wanted to now whether it is a useful resource. Its USP it seems to me is it is the place to see large and close-up pictures especially from shows. Sharpo's World has or had (I've not looked at it for a long time) lots of pictures but they were more scenic than of ME interest.

I've not a huge time to develop the site at the moment but in any event developing it by enhancing the text content would have me competing with Alan and Andy's site. It is competition I don't want and one I'd lose anyway without major effort and maybe even then.

On average around 40 computers are looking at the site each day. I suspect that a significant percentage of them are web 'bots. I'm not aware of many sites that link to it but most days someone gets to it via a search engine.

I will not introduce advertising and I don't think the current content could possibly support payment from viewers.

The cost isn't huge but if people really don't gain anything much from it then there seems little point in keeping it up.

On reflection I think a poll might be a good way of getting a feel for how important people regard it. Then again I think perhaps this site is UK biased and the interest in my site may well be overseas from people who can't get to the shows.

Cheers!

[chris vine]

As one of my extra curricular activities (IE not model engineering) I part run a web development company. Do you know what your capacity is and some sort of bandwidth measure and what do you pay for it? I will enquire if there is anything significantly better for you.
Send me a private email if you like.
Chris.

[the_viffer]

cvine said:

As one of my extra curricular activities (IE not model engineering) I part run a web development company. Do you know what your capacity is and some sort of bandwidth measure and what do you pay for it? I will enquire if there is anything significantly better for you.
Send me a private email if you like.
Chris.

Chris many thanks for the offer. Notionally the website is 100MB. In fact it seems to be more. Alan Stepney does all the hard work (thanks Alan) but the size of the site seems to vary even if he has not made any changes. I suspect that the site is rather bigger than 100MB. Bandwidth over the last 12 months was just under 6.5GB.

If you wanted to ping me off list with an idea of how much that would cost with you people I'd be glad to know. I can probably prostitute myself enough to include a link and a thank you!

[alanstepney]

Nah, I dont call it work, just a bit of fun.

It is mainly due to the Viffer that the photos are available, after my initial host banned me for using excessive bandwith, and he came to the rescue.

[catgate]

As a relatively infrequent visitor to this august site I have to say that I find www.modelengine.co.uk absolutely fabulous. I can well imagine the dilemma of what to do about contract renewal but I think it is a wonderful showcase (and to me a source of inspiration and interest). I always leave it thinking "I wish I could do as well as that".

[the_viffer]

Thanks to all who have responded to this. I've decided to keep the site going for another year.

I'd value photos from shows to put on the site and indeed links on other web sites. I expect we can link back to you.

I usually only get to the shows near London so if people are around Harrogate, Cabin Fever or any other show and get some photos they'd care to share please let me or Alan Stepney know (He says volunteering Alan for some more work). No fee (either way!) but plenty of glory.

What will happen after next year I don't know. There are some big changes likely to come to Viffer Heights in the mid term. I hope and believe they'll allow the continuation and growth of the site.

[paul]

I've not seen that site before but it's great! (unfortunately it also makes me realise how pathetic I am - some of those models are a bit good). Don't be an old stinge, keep it going, thousands will love you for it.

If you want to save the money why not just sign up for some free webspace - you could even link several accounts together to get the necessary space/bandwidth (if you're getting 40 unique hits per day bandwidth will not be a consideration anyway)... as you say people find you via search engines so why worry about having a .co.uk domain name?

[the_viffer]

paul said:

I've not seen that site before but it's great! (unfortunately it also makes me realise how pathetic I am - some of those models are a bit good). Don't be an old stinge, keep it going, thousands will love you for it.

If you want to save the money why not just sign up for some free webspace - you could even link several accounts together to get the necessary space/bandwidth (if you're getting 40 unique hits per day bandwidth will not be a consideration anyway)... as you say people find you via search engines so why worry about having a .co.uk domain name?

I'm glad if you enjoy the site.

An average 40 hits a day is of itself not a problem. On a busy day 200MB of files can be downloaded. As Alan found suppliers of free space don't like that much.

If you know of any one who offers free space with such big bandwidth and no adverts then please let me know.

The domain name is of minimal cost (I think GBP2.50 a year) and makes it easier for people to get to the site.

[paul]

Do you need cgi/php/sql or anything fancy?

[jbuckley]

I have been tardy in replying to your queation. The photos are great especially for those of us who are not able to get the various exhibitions. I know I am extremely thankfull to Alan and others who go to the trouble of putting the photos on the site. I have reffered the site to others so they can also enjoy the photos.
Thank you for agreeing to host the site for another 12 months.

[alanstepney]

There is a limit to the number of shows, events, exhibitions that I (or T_V) can attend, and therefore would ask anyone who does go to any of the shows to send me / us some pictures so that the site can have new material added throughout the year.

[the_viffer]

... especially ones from outside the UK or from the North of the UK (eg Harrogate someone please) as Alan lives on the English South Coast and I live in London.

[waggy]

Dear t_v,

You need to head North sometime, April is about the time the permafrost melts away! You'll only need a couple of jumpers to keep warm.
The Harrogate show is usually held around the time of year we stop eating babies and refrain from biting people from south of Watford!
The beer is bloody good and a good few bob cheaper than you will be paying in "That London".

See you there? You have my number.

Waggy.

[alanstepney]

Ahhh, but do we need top get a passport, buy a whippet, and find a cloth cap, before we are admitted?

[waggy]

Neh lad, neh. Tha'd need a couple o' bob to get past t' border guards tho'.

A'rt on't way then?

Waggy.