It might be my imagination, but it seems to me that this website has been bogged down lately. It takes forever to open pages. Ed

And, it is likely to get worse. The overwhelming amount of traffic we get here means that our current equipment is working at full capacity. I need a new dedicated server but simply cannot afford it. We'll have to soldier on with what we have a little longer.

..............

I am using the Firefox browser that allow me to load and browse several web pages at once. I always load this site in a tab and go to one of the other pages while it loads. I pend my time reading other other stuff while this site finishes loading.

Tom, have you though about charging a small registration fee for access to this site? It would help pay for a server....

Lou

Would $20 annual membership per member pay for a new server? I have saved thousands of dollars worth of grief due to the tips learned from this site. Ed

keep your computer clean. tempory files and defrag it often, it helps.
I have Firefox and it loads nicely.

Tom, I think you should a least take a vote on a membership charge or maybe a donation system. Time is very important to people nowdays. Maybe you could find out just how much you need for the server and post for the donation and keep an online tally of where we are at but not who donated. This site rocks but as it stands now, and knowing it will just get worse, somethings got to give. Just my 2 cents. Tom

I'd have to agree with every one that this site is slow, probably the slowest one I visit. Yes, I agree it's a busy site, but a few others I visit are at least this busy, if not more so. It can easily take at least 20-30 seconds for this site to load initially, and about the same to open a thread. And just as long to go back to the main page. And, this is with DSL!

I have never paid for access to any web site, but I would consider doing so for this one.

I'd have to agree with every one that this site is slow, probably the slowest one I visit. Yes, I agree it's a busy site, but a few others I visit are at least this busy, if not more so. It can easily take at least 20-30 seconds for this site to load initially, and about the same to open a thread. And just as long to go back to the main page. And, this is with DSL!

I have never paid for access to any web site, but I would consider doing so for this one.

Why not take a poll. Simply ask how many would be willing to pay and offer some ranges for membership - $10 - 20, 25- 35, 35-50, 50-100 per year. Find a price point that would keep the majority of those visiting now and see what the bottom line would be.

I have no idea what the sponsors pay, but maybe a small increase there wouldn't hurt either.

I feel the same as Tom Nair. This site is such an important Continuing Education Resourse for the craft. I suspect it likely that lots of users would be willing to help with funding a dedicated server. Some of the Sponsors might also be willing to contribute to the effort.

If such an approach should be considered, contributors (except for Sponsors) should be anomynous and only the total amount towards a dedicated server be made public.

While we all know there is no "membership" here, there are probably folks that think this site so worthwhile as to try to help it make progress in these more modern times.

Stan

Stan

I, for one, would like the opportuninty to return something to this site which has given SO much to all of us!!!!!!

Mike

i am speaking out of line here of course but this subject comes up quite a bit and if you do a search you'll uncover some insight. first of all, and correct me if i'm wrong, a vote is a bit out of the question. this isn't really "our site" so that's assuming some rights we don't have. it's our privilege to surf here. it's tom's web site. not to say tom isn't open to ideas, but it's his final say in the end.

using tabbed web browsers is one solution, going off and making coffee or whatever is another. another issue is coming up for me lately, my pages simply are not loading. they're stalling out and errors are encountered. with the info i've read it's just something i decide to deal with on my own end. this is still my most visited web site. maybe i'm the problem??? ;-)

seriously, you should visit my newspaper's web site. with all of the ads and underlying stuff, THAT is the slowest. this site is nothing in comparison.

eric
fresno, ca.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2005 11:34PM by eric zamora.

I've got a $100 to give for the holiday season. As much as I think that Mr. Kirkman doesn't want donations, I can't think of a better thing to give him for Christmas, Hannukah, Quanza,........ So who's in! I am. I hate slow page uploads! Later, Bryan.

PS I say forget voting, just give. It is that time of the season right!

Good evening all,
I agree with most of your comments on the value of this web site, which doesn't even mention the pleasure I get knowing that an activity that I have been involved with for 47 years is growing and people like all of you are contributing to it. However, the need to have a web site that will load faster because our lives are so busy is part of our problems. We make our lives busy and feel pressured to do an ever increasing number of activities in the same time. I wonder what would happen if we simply let something pass while we are waiting for a new window to load. I suspect none of us will have our lives affected.

