New Sections for the forum

[shaneshac]

After joining a few forums for work and non-work related matters there are a couple of sections which I would like to see on the forum.

1. Advertising Section. Where company reps can talk about their products and push them as much as they want with no reprimand from the moderators. They wil be able to answer questions posed to them by DB members and post their funny movies of snapping fins. They will obviously be at the risk of Murat having a pop at them or any other unhappy or inquisitive member (sorry Murat but you know what I mean LOL)

2. As pezman has included in his post ; a movies section where we can upload our home movies :hmm for everyones enjoyment. (by the way is Pam Anderson a DB member?)

Please feel free to comment.

 

[Stephan Whelan]

Thanks for the input!

I'm always keen to hear ideas on new sections - the forums are really owned by you - the members - rather than the DB crew, as you are the ones who make the community.

Saying that though I do have some comments on your suggestions:

1. Advertising forums are a good idea, however they would need to be quite heavily monitored as having rival company reps on the same forum could see some unwanted fighting going on. It's a suggestion i'm willing to implement if there is enough interest.

2. Video is definately a No-No at present. Video are HUGE files generally and have a rather expensive effect on server costs. We are looking into video but realistically the only way we could implement video is by making it a "premium" service that you pay a small monthly fee for.

Let's hear everyone elses comments as well!

 

[shaneshac]

Stephan,

The advertisers forum could be set up so that if you want to advertise (you are a rep) you have to register a separate ID.
Can you set up the forum to disallow certain users from posting a message after another certain user. For example Shaneshac cannot reply to Memo on a certain thread.

This would stop a lot of slating of different company reps.

By the way did you get my PM and email?

 

[Pezman]

I'd be willing to pay to host video -- Probably about $1/month for every 10 meg of space. Each Yahoo group (e.g. EastCoastFreediverMovies) provides 20meg of file hosting for free.

BTW, the hugeness of video files, like the purported hugeness of many things, is a bit of a myth. WMV files designed for Media Player 9 are about half a meg per minute for a reasonable quality 320x240 video.

 

[Stephan Whelan]

Pezman,

The issue isn't about hard-disk-space. We have tons of it free.

The problem is bandwidth (i.e. how many times is it downloaded) - free providers such as yahoo will restrict you if you exceed bandwidth and generally hate large amounts of video. There is also a performance issue that free providers run numerous sites on one server so lots of file access in serving video will again cause them to boot you off.

We have investigated this on several occassions and the DB server is setup to stream video, the only issue we've got to solve is how to fund it.

 

[Jersey Jim]

Think just how much we could learn by watching video of the techniques of others! What a training resource. If cost is proportional to bandwidth used, it would seem fair to charge the individual a "per download" fee. It would be a shame to pay for access to videos if for months on end there was a dry spell of good video. I think the proposed video section is a great idea. Would they be viewable only, or downloadable for keeps, in order to keep the bandwidth usage to a minimum?

Great idea,

Jim

 

[Memo]

I will pay a small fee too if we could provide constant movie entry to db. And I think commercial section is a wise idea not only for companies but also for the end users to see product reviews in different aspects.

 

[shaneshac]

Sorry Stephan HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I really landed you in a deep pile of Shite!!!!!!!!

:rofl

 

[Stephan Whelan]

Hehehe - it's not a problem.

We've been playing around with the idea for a while so hearing feedback is good. However we need to sample more than 3 people who are interested to make it viable

 

[Memo]

we can always create a poll to see other opinions cant we

 

[LioKai]

How much $$ are we talking about? Video could be bumped off after about 30-45 days in an effort to keep things tidy. I'm interested, and I'm listening.
Matthew J D'Avella

 

[Murat]

Originally posted by shaneshac
After joining a few forums for work and non-work related matters there are a couple of sections which I would like to see on the forum.

1. Advertising Section. Where company reps can talk about their products and push them as much as they want with no reprimand from the moderators. They wil be able to answer questions posed to them by DB members and post their funny movies of snapping fins. They will obviously be at the risk of Murat having a pop at them or any other unhappy or inquisitive member (sorry Murat but you know what I mean LOL)

2. As pezman has included in his post ; a movies section where we can upload our home movies :hmm for everyones enjoyment. (by the way is Pam Anderson a DB member?)

Please feel free to comment.

It will be a good to hear the products from theirs designer/originator then compare with clients/actual users....
I support advertising section...

And i will keep my post friendly for sure

 

[Stephan Whelan]

Originally posted by LioKai
How much $$ are we talking about?

Well - depends on what side of the equation you're talking about.

From an end-user perspective we would look to charge around 5 USD per month or 25 USD per year to access the premium area of the site. The premium area would carry other benefits but the big one would be video.

From our perspective costs could spiral quickly. We have a streaming video server setup ready to go which would limit to 10 simultaneous connections at any one time - that way we can make sure we don't kill the server nor have too many costs. At the same time we'd look to offer video in QuickTime, Real and Windows Media formats.

 

[shaneshac]

That cost is OK!!!!!!! Especially at the current dollar rate. What else other than video do you have in mind for the Premium site?

I think streaming video is ok but are you planning on having live broadcasts of world record attempts or something???

That would be awesome and could be like a pay per view event.

If this is not the plan, then normal downloadable videos should suffice.



My $0.02

 

[Memo]

Yes $5 / month is an acceptable charge, but do we have a secure server to pay our fee online?

 

[tuomo]

25$ a year sounds very reasonable,
but would that actually cover the costs in long run?
It might be a good idea to try it out, wheter the costs could be covered with the fee.
I would pay for db video / premiere area.

tuomo

 

[LioKai]

The $$ are ok with me. Will there be an additional cost to post a video too, or is the $25 just to look? What size video are we talking about.

I need to finish this in the morning. 12:20AM here.

Matthew

 

[shaneshac]

How about a video transfer system where Premium users can download movies off other users computers?

Saves having to store them on the server!!

Would something like this work or would it use too much bandwidth?

 

[Memo]

I think you're talking about a napster like system? that's a brilliant idea but fixed cost would overcome the bandwith problem in the short term IMO

 

[Jon]

I paid more than $25 a year when I used to subscribe to the QUEST list- a list for DIR tech divers. So I certainly wouldn't mind paying a little for a premium free diving site- where everyone is a LOT friendlier!

I know that you can also alter the video resolution to make the files much smaller. You loose some of the IMAX effect, but at least you get it posted. I have done this with some of my monofin footage and emailed it to some people to critique it. It made a huge difference is my comfort level and performance- another big thanks goes out to Eric F. for that bit of help.

Jon