Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Roark" <paul.roark@v...> 
wrote:
> What costs are involved in what you guys seem to see as the solution?
> 
> For the past archives, if the major contributors submit their archives, is
> there a problem?  Could those be sorted and searched?
> 
> Paul
> www.PaulRoark.com 

The costs involved with that I suggested would be for the domain name and web hosting.  
Domain names can be purchased for less than $15 a year, and web hosting can be 
purchased for less than $15 a month.

Though I suggested it (it was really just a top-of-the-brain idea), I do have significant 
concerns with going this route: it would rely upon only one or two individuals for keeping 
the forum in existence, which would pose too much of a risk (IMO) of something 
happening that could shut the forum down (e.g. the "owner" doesn't pay the bills and 
service gets cut off, or the "owner" dies or otherwise is unable to continue to manage the 
domain name and web hosting service).

I think there are two better alternatives:

1) find a company that is willing to host the forum on their servers.

2) find another service, similar to Yahoo!, that hosts free forums and move there.

I personally like option 2, since it avoids having the forum tied to an individual and avoids 
potential freedom of speech issues with having a company host it.  How long would 
company XYZ tolerate us talking bad about a product they make or provide glowing 
reviews of their competitor's products?  Obviously, this is only an issue if company XYZ is 
realted to digital B&W printing, and I see little reason for any other types of companies 
wanting to host a forum not related to their business (I could be wrong).

Also, how would we manage the money issue?  Free forums avoid that altogether, but we 
would most likely have to put up with advertising.

And just to get it out of the way, the university I work at has policies against hosting web 
sites for outside interests.  We tried in the past, but the experience wasn't positive, so we 
put an end to it.

-Steve