Hello everyone. I am one of the LymeNet system administrators and one of the original implementers of LymeNet's presence on the Internet.

I generally keep a low profile here, focusing on the systems and technology which power our Internet presence, but I thought that this might be the right time to step up and give the LymeNet community some information on what goes on behind the scenes.
A bit of history:

When LymeNet first started in 1993, the World Wide Web had not yet been invented. Today everyone associates the Web with the Internet--one in the same.

In fact, the total number of hosts on the Internet at that time was only about 25,000, and the only way for Internet users to obtain information on Lyme disease was to "telnet" in to our system and search our text database.

As Internet technology improved, we moved one step up to "Gopher", which was the text-only precursor to the World Wide Web that everyone uses today.

Our systems ran on two small servers that were obtained from generous contributors at Sun Microsystems, and our connection to the Internet was via a 28K business dial-up line.

A few years later in 1995 we were running a web site which averaged about 300 ``hits'' per day. There weren't really any search engines in operation, so you just had to know our address ``www.lymenet.org'' to find our site.

We started experimenting with Lotus Domino software to hold our informational database, and thus the beginnings of the ``LymeNet Flash'' discussion board. The ability for our users to communicate with each other and share their experiences proved to be the single most important feature we offered.

By year 2000, we had upgraded our servers with a one-time grant and upgraded our software with the ``Ultimate Bulletin Board'' forum software, and we averaged about 25,000 hits per day.

This larger number of users required us to upgrade our Internet connection to a 384K business DSL line at a cost of several hundred dollars per month.

As of July, 2005, the statistics show that we averaged almost 200,000 hits per day, and that is on the same 384K business DSL line and old servers we had since before the year 2000!

Over the years we pulled several tricks like implementing data compression, optimizing the layout of our web site, utilizing some outside services to handle some of our network traffic, etc. But we've been running the DSL line at near 100% capacity all day long.

There have been several suggestions about using third-party hosting providers, consumer-grade Internet service, etc. to save money.

On the surface they seem cheaper, but the fact is that if you calculate the amount of traffic we pass through the system, the amount of data we store, and the cost of backups and mandatory server maintenance charges, it becomes about as expensive as running the systems in-house as we have for the past several years.

On a personal note, Marc Gabriel and I have spent countless hours over the past 15 years from original conception to what we have today.

With a system that today supports several different Lyme-related web sites (with over 100,000 registered users on the LymeNet Flash forums alone), there is quite a bit of hands-on maintenance, late nights, and personal expense and sacrifice required to keep things going.

Why would we do such a thing for so long without any compensation? It is because we believe in what we are doing.

I truly believe that the amount of benefit that so many people receive from the site justifies the back-breaking work of keeping everything up and running.

There have been mixed feelings about the proposal to charge money to support the bulletin boards. I think it's important that you know where the money is going, and where it is not going.

We run as a non-profit organization, and we as system administrators never see a penny. One of the biggest expenses we have is for the Internet connection.

Then comes ordinary administrative expenses (i.e. postage, etc.) to support the non-Internet endeavors of the Lyme Disease Network. Much of the expense of maintaining the equipment comes out of our own pockets.

We are very thankful for the many generous and loyal contributors over the years--they are the only reason we have made it this far. But as you can see from our growth numbers above, changing times require us to step back and find a way to cope what that growth.

Unfortunately we just haven't been able to maintain enough ongoing funding from donations to pay for operations. By charging a nominal fee, we hope to generate a steady stream of income to pay for our Internet connection and equipment maintenance.

There are several outcomes which the LymeNet community can look forward to as a result of this funding effort:

1. We will upgrade our Internet connection to better reflect the daily demand for the site.

2. We will upgrade our servers to provide faster, more reliable and redundant service.

3. In the short term, we will upgrade our UBB forum software which should provide much better performance for things like the search feature which has been overloaded for so long.

4. Over time, we plan to upgrade to a more modern, feature-rich forum software which will allow our users to collaborate more effectively.

Depending on demand, we may offer the capability to syndicate our forums through the use of RSS, and we may even consider allowing users to have a journal or ``blog'' on the system.

5. Reduction in ``trolls'' and other unproductive activity.

Despite all of this technology, our number one concern is to be faithful to our charter--to provide information and support to the community of people who have been affected by Lyme disease.

We are always listening to you, whether you have 6 posts like I do, or 12,000 posts like some other long-time members do. We appreciate your loyalty and generosity over the years, and will continue to serve the LymeNet community as long as we are able.

Regards,

Thomas Brown
LymeNet Founding Member and System Administrator