I have no idea if the answer to your question is yea or nea.
Personally, I have never logged into Faecesbook, nor the Twatter - they are not my thing.

It would be a shame if such things did lead to the demise of this resource, but it would not be the end of the world as we know it.
Humans are very adaptable, especially the children.

Like others I see facebook as a "look at me on my trip" / "look what I have to sell" with the odd snippet of information.

I can see that facebook helps people to see what others are doing and where, and has an immediate hit of "that looks nice", or "what a plonker" in the way that a forum doesn't.

The Hubb is for the real world, dont fb, twitter or anything else, i dont want to know who is having what for tea, just debating to get rid of the mobile phone and just having data.
If its important people will mail, not text or call

steve:ban:

@grant you have a fantastic plan. Makes complete sense. While I appreciate the sentiment of what works shouldn't be mended, we should be cognisant that it works for us - middle aged travellers who are used to getting by. Something that HUBB does amazingly beyond information and help, it also incredibly inspires. I can still remember sleepless nights before my first Sahara expedition in 2008 reading up on bike mods and travel stories. We now have to inspire the next generation of 20 year olds. As much as the content matters, the delivery of it makes a difference too.

On to some of your questions - I personally don't have drupal experience, but I've now built an engineering team of 80 starting from a couple of freelances in Ukraine. From my experience what helps most is... just getting going and being ready to go through a few people until you end up with someone you work well with.

Re fundraiser - maybe $10k = 10 weeks isn't enough, perhaps have a better estimate what's needed. In indiegogo you can still get the funds even if the fundraise doesn't reach the target. How much would people pay? I'm sure you have also received tons of email from Jimmy Wales at wikipedia, I give usually $30 every year. For HUBB it is a closer community, so you should get a couple of people putting in $500, a lot of regulars at $100 and then casual users at $20-$50. What do people want in return? I think we should just appreciate a better site and you keeping it going.

Happy to help with funding and fundraising - although it now looks like we might be getting the bikes through customs soon and we'll be on our way.

Sent from my Nexus 9 using Tapatalk

Have no fear Andy, we are VERY aware of the need to be usable on slow / terrible connections, and it's always at the top of our list for design considerations. Having said that, we do also have to cater to "new design" considerations to make it sufficiently "cool" to keep the "IT chap" and his ilk happy. It's always going to be a balancing act.

We've actually used an internet cafe with 20 computers - running off one 56k modem... so yes we know! :)

Bang on Grant :thumbup1:

Mezo.