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Hello everyone, This is a post I've been meaning to do for a long time now but never really got around to doing it. I was also on vacations for a while and only came back this week-end. The goal of this post is to expose a bit the "behind-the-scenes" of DCW and be as open as possible regarding the finances of the site and servers. In a way, I would like to sensibilize the community about the resources and money it takes to maintain DCW and keep it running day after day. I'm not sure if you all remember the events of January of this year when the site had some major issues and I've had to make many updates (and upgrades) to put it back up (better, safer and stronger)? If not, see the posts made here: http://www.detectiveconanworld.com/forum/topic/4298-forum-and-wiki-maintenance/ and http://www.detectiveconanworld.com/forum/topic/4357-forum-and-wiki-upgradeupdates/ Besides the software upgrades at the time, I also upgraded the resources used by DCW (due mainly to the increasing traffic of visitors to the site). I also currently pay a third-party service to regularly scan, detect and prevent attacks and potential exploits as they appear. The bill has now come to around $150 per month for a web server and a separate database server + about $10 a month for the security service I just mentioned. This is quite a substantial amount of money in the end (about $1900 a year out of my pocket..). And with $150 a month already, I believe at this point we could eventually push it a little more to reach our dream of getting a dedicated server that we can fully use and benefit from, resources-wise, without any (or barely any) restrictions (i.e. more bandwidth, more memory, more CPU). We should consider at least $200 for a good decent server. This is why I was hoping this post would let you know more about the situation and our priorities and where you could eventually help out in reaching our goal of getting a stable dedicated server as well as helping build the number 1 Detective Conan resource on the web! I would like to thank everyone who donated so far! It's very awesome of you and I am really grateful for the help! It really does help in paying the bills every month. If I make an average of the amount of donations per month and how much they help out I would say that they represent about 5% of the monthly fees. On the long-term, it would be amazing if the server could become self-sustaining with everyone's effort and help! So, even if it's just a little bit, any help is appreciated! Even $1 would be great! Thank you! Some benefits of becoming a donator: - Member of the "Donators" forum group (if you want to). By doing so, you'll let others know of your dedication and support to DCW - No more ads on the forum - The profile page can be customized a bit - More messages allowed in the inbox - If you have more ideas or suggestions, don't hesitate to let me know. Thank you for your contributions and continued support! Always greatly appreciated! Maurice

Wait, haunter or hunter?

you are not gonna turn out good if your role models are people of the entertainment ind.

"Our world is one of terrible contradictions. Plenty of food, but one billion people go hungry. Lavish lifestyles for a few, but poverty for too many others. Huge advances in medicine while mothers die every day in childbirth, and children die every day from drinking dirty water. Billions spent on weapons to kill people instead of keeping them safe." -Ban Ki-moon

I'll reply to it, since I actually have something to say... I feel like there are a lot of fanbases like this for a lot of different things. If somebody doesn't like something I like, and they present their argument logically, I'm cool with that. I'm not one to defend my interests to the death or anything. What really ticks me off is when, as you say, people try to shut down your argument by calling you "stupid" or "clearly blind/deaf" or by saying you have "**** taste", as it can get really annoying. Everyone's opinion is up for debate; there is no one right answer. People who think there is a clear cut yes-no when it comes to something as wishy-washy and petty as "best band", "best video game", "best movie", or "best anime/manga" are the ones that need to take a couple of big steps back and chill out. Now, I do feel kind of bad for saying this now, considering Lovestruck doesn't seem to be around anymore, but she was waaaaaaaay out of line in her posts on this topic a page back. Not cool at all and I hope she's come to be at least somewhat accepting of other people's opinions now.

ran is clingy, isn't she? a bit too much for me.