We promised some server stats now and then. Here is an update.

Please note that we don't want to reduce costs by reducing the FUN. For example, if every member would load a personal photo to his profile it would be costly, but valuable! It may be that the community is growing so much that we need to move up to a bigger Groupee rental plan soon. MAIN POINT HERE: Let's try not to WASTE money if possible.

First thing to note is that Groupee is still charging us for usage overages every month, although the community content (number of old threads) has been getting slightly leaner. Most notably, the community's volunteer moderators have been making a strong effort to reduce old or redundant content. (Their effort alone is saving us about $70 USD/month so far.)

So, Groupee measures and charges us for two different things: 1) Bandwidth, 2) Disc usage.

• Disc usage is all the stuff that's loaded on the server. The code for the forum and chat applications, a huge and complex database for all members and publicly viewable activity, and pictures...lots of pictures. It's like the community's hard drive.
• Bandwidth is the amount of bytes sent to everybody and anybody who accesses any part of the JguyUSguy community. We all use bandwidth. Every time your browser opens the content found via a URL it is downloading files (text, graphics, etc.). When you opened this thread about bandwidth you used bandwidth. The only way we would ever get to zero bandwidth usage would be to close the site. But of course it's not our goal to get to zero usage. We just want to try to keep it to under 30 gigabytes per month.

When we reduce the stuff that's on the disc, the amount of bandwidth used by every visitor tends to decrease. (That correlation assumes that users of this site continue using it the same way.)

We still have to trim a lot of that fat. The extra fat costs us money. See here, from our last invoice:
Overage Fee For Feb 2007: (Bandwidth Overage, 25 GB over limit) $125.00
Overage Fee For Feb 2007: (Disk Space Overage, 37 MB over limit) $7.40

Generally, the biggest gobblers of bandwidth are IMAGES. There are some images we can't do without and other images we can do without.

Member profile images. GOOD! KEEP!

Recent member photo albums. GOOD! KEEP!

Old photo albums. PLEASE DELETE YOUR OWN

Old, unused images that admin has left on the server. WE REMOVED THEM TODAY (around 10MB!) and lately we're making an effort to use jguyusguy.org disc space more, and gay-japan.infopop.cc disc space less. It's more work, but it saves money.

Images posted within forum posts recently. GOOD! KEEP! (But please don't post images for too frivolous reasons. Think before you post.)

Images posted within OLD forum posts. HMMMMMM... I think we're going to have to have some special week soon - LIKE A NEIGHBORHOOD CLEANUP CAMPAIGN - where we longtime members all go back and look at our posts from many months/years ago. We can KEEP the old threads, but let's tidy them up a little by cutting this and that out of minor posts. See if we can lighten the bandwidth that way.

IMPORTANT NOTE
When somebody is not logged in they can still access the boards/forums and even look at threads. However, they will not see photos that are uploaded by users. Instead, they see this red maru-batsu thing you see at the right here-->

See for yourself. Try looking at "Mobile Cock Portraits" while logged out. So, one way we reduce bandwidth is by making images available only to registered and logged in members.

After we see how much reduction is possible (in a few months) we'll consider renting a Groupee package with higher usage allowances.

For now, let's reduce reduce reduce...

YOROSHIKU NE

New photo posting rules

It's partly my fault for promoting the porn-focused threads so much. Bandwidth costs have soared out of control.

So, now there are only three places where members are welcome to post/view/trade multiple photos and/or porn:

• Photo albums
• SALON: Interesting things on the web
• SALON: Male beauty

Each of those places now requires premium membership. (More about that, below.)

In all other places, it is OKAY to post one image at a time if AND ONLY IF the image is a self-pic OR a non-pornographic image that illustrates the post.

Moderators will delete multiple pics and porn pics that appear outside of the three places mentioned above.

About premium memberships
It costs only $30 for six months. A bargain! (That's about 3500 yen, or 25 Euro.)

We DON'T get access to your personal information. Only the accounting department at Groupee/Eve gets that.

It appears as GROUPEE on your credit card statement, not as JGUYSUGUY.

Sorry to have to apply extra rules and charges, but this is the only way we are going to be able to afford to continue service. We need to upgrade the Groupee plan.

One really good thing about premium membership is that you can feel TOTALLY FREE to post tons of porn in any of those three designated forums.