Milan Mania needs your help

It’s time to discuss publicly something that we’ve been discussing in the Mods Haven all summer. As you may or may not know, we are associated with a site called Final Football and are hosted on the same server as that site. Several of us are co-owners there and we’ve done as much as we can to get that place active and to keep it alive. Andrew has decided that it’s time to pull the plug there…which impacts us here at Milan Mania directly.

We co-owners have been paying for hosting for 3 years. As you all know, life ebbs and flows, incomes grow and shrink. To put it simply, we are in need of REGULAR contributors to keep our present level of hosting and to keep MM “on the airwaves.” Is there anyone out there who can help, and who would be willing to do so on a regular basis? We need the stability of knowing we’re going to have the cash flow needed for the current level of hosting.

I know one of the first questions will be how much? That actually depends on how many people step up to the plate. Rezag or Andrew can tell us the actual cost per month for hosting. Our hosting is $155 a month, a level we decided to move to since we got hacked, so as I said the more people who contribute the less we all have to pay. And yes, before anyone asks, we have been looking into other hosting solutions—our primary concern is speed for a forum of this size.

The mods have already been approached and several have said yes, they’d help so you’ve already got members of what I’ll call for now the “leadership team” willing to invest in the site. My stance is that no ONE person can or should be responsible for the payments. I know I cannot pay for the hosting myself, nor will I get into such a situation because I saw what happened to the original founder and owner of this site, who racked up an ungodly debt with the original server.

Rez and I, and probably also Andrew if we ask him to come here, are willing to answer any questions anyone has. What we need right now are for people to step up to the plate and pitch in to help keep Milan Mania online. Please go to the Forum News and Views forum to respond!, the topic is Milan Mania needs your help.

$155 a month !!!!!!!! Wow that's alot for a hosting company to charge. Maybe you could post the actual specs of what you get for $155 a month so other members can help look for alternative hosting solutions ??

I have some questions like, what would be the best way to send the money ? How much money do you have now and how many months will that last ?

When i get some sort of income, i'll be happy to help

We have searched and will continue to do so, any help on that front is ofcourse great as well. There might be a few that are slightly cheaper and if we find one suitable we will move. Right now we are more concerned about the immediate future.

Paypal is the easiest way to send money but anybody willing to contribute can do so by other means like checks for example. The money right now is being made available on a monthly basis by the current owners, there is no 'reserve' or anyhting like that.

What is basically required for a forum of this size taking into account speed and security is a dedicated (meaning wholly under our control) server. Basics for the current one right now is:
Windows 2003 server
AMD Athlon 3000 Processor

I know a free hosting company! go too orgfree.com 250mb fre hosting we have forum also there(now it`s closed)! I think it`s better solution than 155$ per month!

Free hosting sounds great BUT...you've got to think about a couple of things. Speed...we're used to these forums being fast and responsive. Size...these forums are huge (tho in need of some pruning) and Rez can probably address how size vs server affects us. Can a so-called free server handle heavy traffic? Do they have security? We were hacked even on the current server and moved to a higher level for our own sake. Trust me, our members demand the best and any sort of glitch, even slow loading pages, gets noticed and commented on!

Anyway, as Rez said, we're open to members helping him research other servers but please talk to him (PM him if you want) to get specs that we have to look for.

And also to back up what Rez said, we have no reserve cash; we've been paying as we go along. I chip in whatever I can afford to try to help out--last month I was able to put in $150 but that was to help cover what others weren't paying. I cannot keep doing that, nor will I get myself into that situation. We've been looking into other solutions but for RIGHT NOW we have to consider the immediate future on this present server, just to keep MM online. So no further comments need to be made about what we're currently paying and how much you think it is--we're aware of that and we've been looking for a better solution that costs less. The issue is, are there any MM members who are willing to be regular contributors in order to keep us online? And for that matter, we could go with a rotation system of some sort....this 10-15 pays for 3 months, then some others pay and so on.

The issue right NOW is looking at the IMMEDIATE future of MM....

There are definitely cheaper alternatives with good security, especially if you look at Canadian hosting companies. Free hosting will not do because they don't offer the server space or security that we need here. www.canhost.ca and http://www.blacksun.ca/ are two of the ones I have used with great reliability.

