Recent Downtime

[Lemming]

The problem was that the hosting company had switched servers but forgot to migrate this forum's database when they did so.

The ACD is hosted on a reseller account leased by HullDJ, who has generously been allowing us to squat here for the past few years. Normally when there is a technical issue I simply contact HullDJ and he raises a ticket with his host's tech support people.

When I contacted him this time I got no reply, which is very unusual. Then I got the shocking message from his wife to say that he'd suddenly died on Monday (see here).

It took me a while to track down where HullDJ had his account and then, having done that, to persuade them to talk to me and fix the issue. That's now sorted, as you can see.

In the longer term, we still need somewhere to park the ACD and coffeeshopmenus.org when their respective leases run out (whenever that might be). The domain names and the server space are separate, which makes things slightly easier with ACD and more complicated for FBN.

Does anyone happen to have some spare server space we could squat on?

[CopenhagenCouple]

Does anyone happen to have some spare server space we could squat on?

If that isn't the case, we will figure out another way, Roll on ACD!

[Lemming]

I have no idea how much it would cost to rent the server space and the bandwidth to support the two sites. I also don't know how long we've got to sort it out. I'm a bit reluctant to hassle the respective widows at the moment.

I've got some personal stuff on a free host. Not sure what the limitations on that are. If necessary I'll open another account there and see what it can do. We'll keep it going somehow

Technically it's relatively easy to move everything to another server. Both of the domain names are independent of the physical locations. The coffeeshopdirect domain belongs to me so I should be able to point that at any IP address. FBN's coffeeshopmenus.org is trickier. I have access to his server but not the domain name. I'm told he paid for a few years ahead on the domain so that's not going anywhere. The trouble is I don't have admin access to it so, when the server's lease expires, which could be any time, it could finish up pointing into a black hole.

[Hobie]

Thats quite a problem , Im a member of Tak`s aka Ted - from Asoka forum hosted by Tapatalk which is free platform but accepts donations . They dont hassel members as to how much to donate or frequency . It's a thought but may not be the best solution .

[Lemming]

We had another few hours off air today. You may have seen the Account Suspended message. It wasn't your account that was suspended, it was the late great HullDJ's reseller package from Hosting Heroes that was automatically turned off because of an unpaid invoice.

I contacted HH and they've given us a stay of execution while we sort it out. I don't yet know how long this will last.

The long history of ACD has been based on squatting. In the beginning it was on some space belonging to my then employer. They didn't know the space existed and had no idea about the site

Next it moved to FreeUK. That was in the days of squeaky modems (ask your granddad ). In exchange for dialling in occasionally they gave a bit of free web space. The space was limited so I had to make the pictures small to fit. Around this time I also bought the domain name coffeeshopdirect.com quite cheaply and directed it at the FreeUK site.

There was no means of putting interactive stuff and databases on FreeUK so many ACD users were on the Channels forums. My friend Peter a.k.a. Slimline had a reseller account like HullDJ so he kindly gave me an account on there and set me up with my own forum on its own domain to run alongside the ACD.

Years later, sadly, Peter died and we lost the forum's domain name. I had a backup of the database and FBN allowed it to squat on his web space for a while. That involved another domain name. Over the years the forum has had at least four different domain names and each change has lost a few members.

Next HullDJ generously offered to host both the main site and the forum on his space. At that point we unified the whole site under the coffeeshopdirect domain, making it easier to move in the future if necessary.

Now HullDJ's reseller account is closing we're in limbo again. Any other users of his service will also be hanging but I don't know who they are, other than that they're probably other DJs in Hull.

I've always seen the ACD as a hobby. It's a free service that I give lots of time to but, mostly as a matter of principle, I don't spend money on, even when I used to have a day job.

In some ways, the best solution would be to find another place to squat. That way, when I go the same way as Peter, FBN and HullDJ, someone might be able to keep the sites going. The other solution is to pay HH or someone for independent hosting.

I'm still waiting to hear how much that would cost but I don't think it will be very much, at least not to someone less tight than me! Some members have volunteered to help out with this but it sounds complicated to administer that. Anyone know how to set up joint ( ) ownership or a trust or something? I suppose you could just do it via me. If a few people set up direct debits to send me just £1 per month that would probably cover it.

The same thing is going to happen with FBN's menus site at some point. If we can find somewhere to park the ACD then we can probably put his site there too.

I'll report back when I hear more from HH.

[Not_the_monk]

While somewhere else to squat would appear to solve the issue, idk if both sites having their own independent hosting that you have full control of wouldn't be the better solution in many ways IF that didn't have a cost impact on your Lemming. And given the amazing resource both sites have been for so many people & for so many years you wouldn't think it would be so hard to have the funding crowdsourced, obviously depending on what the numbers are.

I know they take a minimum of 5%, but would Patreon maybe be an option?

[Lemming]

I've now opened an account in my name with Hosting Heroes and paid for a month ahead. I've also made some internal changes to the forums part to simplify it. Everything ACD should be moving to the new account tomorrow. We'll see how smoothly the migration goes and how the new account performs.

Regarding crowdsourcing and Patreon, I don't know much about them but they might be a good solution. Do you have experience @Not_the_monk?

There are two parts to this in my (admittedly obsessive, slightly crazy and now rotting) mind. There's covering the monthly subscription and helping someone to keep the sites going on my demise.

The actual costs are not huge. If divided between all of the thousands of users of the sites it would be a fraction of a penny each. In practice, it's only really the regular posters on the forums that are likely to volunteer, and that's a tiny subset. Nevertheless, just a handful of people putting in £1 per month by some automated method would cover it.

The other part is what happens after me. I'd like to think that someone would keep it all going but, as I've found out, it's not easy to take these things over, even when you have a lot of information. That's why I'm interested in some sort of collective ownership so it's not entirely dependent on me to keep it from going straight to account suspended.

In reality, fully supporting the sites involves not just access to the servers and email accounts, it also involves software and databases on my PC. It would be possible without these but they make it much easier. In the past, knowing that HullDJ and, before him, Slimline had access that they could be trusted not to use except in emergency was reassuring.

Regarding FBN's site, I've now found that the domain name and the site hosting are actually in the same place, which is different to what I'd gathered before. Both run 'till next January so got a bit of time to sort them out. If the new account with HH works out OK then I might divert the menus site to there.

Incidentally, the menus site seems to be growing at the moment. When I was re-writing it back in February it seemed to be quite quiet, which helped to leave me free to get on with it. Once I got the new version going it really picked up, possibly because Google is happier with the simplified code.

When I get time I want to look into an easier way for people to send in menus. Phone generation people seem to struggle with sending pictures as email attachments.

[Not_the_monk]

Regarding crowdsourcing and Patreon, I don't know much about them but they might be a good solution. Do you have experience @Not_the_monk?

Not a huge amount to be honest, years ago I kept a sports related online forum alive for a long time through a small group of members donating £1/£2 a month each through paypal so I do know that model can work pretty well (but a lot of people these days have issues with that specific service).

I do know that a lot of creators on youtube, podcasts etc keep their channels & communities running since "the adpocalypse" through Patreon; as I understand it pretty much anyone can create a page and subscription tiers for their supporters/viewers/fans to contribute to whatever it is they do on.

For this purpose it wouldn't need to be too complicated at all as all (just thinking off the top of my head) with just a detailing of the running costs & either the one basic level people could join to contribute at, or maybe a couple if you wanted to idk, add like a forum badge or something as a "reward" for people at $2 rather than $1 or whatever. It also provides you then with tools to interact with those people directly to idk, discuss what excess funds if generated could be used for or help with any specific issues effecting the future of the sites or whatever.

I would say the hosting and running of these sites is clearly a creative endeavour, involving maintaining a huge database and historical archive of the cannabis scene as well as the social/discussion space, so I've heard of/seen people using it for substantially less relevant reasons. There may well be other platforms too of course for something like this but that's the one I see a lot of people promoting as ways to support their work on the net.

[Tokeing tom]

I would have no problem paying a small fee but unfortunately I'm phone generation so that's pretty much all I can do

[Lemming]

I should probably have put a smiley after that statement!

[Tokeing tom]

[Lemming]

Latest
I've now opened an independent account for coffeeshopdirect.com and moved everything from HullDJ's account to the new one. It's the cheapest service they offer so we'll see how it performs. So far it looks fine to me but we'll see how it goes.
I've only taken it for a month for now so I'll look at it again after 4/20.

[macky]

Latest
I've now opened an independent account for coffeeshopdirect.com and moved everything from HullDJ's account to the new one. It's the cheapest service they offer so we'll see how it performs. So far it looks fine to me but we'll see how it goes.
I've only taken it for a month for now so I'll look at it again after 4/20.

what is it a month Lem? Thinking I could help with a donation,being I,m not from that generation (The old mans got all the money ,and the young man ain’t got nothing in the world......)

[Kermit]

Slimline had a paypal clicky for donations, any chance that can be reinstated? Or anything similar to that about, more than happy to chip in.

[AzLaker]

Slimline had a paypal clicky for donations, any chance that can be reinstated? Or anything similar to that about, more than happy to chip in.

I'm with Kermit on this one. More than happy to donate.

AzLaker