Hello all

We have been thinking how we should do with the site ?

We are right now gaining members and are a lot more than one year ago

But this is a super old platform and it cost some money to maintain and keep up and running

We lose 100 euro ore more a mouth only to keep it up and going.

It´s is sad that we lose some main things like the video (flash is not supported any more)

Is it still good to have a special site with rainwear as main interest ore are the newer sites better and more interesting to be on ?

Please let us know what you think.

Kind regards

Graham and Grsr

Dear Graham and Gsr,

THANKS for keep on running regnfrakker.dk! I would say that regnfrakker.dk is needed / fills a purpose! There is nothing like it on the web, dedicated sites are getting fewer, and in my opinion “general” social platforms with rainwear groups are not fulfilling the need for a dedicated rainwear community. For me the general social platform approaches end up with nothing? (I have given up general social platforms, to avoid spending a lot of time on nothing) Video´s are not my concern, for me the trade off on video´s would be links to other platforms, as the users probably post them on multiple platforms anyway. The economic part is obviously an issue, personally I am a paying member, that is for me obvious, as regnfrakker.dk adds value for me! I assume there is some commercial value in running the site as a window for a rainwear company as well. Changing to an updated and simpler platform would be fine, the basic needs are standard communication types, news, pictures, in an open format, the multiple layers of “lock down” on the current platform has always been a pain in the ass, if privacy is needed, a standard platform must be the choice, why spend money on something that is not visible/public anyway?

With the best wishes for a future for regnfrakker.dk, and Kind gear regards, Salten3,

Hi Admins.

Does regnfrakker.dk still make sense? Is there still a need for regnfrakker.dk?

Yes, absolutely!!

Even though the site sometimes is without much activity, regnfrakker.dk is still "the place" for the rainwear community in my opinion!

When I started using the www to search for rainwear, the first places online where I found like-minded people with an interest in rainwear, were in the various "Yahoo groups" where we wrote together and shared pictures and stories. - This was a very important platform for me! - There has been no activity in those groups for a long time, and they are now completely shut down. - For me to see, regnfrakker.dk continue this legacy!

Over the years, several similar communities have started up, either in groups on SoMe platforms, or on dedicated rainwear sites. But I have not yet found a place that comes close to regnfrakker.dk

Should regnfrakker.dk be converted to a new site or not?

I think there can be many advantages to a new platform, instead of the current somewhat heavy model. Just writing this on a tablet,  fighting to make the tekst visible on the dark background!!! - But if you choose a new one, I hope you do what you can, to save the current archive, of images, blogs, forums etc.. Because the great history and archive is part of what separates regnfrakker.dk from others newer sites.

I am personally ready to donate an amount if needed in connection with a possible conversion, and if enough of us do it, it should be possible to do the conversion, without great financial or time costs for our admins. - However, I see a danger in forcing all users into paying membership. I think that will scare many users away. So rather a model where certain functions require payment.

But new site or not, as long as regnfrakker.dk remains!!

Hi everyone! I really hope the site stays live. It was one of the first rainwear website I found and means a lot to me! I would love it if we could improve the platform but if it is to be rebuilt somewhere else please make sure to port over all the old posts, stories and images from the years of great rainwear content we have here.

I'm a member of a few other rainwear type sites and I've seen a lot of them eventually turn into something totally different. This site is still heavily rainwear focused and I love that and definitely don't want it to change.

A lot of people have mentioned the videos not working anymore but you can actually access all the old videos if you use a portable version of Firefox with flash installed. Here's a link to read more. Just run that then go to Regnfrakker and there you go.

If we do decide to create something new or work is needed on this platform - I'm happy to donate my time to help with any front end dev work or graphic design work?

Swish87

Regnfrakker.dk is absolutely needed! This is the only big rainwear fetish website that I know of. Others have come and gone but this one has stayed. There are other websites such as Fetlife but that is a catch-all website for all sorts of fetishes and we are a very, very small group on there. Not having this website would severely impact the rainwear fetish community as there are none like it and none that come close to rivaling it. From my own experience, Regnfrakker.dk was one of the first (and few) fetish websites that I found when searching around on the internet during my teenage years. It was very relieving to know that I was not the only one collecting rainwear and deriving great satisfaction from wearing it rain or shine!

My recommendation would be to update the website to a newer platform as it is quite clunky and "heavy" like you said. The internet has changed very much since 3xL created it in the mid 2000s.

