Why is BYTB having so much trouble? Well, we're not 100% sure. There is some connection problems. But thats only part of it. The other part is the fact that we're getting so big that we're outgrowing how hosting package.
Now, the site, while big isn't whats growing. It's the number of hits. We get almost 50,000 unique hits a month. Thats not counting all of the returning vistors. Each time the site is loaded, it takes CPU usage. We're on the border of going over our alloted usage.
What does all this mean? It means instead of a Semi-Dedicated server we will need to look at getting a dedicated serve.
The cost is high and I personally can't do it.
Before I tell costs or anything, I want to know how much this site means to you. Juist post it up. Would you really care if there was no more BYTB?
I am looking at some kind of donation drive, but before we look at that, I'd like to know if it might do any good.
This IS the number one Batsite on the internet. BOF may be more up to date on the news, but we really have the best info around. And it's a pretty damn good discussion community, I mean aside from myself on a few occasions there hasn't been much snobbery and bickering (I see that on to many other sites), so I would rather it stayed up.
But the problem is I've already got a lot of stuff going on in my life and I don't think I can invest any money into the site...
So really, I guess you gotta do what you gotta do. I mean this affects you more than it affects any of us, so I don't know. If you think it's worth it and can find a good way to go then great, keep it up. I'll do my best to help, but I don't know how much I can do for you.
Never start with the head; the victim gets all fuzzy!
BYTB to me represents the very best that the web has to offer for Batman. I think of it as what could very well be an online Batman museum. Anything and everything Batman related - all at your finger tips. From the obscure to the every-day common facts. Every little bit of minutia that is Batman is here.
To me personally it represents the largest devotion of time for me in recent memory. I don't often post on the forums or really socialize so much here - but that's only because I'm too busy dedicating every working minute that I possibly can into improving this site.
When I first landed on BYTB not too long ago I was just passively interested in Batman. I was a fan when I was much younger and some idle curiosity (bundled with a boring job) lead me to wonder to myself - hey, whatever happend to Batman? I had a stack of comics that I had stopped collecting roughly around junior high school (with the introduction of girls and cars and entering the workforce I found myself with little time or money to devout to the dark knight) and I wanted to make sense of it all. Who the heck is a KGBeast and who was that hunchback guy in the Batcave? Why hadn't I ever heard of him before? Stuff like that. Lingering questions brought back to the surface by a long dormant curiosity.
Maybe this doesn't quite all make sense (I've never been that good at expressing my emotions - perhaps thats why I related so well to an angry man running around at night in a nightmarish outfit to avenge never ending emotions of guilt and rage). So let me give a little background.
Growing up at the time when I did, Batman was experiencing a surge of popularity comprable to the surge of the 60's when the show hit. The first movie was blowing people away and suddenly it was near impossible to be a kid growing up without at least having SOME interest in Gotham's protector. Meanwhile, the book was truly becoming the more heavy book that it is today. With the breaking of the bat and the death of Jason Todd, the book was getting back to it's darker roots - and quite frankly, at lot of it was (at the time) completely over my head.
So one day I got an odd sorta interest in it. Maybe it was the new movie coming out - who knows? Maybe if you spend enough time sitting locked away in a cubicle doing absolutely nothing you'll find time to wonder about everything in life. But regardless, I researched and researched, trying to tie up the loose ends from the sporadic comic collections and bizarre recollections of my youth.
Some people spend their time looking up old friends on Myspace or asking relatives for answers to odd family memories that when tempered with the not so 20/20 hindsight of young adulthood don't make much sense. I on the other hand spent tiime researching the caped crusader.
What I found was a little empty at first. Wikipedia, random geocities comic sites - I went to them all. None of them really gave me the sense that I could get the whole story. Most hadn't been updated in YEARS. There are top secret government projects with more available data out there on the net than the Bat. Everything, every bit of information seemed to be truncated and watered down for time and space. I mean, for a character that's lived on for almost 70 years, you'd assume SOMEONE would devout an adequate amount of webspace to them.
After doing some searching, I finally found a site that did - this one. Thanks to BYTB I was able to complete my out-dated collection, make sense of those strange comic book memories I had from when I was a child - and really sorta bring closure to a part of my youth. I know it sounds hokey - hell, I can't believe I'm typing this, but it's true.
It all came flooding back - weekend trips up to the comic shop. The smell of old comic book paper disintegrated and infused with the air of bubble gum and pinball machine oil. Conversations with my father, whom I hadn't seen in years, came rushing back to me. I began to realize that I had a pretty decent foundation, a sturdy bedrock, for what could be a working knowledge of Batman.
