What's with Hungercity again?

[U2Lynne]

$600 a month for server costs? Even when we had two servers and an outside backup site, we were running on less than $400 a month. When things got tough, I cut the backup (after having our host verify the status of the disks on the other server for me to do the backup on instead). We are now running on a more powerful server than before (with RAID 10 and 8 GB RAM) and paying less than for those two servers. Are they operating in the US? If so, I really think they should contact our host, QuickPacket, and ask about hosting there. We've been with QuickPacket since we started and they have always been good to us.

Originally Posted by U2Lynne

$600 a month for server costs? Even when we had two servers and an outside backup site, we were running on less than $400 a month. When things got tough, I cut the backup (after having our host verify the status of the disks on the other server for me to do the backup on instead). We are now running on a more powerful server than before (with RAID 10 and 8 GB RAM) and paying less than for those two servers. Are they operating in the US? If so, I really think they should contact our host, QuickPacket, and ask about hosting there. We've been with QuickPacket since we started and they have always been good to us.

How many worker-hours would be involved in changing hosts? Unlike here, HC seems to be a one man operation as far as code monkey stuff, I wonder if that isn't part of the reason they have not taken some of these cost savings step.

HC's forums seem to be hosted separately, so that's been up all week. That may explain how their "money begging notice" has been hosted.
http://thehcforum.com/

Now, who wants to see my tits?

[U2Lynne]

Originally Posted by arfarf

How many worker-hours would be involved in changing hosts? Unlike here, HC seems to be a one man operation as far as code monkey stuff, I wonder if that isn't part of the reason they have not taken some of these cost savings step.

On our last server move, our host installed PHP, MySQL, apache for us and then moved over our files/databases all at no cost to us. I was just around to fix some server paths in the software since they had changed. Once I changed those, I verified the site worked, and then turned it back on. Not much effort on my part at all. On other server moves, I have hired a kid in England to do the move for us which includes installing PHP, MySQL, apache, and moving over all our files/databases. He usually takes two hours, so $200 dollars. I play with the coding on our site, but I don't like doing server moves so I always hire someone to make sure it gets done right.

Originally Posted by U2Lynne

On our last server move, our host installed PHP, MySQL, apache for us and then moved over our files/databases all at no cost to us. I was just around to fix some server paths in the software since they had changed. Once I changed those, I verified the site worked, and then turned it back on. Not much effort on my part at all. On other server moves, I have hired a kid in England to do the move for us which includes installing PHP, MySQL, apache, and moving over all our files/databases. He usually takes two hours, so $200 dollars. I play with the coding on our site, but I don't like doing server moves so I always hire someone to make sure it gets done right.

Thanks, then that would not seem to be much of an impedament for moving servers.

[dasmueller]

The private tracker appears to be down again as well.

[aikowolf]

Originally Posted by vladsmythe

They have known for years that there are much more affordable hosts. The PMs asking for money, or else they will shut down the site, are usually sent out around the 20th of each month. Then they send out a "We really mean it!" notice a few days before the threatened shutdown. Somehow, it works, because they usually make up a two or three hundred dollar deficit in the final 48 hours. Either that, or Jameskg is onto something.

shareef's crack dealer shows up on the 19th giving him 3 days to pay - hence the urgent email/ pms on the 20th

[mooncusser]

perhaps they could sell t-shirts

[clucking]

Sooooooo...hungercity is done? There was a note that it would be up again by yesterday, but now ALL of the forums, etc. are offline. Anyone have any info? I know there were several people who sent them $$ in the last week to get it back up and running.

[655321]

Gookie spookie, guess it got spank punished for blowing thee wistle, right?

[jabulon]

Originally Posted by clucking

Sooooooo...hungercity is done? There was a note that it would be up again by yesterday, but now ALL of the forums, etc. are offline. Anyone have any info? I know there were several people who sent them $$ in the last week to get it back up and running.

Note is till there. May be thursday turned into friday turned into ... etc.

[MalFrie]

Originally Posted by 655321

Gookie spookie, guess it got spank punished for blowing thee wistle, right?

WTF! Great Ratio, By the way!!

[paddington]

didn't make it back up...

[rocketsocket]

First post here. Big fan of TTD but also a big fan of HC. Lots of stuff there you don't find anywhere else, including a ton of great Beatles A&V (banned elsewhere).

I have donated to HC in the past but refuse to stain myself ever again with PP so I have to do it through a third party who doesn't have any brains or self-respect and thinks PP is the salvation of all humanity. Didn't donate during this crisis yet because I can't reach Stain Man ATM but I plan to donate again ASAP. I wish BT operators could work with Google Wallet, Amazon Payments, BitCoin, etc. ... anything but PP! I'd mail cash if there was a way to get it to you.