Ja, jeg er ofte inde på denne side og elsker at følge med. Til tiden dele billeder. En rigtig god side med fælles interesser. Håber det forbliver.

Hej vil gerne have siden fortsætter hvis den kan blive forbedret og mere brugervenlig. Pt er den for dårlig til især billede dog chat som i mine øjne ee det der bære siden. 

Would be super sad to see this site go down.

Its very nice to have a place where you can feel "normal" and safe to share your rainwearfetish with others, chatting and meeting new and awesome people. It was not for this site i would never tryed out so much with rainwear as i have now! I even went to a rainwear meeting thanks to this site! Best thing ive ever done! An update could make this site even better and maby grow?

Yes definately. Hopefully you have the possibility to move to another more modern, simpler and more secure platform.

This is the longest running site in this area and truly international. It would huge loss to lose this.

I don't see FB / IG or any other social media platform to be able to reach such a wide audience - and going to any commercial platform you give control to them to for example remove content / raise charges and in case of them going out of business or stopping the support you end up with nothing.

I encourage everyone to take the paid membership here in Regnfrakker to

1. cover the cost of running the site

2. possibly even (if lots of people join) collect some extra €/SEK to migrate to more modern plaform.

I also think that doing a full data migration to completely new platoform is unrealistic. BUT it would be great to have a archive "sister site" or section with read only access with the old pics and possibly forums and blogs as there is great set of history in both. Don't know if it is possible to make the videos available too if they are converted in Flash in the upload process.

Joha

We need to keep the site going

Having said that, the site is in desperate need of an overhaul. There are lots of areas that could be improved and the video section not playing is a bug that has been around for a while.

I am not sure how your financials break down. How many paying members of the site do you have compared to free members? I run several websites and am yet to charge any members but it's something I always am aware of and may have to switch to. If you have paying members then the costs are split into 3 areas:

Web design and software

Hosting

Updating

Web hosting these days is not too bad cost wise. I ay around £80 a year for multiple website hosting. I use a system called Buddyboss which uses the buddypress / wordpress platform. Where wordpress is free, I ay around £80 a year for the buddyboss system. Looking at your pricing I would be surprised if the costs involved were not being met already. But this does I guess bring up another question - wether the costs are being met or if there is a profit being generated. Is this a website for rainwear lovers run by rainwear lovers, or is it a side business?

We need to keep this site going. I run a different site and I see a lot of people here that are on mine. Shared images, videos etc. Mine however has only been around for a year or more, so does not have the numbers you have here. I also think this site attracts more European users who can converse in their own language easier maybe than on my site. All positive things.

So - yes - keep the site going. Give it a complete overhaul. But I appreciate this is a hobby that you need spare time to run. I am happy to help if I can. I can offer you very cheap hosting and even the BuddyBoss platform for free if you want as I have a spare license not being used. Migrating the data however may be a bit trickier.

Let me know if I can help. But please keep the site going. It's not a site I use often but I see others do so they need it protecting.

Keep up the good work!

Hi I to hope that the site will be able to be up and running. Like others said maybe you need some help doing som updates to the site.

But I really hope the it will stay around there is a good amount of pictures uploaded still even if the forums could be more lively.

regards Hannes

I personally vote for keeping up the site. I am not an expert on the way the site should look or something structural at all. But what I have known for years - we love it. We have been paying the membership fees since many years from the start-up of this wonderful site. Having said that we have been non-paying members for the last six months or even more. But I will now initiate the membership in order to 'walk the talk'.

I also agree with others here that the general level of activity on the forums home is not something huge these days. That is a shame. I have contributed more back in the day but an ever more demanding job puts up a limit to what I have time to write.

But how many members do we currently hold? How many of these members are paying members?

helt klart regnfrakker .dk skal køre videre

Firstly, Thanks to those that run the site for your hard work. I think that the site suffers from a lack of participation, which is not uncommon. I am as guilty as anyone of non-participation. The question is how to create an upward spiral where members are regularly contributing to the Blogs and Forum and really getting some nice content regularly (even daily) added. I have alway paid to support the site and it would be interesting to see the stats of how many paying there are versus non-paying members. For sure it needs updating in terms of the system.

I log on regularly and usually go to see any new pictures, see who is online for a possible chat and then look to see new members. I do check for Blog and Forum updates but these are rare nowadays. I guess it is like the local shop that I pop into now and again but never really buy anything as it doesn't sell things I really want. If it suddenly closed down, I'd be sad but wouldn't quite understand why....