And this got me to thinking - hey, you know, there's probably a lot of people my age (growing up in the post '89 Burton Batman era) who have sorta lost track of Batman. What if they wanted to rekindle the relationship with the dark knight? Where else could they go but here? How can I help these other people just like me?
The answer was simple - offer a hand.
So I sent Chris an email and I've been hooked ever since. Like I said, I've completed my collection, filled in the missing 10 or so years and then some. I've rediscovered a passion from my youth and I've never felt any better about a hobby. Not to mention the fact that if I didn't have something to do at my job besides, well, my job - I'd go crazy.
So what exactly does BYTB mean to me? A lot.
And it could mean even more to a bunch more people too if given the time to grow. If I can do anything, please let me know.
"Yes I do believe there is a violent thing inside of me."
I only found this site beginning of 2007 and thought this was THE Batman site to go to.
This site truly offers insight on comics, toys, movies, memorabilia and everything else related to Batman. Its amazing how much info on Batman there is and its all here.
When I checked out the action figures forum, it brought back a LOT of memories as a child. I didn't realize how many Batman figures I collected over the years. BYTB holds the key to remembering my childhood. To lose this site means losing something I once held important.
BYTB is one of the few websites I go to on a daily basis to check up on what's new with Batman. I think the biggest loss would be the discussions people have on here. I may have had debates in the past but I can count them on one hand compared to the wonderful and colorful discussions held whether was about movies or the comics or even art work. BYTB contains members who are true fans.
Even if getting news is slower than BOF and SuperHeroHype, I know its carefully put it out. I like how meticulous the admins here are about what gets posted.
Losing BYTB would be a great loss to Batman fans like myself. This site is basically the encyclopedia for Batman.
Thanks for the words huys, I hope more people step up to the plate.
In an effert to lessen the CPU usage, some features have been disabled. The Latest Photos, Forum THreads and Latest downloads.
Over the next few days I'll be tracking and the site may go down for ahile to help with the load time. The main page will likley change as well. Just a heads up!
I came across BYTB throught the Batman Podcast on iTunes. Every time i would listen to one it would say visit batmanytb.com and i thought it was a podcast site, so one day i decided to visit BYTB and check what it really was and i found what appeared to be a great batman site.
I did some exploring before i regestered and i found it to be the most amazing batman site i've ever came across. I quickly regestered and became the Riddler. Then i saw "Last seen users" area with some names that were differnt colors, "online", "offline", so i investigated what the colors were. I clicked on FlaBatand PM'ed him just asking qustions about the site and how to "rank" up or to be an Admin. FlaBat told me his story and how he moved from a differnt site to this one, gave me some advice and insight and answered more questions about the site that i had.
I started to post on the forums, kept up with everyone and got acostomed to coming to the site two or three times a Day! And i still do today if not more. Now im happy that i can help "run" the site and say that im an Admin on the Best and biggest batman site on the net. Without BYTB it would be awkward in some ways, BYTB has everything from comics, to movies, to books, to bios, the possibilities seem infinite! its helped me more then i can remember in buying or serching for Batman related things. Its a different site than others, everyones nice and they post logical and meaningful posts in threads. Bottom line, BYTB is needed.
Alfred- Why do we fall Sir?.........So we can
learn to pick ourselves up.
What does BYTB mean to me? Let me tell you a little story…
Now I may not be one of the oldest members on this board, but I bet I’m in the Top 5. When I buy beer and the cashier asks if I’m old enough, I simply say, “Kennedy was elected the year I was born” and let them do the math.
I was able to watch the Batman TV series with Adam West live the first time it aired, while most here have only seen it in syndicated reruns. I’ve been a Batman fan ever since.
Fast forward to 1989 and Batman was back on film, and what a film it was. I worked with a guy named Derek who moonlighted working at a comic book store. He got me hooked on comic books and of course Batman and Detective were two of the many titles I collected. I stored my comic books away, they were after all an investment. The early 90’s were a wild time for comic books and I was sure that one day a comic book in my collection would be like Detective 27 is today.
I doubt that will ever happen, but you never know. What I do know is comic books get put away and take up space. Because most comic book stores also carry action figures and other collectibles, I found more and more of my money going to action figures that sat out on display and less on comic books that I never looked at after reading them.
