 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Mark Charette, Webmaster
Date: 2000-10-12 15:27
If you enjoy using the services on Sneezy, please consider contributing. last time the Klarinet mailing list people came up with $5000 in 2 months - maybe this time the BBoarders can shoulder part of the burden.
Did you know that Stan Geidel's Online Clarinet Resource and the Woodwind Fingering Guide are provided space and resources on Sneezy for free? (http://www.ocr.sneezy.org / http://www.wfg.sneezy.org)
Nothing is free - it currently costs between $2000 and $3000/year in cold, hard cash to keep Sneezy and associated services going, and our Sponsors and Web hosting just about cover that. I have to supply my own high-speed Internet connection and line, however, is going to more than double the annual costs with an additional $4500. I've been able to use a T1 line for free for the last two years, but a change in management at the sponsoring host has made it imperative that I get this new connection.
A breakdown of the $4500 needed to keep the site going another year:
Business DSL line + installation: $3800.00
UPS for 3 machines w/ remote
administration: : $ 600.00
Electricity (est)/yr : $1200.00
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$5600.00
Which means that $1100.00 will (hopefully) be made up from new sponsors.
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Why can't I use one of those free sites for Sneezy?
A couple of easy answers:
1) Sneezy sends out an average of 1GB of data/day! No "freebie" sites will do that, and most small business sites only allow 1GB/mo before they make you move to an expensive setup.
2) Sneezy (the web site only) takes up about 1.7Gb of disk space right now - and it grows daily.
3) I'd not be able to control and administer the site nearly as well as I can today.
Thank you for your continued support.
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Author: bob gardner
Date: 2000-10-12 18:45
Mark maybe sneezy should be come a fee site. No forget that idea. Come on folks send in your check or go paypal. I think this is the best bang for the buck.
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Author: Nate Zeien
Date: 2000-10-12 19:17
People may pay to have questions answered, but will people pay to give advice? In my opinion, making sneezy a pay site would bring on the downfall of sneezy. Another good reason to send donations, to keep sneezy running - free to all. -- Nate Zeien
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Author: Rene
Date: 2000-10-12 20:16
I don't want to be sophisticated, just want to understand.
Bulletin boards can be free using the Newsnet. There is already a clarinet list there, by the way. Even mailing lists can be free using e.g. the services of OneList. Most providers offer around 10 MB of web space for free with unlimited traffic. Chats can be free too using IRC, or a little server program (which I volunteer to write for you if need be).
I understand that Sneezy is probably a much more ambitous project than I know of. But to convince me to donate money to it (which I indeed have some tendency to do - having enjoyed the bulletin board the last months as well as the chat), you must convince me that this is really necessary.
Yours friendly,
Rene
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2000-10-12 20:30
Rene wrote:
>
> Even mailing lists can be
> free using e.g. the services of OneList.
And they're free to do a lot with your address if you read the terms of service.
> Most providers offer
> around 10 MB of web space for free with unlimited traffic.
The 10Mb is true, but not unlimited traffic. If you check the main posting, you'll see I have about 1.7 Gb of space used for Sneezy, with 1 Gb of information being transmitted daily. No "free" site will allow you to do that. They won't let you put your own search engine up. Very few of the "free" sites will let you do much of anything, really. That is why both the Online Clarinet Resource & the Woodwind Fingering Guide are on Sneezy - both were kicked out of "free" sites when they got too popular.
> I understand that Sneezy is probably a much more ambitous
> project than I know of. But to convince me to donate money to
> it (which I indeed have some tendency to do - having enjoyed
> the bulletin board the last months as well as the chat), you
> must convince me that this is really necessary.
Not probably a more ambitious project - it is a more ambitious ongoing project. I don't believe there is a larger single-instrument site in existence, commercial or otherwise.
Whether or not anyone wants to donate is, of course, up to them.
But nothing is ever free.
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Author: Dee
Date: 2000-10-12 21:58
You've mentioned the chat room and bulletin board but there is so much else at sneezy too. There are the composition databases, retailer data, some free classical midi and music files, serial number lists and so many other things that are available nowhere else on the internet.
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Author: Rene
Date: 2000-10-13 05:34
Yes Dee, I was feeling a little bit unsecure about having posted this.
It might be true that I have not yet discovered the things that Sneezy is offering besides the chat and board, or those things are out of my range of interests at this time. I did check the link of vendors once, but that is nothing I would like to pay for.
There are a few pay sites in the net (not counting the sadening porn sites). Association sites (like the clarinet ass.) come to my mind, which offer services for the members only and are free for those. Others are play sites, which run a game server to make money with it.
Sneezy, however? I wished Mark could finance it by sponsors alone.
Enough said.
