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Displayed prices are for multiple nights. Check the site for price per night. I see hostels starting at 200b/day and hotels from 500b/day on agoda.
frostfire
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Frosty
I mod on here as well as another much larger UK site. I am also a member on many different sites, some are free, some are by voluntary donations and some by subscription. All work in their own way and it will depend on how much revenue per member you need to generate. From my point of view I would steer away from ads as they can be bloody annoying when they appear. Sponsorship by a bar? Well, it would be the personality of the bar that draws people into the bar and conversely onto the site. But if the bar owner changes (it's been known to happen in Pattaya!) then what happens?
If you have a voluntary donation, then you can have a specific 'paid member's area or some other enhancement to their access. However, if you have a subscription only you lean towards pushing people to other (less worthy!) free sites.
Are you only looking for $150 per month? Is it that difficult to raise that per month?
happy to chat further about it.
KM
One thing I will be clear on: While we may well add a section only visible to premium members - people who are known personally by multiple other members and bought in that way - I would not be for making that membership dependent on a fee. Whatever solution I come up with, it will not be mandatory and people that do not contribute will always be able to see all the content, provided they qualify for access to that section. I do not want this to become a pay to use site at any level. That was one of Martin's key visions for this site, and I will not change that.
When I was in town in December I suggested to Larry (Soi7) that his bar buy Pattayatalk and use it to promote his bar the same way that Pete and Martin used it to promote FLB. At that point in time I knew that Martin was ill but I didn't know that he was terminally ill. Larry dismissed the idea at the time because he was not comfortable with Martin's style.
Larry is currently working part time at the bar and that would give him time to moderate the board from his condo. With frosty continuing to be the #1 admin for the board, I think this would help keep Pattayatalk running for a long time.
(Respects to Martin)
At the current time I am not considering selling the site outright. I would not want this forum to change in any significant way, and selling it would only risk that happening. The expense of running it is not very high - if I cannot find a way for the forum to pay for itself, I will simply continue to fund it out of my own pocket, as I have done for the last year and more and as Martin did for several years before that since FLB closed.
Get involved with something like Google Ads and the next thing you know there'll be problems with "inappropriate content" upsetting their advertisers and they'll effectively end up dictating what we can and can't post (remind anyone of another board?)
That would be the end of this board as we know it.
LordFlash's suggestion is certainly worthy of further consideration.
I must admit I did not think about that at all. You (and the others who mentioned it) are likely spot on with this. This type of info is exactly why I posted this discussion. So google ads are out - at least for the time being.
This website is more - or could be more - than just a forum. When you visit www.pattayatalk.com you are taken to a very very old and outdated website outside the forum. That website is in desperate need of a major overhaul. I have a lot of ideas on what to do with it, but have not put a whole lot of thought in to it yet. I do plan to change that in the coming months. I would like to see a much broader portal with access to current information, webcams, local hotel reviews, emergency information and contacts, and just about anything else a tourist may need for his trip over here - as well as other more detailed information on the nightlife available here, etc.
Another thought I had but I never took live because I was worried about legal ramifications is a website for reviewing and rating the girls of pattaya, much like any number of similar websites in the US and UK. I actually worked on it years ago, and came very close to finishing it - and in fact, the website is up now - has been for many years, but I never advertised it and its not been used. Kinda funny too - I have noticed that there are many technically smart people on forums like this - and for years while the FLB Webcam was running there was a huge clue to the existence of that website there in plain site, but nobody noticed it. haha. Anyway, that idea is still on my mind, but the worries are still there as well, so that one is tabled for now. Still something like that would be of great value to all the members here, not only for its use as intended, but as a means of browsing girls and knowing where they work so you can go see them - as opposed to a thread where pictures of favorite stunners are, but you have no idea how to contact them (lol). I know I used to view such threads and make a game with martin of going bar hopping to see if we could find a particular girl... and while that was greatly enjoyable, it usually did not pan out. (tho it did in a few cases).
Thanks for your frankness, Frosty.
Before FLB closed, effectively, FLB paid for PT as it was a promotion for the business. (If I have that wrong, please correct me.)
Would an option be to link the board to another business? I suppose it would have to be a bar but the forum could entice people to the bar for, say, monthly get-togethers.
P.S.
PL is NOT a good example of how that would work!! But there are factors at play there which stop it happening.