Collecting is like a disease, one that you don’t even know you have until too late. In 1992 my collection was really, really small, so small most of it fit on my desk. A few TMNT figures, a few TDKC figures, some PVC figures of Gremlins and ET and some plush Figment’s from Epcot was about all there was. Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992 and but damper on things, but from 1993 on, there was a steady flow of new figures coming into my “Computer Room”. It grew around 100 figures per year, although years with new Batman always added more.
When I started collecting I did not bother to keep Card Backs or record anything new I added. After I’d been collecting awhile I started to keep track in an Excel Spreadsheet, but I still needed more information. Then one day I was on the Internet and wondered what was out there about Batman and in particular Batman action figures, toys and collectibles. The answer back then was not very much. I found BOF and was a regular poster there for a while, but they were focused on bringing Batman back to film and not so much about the toys. I looked some more and found an action figure database on Geocities. This database was great and was in fact an early version of BYTB, although I don’t think it had The Voice Of Gotham forum yet.
Still I looked for more and I found LOG. LOG was dedicated to Batman toys. In their forum I found a whole lot of similar minded collectors and fans. I was one of the Top 20 posters on LOG and even became a Moderator there. I was also a Member here on BYTB, after I found their forum. For a while, things were great. I met people all over the world and had great online discussions about all things Batman and all those wonderful toys.
LOG changed the night Matt kicked his web site partner Josh off the board and took over and moved the forum to a new ProBoards site. From that point LOG was starting to become more like SHH, although not quite as bad. There was a certain clique going on, kind of like high school almost. There were flame post wars between LOG and BYTB and there I was stuck between them. At that time there were almost no LOG Members active on BYTB, except me. Matt banned me for a few months and when he did let me back on, I deleted my account and all 2,000 plus posts I had on LOG.
BYTB became my new home. At first I was just a Member like everybody else. Chris, Caleson and Riskdogg took care of everything. Then one day I was asked if I wanted to help, and I became and Admin and the rest as they say is history.
I had poured my heart into LOG and I was sorry I left, but I poured my heart, soul and wallet into BYTB and I would even more hurt if it went away. In addition to doing Figure Reviews and helping Caleson with The Best Damn Batman Database Ever, I contribute financially to the site. When I buy from Amazon, I always click on the link on BYTB. I have donated rare figures from my collection to help raise funds for BYTB. Riskdogg won a green shirt Ra’s Al Ghul variant a few years ago and Chris will be selling an Ethan Bennett Clayface I donated on eBay shortly. I’ve sent Chris $20 via PayPal and our Donate Button a few times over the years and even paid for Registering the site two years in a row. I may not be the highest contributor, but I’ve paid my share and then some.
I come on BYTB everyday, sometimes two or three times a night just to see what’s going on. I don’t do it because I’m an Admin, I do it for the love of Batman and for the love of being with people like you. If this site were to go down, I’m not sure what I’d do. There is no other place like it anywhere.
Chris is one of the best Webmaster’s out there. Look at SHH or LOG or any other board that allows some of the trash talking you’ve seen online and note that none of that is here on BYTB. Chris is a working class guy and like a lot of working class guys he’s humble. He’s got a wife, kids, mortgage, car payment and a job just like the rest us. He’s spent a lot of what he has on us, on me and on you. He has given his all, gave up nights and weekends and family time because he’s devoted to bringing this passion of his to the world and sharing it with everybody.
Chris hates to ask for money, but the sad reality is it takes money to run a Web Site. If every Member sent in $5.00 to BYTB right now, we’d be set for a while. If even 10% of the Members sent in $5.00 we’d be OK for a few Months. I know, you’re broke, or you have other things to do or whatever, but I bet everybody on this board can spare $5.00 if they wanted to.
Remember my Kennedy reference in the beginning of this post? John F. Kennedy once said “Ask not what can your country do for you, ask what can you do for your country?”
Well I ask … What you what can you do for BYTB?
What can you do, what will you do for a place you cherish so much?
Well, I'll try and remember to click on the ads a little bit more if it helps out. Been sort of forgetting for the last few months now. Is it just the Google ads, or can the Amazon and WBShop ads help out as well?
As for how much this site means to me, well BYTB was the 1st site I had ever signed up to join/use a message board. In the past, I've always went to various message boards, but never joined, either because of how people acted on the boards, or because I wasn't sure if the service was free. Since I was interested in joining, I e-mail Chris, and he verified that it was free to join, and the rest is history. By joining this message board, I eventually had the confidence to join the Toy News International message boards as well.
