Don't you all think us being so negative about the column in the Saturday Telegraph and the paper in general is a little wrong on here? Maybe Honest John can respond to the questions. I also thought the Telegraph backed this website. There is an advert on the right.
So we like and benefit from this site and it is here because of Honest John, the Telegraph and others (there must be others).
No doubt a mod will be along soon. They usually are. Ha ha.
Merry Crimbo all.
|
|
Oddly enough, this topic was covered on housepricecrash over the weekend. Apparently the Telegraph has cut back its weekend supplements dramatically but apparently so have all the other nationals - credit crunch and all that.
|
|
If my knowledge of the newspaper industry is correct, a smaller column will mean a smaller payment for HJ. Couple that with the downturn in the used car market, we may very well have to organise a whip round.
|
|
|
|
>>Don't you all think us being so negative about the column in the Saturday Telegraph and the paper in general is a little wrong on here?
Not at all, as long as it's honest feedback which, if the paper takes any interest in it at all, it should be glad to receive. Rather that than the Emperor's clothes. The DT doesn't need to be told that it's cut back on journalism, but it might want to know that people have noticed.
I hope my faith isn't misplaced.
Edited by Manatee on 22/12/2008 at 20:07
|
Am i allowed to say I read the Times?
|
Am I allowed to say I'd rather no paper at all than subsidise Murdoch's grip on media?
(Balance)
|
Murdoch does not own the Telegraph. Or many other newspapers. But I bet lots on here have Sky satellite TV... but I get off topic.
I am sure the Telegraph and HJ will be interested in the views so far... so let them respond before we all go off on one? They may all be on holiday for this site already so unfair if they cannot respond.
|
>>Murdoch does not own the Telegraph
Never said he did. It was an allusion to News International's proprietorship of the favourite organ of AE, whose post I replied to. For the 'time' being we get the Telegraph on subscription.
Edited by Manatee on 22/12/2008 at 20:42
|
|
But I guess lots on here have Sky channels, even if not via satellite ;-) Some on Freeview.
Edited by rtj70 on 22/12/2008 at 20:46
|
|
|
|
The only reason I buy the Telegraph on Saturday is the Motoring supplement. Now it's down to 3 pathetic half pages of editorial, what's the point?
|
|
Let us see the response.... if we are a representative sample for motoring maybe they need a rethink?
|
I prefer the Times.
But the Telegraph part fund your use of this forum
Edited by rtj70 on 22/12/2008 at 21:17
|
>>But the Telegraph part fund your use of this forum
Why the need to say that? At the risk of stating the obvious that would hardly affect the Snowman's preference would it?
And it would take more than a 'free' forum to make anyone here suck up I suspect. There's excellent free forum software available (with edit facilities, in line pictures, good search facilities and no censorship), and hosting with plenty of space can be had for £50 a year.
Don't misunderstand me, I like the forum - but being told I should be grateful makes me spit. The content depends on the unpaid contributions of the members and, to be fair, the volunteer moderators.
|
>>>>But the Telegraph part fund your use of this forum
>>Why the need to say that?
Because the Telegraph are one of the backers of this website perhaps? Someone has to pay the bills for this site. It is not a free website to those providing it.
Until HJ responds this thread may need to be locked as read only.
|
>>but being told I should be grateful makes me spit. The content depends on the unpaid contributions of the members and, to be fair, the volunteer moderators.
I fully agree.
I also agree the Telegraph is not what it was - It's one of the easiest things I've cut back on recently - although I'll probably miss the odd chortle at Simon Heffer's rants.
|
|
|
Murdoch does not own the Telegraph.
No, but he does print it.