The other sites I visit are:

Fetlife - Always plenty of raingear related content and members.

RainwearCentral - Regular contributions, but could be better supported.

Waterproofs4You - Good modern platform but again not much participation versus membership.

In conclusion - I have been happy to support as a paying member but at each renewal do question the value of it. I think that all members need to make a positive content contribution to the site in order that it works and thrives (as well as becoming paying members). Will this happen? Let's see..

PS - 16 Replies out of 1389 Members might tell the story...

Hi Graham and Lars

"Is Regnfrakker.dk needed?" I would say "perhaps YES". I'll say a great thanks to you for maintaining this site the last years.

I saw your question a few days after you posted it. I was not quite sure if I want to answer and whitch language to use (english or german).

I'm a member since more than 12 years. At that time 3xL was on duty. Several times I upgraded the membership level for 3 months to have access to more fotos per day and to videos (in the now unsupported format Flash). I found several friends here near me or around western and northern Europe and had hours of discussions with some of them (preferably in German or English but not only).

Several times I tried to help other members and discussed issues with you, about SSL, Adobe Flash and user issues.

In the meantime I logged on also to other sites: the last was waterproofs4you (after reading the posting from "PeterStormCag").

Why "perhaps YES"?
There's a lot of work to do that needs a lot of motivation. The work you do can't be paid, as the base of paying member is too small. I hope the money is enought to pay the cost of having the site up and running. An important thing is, that fotos are hosted local at the site (my opinion).

The user-interface of the regnfrakker.dk is very pleasant and runs fast: I like it. The content is nice, the members are polite.

I hope that the site can continue to run and can be upgraded to a stable and secure platform (to probably ease the maintenance).

I've only just arrived and there is nowhere else like it.

For meg som har elsket å ha på meg regntøy, har denne siden blitt mitt fristed. Det er mange flotte bilder og historier her. Har dessverre ikke skrevet noe særlig da jeg ikke føler jeg har evnen til å få mine fantasier, opplevelser inn i bloggen.

Jg er evig takknemlig for det arbeidet som er lagt ned på denne siden. Jeg synes det er viktig at vi opprettholder siden. Jeg er enig i tidligere innlegg, der jeg også er med på å betale for denne siden, enten her, eller på ny plattform. Det som hadde vært interessant, er om det er mulig å få vite hva måtte et medlemskap koste på en ny plattform, slik at vi kan finne ut om det er liv laga. Hadde vært flott om det kunne komme fram flere alternativer. Men jeg forblir et betalende medlem, enten vi er på denne plattformen eller en anne

Helt enig med Gummi1962 og de andre indlæg..!

Rainwwear sites definately have a place, as there is very few.

Regnfrakker

Rainwearcentral

rainwearpassion

its great to be able to keep on contact with like minded friends. Also a great weay to share ones thoughts of new brands. Thanks to Graham and GRSR for their excellent work.

Førhen elskede jeg siden her, men efter det blev lavet sådan at opslag i chatboksen forsvinder, så må jeg nok indrømme jeg mistede interessen for siden, for den virker meget død, når man kommer til at den enten er tom eller der er et svar på et opslag som er væk.

Efter FB er kommet til så er det nok der jeg bruger mest tid, da det ikke er lige så besværligt at ligge photos op der.

Renep. Hvis du mener Shoutboxen, har beskederne altid forsvundet efter en til tre dage! Jeg har ikke problemer med at uploade billeder her! Det med at siden er død kan diskuteres! Jeg har kontakt til mange søde mennesker, nogle chatter jeg med, andre mødes jeg med. Det er op til medlemmerne at få tingene til at ske..! Det er selvfølgelig at du fortrækker FB:) Men det ene udelukker jo ikke det andet...

Hi folks,

of course I would say yes!

I can´t estimate how much work it is, to keep a homepage or a site like this running. It´s a special site for a special fetish. :) I would be happy to post videos again (of course with a bigger data volume) and photos with bigger size than 500 Kb. If it´s necessary in case of site speed and data volume, maybe with a mandatory fee. But it may cost members... Difficult to decide!

I hope, you will find a solution!

Rubberized greetings!

I would be curious about the technologies in the background. Eventually it's possible to work on that together? Will write a private message to you :)