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I really wish they would give up the ads and ask the community for support, I find it difficult to believe that they could not find funding for the site with al

I really wish they would give up the ads and ask the community for support, I find it difficult to believe that they could not find funding for the site with all the various organizations out there in the bike community who just throw money at such things. A few years ago I could not take the ads on the site any longer and had to enable the ad block, quick look at a random page on the site (canti brake geometry) and ad block reports 30 ads blocked, a little ridiculous. I would pay for an ad free option. Perhaps they will start seeking alternative means now that Harris has closed down. Fantastic site and an invaluable resource to me over the years.

2bluesc 3y ago
It's mostly (all?) static content. This should be cheap and easy to host behind a CDN like Cloudflare.
- tornato7 3y ago
  EDIT: I see it's a WordPress site and I take back what I said. WordPress is a nightmare to maintain.
  - Moggie100 3y ago
    If the site isn't being updated any more, it could be run through one of the wordpress-to-static-site generator things and hosted as you'd describe, though.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
tetris11 3y ago
Wow, the ads are new. Back when I used this site it was a delightfully clunky 1990s hyperlink encyclopaedia. I learned an incredible amount about threading sizes
- acomjean 3y ago
  I think I t was in part sponsored by Harris bike store which is no longer a going concern. Sheldon’s Brown widow I think runs the site now. Prof Fell who taught one of my grad school CS classes.
sen 3y ago
Yeah the ads have gotten insane. The site didn’t used to be like this. Now I get dedicated ad-pages when I click a link, and I have to click through to continue to the page I was trying to get to. That’s… excessive. A banner ad at the top of each page should be more than enough to fund a static site like this (with extra for the authors efforts).
- KennyBlanken 3y ago
  I got a popup ad when I clicked a link. After I dismissed that ad and was actually taken to the link I clicked, the top of the page had a creepy anime dating sim ad that seemed barely SFW. Another page had four banner ads.
bacon_waffle 3y ago
+1 Surely just a small handful of folks donating a few bucks through patreon or whatever, could keep the site ticking over with no ads.
- _a_a_a_ 3y ago
  I have some insight into this and it's not good. Quite a while back I supported a charitable drive for a good cause on a well known site (you'll have heard of it). So, total donations were by about 20 people who really funded all of it, the total take for that was distinctly under £1000. At the time that site had between 2 and 4 million views a month. tl;dr few people will consider paying, far fewer will actually pay, even when it benefits them in the long term. What really upset me about that is if everyone who looked at that charitable request and had simply coughed up £1, and most of them could (sometimes you can't; I've been in that position so I understand) a real difference could have been made. If a charitable health-based cause pulls in so little cash, even fewer people will donate just to keep a site running.
- nicbou 3y ago
  If you tried running anything on user donations, you would see that users are not that generous. My website has generated quite a bit of goodwill in my community. It saves people considerable stress. Donations make up less than a percent of my income. About one in ten or twenty thousand visitors donates. It does not cover my grocery bill. Even readers I personally advise rarely donate.
  - bawolff 3y ago
    Tbf for a static website without crazy levels of traffic, a weeks worth of groceries is probably more than hosting costs for a year.
    - davisoneee 3y ago
      It may be more than the _hosting_ cost, but what about the labour in actually generating that insight or maintaining and updating the content. Or what about recompense for, you know, providing such value in the first place? 'The bare minimum hosting cost' is a pretty poor bar for informational content.
hans_castorp 3y ago
I have just visited the site, and I did not see any ads. But then I have uBlock installed in my Firefox.
dtgriscom 3y ago
Who's "they"? The bottom of each page has a "Last updated" timestamp (recent) by Harriet Fell. I think this is she: https://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/fell https://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/fell . Perhaps Sheldon's surviving spouse?
- Anthony-G 3y ago
  On same pages, the person mentioned is John Allen while on others it says Harriet Fell. I’m not sure I’d trust this footer to be accurate as the “Last Updated” time-stamp is generated server-side to reflect the current time. Well done on finding Harriet’s own home page. I really like the no-frills, non-fussy presentation style.

2bluesc 3y ago

It's mostly (all?) static content. This should be cheap and easy to host behind a CDN like Cloudflare.

tornato7 3y ago
EDIT: I see it's a WordPress site and I take back what I said. WordPress is a nightmare to maintain.
- Moggie100 3y ago
  If the site isn't being updated any more, it could be run through one of the wordpress-to-static-site generator things and hosted as you'd describe, though.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

tetris11 3y ago

Wow, the ads are new. Back when I used this site it was a delightfully clunky 1990s hyperlink encyclopaedia. I learned an incredible amount about threading sizes

acomjean 3y ago
I think I t was in part sponsored by Harris bike store which is no longer a going concern. Sheldon’s Brown widow I think runs the site now. Prof Fell who taught one of my grad school CS classes.

sen 3y ago

Yeah the ads have gotten insane. The site didn’t used to be like this. Now I get dedicated ad-pages when I click a link, and I have to click through to continue to the page I was trying to get to. That’s… excessive. A banner ad at the top of each page should be more than enough to fund a static site like this (with extra for the authors efforts).

KennyBlanken 3y ago
I got a popup ad when I clicked a link. After I dismissed that ad and was actually taken to the link I clicked, the top of the page had a creepy anime dating sim ad that seemed barely SFW. Another page had four banner ads.

bacon_waffle 3y ago

+1 Surely just a small handful of folks donating a few bucks through patreon or whatever, could keep the site ticking over with no ads.

_a_a_a_ 3y ago
I have some insight into this and it's not good. Quite a while back I supported a charitable drive for a good cause on a well known site (you'll have heard of it). So, total donations were by about 20 people who really funded all of it, the total take for that was distinctly under £1000. At the time that site had between 2 and 4 million views a month. tl;dr few people will consider paying, far fewer will actually pay, even when it benefits them in the long term. What really upset me about that is if everyone who looked at that charitable request and had simply coughed up £1, and most of them could (sometimes you can't; I've been in that position so I understand) a real difference could have been made. If a charitable health-based cause pulls in so little cash, even fewer people will donate just to keep a site running.
nicbou 3y ago
If you tried running anything on user donations, you would see that users are not that generous. My website has generated quite a bit of goodwill in my community. It saves people considerable stress. Donations make up less than a percent of my income. About one in ten or twenty thousand visitors donates. It does not cover my grocery bill. Even readers I personally advise rarely donate.
- bawolff 3y ago
  Tbf for a static website without crazy levels of traffic, a weeks worth of groceries is probably more than hosting costs for a year.
  - davisoneee 3y ago
    It may be more than the _hosting_ cost, but what about the labour in actually generating that insight or maintaining and updating the content. Or what about recompense for, you know, providing such value in the first place? 'The bare minimum hosting cost' is a pretty poor bar for informational content.

hans_castorp 3y ago

I have just visited the site, and I did not see any ads. But then I have uBlock installed in my Firefox.

dtgriscom 3y ago

Who's "they"? The bottom of each page has a "Last updated" timestamp (recent) by Harriet Fell. I think this is she: https://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/fell https://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/fell . Perhaps Sheldon's surviving spouse?

Anthony-G 3y ago
On same pages, the person mentioned is John Allen while on others it says Harriet Fell. I’m not sure I’d trust this footer to be accurate as the “Last Updated” time-stamp is generated server-side to reflect the current time. Well done on finding Harriet’s own home page. I really like the no-frills, non-fussy presentation style.