But even before I joined the message boards, I was still coming this site mainly for info about Batman, as well as the various Batman toys. I think I may have 1st come to this site back in 2003 or 2004. I always enjoyed reading reviews on the message boards as well in regards to some of the various Batman toys, espeically those from the normal reviewers, Spencer1984 and FalBat. I think Chris may have did a few as well.
I remember reading the History section back around 2004 or 2005, and realized how much info it had in regards to Batman, unlike some other websites. I don't even remember if I actually finished reading it or not at the time to be honest. I also expanded on looking at other sections of the site, including the various media sections ( Movies, T.V. shows, etc. ) . This is also the only site that I know that has the script of the possible pilot episode of the Bruce Wayne series that was talked about back in 2000/early 2001.
Through this site, I also found out about a few other websites, most noteably Spencer1984's Batmobile History website, which really started to click with me back in 2006 when reports of the Hot Wheels 1960's T.V. Batmobile was revieled. I also think I found Hollywood Die-cast though this site as well, or maybe that was the Batmobile History website. When the hunt for the Hot Wheels 1960's T.V. Batmobile began or was about to begin, this was the site that I usually used to help me get a better understanding of the different scales and variants that came out ( Or were suppose to have come out ) . And this hunt would also interest me in other Batman die-cast vehicles from Hot Wheels even more than I would have in the past. Of course I contribute by providing links to info and pictures as well, so that defently provided fuel to the fire. 2007 was defently the year when I really started getting intersted in small die-cast vehicles, something that I was only mildly intersted in the past but with no real drive to get, all thanks to the 1960's T.V. Batmobile from Hot Wheels, and this site for all the info on other Hot Wheels Batman die-cast vehicles.
Thorugh the message boards, I've also contacted both Spencer1984 and Marcus, and have sended them both messages in their BYTB message boxes, as well e-mails to their e-mail accounts, as some of these included attachments and links of things that may interest them, along with questions. For Spencer1984, I've also sended him stuff that he could use for his Batmobile History website if he wanted to ( His choice of course ). I've even met Marcus in person back in 2007 when he said he need help getting some Hot Wheels Batmobiles ( Mostly, the 1960's T.V. 1, but I did also get him a few other ones as well ). And through meeting him, I 1 day asked him to help me get and toy on e-Bay, and when he did win the bid, we met, and I paid him both cash and got him a Hot Wheels 2005 Batman Begins Collectors Batmobile 2 pack that I got at Winners for him ( Both cash and the 2 pack were combined to give him a value close to how much he paid to get a toy for me on e-Bay ) .
I'm not sure, but I think LOG ( Legion Of Gotham ) website is no more, and I think it now only has a message board. I tried a serach on Google, but could never find it after looking at 10 search pages ( In the past, it was on either Page 1 or 2 of the search ) , but BYTB would be on Page 1 or 2 of the search. I also tried typing in LOG's web address, and that didn't work either. LOG was another huge Batman website with info and pictures and what not, but while I'm sad that it appears to be now gone, I think I would be even more sad if BYTB was gone.
While I would love for this site to continue, I do understand Chris if you do decide that you want to pull the plug on it. Running a site like this must take up a lot of your time and energy, along with anyone else who helps you out. Of course, because of The Dark Knight movie coming out, traffic must be starting to pick up because there are those interested in Batman and this movie, so they search for Batman websites for more info and what not, or out of interest. This traffic tends to also slow down the site as well.
This happened in 2007 with the Transformers live action movie, which caused some Transformers sites to be slow or down due to interest by people who wanted to find out more info about Transformers and the movie. I think this also happened in 2005 with BYTB as well because of Batman Begins. Matter of fact, I think in 2005, BYTB was temporary closed down either around, before, or shortly after Batman Begins movie came out, only to come back a bit later, though I could be wrong on that.
But yeah, Chris, if you can continue, great, but if you have to pull the plug, it's understandable ( At least to me ) . Just so long as you are aware that if BYTB closes down, it will be missed by those who had the privliage to go to the site, and those that could of visited this site in the future will never get a chance to do so. But in the end, it's all up to you, and what you want to do. And I'll try to remember to click on a few more ads whenever I visit now.
The Google ads are the only ones that gerante profit. The others, Amazon, WB, Hot Topic, they only do if you purchase somehting.
And thanks.. BYTB will be around, but I'm not sure in what forum. We'll be more than a forum, but it might take a little. I'm waiting on a package from Mr. Scott Beatty then we'll start a donation drive. and maybe raise the money we need.
This site cannot be shut down. I dont even want to think about it. This is the best Batman site around. It has all the basic you need to know and more, it would be a shame to not have this site.
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