How do you pay for this?

[sueann]

Hi, just wondering how you all pay for the forum? I'm guessing it costs something to run. Thanks.

[haleybobl]

That would be a question for Charles & Ingrid. However that's kinda like asking someone how much they make for a living so doubt you would get an answer. Might be surprised though.

I know you can get free forums. They are not set up as nicely though. There are many different companies that run them though. Tons of different options to pick from. I do know that the ones I like the most and run smoothly are powered by vBulletin. Hope some of that info helps.

[Lauren_201]

I know you can get free forums. They are not set up as nicely though. There are many different companies that run them though. Tons of different options to pick from. I do know that the ones I like the most and run smoothly are powered by vBulletin. Hope some of that info helps.

Off the subject, but I really like the forums powered by vBulletin as well. :)

[sueann]

Thanks Haley, I hope I didn't offend them. CnQ's is such a nice place to come, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't being a moocher. LOL.

[Karin]

you posed a good question though.. charles and ingrid got the forum off of freddie, and he still come's around time to time.. i do know when they have major issue's with the forum, he's there to help them out.. i don't know how much it cost's either, but am very honored that ordinary people foot the bill so we can continue to be educated and educate other's..

[AnimalsR4Me]

I have actually looked into my own board at one time or another, and while I don't remeber the exact costs, I do know that it is it not a cheap process. You could probably google it and see if you can find a rough estimate of what it would cost to run a board like this....Other wise, maybe someone will answer...
I agree with Karin, that i'm honoroed to be part of a community where ordinary people, out of the pure love for their animals, are spending extra money that they dont need to, to allow me and others to come here and learn about the animals. It's great :)

[tunes]

vBulletin is one of the safest software packages out there for forums too. pHpp, and a couple others get hacked repeatedly as we found out with Chinstation. We lost the entire forum SO many times it was just ridiculous.

I would imagine it costs a chunk of change to have this large of a forum with so much bandwidth and storage going on. Smaller forums don't cost nearly as much I'm sure, but most smaller forums don't have 4000+ members.

[sueann]

Wow! 4000+ members! That's a ton. Must be a lot of work for all of you moderators. Just like you gals, I really appreciate the forum and all the work it takes to keep it up. I have learned so much in such a short amount of time, and look forward to learning more every day. Thanks Charles and Ingrid!!!

[Gumby and Elmo]

OMG!! I didn't even know this forum had to be paid for!!! Well, thank you so much, I have learnt so much here, and its just so nice of Charles and Ingrid to be paying for it....4000+members is a lot!!! There's a chin forum in Hong Kong who is begging people to join, I joined yesterday, but I'm not very popular there, cause i can't type Chinese, and I keep on telling people off for using the wrong stuff!!! It makes me so angry, my hubby tells me to stop reading that forum cause I chucking fits in front of the computer..... okay, just so you can get a feel of one of the thread, it asked whether you can feed your chin Nutrical when they're doing soft poops? The answers were yes, because Nutrical is like vitamins for chins, they need it....
So there I am typing in my response: "NO NO NO!!!! " I yapped on for quite awhile actually... Some members were educated enough to tell the person to take their chin to a vet and give wheaties, but the majority is like...yeah, you can keep going, they're doing soft poos cause they don't have enough nutrients, so give them nutrical....."
So the question is, should I go back to that forum???

[alpayton]

The main costs associated with forums are the startup costs, and then of course any technical support fees. If you have paid staff, that of course would be an issue, but here, the staff is not paid, we are all volunteers. Storage is something that has to be considered with a site that is as large as CnQ - but there are many other forums (non-chinchilla) that are larger - and comes at a fairly high rate.