No more Xara forums??

[geodd]

For those that do not know, EyeWire is a spinoff of Adobe, don't know for sure but they probably still own it. I used to work for a company that received the slick, glossy publication that they put out. Nothing but boring corporate clipart and photos. Here in the Southwest Adobe has been used for centuries for building solid, warm and earthy dwellings, but adobe is really just mud! I do know that if Gary and the other solid Xarans here (you know their names) have anything to do with it, that the XaraXone will survive, somewhere. I will refrain from anyfurther company bashing!

[pauland]

It would be good if i/us were to clarify the situation. if the forums do go, I would suggest that a xara group on egroups would be the way to go. I already belong to several groups hosted on egroups, and you can post pictures/files etc for download by members. Ideally, i/us will maintain the status quo or xara will pickup on it or we can establish a group on egroups.

Paul

[jon spain]

I'm with Athena, Daniel and others. While I can't pretend to be able to host a forum, I can agree to subscribe £20; that's easy. I'm surprised that Chris hasn't said anything yet!

Jon

[athena]

For those of us on this side of the pond, £20 converts to approximately $30 (US). Which still sounds reasonable.

I really like i-us the way it is right now ... with all the current content providers. I'd really hate to pare them down so I'll focus on ideas for keeping all of them three paragraphs down.

But what I also thought is that although I am willing to pay a subscription now, that is because I now know how valuable these resources are. But if I were a newcomer, I would not be interested in paying a subscription to go to a site where I'm not convinced of it's value. So keeping the bulk of the content free would also be something I'd be interested in.

Does anybody else get pestered annually by their alumni fund to donate to their alma mater? Sometimes they even offer things like "buy a brick in the new building" that is going up. What I'm getting at, is that there are those of us who know very well how valuable these resources are. But some of the value also comes from the input and the quesitions from the newcomers who eventually get hooked on this wonderful resource and wonderful community.

So perhaps if we could get 30 people to buy $30 "bricks" to sponsor the site for a year. That could kind of "leave the library open for everyone to enjoy," so to speak.

<ul>a preliminary look at web space

<LI>Let's follow some of Daniel's ideas for a moment. (and then I'll add on [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] )

<LI>I counted 17 content providers along the right side. So, let's round up to 20. If each content provider needs about 5 MB of space, then that means we need to pool together enough to house 100 MB of information.

<LI>At burlee.com you could host 100 MB for a year (this is not a dedicated server we're talking about) for $265 (US)
<ul>annually, we could have combinations of
<LI>10 people pay $26.50
<LI>20 people pay $13.25
<LI>30 people pay $8.84[/list]

<LI>Or at bluegenesis.com you could host 100 MB for a year (again not a dedicated server) for $600 US
<ul>or, annually, we could have combinations of
<LI>20 people pay $30
<LI>30 people pay $20
<LI>40 people pay $15[/list]

<LI>I've never used burlee but I like their price. I helped one of my clients find bluegenesis for their site. They liked bluegenesis' ease of use. So in fact, you may be paying for the ease of use at blue genesis where burlee may be perfectly suitable. Both actually had pre-sale tech support questions answered thoughtfully within 24 hrs. So that is why I'm kind of impressed with both of them. If it were my money, I'd try burlee. . . but it isn't my money . . . .

<LI>this can be done. Ideally, eyewire would do this themselves . . . but there could be more expenses that may need to be planned for. we do have time to plan. but we also need to make sure that we have some clear ideas of costs before we commit to buying those bricks

In short, I'm willing to pay from $9 to $30 (£6 to £20) to buy a brick to "keep the library" open to all.

Athena

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[BobInce]

If this is really going to happen, and the problem's simply one of hosting (I was under the impression that people like Gary got *paid* for what they do here; they certainly deserve to), I'm sure many of us here (myself included) would easily be able to offer free space for Xara-related stuff, no subscription required.

Hosting the forums is a bit trickier. UBB isn't free, and the infopop service costs between $25 and $600 per month (I would estimate the Xara forums would be at the lower end of this). However there is no reason other software could not be used (or written).

Might there be copyright problems in transferring existing content/forum archives?

Eyewire must be crazy to throw this stuff away. It's the content at i/us that brings it a (surely pretty advertiser-friendly) audience of designers.

[pauland]

I don't see that there is any reason to pay to host forums when it can be done for free at egroups. The real attraction of i-us are the content providers - xara insider & such, so any subscription money should go to those guys, not wasted on hosting which can be free. Check out www.egroups.com. the guys at i-us should come clean on this. Who can I email? Paul

[diniel]

Looks like to use the Ultimate Bulletin Board script on our own server would cost $199 for a non-expiring license, and then $75pa after the first year if we wanted to be able to download updates afterwards. See this page.

I'm sure someone from 'Eye Wire' or i/us will post something soon. Do you think that the forums will be wiped out without any or much notice? If so, maybe one of us should begin collecting email addresses of the others so that we can arrange to re-group if we do get kicked off here.

I'd be more than happy to whip up a quick form where people can deposit their name and email address, and even choose from some alternatives / say how much they'd be prepared to pay for a subscription etc, then hold all the data safely.

[Pekka]

If needed, I can offer free server space for the Xara forum and related pages at my domain http://studio-on-the.net (perhaps as a subdomain address http://xara.studio-on-the.net), and I also can install the BBS if it is provided to me. I still have about 250MB hd space there left, the server is located at Michigan, and it is very fast. Bandwidth is unlimited (or actually 17GB/day, which is enough I think!).

[jassony]

I-US has been a wonderful community a place where you can learn, share and yes buy graphic products.

It doesn't make any sense at all to purchase a company then turn it into something else. One would think starting from scratch certainly would be cheaper. Surely Eye Wire already has a web site.

I was not aware that I/US sold out, were they not making a profit?

Starting a group at E-Groups or a private site really would not be the same.

I think a E-zine that one pays a subscription for would be the only answer. Like it has been mentioned before Gary has to be paid plus the other people in the background needed to make it work. If you have been around for awhile and have followed the tutorials Gary has done and then ask yourself what that has been worth to you the answer would probably be way more than they would have to charge to produce a profitable E-zine. They could have the forums like here on I/US and a gallery. Hey they could even sell Xara products, and give an discount on the subscription if you do. They should have some freebies to entice new subscribers.

Note the last I/US Xara newsletter still is mentioning the Insider zone if you purchase Xara X under the circumstances is this not false advertising?

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr
Judi [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_mad.gif[/img]