While there are no dues or fees for membership at El Camino
Central, we do rely upon member contributions to keep the site and server running smoothly. As membership grows, so does
site usage. Recently we have seen a huge jump in server load and bandwidth. As a result, at times we notice extremely
slow page loading. Many of you may have also noticed the new member rankings used to recognize supporting members.
Become a supporting member today and get your own cool rank!
Every little bit helps.
Show your support by making a
donation here:
Supporters
page
Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 8:31 pm Post subject: El Camino Central Needs Your Help Right Now!
A few days ago, our dear friend Ernie (87ElCamino) revived an older thread from three years back to let our members know that ElCaminoCentral must install new servers immediately to restore service to a tolerable level. To emphasize how critical this situation is, I am starting this new thread so everyone can read an up-to-date situation report:
As Ernie (87ElCamino) has written above and Robert More has also stated, the ECC website is having severe problems keeping up with demand from our members and visitors. Over the past three weeks, many members have not been able to log in due to the traffic overloading our inadequate servers.
Just so everyone understands the extent of the problem, please consider these facts:
* We have 9467 members of NECOA/ECC who have 703 member albums
* The site has about 535 "hits" per hour on average; or 5868 per day.
* Today there were 18,725 hits and the total since launching is over 22 million hits
* Members have made 129,510 posts, spread out over 20,642 topics.
It is essential that new servers be added to keep up with demand or we will be unable to support our members. Please remember that this website is the personal property of Robert More, who volunteers his time and money to build and maintain the site that we depend upon. We cannot continue to ask him to take time away from his business and family to constantly make repairs and restore the site from overuse any longer.
Every member is requested to make some contribution, no matter how small, to keep the site functioning, so that we don't have to resort to charging everyone annual dues to access the site. Those of you who have a PayPal account can click on this link to make your contribution right away in a safe fashion. This is the link under Forums, to go to the Supporters Page:
If you do not have PayPal, please mail your check or money order payable to Robert More, the Site Administrator, at the following address:
Mr. Robert More
c/o A/C Authority
104 S. Lampasas Street
Round Rock, Texas 78664
Please note on your check "ECC contribution" and provide your ECC nickname and member number so Robert can upgrade your "Rank" and email you a receipt.
Thank you all for helping this site remain the best auto resource on the web. Please make that contribution NOW!!! _________________ View my El Camino
Last edited by John Harris on Wed Jun 13, 2007 6:39 pm; edited 3 times in total
Necoa #: 7439
Location: 4(MD,VA)
Joined: May 07, 2006
Posts: 683
Year: 1967
Model: El Camino
Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 8:43 pm Post subject:
I just made my contribution. I've enjoyed this wonderful site and made a lot of friends. Let's make this great site even better. _________________
On the plains of hesitation, bleach the bones of countless millions who on the threshold of victory sat down to wait and waiting they died.
The following is quoted from a post by ECC founder and Site Administrator Robert C. More back on May 5, 2004 when we had our first "growing pains" with the website. Many of the items discussed have since been incorporated, but we have again outgrown the servers that are needed to support our growing membership. Please read this message:
Ok guys, thanks for your support and all of the encouraging comments. But to be honest, this is your site as much as it is mine, if it were not for our members the site would be nothing. I began El Camino Central Sept, 2002, as a labor of love for the El Camino, and to share some of my experiences and good-old-fashion know-how.
Since then the site has taken off exponentially. Our first six months or so we were almost 500 strong and still growing when we merged membership with the NECOA,(many ECC members were already NECOA members.) I logged in a few minutes ago, 7:30pm, April 27th, and noticed 96 people online, 31 were members and the remaining 65 were either visitors or members who had not yet logged in...that's a lot of El Camino enthusiasts in one place at one time. It's hard to deny that with just over 2900 members ECC/NECOA is the largest group of El Camino owners in the world! Granted, we get a lot of drive-bys, but the majority of our membership tend to stay and contribute to the growth and popularity of the site... and that leads me back to what I said before, without you guys contributing content, offering advise and taking the time to answer questions, this site would be just another "website with a message board". However, as we all are fully aware, we are much more than that. We are a community of men and women who share a common bond... the love of the El Camino and it's GM cousins, and we bring to the table our combined experience to help one another along the road and the information highway. We are nearly 3000 strong and growing at a rate of 5-10+ members a day, and that's strength in numbers. Any El Camino or aftermarket parts supplier would be foolish not to want to advertise with us. I for one, do not care for spinning ads, pop-ups, pop-unders, and flashing banners, as they distract from the content and generally make navigation a nightmare.