The price of the Telegraph also went up to cover the cost of using Murdoch to print it rather than print it themselves at their own printing plant.
|
|
|
|
|
"Don't you all think us being so negative about the column in the Saturday Telegraph "
No, two months ago I would have told you it (the website) was a welcome and much looked forward to Saturday Morning moment, especially for an ex-pat.
|
|
|
Maybe Honest John can respond to the questions. >>
Guess that's what we're all waiting for. If we are forming a representative pressure group, put me in the "That's what I buy the Telegraph on Saturday for" camp. Would be a sad day if we had to conclude the SundayTimes was better after all.
|
>>>> Maybe Honest John can respond to the questions. >> Guess that's what we're all waiting for.
Perhaps he's away during this festive season?
You are also all assuming the smaller motoring and other sections in the Telegraphh are permanent.... has nobody thought it is due to Christmas???
All papers tend to cut back around now - lots of staff are probably on leave. IT companies are often on much reduced staff around now too - we cannot take leave due to business constraints and then cannot carry it over.... so Decemeber often a "quiet month".
Rob
|
has nobody thought it is due to Christmas???
See post #2 ;-)
|
I had earlier but felt I needed to explain (and then forgot about your post above).
Around this time it's a reduced paper and extended TV section for papers :-)
Rob
|
|
|
I've recently given up buying the DT.
I think it was summed up by its total absence of any reporting of a little spat in the channel islands.
|
>I've recently given up buying the DT ..
.. and I've recently given up buying the Independent (since no-one else has mentioned it) when it went up to £1, 'released' a few regular writers, and covered its pages in splashes of excess colour. Papers are clearly having a bad time.
|
|
|
|
|
....Maybe Honest John can respond to the questions.....
HJ might respond, but the motoring editor won't - they've made him redundant.
www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/dec/02/daily-telegra...s
(Non clickable as per site policy - I think.)
Edited by ifithelps on 22/12/2008 at 22:37
|
With so many responses for which a response I hope is due.... maybe we make this read only for now.....? Objections to rob_moderator@honestjohn.co.uk
Some members are commenting that the recent (Christmas) copy of the Saturday Telegraph has less content than usual. Others have comments on the paper full stop. Without HJ and the publisher able to respond it seems unfair.
Rob
|
|
To be fair to the DT and to put things in context - Autocar, for example, isn't being published this week
|
|
Neither is Autoexpress... "double issue" last week which is bigger and cost more.
|
Thanks for the feedback, HJ. Glad to hear normal service will be restored.
Regarding the 'traditional seasonal measure' comment, this is a tradition that I cannot recall happening before, which was why this thread began.
Here's to the new year...
|
I too was scratching around on Saturday looking for the Motoring Section - I'll have to look again to see if I can find the few pages that were present.
Interesting to hear of other readers cancelling their subscriptions - two months ago, I wrote to the Telegraph thus:
"Over the last 5 years, our annual subscriptions have cost £72, £96, £108, £130, £156 and now, you are asking for £195. This represents successive increases of 33%, 13%, 20%, 20% and now ?? 25%. My annual pension increase is 3 to 5%.
Whilst I have enjoyed reading the Telegraph, there is a recession on and we all have to make sacrifices. I regret, but I will not be renewing our subscription."
|
|
Motoring section is probably seasonal (as well as crunch-time factors) as others state. Yorkshire Post motoring/property sections have shrunk too, but I seem to remember they do at this time of the year. Like other posters only read Telegraph online now and buy Yorkshire Post when we want a newspaper. Excellent paper but not too relevant if you live in Croydon/Bristol or W12!
|
My renewal came through again this week at £96 - third year at that rate. Bargain of the century. Very chuffed. But then I live in a deprived area...
|
|
Wow ..... a fascinating marketing policy is unrolling! I suppose that here, in glorious Bury St Edmunds, they imagine that we've got pots of money. Well, we haven't, Gordon's nicked it all!
|
Motoring sections likely to be mainly funded by advertising. Credit crunch - advertising drops; newspapers cut back.
Have you seen the property sections recently?
|
Newspapers are taking a kicking worldwide.
Our office has laid of a fair few subs recently, and the advertising is well down, even though it is Xmas week.
Motoring-wise, the weekly motoring supplements are very thin indeed - again, advertising related - and there is a dearth of newsworthy stories.