It's interesting that MM has basically become a FORUM ONLY site - meaning, nobody really goes to the main webpage anymore I think, once they have discovered the forums. I sure as hell don't because some of the links are dead. For example, if you got the the main page and click on the ABOUT page, http://www.milanmania.com/about , you still see the message left by the hackers. So it's quite obvious the maintainers of the site, as good as a job they do on the forums, don't really care about the rest of this site And of course that's due to time constraints and something called life that people have.

The point of all that is that the site could save a lot of space by eliminating the main page entirely and being a FORUM ONLY SITE with sticky's that could have a brief description of AC Milan, FAQ's, etc etc.. Might help bring the cost down?


as far as contributions go, if the cost is shared over 20 people it wouldn't be that bad. It would be around $10 a person.

Originally Posted by Nadir

It's interesting that MM has basically become a FORUM ONLY site - meaning, nobody really goes to the main webpage anymore I think, once they have discovered the forums. I sure as hell don't because some of the links are dead. For example, if you got the the main page and click on the ABOUT page, http://www.milanmania.com/about , you still see the message left by the hackers. So it's quite obvious the maintainers of the site, as good as a job they do on the forums, don't really care about the rest of this site And of course that's due to time constraints and something called life that people have.

as far as contributions go, if the cost is shared over 20 people it wouldn't be that bad. It would be around $10 a person.

Thank you for the suggestions, we'll check them out.

I know the main pages need work. We've asked and asked if anyone here does stuff like that and to no avail. This isn't really the point of why I posted this topic, so in the near future we'll open a discuss about what do we want MM to be. I know at one time Jan (originator and owner) had alot of info and history up here--do we want that, do we want to be forum only. DO NOT discuss that now, but it's something for all of us to think over and then discuss as soon as we get this much more important matter settled.

Yes, as I said in my original post, the more people who can or will step up to the plate, the less we all have to chip in!

my point was, can we save on server space by eliminating the main pages. hence bring down the costs?

The 'load' of a HTML page like the main page is negligible, the forum with its size and database security are the main isssues. At the current $155 we maybe able to find something a bit less and we will move when we do and per person contibutions will be reduced to reflect that.
Anything like free hosting or cheap hosting where this forum resides on a crowded server with 50, 75 or 100 other sites will reflect severely on speed and performance.

I would help but I dont earn my own money

Im posting here to show that I care for this forum and I hope any one of you could help.

You can count me in

First of all I am shocked!!!

I thought that there are more members that cares for this site, especially regular posters.

I am ready to help financially but it looks like nobody is interested in this forum!!!!

Collecting money from the members I'll see it more as a temporary solution.

As permanent I think other solutions have to be found, like introducing adverts that guarantee enough money, and then the members can help by buying from the sponsors.

And again I pretended much more respond for this thread.

Originally Posted by Shevchenko-[7]

I would help but I dont earn my own money

Im posting here to show that I care for this forum and I hope any one of you could help.

The same situation.

I do not earn money myself. Nevertheless I care for MM so much, so the least thing I can do is to post here, and encourage others to donate for our beloved forum.

Forza MM

Originally Posted by Maltese Charlie

First of all I am shocked!!!

I thought that there are more members that cares for this site, especially regular posters.

I am ready to help financially but it looks like nobody is interested in this forum!!!!

Collecting money from the members I'll see it more as a temporary solution.

As permanent I think other solutions have to be found, like introducing adverts that guarantee enough money, and then the members can help by buying from the sponsors.

And again I pretended much more respond for this thread.

I'm sending my bit too MilanMania. I have already gotten the needed info and will take care of it this very day. I hope this doesnt stop you from helping out either MalteseChucky.

Come on FIRENDS OF MILANMANIA! THIS SITE is our HOME. We can all do this if we cooperate. I have trust and faith in the Admins. Right now the costs are being burdened by them while WE ALL use this site. Already with the help of Nadir, they are looking for alternatives. But dont forget we had a bit of cyber terror put on this site and this is what drove the cost up.
Dont give it for my sake! I'm an A$$! But give for this precious resource and avenue we use to talk about Football and a bunch of other stuff.

PC $800.00
Flat Screen Monitor $210.00

saving MilanMania..... PRICELESS!