As you are already well aware, we outgrew the capacity of our old server and have just upgraded to a new one. Unfortunately this has been coupled with an 'upgrade' in hardware and data center expenses.
I would like to thank those of you that so enthusiastically contacted me with regards to fund raising for the server move and ongoing operation of the site. It warms my heart that people would go to such lengths to make this thing sustainable.
But for now we will be sticking with our original policy of gracefully declining any and all donations from our members. More about this below.
In the mean time, we are going to trial ads. Some quick points about this.
1. This is only a trial, with google text ads, which will be really unintrusive.
2. This is happening only under really (really) strict terms. The site -will- remain clean and fast.
3. No flash or animating banners. Ugly!
4. For now you'll see a text ad at the bottom of the page, and that's the extent of it.
5. Again, we're just giving this a go. If it sucks, we'll try something else.
6. I hate the idea as much as you probably do. But it's still worth investigating.
I hope you all understand why this is happening. Of course, as always, your feedback is most welcomed.
I have taken the liberty of formulating a quick FAQ.
You're turning this place into ITM. Are you crazy?
We will be sticking with our original plan which went something like this (paraphrasing), any advertising we do will be unintrusive. No massively crazy animating spinning rotating flash banners scrolling across your screen. We promise.
I don't like ads, why won't you accept donations instead?
Well, there are a number of bad scenarios we would like to avoid. Ranging from minor things like hardware failure resulting in the site going offline for a day or so (somewhat-likely). To major things like a melbournejungle-esque-dash-with-your-cash (unlikely) or me getting hit by a bus (not-so-unlikely). Those of you that know about my strange choice of transportation will understand that last bit.
In a nutshell, if people donate money but don't get a reliable web site in return then they will be understandably angry. And I really don't like it when people are angry with me. I get enough of that from 4WD drivers on the way to work in the morning.
But wasn't the whole idea of Melbourne Beats to be ad-free?
Actually no, this is not correct. The catalyst for starting Melbourne Beats was the inability of promoters to effectively promote their parties on other sites. The "ad-free" thing was just a nice side-effect of setting up our own site and something that we really liked to brag about. Clearly we won't be bragging about this any more. If you read my first ever post here you will see my assertion that advertising would only happen here under very strict terms.
I'm a promoter. Can I put ads on your site too?
No, for now we'll just be sticking with google text ads. They are easy to set up and they're not an eye-sore. This might change soon.