Likewise sport - difficult to fill pages if there isn't much sport going on, so the paper slashes the 5 or 6 pages down to 3...
|
|
I'd like to know how mapmaker continues to get his Telegraph for £96! I've just received a further 'offer extension' announcement for a £195 subscription despite my having written to them to cancel. I'd have thought they might have dropped the price to get the business.
|
>>I'd like to know how mapmaker continues to get his Telegraph for £96!
He's quite surprised too (but very happy!). OTOH, upmystreet.co.uk says this about my area of town, and no doubt the Telegraph bods will be working from similar information sources:
Often, many of the people who live in this sort of postcode will live in crowded flats in multi-ethnic areas. These are known as type 56 in the ACORN classification and 1.04% of the UK?s population live in this type.
Neighbourhoods fitting this profile are almost exclusively found in London, in areas like Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Southwark. The only other place with significant numbers outside of London is central Birmingham. Here is an overview of the likely preferences and features of your neighbourhood:
Family income Low
Interest in current affairs Very high
Housing - with mortgage Very low
Educated - to degree Medium
Couples with children Medium
Have satellite TV Low
These urban areas contain large numbers of young, multi-ethnic families, many of whom are single parent families. This type has very high numbers of under fives. A quarter of the people in this type are Afro-Caribbean, and 10% are Bangladeshi. There is also a significant student population sharing flats.
70% of the housing is purpose built blocks of flats. The flats tend to have one or two bedrooms and are rented from the council or housing associations. The large numbers of children living in these small flats make these homes the most overcrowded in the UK.
Unemployment levels are high, although given the large numbers of lone parents with children under school age, a high proportion of people are not on the job market at all. The working population tends to be employed in retail jobs and basic occupations, where the skill levels required are relatively low.
With low incomes and living in the city, car ownership levels are low and people use public transport. Money is primarily spent on the children and there is little left for luxuries. Religion is an important part of the social life of some of the ethnic minority population.
They read newspapers and the Daily Mirror, The Guardian and Independent are popular. They may also have cable TV at home and other interests include buying clothes.
This is a description of the type of neighbourhood to which this postcode has been matched, it is not a description of the postcode. The overview describes characteristics frequently found in these neighbourhoods. Since most postcodes include a mix of people we don?t expect everyone there will fit the description perfectly. Learn more.
You should not base important decision-making on the ACORN classification alone. ACORN © CACI Limited 2008 All rights reserved; no right to publish is granted.
|
|
Very interesting, Mapmaker - perhaps the Telegraph is conducting some sort of experiment ;-)
|
My annual pension increase is 3 to 5%.
Count yourself as fortunate. A lot of private sector pensions are fixed.
|
Count yourself as fortunate. A lot of private sector pensions are fixed.>>
It is a private sector pension, and it's fixed to the rate of inflation between defined limits. I had to go early, though, so it won't stretch to more than a 12-year old Mondeo ;-)
|
But the Telegraph part fund your use of this forum
Is it too costly to run this forum?
Is it possible to reveal how much it costs to run a forum similar to this eg. £100 a year, £500, £1000, £2000 or £5000+/yr?
|
I have no idea and we'll never know how much the website (which is more than just the forum) costs ;-)
It's not just the cost/licence for the software you need to host the servers in a datacentre with fast Internet connectivity. Then you probably want your Disaster Recovery systems in another datacentre somewhere else in the country.... so it won't be that cheap.
Then add in the cost of the support and development staff.
|
Then add in the cost of the support and development staff.
Not forgetting the amount of time HJ has to spend answering emails [access to HJ by email is important enough to have a tab of its won on this page!], and keeping all the other information up to date.
|
From previous discussions, this forum is particularly expensive to run. There are plenty of free forum providers out there - they'll provide hosting etc. etc. all for free.
www.proboards.com/
OTOH, this forum has much the best software I've ever seen - a sensible fontsize; no smileys, sensible no. of posts per page, no pictures.
And it's superbly modded, snipquoting left, right and centre.
HJ doesn't run it for our benefit, however (or if he does, he is very peculiar in this business world...). He runs it for his own benefit, as a part of his business - a showcase. The advertorials in the "news" section no doubt pay. The people who "messed" up britain book, the various other bits too.
And then our presence here adds value to the site. Legal/motoring/technical problems, all solved, for free. Spleen vented, all for free. And advice given to HJ too when he wants to respond to certain reader queries. And the site always comes up very high in google searches.
So, we benefit, but without us here, there would be no back room and HJ's site traffic would be lower, so he benefits.
Symbiosis.
Edited by rtj70 on 23/12/2008 at 17:03
|
I work as a web developer myself. I'm not a know-all but this is my view.
Everyone's right!
To host a forum similar to this will take more of your time than any other cost. Time is the predominant reason why people give up their bogs, not a few hundred quid a year (which is very much on the high side anyway). If you have a free-for all then language will deteriorate, as will abuse etc. People will leave and go elsewhere. The moderators here are often praised. I've often wondered why as I'm a relatively new member but there's a superb piece of modding on this very thread by Rob (in absence of comment from HJ or Telegraph). You cannot buy that. Even if you pay for it you'll have a job getting someone who cares.
But this site is much more than a forum as has been pointed out already.
This site will cost anything from £2k-6k per year to run. Developer time is not cheap (though I am). To add a new section will take many hours and may cost anything from £300-£3000+.
Tawse is spot on on hosting costs. For £250 p.a. you can get high quality high availability service.
Whoever does maintain this site does a very good job indeed, and I'm pleased to be a user. The more of us that think the same will boost income from advertising. It may offend Guardian readers, but websites are a case of survival of the fittest.
|
Is it possible to reveal how much it costs to run a forum similar to this eg. £100 a year £500 £1000 £2000 or £5000+/yr?
I suspect it is 500 per year in the hosting costs and associated costs minuse time to set up a forum on any subject that you care to think of.
For example, if you wanted to set up a site like this, say a car blog of your own, you could get hosting for aout £200 per year with a good amount of bandwidth. Then you will need to buy some forum software which you can get off the shelf for about 100 to 250 quid dependent upon what features you want and, well, away you go.
You would have to put some time into setting it up, posting some info, etc, but that is basically it.
This site is a bit more than just a forum of course as HJ does all his car reviews here and has recently begun to add video to the site but, re your question, for a basic forum on any subject you could do it for 500 per year - probably less.
Your main costs would be:
1. Bandwidth - which if you get a vast number of people you would need to worry about but then you could add google ads or similar to get income.
2. Your own time.
|
Your main costs would be: 1. Bandwidth - which if you get a vast number of people you would need to worry about but then you could add google ads or similar to get income. 2. Your own time.
What about the cost of electricity? Heating and lighting?
The site runs 24/7.
|
All part of the hosting.
You host with an ISP - they pay the power bills.
It is not as expensive as people think to get a forum or blog up online. If you look around you can find places to do it for free but £500 a year will get you a decent forum up online via your own domain name and ISP.
|
...but £500 a year will get you a decent forum up online via your own domain name and ISP
I find that sort of figure hard to believe. I'm assuming there's a level of bespoke-ness on this site - and developer level bespoke-ness at that. I make bespoke telephony based products (press 1 for this or 2 for that type things to do telephone banking & the like) & know that even a small deviation from a generic product or existing solution can generate many hundreds (if not thousands) of extra pounds costs in the dev/testing/deployment cycle. Heck, even a small tweek to the 'forum search' function might take a developer 3 days from design to roll-out.
I'd guess HJ year-on-year development costs (because the site has developed & expanded its functionality even during my short tenure) run into several thousand pounds - if not even 5 figure sums.
|
...but £500 a year will get you a decent forum up online via your own domain name and ISP I find that sort of figure hard to believe.
You can pay tens, hundreds, of thousands of pounds for bespoke anything on the Internet. Then again, you can buy all the stuff online these days for the sums I mentioned and it all works brilliantly.
Invision Board sell a really excellent piece of forum software that powrrs many tens of thousands online forums from home users right through to corporates.
I know about this stuff because I have been a senior manager on the Internet side for the World's biggest software maker and the World's biggest Internet company in the past decade specialising in, um, the Internet.In my time I have spent millions on this kind of thing for corporates but...
I say the above not to blow my own trumpet but because, in the past 2 - 3 weeks, I have decided to put a forum of my own and a blog of my own online in the 2009 and have been going through the various technologies available, what software to use, where to host, etc, and how much things would cost. Once you have the initial software of your choice and the web hosting sorted - not much - the only real expense is your time filling the content, editing it and moderating it.
This is one reason why traditional media - TV and Newsprint - are under pressure as they traditionally controlled the means of distribution either by cost or licencing or both but the Internet now negates all that.
|
Most of the other forums we leap over to - the car specific ones for example, are run on 500 a year or less. All use standard - almost freeware - forum software.
|
I'm assuming there's a level of bespoke-ness on this site - and developer level bespoke-ness at that.
HJ's forum software is by Khoosys. Link at bottom of page takes you to:
www.ipages.biz/single.htm?ipg=3523
"a team of expert programmers led by Dr Stephen Khoo. Stephen obtained his PhD from Imperial College ... "
Their pricing/costs: www.ipages.biz/single.htm?ipg=3377
Other work besides HJ: www.ipages.biz/single.htm?ipg=6136
Edited by rtj70 on 23/12/2008 at 17:51
|
But this site is not using the iPages "service". It also runs on its own set of servers (plural).
But yes the software is by Stephen Khoo and is often updated/enhanced.
If this debate continues here it will have to move into the computer thread ;-) I agree someone can setup a forum somewhere fairly cheap. But this forum runs on the servers underpinning this whole website which now includes videos etc.
Rob
P.S. Thanks FocusDriver on your welcome feedback on modding this site and in particular this thread.
Edited by rtj70 on 23/12/2008 at 17:16
|
Yes, for hosting costs and anything software, I don't think there is another industry like this where costs can vary enormously.
For example, we once wrote some software for an advice bureau that cost them around £15K. We later found out that the Government had given the organisation as a whole £20m to do the same thing! £11m was for the software though, and the rest for support, infrastructure and training. Needless to say, the £20m solution at the time didn't work and wasn't widely adopted - but there isn't anything new in that is there?
So hosting and development can cost anything from nothing to thousands and there may not be a direct correlation between money spent and what is delivered.
We happen to have our own servers in London for the HJ site. There is a backup server there and another one in Sheffield. To use a hosting company for this service alone is around £500 per server per month, and when I investigated the downtime of one company that had won a load of awards for hosting, it came down to about 3 hours per quarter which isn't really good enough.
There are also very cheap hosting alternatives in the US. But again looking at these, when we dug through discussion posts of real people using them we found unacceptable downtimes and poor performance. The problem with all this is that one has lost control. Our payment service provider, for example, the other day went down from Sunday to Wednesday night, leaving all our ecommerce shops without card payment facilites over the busiest period in the year.
Now on to forum software. The problem we would find with other solutions would be in tying car make and model and searches to posts like we have done here. If we bought the software or used other open source stuff out there we would have to modify it for what HJ site needs anyway. As someone says in another post, this site isn't just a forum. I know some people think it is. But it will move more into a site for impartial car advice where users - like the forum users - are active in that process. We couldn't do that with off-the-shelf software.
The forum here also hasn't been touched a lot in the last few years. Bits of AJAX code have been added here and there, but there isn't any way that we will be able to keep up with the teams of people who do nothing else but write forum software. The main thing is that it is clean and functional and adds to the site.
Changes are inevitable and in the new year we will be hopefully making this site more THE place to be for car related stuff!
