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Sorry Everyone!


Parsad

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Hi Folks,

 

I apologize for the site being down during such a crucial period.  A software upgrade malfunctioned and the bureaucracy of the hosting service provider was delaying restoration of the database to just before the upgrade.

 

Please thank board member Paul Clerc of Watermelon Web Works, LLC, who started working on the site a little over an hour ago, and accomplished what Godaddy.com's host of technicians could not get done in over 36 hours!  We will be migrating the site over to Paul and Watermelon over the next few weeks.  This will never happen again!

 

In the meantime, I'm sure everyone has plenty of stuff to talk about, so get to it!  Cheers!

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As much as I missed being able to read the thoughts of the posters here, Parsad, you have much better things to worry about during weeks like this.  I hope you didn't find the problems here to be distracting or stressful; I'm sure you had your hands full with your day-job.

 

Glad to see the board back up though.

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I was suffering a bit of withdrawal. I would try to get on here several times a day...and kept getting disappointed. Thanks to both of you guys! Glad things are back! :)

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Hi Folks,

Please thank board member Paul Clerc of Watermelon Web Works, LLC,

Thankyou Paul and Thankyou Sanjeev - you have nothing to apologize as we are getting a free place to place our bets here ;D

 

and accomplished what Godaddy.com's host of technicians could not get done in over 36 hours! 

I had a brief experience with Godaddy and i was not impressed. Good to know there are good people in that line of work if ever we need good service. I have a non financial blog but i may be looking for some stuff at a later date.

 

Hey Sanj, any thought of maybe putting up a members only service category? Perhaps if there are other things Members do besides investing -to help each other out? I know we cant invest 24/7 or we will go cookoo lol

 

just a thought

 

thanks again Paul and Sanj

 

 

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Hey Sanj, any thought of maybe putting up a members only service category? Perhaps if there are other things Members do besides investing -to help each other out? I know we cant invest 24/7 or we will go cookoo lol

 

Not a bad idea.  Maybe I can co-ordinate some sort of "Corner of Berkshire & Fairfax member discount" program from those that do offer services. 

 

The homepage doesn't really get used much, and it is somewhat disconnected from the message board.  Perhaps, I can create a free marketplace for members to sell "value investing related" items (books, annual reports, etc) and a "member services site" with discounted services.

 

Sanjeev, I would be happy to donate domain services, DNS and a place to host the website.

 

Just shoot me a pm anytime.

 

Offer much appreciated Mark!  We have a great group of boardmembers!

 

Cheers!

 

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Thank you guys very much. What a time for the site to go down!

 

I'm sure we all can appreciate that you were busy with other matters and then had to take time out to try to bring the site back up.

 

QUESTION for the board: It has been some time since a membership fee was brought up. Perhape we should start a pole on this, but a nominal fee - say $25 or so - for a yearly membership would help compensate Sanjeev for his work, allow him to hire techs when things like this happen and it also would help screen out people who were not really serious or those who have their own adgenda that was not in keeping with the spirit of the board.

 

For me, $25 or $50 would be a very small price to pay for access to this board. I value this board and board members contributions far more than any yearly fee. What do others feel?

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Thank you guys very much. What a time for the site to go down!

 

I'm sure we all can appreciate that you were busy with other matters and then had to take time out to try to bring the site back up.

 

QUESTION for the board: It has been some time since a membership fee was brought up. Perhape we should start a pole on this, but a nominal fee - say $25 or so - for a yearly membership would help compensate Sanjeev for his work, allow him to hire techs when things like this happen and it also would help screen out people who were not really serious or those who have their own adgenda that was not in keeping with the spirit of the board.

 

For me, $25 or $50 would be a very small price to pay for access to this board. I value this board and board members contributions far more than any yearly fee. What do others feel?

 

I would pay the membership fee, no problem. What I worry about is that closed forums tend to stop attracting new members because with most forums, you have to be part of a community for a while before you realize how valuable it is, so few people would be ready to pay just to join.

 

Who knows, maybe the best contributors have yet to join, and it would be a shame to keep them out.

 

Maybe Parsad could set up a donation/tip jar? Maybe - as someone offered - he could move to a donated servers to bring down expenses? I just think we should be very careful about doing something that could make the quality of the community plateau or degrade over time.