Again, I do not want to limit the board by letting a single sponsor have full run of the content or otherwise limit it in any way. I would of course consider placing banners up for businesses for a small monthly or yearly fee. That is likely what will have to happen. Martin did that back in the day. We never discussed that, but I assume it was paying the bills back then, so it should be feasible now. I will look in to that.
As an aside, I will go ahead and put up a donation banner. I will make another post as well and link the banner to that post, as I have some things to say to people before they make a donation - to make it clear that Pattayatalk is free to use with no restrictions, and while donations are greatly appreciated they are by no means required at all.
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Pete, I have to ask the question. Sir, why would you want PattayaTalk? Whenever I have been in town, Pattaya Beer Garden was or near standing room only. Sir, what is your motivation?
Short, Pattayapete started Pattayatalk. He owned FLB Bar before Martin bought it (from him). I would say his motivation is fairly clear.
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Hi Guys,
As many of you know by now, I have taken over the running of PattayaTalk after Martin's passing last week. What many of you do not know is the story leading up to that, which I will share part of with you now before talking about the future.
After FLB closed several years ago, the companies that advertised with PattayaTalk started to dry up, and no attempt by anyone was made to find new sponsors, which essentially meant that Martin began paying the ~$150 per month cost of the server himself. About 2 years ago he approached me asking for options, and I offered to host pattayatalk free of charge on my servers so he could save his money for upcoming medical bills (of which we knew there would be many). Several months ago, when things started the downward spiral that eventually led to his death, he asked me to keep the site running after he was gone, and gave me the access I needed to do that when the time came. As much as I would have wished that time to never have come, it has. Which leads us to a discussion on where to go from here.
Now first and foremost, I fully intend on keeping things running as Martin has done since the start - same policies, procedures, rules, etc. He had a much better grasp of these types of things than I do, and I am not going to second guess his well thought out decisions on any of those things unless a great need arises.
That said, we do need to do something about the cost of the server eventually. I could of course just keep paying its costs myself and that may well be how things turn out if I do not find an alternative, but I would like to have the discussion anyway.
I read over Martin's old post on this subject, and I saw several suggestions put forward by you guys ranging from making this a pay to post site (membership fee), which I can tell you right now is never going to happen, to asking for donations from members, which I do not think will work. I am certain that if I put up a donation request of some sort there will be some (and I may well do that), but I also have no doubt that those donations will spike on first request, but eventually winnow down to nothing and not cover the ongoing costs of the server.
That leaves advertisements. I will be the first to admit that I am totally new to this area of the internet - I make my money via tangible assets - and have never attempted to monetize a website's traffic. I do, however, have a great deal of knowledge about technology and its usages. For instance, I know that if I put google ads up on pattayatalk and if every visitor unblocked ads on their adblocker, that alone would likely be enough to cover the costs of the server... but I also know that over 85% of users use an adblocker of some type, which makes google ads pretty much un-effective on websites like this. I could request that people unblock this site in their adblocker (in exchange for a promise that I will make the ads as invisible as possible and non-invasive), though I am not certain how well that will work.
Local advertisers are a possibility, but I have no idea how to go about finding them, and not sure if it would be worth the effort.
So... I am looking for ideas. This is your community, and I would hope that between all of us we can find some sort of a balanced solution that works. As of right now I am leaning toward finding a way to implement the google ads... but will go with what most of the community want. All ideas are welcome!
Frosty
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I keep food for a few days, and 5 of the big 5 gallon jugs of water.
If you have a house and storage room is not an issue, I strongly advise you to get several of the jugs of water. They replace them as i use them, and that way if the flooding gets as bad as it did a few years back, at least ill have water. There was a good 7-10 days when you couldnt buy just about any canned or bottled drink at all in pattaya. Supply lines from bkk were completely cut off. That was a nasty week.
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Ok well, since its also happening to me, and I have now confirmed its only happening to SSL traffic heading outside Thailand, I can tell you it is not a 3BB issue, but a issue with 3BBs supplier, or more likely, with the fiber connection coming in to Thailand.
A router could possibly be blocking SSL traffic by accident because of a failure. More likely its a overloaded traffic monitor, but it is possible that its accidental.
Connecting to a private SOCK5 SSL Proxy bypasses the issue tho... which further supports my theory that its a traffic sniffer gone rogue. Either way, hope they fix it soon.
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It may not be 3bb. I use AIS Fiber, and gmail is super slow today. So is Cloudfront. It may be any SSL service, or possibly just those outside Thailand. And if its happening to me too, its likely the governments packet sniffing servers that are causing the lag.