I have been working on a subscription type system, or membership level if you will, similar to what many other sites are already offering. However, I have been at a loss as to what we would offer as an incentive for members for their support. Some sites offer their supporting members some web space, special chat room access, access to unlimited classified ad submission and the like. But these are things that are already offered to all members here for free!
Regardless, I can assign special ranks, give a t-shirt, cap or similar, email forwarding service ala uname@elcaminocentral.com, a membership card etc., that would be easy! (I like the membership card idea, kind of cool.) Of course, anyone who already owns an El Camino already knows the secret handshake.
It is no secret that I have been footing the bill for running and maintaining the server and bandwidth. I have also paid for one server upgrade, a handful of hard drives and more memory.
The growth of membership and the large number of folks we have been seeing online at times greatly affects server performance and bandwidth... this is why we are seeing some slow loading times. The time has again come to upgrade both.
Thus far I have been subsidizing the site by selling Elky parts on ebay. I am not complaining, nor am I begging, but if you guys are willing to donate funds to support the effort, We are willing to accept them!
All of that being said, please visit our new support page here:
Rob _________________ 1979 El Camino
Pics last car on middle row of page 28 5th Gen.
1995 Lebaron GTC Convertible
1989 Jeep Cherokee 4.0L with 238,000 miles and still running.
Necoa #: 22
Location: 19(AK,ID,OR,WA)
Joined: Jan 06, 2003
Posts: 216
Year: 1968
Model: El Camino
Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 6:20 pm Post subject:
I just paypal'd in $35.... I havn't spent a lot of time here lately, but definitely want to see the site continue! _________________ Ben Rambow
NECOA#022
1968 El Camino SS396
GMPP454HO - TH400(stock stall) - 3.31 posi
Current best 13.1 @ 105mph
Just used the Paypal link to make my contribution. It was easy to do and I am glad to see other members doing the same! Let's get those upgraded servers for Robert More real soon. Please contribute now. _________________ View my El Camino
Necoa #: 9556
Location: 1(NY)
Joined: May 21, 2007
Posts: 86
Year: 1982
Model: El Camino
Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 10:57 pm Post subject:
The first check i write with my checking account is gonna be to el camino central. yep. just as soon as i get that set up. _________________ El Camino-The original hybrid.
Thanks for those contributions! We have made a good start towards raising enough funds to replace the inadequate servers, but more cash is needed before an order can be placed by the Site Administrator. If you have found this site to be at all helpful to you, now is the time to help us continue the good work.
Thanks again to everyone who contributed so far. _________________ View my El Camino
I'll be sending some $$ over the big pond the 20th this month when I get my paycheck! This site needs to be kept going strong!!! _________________ 1983 Chevy El Camino 350 tpi V8, the REAL car!
1995 Chevy s-10 Blazer 4,3 V6, daily driver.
1965 Ford Taunus 20M 2,8 V6, just for the trouble.
We have been getting a good response from members along with contributions, but not enough yet to order the new servers. Please read the post at the top of this thread for instructions on how to help ElCaminoCentral upgrade our servers to keep up with the demand.
Thanks to everyone so far for your generous support! _________________ View my El Camino
Just sent $25 via paypal. I know its not much but its all I can do right now. Thanks for a great site and hopefully enough members will step up and we'll all be here a long long time!
Just an update for everyone concerning the funding of the new server. So far we have received $1065 in donations! We still need twice this to meet our goal. I have a friend at Dell computers who is getting us a remarkable deal on the new box. I want to personally thank everyone who has contributed thus far and encourage others to donate towards this much needed upgrade. The membership donations alone have never been enough to run the site and I usually end up a couple of hundred a month out of my own pocket to keep it up. This site has the finest group of members of any automotive group I have ever seen anywhere hands down. What started out as a little spot on the web has grown by leaps and bounds over the last few years and has grown beyond our wildest dreams and has out grown or current server. Our wish is to keep this site free and never charge annual membership fees as other site do. So please, if you have found this site helpful in your El Camino and automotive endeavors, help keep it alive!
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I'll be sending some $$ over the big pond the 20th this month when I get my paycheck! This site needs to be kept going strong!!! 
