I don’t know what “unprofessional” means in this context. The message is truthful. I don’t know when the forums will return. I’m working on it. I will reopen it when it’s the right thing to do. Or, yes, when I feel like it. Although this is not about whimsy on my part, believe me, nor is it something I don’t care about. The message doesn’t signal lack of urgency on my part. What it does signal is that I don’t know how long it will take.

Your sense of entitlement is palpable and, I think, wholly misplaced. This forum is a non-profit labor of love that exists because I spend time and money to support it. It represents significant time away from my personal and professional lives. It’s time that is precious to me. Many of the forums mods and admins also donate significant personal time. What’s important to me is that the forums is safe, that people are safe viewing it, and that we protect the investment of 5+ years of a great community to ensure it continues. That is my responsibility. And I’ll do whatever it takes to ensure that — regardless of what anyone thinks of me.

So, I don’t really care if people are removing the forums from their bookmarks. I suggest that YOU do that, though. The place is about community, and from the start we’ve been looking for a positive, constructive community. I don’t really care how many people visit it. What I care about is that the people who do come enjoy it and find that it enriches their lives in some small way.

Finally, it’s just a forums. It’s not life and death. You and everyone can live without it for a while. I don’t read the shutdown message the way you do. I’m sorry you think the message is flip. It was not meant to be. It was meant to be truthful without being scary. Saying something unfortunate with a twisted smile. Looking fate in the eyes and not flinching. I’m not sure whether it accomplishes that mission, but there’s nothing more in it. It’s possible others have read it the way you do — and if so I’d like to hear from them. But I haven’t had any other complaints. I will check in with a few key admins and see what they think.

It doesn’t matter to me whether you disagree or give up on the forums. I’m sorry you’re angry because that was not the intent. But I’m doing the best I can. A little patience and some trust would be a better plan than lashing out at me because my message isn’t what you think it should be.

– Scot

OK so I am a twit. But there are others that have already removed your site from their bookmarks.

Scot’s Newsletter Forums is offline until further notice. My apologies for this interruption. It may be several hours, days, or weeks. We shall return.

Even a Twit such as me knows that the above message is not professional. It does not live up to the standards set up by The Highlanders. I know that your working on a lot more than web hosting, that is not my point, and the fact that your forum is down is also not my point. The only point is that the message that one sees is not professional and makes one believe that we will be back online when we feel like it.

I cannot care less if it does take weeks months or even years before it comes back on line. The Net and myself and others will do just fine without Scot’s Forums. Have a great day.

-Gary

I will handle the forums as I see fit for the safety and well being of all who are members. This will be explained when the forums re-opens. The website problem has not been fixed by now.

Any time you would like to donate $500 a month for dedicated hosting on Rackspace (or you and a hundred friends), please let me know. Until then, cut the attitude and be patient. I’m working on a lot more than just changing webhosts.

– Scot

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b243/TK-1913/759507a0.png

If the forum is to be brought back on line a better message than the above should be posted. If not then post a message that it is shutdown.

As a follow up you might like to look at these three sites that do hosting comparisons:

BestHostRatings - http://www.besthostratings.com/
Hosting Comparison - http://www.hosting-comparison.com/
Hosting Review - http://hostingreview.com/

Regards,
Peter

I have been using A Small Orange (http://asmallorange.com/) for several years now. The service is good, with only several minor problems (generally server outages). The range of features is very extensive and the price is reasonable.

Highly recommended.

Peter

I didn’t research and am not technical enough to know all your parameters, but feel sure you’d want to do that yourself. Good luck.

I use, and have switched a number of my clients over to: http://www.1and1.com/?k_id=9025464

I have been using the Linux Business Package for years now, which provides lots of space/features at a great price.

Check it out…

When you say ’semi-dedicated’, you mean a VPS plan or Virtual Private Server plan. They dedicate a portion of the server, memory and HD to you. That’s the intermediary plan between a shared hosting plan and a dedicated server.

Open4biz: No, I don’t mean VPS. Yes, you’re right that that’s the generic next level up before dedicated (although I think you’ll find that some shared hosting services employ that method too without telling their customers). My use of the term “semi-dedicated” refers to the marketing term used by JaguarPC. I was not pointing out a generic service, but talking about JaguarPC’s specific service level, where, as I said, they promise fewer clients per shared server. It’s not a new idea, but I’ve always liked the idea. The proof is in the pudding though.

Why have you not migrated to a dedicated server plan by now? I researched hosting plans last years and after seeing the priceing to features ratio, the dedicated plans were a no-brainer. I spend $59 a month for my own 2.0Ghz Celeron server, Linux (Fedora Core 6), Plesk, 512MB ram, an 80GB HD and 500GB montly bandwidth. I get root level access and control of the setup.

I have covered this shared vs. dedicated vs. managed debate in the past, so I’ll make this brief. In a nutshell: Dedicated is not for me. I’m not looking to become my own sys admin. I have enough to do as it is. The last thing I want to worry about is security patches for my server OS and supporting applications (like Apache, PHP, MySQL, etc.). I need to focus what little moonlighting time I have away from Computerworld researching and writing stories, not messing around with my server.

Managed hosting would be the right solution for me. It combines the best aspects of shared and dedicated hosting, but it also starts around $150 a month — way beyond the means of a labor-of-love enterprise like Scot’s Newsletter. Believe me, I’d do this if I could afford it; I looked at it very closely before I made the jump to IX a couple of years ago.

In my ideal world, I’d have something like Rackspace’s managed plan (last I checked, something like $400 a month, but it may be more than that now). But there are many, many other webhosts that offer decent managed service. I’m just not in that league at this time. Note that I eliminated all advertising but ad programs (like Google AdSense) recently. I haven’t even been coming after SNB’s audience for donations much over the last year or two. I’m trying to make the site live within its means.

To assist you in your investigation I offer you our experience. We signed up with Site 5 in October of 2006. We are currently on a shared reseller hosting plan with them. We have not resold or hosted any sites other than our primary. The server on which they initially had our site was overloaded and we were down regularly. No explanations were ever provided other than “apparently something happened, but it is running now….”

Based on the consistent down time I requested the promised credits on our account. They refused in a manner that was clearly incorrect based on information published on their website. It was not until one of the owners got involved that a credit that was duly owing was issued. I note that they still have not updated their “terms” to reflect the interpretation they were attempting to force on us.

Late last year Site 5 merged with The Planet (or are somehow sharing server space with them). The server on which they placed our site started off much more robust and was down much less frequently (for about 4 months). Unfortunately that changed. Apparently because Site 5 added more sites to the shared server. I say “apparently” because every time our site goes down the tech response is “there were load issues on the server caused by another site, but they have been corrected.” Yes, this generic response is provided every time despite my request for more pertinent information as to how they intend to correct the issue so it will not arise again. To compound frustration the technicians often fail to read the prior comments in a trouble ticket and ask questions for which answers have already been provided.

I don’t want to further pontificate on the issue, but wanted to share the horrible support experience we have received with Site 5. Since two people recommended them I felt it necessary to provide you with concrete examples of why you may not want to pursue them.

I look forward to your continued investigation with the knowledge that you will thoroughly review this issue and offer up useful and pertinent information to all of your readers. Thanks!

Scott