I received notification this morning that the new virtual private server has been set up. That's the good news. (At the time of writing this the site is still running off the shared server).

Bad news is that even though I was assured I can run this website on the new server with only the skills I told them I had (some HTML and the ability to reinstall my databses using PHPadmin), I can't even figure out how to log in to the damn thing to even start setting stuff up.

And the cost is blowing out much higher than I had anticipated and just gets more expensive by the second. I'm beginning to panic.

I expected $40 US per month, which has already gone up to $50 per month because I need them to install cpanel because I don't know how to run a website using anything else. Luckily the extra $10 also includes upgrades to php and other things I don't know how to run. However it doesn't include the licenses to use these other products and I'm in a panic that it's going to blowout the cost to over double that.

Is the knitting wiki worth the extra cost of $500 to $1200 per year? I have no idea. If it gets too popular then I'll have to upgrade to a dedicated server and that starts at $100 per month before any addons. And the wiki has only been online for 3 and a half months.

Without any ongoing sponsorship or people making regular monthly donations I'm afraid the cost is going to get totally out of control, let alone the technical aspects of running my own server.

What do I need to get this under control?
I need volunteers with the knowledge that I don't have and I need for the presentation of the wiki to look more professional so that we can attract more sponsors. I also need regular donations.

I need:

*Someone I can trust that has the skills needed to run a virtual private server or dedicated server (if we need to upgrade again)

*Someone with PHP and CSS skills - the wiki needs a new skin to make it look more professional

*Short term lend of the skills of a graphic designer. We need a decent logo and someone to work with the php and css person to design the layout of the wiki skin

*Regular monthly donations. I'm going to see if I can set up buttons in the donations section so people can sign up to make a regular monthly donation of 5 or 10 dollars as well as single one-off donations if they choose. Recent donations covered the cost of paying for one year (at $50 per month, not the anticipated $40) and emergency purchase of a new modem when mine fried itself a few weeks ago but it's all gone already.

Believe it or not, a regular $5 donation makes a huge difference. If 25 people signed up to make a monthly $5 donation that would cover the basic cost of a dedicated server.

On a more content related basis we need:

*People to add photos to the pages on http://www.knitting-and.com/wiki/Category:Pages_Requiring_Photographs
There are some very simple photos needed on a lot of these pages. For example, http://www.knitting-and.com/wiki/Float. If you've ever knit a fairisle garment then you have a ready-made example of what floats are. If you've ever blogged a photo of the back of your fairisle knitting then you've got the picture ready to go!

*People willing to add their favourite public domain knitting patterns. These can be scanned images from the original vintage books or typed. You'll find copyright info at
http://www.knitting-and.com/wiki/Knitwiki:Copyrights

*People to add their favourite (free and purchasable) patterns and pattern tips to the favourite patterns category at:
http://www.knitting-and.com/wiki/Category:Favourite_Patterns

People to add more books and reviews to the book reviews section:
http://www.knitting-and.com/wiki/Category:Book_Reviews

Got a favourite knitting podcast? Tell us all about it and where to find them by adding an article to the podcast category:
http://www.knitting-and.com/wiki/Category:Podcasts

If it's about anything to do with knitting please feel free to add it! Even if you just paste in plain text another user can always some along and add the appropriate category, links etc.

I guess I should post some of this to the wiki too.