Back in 2001 my high speed life came to a screeching halt. I found myself having an angioplasty and a stent placed in my circumflex (I hope the spelling is correct) after a mild heart attack. I took early retirement in Michigan and then went back to work for two more years teaching at Humboldt State University in California. Now I am fully retired and find time for riding a bike, walking, fishing, even reading, and building rods. Now I no longer spend untold hours developing web pages for my course assignments, hours grading papers, and endlessly preparing lectures and lab materials. I've slowed down, the pressure is gone, my blood pressure is back to normal (except when I find an overwrap), and my cholesterol has fallen from 213 to 141. I am happy to wait while the web page loads. Now that I have a new granddaughter, I want to stay around to teach her to cast a fly. I will find that at least as enjoyable and worthwhile as all of the students I have worked with for the last thirty years. Take some time to go fishing and not worry about the need to complete one more task.

Having said that, I would be interested in what Tom has to say about the need for another server and the cost to buy and install it. If some way can be found and enough of us are willing to help, I will help as well. As always just my opinion and the 2 cents its worth.

Mike Blomme

I don't wanna pay nothin!

For real, nothing else compares, but it's US! You and me, and everyone who has ever used a cheap brush to apply finish only to watch the bristles pull off into the coating, or tryed to work a wrap up onto the foot, again and again, 'till ya got it. Rodbuilding is a craft, old school for sure, craftsmanship and modern materials mixed, down and dirty methods to get the results acheived by machinery, and then bettering them. We, capital WE, go somewhere else, and the craft follows, the skills, the knowledge ( of which I have little) go with us. Loading slow? You gotta be kidding. I dont even think about the getting here, only the being here. And If it were somewhere else, but all of you where there, I'd be there too. Thanks, Tom. And thanks everybody for passing on what we have learned and accomplished. Time is an idea. I got time. Sincerely, Levi Sinclair Farster.

Another solution could be that half of you guys move to France, because thanks to the time gap I have no problem during the first part of my journey, the speed is OK, but things get worse when you wake up or come back home…and I would feel less alone here.

*******Only joking*****

Anyway, although I am very young on this forum I would tend to agree on a minimum fee/subscription so as to help Tom to improve his “server capacity”, I really think this website deserve such a commitment.

Frantz

I'm a frequenter on the Bass Fishing Homepage. I like the system that they've got (I like it here to, so not a compaint e-mail). I think it works well. If you're a non-subscriber, you get pop-ups out the wazoo. But for $15 a year, you get a subscription which block all pop-ups. The other part is that you can register a unique username. That's kind of fun.

Tom, I know you're committed to no pop-ups. Thank you. I also sense that you're committed to using real names on the site. That doesn't seem to be a problem for guys. What about a subscription fee for the website that just identifies subscribers in some way, ie. symbol next to their name, name in bold letters, etc. I don't know if there needs to be a penalty for non-subscribers, but maybe...

Anywho, here's another voice that supports you and the website. I'd be glad to pay an annual subscription fee for the website. I subscribe to the magazine as well. The website is just as valuable to me because I can get feedback from other builders to my specific situation.

eric said:
" first of all, and correct me if i'm wrong, a vote is a bit out of the question. this isn't really "our site" so that's assuming some rights we don't have. it's our privilege to surf here. it's tom's web site."

This is true, Tom does have the ultimate say. But without visitors like us, there wouldn't be a site worth having. Tom generously provides the resource, but without participation, it may as well not exist. Or, someone else may possibly set up a site which is more responsive. So, in a way, I believe we do have some right to at least see what the majority would like - then Tom can make his final and ultimate decision.

Maybe the word "vote" was the wrong one to use. "Survey" or "Poll" would probably have been a better choice in hindsight.

Looks like three courses of action are emerging... The status quo, a nominal "user fee", or donations. I'm comfortable with the user fee or one-time donation approach. This is a great site, certainly the "best of breed" for rodbuilding. I very much appreciate the opportunity to learn from so many others on a daily basis, and thanks to a vigilant moderator and principled users, this is one of the few places on the internet where you find comraderie and valuable information without lies, trash, politics, and spin.

There are already plenty of rod building sites that are faster to load than this one and nobody uses them. There is one that charges you a yearly membership fee and nobody uses it. This site has a combination of so many resources that I can't see anybody else starting one like it without charging some kind of fee and I think that any site that charges a fee is going to have very limited use or use only by the same few people. Just my .02 but all you have to do is look around the net and see how little use the other rod building sites get. A couple do okay but they are either georgraphical or focused on just one type of rod building mostly. This is the THE place for good rod building information of all types.

Tom does not want to charge any thing. You can see by the price of the mag, and the back issues. How many articals does he put on the net that he can charge for The CCS site !

That's just the way he is. If you want send him a check -- he will probably send it back.