I have had a number of dealings with ShaReeF and he has been the epitome of professionalism, courtesy, and cooperation. Rather than push for a donation in our PMs, he told me not to sweat it. Given those encounters, I find it very hard to believe that there's anything improper taking place. No argument from me that better communication from him would help the public perception, but as someone who used to be on call to put radio stations back on the air after transmitter failures (some catastrophic), I know what a PITA it is when people keep asking "are we almost there yet?". It will be done just as soon as it can be done and not a second sooner. I'm willing to cut him a lot of slack because he's done far more for the HC community than most of us have ever done for him and I am grateful to him and everyone else who runs a BT tracker (Lynne - thanks much for the great job (ZERO OUTAGES) you do with TTD!).

I have no inside info about WTF may be going on at HC but my sense is that he's doing what he can to make it work. There have been some changes in page availability over the past couple of days that lead me to belive something is afoot. If it never resurfaces for any reason we'll all be worse off, so I hope that's not the case. But I needed to put in a good word for ShaReeF as a good guy who's done good work in the past and wish him well in this bad situation.

Back to the shadows for me.

[CAF]

Originally Posted by rocketsocket

First post here. Big fan of TTD but also a big fan of HC. Lots of stuff there you don't find anywhere else, including a ton of great Beatles A&V (banned elsewhere).

I have donated to HC in the past but refuse to stain myself ever again with PP so I have to do it through a third party who doesn't have any brains or self-respect and thinks PP is the salvation of all humanity. Didn't donate during this crisis yet because I can't reach Stain Man ATM but I plan to donate again ASAP. I wish BT operators could work with Google Wallet, Amazon Payments, BitCoin, etc. ... anything but PP! I'd mail cash if there was a way to get it to you.

I have had a number of dealings with ShaReeF and he has been the epitome of professionalism, courtesy, and cooperation. Rather than push for a donation in our PMs, he told me not to sweat it. Given those encounters, I find it very hard to believe that there's anything improper taking place. No argument from me that better communication from him would help the public perception, but as someone who used to be on call to put radio stations back on the air after transmitter failures (some catastrophic), I know what a PITA it is when people keep asking "are we almost there yet?". It will be done just as soon as it can be done and not a second sooner. I'm willing to cut him a lot of slack because he's done far more for the HC community than most of us have ever done for him and I am grateful to him and everyone else who runs a BT tracker (Lynne - thanks much for the great job (ZERO OUTAGES) you do with TTD!).

I have no inside info about WTF may be going on at HC but my sense is that he's doing what he can to make it work. There have been some changes in page availability over the past couple of days that lead me to belive something is afoot. If it never resurfaces for any reason we'll all be worse off, so I hope that's not the case. But I needed to put in a good word for ShaReeF as a good guy who's done good work in the past and wish him well in this bad situation.

Back to the shadows for me.

All great points. I hope they re-surface soon.

The "changes in page availability" were due to an outage at HostGator's data center in Provo, Utah. (The outage shut down my website and email, too, which is the only reason I know or would have known this.) I ought to find a new hobby horse, but I'm compelled to mention a few things about HostGator (which hosts HungerCity). A colleague of mine, whom I shall call HD (for those are her initials), also uses HG. When the bank issued HD a new card, she forgot to update her HG account, and, when HG went to automatically withdraw funds from her account, HG could not withdraw the funds that they were owed. HG shut HD down. During this shutdown, her email did not work, and she did not have the capacity to post a message on her website explaining why it was down. HD did not have to pay a reconnection fee, and, once she corrected her billing information and pointed out the correction to HG, her site was back up all but instantly (and, as an aside that is entirely unrelated to HD (but not to HC), HG, to the best of my knowledge, does not have a plan that costs $645 per month).

I'm no internet expert. I understand that there may be explanations that mitigate all of the observations that I have noted above. I know that this is a loaded post that is leading in its implications. I was a happy HC citizen, and I donated each month — without exception — and I didn't mind doing it. As a leech with nothing else to offer, the cost of an album or two every four weeks or so was not too big of a price to pay for access to such a great Dylan bootleg archive. I'm not upset about the money, but I don't like it when people lie to me (especially in order to get money). That said, it seems likely from his front page missives asking after donations that English is not Shareef's first language, and he very well may have misspoken without deliberate intent to deceive. But, even if that is the case, it is a bad business practice.

I know that there are a lot of passionate HC supporters here, and I'm sure that they have valid arguments as to why HC is not yet back online. More power to HC's owner and to them. These are just my two pennies, and you should only take them for what they are worth.

B.