----------------------------------
Stephen Khoo
www.khoosys.net
Edited by Stephen on 23/12/2008 at 18:25
|
Stephen, thank you for taking the time to answer those questions. Very interesting from my perspective. And from a motoring point of view of course...
Here's looking forward to devs in the New Year!
|
Stephen wrote: ...the main thing is that it is clean and functional....
Too right, lose that and I'll be off and I imagine a good few others.
|
Stephen, I think the members (including the moderators) will appreciate your contribution here. I too look forward to how this site develops.
Rgds, Rob
|
Sorry, this was meant to go in further up.
Count yourself as fortunate. A lot of private sector pensions are fixed.>>
And if you are unfortunate enough to live in the Eurozone on a UK-sourced pension you have suffered a 20-plus per cent drop in income in the last month or so alone.
Every Christmas card I have received this year from friends still in newspapers and publishing tell of horrendous and very sudden mega cutbacks.
Edited by mike hannon on 23/12/2008 at 16:33
|
|
Slimmed down Christmas version yet same price last saturday.
|
Slimmed down Christmas version yet same price last saturday.
Mr X:
Are you sure you are not Mr Angry from Purley?
|
|
Mr X - I had you pegged as a reader of something a little less gratuitous and tittle-tattlish, with a more balanced editorial. Nothing else fit the bill? How about putting preconceptions to one side and trying a newspaper? I too read HJ's Q&A's for some time, and indeed took advice for my Father who has now been very pleased with 2 new Honda Jazz's (Jazzes??) The website is excellent, and I don't wish to insult HJ but I regard the Q&A section as something of a column frequently expressing imbalanced views on debates like speed cameras, for example. Debate is necessary and HJ is of course entitled to his opinion, but I fear the column has become a personal platform to which I cannot respond and be published. I wonder if HJ might return to giving us the benefit of his wisdom about cars themselves and leave the political debate elsewhere? HJ - I hope you won't delete me here and look forward to your response!
|
|
Agreed - I used to like HJ's column when it was about motoring.
|
My father too complains that too many published letters are about points of law or policing. I can see his and your point. After all, we love cars so we want to read about them. But I suspect this weighting reflects HJ's 'postbag'.
As cars get increasingly more reliable, and the authorities venture further and further into our lives as motorists, it seems reasonable to me that correspondence covers these topics more. Just being devil's advocate.
|
|
I don't want to reignite previous debate but I get irritated by comment placing the blame for different matters at the door of the Police. Speed cameras - introduced by Government, placed by local authority. Closure of roads to investigate fatal accidents - Police accountable to HM coroner. Both examples where Police get the blame but have no choices. Doubtless I will be hit back with opinion from contributors that do not understand some of the finer points, any more than I understand matters in which I am not learned. That'll be the reason why I accept and digest opinion about cars and matters of engineering from those that know...
|
|
But this was a thread on the Telegraph's motoring section. If we want to debate speed cameras etc. then use the appropriate thread. We've already discussed hosting costs for forums and websites ;-)
Edited by rtj70 on 23/12/2008 at 19:02
|
if the only questions I answered were about cars everyone would fall asleep including me. >>
If we're allowed a vote, HJ, you are wrong. The pithy information about particular cars is always interesting; the stuff about the country going to the dogs and how much better life is in Thailand is a turn-off.
|
'Mr X - I had you pegged as a reader of something a little less gratuitous and tittle-tattlish, with a more balanced editorial. Nothing else fit the bill? How about putting preconceptions to one side and trying a newspaper?'
So you regard the publication written for by the host of this board to be 'gratuitous and tittle-tattlish' ?
Admittedly, the recent 50 plus redundancies across the editorial and sub editors that put the paper together will affect the content but it will still follow the same political agenda.
The car makers see TV coverage as the great god and lean more and more towards that media and specialist publications. Most papers have reduced or done away with their motoring section. Many no longer have staff writers but rely on freelance contributions.
It will be interesting to see what format the Telegraph Motoring section is in by the end of 2009.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