Rene
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2000-10-13 11:59
Rene wrote:
>
> There are a few pay sites in the net (not counting the sadening
> porn sites). Association sites (like the clarinet ass.) come to
> my mind, which offer services for the members only and are free
> for those.
????? The International Clarinet Association site has <b>no</b> "pay" area for members! I know - I run that site.
> Sneezy, however? I wished Mark could finance it by sponsors
> alone.
>
> Enough said.
Rene, I wish there were enough money coming in to run it by sponsors - but there isn't. If you check carefully on the sponsors list, you will find that almost all are very small companies - they can't afford much in the way of advertising or Web sites. Have you looked at what it costs - really costs - to have a nice commercial Web site?
If I didn't provide a low-cost hosting service then many of the people you see advertising wouldn't be on the Internet - and your choices would be limited to the few big companies.
As to your not using or not wanting to pay for the services - that's fine. I don't hide any of them. But the chances are that if I didn't keep all this information centralized on one server you'd be spending a lot more time hopping around the Internet <i>trying</i> to find the information.
TANSTAAFL
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2000-10-13 17:47
Well said, several times, Mark, Dee, Bob et al, You'll have my contrib. as soon as my credit card problems clear up. Keep Sneezying, Don
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Author: Lelia
Date: 2000-10-14 01:07
Amen to the comment about the value of having all these resources available on one site! It means so much to have the resources in dynamic form, too, where we've got two-way communication and can ask questions about anything we don't understand after reading about it. We've got the value of textbook, current magazine subscription and seminar combined here.
Another value: respect for personal privacy, which will disappear completely if consumers don't rebel against computerized Big Brother watching our shopping habits, medical records and all manner of other personal information. Respect for privacy is in very short supply on the commercial and so-called "free" sites that exist to suck in information about visitors and spew out "targetted" advertising with "dynamic pricing" (figuring out what the target will bear and charging higher prices to devoted regular customers).
Take a good, close look at the so-called "privacy policies" on the "free" and commercial sites. Those "privacy policies" are for the most part a bad joke, so full of weasel words that either they're meaningless, or they actually beguile consumers into *signing away* privacy rights. The flip side of trading privacy for a bargain is that people with self-respect have to *pay* to keep our privacy by giving up the lower prices given to people willing to live under a camera.
When I checked out the details of my local supermarket's new "bonus card" (aka a *spy card*) last month, I was so disgusted, in fact enraged, that I switched nearly all of my grocery shopping to a rival store that's much farther away from my home but is one of the few left that doesn't tie its best prices to a spy card. I don't want the multi-national corporation that owns the grocery to monitor what my family eats and what over-the-counter medications we use. Every time I shop at the rival chain, I think about my neighborhood store and say to myself, "Target *this*, you @#$%^&*s!"
One way to protect not just ourselves but society against these privacy invading, predatory practices is to support sites like www.sneezy.org that make advertising *available* in a straightforward way, without all this sneaky crap. Put the hurt on the privacy-invaders. Don't do business with them. If they start losing customers, bigtime, then they'll be forced to show some respect. Meanwhile, coming here is a pleasure.
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Author: Willie
Date: 2000-10-14 04:13
Making this site a pay site would only eliminate its access to the ones that need it the most, the young non-working students who probably benifit the most from this site. If you care about kids and clarinets it would be good to tip in and keep this site alive and accessable to all. There is no other site of this caliber that I know of. My donation will be in soon.
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Author: MIchael Kincaid
Date: 2000-10-14 14:45
Lelia, I agree with what you said about the grocery store cards. Why did I contribute to Sneezy.org?
One year ago I went with my nephew to help him rent a saxophone from a small friendly
shop in Houston. I asked one of the repair people if my old Thibouville Freres clarinet was
worth fixing, and he said yes, then told me to check out a clarinet site called Sneezy. Now, one
year later (after 25 years of not touching a clarinet) , I'm playing in two community bands and taking lessons from a local Houston professional
clarinetist. I'm having more fun than I've had in years. The help I received from people on this
site has led me to all these new and fun activities. Thanks to Don Berger's enthusiasm for the alto
clarinet, I also own an alto and play that as well. This is a great site and worth supporting. Michael
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Author: Bob Arney
Date: 2000-10-15 23:49
Amen! And again I say, Amen! I stumbled on this site surfing and asked a "newby" question that has snowballed me back into a full-blown desire to again become proficient on an instrument that has, in the dim past, provided me with so much enjoyment. I was overwhelmed by the positive, free, responses that I got including searches of databases I did not even know existed and expert assistance in many areas completely foreign to me. In gratitude I felt compelled to contribute just to keep this source of information flowing and free. If necessary, or desired, I would even pay a yearly subscription.
Again, thanks to you all.
Bob Arney
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