UD Bandwidth News. Thanks everybody! We made it! :D

[deathie mouse]

With apologies to Luke. (cus i'm doing this on my own volition :P)
Dear UDies, many of us don't check the website's front page often enough and there's some bandwith news that might affect us all "Pronto" for the next couple of days, that you might've missed, so for those of us that haven't checked them out, go lookee and think if you can help. Halloween without UD? unconceivable :P

I love this place so that's why i posted this obvious blatant go help the web site plug
:P


to celebrate and give thanks this
was

[AwallaceUNC]

Yeah- if you're reading this now (and especially if you read here often), and you have a dollar to spare (it's understandable if you don't), then do your part and help Luke out. There's no big business behind this site and the members have to support it. Now's the time that this support is really needed. This site offers at least a form of recreation to us all here, and to me, it's worth at least a dollar here and there to keep it going. If every member here pitched in just $1, we'd meet the goal several times over. Support the site if you can!

-Aaron

[Paka]

Dude, deathie, now you're guilting me into donating! Meep...

Aaron's point is a good one, though. Every little bit helps. Maybe I could manage to squeeze out a couple bucks for <strike>gas</strike> Luke...

[Ric-Mx]

Yes, a US $1 it's not expensive for each member, and besides, most of use have used amazon.com (well, at least I think so)

Then it is easy to support the site, consider it like buying a magazine..

c'mon SUPPORT ULTIMATE DISNEY

[englishboy]

I know it's not much. But I just kicked in $5 through the Amazon Honor System (with "thegreenbird@" address).

If we all kicked in two or three bucks, this problem would be solved by the end of the day.

englishboy

[Mr. Toad]

I can part with 5 or ten bucks.

Luke,

I think you should clean up the forum. Get rid of old threads, take away signatures and avatars. Should save a bunch of bandwith.

[AwallaceUNC]

JJJ, I respectfully disagree. If it's a must, then it wouldn't be the end of the world, but I think avatars and signatures bring so much creativity and personality to the forums, and really make for a significantly better browsing experience. I'd rather pay a few extra dollars and keep them on board. Hopefully others will do the same. 40% everyone- chip in a dollar (or even more)!

-Aaron

[jabroni76]

Well the thing on avatars is that Luke isn't really enforcing his rules. Like people have avatars over 100x100 and the 4mb (I'm probably wrong on this one) limit which luke can't really enforce. Though, in all reality, it doesn't make the difference of 324 dollars.

[Escapay]

Avatars and signatures are expendable. We can either get rid of them altogether, or limit them even more than ever. Currently avatars are only available if you have 50+ posts. We should make people more committed to becoming regulars through informative posts not fluff, by having both avatars and signatures unavailable until, say 150 posts. It would definitely save on bandwidth from images in avatars, and text in siggys (although I don't think text in siggys count much for bandwidth).

Also, I think the older survivor threads should be deleted (like, every time there's a survivor round, as soon as the next round starts, delete the old one since it's essentially not needed anymore). There are many deletable threads in the Polls/Games forum, as some are just repeats of old ones that have been forgotten (and perhaps the poll expired).

Escapay

[Ciaobelli]

I pitched in $5,
COME ON GUYS help out!!

[Paka]

I agree on deleting ancient threads, especially fluff like old games and polls and whatnot. I don't think avatars and sigs should be removed altogether, but I think stricter standards should be enforced. Like, perhaps make the icon dimension limit 100x100, instead of 140x140. Several people (like me... ) tend to use the max limit of the avatar dimensions - those 80 pixels could shave off a bit of bandwidth when multiplied by dozens/hundreds. I know that not many people do it, but maybe prohibit images to be used in signatures, especially banners and whatnot. More "exclusive" stuff would be a good idea, too - like certain privileges allowed only at X number of (substantial) posts.
I'm also wondering what the number of registered users does to bandwidth. Out of the 1200+ posters registered, how many actually post regularly enough to be at least recognized on the boards? If they make any significant difference to the bandwidth, that should be considered for "weeding" too. Another phpBB forum I visit deletes inactive accounts after 6 months - to suggest one idea. Private messages should be cleared out regularly too, in my opinion.

[Swiss]

I don't think we need to make the avatar limit smaller. A better approach is to only permit linking to off-site avatar. Disable avatar uploads altogether and cut your bandwidth

Escapay, I agree with you however don't think the 50 post minium neccessarily encourages users to post more informatively. I won't specifically point anyone out, but it amazes me how people have registered rather recently and have high post counts. After researching a few users, I find many futile postings

[BonusMage]

I agree with awallaceunc Avatars should stay as they bring personality to the forums but if to help the bandwith they were made smaller and images in signatures were not allowed that would be fine.
P.S. I just pitched in a few spare £ via the Amazon link.

[reyquila]

I put in my $5. Everybody: put your money where your mouth is.

[deathie mouse]

Yay! we're back! Luke used the Force.

Thanks all who contributed! But remember we're "on" due to Luke's ability to bend the web temporarily with the powers of Neo. To make this situation permanently resolved don't stop contributing

[Luke]

Thanks for the contributions. We've actually just got a little bit of bandwidth added and though we're far short of the goal, about a month ago I made payments for a year of the hosting service I had, so they're going to put that towards the upgrade. The goal remains $324 (that's not considering Amazon's take), but if we reached that, we would be able to go through with a year of semi-dedicated service.

Again, thanks for your support, and those who haven't yet made a donation can still do so to help us meet our goal.

Goal: $324
Collected: $177

<img src="http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/04/ ... art-55.gif">

[Ciaobelli]

just curious, why won't Disney plunk dow some cash? After all you are helping them big time.

I payed $5 BTW

[Lucylover1986]

just curious, why won't Disney plunk dow some cash? After all you are helping them big time.

I payed $5 BTW

Becuase then every Disney fansite out there will be writing Disney asking for money and wondering why we would get money and not them. Just my guess.

[Lucylover1986]

Someone just donated alot of money since we're over $200 now! We're at 65% now! Almost there.

[DisneyChris]

Sorry, Luke, can't help; I'm not an adult yet so I can't donate to the site.