What is Metal Membership and Why would I spend $ on a forum?

I am making this based on a couple new members asking just that to me. Well, as the owner of the forum. I felt it best to explain why we have it.

For starters, this whole forum started on a universal belief that a fresh place to discuss Mazdaspeeds was needed. That is why the effort was made (and weeks of design and about 200 hours or so of work between 2 people) to create this modern face of forums. We are spending $600 a year to host the forum currently. I also sent $500 to the man who spent weeks building this forum with me over 2 weeks. A LOT of testing before it went live kept bugs and issues down a lot, and fixed reported issues quickly. It seemed like the right thing to do for someone who asked for nothing. Also. promotion is in testing stages in Facebook ads. $70 for 2 ads going for a week netted a number of new members already, and we may raise the amount to increase the viewership if it keeps up. It is $5 a day minimum, $35 a week.

You also get access to a lot more of the forum. the buy/sell section is 1 perk. Just adding the donation-only policy is helpful on scammer prevention, which is extremely high on other forums and on Facebook groups and Craigslist even. Access to manuals, as well are a perk.

But what sets MSO apart is something I had pushed for back on the old forum. Good raffles. I use donations to purchase raffle prizes. And they are not some $25 card that takes 6 months to get. Try a $250 gift card! I have 2 of those this month alone for 2 great vendors. On top of that, we have a free tune and a custom vent pod donated by vendors! I do not intend to reduce the quality of the raffles. Gift certificates seem to be highly prized, so it is a "get something nice for the ride" special.

I am not planning to sit on my ass and soak up the $ and not give back a goddamn thing. We all saw how well that works. It doesn't.

We have 3 levels of Metal Membership:

This is a per-year rate:
Silver for $10
Gold for $25
Platinum for $50

What is the difference? Well they all offer the same access. Your profile is highlighted with the donation level.

If anyone has any questions about MSO, ask away. PM me. And most of all, do not feel like you are obligated to do anything. LOTS of this forum is accessible by creating a user account, like you already did.

Cheers,
Eric aka Raider

 

Wait a damn minute. You told me this was like a bank account so that I could save up for my new hip. Hence the "Metal" name.

What kind of shit is this?

 

I saw your plane ticket to Canada to get it free, so I decided to put it back into the forum.

 

Thanks for the disclosure. $600/yr seems a little pricey for hosting though. Who is doing the hosting, and is it managed or unmanaged, VPS or shared hosting? I could understand the price if it is actively managed and monitored for malicious activity, and security updates are tracked and patched - especially for the forum software - which is very important IMO. Also BACKUPS...bad backups bit Kevin at one point (forum "crash" anyone?), which is when he went with a managed solution.

For context, I just got a VPS with HostUS, in DC, 1GB of RAM, 2CPU, 2TB bandwidth, 1GB uplink, 1 IPv4 address, and 4 IPv6 addresses, for $42/yr. Totally unmanaged, and no CPanel shit, but I have several VPSs around the country and use DNSMadeEasy to do A-record failover if any of my providers has an unexpected outage. Multi-master MySQL 5.6, cron'd rsync'ing changes in the web root, simple scripted mysqldump and rsync to another VPS where it is archived and a few weekly backups are kept around and cycled through.

Just food for thought

 

It has a 2TB network connection? Weird

 

We are hosted by Kastura (a whois will show that too) and of course it is all backed up. It is where @Adamizme works as a geek. This helped us in getting everything built, tested and monitored. Literally all he does is sit and monitor our forum. Kidding. It is a stable company, and we have not had a single issue in the near month of building. It helps to support the companies that are helping the forum too. Rather than be on the DL about what our costs are (compared to other forums) I just share what is being spent. i priced lower costs, but just did not feel safe moving it from something setup and secure.

 

2TB meaning that the connection is metered to allow a total amount of 2TB of network traffic to pass over your "line" per month, not that actual throughput (speed). Similar to how Comcast caps home connections to 250GB in some areas.

Cool cool, happy to hear its all under control.

 

I love the site and been pushing it like a fiend.

 

Thanks guys. This has been a long road and I am happy to be on it with everyone. We are always working to improve things so look for a revamped layout for the Wiki, and if you have suggestions or bugs to report, we have sections for you to post about them!

 

Yes!!! The Wiki section is going to be amazing.

 

Yes!! Super stoked on this.

 

Just to fill in some gaps - it's a VPS w/ 4x vCPUs, 8GB RAM, 500GB storage, unlimited bandwidth, nightly snapshot based image level backups also replicate offsite. And yes, we also manage security, mysql, the install of Xenforo, etc.

 

This is what I hear in my head when I read that.

 

That's because you're an old fart.

 

The winners have been drawn! Congrats to the following Metal Member supporters!
For the Hypnotic Tune and Block8Head Vent Pod- Vansquish!
For the Edge Autosport $250 Gift Certificate: Awafrican!
For the Damond Motorsports $250 Gift Certificate: PURPFOX!

Raffles that have been drawn are posted on the "Old Raffles" tab for raffles for all Metal Member Supporters to see
http://www.mazdaspeeds.org/index.php?raffles-history%

March Raffles will be posted as soon as possible. Some great stuff everyone will enjoy!

 

Great, too bad they'll have to wait 6 months for their shit. .....








HAHAHA, oops, wrong forum. .

Great job @Raider

 

Both sent out already. This is not the old forum. Have you had your snickers and Ensure, old man?

 

Definitely not the old forum I got my gift card from the raffle within 4 hrs of raffle draw! (I think it was closer to 2 hrs). Raider and others are really working hard to make this forum great, definitely worth donating!

 

For those considering upgrading your membership on MSO, here is just one perk-Raffles. The $ from member upgrades, as well as the Approved Vendors, largely funds these raffles. These are pretty dang cool., so I thought I would share again with everyone.

April Raffles will be active at Midnight tonight! They are ready to go (as long as there is no mess-up on my part lol).

First Raffle, a detail kit with:
1) The Meguiar's Complete Car Care Kit It includes one 16-ounce bottle of Gold Class Car Wash Shampoo and Conditioner (G7116), one 16-ounce bottle of Gold Class Liquid Wax (G7016), one 16-ounce bottle of Gold Class Endurance High Gloss Gel (G7516), one container of Quik Detailer (A3316), one 16-ounce bottle of Quik Interior Detailer (G13616), two 50-gram clay bars with a clamshell container (R30-60-008, R30-60-120), one container of PlastX (G12310), one container of ScratchX (G10307), one microfiber towel (M9910), one foam applicator pad (R30-60-241), and one microfiber wash mitt (X3002).
2) Sonax Wheel Cleaner. This stuff is tits.
3) Speed Brush. Really works well.
4) Headlight restore kit. This is what I used. Really is good.
5) Black plastic restorer. No faded crap. MS6 guys with them faded exhaust shrouds...
6) Meguiar's ultimate wax. Yes, the kit has wax. This is just good stuff too.
7) Meguiar's Yellow Bucket, 3.5 gallon capacity
8) The Grit Guard Insert (Red) - Fits 12 inch Diameter Bucket

Second Raffle: Cuban Cigars and Lighter from @predapio!
Third Raffle: ! A Prosport AFR Gauge from @cshunter!
Fourth Raffle: A Snap On Torque Wrench with optional FREE CALIBRATION by @ibcrusn!
Fifth Raffle: 2 winners will receive dash cams with 32 gig memory included! (review coming soon!).