lashek
patreon
Long Overdue
🕑 Added 2021-04-27 06:43:19 +0000 UTCSo first and foremost, I want to begin with the following:
If at any time you feel I am not doing something worthy of your patronage, please reach out or remove your pledge. While I strive to fulfill everything I say I will, I am only human and I will slip up / make mistakes.
Now, for the serious bit. This evening on TFGS, a user attempted to "call me out" and accuse me of misappropriating TFGS funds based on the goals that were set and the verbiage on the page. So allow me to address this out in the open, and publicly.
No, no I'm not. The expenses of the site have gone up, yet I've left the goals alone for the most part since I opened it, outside of revising the page for Discord support in 2018. The accusations came about because of the lack of contests on the forum, with the last contest ending in January 2020.
So allow me to discuss what the primary expenses are and how things work out:
Guaranteed Monthly Expenses:
* $250/mo goes to connection fees, keeping myself and the server online. This allows for 40Mbps upload at a contract rate that I have to negotiate every 2 years (and it went up $30 last time). This includes the static IP's, rental of equipment (since I can't use my own devices due to static IP), and the service.
* $285/mo electric bill, although I can't say 100% of that is solely due to TFGS - it's not. Some of it is me, so I'd say maybe 50-60% ($142-$171) is TFGS (running servers + keeping the room cool since servers generate heat)
This comes out to $392-$421/mo in expenses (and it varies every month for electricity with fees only going up). I've not been factoring anything external to the connection into the goals when I probably should have, simply because I've felt that I needed to pay them out of pocket.
Not included:
* Patreon's cut of the money, although I believe the $$ they list on the page factors this in
* Taxes. I have to pay them annually as this does generate a 1099. That eats into what I receive, since I do have to keep some of the funds set aside for Uncle Sam.
The last 2 years:
In the last two years, we've seen several enhancements to the overall infrastructure. Some of this is paid for from the Patreon funds, some from my own pocket. How much from which? I haven't kept an itemized detail.
* Installation of managed networking equipment (full Ubiquiti setup)
* Addition of 3 more blade servers with load balancing and fail-over support. Each server has 24 CPU cores (factoring in threading) with 144GB RAM and 6x 480GB SSD's in RAID-10. A bit overkill, but I also study and practice IT on them in addition to running TFGS. It's a benefit to both TFGS as well as myself.
* Addition of redundant battery backup power supply systems. These are APC 1500VA units (two of them) with expansion packs plugged into each. One of them is due for replacement batteries in the next year. These guarantee that if power is lost, we can stay up and running for ~70-80 minutes.
* Addition of a proper 3-2-1 backup strategy with two NAS clusters in RAID, and an offsite storage backup using CrashPlan Small Business. It's not perfect, but it works for what I need. This houses TFGS, GIT, Server Backups, and a lot of my own personal projects. Around 15TB of data.
What I am still planning:
* Building a proper SAN for the network for improved high availability. Current setup uses local storage per server because it was quicker and easier to implement (and cheaper). The long-term plan is to add 10Gbps networking to the servers and build a redundant storage server instead of relying on NAS hardware. This will allow me to bring any server offline with zero downtime and zero wait as I can click a few buttons, move the running instances to another machine, and then take the machine offline. The only downtime would be for OS and Software upgrades.
This is all overkill for what TFGS is today, but we've also been growing at a very steady pace. A few years ago, we averaged 10M requests a month and around 400-600GB of bandwidth. Today, we're averaging 73M requests a month and around 2TB of bandwidth. That's at a rate of around 2.5M requests a day just for web traffic. I'm not building the architecture for "today", so much as I'm trying to futureproof my architecture for ease of maintenance. Still overkill, but I enjoy it.
I've always operated under the consensus of full transparency, so here you go. You know what I've done in the last few years, and you see how much money comes in every month. You also know what my guaranteed expenses are, as well as what the unexpected amounts are.
In regards to website software upgrades, I'm sorry on that front. My day job pretty much takes all my free time anymore. I planned enhancements pretty much every year and failed to deliver each time. I've always been open to external parties helping in building a new TFGS, but I've not been approached by anyone that seriously wanted to take it on outside of some layouts and suggestions.
If you honestly feel that your pledge to me is mismanaged and that I am not worthy of receiving it, then I humbly ask that you remove it. This site isn't going to go anywhere. I've been running it for over 10 years now, and plan to continue to do so. However, because "Goals" were not an accurate way of portraying things, I've removed them.
Comments
Peter Strommen
Is there a players guide to Bugs and Slugs Conversion? If so, where can I find it.
Ahry Siss
Thanks a lot for everything, its not mismanaged at all. Stupid people are just gonna be stupid, nothing to do about that. Keep up the good parts of the internet ;)
Calgaria
Thank you for all your efforts on our behalf.
Dood345
I am a totally unbiased 3rd party and haven't been a long time supporter. That said I think what you are doing is unique and greatly enriches a niche. Let me put it this way, stay humble and honest, always, like you seem to be, but keep in mind that some of the intellectual property hosted on this site receives more than 10x what you see from public contributions. If it weren't for TFG I would never have seen or heard of most of them.
