In the Universal Shotgun thread, Pasha said:
>
>This kind of thing right here? This is why I think you should get paid
>more to write.

Heh, thanks.

I have occasionally kicked around the idea of taking up a collection, not for EPU's fictional stuff (because that's always been free and I'd feel wrong suddenly charging for it, even on a volunteer basis; and because of the nightmarish IP ramifications, which we've already discussed on these boards a number of times), but because the basis of Gun of the Week can be kinda expensive. I haven't done it because, let's face it, I'd be collecting anyway, and the feature is so irregular/arbitrary/low-rent that I wouldn't really feel good about asking for money for it, either.

That said, I might yet consider something like it for an item I would probably not otherwise acquire, like for instance one of these. Just set up a little crowdfunding deal, let it run for a while, and see what happens. Maybe set an informal cutoff on it so that in like six months, if it hasn't reached the Reising level, we take whatever is in it and look around on Gun eBay for something else that's cool and weird.

I dunno, it's just a thought I'm kicking around. What do you guys think? Would that be tacky? Bridge too far? Over the shark?

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I was thinking of suggesting something along these lines. I'd subscribe to a Patreon for deep-dives of interesting firearms, sort of like a text-based Forgotten Weapons. (I also think it's a shame they live in Arizona; it'd be cool to see a collaboration with them).

It's the sort of thing I think there is a market for, if it's done right - and not just within the confines of the EPU forums. Set up a separate website for it and link to it in the usual enthusiast spots on the internet, and i think you would find there is interest.

I was going to mention Patreon. You can set them up for a 'per submission' basis - that is, whenever you put one out, your patrons get charged, up to their limit (if they choose to set one). That would help the 'irregular' part, and with it being specific for GotW, it would of course not have any copyright bearings. Or just make it not GotW specific, but 'random musings and ramblings' or something. Since there's no requirement for you to keep anything exclusive, you could still post them here for free with as little of a delay as you'd like.

Essentially, you'd be writing articles freelance again and getting paid for each one by people who actively wish to, with no required schedule.

And you could still do some sort of crowd fund for specific items, if you'd so desire. Seems like a win all around, to me.

>It's the sort of thing I think there is a market for, if it's done
>right - and not just within the confines of the EPU forums. Set up a
>separate website for it and link to it in the usual enthusiast spots
>on the internet, and i think you would find there is interest.

Yeah, this. Also while we'd have to sign up for some other account or something to have discussion there, you could probably come up with a website that doesn't have the same..let's be polite and call them 'restrictions' that the EPU forum software gives you.

Also, +1 to the patreon idea.

--
-Pasha
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."

>Yeah, this. Also while we'd have to sign up for some other account or
>something to have discussion there, you could probably come up with a
>website that doesn't have the same..let's be polite and call them
>'restrictions' that the EPU forum software gives you.

A while ago, I looked at setting up a WordPress instance on the EPU web server, initially with an eye toward re-homing the "StarkWire" feature from BGC: The Iron Age off the moribund LiveJournal platform. IIRC, Dave did set it up, but then, um, I never got around to learning how to use it. Maybe the time's approaching to revisit that...

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>A while ago, I looked at setting up a WordPress instance on the EPU
>web server, initially with an eye toward re-homing the "StarkWire"
>feature from BGC: The Iron Age off the moribund LiveJournal
>platform. IIRC, Dave did set it up, but then, um, I
>never got around to learning how to use it. Maybe the time's
>approaching to revisit that...
>

Do you have someone to update Wordpress and whatever plugins you might use with unmitigated crusader's zeal?

Do you have someone who can setup the Wordpress install in a sandbox/virtualized arrangement (a Docker container say?)

Do you have extensive automated backups to recover this site from on a semi-regular basis?

If the answer to any of these questions is even potentially going to be 'no' one day a decade, you really want to avoid Wordpress. Wordpress sites are compromised with a speed and ferocity normally reserved for archaic editions of Windows using Internet Explorer to browse questionably legal porn over unsecured wifi in Eastern Europe.

As someone who has had to cleanup the toxic filth left over after many such compromises, you don't want those headaches.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "Is it possible for a software package to cause PTSD?"

>Is it possible for a software package to cause PTSD?

Evidently.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

They're not wrong, although there are fairly straightforward ways to lock it down such that 90% of the problem is eliminated. The real headache will be figuring out which of the umpteen zillion "how to lock down Wordpress" guides out there is actually worth the electrons it's printed on.

