Chapter 7
Posted April 7th, 2014 at 11:14 PM by Alex
Well, it's been a little while. I re-opened up the blog area for unmoderated posts today, so figured I'd give it a whirl. Stats are pretty incredible since the last time I posted up here, approaching 700,000 posts with almost 16,000 registered members (~1,800 recently active). Kawi came out with the new 300, attracting a number of 250 owners to upgrade, and bringing new ninjette fans into the fold.
I've still been hemming and hawing about the software that we run this site on, and moved to a different product for another site I've kicked off (www.crf250l.org). But - vBulletin 3.X remains very functional, relatively easy to mod and maintain, and there are very few features that it is missing compared to some of the more modern suites. I prefer it over version 4.X, having tried that elsewhere on yet another site; and nobody seems to like 5.X. I do worry that at some point there will be this terrible security flaw that will force an upgrade here, but perhaps that's still years away. Just this past weekend, I moved the whole site over to https/SSL, and it seems to be working smoothly. This doesn't really close a hole here, as we don't process money or have much personal information; but it does make it a little easier for some members to use the site without having their content tracked/monitored by the school or corporate network they connect from. It also makes it much less likely that someone would be able to grab one of our user's login credentials over the network, though it's an incredibly unlikely attack in the first place.
The site crossed into easy profitability a few years ago and has stayed there, even as I waste money on dozens of probably useless domain aliases, and it supports the sites that aren't making any $ yet. This has been possible with limited ad space, coupled with the viglink affiliate linking, neither of which seem to have affected the user experience here much at all. As Annie tells me, this math only works if I value my time at $0, but since it's a hobby, I pretty much should.
Glad that so many folks are still enjoying this place, glad that over this extended period a good number of long-time users still get a kick out of visiting and sharing. I hope that folks have some fun rides planned for this year, and look forward to the ride reports and pictures here on ninjette.org.
- Alex
I've still been hemming and hawing about the software that we run this site on, and moved to a different product for another site I've kicked off (www.crf250l.org). But - vBulletin 3.X remains very functional, relatively easy to mod and maintain, and there are very few features that it is missing compared to some of the more modern suites. I prefer it over version 4.X, having tried that elsewhere on yet another site; and nobody seems to like 5.X. I do worry that at some point there will be this terrible security flaw that will force an upgrade here, but perhaps that's still years away. Just this past weekend, I moved the whole site over to https/SSL, and it seems to be working smoothly. This doesn't really close a hole here, as we don't process money or have much personal information; but it does make it a little easier for some members to use the site without having their content tracked/monitored by the school or corporate network they connect from. It also makes it much less likely that someone would be able to grab one of our user's login credentials over the network, though it's an incredibly unlikely attack in the first place.
The site crossed into easy profitability a few years ago and has stayed there, even as I waste money on dozens of probably useless domain aliases, and it supports the sites that aren't making any $ yet. This has been possible with limited ad space, coupled with the viglink affiliate linking, neither of which seem to have affected the user experience here much at all. As Annie tells me, this math only works if I value my time at $0, but since it's a hobby, I pretty much should.
Glad that so many folks are still enjoying this place, glad that over this extended period a good number of long-time users still get a kick out of visiting and sharing. I hope that folks have some fun rides planned for this year, and look forward to the ride reports and pictures here on ninjette.org.
- Alex
Total Comments 6
Comments
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Of course I had to jinx myself by posting up this entry, as only a few days later everything goes to hell after a server reboot at the ISP. Have been chasing database corruption and related issues for two days now. All seems to be well now, but will feel better after it once again stays stable for a couple days.
Posted April 12th, 2014 at 12:12 PM by Alex -
Posted April 16th, 2014 at 10:41 PM by alex.s -
Posted April 17th, 2014 at 12:14 AM by Alex -
OK - we crossed both the 700K messages and 16K member thresholds. Also, the active members stat has been climbing over the past month, from a low around 1720, up to 1925. I attribute much of this to better email handling for new registrations. We're now averaging less than 1 timeout per day (someone who signs up but doesn't follow through with email confirmation), compared to 4-5 per day previously.
Posted May 5th, 2014 at 10:59 AM by Alex -
Posted May 15th, 2014 at 08:51 AM by Alex -
Posted December 22nd, 2015 at 02:31 PM by SLOWn60