May 6th 2003 - We're back on a New Server

The Saga (skip down to the paragraph that begins with "ANNOUCEMENT" if you don't want to read the background to the recent drama Caudata.org's been through):

I know other Caudata enthusiasts have it hard some times (sorry about the fire Brian S.!), but picture this...

I'm one week into my two week holiday in the USA visiting my girlfriend - I live in the UK for those of you that don't know, though I'm from Ireland. Things are going fine and then the Caudata.org ISP emails to tell me she's disconnected the forums without warning because they're using too much CPU power, space and bandwidth (i.e. they were too popular). She wasn't prepared to let them continue on the account, but strangely she had waited until I renewed the Caudata.org subscription again before dropping this bombshell on me - I wonder if I'll get a refund.... doubt it some how.

So after sheer ignorance from the ISP and lack of help - they didn't even reply once, thank you Joshua Internet for nothing - I, still on holiday in the USA, went looking for a new ISP. After some careful consideration I found one with everything I wanted and more. And just when I was wondering where I would get the money to pay for it, I happened to check my paypal account and - much to my surprise - there was just a couple of US dollars more than the price of the hosting in it.

What had happened? After posting the details of the original problem on the site, some Caudata.org users had seen my appeal for donations (I honestly wasn't expecting any) and they sent them. Just over US $170 of them in fact (our hosting now costs US $164 annually).

So thank you from me (and I'm sure everyone else who uses the site) to: Raphael Desreumaux, Chris McCarty, Ralf Reinartz, <name deleted for privacy reasons at the request of the person in question>, Chris Mattison and Morg. The site <u>would</u> be here without your donations, but I wouldn't be eating for a few weeks! (I'm not kidding really either!) Some of you are repeat donors and for that I'm doubly grateful. I would also like to thank those who have offered to help through auctioning livestock (thanks Craig C., David Nash and Barry Sherin).

For the past year the donations sent in have nearly matched the expenditure (hosting and domains). I don't know how sustainable that is because we received most donations right after the initial appeal in late 2002. It's been my ambition for the last 2 years to get just enough donations to pay for a professional bulletin board package (either the pro version of the one we use right now or another), and of course to get the site to pay for itself. Remember that statistic that shut us down of 1000 unique vistors a day and 25000 hits per day too, that includes Caudate Central, Caudata.org, Axolotls and the Forums. I'm incredibly proud of that, particularly since this is a real online community that everyone can participate in, and indeed you do. I wonder if I'm beginning to sound like Jeff Barringer (Kingsnake.com's owner/creator), who approached me to host the parent site (Axolotls) back in 2000....

ANNOUNCEMENT
So now we're "all set" as they say in Massachusetts (where I was on holiday when this began). The server is now 1 Gb in size versus the old 160 Mb - that means you don't have to hold back so much with your photos any more (but please be sensible!). We have an 18 Gb per month transfer limit, versus the old 3 Gb per month. We have all kinds of features and unlimited accounts now. We can now host new sites on the server so if you have a relevant web site that requires decent hosting, let me know.

To all of the donators and auctioneers (both buying and selling), who donate UK £20 (that's about US $30), you are entitled to an email account at Caudata.org. Please email me if you are interested - john@caudata.org. Anyone who previously had an account, it's now on a new server and the passwords are different (sorry, it was necessary) so please email me at john@caudata.org to set a new password.

I intend to upgrade the look of the site. I originally started it as a small endeavour and the look has remained relatively unchanged since 2001. I think it's time we had a facelift. If anyone would be kind enough to help me with this, I'd be grateful, as my time is very precious at the moment as I near the end of my post-graduate work.

As ever, any ideas, criticism or comments on the site, please let me know - john@caudata.org

I would like to thank Nate Nelson (the guy who does the forum donkey work most of the time), Heather Bjornebo (Caudate Central's answer to Harry Potter), Jennifer Macke (Caudate Central's Nate Nelson *grin*) and Aaron LaForge (the USCR man) for putting up with the move and helping to make this such a great place to discuss our hobby.

Ok, second lastly, there may be problems with the sites over the next few days (I know Caudate Central didn't transfer very well and Heather and Jennifer have work on their hands - I'm sorry about that) but if you see a problem, please let us know. Most should be quite minor.

And lastly, I've been considering targetted advertising for the site. This goes against everything I believe in as most of you probably know. I've resisted it for a long time and the donations page was an attempt to avoid it. However, it may be necessary to have some limited advertising (should be from Caudate/Amphibian relevant companies), such as banners. No pop ups or rubbish adverts (no I don't want to buy viagra, thank you). Again, your thoughts would be appreciated on this.

You can post here or email me at john@caudata.org.

-John Clare

And by the way, do you like the new look of the forums - the frame at the top I mean? It was done after some complaints about photos not showing up well with the reduced screen width.

Let me know.

Well, I think the new look is very nice. It's a much more efficient use of space for viewing photos and such. The caudate "heads" are a bit smaller, but I think it's a worthwhile sacrifice.

Good to be back!

I like the new layout of the forums up top.

As for the advertising, I think we should try to keep this from happening. I emailed you privatly about this early, but I will mention it publiclly now here. I'm currently starting up a feeder insect business in Canada. I frequently visit this site and a reptile rescue site (www.reptilerescue.on.ca) that have been most helpful to me. As such, I think it's only fair to return something for it.

I am going to be donating a perctange of all sales to both Caudata.org and reptilerescue.on.ca (if either or both will accept them). This will be of pure sales, not profit.

If you're willing to accept this John, please let me know and we can hammer out whatever details you need over the next few months. My first order should be arriving before June, so I may have a donation for you within the month.

Keep up the great work everyone.
Rob

The new layout is fine. I had been a little troubled by the lack of space to veiw photos previously but it never occured to me to mention it. Glad you're back!
Advertisements may be more trouble than they're worth for those of you running this site. However, I don't think the presence of advertising would keep anyone away or be excessively irritating once we all got used to it. I am opposed on principal to people missing meals.
Sara

Rob - yes, that sounds like a good idea. But the advertising policy I propose would be targetted at livestock companies or feeder companies - that sort of thing, not a general advert scheme. That's the initial plan but it's still being discussed.
Sara - Well nothing has been set in stone yet, we shall see how it goes!

I think the user of Caudata.org may pull together enough that we can avoid that avenue.

If you want to advertise sites just put them in the links section, but if you actually want paid advertisement, I think we should avoid it. That's just my opinion though. This site was designed free of charges and advertisement...it's one of the main premises that I remeber you (and all of us) were and are very proud of. I would hate to lose that.

My two cents.

Good times.