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"I would pay the membership fee, no problem. What I worry about is that closed forums tend to stop attracting new members because with most forums, you have to be part of a community for a while before you realize how valuable it is, so few people would be ready to pay just to join."

I thought about this, so what about a 30 day free period or you could read  but could not post until the fee was paid?

 

 

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Count me in for $50-$100 as price of admission. Sanj has been beyond generous in providing this incredible educational forum, most would happily contribute. We should figure out a way where new members can do a trial "join" for say 3 months and then are asked to contribute.

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I would pay the membership fee, no problem. What I worry about is that closed forums tend to stop attracting new members because with most forums, you have to be part of a community for a while before you realize how valuable it is, so few people would be ready to pay just to join.

 

Who knows, maybe the best contributors have yet to join, and it would be a shame to keep them out.

 

Maybe Parsad could set up a donation/tip jar? Maybe - as someone offered - he could move to a donated servers to bring down expenses? I just think we should be very careful about doing something that could make the quality of the community plateau or degrade over time.

 

Definitely agree with this.  tip jar would be the best imo. You definitely don't want to lock new prospective members out. 

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I would pay the membership fee, no problem. What I worry about is that closed forums tend to stop attracting new members because with most forums, you have to be part of a community for a while before you realize how valuable it is, so few people would be ready to pay just to join.

 

Who knows, maybe the best contributors have yet to join, and it would be a shame to keep them out.

 

Maybe Parsad could set up a donation/tip jar? Maybe - as someone offered - he could move to a donated servers to bring down expenses? I just think we should be very careful about doing something that could make the quality of the community plateau or degrade over time.

 

Definitely agree with this.  tip jar would be the best imo. You definitely don't want to lock new prospective members out. 

I'll 3rd that.  Attracting new fresh minds is a good thing and many young people just getting started wouldnt pay an entry fee - besides, they say the best things in life are free! ;D

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Regarding the fee discouraging new members, I really don't think $25 a year would be too much of a deturrant and as tnp20 said, a 3 month free trial period should resolve this. But I am sure that Sanjeev could use the fees to make the board even better and more reliable. I just think that we gain a lot from having him manage the board and we don't contribute even a small token of our appreciation.

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Thank you guys very much. What a time for the site to go down!

 

I'm sure we all can appreciate that you were busy with other matters and then had to take time out to try to bring the site back up.

 

QUESTION for the board: It has been some time since a membership fee was brought up. Perhape we should start a pole on this, but a nominal fee - say $25 or so - for a yearly membership would help compensate Sanjeev for his work, allow him to hire techs when things like this happen and it also would help screen out people who were not really serious or those who have their own adgenda that was not in keeping with the spirit of the board.

 

For me, $25 or $50 would be a very small price to pay for access to this board. I value this board and board members contributions far more than any yearly fee. What do others feel?

 

Guys, thanks very much for the offers.  I never started this site to make any sort of money.  I like running it and enjoy using it myself.  I do not want to institute a membership fee, as who knows what young minds in high school or college might want to learn or contribute.  I myself got to know alot about Berkshire from the Motley Fool BRK Board when it was free.  In fact, that's where I became friends with Lotsofcoke, who first invited me to a Yellow BRK'ers Party in Omaha, and I eventually met Buffett for the first time.  It changed everything!  Eventually, I went off and started the old MSN Board after Motley Fool instituted a membership fee.  So no membership fee!

 

What I will probably do is implement the tip jar idea, but in one of those tabs that you see on various free open source software sites.  Between the ad revenue and the occasional tip, we should be able to more than cover any tech costs, as well it will allow me to cover some expenses I incur setting up the annual dinner and other functions I want to create for boardmembers.  Cheers and thanks!  

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allow him to hire techs when things like this happen

 

It sounds like an issue the hosting co lay should have been able to resolve, and you shouldn't need independent techs...the key is having a good hosting company. I've dealt with a lot of hosting comanies and the good ones (host gator, inmotion, liqud web etc) are able to easily handle things like database restores. I have not had good experiences with GoDaddy either.

 

Anyway, thanks again for everything you do for this site Sanjeev!

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