Notice of my Retirement

Stephen Selby · Post by **Stephen Selby** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 1:28 am

I wanted to give all friends of ATARN notice that I shall retire from my employment in April 2011 and from that time on I shall be living on a pension.

At present, the operation of ATARN.ORG and ATARN.NET costs a total of US$280 per month. I do not anticipate being able to continue this level of subsidy after my retirement. I would also not be able to set up a system to collect membership fees on behalf of Members or to rely on voluntary donations. Given the wide geographical range of our membership, and the very different economic backgrounds of Asian archers, it would not be practical to do so.

I will therefore consider over the coming months how to pass the websites into the hands of a commercial organization or hand it over to a consortium of Members who wish to fund and operate the websites in the future.

Your proposals would be welcome. Thank for your support over the fifteen years that ATARN has been operating.

Stephen

Bede · Post by **Bede** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 7:52 am

Congratulations on surviving your employment.

I suppose there are several options depending on how the site is structured. You could relocate the hosting to a less expensive ISP and raise the finance by approaching cultural associations for grants if the site was easily moved. That depends on site architecture and what kind of database is in use.

I know in Australia that web site hosting can cost as low as AU$99 per year, but it is dependent on traffic and what other services you use. If the site is constructed on Apache and uses MySQL for the database, there will be many potential hosts at the lower end of the cost range.

temren · Post by **temren** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 10:11 am

I agree with Bede, you should be able to reduce your hosting/storage etc costs considerably. I' d be willing to lend a hand regarding web development as much as I can.

daryush · Post by **daryush** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 8:20 pm

Congrats Stephen!

There is a web host in the UK who can do stuff for less than ? 5 per month, but I'm not sure how good it is for a big website like ATARN.

I'll be willing to help out with anything I can as well

Post by **atarno** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 2:16 am

Thanks for the support.

There are website hosting services that would host a website for free. But I have been buying high capacity, security, and freedom from being blacklisted for spam or internet crime. Verio used to be in the US Southeast; but when Hurricane Katerina struck, they moved the whole operation up north.

If anyone wants to take over ATARNet and develop it (I think that transforming it into a Wiki should be a priority task), I suggest we be very careful about cost-cutting.

Stephen

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Wed Apr 07, 2010 2:42 pm

I sent a suggestion to Mr Won at WTAF that the Koreans sponsor the ATARN forum. This would seem to be a good marriage of purposes.

Comments? -j-

Orda Khan · Post by **Orda Khan** » Wed Apr 07, 2010 3:17 pm

A very good suggestion Jack.

jkekoni · Post by **jkekoni** » Wed Sep 15, 2010 10:58 am

I am a hosting a domestic bow forum
http://www.perinnejousi.fi/keskustelu
(also running phpbb2)

on a friends machine free of charge and I think I can host this forum there too, if you think that is good solution (it has 540 mebers, atarn has 590 members, which may or may not correspond to the amount of traffic). I can install there also MediaWiki (read wikipedia), but I am not intrested in taking active role in content management etc...

The machine is virtualised linux machine physically located in Finland in a hosting center. The hosting center belogs to company my friend owns. You can check if it gives ok speed to our purposes. AFAIK it has not been listen on SPAM etc lists, but you can check that yourself it you like. I think the machine has duplicated disks and there is possibility of backups.

I can host the atarn.org web pages too, but they can be edited by named persons using ssh only. No special XYZ update things. Alternatively they could be hosted anywhere else by anyone else and only the forum hosted on the mentioned site. Also I am not intrested in taking active role in editing the content, like fixing broken links etc.

I will not be serving @atarn.org email service to anyone for any purpose. This could be done by somebody else elsewhere tough.

Other:
This board is running phpbb2 . That program is usually run using Apache+modPhp+MySql (and can be runned using those regardless of what it is running NOW), but there are other possibilities as well.
The forum with messages and such can be moved as is without changes how it lucks/feels. (Downtime is off course needed.)

About myself:
I am hobbyist bower and regular reader on the forum. I am admin on domestic bower forum perinnejousi.fi running on the same software.
I am computer professional and have programmed systems like this for living in the past. I am not planning investing a great deal of my time in this, nor do I anticipate that such would be needed.

NOTE: This is not yet a promise on my behalf, but just a proposal. If you are seriously intrested in this then I can check things and then probably promise the above.)

Stephen Selby · Post by **Stephen Selby** » Sat Sep 18, 2010 1:40 pm

Thank you for the idea. Let's continue to consider it.

stiventiger · Post by **stiventiger** » Thu Dec 02, 2010 5:06 am

my personal opinion:
3 month for free rigisatrate member,then each year :5-10$ memebership
with pm contact info,website shown on profile etc,if this way can keep forum go ahead.and 5-10$ for 99.99% is just breakfast or 1 pack of cigarette cost.and memebers can learn each other and chat and make friendship also can do dealing via members.

MJuingong · Post by **MJuingong** » Sun Dec 05, 2010 8:47 pm

I can handle a membership fee of $5 to $10 a year.

But I have to have a "real" address to send it to. I don't handle my finances over the'net.

Justin Ma · Post by **Justin Ma** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 4:41 pm

Hey folks, the time is nearing. Have we settled on a game plan for transitioning the Web hosting of atarn.org and ATARNet?

jiao · Post by **jiao** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 3:11 pm

the best we can has our atarn fund, money form us , use for us ,it not need limit how much you pay or not pay anythings, did you mind you has a pool archery friend in Asia ?

if money less, we can choose cheap project, in china forums we can endure the host computer walkout once need 1-4 day for repair in one month.make cheap call made in china ,649 members is too a few heavy-laden

if money more, we can use these money do more greet, for do the research in Asia, for shere bows to pool area, for members buy cheeply bows or material .

that will be the glory which greet article at the end sign: this article use atarn member fund, or bow is donative by us

if all members agree this, let us try count how much we can donate, or some one need a hugeness money amount for some plan for the future?

whatever happens, i am sure , has no a member feel along and helpless, the glory is our team!

stiventiger · Post by **stiventiger** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 12:19 pm

I hope Mr. Stephen Selby as manager of atarn forum always.and i hope this great forum always survive without money problems,at least i learn alot from this great forum.

jkekoni · Post by **jkekoni** » Thu Feb 10, 2011 11:06 am

BTW: I am also available for moving/setting this up, on other hosting location, if wanted.