Mate I just logged on to tell you that you do an absolutely wonderful job. I rarely if ever comment on anything, and mostly just lurk. Your website is truly one of the best that I have ever seen in regards to content, transparency, and in general caring about the community.
Crissa Kentavr
Thanks for the update! I might go for months without accessing the forum or database, but it's good to know it's there ^-^
SaltyJustice
You are doing wonderfully. We're happy to have you, keep it up. Haters love to hate, they're not worth it. The fact that you have as many clients as you do is testament to your good works.
Naret
Please don't listen to Nay-sayers. Your hard work is greatly appreciated. =)
circle
Thanks for being here lashek, I don't want to imagine not having TFGS around, it's been a part of my life for... a lot of years now.
Jpmaggers
Whilst I'm quieter these days than I used to be on the site, I must say that TFGames is still such a unique and well-run community that it is shocking. Having spent a lot of time looking around for other sites to share my game out through, these sites are few and far between, and those that do exist often lack features and are extremely limited. In comparison TFGames even hosts some of the games, has search capabilities, and a wonderful community too ^_^ Don't listen to the complaints Lashek, as others have said in this comment thread, if anything you are underpaid for the wonderful job you do. The few times we've spoken about site related matters, you've always been helpful and quick to respond, and the job you do managing the site is just fantastic (having spent time trying to set my own website up TFGames is an amazingly well done). P.S. I haven't had a good opportunity to say this otherwise, but thank you for making a hosted version of my game on the site. I'd been wanting to get a hosted version up, but the logistics of doing so are shocking. If you'd like me to increase my pledge to cover the bandwidth costs, then please let me know as this was a real big help to me ^_^
DramaCoach69
There will always be in every crowd one individual whose head is so far up his butt that he cannot see reality. You do a great job Lashek. The content on your site is nearly overwhelming. The fact that you haven’t had a contest in over a year to me is completely irrelevant. There are so many other factors involved in running a website like yours. Besides, my experience with contests is that they provide an opportunity to present games that are highly interesting in concept, but never finished. That just results in increased frustration for those of us who are casual gamers who are looking for something that is going to be fun and engrossing. Your sense of transparency is evident. Everything that you have stated and presented should be accepted as evidence that you have been providing all that you have promised and then some. And one isolated comment from years past, or months past, without taking into consideration the reality of today should just be totally ignored.
Munchman
I run a small sporting event and it's amazing how even in such a small community you can get one Rearend Fudgecile sucker who holds you to something you said once and then had to change due to circumstances. For some it's a simple mistake and I don't blame them per se, though it can be annoying. Classic example was I had to change the date of an event, did this last year, got messages a fortnight before event saying , wait the date changed when did that happen? For 4 months I'd written a different date. (note they suggested a rememdy that did work out so it was not a bad outcome, and this is an example of an issue that is common, annoying but ultimately harmless). The real issue though is when it's usually one person or small group who start talking internally, sometimes they get a dose of reality intime, but sometimes one member or members do self reaffirment and then come at me with no basis or understanding and it's like FFS, I NEVER SAID I'D DO THAT. But they drag up a message years ealier when Iw as setting things up and didn't know where things would be at the time, it's like FFS you assholes, EVERYTHING is different from that post, at that point in time I had none of the infastructure I have now, and you COMPLETELY ignored the 15 messages sent AFTER that one saying that OG message was no longer valid. The point is, it's fucking annoying, fucking destructive and worse yet the person or peole involved only stop if THEY realise the truth, if they can't come to the correct solution your just pissing in the wind as they basically turn into Conspiracy Theorists, swapping out reason and logic for speculation and derp. While it is good to see the breakdown of expenses, don't be suprised if the person who called you out is still ranting and raving like the lunatic they have become. All being said I have been a long time supporter and will continue to support as best I can, I've had a lot of good times on TFGS and trust in it being around for years to come. Okay this is getting super long, just gonna conclude, keep doing what you doing and don't worry too much about assholes, if they dont' like it well, as you said they can just move on, the site is still up, still running and still providing a place for TFG's.
Splendid Ostrich
If anything, you're underpaid considering the site's quality and how many people benefit from it. Massively underpaid, In my opinion. I won't comment on this user as I haven't read their post, but I personally have no complaints at all and I was rather surprised to hear that anyone did.
Oh-Me-Ga
I PM'd you my calculations in discord, maybe this'll help :)
Apollo Seven
I think you do a great job running TFGamessite. Any complaints are unfounded.
Lashek
And for those saying "GO SERVERLESS!", the numbers just don't add up for it to be an affordable option due to the growth of the site and the demand the site requires. 2TB of bandwidth per month is a lot, and at 5TB storage just for TFGS, it gets to be even more costly. Not to mention the CPU draw. You pay for what you use in a cloud environment, and TFGS uses a lot. :)