(Sadly, all the alternatives involve quite a bit more Futzing Around With Computers in the way that used to be fun but now we're too old for that shit, especially if you want to allow comments.)

(In some ways DCForum's age is a blessing - it's probably full of holes, but it's so old that nobody is interested in cracking it.)

>(Sadly, all the alternatives involve quite a bit more Futzing Around
>With Computers in the way that used to be fun but now we're too old
>for that shit, especially if you want to allow comments.)

Mm. If I were going to be doing a more-of-a-straightforward-blog thing, I'd kind of rather keep it in-house as opposed to going to a third-party blogging site (like WordPress's own, which I used for a while a couple-three years ago and which has, if memory serves, shitty comment moderation), but at the same time, I don't want to create a ton of work for Dave (and my own admin days are well behind me). The inherent conflict between those two parameters is why I haven't done anything along those lines so far.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

> I'd kind of rather keep it in-house...but at the same time, I don't want to create a ton of work for Dave

Yeah, I hear that. In principle I'm a big believer in "Anything worth doing on the internet is worth doing at your own domain that you control" ("Bacchus' First Law of the Internet") (caution: that's a link to a sex blog; the content of that post is SFW but the site and its ads almost never are). I don't even like using third-party CDNs for resources. But it is so much more work than letting some corporation's staff do the sysadminning, and it just keeps becoming more so.

The zeitgeist in self-hosted blogging these days runs to "static site generators", which have the nice property that they can't have security problems, because they don't supply any code to run on the server, just flat text files. Also, typically, you use Markdown or similar to write the posts, and you only have to deal with the intricacies of modern HTML when you're setting up the site style, and if you don't want to deal with that there are plenty of people who could be hired to do it for you. I use Pelican for my own blog and I like it fine; it's a little slow but that's mostly because I need to be able to put equations in my posts, and that involves shelling out to an external rendering program for every post.

The big drawback of static site generators is that they don't support comments. What most people seem to do about that is outsource the comments to Disqus or IntenseDebate or Facebook. I am not a fan of this, but I also don't have a better idea, see above.

>are). I don't even like using third-party CDNs for resources. But it
>is so much more work than letting some corporation's staff do the
>sysadminning, and it just keeps becoming more so.

...until s3 goes down

--
-Pasha shitfuckfuckshitfuckfuckfuck
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."

I can only agree with others. I would certainly subscribe to a Patreon for things like that, or for things like site upkeep or what have you. Paying for the writing, well, no. Paying for stuff like the site itself? Yeah. I know the line is thin, and all, but there it is.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"

>Paying for the writing, well, no. Paying for stuff like the site
>itself? Yeah. I know the line is thin, and all, but there it is.

Oddly, I'm almost exactly the opposite. I'm paying for the thing I consume (the writing). Site maintenance is, to me, Cost of Doing Business for the writer.

--
-Pasha
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."

I presume MoonEyes meant paying for the FICTION, which, as Gryph noted, is a whole kettle of fishy worms that is best left alone, rather than the GotW or Elder Days Story Times or whatever and suchlike.

LAST EDITED ON Feb-28-17 AT 06:09 PM (EST)
 
>I presume MoonEyes meant paying for the FICTION,

Yeap.

>which, as Gryph noted, is a whole kettle of fishy worms that is best left alone

As well as something that he'll never charge for, in his own words. But, infrastructure is 'spensive. Having all of this for free, as it were, I'm quite fine with paying for the requirements around the free fiction.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"

Still mulling this over. I think if I do it, I'll call it the Søren Bang Memorial Firearms Fund, simply because Mr. Bang had the best gun designer name ever. "The Bang Fund" for short.

--G.
in my media empire, the Bang Bus would be a totally different thing.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I'd pay for that. I'm a pacifist and have an open hatred of US "gun culture", and I would pay for that. This is entirely because I'm kind of an amateur firearms historian myself -- though I go back much further, specifically medieval and Early Modern stuff -- and I enjoy Gryphon's writing a lot more than other collectors and gun obsessives.

GotW pieces concentrate on the people, the machinery involved, the actual history of the individual firearms a lot more than other blogs on a similar subject. Where they seem very concerned with how to make the loud noise come out of the tube and how it compares with other loud noise tubes they have known (come to think of it, Loud Noise Tubes I Have Known would be a good name for a gun blog), in Gryph's writing it seems almost like an afterthought, put in for the sake of completeness but in no way essential to the writing. It's a refreshing take, and one I'd feel comfortable supporting.

Y'know, if I wasn't flat broke, out of work, and generally completely useless. =]

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.