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No, its not just you. There was a hardware failure on one of the servers hosting the DNS, so there was a brief outage while the hardware was replaced.
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My guess is crawlers as well. Looks innocent enough for now... but if traffic gets too heavy I can research it further. Checking the first couple IPs show them as unknowns. Could still be a SEO crawler of some type.
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Hi Andy. Long time no see!
Answer 1: You are on the right track there. Connect to the UK node you normally use. The BKK node is worthless for your purposes.
Answer 2: This one I can't help with. It should work if it uses only the IP to determine location. You may try turning off location services on the tablet and see if that works. Or better yet, download a "fake GPS position" app and set the location to the UK as well and see if that helps. That will send a geodata ping to any requesting service saying you are physically in the UK.
That second option is how I get around the play store issues with not issuing certain apps to people over here.
Frosty
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A member for 10 years with only 3 posts... You've all but de-registered already.
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Mine runs inline with my village water supply (which is supplemented by the city water) but the pump does run moat of the time when water is being used. The tank does work as a backup when the city water is out tho... but it's all automatic here
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dont know about TV, but the fucking fan in my room turns on randomly sometimes... or changes from low to high.
The remote i have only works if its in the same room or very close to the door... so its something more powerful than the next door neighbors remote doing it.
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That cop box is notorious for stopping every falang that stops there, or a goodly number of them anyway. When you dont go over the white line they will just take you anyway.
Do exactly what you did... take a photo. Most of the time they will tell you to have a nice day.
The vast majority of the falangs just pay up, so its a good business for them.
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Go to http://kickass.to
Use their search engine instead of google, since google tends to block the vast majority of all torrent links. For me tho, kickass tends to return the best results. They also have a good comment system, so you can read the user comments before downloading. Tends to help weed out the garbage.
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Damn Gabor, the girls must really dislike you.
I still get quoted 1.5k ST at babydolls and have for some time. And ive never heard larry say anything about ST fees, even if asked. 3-4k? Whoever told you that did not want to go with you, plain and simple.
Giving it a good think... I really can't fault the girl.
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I had one for over a year... used the heck out of it, and never had a battery issue.
I think there is no issue... other than batteries in Thailand do seem to need replacing every year or 2. But thats on almost all bikes, not just the PCX
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Glasdude007's profile photo is screwed up... making your display screwy. Nothing can be done except by Glassdude himeself.
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Was in a few minutes ago... Couldn't get a seat... But not many girls so the booze must be cheap lol.
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Ya I saw that too... Lol. It happens. :)
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If Manfred can't hook ya up for whatever reason shoot me a pm. I have a few extra lying around.
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Done. You should be able to log in with the new name now.
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Run a malware check.
www.malwarebytes.com
You have a cookie or toolbar infection thats injecting advertisements in to sites you visit. They are fairly common.
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https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wordinthehand.thaidict
Best thai Dictionary ive ever had... its not a translator exactly, but it is the most handy tool I have when talking to Thai's. Translators are only about 20% accurate when translating from english to Thai... but if you look the words up one at a time, that accuracy approaches 100%, and this app, while not free, is very cheap and very accurate. Gives different examples of each word with intended meaning along with thai translations, and has a real voice (not computerized) to teach you how to speak the Thai equivalent.
It also has a thai script lookup for the reverse for when she wants to tell you something :)
How to make a donation for the boards server fund
in == Announcements ==
Posted
Hi Guys,
Due to multiple requests I am adding a way for members to donate to the board's server fund.
Donations are NOT necessary, and will not grant any additional access whatsoever - this is a free site, and always will be. That said, nothing in life is truly free and the board itself (and its dedicated server) do cost money. I have been paying that fee myself for the last year and more, and Martin paid it for years before that. I will be working on getting some advertising sponsors to defray the costs, but in any case the board is not in any danger of being closed down - I will not let that happen. Help will be graciously accepted however :)
The link below (the button I wanted to add made me lose my last post' text when I tried to add it in here and go to post preview - stupid me), will take you to PayPal and allow you to make a donation in any amount you wish. Any amount is acceptable - even as little as $5 will add up very quickly and is greatly appreciated.
When you do go to that link, there will be a textbox that asks for your board name. Only put this in there if you wish your name to appear here with the amount you donated. Alternately you can PM me and I will put something custom or nothing at all.
A huge thank you to anyone willing to donate.
Frosty
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=UUKMRXXYC397W
Donations to date: