Official Luthiers Forum!

So I'm bumping this thread because it is now pretty clear to me that the OLF without community financial contributions may be lost. That's right I've been in touch with Lance, I contacted him about the spammer and I learned that Lance's costs like many things have sky rocketed. Lance told me the server alone costs $600 a month now.

Sponsorship is way down here on the OLF so if we want to keep the OLF available to us it's time to make a contribution or you may lose this site forever more.

I'm not affiliated financially in any way with Lance or the OLF and again my interest is in helping the folks who want to learn lutherie do exactly that just like I did two decades nearly ago with the OLF absolutely key and instrumental.... in my development as a luthier.

I know dozens of working in the trade luthiers who started here and greatly benefitted from the OLF just like I did.

So I am going to use the "w" word because in my judgement and in my experience with the OLF it is time to issue a warning that the OLf is in danger of perishing forever more without more financial support from our community.

This is not the time to want to look at the books or attempt to arm chair reorganize what Lance has built and manages here. He's not interested in that what he is interested in is if the OLF has the possibility of remaining financially viable or is it time to pull the plug.

If you value the OLF and would like to contribute please do so it is more important now than ever before.

I'm discussing switching to a Patreon model with Lance and will see what he says. What the OLF needs is a predictable revenue stream to cover the over $7K in server costs annually and maybe get us some software updates too.

If you want to contribute please do so as Lance has asked in this thread here for now. He may wish to change the funding model of the OLf going forward and I'll share what I learn from him.

I’m not discounting the need to support the forum if we want to keep it alive, but $600/mo to host a single relatively active bulletin board is bonkers. Even with 1000’s of concurrent users, robust security and DDoS support that number seems off by more than a factor of 10. Why is the cost so off the charts?


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Thanks Hesh, appreciate your efforts.

I want to see the OLF thrive too. Fun place, good folks and great access to building info. I love it.

Where I see issues with this -

OLF is private, we're here at Lance's pleasure. I understand wanting to keep the books private. But when you are asking for money I think you owe contributors at least some general information.

What we know or don't know? The OLF is in financial trouble. More contributions are needed. $7000 is needed to cover server costs. That's it as far as what we know.

I'd like to know how many members visit every day or just weekly. Outside of a well off benefactor, those groups will likely form the list of financial supporters.

To meet the server needs, we need 70 members to kick in $100 a year. Not a big issue. BUT, do we have that many members that visit daily? Daily and weekly? AND are willing to contribute?

It would be nice if Lance participated in this discussion.

No one wants to send in a hundred bucks and a week later hear we didn't meet the fundraising goal so the site is toast anyway. I'd rather have a new tool!

Full disclosure, I've made two contributions in the last year of $100 each and for the above reasons am hesitant to send more in the blind.

Maybe we need a new thread of members willing to keep the OLF alive and gauge our options ourselves.

Brian

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED