# Server Hardware Fault



## Dragoneer (Jul 1, 2008)

After investigating and digging around, we've determined many of the recent errors/outages on FA's side to be result of a server hardware fault. We've got some mixed signals coming from the server, and we're investigating them to try to resolve issues. No one item is pointing towards origin of failure so we are unable to determine what the point of failure is at this time.

Given we were planning on purchasing a new server for backup, we are re-allocating that money right now to purchasing a new data server with built in backup capabilities. The new server will replace the failing data server until we can make proper repairs.

With luck, the new server will going be ordered tomorrow. It WILL cost roughly $1,000 more than we currently have budgeted, and given that, we are once again asking for donations. The server will be ordered, money or not, but doing so is going to put us into severe debt at this time. The new system is going to cost us almost $4,000 and will make added emphasis on data security (with build in battery backups). The recent HD failure set us back roughly $250 from that goal. At current estimates, we have about $2,250 in our coffers to apply to a new server.
_
We will do everything within our power to minimize the outage, and current estimates are 7 to 10 days. We will keep you posted in the forums._

*Lend a Hand?*
Unfortunately fixes cost money, especially to the level that we need in this instance.* If anybody is willing to help out we are accepting donations via Amazon or Paypal. *We greatly appreciate any assistance in helping in this matter. Donations via Amazon can be made here. For Paypal, please PM me over the forums for the appropriate information.

As written before, we do have money to put together to a server, but not enough to replace the server having these issues. When all is said and done the other server will be fixed and repaired, and we'll drop it back into the colo.

*EDIT:* Due to the generous donations from the site, we've bumped the donation goal up to $4,000. As we get more and more support we will invest in the single best hardware we can buy.


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## kayfox (Jul 1, 2008)

I would like to see FurAffinity buy a real server, an IBM or some such, with all those important features, like miles of documentation, tested configurations and remote management features.

I have a few old IBM machines, and even they have features such as:
Redundant power supplies.
Lights out management.
Voltage, environment and hardware monitoring monitoring.  (as in, I can tell you that the mainboard is at 22degC and all fans are on high, and 12v is at 12.21v, etc)

Surely something newer can do better, and if your careful and think it through, you can re-use hardware, like drives and such.


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## Dragoneer (Jul 1, 2008)

kayfox said:


> I would like to see FurAffinity buy a real server, an IBM or some such, with all those important features, like miles of documentation, tested configurations and remote management features.


Those cost a lot more money than we have funding for, unfortunately.


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## kayfox (Jul 1, 2008)

What are you buying?  What do you have, and what are the load averages on what you have?


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## hiphopopotimus (Jul 1, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> So, it appears some of the most recent errors may have been caused by a server hardware fault.



Why not just run FA on the forum server? its always up


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## net-cat (Jul 1, 2008)

hiphopopotimus said:


> Why not just run FA on the forum server? its always up


The analogy "like a fly in molasses" comes to mind...


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## Myr (Jul 1, 2008)

You guys go through servers and hardware like wildfire through brush. Do yourselves a favor, take that money, save it, and then spend it hiring someone to do professional code for your site. You've been over-taxing your resources for years and you know it. You've known it even since before 'project Ferrox' was first boasted years ago. Throwing hardware at the problem again is just another patch job. You have a developer on your team who once told me he could reprogram the entire site in a week, and here it's been years and one missed expectation of an upgrade after another. Seriously, save your cash and put it into a professional or accredited programmer. If you can't afford that, then at the very least you should be hiring a professional consultant to give real advice. You're way past overdue for a major software upgrade. Both the users of FA and your colo will appreciate this.


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## Dragoneer (Jul 1, 2008)

hiphopopotimus said:


> Why not just run FA on the forum server? its always up


Run FA on the forums server? That'd be like fueling your body with nothing but food form McDonalds. Bloated and just not awesome.


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## Dragoneer (Jul 1, 2008)

Myr said:


> You guys go through servers and hardware like wildfire through brush.


In three and a half years we have had one DOA motherboard and one drive fail. Please know your facts before you decide to troll, thanks. Well, that and whatever this issue is. We still have all the servers and are upgrading and re-deploying all of them. FA is about to hit five servers, and we're growing rapidly.


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## jd345 (Jul 1, 2008)

at least you guys are working on it,i was subiting a story when it fell, >.> i hope you guys get a rich man on the fourms and probly donates a whole bundle of cash to you guys, but thats just me hoping v.v


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## sd2522 (Jul 1, 2008)

Man it's a real bother. But when stuff breaks you either fix it or replace it. Hope it goes by fast.


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## ArielMT (Jul 1, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> If anybody is willin' to help out via donation please let me know or feel free to donate to the previous server fund here.


Ten bucks from me to the link.  It's all I can spare right now.


Dragoneer said:


> Run FA on the forums server? That'd be like fueling your body with nothing but food form McDonalds. Bloated and just not awesome.


As a support tech at a mom-and-pop ISP (meaning I wear more than one hat), I can vouch for that.  Putting everything on one server is the _least_ appealing option of 'em all, no matter how much horsepower it has, and I unfortunately know from experience, having done that out of necessity in the past.


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## Myr (Jul 1, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> In three and a half years we have had one DOA motherboard and one drive fail. Please know your facts before you decide to troll, thanks. And whatever this issue is. We still have all the servers and are upgrading and re-deploying all of them. FA is about to hit five servers, and we're growing rapidly.


That's funny, because I remember a lot more than that going wrong, particularly with ram problems and incompatible parts ordered numerous times. You got upset behind the scenes several times about those things, and rightfully so.

It's really amazing what a single pair of servers can do to power a state-wide university and how reliable they can be when they've got well-coded software on them, even when there's millions of daily visitors and hundreds of thousands of users with accounts. You guys really need to stop endlessly neglecting software.

EDIT: It also seems you have a problem of letting go of the past. What happened was years ago. It's time to move on.


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## Reyman (Jul 1, 2008)

This reminds me of how limewire works off of donations. Sooner or later instead of downloading any song for free there going to start forcing people to pay for limewire pro. Its either that or nothing. Dragoneer my friend FA is falling we all know it. The website crashed for more than 3 times last month. Once a drive fails it one after another drives will fail and FA will fall. Why not make a new website and bring all the data there. Its like copying the website.


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## Dragoneer (Jul 1, 2008)

Myr said:


> That's funny, because I remember a lot more than that going wrong, particularly with ram problems and incompatible parts ordered numerous times. You got upset behind the scenes several times about those things, and rightfully so.


That was during the original ordering of the server by Alkora, not by me. I research before I buy. Second, those weren't hardware failures... just FUBAR.

I don't handle things right now. 

Both Tiamat and Bahamut, our main servers, are produced by Thinkmate, a professional IT company which specializes in servers. I bought servers from professionals. The original server, Gecko, was brought up to par. It is not in use right now, and is currently the process of being refit.

But hardware failures? No.


Myr said:


> EDIT: It also seems you have a problem of letting go of the past. What happened was years ago. It's time to move on.


I have no interest in what happened years ago, Myr. I have moved on. But when we're accused of things being far, far worse than they are and with hardware failure that's beyond the scope of truth, I do take on the defensive side. Especially when I know that you know better.


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## Dragoneer (Jul 1, 2008)

Reyman said:


> TSooner or later instead of downloading any song for free there going to start forcing people to pay for limewire pro. Its either that or nothing. Dragoneer my friend FA is falling we all know it.


That's just about as far from the truth as one can get, sorry.


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## Tinder (Jul 1, 2008)

Thanks for all the work put into the site.


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## karoug (Jul 1, 2008)

What's the new server likely to be? 

Two quad core Xeon L5420 2.5Ghz 50W processors on an Asus Z7S mobo would be the start of a good server.


----
Join the Furaffinity Folding@Home Team!


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## Corri_Yammari (Jul 1, 2008)

As for the last three crashes this month, are these all linked to the same server? Or are is FA staff just having issues with the new colo?


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## Dragoneer (Jul 2, 2008)

karoug said:


> What's the new server likely to be?
> 
> Two quad core Xeon L5420 2.5Ghz 50W processors on an Asus Z7S mobo would be the start of a good server.


More than likely an AMD Opteron box, but the processor specs are not as important in this case as it is a data distribution box, so IO speed in all accounts is of the highest importance.


Corri_Yammari said:


> As for the last three crashes this month, are these all linked to the same server? Or are is FA staff just having issues with the new colo?


Except for the HD outage on the DB server, two of them were. The first outage we had at the colo was due to a blown circuit. It was replaced. The others were the result of unknown failures on the data box.

Given the many past issues we had at our old honest, Ezzi, it may be likely that something was damaged on the system itself. Where that damage occured? Well, that's unfortunately almost impossible to say. Troubleshooting hardware failures that don't occur consistently are a nightmare at best. No one part is showing and errors, and we can't really point to anything in particular.


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## rednec0 (Jul 2, 2008)

faulty hardware, faulty software; unfortunately all of this adds-up to headaches on both the user and the administration. i do like the rich-guy idea but what about possibly trying to win the good ol' lotto? i know its a shot in the dark, but it does have an opportunity for possibly getting the $$$ needed for a complete overhaul. also i'm sure when all is said and done ye ol' sledgehammer will slam down upon the oppressive hardware which has caused so many an ulser.

in the long run shit takes time and i wish i could do something yet i know i can't


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## karoug (Jul 2, 2008)

Maybe there can be a FurAffinity raffle!


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## Echo_wulf (Jul 2, 2008)

i really wish i could help you guys out... i know how the financial things can be so much of a prolem especially when it comes to servers... im not exactly sure on how many users there are on fa but if there was a way to try to get everyone to donate at least 1$ i am sure you guys may have enough of close to enough to get yourself a higher quality server...  its sucks on all terms b/c you have to push out the money for a new server plus tehre are people out there wanting to post art or waiting for commission or whatever it is so that puts another stress handle on you all b/c many people may be angry  and they just dont understand the technicalities of what you all have to go through to keep a wonderfull site like this up and running.. well i wish the best to you all and if i had some money to spare i would definatly be donateing...


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## Amber (Jul 2, 2008)

I don't understand why everyone is complaining so much about the site being down. This is a free site. I bet if they received $1.00 for every complaint about FA being down they would have enough money to buy better equipment so their would be no more failures. It's not their fault that there isn't enough support from their members to be able to afford the expensive equipment.

Poor Dragoneer's back must be in awful pain from everyone jumping on it...


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## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> So, it appears some of the most recent errors may have been caused by a server hardware fault. We've got some mixed signals coming from the server, and we're investigating them to try to resolve issues.
> 
> We are planning on purchasing a new server to replace the other until we can properly retrofit things. The new server is going to be ordered this week, but WILL cost roughly $1,000 more than we currently having funding for. We have a budget of roughly $2,200... the new system is going to cost us almost $4,000. The recent HD failure set us back roughly $200 from that goal.
> 
> If anybody is willin' to help out via donation please let me know or feel free to donate to the previous server fund here.



I don't get paid until Thursday, but after I filter out bills, gas, and food expences, I'll see what I can spare. But, until then... *searches through his car and couch for extra moneys*


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## Echo_wulf (Jul 2, 2008)

Amber said:


> I don't understand why everyone is complaining so much about the site being down. This is a free site. I bet if they received $1.00 for every complaint about FA being down they would have enough money to buy better equipment so their would be no more failures. It's not their fault that there isn't enough support from their members to be able to afford the expensive equipment.
> 
> Poor Dragoneer's back must be in awful pain from everyone jumping on it...


 you are completley right.. maybe if we all start up a journal running around saying help fa out donate 1$ and see what we can do from there


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## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

Amber said:


> Poor Dragoneer's back must be in awful pain from everyone jumping on it...




No kidding. Cut the guy a break FFS, he can only do so much! The guy's still gotta pay rent and buy food to survive!


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## marymouse (Jul 2, 2008)

Heh... all you have to do is charge a subscription fee for anyone who wants to see red-border images...  that'd make you enough money to buy a billion servers in a day.

All kidding aside, though, I personally would be willing to pay a subscription fee to the site,  FA helps me a bunch with getting word out about commissions, etc.

The problems I see here are:
1. Taking away something (features, etc) that people are already getting for free would cause an uproar.
2.Providing new content (ie a search) would rely on having enough server space to support it right of the bat, which kind of creates a catch 22, and defeats the purpose...

I have to admit, I know very little about the subject and the pros and cons, but again, I'd be happy to pay for the service.

Hm... one other thing just came to mind...  would the removal of the gratuitous posting of images that don't abide by the rules (ie: a billion pictures of the same subject, or screen shots, etc) perhaps help to lighten the load?  I see these rules broken a lot, and no action is taken, but that may just be a lack of manpower to enforce them.


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## Cloudchaser (Jul 2, 2008)

If I understand things correctly, FA's gonna be down for a few days instead of hours until the new server is in place?

Damn thing could've at least waited until I finished my journal post before crapping out again.  I felt like what I do when a traffic light turns red right as I set my cruise control


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## Cloudchaser (Jul 2, 2008)

Tinder said:


> Thanks for all the work put into the site.



*agrees*


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## Echo_wulf (Jul 2, 2008)

Cloudchaser said:


> *agrees*


 ^.^ as do i 

ty so much ^.^


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## oniontrain (Jul 2, 2008)

That sucks, I had Server 2003 take a complete shit on me a while back, I had to re-do everything, after replacing a bad HDD. 

I'll donate some commission money to the server fund.


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## Drake_Husky (Jul 2, 2008)

Hell if a new server will fix all the issues, i'll spring for a Dell Poweredge 2800 for $5k.


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## Dragoneer (Jul 2, 2008)

marymouse said:


> All kidding aside, though, I personally would be willing to pay a subscription fee to the site,  FA helps me a bunch with getting word out about commissions, etc.


We're looking into something like that in the future, but if we go that route we will NOT remove any functionality from the site. On a personal level I loathe DeviantArt because it's a pain in the ass to use unless you pay. If we did something like that it would be to allow userpage customizations and other little nifty features that you could use to personalize your FA without reducing functionality from other people.


marymouse said:


> Hm... one other thing just came to mind...  would the removal of the gratuitous posting of images that don't abide by the rules (ie: a billion pictures of the same subject, or screen shots, etc) perhaps help to lighten the load?  I see these rules broken a lot, and no action is taken, but that may just be a lack of manpower to enforce them.


It would help a bit, but not as much as you'd think. We've already got some rules in the works to address some issues like that, but more on that... well, later.


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## Ceceil Felias (Jul 2, 2008)

If my own server hardware wasn't A. outdated, and B. horribly low-budget to begin with (no PCI-X ports and non-rackmount build, lol wut), I'd gladly offer anything as a stopgap measure. In the meantime, though, I can only hope you can get the server ordered without too much pain, or at the very least locate the fault through elimination and replace the damaged hardware.


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## Dragoneer (Jul 2, 2008)

Drake_Husky said:


> Hell if a new server will fix all the issues, i'll spring for a Dell Poweredge 2800 for $5k.


If you have that kinda fundage... lemme know. We'll talk.  Even name the server after you.


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## wolfmagik (Jul 2, 2008)

Let me calculate my finances, and I'll give all I can. I like FA WAY to much to see something like this happen and not DO something about it. I'll be able to load some money on my debit card most likely tomorrow... expect something around the weekend from me at the latest. I'm building a computer at the moment (piece by piece) and the next part I was going to order costs around $130. I can push that back until next paycheck and just use that cash for FA. Wouldn't hurt me much; it would just mean I have to push back my planned date of completion a couple weeks.

Oh, and referring to an earlier post, if you DO make a subscription service, why not make the ads optional if you pay?


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## rednec0 (Jul 2, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> We're looking into something like that in the future, but if we go that route we will NOT remove any functionality from the site. On a personal level I loathe DeviantArt because it's a pain in the ass to use unless you pay. If we did something like that it would be to allow userpage customizations and other little nifty features that you could use to personalize your FA without reducing functionality from other people.



hmm, i could see that working to an extent, especially with some of the big name artists on here who get commissioned a lot. user page personalization is a good idea with the whole subscription thing.


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## Numinak (Jul 2, 2008)

I wish I could offer what I have. I have a workstation class computer that doubles as a server as well. IBM dual Xeon machine. But I th ink it'd probably cost as much to ship the bugger to you as it would to get a new one.  Soon as I get some cash, I'll be getting some donated to ya.


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## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> If you have that kinda fundage... lemme know. We'll talk.  Even name the server after you.



Do you accept Monopoly money? If so, i'll buy you ten new servers! XD


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## Dragoneer (Jul 2, 2008)

SilverAutomatic said:


> Do you accept Monopoly money? If so, i'll buy you ten new servers! XD


Yes, and I repay them it with imaginary internets.


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## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> Yes, and I repay them it with imaginary internets.



Those are the best kind! It's like the Anti-Drama internet. XD


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## Rafeal (Jul 2, 2008)

I still like the fact that if EVERYONE could donate $1 it would go a VERY long way to helping this out...

Rafeal


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## Trip (Jul 2, 2008)

Well, I donated a little. I hope it helps! All this downtime has become terribly frustrating for me, so I can only imagine what you folks in charge are going through. 

Here's hoping things get sorted out soon!


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## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 2, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> We're looking into something like that in the future, but if we go that route we will NOT remove any functionality from the site. On a personal level I loathe DeviantArt because it's a pain in the ass to use unless you pay. If we did something like that it would be to allow userpage customizations and other little nifty features that you could use to personalize your FA without reducing functionality from other people.



Why not go the same route as eBay? You could make PayPal the usual way to pay for commissions on FA, and take interest for bringing artists together with people that have money. Of course without taking all the free pic posting and viewing abilities from us.


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## arcticsilver (Jul 2, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> Yes, and I repay them it with imaginary internets.



Careful Apocalymon might take the imaginary internets.

and the serves seems like him, "Ultimate evil, complete with hot and cold running water".


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## fluffdance (Jul 2, 2008)

'Neer, sent you a PM here and on AIM.  Contact me ASAP.


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## arcticsilver (Jul 2, 2008)

arcticsilver said:


> Careful Apocalymon might take the imaginary internets.
> 
> and the serves seems like him, "Ultimate evil, complete with hot and cold running water".



Also this previous post seems ridculus and I forgot how to ask on how to do the donation.


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## Kobo-Kun (Jul 2, 2008)

Well, good luck ya guys, and thanks for all ya have done already. ;-) 

*Someone who needs to get a Paypal*


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## Echo_wulf (Jul 2, 2008)

umm im kinda dumb when it comes to donating but how do you donate so i can when i get some money?


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## verix (Jul 2, 2008)

Drake_Husky said:


> Hell if a new server will fix all the issues, i'll spring for a Dell Poweredge 2800 for $5k.


In my opinion, I'd say save your money. The "buy new hardware!" solution springs up _way_ too often. There's probably a better solution than simply throwing money at it, as in the past that's only cured the symptom, not the disease.


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## Bravo (Jul 2, 2008)

Daddy Ducky BE said:


> Why not go the same route as eBay? You could make PayPal the usual way to pay for commissions on FA, and take interest for bringing artists together with people that have money. Of course without taking all the free pic posting and viewing abilities from us.



Paypal doesn't like porn. Porn is the grease that keeps this crazy machine working. Apparently, we've run out of grease.


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## Dragoneer (Jul 2, 2008)

Rafeal said:


> I still like the fact that if EVERYONE could donate $1 it would go a VERY long way to helping this out...


If everybody on the site donated $1 we'd have enough money to fund FA for a year.


verix said:


> In my opinion, I'd say save your money. The "buy new hardware!" solution springs up _way_ too often. There's probably a better solution than simply throwing money at it, as in the past that's only cured the symptom, not the disease.


We were planning on adding a new data server to the main system as well as a backup box, so this is going with the plans that we had originally as well. The disease in this case is downed hardware, so... at this point and time it's the best option we have.


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## Ceceil Felias (Jul 2, 2008)

Rafeal said:


> I still like the fact that if EVERYONE could donate $1 it would go a VERY long way to helping this out...
> 
> Rafeal


Oh, of course, but a lot of people are financially tight these days. You should see what lengths some people are going to save their ass financially *coughPOGOROOcough*

Myself, I don't even have a penny to my name, and I still have bills to pay. I hope my dad doesn't mind me bumming some money off him for that.


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## gravija (Jul 2, 2008)

i wish i knew about this about an hour earlier . . . jeebus, i coulda atleast gave about ( i know its meager ) 100 bux. I sorta knew something was up when i noticed that whenever i would clear submissions i viewed, the little checkmarks in the boxes would still be there after the page refreshed, that goes fer clearing the journals aswell. I had to referesh the page a second time to get the page to load without the recent checkmarks. I also noticed since the last fer crashes and move to the new colo. . . the servers had a slow response and load time. At first i thought " well this could be because norton systemworks has a websafe feature that sniff each web page in real time as it loads, or the new colo has a different main connection. then i remembered that before the move dragoneer said this place had a faster connection ( http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=20862 ) so something seemed amiss to me . . . but after having to reinstall windows due to my network being hacked i noticed the slow response time even with a fresh install. I had posted it a couple of times when i responding to peeps journals to find out if anyone else noticed the wierd happening that i did . . . but as usual my posts went un-noticed . . .( im used to that tho ). I just wish it was something i coulda said, or had knowledge of what the warnings were to help give a warning about the failure, i may not be the best tech in the world or even the most legit ( basically self taught LOL ) but i knew something was going to happen to the site . . . but what or how long was just completely out of reach to me . . . this only cofirming what i suspected . . . im upset that i couldnt help in any way. I was afaraid of starting a false worry about the failure by posting what i realised more aggressively . . . maybe i need to get into school again and get the proper papers i need to be able to do this professionally, rather than a side job that i currently perform now. Thank you for all yer hard work, admins. yall desrve a break. So peeps, these guys ( whoever is involved other than Dragoneer ) are doing their best, let them be and allow them to maximise their time and effort in getting done what needs to be done. I think i need ot start learning some coding too. LOL I basically excell in troublshooting and physical repair. just no soldering . . . i cant solder worth crap LOL


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## Segremores (Jul 2, 2008)

I agree with Verix on this one, there needs to be more investigation into the coding as a possible issue with the site, not the hardware.  I mean, if it really isn't coding that's an issue, even beyond the current critical failure, then why don't we have a proper search feature?  Why does the site constantly take a e-dump on watches, favorites, and messages that have yet to be looked at?  And, more importantly, why do the coders for the site sometimes say that looking at the coding makes them depressed?


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## Amber (Jul 2, 2008)

Daddy Ducky BE said:


> Why not go the same route as eBay? You could make PayPal the usual way to pay for commissions on FA, and take interest for bringing artists together with people that have money. Of course without taking all the free pic posting and viewing abilities from us.



I think that would be a good idea...  It would take some thinking as to how you would implement it though....


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## mukichan (Jul 2, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> We're looking into something like that in the future, but if we go that route we will NOT remove any functionality from the site. On a personal level I loathe DeviantArt because it's a pain in the ass to use unless you pay. If we did something like that it would be to allow userpage customizations and other little nifty features that you could use to personalize your FA without reducing functionality from other people.



0.0; That sounds cool~ I don't like dA either, but gosh... Just the thought of userpage originality sounds really awesome~ And full of orgasmic goodness~ >w< Please let us know if that is a possibility in the near future :'3


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## mukichan (Jul 2, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> Oh, of course, but a lot of people are financially tight these days. You should see what lengths some people are going to save their ass financially *coughPOGOROOcough*
> 
> Myself, I don't even have a penny to my name, and I still have bills to pay. I hope my dad doesn't mind me bumming some money off him for that.



LMAO! I was waiting for someone to say _*coughpogoroocough*_ something about that!~


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## Echo_wulf (Jul 2, 2008)

mukichan said:


> 0.0; That sounds cool~ I don't like dA either, but gosh... Just the thought of userpage originality sounds really awesome~ And full of orgasmic goodness~ >w< Please let us know if that is a possibility in the near future :'3


 

^.^ yes i must have missed that post but that would be a very awesome deal and it would be some extra money in the pocket for the FA funds. i know tons of people would do it ^.^


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## mukichan (Jul 2, 2008)

Echo_wulf said:


> ^.^ yes i must have missed that post but that would be a very awesome deal and it would be some extra money in the pocket for the FA funds. i know tons of people would do it ^.^


YESH!! Even for poor people like me~ xD


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## foxystallion (Jul 2, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> We're looking into something like that in the future, but if we go that route we will NOT remove any functionality from the site. On a personal level I loathe DeviantArt because it's a pain in the ass to use unless you pay. If we did something like that it would be to allow userpage customizations and other little nifty features that you could use to personalize your FA without reducing functionality from other people.
> 
> It would help a bit, but not as much as you'd think. We've already got some rules in the works to address some issues like that, but more on that... well, later.



Good!  I'm very glad that you are thinking about that.  Allowing FA members to pay for extra services could benefit both them and FA.  For example, I'd pay for a higher data transmission speed.  I'd pay for some relief relief from your ill conceived photomorph rules - for example, being able to use properly licensed commercial animal head and tail photos in my photomorphs.  I'm sure that some members would pay to be able to post a hundred pictures of their fursuit - which should not cause any problems so long as they pay their own way and then some and so long as 97 of them are posted to their Scraps so that they don't spam the Browse pages.  Please don't put off thinking about this!


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## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 2, 2008)

Bravo said:


> Paypal doesn't like porn. Porn is the grease that keeps this crazy machine working. Apparently, we've run out of grease.



Darn, we need something like PayPorn.


----------



## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 2, 2008)

gravija said:


> but as usual my posts went un-noticed . . .( im used to that tho ).



Try making a few paragraphs here and there. It makes your posts a lot more readable instead of one huge blob of text.


----------



## Amber (Jul 2, 2008)

Unfortunately this would cost money to start but what if you offered prints for the FA artists to sell and take a profit off of each print?


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## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

Daddy Ducky BE said:


> Darn, we need something like PayPorn.



Yes, because people like Jack Thompson would just LOVE to hear about that site opening up.

XD


----------



## Trip (Jul 2, 2008)

foxystallion said:


> Please don't put off thinking about this!



No kidding! One feature I would definitely be willing to pay for would be the ability to create different categories in my gallery. That's something I've been wanting for a while now.


----------



## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 2, 2008)

SilverAutomatic said:


> Yes, because people like Jack Thompson would just LOVE to hear about that site opening up.
> 
> XD



Would it pass under his radar if it'd be called PornPal instead?

Anyway, FA is international so we won't need to care about some American preacher. Our PornPal could be anywhere else in the Western world.


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

Daddy Ducky BE said:


> Would it pass under his radar if it'd be called PornPal instead?



Maybe if we called it "The Anti-PornPal with fingers crossed" site...

What? Too long?


----------



## foxystallion (Jul 2, 2008)

Amber said:


> Unfortunately this would cost money to start but what if you offered prints for the FA artists to sell and take a profit off of each print?



It would cost less than $500 for a good dye sublimation printer and supplies.  I think that the problem is who would do the nitty-gritty of keeping track of orders and packaging and mailing them, rather than startup cost.


----------



## foxystallion (Jul 2, 2008)

Daddy Ducky BE said:


> Would it pass under his radar if it'd be called PornPal instead?
> 
> Anyway, FA is international so we won't need to care about some American preacher. Our PornPal could be anywhere else in the Western world.



Call it FurryFund(tm) and locate it in the Netherlands...


----------



## Farhoug (Jul 2, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> Donations via Amazon...



I punched some little monies on your way, hopefully I didn't screw up the transfer. But anyways, good luck with the bit buckets. =)


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

foxystallion said:


> Call it FurryFund(tm) and locate it in the Netherlands...



lolz
Somehow I still think JT would find a way to complain about it.

Lets see... we're already taking on advertisements on the mainsite. What about Donation Drives on things like Clawcast and such?


----------



## YuchiDaYena (Jul 2, 2008)

Would it be possible to ask a well known artist if they'd be willing to help.

If not I'd be willing to help by making pins for every donation? o.0;

Anyhow x3

Some people are stubborn and only do it if they can get something out of it unfortunately. 

I wish you luck and will be sending a donation as soon as I pay off my suit head. 

Much love to you Dragoneer, just making a suggestion.

::It's YuchiAngel, the one who made you the preyfar pin ::


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## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

Might be something worth looking into for FAU this year. If you donate like, a dollar, you get a pin or something like that. Wouldn't be a bad idea.


----------



## cassandrarising (Jul 2, 2008)

Trip said:


> No kidding! One feature I would definitely be willing to pay for would be the ability to create different categories in my gallery. That's something I've been wanting for a while now.



Seconded.  
Other things I would pay for:
Working search
Browse filters that would disallow art with certain tags 
Randomized or customizable favorites
Multiple avatars
A "view all" option in galleries and favorites
More custom commission slots
A "list" option for submissions so I could select all and hit "open in new tabs"
Different color schemes (actually I like dark, but other people would probably pay for this)
A discount for FAU attendance
A daily randomized "featured subscriber" on the front page

There's probably more that I'm not thinking of.  But really, if it were a low amount on a yearly basis (like livejournal for example) I'd be happy to be a subscriber for only a few extra perks.  I think a lot of other people would be as well.


Here's a thought: Two, three times a year, why not send a bulk note to all users asking for donations?  That would probably bring in more donations than the button on the front page.


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## hyp32 (Jul 2, 2008)

[sarcasm]Or you can "crash" the servers more often for donations. [/sarcasm]

just donated a bit, good luck with the server fix!


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## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

cassandrarising said:


> A "list" option for submissions so I could select all and hit "open in new tabs"



I wouldn't know much about that one. It sounds like it would slow down an already stressed server with someone access a whole bunch of images at once.


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## wildrider (Jul 2, 2008)

I'd donate if I could, but I'm in need of a job, so nothing right now.  I think the idea of extra cool features for a small fee would be really cool.  I know I use to like it on DA before my subscription ran out and now it's makes me realize how painfully annoying DA can be without it.


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## JamestheDoc (Jul 2, 2008)

I'm glad you guys are so dedicated to the site, Dragoneer, you've got a lot of patience to deal with all this stuff, as well as complaining members of the site and all.  Just thought I'd show my appreciation for that.  

Also, I read the consideration of a FurAffinity subscription fee idea for the future.  The thought of the unique ability to customize your page is neat, but heh, it'd also be greatly appreciated if you could keep the current features free, for poor struggling artist like me paying out the wazoo for pre-med college and stuff. ^^;;  I like my arts and I like postin' my arts. :3

As for the hardware/software issues, I'm not huge on computer technology, so I couldn't very well speculate to any of that stuff, kind of in the dark with that...  but I do know you guys (FA admins) have experience with it and know what you're doing.  :3


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## Ceceil Felias (Jul 2, 2008)

Segremores said:


> I agree with Verix on this one, there needs to be more investigation into the coding as a possible issue with the site, not the hardware.  I mean, if it really isn't coding that's an issue, even beyond the current critical failure, then why don't we have a proper search feature?  Why does the site constantly take a e-dump on watches, favorites, and messages that have yet to be looked at?  And, more importantly, why do the coders for the site sometimes say that looking at the coding makes them depressed?


Beyond the potential of corruption within the kernel and device drivers on the data server, I don't see where software could be an issue given the current evidence (especially since, being the data server, how the main server's backend code operates doesn't really reflect on its own kernel-level functionality).

And even then, a corruption is not something that happens completely at random. Something could potentially be seriously wrong even then.


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

The one thing I would defidently vote for regardless is some kind of... probation(?) period where new users could +watch and +fav artists, but wouldn't be able to post comments/journals and the like for the first 24 hours.

I know we don't get many of them, but it would help to keep down accounts that are opened just to argue and spam users.


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## Growly (Jul 2, 2008)

Okay, I don't really follow.

Why is FA down so often?

I don't understand tech speak, and I don't mean any disrespect, it's just... I have absolutely no idea why FA is down all the time. Other websites get millions more pageviews per day than FurAffinity, and they're all doing fine... What exactly is the problem? Not enough money? Insufficient hardware? Bad coding? Poor choice in server hosts? Hackers?
I've read this whole thread and all I've gotten from it is technical mumbo-jumbo that makes no sense to me whatsoever and the same old conversations that happen EVERY time there is an outage.

I just want to know... WHAT'S GOIN' ON guys? Can somebody please answer in plain text what it is about FurAffinity that makes it so prone to outages? :/


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## LimeyKat (Jul 2, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> If everybody on the site donated $1 we'd have enough money to fund FA for a year.



Mandatory $2 annual fee, per account. It's one less pop a year. Anyone can afford that. It could cut down on annoying sock puppet accounts too.


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## redfoxnudetoons (Jul 2, 2008)

SilverAutomatic said:


> The one thing I would defidently vote for regardless is some kind of... probation(?) period where new users could +watch and +fav artists, but wouldn't be able to post comments/journals and the like for the first 24 hours.
> 
> I know we don't get many of them, but it would help to keep down accounts that are opened just to argue and spam users.



That actually sounds like a good idea.

The amount of spam accounts would drop down a bit....


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## redfoxnudetoons (Jul 2, 2008)

LimeyKat said:


> Mandatory $2 annual fee, per account. It's one less pop a year. Anyone can afford that. It could cut down on annoying sock puppet accounts too.



Not a good idea....

There are a few minors on the site, and that gets into alot of legal pain-in-the-assery that just isn't worth it....


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

Growly said:


> Okay, I don't really follow.
> 
> Why is FA down so often?
> 
> ...



It's not so much prone to outages. We just seem to be experiencing something know as 'cluster-fuck syndrome'. In other words, it not so much one system, or one problem that keeps happening over and over again. It's just one small issue after another.

Kinda like if you buy an old car and don't do any work on it at first? Eventually, it'll start to have one problem after another.


----------



## Arland (Jul 2, 2008)

SilverAutomatic said:


> Yes, because people like Jack Thompson would just LOVE to hear about that site opening up.
> 
> XD



He's going to get disbarred anyway. One less to worry about.


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> That actually sounds like a good idea.
> 
> The amount of spam accounts would drop down a bit....



Exactly. Most spammers like to be like Jiffy Lube - "In, out, and on with life"..... atleast I think that's Jiffy Lube... well, the point stands anyway. They wouldn't want to wait the 24 hrs just to be a pain in our asses.



redfoxnudetoons said:


> Not a good idea....
> 
> There are a few minors on the site, and that gets into alot of legal pain-in-the-assery that just isn't worth it....



Never mind what happens when the kiddies go to their parents and say "Mom, can I have your credit card so I can donate money to a furry website?" XD


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## redfoxnudetoons (Jul 2, 2008)

SilverAutomatic said:


> Never mind what happens when the kiddies go to their parents and say "Mom, can I have your credit card so I can donate money to a furry website?" XD



Pretty much....  there would be way too much hassle if it was mandatory...


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## foxystallion (Jul 2, 2008)

LimeyKat said:


> Mandatory $2 annual fee, per account. It's one less pop a year. Anyone can afford that. It could cut down on annoying sock puppet accounts too.



Good idea! Makes sense to me! Heck, make it $3.65 per year - those who claim that they can't afford a penny per day are not to be trusted...


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## fluffdance (Jul 2, 2008)

Growly said:


> I just want to know... WHAT'S GOIN' ON guys? Can somebody please answer in plain text what it is about FurAffinity that makes it so prone to outages? :/




Poor communication between coding/admin staff, failure to properly research hosting facilities and hardware, poor site coding, lack of ability for admins to devote 100% of their time to FA (Not a fault, merely a byproduct of FA being a volunteer effort), and numerous other issues.

It's frustrating, because there -is- no one to communicate between the admins and the user base; something I would be happy to do, since I speak both tech and non-tech, and have nothing but time to devote.  Between the user base not being as informed as they should be, and the apparent lack of communication between the FA staff themselves, it creates a lot more problems than should exist, and tends to stimulate the spreading of rumors.


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## BDraggy (Jul 2, 2008)

Wow, That Sucks and When FA Reopens It Will Be Overloaded, Think in All The Uploads thereÂ´s gonan to be, Thousand, Millions and Billions of Everything Accumulated That People Will Have, Whoaaa That`s Too Much.

I Wish You Luck, I Hope Everything Get Back To Normal. I Cant Donate Cus I Dont Own a Credit Card Yet, and If i Had one, IÂ´m Saving to Travel to USA and Try if i can live there


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## JamestheDoc (Jul 2, 2008)

foxystallion said:


> Good idea! Makes sense to me! Heck, make it $3.65 per year - those who claim that they can't afford a penny per day are not to be trusted...



That's good. :3  I like that idea.  Three-sixty five a year wouldn't be a bother at all.


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## LimeyKat (Jul 2, 2008)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> Not a good idea....
> 
> There are a few minors on the site, and that gets into alot of legal pain-in-the-assery that just isn't worth it....


Money order. Also the site is supposed to be operated in a lawful manner regarding minors. If they're safe from problems currently, they'd be safe from problems if a fee is put in place.


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## Arland (Jul 2, 2008)

SilverAutomatic said:


> Never mind what happens when the kiddies go to their parents and say "Mom, can I have your credit card so I can donate money to a furry website?" XD



That certainly would put the last nail in the coffin. Still, depends on the credit limit....


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## Ceceil Felias (Jul 2, 2008)

fluffdance said:


> Poor communication between coding/admin staff, failure to properly research hosting facilities and hardware, poor site coding, lack of ability for admins to devote 100% of their time to FA (Not a fault, merely a byproduct of FA being a volunteer effort), and numerous other issues.
> 
> It's frustrating, because there -is- no one to communicate between the admins and the user base; something I would be happy to do, since I speak both tech and non-tech, and have nothing but time to devote.  Between the user base not being as informed as they should be, and the apparent lack of communication between the FA staff themselves, it creates a lot more problems than should exist, and tends to stimulate the spreading of rumors.


Nevermind that saying things like that just perpetuates the rumors.

Unrelated, but also mandatory subscription = e621 starts looking a whole lot better for a whole lot of people. Which personally makes me ill thinking about, but it's a sad truth.


----------



## Bravo (Jul 2, 2008)

cassandrarising said:


> Seconded.
> Other things I would pay for:
> Working search
> Browse filters that would disallow art with certain tags
> ...



I'd pay for an in depth group system. Been desperate for this since FA started up. Frankly the threads about the current state are too long and full of posts to ctrl+f through.


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jul 2, 2008)

LimeyKat said:


> Money order. Also the site is supposed to be operated in a lawful manner regarding minors. If they're safe from problems currently, they'd be safe from problems if a fee is put in place.



I'm not very familiar with money orders. Are minors allowed to get those?

With legal issues, I mean the kid stealing mom's/dad's credit card to pay. Happens all the time, and there are legal battles fought. I've seen it first hand... And over a crappy five dollars!


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## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

fluffdance said:


> Poor communication between coding/admin staff...


 That could be a cause actually, now that I think about it. I mean, every time we have a breakdown of communications at work, it turns into a total *CENSORED* mess.



fluffdance said:


> ...lack of ability for admins to devote 100% of their time to FA (Not a fault, merely a byproduct of FA being a volunteer effort),...


They should hire some tech-kiddie right out of high school so they wouldn't have to pay him 'top dollar' to do it... I think most high school kids get paid in ramen noodles now and days, right?



fluffdance said:


> It's frustrating, because there -is- no one to communicate between the admins and the user base; something I would be happy to do, since I speak both tech and non-tech,...


 That's not a bad idea either. We could have like, one or two people around whole soul purpose is to communicate between FA Members and FA Staff. One person could handle the downtime tech stuff (like today's) and another could handle the regular complaints, thus freeing up the admin's (See: _Dragoneer_) time so that instead of having to answer, or even receive a flood of complaints every time the site goes down, they'd be able to focus on the important stuff.


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## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> I'm not very familiar with money orders. Are minors allowed to get those?
> 
> With legal issues, I mean the kid stealing mom's/dad's credit card to pay. Happens all the time, and there are legal battles fought. I've seen it first hand... And over a crappy five dollars!



Money orders are extremely similar to checks. Dunno if minors can obtain though.


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## LimeyKat (Jul 2, 2008)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> I'm not very familiar with money orders. Are minors allowed to get those?
> 
> With legal issues, I mean the kid stealing mom's/dad's credit card to pay. Happens all the time, and there are legal battles fought. I've seen it first hand... And over a crappy five dollars!


Yes minors can buy money orders. You're exchanging cash for something just as valid as cash, and is not attached to a bank account.

Who cares about the second part. That's a parental issue, not a website owners problem.


----------



## foxystallion (Jul 2, 2008)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> I'm not very familiar with money orders. Are minors allowed to get those?
> 
> With legal issues, I mean the kid stealing mom's/dad's credit card to pay. Happens all the time, and there are legal battles fought. I've seen it first hand... And over a crappy five dollars!



In the US a kid of any age can walk into any US Post Office and buy a money order just like they can buy stamps.


----------



## Bravo (Jul 2, 2008)

SilverAutomatic said:


> That's not a bad idea either. We could have like, one or two people around whole soul purpose is to communicate between FA Members and FA Staff. One person could handle the downtime tech stuff (like today's) and another could handle the regular complaints, thus freeing up the admin's (See: _Dragoneer_) time so that instead of having to answer, or even receive a flood of complaints every time the site goes down, they'd be able to focus on the important stuff.




... Don't we already have those? Community Relations Managers?


----------



## Ceceil Felias (Jul 2, 2008)

LimeyKat said:


> Who cares about the second part. That's a parental issue, not a website owners problem.


Ohoho, if only it were that simple. You know how sue-happy americans are these days, I'm sure.

And you haven't taken note of minor issues such as requiring filling out financial details putting a huge dent in registrations due to people being intimidated by having to pay for a site that already worked quite well while free, current issues with colo and server failure aside.


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

LimeyKat said:


> Who cares about the second part. That's a parental issue, not a website owners problem.



It can become that way if the parent, in conjunction with grounding their kid for LIFE, files a fraudulent use claim with their credit card company. One way or another, things like that usually bite the retailer or owner in the ass because the person filing the claim can claim that because the retailer/merchant/owner failed to prove the identity of the person using the card, that they are liable for the expenses.

This mostly happens with small businesses and 'independent' retail stores.


----------



## LimeyKat (Jul 2, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> Ohoho, if only it were that simple. You know how sue-happy americans are these days, I'm sure.
> 
> And you haven't taken note of minor issues such as requiring filling out financial details putting a huge dent in registrations due to people being intimidated by having to pay for a site that already worked quite well while free, current issues with colo and server failure aside.



Administration can be sued just as easily now for anything under the sun. It doesn't change the risk.
They keep track of money anyway. 
And yeah, I can see exactly how well free works.......


----------



## Ceceil Felias (Jul 2, 2008)

LimeyKat said:


> Administration can be sued just as easily now for anything under the sun. It doesn't change the risk.
> They keep track of money anyway.
> And yeah, I can see exactly how well free works.......


Spare the sarcasm if you don't know how server arrays work in a technical level. User load can't break critical hardware components or flip circuit breakers, and with a severe dent in userbase, there won't be enough of them left to support the need for all of the serverts.

Again, e621 would look better to all the people who can't/won't pay the $, no matter how much the idea makes me retch.


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

Bravo said:


> ... Don't we already have those? Community Relations Managers?



*shruggs* Dunno.



Ceceil Felias said:


> Ohoho, if only it were that simple. You know how sue-happy americans are these days, I'm sure.



Sad, but oh-so-true. And that's coming FROM and American


----------



## thebeast76 (Jul 2, 2008)

Not that I know much about tech, so this may sound stupid, but what if you switch the servers? Run the Art site with the forum servers and the forum servers with the Art site servers? I'm fairly sure that people wouldn't mind having the forums down once in a while.


----------



## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 2, 2008)

Hold on, it didn't read anything about mandatory fees in the TOS when I joined FA, so how could this possibly be legal?

Also, wouldn't that create a huge database of RL names that some people wouldn't like to be on?


----------



## LimeyKat (Jul 2, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> Spare the sarcasm if you don't know how server arrays work in a technical level. User load can't break critical hardware components or flip circuit breakers.



Because I have to know exactly how that works in order to obviously see that they need money to keep the system up and running.


----------



## Ceceil Felias (Jul 2, 2008)

thebeast76 said:


> Not that I know much about tech, so this may sound stupid, but what if you switch the servers? Run the Art site with the forum servers and the forum servers with the Art site servers? I'm fairly sure that people wouldn't mind having the forums down once in a while.


vBulletin doesn't require nearly as much load as a full art site, especially since it's running on a single (likely shared-hosting) server while the site itself runs on a set of different servers in a colocation facility.


----------



## Ceceil Felias (Jul 2, 2008)

LimeyKat said:


> Because I have to know exactly how that works in order to obviously see that they need money to keep the system up and running.


Read the edit I made before you posted. :]


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

thebeast76 said:


> Not that I know much about tech, so this may sound stupid, but what if you switch the servers? Run the Art site with the forum servers and the forum servers with the Art site servers? I'm fairly sure that people wouldn't mind having the forums down once in a while.



Anytime anything FA related goes down, "teh dramaz ensues".



Daddy Ducky BE said:


> Hold on, it didn't read anything about mandatory fees in the TOS when I joined FA, so how could this possibly be legal?



I don't remember offhand, so I may be wrong on this. But, given how most TOS aggrements are written, they always have that fine print clause of "terms of service subject to change without (sometimes "with") notice".

Can't remember is that was in the FA-TOS though.


----------



## Eevee (Jul 2, 2008)

Myr said:


> Do yourselves a favor, take that money, save it, and then spend it hiring someone to do professional code for your site. ... Seriously, save your cash and put it into a professional or accredited programmer. If you can't afford that, then at the very least you should be hiring a professional consultant to give real advice.


I'm rather curious as to how you're defining "professional" here.


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## thebeast76 (Jul 2, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> vBulletin doesn't require nearly as much load as a full art site, especially since it's running on a single (likely shared-hosting) server while the site itself runs on a set of different servers in a colocation facility.



WAT.
Well that's just peachy.

Since this was my only good idea, I'll do one better.
What if we threaten to hack Deviantart and remove all the shitty art on there if they don't let us share servers. DA is never down, and yet it has twice the shit that we have...


----------



## Ceceil Felias (Jul 2, 2008)

thebeast76 said:


> WAT.
> Well that's just peachy.
> 
> Since this was my only good idea, I'll do one better.
> What if we threaten to hack Deviantart and remove all the shitty art on there if they don't let us share servers. DA is never down, and yet it has twice the shit that we have...


A lot of DA's content servers have exploded before. It's not anything new, really.


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## redfoxnudetoons (Jul 2, 2008)

I donated something to help. It's not much, but as Dragoneer says, if everyone donated a buck, we'd be in a good position.

I can only afford a dollar right now. I'm in heavy debt right now, but I guess I can spare a buck....


----------



## YuchiDaYena (Jul 2, 2008)

I'm still very willing to help if and when Dragoneer gives the OK x3


----------



## kaeota (Jul 2, 2008)

Daddy Ducky BE said:


> Hold on, it didn't read anything about mandatory fees in the TOS when I joined FA, so how could this possibly be legal?
> 
> Also, wouldn't that create a huge database of RL names that some people wouldn't like to be on?



TOS always have "Terms and Conditions subject to change without notice" at the bottom... but... you read it in the first place?

As for the DB, naw. All they would need is another field on the username table, called paid, with a yes/no option, that defaults to no, and flips to yes when they pay.

And thanks to Dragoneer, and the rest of the admin for everything.


----------



## LimeyKat (Jul 2, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> Read the edit I made before you posted. :]


Doesn't change my position.


----------



## thebeast76 (Jul 2, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> A lot of DA's content servers have exploded before. It's not anything new, really.



At least that sounds cooler than 'Failing'
"To all DA users. Unfortunately, one of our content servers has exploded, or as they say in Internet, 'sploded. Expect a slight amount lag in your art experience. Carry on."


----------



## Houshou (Jul 2, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> ... Troubleshooting hardware failures that don't occur consistently are a nightmare at best. No one part is showing and errors, and we can't really point to anything in particular.



No truer statement can be said about everything.
I work as an Aircraft Maintainer, and usually when its something that happens all the time, box swapping is the first thing to happen. But when its something thats really weird...shit, it takes days of research, multiple knowledgeable minds to think about it, and finally...getting down and dirty.

Good luck on troubleshooting your current problems. If I had a Debit Card I'd send money, but as is right now...all I can do is offer a check. If you'll agree to that, PM me the info on who and where to send it to. It'll take some time as I currently am living in Japan.


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## Ahundred (Jul 2, 2008)

I'm going to give y'all money with giving anyone the third degree.

Dragoneer, Yak, Pinkuh, other guys, y'all rock.


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## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

kaeota said:


> TOS always have "Terms and Conditions subject to change without notice" at the bottom... but... you read it in the first place?



XD

Now that I think about it, how many people read TOS agreements anymore rather than just going 'yeah-yeah' and clicking the "I Agree" button? XD


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## redfoxnudetoons (Jul 2, 2008)

LimeyKat said:


> Who cares about the second part. That's a parental issue, not a website owners problem.



You really don't understand, do you?

the amount of money that is spent in the courts with legal fees because of fraud claims far out does your proposed $3.65 a year per person.

I've known these battles to last years on end.

It's not a pretty picture for either party.


----------



## Ceceil Felias (Jul 2, 2008)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> You really don't understand, do you?
> 
> the amount of money that is spent in the courts with legal fees because of fraud claims far out does your proposed $3.65 a year per person.
> 
> ...


They never understand the rammifications.

Even the proposed optional subscription system would be a potential legal risk, though thankfully a lot easier to handle and not detrimental to the site's status as well.


----------



## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 2, 2008)

SilverAutomatic said:


> XD
> 
> Now that I think about it, how many people read TOS agreements anymore rather than just going 'yeah-yeah' and licking the "I Agree" button? XD



I beg your pardon, I did never LICK *anything* in order to join FA! :evil:


----------



## Bravo (Jul 2, 2008)

Wait, where in heck did this thread go?

FA: Sorry guys, the universe bit us in the ass good this time.
Forum: Let's throw money at the problem!
FA: This is a different problem, although we appreciate the idea.
Forum: *Theorycraft*
Forum: ...So how can we throw money at the new problem so we can then throw money at the old problem?


----------



## foxystallion (Jul 2, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> Ohoho, if only it were that simple. You know how sue-happy americans are these days, I'm sure.
> 
> And you haven't taken note of minor issues such as requiring filling out financial details putting a huge dent in registrations due to people being intimidated by having to pay for a site that already worked quite well while free, current issues with colo and server failure aside.



Give FA members the option to purchase twice the current viewing/download bandwidth for $3.65 per year.  That is a lot more than the extra bandwidth costs, leaving funds for apparently badly needed capital investments.  No one loses, everyone gains.

Bandwidth is not a pie of fixed size; if I purchase more, that doesn't mean that you get less.  What you would get - without charge - is the benefit of a more reliable FA system.

There are major problems with the current funding methods:
1) Few members donate - most members are free riders.
2) An individual's donations do not yield any _*perceptible*_ benefits, hence there is a donation incentive deficit as far as most members are concerned.
3) Advertisers paying for ad display get what they want.
4) There is currently no mechanism for members to get what they want by paying for it, hence FA inevitably becomes relatively less responsive to member desires as ad payments become an ever larger part of FA's budget.

One simple solution is to sell _*additional*_ services to members.  The sensitivity of FA's owner and Admins to the desires of FA members would be maximized if these additional services were sold ala carte.


----------



## thebeast76 (Jul 2, 2008)

SilverAutomatic said:


> XD
> 
> Now that I think about it, how many people read TOS agreements anymore rather than just going 'yeah-yeah' and licking the "I Agree" button? XD



May I direct you to the "Random Thoughts" thread?
http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=18779


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

Daddy Ducky BE said:


> I beg your pardon, I did never LICK *anything* in order to join FA! :evil:



It's 215 in the morning for me, I forgot to put the "C" in.

I apologize. XD


----------



## LimeyKat (Jul 2, 2008)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> ....


A parent can try suing right NOW for anything. A minor on a site allowing porn of ALL genre` for instance.. (bestiality, pedo, etc - even if in drawn form) The risk is not more or less.


----------



## gravija (Jul 2, 2008)

Daddy Ducky BE said:


> Hold on, it didn't read anything about mandatory fees in the TOS when I joined FA, so how could this possibly be legal?
> 
> Also, wouldn't that create a huge database of RL names that some people wouldn't like to be on?



I beleive the TOS can be changed at any time by the admins just like any other company can do so. when you sign the tos, normally you agree that the tos can be changed at anytime without argument of the signee to the tos owner. Wether its a TOS or a EULA its the same and changeable however the admin see fit, at any time. Unfortunately thats how things work when you agree to a TOS/EULA. Legality is not the question when the the service is run freely by those who volunteer their time in the first place. Dont get me wrong, im not being ignorant, but if the volunteer effort wasnt started we wouldnt have FA, so if they have to start charging a small fee, regardless of the TOS im all for it, as long as they dont use the same subscription service clubstripes uses for reaccuring payment. they dont warn you when yer gonna be billed and will bill you without notice. 

also RL name database wouldnt really matter too much, as long as the RL name is not attached to the persona used on the site. So the name would be there. if you ask me it wouldnt matter. plus i dont care if peeps know im apart of FA, in fact when peeps get on my pc and start my browser thats the first thing that pops up. Im actually up fer subscription part myself, cause donating a little bit can go a LONG way.


----------



## Ceceil Felias (Jul 2, 2008)

foxystallion said:


> Give FA members the option to purchase twice the current viewing/download bandwidth for $3.65 per year.


Um... lol wut?

There's no bandwidth cap beyond the maximum practical and theoretical capability of the servers and facility. You cannot double what has no total limit.



LimeyKat said:


> A parent can try suing right NOW for anything. A minor on a site allowing porn of ALL genre` for instance.. (bestiality, pedo, etc - even if in drawn form) The risk is not more or less.


Nevermind the fact that there's an easy legal excuse for that -- specifically that the user is not following the site's agreement and set an incorrect birthdate in order to access those pictures, putting the fault on the user and thus having no basis of argument on the family's side.


----------



## icehawk (Jul 2, 2008)

Houshou said:


> No truer statement can be said about everything.
> I work as an Aircraft Maintainer, and usually when its something that happens all the time, box swapping is the first thing to happen.



So true. Usually to troubleshoot a random non-specific error I end up having to part swap to solve the problem. Even then it can be non-obvious; I've had things like hard disk corruption and random system crashing caused by a bad power supply. Part-swapping doesn't exactly work when you're somewhere and the server is somewhere else.


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> Um... lol wut?
> 
> There's no bandwidth cap beyond the maximum practical and theoretical capability of the servers. You cannot double what has no total limit.



I think we're talking download/upland speeds? Kinda like certain servers where if you pay a membership fee you get faster downloads or something like that.

Not quite sure though.


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jul 2, 2008)

LimeyKat said:


> A parent can try suing right NOW for anything. A minor on a site allowing porn of ALL genre` for instance.. (bestiality, pedo, etc - even if in drawn form) The risk is not more or less.



Obviously you are still not informed.

If a minor is found to exist on this site with mature access, it is permanently set to filter anything that is mature. This happens quite often, and this forum has a specific place to report this, called the "Harassment/Site Violations - Open" thread. In a few cases the account has been outright banned.


----------



## foxystallion (Jul 2, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> Again, e621 would look better to all the people who can't/won't pay the $, no matter how much the idea makes me retch.



What is e621?

Postal money orders lack the chargeback and fraud accusation potentials of credit cards.


----------



## thebeast76 (Jul 2, 2008)

LimeyKat said:


> A parent can try suing right NOW for anything. A minor on a site allowing porn of ALL genre` for instance.. (bestiality, pedo, etc - even if in drawn form) The risk is not more or less.



Would now be a bad time to say that my mom is a lawyer?


----------



## Houshou (Jul 2, 2008)

gravija said:


> I beleive the TOS can be changed at any time by the admins just like any other company can do so. when you sign the tos, normally you agree that the tos can be changed at anytime without argument of the signee to the tos owner. Wether its a TOS or a EULA its the same and changeable however the admin see fit, at any time. Unfortunately thats how things work when you agree to a TOS/EULA. Legality is not the question when the the service is run freely by those who volunteer their time in the first place. Dont get me wrong, im not being ignorant, but if the volunteer effort wasnt started we wouldnt have FA, so if they have to start charging a small fee, regardless of the TOS im all for it, as long as they dont use the same subscription service clubstripes uses for reaccuring payment. they dont warn you when yer gonna be billed and will bill you without notice.
> 
> also RL name database wouldnt really matter too much, as long as the RL name is not attached to the persona used on the site. So the name would be there. if you ask me it wouldnt matter. plus i dont care if peeps know im apart of FA, in fact when peeps get on my pc and start my browser thats the first thing that pops up. Im actually up fer subscription part myself, cause donating a little bit can go a LONG way.



Yall, thats a great debate and all, but its distracting from the original topic at hand. Could you please move this discussion to another thread?


----------



## SammyFox (Jul 2, 2008)

SilverAutomatic said:


> Yes, because people like Jack Thompson would just LOVE to hear about that site opening up.
> 
> XD





SilverAutomatic said:


> lolz
> Somehow I still think JT would find a way to complain about it.
> 
> Lets see... we're already taking on advertisements on the mainsite. What about Donation Drives on things like Clawcast and such?



JT only cares about videogames.


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jul 2, 2008)

thebeast76 said:


> Would now be a bad time to say that my mom is a lawyer?



This could get interesting....


----------



## LimeyKat (Jul 2, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> Nevermind the fact that there's an easy legal excuse for that -- specifically that the user is not following the site's agreement and set an incorrect birthdate in order to access those pictures, putting the fault on the user and thus having no basis of argument on the family's side.


The kid wouldn't need to set the date incorrectly, or see any porn. The parent would only need to be tipped off. Via word of mouth.. curiosity in what sites the kid is on - making an account, etc.

The T.O.S. can be written to protect the site regardless of $2 or not.


----------



## Dusty779 (Jul 2, 2008)

Ok, Its quite sad all of this. I feel sorry for Dragoneer he isnt even here to say how pathetic this conversation is. Dragoneer and the rest of the admin teems have NO intention to Forceing people to Pay to use Furaffinity! He stated this in an earlyer Comment! SO Drop it already and start paying attention to the Admins who KNOW what is going on.:|


----------



## Ceceil Felias (Jul 2, 2008)

LimeyKat said:


> The kid wouldn't need to set the date incorrectly, or see any porn. The parent would only need to be tipped off. Via word of mouth.. curiosity in what sites the kid is on - making an account, etc.
> 
> The T.O.S. can be written to protect the site regardless of $2 or not.


There's no legal basis for word-of-mouth, ESPECIALLY if the child was not actually able to access any of the adult works in the first place and thus has had no potential traumatic experience or whateverthefuck excuses parents are using to sue these days.

Where on earth are you getting these half-baked ideas?


----------



## LimeyKat (Jul 2, 2008)

thebeast76 said:


> Would now be a bad time to say that my mom is a lawyer?


Your mom being a lawyer doesn't stop anyone from trying to sue anyone for anything.


----------



## LimeyKat (Jul 2, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> There's no legal basis for word-of-mouth, ESPECIALLY if the child was not actually able to access any of the adult works in the first place.
> 
> Where on earth are you getting these half-baked ideas?



I think you guys are reading "sue" as "winning a case".


----------



## Ceceil Felias (Jul 2, 2008)

LimeyKat said:


> I think you guys are reading "sue" as "winning a case".


If the parents lose the case, then it isn't even an issue in the first place. Life goes on, parents are retarded, they pay the court costs. Big fucking deal. This is however NOT the same thing for the fraud cases. Thus, any basis for it not making a difference whether the site is pay-only or not, especially when that wasn't even my main argument against the idea? Out the window.


----------



## thebeast76 (Jul 2, 2008)

Dusty779 said:


> Ok, Its quite sad all of this. I feel sorry for Dragoneer he isnt even here to say how pathetic this conversation is. Dragoneer and the rest of the admin teems have NO intention to Forceing people to Pay to use Furaffinity! He stated this in an earlyer Comment! SO Drop it already and start paying attention to the Admins who KNOW what is going on.:|



says the person who just joined today and HAPPENED to make his first post in this EXACT THREAD.


----------



## LimeyKat (Jul 2, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> If the parents lose the case, then it isn't even an issue in the first place. Life goes on, parents are retarded, they pay the court costs. Big fucking deal.


I'm sure you've seen your fair share of idiocy make it to a court room. I'm pretty sure everyone knows of at least one baseless claim that made it before a judge, regardless of outcome.


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

Dusty779 said:


> Ok, Its quite sad all of this. I feel sorry for Dragoneer he isnt even here to say how pathetic this conversation is. Dragoneer and the rest of the admin teems have NO intention to Forceing people to Pay to use Furaffinity! He stated this in an earlyer Comment! SO Drop it already and start paying attention to the Admins who KNOW what is going on.:|



Just because they said that they aren't going to have people pay to use FA, doesn't mean that the rest of us can't discuss something simiular. Never know, something good might actually come out of it.


----------



## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 2, 2008)

kaeota said:


> TOS always have "Terms and Conditions subject to change without notice" at the bottom... but... you read it in the first place?



I've seen many internet schemes that worked that way and were successfully challenged by national courts. The people behind it were charged with fraud and sentenced to pay high compensations to their victims.

It's EU law. If you make a contract, including on the internet, you need to highlight boldly and *exactly* all actual, potential, and hidden present and future costs down to every single cent at time of signing (though often contracts point to earlier agreements or public regulations were these exact figures have been fixed before, e. g. "liable to pay the amount as mentioned in document XYZ"). Otherwise the contract you made is invalid, and the contract entity asking for money afterwards without having made it as clear as that in advance is liable to fraud charges.


----------



## foxystallion (Jul 2, 2008)

Daddy Ducky BE said:


> Hold on, it didn't read anything about mandatory fees in the TOS when I joined FA, so how could this possibly be legal?
> 
> Also, wouldn't that create a huge database of RL names that some people wouldn't like to be on?



The TOS can and has been changed.  The owner can change it as often as he pleases. Paid up contracts for services cannot be retroactively changed (as the May 2007 AUP retroactively changed what was allowed on FA), though changes can be made when the service contract comes up for renewal.

If US Postal Money Orders (or PayPal) are used to pay for additional FA services, there is NO RL name database (except inside PayPal).


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

LimeyKat said:


> I'm sure you've seen your fair share of idiocy make it to a court room. I'm pretty sure everyone knows of at least one baseless claim that made it before a judge, regardless of outcome.



Not to mention the potential media backlash.


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jul 2, 2008)

LimeyKat said:


> The kid wouldn't need to set the date incorrectly, or see any porn. The parent would only need to be tipped off. Via word of mouth.. curiosity in what sites the kid is on - making an account, etc.



I don't know a lawyer alive who would even consider taking a case of word-of-mouth, as it would be automatically thrown out of court.

I think you really need to get off it, anyway.

Dragoneer is not setting up ANYTHING that will be mandatory, EVER. He himself has said as much on many occasions.


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> I don't know a lawyer alive who would even consider taking a case of word-of-mouth, as it would be automatically thrown out of court.



I think he was aiming for where they find out about the site through word-of-mouth and then go ahead, find it, make an account, find all the 'pretty-pretty porn images' after they fill out their age and such - and viola! Lawsuit.


----------



## Arcturus (Jul 2, 2008)

foxystallion said:


> What is e621?



http://e621.net/

Furry image site with tags, search, etcetera.


----------



## LimeyKat (Jul 2, 2008)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> I don't know a lawyer alive who would even consider taking a case of word-of-mouth, as it would be automatically thrown out of court.


You're assuming nobody would bother logging into the site to verify the nature of the site. That's not what I'm saying. Parent would hear about it.. obviously it would be looked into. And rage can build from there.


----------



## thebeast76 (Jul 2, 2008)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> Dragoneer is not setting up ANYTHING that will be mandatory, EVER. He himself has said as much on many occasions.



Thank god. I hope stuff here never gets as gay as DA. Having to pay money to see more than 15 some pics while browsing? That's pretty fucked up if you ask me.


----------



## Ceceil Felias (Jul 2, 2008)

LimeyKat said:


> You're assuming nobody would bother logging into the site to verify the nature of the site. That's not what I'm saying. Parent would hear about it.. obviously it would be looked into. And rage can build from there.


Okay, now you're not even doing anything but arguing a side issue that has no real relevance at this point.

And I'm getting really sick of having to repeat myself, so I'll just refer to my previous post (as well as RFNT's statement about Dragoneer's decision) and kindly request you to drop it.



Arcturus said:


> http://e621.net/
> 
> Furry image site with tags, search, etcetera.


...OH HAI ARC 8D


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jul 2, 2008)

You know, I just thought of something....

Limeykat, if you're so gun-ho to have a mandatory fee here on FA, why don't you have a subscription on your DA account?

For someone who is so eager to spend money, you sure aren't doing so.


----------



## foxystallion (Jul 2, 2008)

Houshou said:


> No truer statement can be said about everything.
> I work as an Aircraft Maintainer, and usually when its something that happens all the time, box swapping is the first thing to happen. But when its something thats really weird...shit, it takes days of research, multiple knowledgeable minds to think about it, and finally...getting down and dirty.



You are so right!  I'm an aerospace physicist and intermittents are truly the spawn of the devil.  It could be one lousy $5 cable which provides a faulty connection as the cable expands as it warms up, or it could be a server motherboard with a hairline crack in a PC board trace which does the same thing. Sometimes one needs to very slowly scan the hardware piece after piece with a heat gun (expensive hair drier) to find the evildoer.


----------



## Arcturus (Jul 2, 2008)

Hi Ceceil.


----------



## Kata'lina (Jul 2, 2008)

Myr said:


> You guys go through servers and hardware like wildfire through brush. Do yourselves a favor, take that money, save it, and then spend it hiring someone to do professional code for your site. You've been over-taxing your resources for years and you know it. You've known it even since before 'project Ferrox' was first boasted years ago. Throwing hardware at the problem again is just another patch job. You have a developer on your team who once told me he could reprogram the entire site in a week, and here it's been years and one missed expectation of an upgrade after another. Seriously, save your cash and put it into a professional or accredited programmer. If you can't afford that, then at the very least you should be hiring a professional consultant to give real advice. You're way past overdue for a major software upgrade. Both the users of FA and your colo will appreciate this.



I'll admit, i don't know much about the server part of all of this. So, my response has Nothing at all to do with servers.

However, aside from that? This is the best piece of advice I have seen. I understand everyone is working incredibly hard on whatever project you're all working on.

But you gotta admit, it's become a running gag about the downtime with Fa...in fact, so much so, that the running gag is more reliable than the object of the gag.

In my opinion, Fa has great potential, and I would love nothing more than to see it grow into something great. But I fear that won't happen if these downtimes..for Whatever reason...continues.

Would it really be That hard [aside from money] to hire a professional? If nothing else, it would free up the minds to be working on that main project you've all been working on...and at the same time, stabilize the site.
Isn't that worth it?

Kat


----------



## LimeyKat (Jul 2, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> Okay, now you're not even doing anything but arguing a side issue that has no real relevance at this point.
> 
> And I'm getting really sick of having to repeat myself, so I'll just refer to my previous post (as well as RFNT's statement about Dragoneer's decision) and kindly request you to drop it.


I remember when it was said that ads wouldn't come into play either. Suggesting doesn't kill anyone.
Overall a lovely batch of melodrama over a tiny $2 idea. Great job.


----------



## foxystallion (Jul 2, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> Um... lol wut?
> 
> There's no bandwidth cap beyond the maximum practical and theoretical capability of the servers and facility. You cannot double what has no total limit.



Some sites provide data to my computer via my internet connection at a much higher rate than FA.  FA's servers have a finite number of data ports each of which has a finite maximum bandwidth, as does the HD RAID array providing the image data in the servers  If you are using dialup internet, you are limited by the meager bandwidth of your net connection.  If you have a high speed net connection, FA's servers (and/or the pipe bandwidth they rent at the colo) are the limiting factor in how fast a picture loads. More money can buy more speed, and those who pay for more speed can be provided that extra speed selectively.


----------



## icehawk (Jul 2, 2008)

foxystallion said:


> You are so right!  I'm an aerospace physicist and intermittents are truly the spawn of the devil.  It could be one lousy $5 cable which provides a faulty connection as the cable expands as it warms up, or it could be a server motherboard with a hairline crack in a PC board trace which does the same thing. Sometimes one needs to very slowly scan the hardware piece after piece with a heat gun (expensive hair drier) to find the evildoer.



Could it really be that thermally sensitive? I have a server in a datacenter and its motherboard sensor has only varied 2.98Â°C over the past month. Datacenters tend to be pretty stable temperature-wise.


----------



## YuchiDaYena (Jul 2, 2008)

Random WHEEEE


----------



## foxystallion (Jul 2, 2008)

Dusty779 said:


> Ok, Its quite sad all of this. I feel sorry for Dragoneer he isnt even here to say how pathetic this conversation is. Dragoneer and the rest of the admin teems have NO intention to Forceing people to Pay to use Furaffinity! He stated this in an earlyer Comment! SO Drop it already and start paying attention to the Admins who KNOW what is going on.:|



There is no free lunch; you are already being required to pay for using this site  by being exposed to the ads, some of which are annoyingly flashing. There are some members who would prefer to pay with money rather than with their monitor screen space and attention. We are discussing other less annoying and potentially more desirable (to the members) _options_ that would also provide more of the scarce capital that FA needs.


----------



## Ceceil Felias (Jul 2, 2008)

foxystallion said:


> There is no free lunch; you are already being required to pay for using this site  by being exposed to the ads, some of which are annoyingly flashing. There are some members who would prefer to pay with money rather than with their monitor screen space and attention. We are discussing other less annoying and potentially more desirable (to the members) _options_ that would also provide more of the scarce capital that FA needs.


Options are cool. What Limey was suggesting (mandatory) isn't.

Thus you are awesome. :awesome:


----------



## Tsugaru (Jul 2, 2008)

Dragoneer,

As a psuedo-competent person in the worlds of the internets, aside from donating money, is there any way that the everyday fur can be of help? I can do a bit of html, and am more than happy to learn more if you wanted to charge me with working on some facet of the site. For example, the search function that hasnt existed since before i even made an account on FA? 

Just let me know.
-Tsu


----------



## Dusty779 (Jul 2, 2008)

thebeast76 said:


> says the person who just joined today and HAPPENED to make his first post in this EXACT THREAD.



Ive been with fa Since the *BEGINNING* Not sure about You. Look up Dustin6 when they site comes back, I'm sure i've been around longer than you have been. I only joined the forums to comment on how Stupid it is to carry on about something that the admin team has already said they *WON'T* do. if you read the post. Dragoneer said they would look into other options and ability's that can be made available if they make a 'subscribers' system. but they will *NOT* make it so that you must Pay to use something that has been free for all of its Life. Even its First incarnation was totally *FREE! *maybe you should check your facts before you start posting posts.


----------



## LimeyKat (Jul 2, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> Options are cool. What Limey was suggesting (mandatory) isn't.
> Thus you are awesome. :awesome:


Silly goose.


----------



## YuchiDaYena (Jul 2, 2008)

Dusty779 said:


> Ive been with fa Since the *BEGINNING* Not sure about You. Look up Dustin6 when they site comes back, I'm sure i've been around longer than you have been. I only joined the forums to comment on how Stupid it is to carry on about something that the admin team has already said they *WON'T* do. if you read the post. Dragoneer said they would look into other options and ability's that can be made available if they make a 'subscribers' system. but they will *NOT* make it so that you must Pay to use something that has been free for all of its Life. Even its First incarnation was totally *FREE! *maybe you should check your facts before you start posting posts.





I've seen you around dude  Don't mind some of them they're just tied in a knot because they cannot see their porn :3


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

Dusty779 said:


> Ive been with fa Since the *BEGINNING* Not sure about You. Look up Dustin6 when they site comes back, I'm sure i've been around longer than you have been. I only joined the forums to comment on how Stupid it is to carry on about something that the admin team has already said they *WON'T* do. if you read the post. Dragoneer said they would look into other options and ability's that can be made available if they make a 'subscribers' system. but they will *NOT* make it so that you must Pay to use something that has been free for all of its Life. Even its First incarnation was totally *FREE! *maybe you should check your facts before you start posting posts.



Oh FFS cut the drama. Everyone was discussing IDEAS. When people discuss ideas, the ideas tend to lead to, that's right, more ideas - which may just eventually lead to an overall solution to our issues.

And it doesn't matter who's been around the longest -_-
You might as well just argue who has more people on their AIM buddy list, because either way, it won't change a damn thing.


----------



## foxystallion (Jul 2, 2008)

Arcturus said:


> http://e621.net/
> 
> Furry image site with tags, search, etcetera.



Thanks!  I had never heard of it.  Lots of stuff there, including from my gallery.


----------



## Ceceil Felias (Jul 2, 2008)

LimeyKat said:


> Silly goose.


FYIAD...K. D:<

*DDDD:<*

Okay, I think this arguments devolved into silliness. But silliness is also good, right? Right? D:


----------



## thebeast76 (Jul 2, 2008)

Dusty779 said:


> Ive been with fa Since the *BEGINNING* Not sure about You. Look up Dustin6 when they site comes back, I'm sure i've been around longer than you have been. I only joined the forums to comment on how Stupid it is to carry on about something that the admin team has already said they *WON'T* do. if you read the post. Dragoneer said they would look into other options and ability's that can be made available if they make a 'subscribers' system. but they will *NOT* make it so that you must Pay to use something that has been free for all of its Life. Even its First incarnation was totally *FREE! *maybe you should check your facts before you start posting posts.



Sorry, but It's hard to take the word of someone who just joined the forums yesterday. I can't check your page, because FA is down (isn't that the whole reason for this?) so I have no idea who you are, or if you mean good or not.
And yes. I will check my facts before posting posts about posts.


----------



## Ashi (Jul 2, 2008)

Donations huh? It'd be cool if a bunch of awesome artists pulled together into doing a whole bunch of charity commissions to get money for FA to help even a little. 
Then again everyone is so busy who knows if it'd be a good idea. D:


----------



## thebeast76 (Jul 2, 2008)

Ashi said:


> Donations huh? It'd be cool if a bunch of awesome artists pulled together into doing a whole bunch of charity commissions to get money for FA to help even a little.
> Then again everyone is so busy who knows if it'd be a good idea. D:



Huh, that actually makes sense! But you'd have to find a bunch of talented artists who'd be willing to give up their time in order to do that. If you can, go ahead!


----------



## pikachu_electricmouse (Jul 2, 2008)

$20 sent.   I'd give more, but I'm unemployed at the moment.


----------



## Ashi (Jul 2, 2008)

thebeast76 said:


> Huh, that actually makes sense! But you'd have to find a bunch of talented artists who'd be willing to give up their time in order to do that. If you can, go ahead!



Exactly, see that'd be a really hard part. xD;;; I still have lots of work to finish up myself so I don't even know why I'm talking. ; n;


----------



## foxystallion (Jul 2, 2008)

icehawk said:


> Could it really be that thermally sensitive? I have a server in a datacenter and its motherboard sensor has only varied 2.98Â°C over the past month. Datacenters tend to be pretty stable temperature-wise.



Unfortunately, yes.  A hairline crack in a PC trace can be open and closed by the thermal expansion of 3 C across a foot wide board.


----------



## Ifus (Jul 2, 2008)

Hmm...

Maybe offer a print service like DA does? It'll get something in and it won't make a difference to anyone's account unless they want the service. I dunno, just a suggestion. ^^

It's cool though, no pressure from me. You guys get what you need goin' how you do. I don't know how this programming thingymajig stuff works XD.


----------



## LimeyKat (Jul 2, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> FYIAD...K. D:<
> 
> *DDDD:<*
> 
> Okay, I think this arguments devolved into silliness. But silliness is also good, right? Right? D:


RIGHT. I approve at least. 
Overall the topic isn't THAT big a deal anyway.


----------



## foxystallion (Jul 2, 2008)

Dusty779 said:


> Ive been with fa Since the *BEGINNING* Not sure about You. Look up Dustin6 when they site comes back, I'm sure i've been around longer than you have been. I only joined the forums to comment on how Stupid it is to carry on about something that the admin team has already said they *WON'T* do. if you read the post. Dragoneer said they would look into other options and ability's that can be made available if they make a 'subscribers' system. but they will *NOT* make it so that you must Pay to use something that has been free for all of its Life. Even its First incarnation was totally *FREE! *maybe you should check your facts before you start posting posts.



Dragoneer also once said that the ads would never be flashing. He owns FA and can change his mind as he pleases.  It would please me to provide a similar cash stream to FA in return for avoiding the ad clutter. Especially flashing ad clutter...


----------



## THEO1 (Jul 2, 2008)

Drake_Husky said:


> Hell if a new server will fix all the issues, i'll spring for a Dell Poweredge 2800 for $5k.


first, If you did that, i dont doubt that the whole of FA would love you forever 

second, to Neer and the other admins, you guys rock, you guys put so much work into this site, keeping it free, and running smoothly, i really appreciate it. since i became a member of the FA community, ive learned alot about myself... its been good for me, so im sad to hear about the downtime, but ill deal, cuz if i know anything about you guys its that you are determined to keep FA a free online COMMUNITY because thats what its become, and your not gonna let a hardware failure bugger it up for us... hell if the government cared about its country the way you guys do this site........ (drops subject to avoid political debate)

And Finally, Make love not war, Make porn not drama... quit arguing everyone... its srsly not cool, and let the guys who keep our favorite web community running have some peace and quiet.


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## Ceceil Felias (Jul 2, 2008)

Ifus said:


> Hmm...
> 
> Maybe offer a print service like DA does? It'll get something in and it won't make a difference to anyone's account unless they want the service. I dunno, just a suggestion. ^^
> 
> It's cool though, no pressure from me. You guys get what you need goin' how you do. I don't know how this programming thingymajig stuff works XD.


Ow, it hurts to think about the extra expenses THAT would entail as a result. x.o



LimeyKat said:


> RIGHT. I approve at least.
> Overall the topic isn't THAT big a deal anyway.


Indeed! Arguing and digging up every little flaw is a bad kind of silly.

...

NOIAMNOTAHYPOCRITE *hides*


----------



## LainMokoto (Jul 2, 2008)

Ashi said:


> Donations huh? It'd be cool if a bunch of awesome artists pulled together into doing a whole bunch of charity commissions to get money for FA to help even a little.
> Then again everyone is so busy who knows if it'd be a good idea. D:



Honestly, I would be up for it but I don't know if other artists besides me would be willing to help. I have seen artists team up for charity auctions to raise money for their friends so a similar auction might work if the proceeds went to FA. Currently I am unemployed and just scraping by so I cannot donate at this time (or else I would)but I would be willing to donate a commission via auction for FA if enough artists joined up to help. Pardon potential spelling or grammatical errors, it's late here.

Edit: I don't consider myself an awesome artist. I am just an artist who would like to help FA if enough people could join for an auction.


----------



## teliver (Jul 2, 2008)

Just to clarify, is the site going to be down for 7 to 10 days starting from now, or will it be brought back up and then in 7 to 10 days it will be brought down and data migrated?


----------



## YuchiDaYena (Jul 2, 2008)

Ashi said:


> Donations huh? It'd be cool if a bunch of awesome artists pulled together into doing a whole bunch of charity commissions to get money for FA to help even a little.
> Then again everyone is so busy who knows if it'd be a good idea. D:



:3 I'd be willing to make pins or headshot badges for anyone who donates 

http://yuchi-da-yena.deviantart.com

x33333 haha I'm not good though.


----------



## Ashi (Jul 2, 2008)

Wow, people really are taking to the idea! I'm not the most AMAZING artist out there but fairly decent I think to help for a good cause. I know plenty of amazing artists... Only problem is my old communication with them was via FA... xD; Ohshiz...


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## LimeyKat (Jul 2, 2008)

Ashi said:


> Wow, people really are taking to the idea! I'm not the most AMAZING artist out there but fairly decent I think to help for a good cause. I know plenty of amazing artists... Only problem is my old communication with them was via FA... xD; Ohshiz...



Check to see if they're on DA or Furry Art Pile too. =) Just a thought.


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## Manacat (Jul 2, 2008)

First of all, thanks for doing all of the work needed to keep the site running.  I'm sure it's maddening.

One thing I don't understand is why people are proposing software solutions to a hardware failure problem.  If there are server load issues slowing down the site due to inefficient software then expanding the hardware to fix that is indeed merely working around a problem with the software, but if the hardware is actually failing that is not a software problem.

While heavy load may increase the likelihood of a hardware fault appearing, isn't it true that hardware is _designed_ to work?  If hardware is faulty and fails, that's not the software's fault.  Inefficient software can't break a properly running machine; it can merely bog it down.

If overworked hardware had anything to do with this, I'd imagine it merely accelerated the deterioration of already faulty hardware.  Properly functional hardware doesn't just break all because of a bit of inefficient code.

And besides, isn't Ferrox underway which will address many of the software issues anyway?


----------



## Salt (Jul 2, 2008)

You know what I like best? All the fighting and bickering and everyone's opinions on how FA should be run, how poor the hardware/software/admins are, and how everyone thinks they can do it better. Donations aside, those opinions might count if anyone was paying for access, yet FA is quite open and free. It's really quite entertaining, like a primetime drama.

Good thing I'm not in charge, I just might shut the whole place down instead of serve to the people who dislike it so much.


----------



## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 2, 2008)

Okay, as the PayPal idea bombed, how about eGold?

http://www.e-gold.com/

They don't mind about porn it seems. FA admins ought to contact them and see if FA could get percentages on each transaction if they'll make eGold the standard payment service on FA commissions.


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## THEO1 (Jul 2, 2008)

Salt said:


> You know what I like best? All the fighting and bickering and everyone's opinions on how FA should be run, how poor the hardware/software/admins are, and how everyone thinks they can do it better. Donations aside, those opinions might count if anyone was paying for access, yet FA is quite open and free. It's really quite entertaining, like a primetime drama.
> 
> Good thing I'm not in charge, I just might shut the whole place down instead of serve to the people who dislike it so much.



i agree, its sad, the admins do a wonderful jb of running this "FREE SITE", i wish everyone would quit complaining.



Daddy Ducky BE said:


> Okay, as the PayPal idea bombed, how about eGold?
> 
> http://www.e-gold.com/
> 
> They don't mind about porn it seems. FA admins ought to contact them and see if FA could get percentages on each transaction if they'll make eGold the standard payment service on FA commissions.



on the other hand, its really nice to see people like you here, trying everything you can to help out


----------



## Deltaru (Jul 2, 2008)

Ashi said:


> Wow, people really are taking to the idea! I'm not the most AMAZING artist out there but fairly decent I think to help for a good cause. I know plenty of amazing artists... Only problem is my old communication with them was via FA... xD; Ohshiz...


It's still a good idea. If you collect together the e-mail adresses then it shoudln't be a problem. *sigh* I just hope that FA isn't down too long, I need that site 
I'd be happy to do rewards for donations  given the current circumstances. Just that seeing as Dragoneer and the other Admin have no time to come to this post anymore, or probably abandoned it due to the mass rows that were going on, then we need to get the idea to them in another way...


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## sage_mines (Jul 2, 2008)

This will probably come off a little late, but I think I can donate next Friday.


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## Kender3421 (Jul 2, 2008)

Houshou said:


> No truer statement can be said about everything.
> I work as an Aircraft Maintainer, and usually when its something that happens all the time, box swapping is the first thing to happen. But when its something thats really weird...shit, it takes days of research, multiple knowledgeable minds to think about it, and finally...getting down and dirty.



HOLLY SHIT! Another military person? We need to talk because that is by far the best assessment ever.

Back on topic here, I donated $5 even though I just hit some serious financial problems of my own. However, $5 doesn't change anything and I really need some place to post my stories. I love FA and wouldn't change a thing. However, if this place was offering a members area, I would sign up in a heart beat.

Keep up the great work guys and I hope everything works out in the end.

Kender


----------



## Ceceil Felias (Jul 2, 2008)

Manacat said:


> First of all, thanks for doing all of the work needed to keep the site running.  I'm sure it's maddening.
> 
> One thing I don't understand is why people are proposing software solutions to a hardware failure problem.  If there are server load issues slowing down the site due to inefficient software then expanding the hardware to fix that is indeed merely working around a problem with the software, but if the hardware is actually failing that is not a software problem.
> 
> ...


I've said before that the only way it could be software was if there was corruption somewhere, such as the kernel or device drivers, and corruption is not something that happens completely at random either, looping right back around to a potential hardware failure.

Isn't technology great? \o/


----------



## WarMocK (Jul 2, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> Isn't technology great? \o/


Yes - as long as it works ....


----------



## kamperkiller (Jul 2, 2008)

lol yeah... I'm to poor for Paypal so do you take cash?
As for Ideas about donations remember people are cheap. So if you give them a â€œreason to donateâ€ they will because the â€œItâ€™s free anywaysâ€ will not work because so is 4chan. No you need to give them prizes.

As for the donations Ideas I like the PBS way of handling things...
For $1-5 you get a thanks from the FA staff robot.
For $20 you get a $5 shirt with "Custom text" saying I vote Fur! or something like that. 
For $40 you get A $10 commission from any artist in a list. The artists get a spiffy title on their pages.
For $60 you get 1 from A and 1 from B.
For $100 you get A singed letter from the FA staff and A & B
For $500 you get a server named after you or your character.
For $1000 you get a seat in the adminâ€™s chair for a day.

For whoever donates the most for the month gets their Account linked from the FA main page the following month.

As for the parts for each useable HD, Mother board and other server supplies combined you get A $5 T-shirt.

For the programming release a bit of the code you are having issues with and the first to fix it gets a "Cookie." The cookies is what ever the FA staff deems fair.

and for some quick money rent out the basement to an add client. weather it be users advertising their accounts, myspace, Google, Random sex toy for the Adult accounts. Remind them that each day you get on average X amount of visits and that at lest 10% will fallow the links and 50% of them will buy something.


Remember I am crazy so if you don't like the ideas well, Suck it!


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## WolfGTX (Jul 2, 2008)

Guys. Don't beat around the bush. Just donate as much as you can / want. and worry about the consequences later. I donated 20$ and I'm in debt 4000$. Medical reasons.


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## Kender3421 (Jul 2, 2008)

kamperkiller said:


> No you need to give them prizes.
> 
> As for the donations Ideas I like the PBS way of handling things...
> For $1-5 you get a thanks from the FA staff robot.
> ...



I like prizes. I'd gladly donate $40 some time soon if this were the case.


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## kamperkiller (Jul 2, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> Isn't technology great? \o/



remember this there are only 3 reasons for technology failure. only 3.
1. Is it hard where failure? Find issue and Replace/ repair
2. Is it Software failure? Find issue and Replace/ repair
3. Is it User related? Find user brake keyboard. 

I feel the issue is all 3. 
1. We figured that one a while ago. The good parts get older and we grow in numbers, of corse something is going to give after a while.

2. Remembering what one of the adminâ€™s said a while ago (paraphrasing a little) The fact that FA was running at all when they got it from the first guy was proof that there is a god and it needed a major overhaul. In which I'm thankful that they took the time and effort to fix what they could. but that's a lot of code to go through and eventually there will be breakdowns or even a cold of some sort made its way through the filters It happens.

3. We are kind of to blame filling all that space and making the lives of the FA staff very difficult. not to mention there were people that had this before our guys got to it.

In short, Quit your bitiching these guys are doing what they can with what theyâ€™ve got.


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## starlite528 (Jul 2, 2008)

kamperkiller said:


> For $500 you get a server named after you or your character.



This one is actually true, I speak from personal experience.


----------



## RANQuickFox (Jul 2, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> *Lend a Hand?*
> Unfortunately fixes cost money, especially to the level that we need in this instance.* If anybody is willing to help out we are accepting donations via Amazon or Paypal. *We greatly appreciate any assistance in helping in this matter.



$50 headed your way, hope that helps.


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## starlite528 (Jul 2, 2008)

In my experience, seemingly random errors that affect seemingly random parts of the system have been caused by a faulty power supply.  I've also seen power supplies (plural) fail simply from being plugged in.

I wouldn't rule out that being the source, since you've had power problems from the previous colo company.


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## dmfalk (Jul 2, 2008)

OK, as far as I can tell, one of 5 servers is busted- Couldn't FA function, albeit with reduced traffic capacity, on the remaining 4, while trying to get a replacement? I may be wrong on this... 

At the very least, it would be nice to get FA redirected to the "FurAffinity Will Return" page, with a short explanatory text and links to both the forum and for donations, if it's really going to be down for many days, as it sounds like, instead of a "Network Timeout" page that Firefox is throwing at me.

d.m.f.


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## Kender3421 (Jul 2, 2008)

I don't know if everyone is watching the donations link to Amazon, but we are almost at 2K. I'll donate my money I was saving for a new video game if it helps.


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## kamperkiller (Jul 2, 2008)

starlite528 said:


> This one is actually true, I speak from personal experience.





starlite528 said:


> In my experience, seemingly random errors that affect seemingly random parts of the system have been caused by a faulty power supply.  I've also seen power supplies (plural) fail simply from being plugged in.
> 
> I wouldn't rule out that being the source, since you've had power problems from the previous colo company.




lol that would fallow under #1 on my reasons why PC's fail. Hardware failure... Surge problems and RF interference were my personal power contributions. A radio can do untold amounts of damage to a computer. (google up EM fields/ pulse) that and shoty construction will ruin any good component. I mean by god what are they paying those babies for anywise Get it right or no supper. (don't ban me it's a joke a messed up one but still.) Baby jokes aside. I've seen power supplies just blow a Motherboard without reason... kind of. Come to find out the pencil sharpener was to blame. the motor sent out a EM field strong enough to cause a radio like effect and super charge some of the parts and BOOM! it went. 


Sorry about the late night rants It's 5 and my mind begins to wander...


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## starlite528 (Jul 2, 2008)

kamperkiller said:


> lol that would fallow under #1 on my reasons why PC's fail. Hardware failure... Surge problems and RF interference were my personal power contributions. A radio can do untold amounts of damage to a computer. (google up EM fields/ pulse) that and shoty construction will ruin any good component. I mean by god what are they paying those babies for anywise Get it right or no supper. (don't ban me it's a joke a messed up one but still.) Baby jokes aside. I've seen power supplies just blow a Motherboard without reason... kind of. Come to find out the pencil sharpener was to blame. the motor sent out a EM field strong enough to cause a radio like effect and super charge some of the parts and BOOM! it went.
> 
> 
> Sorry about the late night rants It's 5 and my mind begins to wander...



My father used to shutoff the computer to get me to go to bed at night, by killing the breaker.  I turned it back on and heard a loud snapping bang from the PC.  A cap and transistor blew, fortunately not destroying anything else down the line.  Another one failed when I moved it and plugged it in at another house, this one destroying the motherboard somehow.

Believe it or not, my advice on the power supply issue was taught to me by very knowledgeable instructors in a PC Repair class.


----------



## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 2, 2008)

THEO1 said:


> on the other hand, its really nice to see people like you here, trying everything you can to help out



_*bows*_

Well, I suppose percentages from eGold as standard payment service on FA commissions would do much more for FA funding than mere donations ever could in a lifetime.


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## kamperkiller (Jul 2, 2008)

starlite528 said:


> My father used to shutoff the computer to get me to go to bed at night, by killing the breaker.  I turned it back on and heard a loud snapping bang from the PC.  A cap and transistor blew, fortunately not destroying anything else down the line.  Another one failed when I moved it and plugged it in at another house, this one destroying the motherboard somehow.
> 
> Believe it or not, my advice on the power supply issue was taught to me by very knowledgeable instructors in a PC Repair class.



but seriously, ANY THING!!!! that uses more than 5 amps or gives off strong radio interference should be put well away from you computer. this means Blenders, Pencil sharpeners, hair driers, A lot of your new TV's and monitors, CB Boosters, many cell phones. Basically anything that interferes with your tv (boob tube models) when in use is bad around your computers.


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## selth (Jul 2, 2008)

Wish you luck and patience, may you be able to collect funds or create the ultimate server... 

what, who said solaris? yep, true, sparc can run 24-25 years without rebooting... but... look at the prices! and sun stopped them...

and anyway, nobody dwants to reboot a solaris. never. ever.

on this note... I hope you can overcome those filthy hardware problems!


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## selth (Jul 2, 2008)

the fact is, if you make people pay for FA there will be lots less people around, because some just don't have credit cards. I don't have numbers, but I think lots of people wouldn't pay.

other option is advertising... and asking a charge to remove it.
advertising gives lots money!


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## Phsuke (Jul 2, 2008)

Not sure the details on this, but there was something discussed about t-shirts FA was selling? Perhaps opening up to some merchandising could be beneficial to raise funds. Obviously donations would still be needed, just throwing in two cents.


----------



## kamperkiller (Jul 2, 2008)

kamperkiller said:


> As for the donations Ideas I like the PBS way of handling things...
> For $1-5 you get a thanks from the FA staff robot.
> For $20 you get a $5 shirt with "Custom text" saying I vote Fur! or something like that.
> For $40 you get A $10 commission from any artist in a list. The artists get a spiffy title on their pages.
> ...





			
				Phsuke said:
			
		

> Not sure the details on this, but there was something discussed about t-shirts FA was selling? Perhaps opening up to some merchandising could be beneficial to raise funds. Obviously donations would still be needed, just throwing in two cents.


----------



## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 2, 2008)

Why ask for money for extraordinary stuff (t-shirts, servers) instead of taking money for usual stuff happening everyday while avoiding mandatory fees for simply using FA?

I mean what do artists bother if they get only $9.95 out of their $10 commission? 4 Cents from each transaction for eGold, 1 Cent for FA.

Do the math. The owners of eBay became multi-millionaires this way within weeks. I guess at the very least these percentages would be enough to afford FA better hardware, software, coders, and, finally, reliability.


----------



## Runefox (Jul 2, 2008)

It's really too bad that you can't physically get in to the colo to actually diagnose the issue yourselves. Running a Memtest86+ for a few passes, running some hard disk diagnostics, checking the motherboard for physical failure (blown capacitors, etc), checking the cooling for failure/inadequacies, testing power supply voltages, etc. That would be the least expensive solution overall...

But all the same, the main reason I registered here at this time was because I saw some comments on the software side. Software has nothing to do with hardware failure, well-coded or not, and as a rule, software running within a modern OS will virtually never cause physical hardware failure, except in the case of things like flashing a BIOS. What's more, the software in question is a series of PHP scripts, which is run by another piece of software (two, actually; PHP and (My)SQL) within another piece of software (Apache/etc (the HTTP server software itself)). There is nothing that a PHP script can do to a server's hardware condition, and that's assuming malicious code is being run.

I needed to clear that up, because I don't think anyone has yet. All said, I wish you luck with the new server and the migration, guys. I wish I could help, but I'm in no position financially to give you any monetary support.


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## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 2, 2008)

I don't remember anybody saying anything about "software troubles causing hardware troubles". Many people simply said that FA is both, made of lots of inefficient, buggy old cruftcode, and maintained by admins too busy with RL/too poor to see about proper hardware.

And of course throwing money at FA would help both, it's only that mandatory fees for simply *using* FA as some people here keep suggesting simply ain't the way to go.


----------



## Rama (Jul 2, 2008)

Wow...it's amazing that your goal was already reached. Thrown you guys some money anyways...I use this site enough. Good luck in getting it back up.


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## Runefox (Jul 2, 2008)

What I gathered from Myr's comments in the early pages was "Yeah, your problem is the software, not the hardware", which is basically where I'm coming from. Software can tax the CPU, but that's about it. It has nothing to do with bad RAM, incompatible parts being ordered, or anything of that nature. The point is, the hardware failed. So no matter how good or bad the software is, it was the hardware that was the point of failure. Software would have done nothing to accelerate this.


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## 2ndVenus (Jul 2, 2008)

I lost my job and am currently finding a lot of my life hard at the moment (giggity), eventually everyone in the UK (90% currently are) are in debt, why shouldnt i be  $70 going in from me. 

Get that new server darlings, and lets rock on forward, one day ill be able to fly over there and get to the cons XP... one day.


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## SnowFox17 (Jul 2, 2008)

Myr said:


> It's really amazing what a single pair of servers can do to power a state-wide university and how reliable they can be when they've got well-coded software on them, even when there's millions of daily visitors and hundreds of thousands of users with accounts. You guys really need to stop endlessly neglecting software.



Its really amazing what Governement funding can do for a school.

These guys are setting up servers out of their own pockets so i would cut them some slack. Im in the IT buisness and i can assure you that servers cost $1000s of dollars, not to mention upkeep and adding more servers to compensate for the increase of members.

So stop being part of the problem and help resolve it. Im sure if every member here donated $1 it would help out alot.

Also i wouldnt mind buying a jacket or a tail from here.


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## fruitcake (Jul 2, 2008)

marymouse said:


> Heh... all you have to do is charge a subscription fee for anyone who wants to see red-border images...  that'd make you enough money to buy a billion servers in a day.


That would work. I mean, you're joking... but really. They should. ;P


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## Lt_Havoc (Jul 2, 2008)

The only thing that really bugs me, is that they moved the servers and made matnaice on them to prevent from exectly what happend now, all for nothing!  Either the guys over at Colo are total morons or somone is sabotaging the servers. It is beyond me how the site had so many problems in such a short amount of time. I mean, you guys did menataince and you over looked the worn out hardware that is likley to eyplode in the moment you need it? 

Yes, the site is free and all, but hell, without all the users, the thousends of users, FA wouldnt be the biggest Furry related Art page in the whole net. 

Hell, wher e is Scotty wehn you really need him? 

But anyway, a new server.....guess FA will be offline for a loooong time now. I just finished my Job-qaulification and therefor have no money I could donate, but I bet my ass that a new server will cost at least 15.000 to 25.000 Dollars anyway. Do we have 15.000 users who could donate 1 Dollar?


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## yak (Jul 2, 2008)

kayfox said:


> I would like to see FurAffinity buy a real server, an IBM or some such, with all those important features, like miles of documentation, tested configurations and remote management features.
> 
> I have a few old IBM machines, and even they have features such as:
> Redundant power supplies.
> ...


If FA manages to gather enough with the current donation drive, we are looking to buy a prebuilt brand name server, if not from IBM, then from Dell or similar.
However, if the donation drive doesn't do so well we will be forced to buy either from a less respectable seller like Thinkmate, or even custom built our own server from parts.

To be honest, much of what we decide to go with depends on how much money we can raise. The best possible result for us right now would be to separate the WWW and the data servers into two physical machines. However, this path is the most expensive one to take - but if we raise enough, we will take it as this is what we are looking for in the long run anyway.


----------



## Samoya_Wulf (Jul 2, 2008)

I heard what was going on from my wife Echo who was  watching this, I have to admit haveing it down sucks but hey you guys are right on going to fix it the way you do. I hope you guys can ge that new server, and the idea you have about haveing some payable accounts with extra features and such would be a good idea and a great help for gettting some money to help with issues such as this.


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## WarMocK (Jul 2, 2008)

fruitcake said:


> That would work. I mean, you're joking... but really. They should. ;P


And FA would lose about 3/4 of its visitors. ;-)
I'd love to donate some cash via PayPal, but unfortunately, I'm COMPLETELY broke atm. I really reconsider doing comissions, but I don't wanna do adult stuff, and other stuff usually is not on high demand. -.-


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## Echo_wulf (Jul 2, 2008)

yak said:


> If FA manages to gather enough with the current donation drive, we are looking to buy a prebuilt brand name server, if not from IBM, then from Dell or similar.
> However, if the donation drive doesn't do so well we will be forced to buy either from a less respectable seller like Thinkmate, or even custom built our own server from parts.
> 
> To be honest, much of what we decide to go with depends on how much money we can raise. The best possible result for us right now would be to separate the WWW and the data servers into two physical machines. However, this path is the most expensive one to take - but if we raise enough, we will take it as this is what we are looking for in the long run anyway.


 
well i certainly hope you are able to raise the money ^.^ i had posted before asking on how i can donate when i do get some money cuz im kinda dumb when it comes to that...... but no one replied... so how do i???

and seriously thank you for all that you have done and will keep on doing ^.^


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## TechCat (Jul 2, 2008)

Maybe the artists here should do several donation commissions, like how Amber is doing here: http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=22198
It's artists doing charity work to keep a free art site up and maybe even better, makes perfect sense to me.  And people can get their characters drawn! ;3

Should it be permitted to make a series of threads for artists willing to do donation commissions?


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## xionos (Jul 2, 2008)

I'm sorry, but with the recent outages, I've been less and less inclined to actually donate. Why donate to a site that's down more than it's up just for a "we might". Not only that, but features have been boasted about with this Ferrox build _( the Search feature being one of the ones I've been looking forward to )_ for over a year now, and still nothing. I don't see what's so hard about it. F.A.P. has a search feature, Hentai Foundry has it, DA has it, VCL has it...but not one of the biggest furry community sites on the web? That just leaves me to believe someone's thumbing themselves with one hand, and picking their nose with the other.


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## yak (Jul 2, 2008)

Myr said:


> You guys go through servers and hardware like wildfire through brush. Do yourselves a favor, take that money, save it, and then spend it hiring someone to do professional code for your site. You've been over-taxing your resources for years and you know it. You've known it even since before 'project Ferrox' was first boasted years ago. Throwing hardware at the problem again is just another patch job. You have a developer on your team who once told me he could reprogram the entire site in a week, and here it's been years and one missed expectation of an upgrade after another. Seriously, save your cash and put it into a professional or accredited programmer. If you can't afford that, then at the very least you should be hiring a professional consultant to give real advice. You're way past overdue for a major software upgrade. Both the users of FA and your colo will appreciate this.



Hello Myr, I see you are still bitter over whatever bit your bum back then and still live it up to this day.

Software hasn't been the problem of FA for a very, very long time. The code and part of the the database has been optimized up to the point where there are no optimizations left to throw at it - all done with only one purpose - to make the website work on the hardware that is giving us the performance problems.
The server software has been finetuned to handle lots of connections effortlessly. 

However, if you would have done a little bit of research you would have known by now that FA currently faces one hardware problem alone - the nvidia based gigabit network on the motherboard. It has been spoken off many times.
FreeBSD 6.x does not the stable drivers for that chipset( and neither does 7.x), so the network traffic takes a high toll of the total performance of the machine as packet processing is being done on the CPU as it seems. As a rough estimate, the CPU on the server makes ~40 thousand context switches a second, when as a normal working server does around 5-6.
This degrades total server performance significantly, up to the point where there there is simply no horsepower enough to handle the load, no matter how optimized your code is.

These network drivers are also unstable and sometimes cause kernel panics. 
Add to that the problems with colocation facilities, and you have an explanation why FA is slow and goes offline at times.

And we are not throwing hardware at the ineffective code to take care of the performance problem. 



Myr said:


> That's funny, because I remember a lot more than that going wrong, particularly with ram problems and incompatible parts ordered numerous times. You got upset behind the scenes several times about those things, and rightfully so.
> 
> It's really amazing what a single pair of servers can do to power a state-wide university and how reliable they can be when they've got well-coded software on them, even when there's millions of daily visitors and hundreds of thousands of users with accounts. You guys really need to stop endlessly neglecting software.
> 
> EDIT: It also seems you have a problem of letting go of the past. What happened was years ago. It's time to move on.



I am sorry, but from the looks of things, you are the one who can not let go of the past, as you are the one who is digging in the archives of history.
Nobody stood still during all this time, and we have moved forward a long way. It it unfortunate that you do not see it.




karoug said:


> What's the new server likely to be?
> 
> Two quad core Xeon L5420 2.5Ghz 50W processors on an Asus Z7S mobo would be the start of a good server.



Yes, something like that if we can afford it.

But as I have said in my previous reply to post on this thread, the final solution really depends on the amount of money we can raise. Given enough, we would probably end up getting two servers, one for www and other software needs, and another for a file server.
The former would boast something like 2xQuad core Xeons with 2GB of RAM, and RAID1 of 80Gig SATA drives, and the latter would probably have a dual core CPU, 16Gig of RAM for filesystem cache, and a RAID5 of 1TB drives for storage. This is the ideal world solution right now, unfortunately, it is too costly for us at the moment. 
Time will tell however.


----------



## Delphinios (Jul 2, 2008)

You just missed a great opportunity to pass the hat at Anthrocon.
A whole lot of furs with disposable income concentrated into one place?
You'd have gotten a good amount of donations, I'm willing to bet.


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## yak (Jul 2, 2008)

fluffdance said:


> Poor communication between coding/admin staff, failure to properly research hosting facilities and hardware, poor site coding, lack of ability for admins to devote 100% of their time to FA (Not a fault, merely a byproduct of FA being a volunteer effort), and numerous other issues.
> 
> It's frustrating, because there -is- no one to communicate between the admins and the user base; something I would be happy to do, since I speak both tech and non-tech, and have nothing but time to devote.  Between the user base not being as informed as they should be, and the apparent lack of communication between the FA staff themselves, it creates a lot more problems than should exist, and tends to stimulate the spreading of rumors.



Poor communication between coding/admin staff <-- yes
failure to properly research hosting facilities and hardware <-- overall, yes, but not really like that.
poor site coding <-- not. coding hasn't been the problem of FA for a very long while.
lack of ability for admins to devote 100% of their time to FA <-- yes, especially when their involvement is critical.
and numerous other issues <-- there is really only one issue at the moment really, the hardware.

Also, you can always speak to me if you feel you have to know things. I will not tell you everything of course, some things are not to be spoken of.


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## Murkshadow (Jul 2, 2008)

^-- Make a donation con where the entrance fee is spent to raise money for the server.


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## yak (Jul 2, 2008)

Segremores said:


> I agree with Verix on this one, there needs to be more investigation into the coding as a possible issue with the site, not the hardware.  I mean, if it really isn't coding that's an issue, even beyond the current critical failure, then why don't we have a proper search feature?  Why does the site constantly take a e-dump on watches, favorites, and messages that have yet to be looked at?  And, more importantly, why do the coders for the site sometimes say that looking at the coding makes them depressed?



Search
* Because the database server will not be able to handle it. It requires more RAM for search indexes, (estimated 1.2GB) and it doesn't have it at the moment.
* Because FA people do not give their submission proper titles and descriptions. I have been working on improving search relevance for a month and a half now, and can not release something that is half working.
* Because, ironically, every time I have spare time to work on FA, it goes down and I am occupied with trying to fix it. I am not joking.
* Because I am not getting proper feedback from the admins.


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## Renian (Jul 2, 2008)

Hmm... I think I've seen some good ideas (commission profit sharing, paying for extra site services for example) and some bad ones (mandatory fee for example).

I have a feeling that so far the best one is paying for extra site services for two reasons. One, it means regular income for the site from people who want extra nifty little things like better load times, customization options, etc. Two, I wouldn't have to take it and pay for it because believe me, when you've had dial-up for over 3 years (I just switched to broadband last winter), you learn a lot of patience with general computer use.

As for the server issue stuff, take a lesson and learn some patience with it. Sometimes you just have to wait for the problem to be taken care of without causing more problems later.


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## yak (Jul 2, 2008)

foxystallion said:


> Good!  I'm very glad that you are thinking about that.  Allowing FA members to pay for extra services could benefit both them and FA.  For example, I'd pay for a higher data transmission speed.  I'd pay for some relief relief from your ill conceived photomorph rules - for example, being able to use properly licensed commercial animal head and tail photos in my photomorphs.  I'm sure that some members would pay to be able to post a hundred pictures of their fursuit - which should not cause any problems so long as they pay their own way and then some and so long as 97 of them are posted to their Scraps so that they don't spam the Browse pages.  Please don't put off thinking about this!



As unbelievable as it may sound, some of these featured are already being worked on. However, some are impossible right now due to hardware limitations, for example 
100 pictures of photomoprhs are definitely possible, especially if FA will sport custom gallery folders and such - but we need additional hard drive space for that. I wouldn't want us to advertise a feature we would very soon find hard to support.

Hardware and bandwith are the most limiting factors that are deciding the probability of many of possible features on FA.



Trip said:


> No kidding! One feature I would definitely be willing to pay for would be the ability to create different categories in my gallery. That's something I've been wanting for a while now.



This is something that is halfway done already.


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## Manacat (Jul 2, 2008)

xionos said:


> I'm sorry, but with the recent outages, I've been less and less inclined to actually donate. Why donate to a site that's down more than it's up just for a "we might".



On what planet is FA down more than it is up?

As far as the features go they are coming eventually.  If the popularity of the site continues to expand that means more bandwidth costs as well as less money for new equipment.  The new features require both new hardware and software, and the software has been worked on for many months.

As far as the code goes:
http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=16307&highlight=ferrox+status

Granted you can't check the progress journals etcetera with FA down, but it's not like they are twiddling their thumbs doing nothing.  This is not their job and I'm sure they put an enormous amount of time into FA.  If you don't want to donate or can't donate then don't, but if you're going to be upset about something at least it should be grounded in reality. While there are outages they are nowhere near close to overtaking the up time.


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## reigoskeiter (Jul 2, 2008)

pepole!
show some respect!
its an blessing that fa has bin going on for 3 years!
and i dont think u know how hard it is acctualy to keep fa up!
neither do i but please.
stop making threaths about oo the site is offline again....
show some respect


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## yak (Jul 2, 2008)

Amber said:


> Unfortunately this would cost money to start but what if you offered prints for the FA artists to sell and take a profit off of each print?



I believe Dragoneer is working on that already.



cassandrarising said:


> Seconded.
> Other things I would pay for:
> Working search
> Browse filters that would disallow art with certain tags
> ...



Working search, Randomized or customizable favorites, Multiple avatars, A "view all" option in galleries and favorites, More custom commission slots, A "list" option for submissions so I could select all and hit "open in new tabs" and Different color schemes .....

... are all possible and relatively easy to implement. 

Some of them like multiple avatars, view all option and others means increased resource utilization on FA, and without better site funding are not possible right now. However, if they became a payed for "perks" there will be funding to support them.

We have considered the path of subscription accounts before, but the progress never really gotten anywhere. Given the recent happenings, when this is all over, we will return to that.


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## yak (Jul 2, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> Beyond the potential of corruption within the kernel and device drivers on the data server, I don't see where software could be an issue given the current evidence (especially since, being the data server, how the main server's backend code operates doesn't really reflect on its own kernel-level functionality).
> 
> And even then, a corruption is not something that happens completely at random. Something could potentially be seriously wrong even then.



The problem with the hardware right now is in incompatible network card and drivers for it.
Software packet processing kills the CPU, and kernel panics at random. The server does not have an expansion slot for a standalone 2 port NIC, as the space is occupied by the RIAD card.


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## xionos (Jul 2, 2008)

Manacat said:


> While there are outages they are nowhere near close to overtaking the up time.



Maybe, but small outages every other day, then a big outage every other week is just plain ludicrous.


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## yak (Jul 2, 2008)

Growly said:


> Okay, I don't really follow.
> 
> Why is FA down so often?
> 
> ...



In plain and simple terms, FA is running on shitty hardware.

FA can not afford non-shitty hardware because it costs too much. And FA does not have time to save up for better hardware because the shitty hardware craps out and a fast solution has to be found to bring the website back online.

This time I am trying to break the trend, but my possibilities and their extent greatly depend on user support in this donation drive.


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## HiroJudgement (Jul 2, 2008)

Oh boy, we're optimistic, aren't we?

Regardless, from the Amazon link, I donated last week's wages. It's not much, around $50, but I hope it helps. :3


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## xxdarkdemonessxx911 (Jul 2, 2008)

HiroJudgement said:


> Oh boy, we're optimistic, aren't we?
> 
> Regardless, from the Amazon link, I donated last week's wages. It's not much, around $50, but I hope it helps. :3



do you have that link by chance? :3


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## rubixcuber (Jul 2, 2008)

Donated $20. If the insurance claim from my stolen car goes through I might donate some more. *grumble grumble*


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## yak (Jul 2, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> Um... lol wut?
> 
> There's no bandwidth cap beyond the maximum practical and theoretical capability of the servers and facility. You cannot double what has no total limit.



FA caps per user bandwidth down to 2Mbit, and a max of 3 concurrent connections. It's really more then enough for most.


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## Wolf_Fox_Guy (Jul 2, 2008)

once I get a job and some extra cashola to toss around I will deffinatly donate some. I really like this wesite. on anther note, I read what the issue was and was wondering if anyone knew how long this was going to take? Normally folks have really big hissy fits so I was wonder if it will be down long enough to spark furry riots.


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## Suntiger (Jul 2, 2008)

In addition to the subscription-paid perks that cassandrarising and foxystallion suggested (which I think are a good idea), why not set up a subscription style donation of 2$ or 3$ per month for people who just want to support FA regardless?

I really like FA and would definitely sign up for it.
Partly because while I also could just send in 2$ month 'manually' I'm terrible at remembering stuff like that and having it pulled automatically the same date each month would give me less of a headache and provide FA with a bit of regular income.
In general I've found that a small but regular income beat a big dump of cash when the shit hits the fan. 
Call it maintenance instead of repairs if you will.

Partly also because Internet gives lots of people a (false) illusion that there is such a thing as a free lunch. There isn't. It's just paid in other ways than money, usually time.
Keeping a website like FA up and running isn't free, even if it offers accounts, uploading and all that other stuff without charging a fee.
Me as a user being given all that just means that there are some very generous people around who take up the bills for me.
That is what free sites essentially means. Someone else paying my bills.
I'm willing and able to support that with a small but regular monetary support. Get enough people supporting it and we'll get even more nice stuff, including better reliability.


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## Zerosarmor (Jul 2, 2008)

JamestheDoc said:


> Also, I read the consideration of a FurAffinity subscription fee idea for the future. The thought of the unique ability to customize your page is neat, but heh, it'd also be greatly appreciated if you could keep the current features free, for poor struggling artist like me paying out the wazoo for pre-med college and stuff. ^^;; I like my arts and I like postin' my arts. :3


I completely agree with you man, and can relate to it. Especially since I have no money... ^^;


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## KickahaOta (Jul 2, 2008)

*looks at Amazon stats* Pretty impressive. You're already up to $2350.

*looks at personal finances, sighs, clicks* Make that $2400.


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## Gutierrez (Jul 2, 2008)

Put my $25 in.  Let's keep passing that hat around.


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## Ainoko (Jul 2, 2008)

KickahaOta said:


> *looks at Amazon stats* Pretty impressive. You're already up to $2350.
> 
> *looks at personal finances, sighs, clicks* Make that $2400.



What is the Amazon link?

And o the note of a $2-$5 monthly subscription fee, let do it. It would that much less for me to spend on the local lottery anyways and it go towards a better goal.


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## arcticsilver (Jul 2, 2008)

Ainoko said:


> What is the Amazon link?
> 
> And o the note of a $2-$5 monthly subscription fee, let do it. It would that much less for me to spend on the local lottery anyways and it go towards a better goal.



Yah i would spend 5 bucks a month for a fee for extra stuff.


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## Wolf_Fox_Guy (Jul 2, 2008)

Zerosarmor said:


> I completely agree with you man, and can relate to it. Especially since I have no money... ^^;



thing is I think most furs have little to no money, yeah bonus features would be awsome. fact is I'm willing to bet that like 3/4 of the artists here have no money.


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## Growly (Jul 2, 2008)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> I'm not very familiar with money orders. Are minors allowed to get those?
> 
> With legal issues, I mean the kid stealing mom's/dad's credit card to pay. Happens all the time, and there are legal battles fought. I've seen it first hand... And over a crappy five dollars!



Ahh, something I DO know something about! 

Yes, I bought things online with money orders for a couple years before I got paypal and while I was still a minor. You can get them at all US post offices, and even some convenience stores. It's similar to cash- you instantly pay for it, it's not like a check where it comes out of your money AFTER the other guy deposits it.
It's also *relatively* safe, as it has to be signed by the recipient, and it is traceable (ie: you can see who deposited it, when). However, it didn't stop some assclown in New Mexico from stealing mine a couple times. I guess that's one of the problems with having a really common name!
So if you send one in the mail, wrap some paper around it so it's less obvious what you're sending.


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## Gutierrez (Jul 2, 2008)

Wolf_Fox_Guy said:


> thing is I think most furs have little to no money, yeah bonus features would be awsome. fact is I'm willing to bet that like 3/4 of the artists here have no money.



That's why I kinda like this funding drive that's going on right now.  The artists may not have the money, but people who want to commission artists tend to have a little extra around. I don't think shaking the collection box every now and again is a bad idea. Will FA:United have any attachment to funding the site itself?


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## Firehazard (Jul 2, 2008)

I'm going to have to strongly recommend NOT implementing "themed user pages."  MySpace, anyone?  SheezyArt?  I don't want to have to look at shit like that.  You thinks some people on FA are bad at _drawing_...

FurAffinity isn't a hosting service.  It's a single community site with members, like a forum.  People's pages contain comments from other members, art from other members (favorites list), and so on; it's not like these are their own websites all run on one system.

However, I wouldn't mind a little more customizability.  The "headers and footers" we put in journals right now are a joke.  They're a joke on deviantART too, really: in practice they get used more like a shoutboard (which is also an available feature in dA but they're relegated to the journal page, which hardly anyone ever sees).  If Ferrox were designed to implement something like a cross between the userpage header, journal header/footer, user facts (the stuff below the journal), shoutboard, and deviantID-style image, then said box could theoretically be made skinnable.  I really wouldn't mind that.  The few people on dA who bother skinning their journals seem to know what they're doing, and I suspect the CSS-savvy among FA's users would too.


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## Suntiger (Jul 2, 2008)

Just to clarify; the 'Support FA' monthly subscription I mentioned would be voluntary, not required.
So would the 'Perks' subscription be.


The Amazon donation link is in the first post of this thread btw.


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## Growly (Jul 2, 2008)

foxystallion said:


> Dragoneer also once said that the ads would never be flashing. He owns FA and can change his mind as he pleases.  It would please me to provide a similar cash stream to FA in return for avoiding the ad clutter. Especially flashing ad clutter...



Especially gross tacky flashing porn ads!


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## QT Melon (Jul 2, 2008)

Phsuke said:


> Not sure the details on this, but there was something discussed about t-shirts FA was selling? Perhaps opening up to some merchandising could be beneficial to raise funds. Obviously donations would still be needed, just throwing in two cents.



I believe Dragoneer has sold FA t-shirts at Anthrocon and are planning to make more. However, ma'am you do need to understand once he starts working on making a store he has to plan ahead for taxes and company profits. Unlike artists that just come on and work for commissions, when he reaches certain amounts of money for FA the IRS comes and looks to see why so much money is going into a website. So he has to prepare. He's in the process and already registered a company for this, but this has to be treated like a business. This means planning ahead. 

Selling a t-shirt is really an expense that comes in a wave. Most people will buy one, and then want something else. It's limited in its profit potential because of print runs, and sizes of the t-shirt, the design and the color. So it has little re-purchase potential.

From my short time enlisted as staff I do have to say yak is one of the most reasonable admins I have been around. He's open to suggestions and constructive criticism, has a good sense of humor even with the language barrier, and shows he cares a lot about keeping the site up. I also have to say under the guidance of Damaratus he's been very wise, patient, and reasonable. Yak isn't off the mark about what he has said about staff.

I hope people do take the time to donate, but I think FA needs to budget for its future. From my understanding, FA has come quite a long way from its early days. I like to thank everyone who has donated and taken the time to share their thoughts and opinions even if we don't see eye to eye.


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## Torakhan (Jul 2, 2008)

Fundage...
I think that even a $5 yearly subscription fee wouldn't be terrible.  Or $25/year for a "Paid Subscription" that would give Search features or the ability to make very simple changes to your account (limited color options for background/text/links, larger file uploads, etc.) wouldn't be so bad.

I wonder how many of the high-profile artists that use FA would be willing to donate a single commission's proceeds towards FurAffinity?  While a few $25 commissions would add up over time, one or two of the folks who can manage to pull in a $500 commission (whether outright or through bidding) might be a nice contribution to the server that also helps them reach that audience.

... what about a "Support FA" (series of?) poster with proceeds going towards FA?  Maybe just one, or maybe three or four.. one offered each month off of the front page of FA, through one of furry print-houses too?  Just a thought.


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## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> a new data server with built in backup capabilities



Like a tape drive?


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## Taigitsune-Kun (Jul 2, 2008)

I'll admit I'm somewhat ignorant about such things, despite working in the industry and shortly becoming an Admin for The Planet, but why not lease? I see leasing as an attractive option because if something breaks with the server, it's then the datacenter's responsibility to make it right. There is a slightly elevated cost, but as much as FA's servers are pounded, it sounds like a reasonable insurance policy to me.

</my$0.02>


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## yak (Jul 2, 2008)

kayfox said:


> What are you buying?  What do you have, and what are the load averages on what you have?



We have not decided that yet. It depends on the amount of money the donation drive will raise.

The best possible solution I envision right now is two dedicated servers, one for processing web requests (many physical cores, little RAM and basic drives), and another as a file server (1-2 core CPU, lots of RAM for cache, large RAID5 array).

Failing that due to the lack of funds we would have to fallback to a single server combining the strengths of those two.

----

What we have right now are two physical 1U servers. First server is a dedicated database, and the second is the rest. We are looking for a replacement of the second server, with two physical dedicated machines.

----

Load averages are the following:

Website pushes over 250GB of traffic a day.
Site has aproximately 20 request/sec from registered users, and thrice as more from guest users.
RAID5 array of 750Gb drives is being utilized 80% of it's maximum capacity bandwidth wise, and ~40% storage space wise.


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## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

yak said:


> the nvidia based gigabit network on the motherboard



Why is "gamer ricer motherboard" in "server machine"?


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## WarMocK (Jul 2, 2008)

Wolf_Fox_Guy said:


> thing is I think most furs have little to no money, yeah bonus features would be awsome. fact is I'm willing to bet that like 3/4 of the artists here have no money.


Wouldn't bet against that. Come to think of how many artists do comissions ...
Personally I wouldn't mind doing some donation art FA could sell on the market. That would possibly make the staff earn enough money for better hardware, in addition to the donations they get.
Putting some (I repeat: _SOME_) banners on the site might help too (depending on how many visitors FA usually has, two or three ad banners might earn you more than donations and selling artwork at once.).


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## QT Melon (Jul 2, 2008)

WarMocK said:


> Wouldn't bet against that. Come to think of how many artists do comissions ...



I will do another commission, once I finish some of the ones I have where the proceeds will go to FA. I usually run them where a pecentage goes to FA once it hits a certain limit. I just didn't do the offer now due to bad timing of being behind on my other ones. :<


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## StainMcGorver (Jul 2, 2008)

Why not both of what WarMock said?!


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## talakestreal (Jul 2, 2008)

Wow, nothing brings the furries together like problems with a site.  That being said, tossin' some money in the pot at some point today, because I do support the site.  

I love seeing all the arguing though. Makes my morning interesting, seeing people make arses of themselves and argue and fuss like some are.  I think we should all just be patient, and add what money we can to the fund.


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## StainMcGorver (Jul 2, 2008)

The most I can toss is 20$, I know its a lot. Â¬.Â¬


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## yak (Jul 2, 2008)

xionos said:


> I'm sorry, but with the recent outages, I've been less and less inclined to actually donate. Why donate to a site that's down more than it's up just for a "we might". Not only that, but features have been boasted about with this Ferrox build _( the Search feature being one of the ones I've been looking forward to )_ for over a year now, and still nothing. I don't see what's so hard about it. F.A.P. has a search feature, Hentai Foundry has it, DA has it, VCL has it...but not one of the biggest furry community sites on the web? That just leaves me to believe someone's thumbing themselves with one hand, and picking their nose with the other.



I don't have time to work on finishing the search feature because I am busy with maintenance of unstable hardware and have to deal with frequents outages. 

If FA didn't go down as much and would not burn me out every time it happens, I would have had much more free time to spend on FA doing much more rewarding things.


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## yak (Jul 2, 2008)

Pi said:


> Why is "gamer ricer motherboard" in "server machine"?



Unfortunately, I was not given the opportunity to influence the choice of hardware that was being bought at that time.


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## Magnus (Jul 2, 2008)

if i could pay by phone i could donate 100euro's, $150, it keeps getting filled with money and no one uses it XD 

also, doesn't ASUS do servers?


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## kewlhotrod (Jul 2, 2008)

Try a loan. 

Or go see your great grandmother and bake her some cookies or something... Ya'know, for the will. D:


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## yak (Jul 2, 2008)

Okay, folks, seriously, you all are the weirdest group of people I ever had seen.

I can not express in words the amount of appreciation I have for you all donating your money to FA's needs, even though we can not provide you with guarantee that the money will be spent in the best possible way. This blind goodwill and overwhelming support is what amazes me in you guys. You've been here before, helping out, and you are here again now. 

The amount of money some of you are willing to, and actually do donate is really impressive considering it is going towards the needs of simply a website on the internet. And the amount is not what is most important, the will and the thought is. 

This puts us in a very responsible position to command what was raised, and I will personally try to do as much as I can to make sure the hardware that is being bought, it's deployment and configuration will make FA as fast, stable and reliable as possible.

I am overwhelmed with the amount of support you guys are showing.
Thank you all.


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## Wolf_Fox_Guy (Jul 2, 2008)

they cant do that, they might run into loan sharks. and the only thing worse then a furry being taen advantage of is a furry being taken advantage of by another furry. XD


but seriously no......I can only imagine the trouble that would cause. my only advice would be to get a page holder up that would redirect folks to teh donation thread.


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## StainMcGorver (Jul 2, 2008)

...Good idea!


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## DJDarkViper (Jul 2, 2008)

yak said:


> Okay, folks, seriously, you all are the weirdest group of people I ever had seen.
> 
> I can not express in words the amount of appreciation I have for you all donating your money to FA's needs, even though we can not provide you with guarantee that the money will be spent in the best possible way. This blind goodwill and overwhelming support is what amazes me in you guys. You've been here before, helping out, and you are here again now.
> 
> ...



Strong words from a strong man. And in all honesty, quite inspiring

Ill see if i got anything i can donate to the cause via PayPal. the Canadian dollar is still worth something right? i can never tell anymore lol


----------



## purpledragonbreath (Jul 2, 2008)

Aww man... I wonder what you're running the servers on... what are the system specs of one?


----------



## Arbiter (Jul 2, 2008)

yak said:


> Okay, folks, seriously, you all are the weirdest group of people I ever had seen.
> 
> I can not express in words the amount of appreciation I have for you all donating your money to FA's needs, even though we can not provide you with guarantee that the money will be spent in the best possible way. This blind goodwill and overwhelming support is what amazes me in you guys. You've been here before, helping out, and you are here again now.
> 
> ...



that just goes to show u how much we all care for our site


----------



## lupin-wolfe (Jul 2, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> Those cost a lot more money than we have funding for, unfortunately.



I got a friend who's offering an IBM eServer p570. 16 CPUs, 64 GB RAM. Personally, I don't belive him. Dragoneer, he wants yer mailing address so he can send it to you.
I dun have his contact info on me, though if you email me (It's in my profile somewhere), I could prolly get that info for ya next week..

He also mentioned showing up at FA:U with a Silicon Graphics Onyx 3200, but I dun believe him on it... 
Still, something to check out. Free servers are better than free food, eh?


----------



## xionos (Jul 2, 2008)

yak said:


> I don't have time to work on finishing the search feature because I am busy with maintenance of unstable hardware and have to deal with frequents outages.
> 
> If FA didn't go down as much and would not burn me out every time it happens, I would have had much more free time to spend on FA doing much more rewarding things.



The frequent outages are only as of recently. For the past year, FA would only go out for a couple days one every month or two. It only got worse with the move over to these new servers. Doing the math, you have had plenty of time to finish the search feature. Like I said before, FA is the only large art community I can think of that doesn't have a search feature, and sporadic down times is no excuse.


----------



## raidy_and_dobe (Jul 2, 2008)

We all know the problem will be fixed. Just patience is all we need. Dragoneer and the rest are doing their best. I think we can survive a while without FurAffinity. It's not the end of the world- yet. Now when they say there is _no_ hope _at all_ ... then you can throw yourself into a panic frenzy.


----------



## Suntiger (Jul 2, 2008)

Without knowing the day to day life of the person (or is it people?) who work on the search feature and other improvements, it's more than a little arrogant to say that they "should have" finished it by now.


----------



## Charem (Jul 2, 2008)

Is there any way to send a donation for FA via Paypal?  I don't have any other method of sending...


----------



## StainMcGorver (Jul 2, 2008)

HLEL YES SON. ...I think...


----------



## Suntiger (Jul 2, 2008)

Charem said:


> Is there any way to send a donation for FA via Paypal?  I don't have any other method of sending...



Yes there is. 
Info provided in the first post of this thread.


----------



## yak (Jul 2, 2008)

xionos said:


> The frequent outages are only as of recently. For the past year, FA would only go out for a couple days one every month or two. It only got worse with the move over to these new servers. Doing the math, you have had plenty of time to finish the search feature. Like I said before, FA is the only large art community I can think of that doesn't have a search feature, and sporadic down times is no excuse.



I realize it will sound as an excuse right about now, but I will say it nontheless.

Yes, previously FA did not go down a much as it does this now. But the website was slow to the point where it was unusable, and was running on a rather badly written and optimized codebase. A lot of time was spent to make FA run on the same set of hardware  much faster then before, all that considering the site never stopped growing and had accumulated over 180% of the userbase and content of when I started working on it.


----------



## Grimfang (Jul 2, 2008)

I skipped everything beyond the first two posts, but this is exciting news, and it looks like you've got some more donations showing up now! Exciting, no? :]

I couldn't help but laugh at some of these posts..


----------



## hiphopopotimus (Jul 2, 2008)

lupin-wolfe said:


> He also mentioned showing up at FA:U with a Silicon Graphics Onyx 3200, but I dun believe him on it...
> Still, something to check out. Free servers are better than free food, eh?



Uhhh ya, what kind of truck did he use to transport his million dollar monstrous super computer with?

Reference pic for for how big the SGI Onyx 3.2k is:
http://www.trygve.com/onyx3200outside.jpg

Sounds like your friend is full of it.


----------



## Torakhan (Jul 2, 2008)

hiphopopotimus said:


> Uhhh ya, what kind of truck did he use to transport his million dollar monstrous super computer with?
> 
> Reference pic for for how big the SGI Onyx 3.2k is:
> http://www.trygve.com/onyx3200outside.jpg
> ...



Awww.. that's just a case.  It really only holds a PS4 and a bio-enhanced gerbil on a treadmill.


----------



## salmy (Jul 2, 2008)

Something I've read on this thread gave me an idea:

Why not make artists who get commisions thanks to FA be the ones having to pay for a subscription fee? After all, they're making money thanks to FA, and they should be the first ones supporting it. Making the site a subscription one for viewers would be unfair, but this is a place for artists to make money and be able to show they work. Those who don't ask for commisions can keep their free account. Those who do, have to pay a.. $5/mo to FA and maybe get some extra features or something?

In that sense, I'd make the kind of account public for all to see. (paid or regular) That way all artists who charge money should feature as 'paid accounts'. Of course there will be people who won't do it and do commisions anyway, but if they do that and they're reported to FA by some user, their account could be suspended.

Dunno, it just seems very fair to me. Even if it's a 'free' service, it has lots of ads now. Google is also 'free' for the public, but they don't run by donations, but by added-value services. If people makes money off the site, why not force that people to contribute mantaining the site?


----------



## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

xionos said:


> I'm sorry, but with the recent outages, I've been less and less inclined to actually donate. Why donate to a site that's down more than it's up just for a "we might". Not only that, but features have been boasted about with this Ferrox build _( the Search feature being one of the ones I've been looking forward to )_ for over a year now, and still nothing. I don't see what's so hard about it. F.A.P. has a search feature, Hentai Foundry has it, DA has it, VCL has it...but not one of the biggest furry community sites on the web? That just leaves me to believe someone's thumbing themselves with one hand, and picking their nose with the other.



How about I give you an old copy of the source code, and YOU implement a search feature that scales? Oh, and bring it up to current functionality! Sounds fun?

God, I'm not even a coder for the site and I'm tired of hearing gripes about the lack of search feature. It's not gonna happen with this codebase.


----------



## hunterwolf (Jul 2, 2008)

In an effort to raise funds, how about holding an auction or raffle, with the funds going to FA!

Not only does FA get extra much needed funding, but something (aside from free furaffinity accounts, image browsing, social networking, dating service, porn downloads...arf...sorry, yiff downloads, advertising for artists, hell, Dragoneer...most sites out there CHARGE for shit like this ^.^), gets given back!

A piece of art, a commission, whatever, put up to help draw in funds!

Furs, hell, anyone, will pay a lot for something they really want!  Look at ebay, look at the auctions at cons.

Some will be happy to share some extra funds to help out, but having something extra on offer will tempt those with more funds into coming forward!

Just an arb idea, thrown out there.

I myself have a few things I would donate...and they sure as hell aint starbucks or dunkin donuts gift cards


----------



## WarMocK (Jul 2, 2008)

salmy said:


> Those who don't ask for commisions can keep their free account. Those who do, have to pay a.. $5/mo to FA and maybe get some extra features or something?


And what do you do if artist offer submissions but do not get any customers? Oo
And what if they earn barely enough to pay the five bucks in a month? Do you want to ban their accounts for a month or two?
Sorry, that idea sounds good for a moment, but considering what all could happen your system would be extremely unfair. :-/


----------



## HiroJudgement (Jul 2, 2008)

xxdarkdemonessxx911 said:


> do you have that link by chance? :3



The link's in the original post.


----------



## princessbunny99 (Jul 2, 2008)

Just another FA fan saying thanks for all your hard work!

I too would be willing to pay 5-10$ for a monthly subscription for extra features. Maybe for those of us who are trying to do comissions and such, we could get links on the front page, stuff like that.

I'd also be willing to donate stuff for a raffle too, if that ever gets off the ground 

-pb-


----------



## nrr (Jul 2, 2008)

lupin-wolfe said:


> I got a friend who's offering an IBM eServer p570. 16 CPUs, 64 GB RAM. Personally, I don't belive him. Dragoneer, he wants yer mailing address so he can send it to you.
> I dun have his contact info on me, though if you email me (It's in my profile somewhere), I could prolly get that info for ya next week..


That box isn't actually as impressive in this application as you'd think.



			
				lupin-wolfe said:
			
		

> He also mentioned showing up at FA:U with a Silicon Graphics Onyx 3200, but I dun believe him on it...
> Still, something to check out. Free servers are better than free food, eh?


Fat fucking chance, that.  I'll eat my hat before your buddy shows up to FA:U with anything remotely resembling SGI hardware meant for heavy computation.


----------



## mukichan (Jul 2, 2008)

yak said:


> Okay, folks, seriously, you all are the weirdest group of people I ever had seen.
> 
> I can not express in words the amount of appreciation I have for you all donating your money to FA's needs, even though we can not provide you with guarantee that the money will be spent in the best possible way. This blind goodwill and overwhelming support is what amazes me in you guys. You've been here before, helping out, and you are here again now.
> 
> ...



It shows how much people really really love fA and want to see more porn. xD lol jk jk

We all care an awful lot for fA and do the best we can to support it. I mean, heck, each and every one of us is just a little grain of rice in a rice bowl. Not very filling for a single grain, but when combined can make the best meal for even the poorest person on earth. ^^; (okay, maybe that's a horrible analogy... But I hope you know what I mean.)


----------



## kewlhotrod (Jul 2, 2008)

Pi said:


> How about I give you an old copy of the source code, and YOU implement a search feature that scales? Oh, and bring it up to current functionality! Sounds fun?
> 
> God, I'm not even a coder for the site and I'm tired of hearing gripes about the lack of search feature. It's not gonna happen with this codebase.



Probably not the smartest thing you could have done. :/

A LOT of furs... Ummm... Personal details are in there. Those that they might not want released. ;.;

Glad I'm not in there. YAY NEW USER(ish)!


----------



## Busterdrag (Jul 2, 2008)

Man, FA has some more serious probleme than normal, and soon the fucking trolls apear on the surface, bashing Dragoneer for shits and giggles.

You guys need to be beaten with a stick full of rusty nails.

Anyway, while I like the 1$ idea, it puts people like me in distress, becuase where I live, having a paypal account is pretty useless (just as useless as a credit card) and my bank account can't be used for linkage to a paypal account.


----------



## mukichan (Jul 2, 2008)

kewlhotrod said:


> Probably not the smartest thing you could have done. :/
> 
> A LOT of furs... Ummm... Personal details are in there. Those that they might not want released. ;.;
> 
> Glad I'm not in there. YAY NEW USER(ish)!



Was gonna say the same thing when I backtracked a lil to check other replies. I wonder if an admin or someone will notice it. I don't want anyone to mess with my stuff. T.T


----------



## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

kewlhotrod said:


> Probably not the smartest thing you could have done. :/
> 
> A LOT of furs... Ummm... Personal details are in there. Those that they might not want released. ;.;
> 
> Glad I'm not in there. YAY NEW USER(ish)!



oh no, an old list of emails from nearly 3 years ago



			
				mukichan said:
			
		

> I wonder if an admin or someone will notice it.



And what do you expect them to do?


----------



## mukichan (Jul 2, 2008)

Pi said:


> oh no, an old list of emails from nearly 3 years ago



But still, that's an awful lot of personal information even if it is 3 years or so old.


----------



## mukichan (Jul 2, 2008)

Pi said:


> And what do you expect them to do?



Psh... I don't know, geez. I'm just a lowly furfag that knows nothing about coding~ xP


----------



## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

mukichan said:


> But still, that's an awful lot of personal information even if it is 3 years or so old.



Well, that's the risk you take providing personal information to a website.


----------



## mukichan (Jul 2, 2008)

Pi said:


> Well, that's the risk you take providing personal information to a website.



Well then excuse me for being the most idiotic person on the planet. :/


----------



## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

mukichan said:


> Well then excuse me for being the most idiotic person on the planet. :/



Let's keep in mind that your email address is 1 click away right here? Mkay?


----------



## xionos (Jul 2, 2008)

yak said:


> I realize it will sound as an excuse right about now, but I will say it nontheless.
> 
> Yes, previously FA did not go down a much as it does this now. But the website was slow to the point where it was unusable, and was running on a rather badly written and optimized codebase. A lot of time was spent to make FA run on the same set of hardware  much faster then before, all that considering the site never stopped growing and had accumulated over 180% of the userbase and content of when I started working on it.



In the past year, FA ran like a stick of butter 90% of the time for me ( despite its bimonthly crash ). Browsing the site was quick, smooth, and has been quite enjoyable. Sure, your going to have to put a bit of time in the maintenance and upkeep of the site, not to mention tending to life's necessities. All in all, it's still no excuse.


----------



## Wolf_Fox_Guy (Jul 2, 2008)

mukichan said:


> But still, that's an awful lot of personal information even if it is 3 years or so old.


stuff like that is why I signed up using an email I dont use for anything else. everything on the email account is fake, and I never ever ever give it to anyoe for anything such as buisness. Its nto perfect but its a good first step.


----------



## DJDarkViper (Jul 2, 2008)

what sorta bothers me is the information was stored in a TXT file instead of a dedicated database like mysql lol i mean flatfile databases are cool n' all but not for login information, not only is that incredibly oldschool, and proven to be rather dangerous lol


----------



## mukichan (Jul 2, 2008)

Wolf_Fox_Guy said:


> stuff like that is why I signed up using an email I dont use for anything else. everything on the email account is fake, and I never ever ever give it to anyoe for anything such as buisness. Its nto perfect but its a good first step.



I don't even remember what email I had registered my account with before changing it a couple months ago to an email I still don't use that often.


----------



## ibengmainee (Jul 2, 2008)

I'd be willing to do art commissions and all the proceed go towards donating to the site. I'll even throw some of my own cash on top of it.

I absolutely love this site and I definately feel I need to give back to this site for all the exposure it has given me so far.

I would also like to put my 2 cents of saying I am all for the subscription idea. I understand there my be a loss in users but I have a slightly different purpose of using the site than to just log on to check out any new art that has been uploaded. This site gives me exposure to more people than FAP, Yiffstar, and others combined. Not to mention when I am looking through the browse option of what had been submitted since the last time I logged in. Im a little tired of having to browse through 7 pages oh mostly crap (I.E. pictures of peoples houses, cars, their pets, some little doodle they made on a stick-it note) to spot any pictures of actual importance.

Anywho, dont sweat over what some say. What you guys do for this site is more than I could ever do.


----------



## Houshou (Jul 2, 2008)

Manacat said:


> First of all, thanks for doing all of the work needed to keep the site running.  I'm sure it's maddening.
> 
> One thing I don't understand is why people are proposing software solutions to a hardware failure problem.  If there are server load issues slowing down the site due to inefficient software then expanding the hardware to fix that is indeed merely working around a problem with the software, but if the hardware is actually failing that is not a software problem.
> 
> ...



You sir, have never fixed an aircraft.

Airplanes break when:
They take off
They are in flight
They land
They are parked in a hangar and do nothing, and nothing is done to them, for more than 48 hours.

Only God knows why something can break when nothing, and I mean _nothing_ is being done. 

When you work in a job where all you do is 'repair' and make things work again. You really start to notice how, when shit breaks do to usage. It's the part that broke 98% of the time. But when shit breaks because it was sitting there doing nothing, and there is no god-awful reason as to why it broke...now your in for the job you'll never forget. And yes, the word and expression: _HOW THE FUCK?!_ is said every time something breaks when nothing human, natural, foreign, and/or otherwise happened to it.

I don't know how or why it is possible. But take it from me, it happens.


----------



## Redregon (Jul 2, 2008)

if it comes down to a "pay for service options" idea, i'd probably recommend something more along the lines of Deviantart rather than draconian rules pertaining to artists.

something like larger submission preview thumbnails, no limit to the size of the picture when viewing, weekly featured artists or submissions (with links to easy sales of prints through Rabbit Valley maybe) and a more robust feature set... 

and for free users, no thumbnail previews save for on the main and browse page? (this could cut down on the bandwidth use as well.) and smaller sized images on the pages.

and a monthly service fee would be a little bit much imo... i'd probably suggest something like a yearly subscription... that way it's less of a hassle for the user to re-sign up each month.

limiting submissions of an adult nature to paid users would be a very VERY quick way to kill the site entirely as i know enough people that would not want to have to shell out to post or view adult stuff, they'd just go elsewhere.


----------



## Rianu (Jul 2, 2008)

the same is likely to happen if the preview thumbnails are disabled for everyone - in my eyes that was one of the bigger advantages of furaffinity over deviantart


----------



## starlite528 (Jul 2, 2008)

selth said:


> what, who said solaris? yep, true, sparc can run 24-25 years without rebooting... but... look at the prices! and sun stopped them...



Whaddaya mean, Sun stopped them?  They certainly did not!
Read, under the list of procs;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARC


----------



## Grimfang (Jul 2, 2008)

I agree with Redregon.

FA could benefit from offering enhanced access or browsing with a small subscription. The donations barely trickle in, or so it seems. Keeping the site would be nice, but not if it's breaking the admins' and owners' backs. Implementing some extra services could provide an income boost for the site, but still make it essentially free for those who are unable or unwilling to pay for any kind of subscription service.

The only thing I'd hate to see (not that this whole thing is even being considered) is a way for artists to pay to be featured. I think dA had or has something like that..


----------



## yak (Jul 2, 2008)

xionos said:


> In the past year, FA ran like a stick of butter 90% of the time for me ( despite its bimonthly crash ). Browsing the site was quick, smooth, and has been quite enjoyable. Sure, your going to have to put a bit of time in the maintenance and upkeep of the site, not to mention tending to life's necessities. All in all, it's still no excuse.



I don't really like saying this as it will look like I'm boasting or something, but... I took a significant part in making sure that it does run well and that you have an enjoyable experience using the website as you did. You seem to be missing that fact.
The task included work in several fields simultaneously, managing and slowly redoing the structure of the database, rewriting the code and server maintenance.
FA's hardware never really was upgraded, and it was used by more and more people with every passing day. 

Also, woe is me I guess, I have no excuse for nor working on FA.



DJDarkViper said:


> what sorta bothers me is the information was stored in a TXT file instead of a dedicated database like mysql lol i mean flatfile databases are cool n' all but not for login information, not only is that incredibly oldschool, and proven to be rather dangerous lol


If you take a look at the dates of the files posted there, you would have much less to be bothered with.


----------



## nrr (Jul 2, 2008)

DJDarkViper said:


> what sorta bothers me is the information was stored in a TXT file instead of a dedicated database like mysql lol i mean flatfile databases are cool n' all but not for login information, not only is that incredibly oldschool, and proven to be rather dangerous lol


Two things.

The credentials were originally stored in a relational database, but this chunk of text you're talking about was generated by doing a quick last-minute dump of the appropriate tables and columns.

You're deluded and completely misled if you think that storing data, let alone login data, sanely (this is the key word) in a flat file database is any more dangerous than storing it in an RDBMS.  Clue: UNIX implementations still store user creds in /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow, and the NT SAM database is also a flat file database.  In a lot of cases, user preferences for applications (god, especially under OS X) are stored in XML, which can also be considered a flat file database with the appropriate schema in place.

(Disclaimer: I am being a complete and utter wiseass, but that's what you get for being imprecise and totally unspecific about your claims.)



starlite528 said:


> Whaddaya mean, Sun stopped them?  They certainly did not!
> Read, under the list of procs;
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARC


Sun's not thrashing their SPARC-powered computers as much as they were in the past.


----------



## hunterwolf (Jul 2, 2008)

Seems a lot of furs are irate about FA being down.  Lots of blame being thrown around, a lot of "You shoulda done this and that back then and not this."

Look, folks, FA is NOT a right.  Its a priviledge!!!  Think about it!

What do YOU have to give for access to FA?

Absolutely nothing.

What do the admins have to give for FA?

Time, money, resources.

So give these guys a break!!!!  They're dealing with all this angsty emo crap on top of trying to get FA back up and running

1) Best thing to do is sit back, be patient, and wait till these guys get FA back up and running!

2) Or quit whining and throw in some funds to help them out!

If you can do but ONE of those two things, awesome!  You're helping out!

If not, you're part of the problem!

Bottom line.  FA is free.  We pay nothing to access it, to use it. Ths means no one here has the right to go sniping at those trying to bring us back up to speed!


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jul 2, 2008)

Total Collected: 	
US $2,702.00

# of Payments: 	
114

Goal chart: 90%

Almost there!

=^.^=


----------



## xionos (Jul 2, 2008)

yak said:


> I don't really like saying this as it will look like I'm boasting or something, but... I took a significant part in making sure that it does run well and that you have an enjoyable experience using the website as you did. You seem to be missing that fact.
> The task included work in several fields simultaneously, managing and slowly redoing the structure of the database, rewriting the code and server maintenance.
> FA's hardware never really was upgraded, and it was used by more and more people with every passing day.
> 
> Also, woe is me I guess, I have no excuse for nor working on FA.



Without trying to spark an argument, why not put out a solid code first, then fix the bugs rather than rewriting as you go? What your doing is the same thing as releasing a piece of software in a beta stage, then step it up to the finished product when it's already commercially available. It just doesn't work like that. Your going to end up stressing over too many things at once to make it truly worth while...which from what I've gathered, is already the case.


----------



## Firehazard (Jul 2, 2008)

http://clanspum.net/~pi/fa/ said:
			
		

> Also, an edit as of 2007-03-10: FA and administration have failed to provide a compelling reason why the source code (.fpd files) are not under the GNU General Public License. I therefore refuse to remove the code, as said license permits me the right of redistribution.


Urm... wait.  Am I reading this right?  You have the right to redistribute the code under the open-source license, on the grounds that the code is _not_ open source?  In what freaky alternate universe does _that_ make sense?

As far as donations go: I think there ought to be one of those thermometer thingies on the site that shows what hardware we'd like to buy, how much it costs, and how close we are to meeting that cost.  Then people would get an idea of what's going on money-wise and have some idea where the money goes, not to mention an incentive to push the site's funds along a little more.


----------



## Arcturus (Jul 2, 2008)

The old FA codebase never used flat file DBs for -anything-


----------



## gravija (Jul 2, 2008)

im payment 115, 25 bux isnt much but its something n.n


----------



## xionos (Jul 2, 2008)

hunterwolf said:


> Seems a lot of furs are irate about FA being down.  Lots of blame being thrown around, a lot of "You shoulda done this and that back then and not this."
> 
> Look, folks, FA is NOT a right.  Its a priviledge!!!  Think about it!
> 
> ...



Same thing as access to Deviant Art, Furr Art Pile, Hentai Foundry, and VCL, but they don't go down as frequently and actually have near fully functional code.



hunterwolf said:


> What do the admins have to give for FA?
> 
> Time, money, resources.



That they get from donors



hunterwolf said:


> So give these guys a break!!!!  They're dealing with all this angsty emo crap on top of trying to get FA back up and running
> 
> 1) Best thing to do is sit back, be patient, and wait till these guys get FA back up and running!
> 
> 2) Or quit whining and throw in some funds to help them out!



3) Or make the point that they should have something more solid before allowing a massive community to swarm in and cause more stress on the server than what it can handle. Crap like this will cause the site to crash, then they will pour in hours and throw donor's money at the problem to fix it, then the users will get some upload and viewing time just to have the process repeat its self



hunterwolf said:


> If you can do but ONE of those two things, awesome!  You're helping out!
> 
> If not, you're part of the problem!
> 
> Bottom line.  FA is free.  We pay nothing to access it, to use it. Ths means no one here has the right to go sniping at those trying to bring us back up to speed!



Irates come with the job, I'm sure they can handle it. The site being free won't change this. If the mods really really wanted to get things up to speed, then they would have locked this thread already and started knuckling down to resolve the problem and get the site back up rahter than spending time in the forums.


----------



## Arshes Nei (Jul 2, 2008)

This is like... a really bad high school debate.


----------



## starlite528 (Jul 2, 2008)

Firehazard said:


> Urm... wait.  Am I reading this right?  You have the right to redistribute the code under the open-source license, on the grounds that the code is _not_ open source?  In what freaky alternate universe does _that_ make sense?
> 
> As far as donations go: I think there ought to be one of those thermometer thingies on the site that shows what hardware we'd like to buy, how much it costs, and how close we are to meeting that cost.  Then people would get an idea of what's going on money-wise and have some idea where the money goes, not to mention an incentive to push the site's funds along a little more.



That's what I'm thinking!  
First, the word "DOUCHEBAG" comes to mind.  Posting old code.
Second, the GPL only permits redistribution if it was originally under that license.  You can not simply declare private code as open source just because you feel like it, especially since it's not yours.  If that's your site, it would behoove you to take that down; you're opening yourself up to a lawsuit.


----------



## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

xionos said:


> Without trying to spark an argument, why not put out a solid code first, then fix the bugs rather than rewriting as you go? What your doing is the same thing as releasing a piece of software in a beta stage, then step it up to the finished product when it's already commercially available. It just doesn't work like that. Your going to end up stressing over too many things at once to make it truly worth while...which from what I've gathered, is already the case.



Because then you get whiny furries saying that your software will never come out.


----------



## Grimfang (Jul 2, 2008)

xionos said:


> That they get from donors



I'm more than willing to bet that the members complaining here are not the one's who were charitable enough to make such a donation.

You don't make demands with donations.


----------



## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

Firehazard said:


> Urm... wait.  Am I reading this right?  You have the right to redistribute the code under the open-source license, on the grounds that the code is _not_ open source?



No, I have the right to distribute the source because at one point they kept claiming that it isn't GPL, yet have *failed to provide proof otherwise.* It's  got copy/pasted chunks from GPL code, and it's also got GPL headers in some of the files.


----------



## Gutierrez (Jul 2, 2008)

Firehazard said:


> As far as donations go: I think there ought to be one of those thermometer thingies on the site that shows what hardware we'd like to buy, how much it costs, and how close we are to meeting that cost.  Then people would get an idea of what's going on money-wise and have some idea where the money goes, not to mention an incentive to push the site's funds along a little more.



I think that's a great idea.  It gives more visibility to what the site needs and where the money is going.  It also offers at least a sense of responsibility on the admins side to use it where they're saying they will.  Besides, I'd love to see the art concepts that people could come up with to visualize how funding is coming along.


----------



## Eevee (Jul 2, 2008)

starlite528 said:


> Second, the GPL only permits redistribution if it was originally under that license.  You can not simply declare private code as open source just because you feel like it, especially since it's not yours.  If that's your site, it would behoove you to take that down; you're opening yourself up to a lawsuit.


Supposedly FA's code was originally based on an old old project of Alkora's that was GPL.  Since it was a derivative and was not relicensed until _after_ the leak, Pi has a decent argument that his copy is GPL.



Pi said:


> Because then you get whiny furries saying that your software will never come out.


.


----------



## YuchiDaYena (Jul 2, 2008)

hunterwolf said:


> Seems a lot of furs are irate about FA being down.  Lots of blame being thrown around, a lot of "You shoulda done this and that back then and not this."
> 
> Look, folks, FA is NOT a right.  Its a priviledge!!!  Think about it!
> 
> ...



Amen :3


----------



## starlite528 (Jul 2, 2008)

Pi said:


> No, I have the right to distribute the source because at one point they kept claiming that it isn't GPL, yet have *failed to provide proof otherwise.* It's  got copy/pasted chunks from GPL code, and it's also got GPL headers in some of the files.



Not having a license attached doesn't mean you can put one of your own on, period.

Just because a file or two might have a GPL header does not automatically cover the rest.


----------



## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

starlite528 said:


> Not having a license attached doesn't mean you can put one of your own on, period.
> 
> Just because a file or two might have a GPL header does not automatically cover the rest.



When the files are clearly derivative works (which is something that FA in general apparently has a problem understanding), you are wrong.


----------



## Magnus (Jul 2, 2008)

YuchiDaYena said:


> Amen :3



Amen to your Amen <3


----------



## Pinkuh (Jul 2, 2008)

xionos said:


> Irates come with the job, I'm sure they can handle it. The site being free won't change this. If the mods really really wanted to get things up to speed, then they would have locked this thread already and started knuckling down to resolve the problem and get the site back up rahter than spending time in the forums.



Actually we are totally SOL until we get the hardware to fix things. Hardware that we are currently in the process of getting money for... that hasn't been ordered yet. So I suggest that you get off your high horse and look at this situation with some logic. 

We are spending time in the forums and reading this thread because despite what users may think at this point we care GREATLY for this website. I don't know of any better group of people that put up with the daily BS we get for free. We watch, build, and make this site out of love for the community, and nothing else. We don't get paid, we have lives, jobs, yet every day we are on here trying to make this place better for all the users as a whole.

Do you think we LIKE being down? Do you think for some reason that we get our jolly's off by making the user base suffer? All of the admins/coders on this website are more nervous and more angry at this happening then the users could ever fathom. This is our baby, we want to raise it right, But much like a real child there are developmental hitches that we all have to deal with, and this happens to be one of them.

Deal with it or leave.


----------



## YuchiDaYena (Jul 2, 2008)

While I do say it'd be nice to have this and that. 

I also need to say guys, lighten up a little, the admins are not tryign to be elitists, they're trying to do the best they can, I'd say try to appreciate the fact that they are doing this for you. They don't HAVE to do this, you know? 
But they brought you a place just for you, and just because it goes down alot doesn't mean it's the admins fault. 

Have you ever stopped to think that the FA staff is spending  time that they dont' have to, and money that they could be using for their own personal use to bring you something? 
I'm not trying to start drama, just sharing my own opinion.


----------



## Arcturus (Jul 2, 2008)

starlite528 said:


> Not having a license attached doesn't mean you can put one of your own on, period.
> 
> Just because a file or two might have a GPL header does not automatically cover the rest.



Good portions of the code were taken from GPL licenced software.

As per GPL rules, that means the entire code is under the GPL. (To the best of my knowledge.)

Plus, the parts of which I wrote, I treated as being under the GPL like the rest of it.

So..

HOWEVER:

Pi should take down the database dumps. Those are -not- distributable, like the code is.


----------



## Eevee (Jul 2, 2008)

Arcturus said:


> HOWEVER:
> 
> Pi should take down the database dumps. Those are -not- distributable, like the code is.


well, now the "Pi doesn't give a fuck" factor comes into play...


----------



## pikachu_electricmouse (Jul 2, 2008)

Tired of people being dicks?  Try new BANHAMMER(tm)!

Seriously, if I was admin and I had people giving me shit like this, they'd be gone.  There's no excuse for giving the admins grief over what is essentially a free service.


----------



## oCe (Jul 2, 2008)

I'm sure I'll be drowned out in all the off-topic chatter, but I just thought I'd put in another vote for 'subscription service!' I'd pay $5 or $10 a month for 'premium FA' in a second, especially if it meant a reliable revenue stream leading to better site upkeep/uptime!


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## xionos (Jul 2, 2008)

Pinkuh said:


> Actually we are totally SOL until we get the hardware to fix things. Hardware that we are currently in the process of getting money for... that hasn't been ordered yet. So I suggest that you get off your high horse and look at this situation with some logic.
> 
> We are spending time in the forums and reading this thread because despite what users may think at this point we care GREATLY for this website. I don't know of any better group of people that put up with the daily BS we get for free. We watch, build, and make this site out of love for the community, and nothing else. We don't get paid, we have lives, jobs, yet every day we are on here trying to make this place better for all the users as a whole.
> 
> ...



No one likes your site being down, that's why they're here. You also gotta keep in mind that business is done through your site, mostly via the note system. If FA is down, then so is the note system. This means that business arrangements has to manage, through extremely limited contact, to find a way to continue. Most people have two emails, one for their personal email, one for paypal emails. Having said that, it's possible that if I go and commission an artist and send money to their paypal account, I won't be able to get a hold of them until the site is back up.

Not only that, but certain hardware issues reared its ugly head just a couple weeks ago. One would think that you guys would have been thorough enough to make sure everything was ok. Having said that, if this is an entirely new hardware related issue, then I could understand...but given how long it had been since the last hardware issue, I strongly doubt that to be the case.

I'm not here to be negative, or even positive. I'm saying it how it is, if a bit too strongly. Sorry you don't see it that way.


----------



## pikachu_electricmouse (Jul 2, 2008)

Daym!  Over $1000 more raised on amazon last night since I donated myself.  Hopefully this means we get the good server.


----------



## Ceceil Felias (Jul 2, 2008)

Eevee said:


> well, now the "Pi doesn't give a fuck" factor comes into play...


In which case the "Pi shouldn't get away with being able to not give a fuck" factor is very apparent.


----------



## Lt_Havoc (Jul 2, 2008)

So, can anyone at least tell me, what is borken? Hardware failure can mean everything, from broken HDS, to kaputt CPUs, to exploded power supplies etc. So, what IS broken and why cant it be simply changed? I mean, I said eariler that you people made mantaince just shortly after the whole server was moved to another location and it was working. 

So, what happend? Overlooked the posasible malfunction of certain hardware? Its just hard to belive that thing get broken from one moment to another without any sign of the forbodding malfunction. 

Again, how much will a new server cost anyway? 7000 Dollar or more? And what brand will you guys get? 

IÂ´m just puzzeld that it was happeing now, after all the other faliures the site had in the last months. Maybe that was the indication that something might go wrong soon? 

As I said, I expect the site to be offline for at least, 4 weeks if not longer. Bulding a server is a time consuming process and first you need the parts, so delivery time must be caluclated too and then we first need the cash and that will also take some time until the amount of cash is there. 

Cant the time be used to get Ferrox done so it can be installed and used with the new server?


----------



## Eevee (Jul 2, 2008)

Lt_Havoc said:


> Cant the time be used to get Ferrox done so it can be installed and used with the new server?


What?  Ferrox development is going to go at the same speed regardless of whether or not the site is up.


----------



## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> In which case the "Pi shouldn't get away with being able to not give a fuck" factor is very apparent.



Eh, people argued me into taking the database down. I might strip the data out for interoperability purposes, but the code is staying up.


----------



## Veritas (Jul 2, 2008)

Far as I know the problem was exactly that they couldn't tell WHAT the problem was, the difficulty being a sporadic one.

Anyway...

Here's the devil's deal about paying for the service - either on a mandatory or a donation basis:

Whatever the reasons behind it, FurAffinity has a woeful reliability record. Yes, it's a busy site, but so is Slashdot... and, at least as significantly, a number of the problems have seemed to be stuff that just plain shouldn't happen, or at least shouldn't last nearly as long(more than twelve hours to get in touch with the colo?!).

If I could be assured that sinking money into it would help with the reliability problems, I might consider seeing what I can scrounge up(which would not be much, mind, but the usual argument about "everybody chip in $1" still holds).

Given how many times we've been told that such-and-such change or upgrade is the end of FA downtimes... this would be a very hard assurance to believe.


----------



## Pinkuh (Jul 2, 2008)

xionos said:


> No one likes your site being down, that's why they're here. You also gotta keep in mind that business is done through your site, mostly via the note system. If FA is down, then so is the note system. This means that business arrangements has to manage, through extremely limited contact, to find a way to continue. Most people have two emails, one for their personal email, one for paypal emails. Having said that, it's possible that if I go and commission an artist and send money to their paypal account, I won't be able to get a hold of them until the site is back up.
> 
> Not only that, but certain hardware issues reared its ugly head just a couple weeks ago. One would think that you guys would have been thorough enough to make sure everything was ok. Having said that, if this is an entirely new hardware related issue, then I could understand...but given how long it had been since the last hardware issue, I strongly doubt that to be the case.
> 
> I'm not here to be negative, or even positive. I'm saying it how it is, if a bit too strongly. Sorry you don't see it that way.



Do you think we don't know that?

I personally have business arrangements on the site too... before I am an admin I am a user, and I am in the same boat as EVERYONE. We are WELL AWARE of all the issues regarding FA's downtime because it effects us ALL exactly in the same way it effects the users. So by "Telling" us these "Problems" you are being completely redundant and not helpful in the least. We KNOW about the personal issues people have with the site being down.

You know what they say about assuming things? It makes an "ass" out of "u" and "me"

As far as "New hardware issue" Yes it is NEW hence the reason we didn't know Diddly squat about it till it hit us.

Hard drives fail for no reason, Power supplies Short out for no reason, Things happen spontaneously and For the life of us we could have checked this yesterday before the site would have gone off and we STILL wouldn't have had any warning. You are asking us to be able to "Tell" what problems are going to happen before they do, and I am sorry, but thats impossible.

again Logic is key here. Before jumping down our throats for things out of our control think a little first.


----------



## xionos (Jul 2, 2008)

Veritas said:


> Far as I know the problem was exactly that they couldn't tell WHAT the problem was, the difficulty being a sporadic one.
> 
> Anyway...
> 
> ...



Hardware issues happen, but not without warning ( save for some extreme physical impact or surge ). Parts will either start to over heat, click, not produce enough watts/amps, or whatever. Stuff like this is just plain hard to miss. If a hard drive starts to go out, it will start to hang with the seek, the spindles will click, then resume before going kaput. In the case of overheating, the parts will initially shut down before frying. Powersupplies will either start to push out more watts/amps before blowing up OR will start to produce less and less watts/amps, causing instability in the system before simply dying out.

These things, if paid attention to and cared for, is easy to avoid. It's just that simple

Edit: 





Pinkuh said:


> As far as "New hardware issue" Yes it is NEW hence the reason we didn't know Diddly squat about it till it hit us.
> 
> Hard drives fail for no reason, Power supplies Short out for no reason, Things happen spontaneously and For the life of us we could have checked this yesterday before the site would have gone off and we STILL wouldn't have had any warning. You are asking us to be able to "Tell" what problems are going to happen before they do, and I am sorry, but thats impossible.



Sorry but no. Anyone with basic knowledge of computer hardware will know this. Saying "something breaks without reason" is merely shifting the blame. If I told a mechanic that my car's engine blew up or my transmission fell out for no good reason and without warning, they would laugh.

See the body above my quoting you


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 2, 2008)

Pi said:


> Like a tape drive?



On the order of terabytes?

d.m.f.


----------



## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

dmfalk said:


> On the order of terabytes?
> 
> d.m.f.



If you are who I think you are you should know this answer already. If not, yhbt yhl hand.


----------



## Donryu (Jul 2, 2008)

After lightly perusing the pages I just have a little input here.  I'm sure it will be lightly passed over or deemed irrelevent but I figured it was important.


As per what I have seen there seem to be quite a bit of complaints directed toward the people running the site.  "Why can't they work faster!?"

"Help me!"

While the site isn't run by everyone, it does however belong to everyone who is involved in the site.  Outtages are to be expected when you have really just a small group of people doing this.  This isn't a multimillion dollar corporation in which they have the time and money in order to do this.  Most of these people are doing this out of the free time of their day in order to make this site work.  

I don't wish to sound like some certain president, but since it does belong to you, why not take ownership.  Instead of insisting that the moderators and technicians move their butts, how about you ask instead "What can I do?"  

This question will not only get an answer but will surely speed up this process of repair.  They have also in fact stated what they need.  Donations!  Every little bit counts, so why not contribute?  you know there's a lot of people on this site.  One dollar from every user would surely be more than enough.  

  Instead of complaining about the problem, be part of the solution.


----------



## MooglyGuy (Jul 2, 2008)

$250 via PayPal, only wish my tax rebate check was in so I could chip in more


----------



## Lt_Havoc (Jul 2, 2008)

What is "yhbt yhl hand"? What the hell is that suppose to mean?


----------



## Firehazard (Jul 2, 2008)

Another point: I would make sure there's some kind of long-term guarantee on any server you buy, even if you have to pay extra for it.  From the kind of luck you guys seem to have with hardware, it sounds like it would be worth the extra dough.  It sure would have been worth it last time.

Refresh my memory: What all hardware do you guys have right now, when did you get it, and what is/was it used for?


----------



## gliengul (Jul 2, 2008)

xionos said:


> Sorry but no. Anyone with basic knowledge of computer hardware will know this. Saying "something breaks without reason" is merely shifting the blame. If I told a mechanic that my car's engine blew up or my transmission fell out for no good reason and without warning, they would laugh.



It is not unusual for certain parts of a computer to go without a detectable warning. Harddrives click, Power supplies get a subtle dissonant hum and boot sequences start to have strange pauses in odd parts of the BIOS initialization, but just as often the chipset will decide it doesn't want to initialize or a drive just won't spin-up.

The staff cannot reasonably be expected to monitor the microscopic subtleties of hardware that is many miles from their homes and under the care of colo techs.
The very same colo techs that can hear a thousand little 60mm fans spinning in unison and little else aside from their boss cranking at them for fussing over some server too much.

To put it in short, many computer components on a server with little or no on-site supervision can blow without giving any sort of detectable warning and they do so with a dependable enough frequency that most server parts are marked with a MTBF(Mean time Between Failures) value.

The only real failing in the FA community has been a lack of drive to put up enough funds so that there can be some amount of redundancy in the site's hardware to allow for fault-tolerance.

That being said I'll be making a much-belated donation come payday.


----------



## Eevee (Jul 2, 2008)

Lt_Havoc said:


> What is "yhbt yhl hand"? What the hell is that suppose to mean?


you have been trolled you have lost have a nice day


----------



## xionos (Jul 2, 2008)

gliengul said:


> It is not unusual for certain parts of a computer to go without a detectable warning. Harddrives click, Power supplies get a subtle dissonant hum and boot sequences start to have strange pauses in odd parts of the BIOS initialization, but just as often the chipset will decide it doesn't want to initialize or a drive just won't spin-up.
> 
> The staff cannot reasonably be expected to monitor the microscopic subtleties of hardware that is many miles from their homes and under the care of colo techs.
> The very same colo techs that can hear a thousand little 60mm fans spinning in unison and little else aside from their boss cranking at them for fussing over some server too much.
> ...



Given how much more often FA's server has had a "Hardware Fault" ( and the frequency between said faults ) than other large communities and the servers they're being hosted on, it's a much bigger issue than them not being able to routinely check the condition of the server.


----------



## ArielMT (Jul 2, 2008)

yak said:


> Okay, folks, seriously, you all are the weirdest group of people I ever had seen.


There was doubt about that before?


----------



## icehawk (Jul 2, 2008)

Firehazard said:


> Another point: I would make sure there's some kind of long-term guarantee on any server you buy, even if you have to pay extra for it.  From the kind of luck you guys seem to have with hardware, it sounds like it would be worth the extra dough.  It sure would have been worth it last time.



That sort of thing can get expensive very quickly. Configuring the cheapest dell server possible adding anything beyond their basic next-day support can cost anywhere from $149 to $899.


----------



## Ceceil Felias (Jul 2, 2008)

Pi said:


> Eh, people argued me into taking the database down. I might strip the data out for interoperability purposes, but the code is staying up.


Good enough.  That was my main gripe about the whole thing. Outdated source code? Meh.


----------



## drpepperfiend (Jul 2, 2008)

gravija said:


> i wish i knew about this about an hour earlier . . . . . . maybe i need to get into school again and get the proper papers i need to be able to do this professionally, rather than a side job that i currently perform now. Thank you for all yer hard work, admins. yall desrve a break. So peeps, these guys ( whoever is involved other than Dragoneer ) are doing their best, let them be and allow them to maximise their time and effort in getting done what needs to be done. I think i need ot start learning some coding too. LOL I basically excell in troublshooting and physical repair. just no soldering . . . i cant solder worth crap LOL



Listen... i'm not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to software, though I'd put myself next to the rake and shovel.   On the flipside I've built multiple computers from parts, multiple simple robots from scratch, and I made my friend's idea for hardware that didn't exist real by SOLDERING a shitton of stuff.  If you point and tell me where I can solder damn near anything to damn near anything else without frying it.  

Still.  I think the BEST and most probable solution is to donate $$.  i just got my very first paycheck, and I'm opening an account today, but it's gonna take time for me to set up paypal having done it only once before and with issues.  Do I have to do that thing with paypal where they give me, like, 8 cents and 3 cents and I tell them how much?  I don't trust bank computers to help me so soon...  The money's coming, just give me a week.


----------



## Arshes Nei (Jul 2, 2008)

High School debates continue after Post #374


----------



## Dragoneer (Jul 2, 2008)

xionos said:


> One would think that you guys would have been thorough enough to make sure everything was ok. Having said that, if this is an entirely new hardware related issue, then I could understand...but given how long it had been since the last hardware issue, I strongly doubt that to be the case.


A harddrive is much different from a circuit problem. And we are working to fix this the PROPER way right now.



Arshes Nei said:


> High School debates continue after Post #374


Ahh shit, it was a trap.


----------



## STrRedWolf (Jul 2, 2008)

OUCH!  I hear 'ya Dragoneer.  We (at Keenspot) suffered similarly -- from crappy ISP's to crappy hardware.  Next thing we'll know, you're getting a 8-core 16 Gig RAM 1.5 TB storage system for FA's Data server.

Keep up the good fight.


----------



## cesarin (Jul 2, 2008)

yoo drago, I wonder if you have bad luck or something lol
you just come back from FA to face yet another crash :/


maybe you need to get into a church and ask for a "cleaning"


----------



## Deltaru (Jul 2, 2008)

cesarin said:


> yoo drago, I wonder if you have bad luck or something lol
> you just come back from FA to face yet another crash :/
> 
> 
> maybe you need to get into a church and ask for a "cleaning"



You can't do that! They'll exorcise him! Send him to hell! D: Poor Dragoneer D:


----------



## xionos (Jul 2, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> A harddrive is much different from a circuit problem. And we are working to fix this the PROPER way right now.
> 
> 
> Ahh shit, it was a trap.



True, though it's common sense to check to see if there was any specific cause to the hard drive failure, and to check to see if other parts are working properly on such a large system so that another hardware failure doesn't happen two weeks later.

I'm not blaming you or anything. Hardware can be quite the tricky SOB and expensive from time to time. Which is why spending more time to make sure that everything is in order is so important. I hope people understand why I'm putting an emphasis on keeping up with high priority and heavily taxed hardware/equipment



Arshes Nei said:


> High School debates continue after Post #374



Everything before too! Welcome to the furry community ;3


----------



## mukichan (Jul 2, 2008)

cesarin said:


> maybe you need to get into a church and ask for a "cleaning"



oh... my... god... Best comment ever~ xD LMAO!


----------



## soundwave (Jul 2, 2008)

Why dont you just try getting a Canadian Server to Host FA, i know the downtime is..well almost never from experience, also alot cheaper than the US bullcrap servers that they do not Maintain properly, Thus your hardware Defect at this moment in time.


----------



## yak (Jul 2, 2008)

Lt_Havoc said:


> So, can anyone at least tell me, what is borken? Hardware failure can mean everything, from broken HDS, to kaputt CPUs, to exploded power supplies etc. So, what IS broken and why cant it be simply changed? I mean, I said eariler that you people made mantaince just shortly after the whole server was moved to another location and it was working.
> 
> So, what happend? Overlooked the posasible malfunction of certain hardware? Its just hard to belive that thing get broken from one moment to another without any sign of the forbodding malfunction.
> 
> ...





STrRedWolf said:


> OUCH!  I hear 'ya Dragoneer.  We (at Keenspot) suffered similarly -- from crappy ISP's to crappy hardware.  Next thing we'll know, you're getting a 8-core 16 Gig RAM 1.5 TB storage system for FA's Data server.
> 
> Keep up the good fight.



We are actually looking for two physical servers we will use for dedicated tasks

WWW server
8 physical cores
4Gb RAM
2x80GB SATA drives for OS and logs

DATA server
two physical cores
16+Gb of RAM for filesystem cache
4x1TB Western Digital drives, 3x in RAID5, 1x for backups and logs

Rough guesstimate is $6-7k.

WE will probably be waiting for the money from the donation drive until we can afford it, but no more then several days. We have some money in reserve, so the goal of the drive is not $6-7k, but less.


----------



## Takun Lion (Jul 2, 2008)

SOMEBODY TOLD ME...


----------



## Redregon (Jul 2, 2008)

you know, for one i see a lot of people getting in a tizzy... relax, your pr0n will be back. patience, grasshopper, patience. grumbling about it is only going to make you look like a tard. let them do the work they need to do.

and secondly, considering the expected length of the downtime, do you think it would be possible to run a beta test of ferrox (restricted to a handful of users and a handful of submissions) to see if it would work on a small chunk of this server?

i mean, yes, the outage sucks that it's driving all the complainers out in the open, but also, this could be considered a boon in a way. i mean, a fresh new server, a long enough downtime, a chance to get the pieces put back together the way that y'all (admins and such) want...

yeah, i know, this could be a "pie in the sky" idea, but opportunity often comes on the tail of conflict.


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## Gutierrez (Jul 2, 2008)

The $3K goal has been met!  No, wait, we're rapidly approaching the goal of $4K!


----------



## Redregon (Jul 2, 2008)

soundwave said:


> Why dont you just try getting a Canadian Server to Host FA, i know the downtime is..well almost never from experience, also alot cheaper than the US bullcrap servers that they do not Maintain properly, Thus your hardware Defect at this moment in time.



there would be a slight issue with that...

how much of the content on FA would be considered illegal under canadian law? (if the server resides in canada, it's subject to canadian jurisdiction)

yes, i love my country, but even i have to admit that we're a little backwards in some areas. (afaik, laws against sodomy are still in the books... just in a chapter no-one really dares read nowadays.)


----------



## Wolf_Fox_Guy (Jul 2, 2008)

yak said:


> We are actually looking for two physical servers we will use for dedicated tasks
> 
> WWW server
> 8 physical cores
> ...



so how much is actully needed?


----------



## soundwave (Jul 2, 2008)

its not considered Illegal, iv talked to a company that doesnt care. lol. Anyways theres no problem with it. iv talked to the companies on the Phone and Online. Most dont Care, as long as they aremaking money really.


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

yak said:


> Okay, folks, seriously, you all are the weirdest group of people I ever had seen.



Internet Rule #28: "There will always be more [CENSORED] up stuff than what you just saw."


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 2, 2008)

Eevee said:


> you have been trolled you have lost have a nice day



And one who trolls is only as good as his word.

d.m.f.


----------



## Dragoneer (Jul 2, 2008)

xionos said:


> True, though it's common sense to check to see if there was any specific cause to the hard drive failure, and to check to see if other parts are working properly on such a large system so that another hardware failure doesn't happen two weeks later.


The hardware failure was in the DB server, and the drive still worked, but it was starting to generate errors. We saw the telltale signs of impending doom, and we rushed out to fix it.

So we are watching.

These other glitches are something different, are not repeatable and given that, it's much harder to test. We know what to look for, but the problem is identifying it. In our case, it was subtle for a while... then started to trigger out of the blue.

We are working to rectify that.


----------



## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 2, 2008)

First, let me sum up this thread: It started off with some newbs asking, "Hey what happened?", then for each single post asking what happened, we seem to be getting about 500 posts of_, *"ARRRRRRGHHH DIE INFIDEL BE THANKFUL FOR WHAT YOU GET* (even though you don't right now)!!!!!!!"_. Just saying, this takes a lot of energy from everybody and distracts people from seeking for answers regarding the funding or seeing the ideas some people have come up with.

If you feel somebody is "trolling" FA, there's a very simple rule on the internet: Don't feed the trolls, okay?

Anyway, that out of the way:

a.) *Donations.* Everybody keeps talking about donations. While I find the thermometer a nice optical gimmick that might actually help a little bit...I mean c'mon people, we're effectively talking about CHARITY here! And we all know _charity_ alone hardly gives us not even a tenth of the funding we need for whatever we're doing, be it AIDS prevention, cancer research, or building and maintaining servers.

b.) *Mandatory fees.* Bullshit, as others have said. We're getting all this for free, and if that'd change, either for everybody or just for artists, it'll only initiate a mass exodus. Not to mention EU fraud legislation if TOS would suddenly change for everybody having joined before the change.

c.) *"Special features"*, aka "luxury bling-bling for your money", be it t-shirts or special coding or customization features. Certainly not a thing for the masses, and just a few people interested won't be worth much of the effort, certainly not at this time. Not to mention some, maybe most of the listed wish lists of "special customization features" wanted here would only cause even more trouble than we already have with this current setup.

Therefore:

d.) *Create a standard one-click payment service such as eGold for FA commissions, and automatically take percentages for FA.* If it's only a few cents per transaction, it'll be a classic win-win situation: The individual funding sponsors will hardly even notice, while the sheer amount of commissions everyday on FA will create a funding that FA never even dreamt of before. Just tell people it all goes into site maintenance, and nobody will even care. Much more reliable and stable than mere charity funding even.

I realize that while the site is down right now, donations are the only way to bring it back. But as soon as it'll be back up, the first thing you guys should be looking into is talking to eGold. And even if eGold won't cooperate, I'm willing to bet that the effort of really creating something like FurFund(tm) as an anonymous one-click payment service for furries will prove a true gold mine for the person getting it done first.


----------



## TheSnowedOne (Jul 2, 2008)

Well I hope it goes well; I know I've done my little bit and threw a few dollars in the server fund direction.   I hope others do too.  FA is too valuable of a service for the community.

In regards to income suggestions I did like two of the ones mentioned above:



Daddy Ducky BE said:


> a.) *Donations.* Everybody keeps talking about donations. While I find the thermometer a nice optical gimmick that might actually help a little bit...I mean c'mon people, we're effectively talking about CHARITY here! And we all know _charity_ alone hardly gives us not even a tenth of the funding we need for whatever we're doing, be it AIDS prevention, cancer research, or building and maintaining servers.
> 
> c.) *"Special features"*, aka "luxury bling-bling for your money", be it t-shirts or special coding or customization features. Certainly not a thing for the masses, and just a few people interested won't be worth much of the effort, certainly not at this time. Not to mention some, maybe most of the listed wish lists of "special customization features" wanted here would only cause even more trouble than we already have with this current setup.



I think both of these could work well and encourage furs to do more; even if it is just something like extra avatar space or a little paw beside their name as a donator.   The important thing is to keep the site free for access - since this is how a majority of artists are able to get the attention they need to do art.   As for adding a payment option.. most of the artists I know barely scrape by as it is; taking more out of their meagre pockets would only make them go elsewhere - or certainly organise commisions via alternative sites.


----------



## Kathera lockharte (Jul 2, 2008)

well I hope the recovery for our beloved gallery is fast and painless for all, also I might know what Could have fubared the hardware, me and a few friends of mine are suspecting that the server could have been hacked, not saying that its the definite cause, but its a possible cause, pm me to learn more about my speculations and why I believe this to be a possible cause.


----------



## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

Kathera lockharte said:


> well I hope the recovery for our beloved gallery is fast and painless for all, also I might know what Could have fubared the hardware, me and a few friends of mine are suspecting that the server could have been hacked, not saying that its the definite cause, but its a possible cause, pm me to learn more about my speculations and why I believe this to be a possible cause.



... you're not serious.

You can't be serious. Like really. ...

.. you're serious.


----------



## xionos (Jul 2, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> The hardware failure was in the DB server, and the drive still worked, but it was starting to generate errors. We saw the telltale signs of impending doom, and we rushed out to fix it.
> 
> So we are watching.
> 
> ...



Word ^^


----------



## nrr (Jul 2, 2008)

Kathera lockharte said:


> me and a few friends of mine are suspecting that the server could have been hacked


Two things.

Learn some grammar.  _*My friends and I* are suspecting that the server could have been hacked._

You know nothing about computers.  Please get out of my pool.


----------



## gliengul (Jul 2, 2008)

xionos said:


> Given how much more often FA's server has had a "Hardware Fault" ( and the frequency between said faults ) than other large communities and the servers they're being hosted on, it's a much bigger issue than them not being able to routinely check the condition of the server.



If I remember correctly DA had a similar list of downtimes with descriptions that seemed unrealistic not so long ago. It seems to just be one of those growing pains that free art sites go through.


----------



## Dragoneer (Jul 2, 2008)

Kathera lockharte said:


> well I hope the recovery for our beloved gallery is fast and painless for all, also I might know what Could have fubared the hardware, me and a few friends of mine are suspecting that the server could have been hacked, not saying that its the definite cause, but its a possible cause, pm me to learn more about my speculations and why I believe this to be a possible cause.


It wasn't hacked. We've been hacked before. Hell, even I've had my account jacked (oh, for shaaame!) and each time we've been like _"SUP! Bad shit went down. Here's what happened. Tatonka."_

This is a hardware issue. Annoying, aggravating and awful. But not a hack, far from it.


----------



## Kathera lockharte (Jul 2, 2008)

Daddy Ducky BE said:


> First, let me sum up this thread: It started off with some newbs asking, "Hey what happened?", then for each single post asking what happened, we seem to be getting about 500 posts of_, *"ARRRRRRGHHH DIE INFIDEL BE THANKFUL FOR WHAT YOU GET* (even though you don't right now)!!!!!!!"_. Just saying, this takes a lot of energy from everybody and distracts people from seeking for answers regarding the funding or seeing the ideas some people have come up with.
> 
> If you feel somebody is "trolling" FA, there's a very simple rule on the internet: Don't feed the trolls, okay?
> 
> ...


I can agree with the trolling part, trolls feed off of attention as much as a drama whore does. as for the repairs, donations are  nice but I can agree, they don't go far, as for the EGold service, I think thats a very VERY good idea, just think, a small percentage of all commissions made to an artist who is sponsoring the service will go to the website, I can agree that each day millions of commissions are made, so even if its a a dollar exempted from the final price, which might result in a slight increase in commission fees, but it will be worth paying a dollar extra on that awesome art commission from your favorite artist.


----------



## Terrkall (Jul 2, 2008)

I still love you guys.


----------



## TheSnowedOne (Jul 2, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> It wasn't hacked. We've been hacked before. Hell, even I've had my account jacked (oh, for shaaame!) and each time we've been like _"SUP! Bad shit went down. Here's what happened. Tatonka."_
> 
> This is a hardware issue. Annoying, aggravating and awful. But not a hack, far from it.



Must be the month for hardware issues; Alicorn (one of the Furnet servers) has a couple of half-dead drives in it causing all sorts of fun issues; it is still limping at the moment whilst we gear up to move to a new server for it (if only IRC services got these things called 'donations' - we just get trolls and irate users complaining how we are not available 24/7 to answer their every call - I dont suppose you want to swap? ).

It is always curious though how the 'oh they were hacked' line does seem to come up whenever any server has an issue these days; regardless of if there is any evidence or not.


----------



## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 2, 2008)

TheSnowedOne said:


> I think both of these could work well and encourage furs to do more; even if it is just something like extra avatar space or a little paw beside their name as a donator.   The important thing is to keep the site free for access - since this is how a majority of artists are able to get the attention they need to do art.



I'm not saying remove the donation button. I'm just saying we shouldn't rely on charity alone.

When it comes to wish lists, I'm afraid FA can't afford to care about special demands right now, also regarding how much more special features would task the currently fragile hardware, including on uploading, downloading, and server access issues, and how much more coding time would be going into it that seems better off spent for other things right now. It's what FA could be looking forward to when things are running smoothly and steady significant funding will be in, which, speaking from experience, they probably won't be doing even when FA will be up again in a week or two.



TheSnowedOne said:


> As for adding a payment option.. most of the artists I know barely scrape by as it is; taking more out of their meagre pockets would only make them go elsewhere - or certainly organise commisions via alternative sites.



I've said it before. Is it really so bad to only get $9.95 out of your $10 commission? $99.75 out of your $100 commission? We're talking about cents per individual transaction here.


----------



## DolphinAMD (Jul 2, 2008)

Hmm...I just checked the FA site and I got a 403 Forbidden.  Is the server back up?  It used to be a unable to connect message.


----------



## ArÃ©a_Colath (Jul 2, 2008)

_Hello my Dear Friends at FA! If I had the money I would buy you the same kind the the gov uses and only ask for a smile as you have brought more then one smile to me. But I am on a fixed income and bearely live from month to month. May the Goddess help you in this time of need!_
*ArÃ©a Colath*http://forums.furaffinity.net/member.php?u=9076


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## Selunca (Jul 2, 2008)

Best wishes to the staff on getting it fixed, and the site will be missed while its down.
I'd donate but at the moment I barely am managing myself.
GOOD LUCK!


----------



## hiphopopotimus (Jul 2, 2008)

Kathera lockharte said:


> I might know what Could have fubared the hardware, me and a few friends of mine are suspecting that the server could have been hacked



Like with a hatchet?


----------



## TheSnowedOne (Jul 2, 2008)

Daddy Ducky BE said:


> I'm not saying remove the donation button. I'm just saying we shouldn't rely on charity alone.


Oh that's obvious and perhaps I should have clarified that better.



Daddy Ducky BE said:


> When it comes to wish lists, I'm afraid FA can't afford to care about special demands right now, also regarding how much more special features would task the currently fragile hardware, including on uploading, downloading, and server access issues, and how much more coding time would be going into it that seems better off spent for other things right now. It's what FA could be looking forward to when things are running smoothly and steady significant funding will be in, which, speaking from experience, they probably won't be doing even when FA will be up again in a week or two.


I understand where you are coming from.  For one thing these 'special demands' can wait - priorities first.   They were just ideas for generating further income and also do not have to be huge either.   Im sure there are many simple 'little things' that could be set up - I do not think there is a need for subscription bonuses to be ground-breaking/huge.



Daddy Ducky BE said:


> I've said it before. Is it really so bad to only get $9.95 out of your $10 commission? $99.75 out of your $100 commission? We're talking about cents per individual transaction here.


Personally no.  But Im not a struggling artist.  And I know people who really would miss that extra few cents or so.    Id rather not be taxing the artist community.


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## Satan (Jul 2, 2008)

May it all come crashing down, as it was meant to be.


----------



## Kathera lockharte (Jul 2, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> It wasn't hacked. We've been hacked before. Hell, even I've had my account jacked (oh, for shaaame!) and each time we've been like _"SUP! Bad shit went down. Here's what happened. Tatonka."_
> 
> This is a hardware issue. Annoying, aggravating and awful. But not a hack, far from it.


ah I see, well thanks for telling me, I just needed to confirm to my friends that it was just bad hardware and nothing more, as for your account being comprimized, lol yeah I did read about that somewere, the one doing it left a funny message under your account, and the most damage he/she did was leave you a little red faced and gave everyone else a good chuckle due to the embarrassing nature of the message, but no real damage was done, I shall let them know that they don't need to worry now, its simply a hardware malfunction, much like what happened to the raid array that hosted most of the furry sites on the east coast of the usa which included the funday pawpet show, so I will let my friends know that their speculations has been disproven.


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 2, 2008)

DolphinAMD said:


> Hmm...I just checked the FA site and I got a 403 Forbidden.  Is the server back up?  It used to be a unable to connect message.



May seem odd in saying this, but I think it's definitely a step in a positive direction. Here's to hoping (although still expecting a possible week of FA downtime- I hope not that long!)...

d.m.f.


----------



## Baby Giraffe (Jul 2, 2008)

Redregon said:


> you know, for one i see a lot of people getting in a tizzy... relax, your pr0n will be back. patience, grasshopper, patience. grumbling about it is only going to make you look like a tard. let them do the work they need to do.



I'm not upset about a lack of that. I'm upset that fate had to make the servers explode the DAY I got situated and 4 days after I sighned on.

I have luck like that.

I'd donate. My check comed in friday so we'll see how that works out.:-D


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## Nanakisan (Jul 2, 2008)

meh all i know is the admins will bring back our favorite place soon.
so for now I'll be patient and probably flood the forum with MeMe junk
hehehehhee


----------



## Crossdouble (Jul 2, 2008)

well I'd like to send you some money, but I do not have a credit card.

But anyway, hope stuff can be solved soon.


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## Chibiicap (Jul 2, 2008)

it's fender's fault! i know it!


----------



## Kilroy (Jul 2, 2008)

Wish I could help! I certainly use the site enough  But alas, I can barely afford food for myself this week! Why couldn't this happen a few weeks from now, when I could help out?  (Well, why couldn't it just not happen at all? But alas, I know how hardware issues can be! Never know when they'll break sometimes!)


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## stevedu (Jul 2, 2008)

As the one-guy IT Department, I understand the frustration of the current situation with FA. Unexpected things happen all the time. From small user-error to catastrophic failure like this. Backups are always a good thing. As we all know FA is a donation-funded site. There is no bottomless pit of funds to purchase top-of-the-line equipments to ensure 99.9% up-time.

For those whom does not work in the administration field, especially IT, please understand it is almost alike the engine block of your car went bad and needs replacement. Not to mention the funds needed, the time will be spent on the process to restore functionality are not short and easy. Please donate if you can. The least you can do is offer your support to the FA administrative team and keep your fingers crossed.

Remember the last time your computer went down and how frustrated you felt? Now imagine that in a massive scale with smallest amount of time, support and money.

If you believe all these failure were caused by crappy equipments, negligence of the hosting facility/FA staff, or any excuses you can think off. Please remember the damage is done, there is no need to go back and beat it (no puns intended). Focus and work together to get the situation solved as soon as possible.

Oh and as for trolls, feel free to browse /b/ while FA is working it is best to get back online.

Just my quarter (inflation adjustment from 2 cents).


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jul 2, 2008)

Daddy Ducky BE said:


> a.) *Donations.* Everybody keeps talking about donations. While I find the thermometer a nice optical gimmick that might actually help a little bit...I mean c'mon people, we're effectively talking about CHARITY here! And we all know _charity_ alone hardly gives us not even a tenth of the funding we need for whatever we're doing, be it AIDS prevention, cancer research, or building and maintaining servers.
> 
> b.) *Mandatory fees.* Bullshit, as others have said. We're getting all this for free, and if that'd change, either for everybody or just for artists, it'll only initiate a mass exodus. Not to mention EU fraud legislation if TOS would suddenly change for everybody having joined before the change.
> 
> ...



Finally someone with a little sense around here.

It's good to have intelligent discussion on the thread again.

=^.^=

I do like the of eGold. this is finally a suggestion that could actually be feasible, as long as they're not like paypal and forbid the use of their services for porn...


----------



## SkyBrigidRain (Jul 2, 2008)

I will be needing servers in the possibly near future. What kinds are best or best to start out with? And whats the price range? If you have the time to explain I mean? 

~Sky


----------



## NinjaPuppy (Jul 2, 2008)

Well If you wanted to get a higher funding source, my advice is harness the power of furries.

Hold a commission drive.

have some famous artist hold in a favor or something and offer a commission from him for the highest bidder or better yet, a raffle.  ten dollars a ticket. eight of those dollars go into a new server. that way. you'd probably get half of the fandom donating for possible art, when they're actually helping FA! It's brilliant!


----------



## Wolfblade (Jul 2, 2008)

For the sake of everyone who still values this place, best of luck in a speedy recovery.


----------



## SkyBrigidRain (Jul 2, 2008)

I'll be needing servers in possibly the near future. Whats the best or best to start with? Price range? If you have time to explain I mean? 

Sorry for reposting this  it ended up somewhere totally different last time 

~Sky


----------



## Starfig (Jul 2, 2008)

Hm, I'll see about donating a little bit soon as I can, I certainly make enough use of the site, I feel kinda guilty not doin' anything.


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## redfoxnudetoons (Jul 2, 2008)

Goal Chart: 
80% of 4,000.00

Total Collected: 	
US $3,137.00

# of Payments: 	
133

Wow... there are quite a few dollars there!


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## SkyBrigidRain (Jul 2, 2008)

i see, this forum is basically used as a chatroom, would be easier if FA had a chat  conversation wise i mean. I could always fix something up in FDC if dragoneer is interested? ^^

~Sky


----------



## Bazz (Jul 2, 2008)

Wow, so many people just watching this thread. You know, if there were a single ad on the forums during downtimes... just the sheer number of people watching ever so diligently...


----------



## SkyBrigidRain (Jul 2, 2008)

Fix something up in my chat for these types of situations i mean  Or a link to FDC might be easier. Sorry lol i just find it hard to keep filpping through forum pages for a conversation 

~Sky


----------



## Baby Giraffe (Jul 2, 2008)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> Goal Chart:
> Total Collected:
> US $3,137.00



DAMN!! That was fast. Give it a day or two and you'll have that whole 4K!


----------



## Danza (Jul 2, 2008)

Oh lord 7-10 days, it certainly is serious and I can imagine how difficult managing a growing site can be. That aside doesn't FA only have a few million submissions in its database anyway, I saw somewhere in the thread the word "millions of commissions" used xD

I like the commission idea, if it did the same job as paypal, was secure enough (ie no more epic fails) I wouldn't mind paying a dollar in fact. Then again think about the smaller artists, well including me where a dollar can be around 10% of your commission income. All the same its a nice idea, and I bet there could be some kind of implementation.

But as some have expressed this site is in dire need of a software upgrade, some real coding fixes, Its alright as it is I would say but I bet if you managed to get a hold of a real professional you could really increase this sites efficiency. 

Now back to the matter at hand... 7 DAYS ZOMG... Wow, its a strange feeling, I know what the problem is as its been explained but I don't know what I will do without FA for 7-10 days D:


----------



## Ribbonpaws (Jul 2, 2008)

im going to donate  a few bucks.... maybe a doe... *drumroll here*

seriously though... going to amazon now to donate...


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 2, 2008)

dmfalk said:


> At the very least, it would be nice to get FA redirected to the "FurAffinity Will Return" page, with a short explanatory text and links to both the forum and for donations, if it's really going to be down for many days, as it sounds like, instead of a "Network Timeout" page that Firefox is throwing at me.



Beauty! I see you did just that.  Good luck, though- I'll be awaiting FA's return... 

d.m.f.


----------



## Redregon (Jul 2, 2008)

NinjaPuppy said:


> Well If you wanted to get a higher funding source, my advice is harness the power of furries.
> 
> Hold a commission drive.
> 
> have some famous artist hold in a favor or something and offer a commission from him for the highest bidder or better yet, a raffle.  ten dollars a ticket. eight of those dollars go into a new server. that way. you'd probably get half of the fandom donating for possible art, when they're actually helping FA! It's brilliant!



i can imagine that if you could pair the raffle idea with a full colour blotch pic (though you'd have to ask really REALLY nicely... or offer to pay for the piece with the proceeds) and i think it would probably be better to not make it a commission, but an already completed piece... that way you could post a pic of what the winner would get,....

and i'd probably make the tickets something like 1 for $4 and 3 for $10. 

Fender, meet cash cow... cash cow, meet Fender

hell, i'd be willing to throw in a piece, but i'm certainly not well known enough to really bring people in (though i might scare some away )


----------



## Firehazard (Jul 2, 2008)

TheSnowedOne said:


> It is always curious though how the 'oh they were hacked' line does seem to come up whenever any server has an issue these days; regardless of if there is any evidence or not.


It's the Monolithic Anti-Furry Conspiracy, man!  They're trying to shut us all down!  Ask anyone!



Daddy Ducky BE said:


> Not to mention EU fraud legislation if TOS would suddenly change for everybody having joined before the change.


I'm not sure how true that is.  It's not like they'd suddenly have funds sucked from their credit cards automatically as soon as the changeover happens.  They'd be asked to sign up for the new service.

Not that it isn't still a dumb idea.  I can't think of any other social-networky website that charges manditory fees to be a member.  Well, no, I can think of one: Something Awful. 



Daddy Ducky BE said:


> d.) *Create a standard one-click payment service such as eGold for FA commissions, and automatically take percentages for FA.* If it's only a few cents per transaction, it'll be a classic win-win situation: The individual funding sponsors will hardly even notice, while the sheer amount of commissions everyday on FA will create a funding that FA never even dreamt of before. Just tell people it all goes into site maintenance, and nobody will even care. Much more reliable and stable than mere charity funding even.


Quoting you because I can't find the post where this idea got started... How would this actually work, exactly?  It's not like users can't just keep doing commissions directly just like always have.  Unless we impose some rule that no FA member can accept paid commissions except through our service.  (Which would be really stupid and nobody would go for it.)  Sure, people could sign up for it anyway to help FA out, but if they wanted to do that, why wouldn't they just make a donation?



icehawk said:


> That sort of thing can get expensive very quickly. Configuring the cheapest dell server possible adding anything beyond their basic next-day support can cost anywhere from $149 to $899.


Compared to the total $7000 cost of the two servers, that's still not a whole lot.  If it were all up to me, I'd still pay it if I could afford to.  Better that than risking paying another $3500 if one of them breaks in the next year or so.


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 2, 2008)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> Goal Chart:
> 80% of 4,000.00
> 
> Total Collected:
> ...


Isn't that just from the Amazon donations?

d.m.f.


----------



## Ribbonpaws (Jul 2, 2008)

^_^ there... i know its not much, but good luck... and a speedy recovery to FA...

now to go draw for the hell of it... i just came back from vacation and thats all i really wanted to do... relax and draw... 

Good Luck Dragoneer.... ^______^


----------



## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 2, 2008)

NinjaPuppy said:


> Well If you wanted to get a higher funding source, my advice is harness the power of furries.
> 
> Hold a commission drive.
> 
> have some famous artist hold in a favor or something and offer a commission from him for the highest bidder or better yet, a raffle.  ten dollars a ticket. eight of those dollars go into a new server. that way. you'd probably get half of the fandom donating for possible art, when they're actually helping FA! It's brilliant!



Right, I forgot to mention this one. It falls under charity to me, comparable to a charity concert. Now, did Bob Geldorf, (Pro) Bono, and their shows remove the gap between industrialized nations and third-world countries yet? It's a good thing they're doing charity concerts (as long as they're not simply demanding what the UN has settled on ten years ago, such as so-called "debt relief" by simply re-labelling those debts as "taxes", and only doing a "charity" concert when the contracts made are starting to swing into action), but we shouldn't rely on charity like that alone.



Firehazard said:


> Quoting you because I can't find the post where this idea got started...



It was me who brought it up in the first place, actually.



Firehazard said:


> How would this actually work, exactly? It's not like users can't just keep doing commissions directly just like always have. Unless we impose some rule that no FA member can accept paid commissions except through our service. (Which would be really stupid and nobody would go for it.)



eBay don't even need to force anybody to use PayPal, and still it's by far the most common way to pay there, for two reasons:

a.) Most of all: Never underestimate the awesome appeal of simple one-click convenience which the current setup totally lacks on FA! Convenience even increases tenfold when it comes to international payments which can still be an awful hassle even compared to RL money transfers within the same country or within the same continent.

b.) It worked for eBay also because everybody knew they were funding eBay, the place that was giving them the services of advertizing, buying, and selling, and they funded eBay simply by paying what they had been paying all along. This'll work even better for FA because people felt part of the furry fandom even before they found FA, and helping FA is helping the biggest part of the fandom, probably beside cons. 



Firehazard said:


> Sure, people could sign up for it anyway to help FA out, but if they wanted to do that, why wouldn't they just make a donation?



Because if it's only a donation, people get what they take for granted: Site being up. If it's in the commission payments, they get what they have been paying for all along: Commissions. And site being up even added on top of it.

That's why it worked for eBay, people payed only for what they had been paying for all along, and eBay and PayPal only get microscopic percentages.


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jul 2, 2008)

dmfalk said:


> Isn't that just from the Amazon donations?
> 
> d.m.f.



Yes. This is the Amazon donations alone.

It's the only thing I can actually look at to see where we stand.

I don't think the paypal transitions are made public.


----------



## RestrainedRaptor (Jul 2, 2008)

I've been meaning to donate for a while; I guess I should do it now.


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## Revamp (Jul 2, 2008)

Wow. How the heck did this topic jump 30 pages in around 24 hours? o.o damn busy furries lol

In all seriousness though. I'm definitely willing to pay a sort of subscription for FA, provided it keeps away all the harddrive failure crap. it'd be somewhat like DA, unfortunately. But honestly i'd rather pay a little (5 bucks a month maybe?) to have an excellent running community such as FA rather than having this happen.


----------



## Takun Lion (Jul 2, 2008)

*NO, FENDER! NO!*


----------



## fuzzyroo (Jul 2, 2008)

hmmm...i hope for $4,000usd it comes with a search bar! lmao


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## fruitcake (Jul 2, 2008)

I just donated. Not much... but every little bit helps, right?


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## Jonas-Shifu (Jul 2, 2008)

Cola and servers don't mix.


----------



## Aden (Jul 2, 2008)

Hate to be one of the people that say "I wish I could donate..." but I might have to. What's the timeframe before getting the new server? My job can be pretty lucrative, but I've had to get over the hump of rent and utilities and gas and groceries recently. Might be a few days before I get paid again.

/Didn't read the thread to find the answer to my question.
//Probably because I just got back from 11 hours of manual labor, and I'm tired.


----------



## vlaadlynx (Jul 2, 2008)

Donated  Why's the max donation $50? I wanted to donate more, but it wouldn't let me,


----------



## ArielMT (Jul 2, 2008)

Pardon me for saying anything anti-eBay, but they really did take away every incentive I ever had to sell anything there.  This isn't a rant, just a rambling thought.  The main reason PayPal's the number one way to pay there is because eBay make it a costly pain to use any other payment method.

They used to have a policy called "Safe Payment Methods," which of course listed PayPal since the day eBay bought 'em, but they specifically prohibited Google Checkout as a payment method so unsafe as to have auctions allowing it yanked without possibility of listing fee refunds.  The only reason anyone was able to find for Google Checkout being as "unsafe" as mailed cash was because it competes with PayPal.  They caught an awful lot of hell for it, from nearly every small-time seller, but rather than allow competitors to PayPal, they simply changed the name of the policy from "Safe Payment Methods" to "Acceptable Payment Methods."  Sellers allowing any online payment method there but PayPal, whether it's aside from PayPal or along with PayPal, is still today a reportable offense (with the possible exception of BidPay, which was allowed before eBay bought PayPal).

PayPal is convenient, aye, but it should be one of multiple payment methods allowed, not the only one.  It seems to already be the case, at least with this thread (post #1), with the equally convenient Amazon Honor System.

Besides, PayPal has a rather strict TOS/AUP, and they've been reported to enforce it in such a way that all money in PayPal is tied up for six months or more when accounts are suspended.  That includes any money sent into a suspended PayPal account.

The point of this rambling post is that PayPal shouldn't be proposed with an "eBay use it, so it must be good" justification.


----------



## TheSnowedOne (Jul 2, 2008)

vlaadlynx said:


> Donated  Why's the max donation set to 50?



I thought that was odd too - although nothing stops you from donating more than once as a work around.


----------



## ArielMT (Jul 2, 2008)

Takun Lion said:


> NO, FENDER! NO!


ROFL!  All it needs is the South Park: BLU Windows 98 scene.


----------



## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 2, 2008)

ArielMT said:


> Pardon me for saying anything anti-eBay, but they really did take away every incentive I ever had to sell anything there.  This isn't a rant, just a rambling thought.  The main reason PayPal's the number one way to pay there is because eBay make it a costly pain to use any other payment method.
> 
> They used to have a policy called "Safe Payment Methods," which of course listed PayPal since the day eBay bought 'em, but they specifically prohibited Google Checkout as a payment method so unsafe as to have auctions allowing it yanked without possibility of listing fee refunds.  The only reason anyone was able to find for Google Checkout being as "unsafe" as mailed cash was because it competes with PayPal.  They caught an awful lot of hell for it, from nearly every small-time seller, but rather than allow competitors to PayPal, they simply changed the name of the policy from "Safe Payment Methods" to "Acceptable Payment Methods."  Sellers allowing any online payment method there but PayPal, whether it's aside from PayPal or along with PayPal, is still today a reportable offense (with the possible exception of BidPay, which was allowed before eBay bought PayPal).
> 
> ...



So the only two things you go on about is:

a.) eBay didn't allow Google Checkout

and

b.) PayPal is evil?

As for a.), no matter how many payment methods you allow, just make sure as many of them are electronic (one-click convenience) and allow percentages for FA.

As for b.), if you've paid attention, you know we've left PayPal behind about 10 pages ago because they don't take kindly to porn. We've been talking about eGold ( http://www.e-gold.com/ ) ever since.


----------



## Xodiac (Jul 2, 2008)

Will the new server be good enough to support Search?  You might as well kill two birds with one stone, after all.


----------



## ArielMT (Jul 2, 2008)

Daddy Ducky BE said:


> So the only two things you go on about is:
> 
> a.) eBay didn't allow Google Checkout
> 
> ...



The ol' brain's slow.  Sorry.  Your response to point A is what I tried (and I gather failed) to say.


----------



## yak (Jul 2, 2008)

An update.

By the looks of how things are going FA will be able to get the hardware it needs, if this rate keeps up for just a bit longer. We will probably wait for the results of the donations, and for Amazon to process the donations already given for another day or two max before ordering the servers. 
The more money we will raise during this time, the better parts will be able to afford -  for example more RAM for the data server, or faster CPUs for the www server. 

Also, just to note, both the servers will have KVMs of their own, so we would not have to experience support problems from the colo, even if they persist.

The bigger part of the estimated website outage time would be due to shipping delays from the vendor.

More updates will be posted as they become available.

-

And allow me once again to thank you for the support. We appreciate it for more then just money alone. It means that a lot of people actually give a damn about the service we provide, and would miss it if it would be no more. That makes us all warm and fuzzy inside knowing that what we do is being appreciated.


----------



## Bakensobek (Jul 2, 2008)

yak said:


> In plain and simple terms, FA is running on shitty hardware.
> 
> FA can not afford non-shitty hardware because it costs too much. And FA does not have time to save up for better hardware because the shitty hardware craps out and a fast solution has to be found to bring the website back online.
> 
> This time I am trying to break the trend, but my possibilities and their extent greatly depend on user support in this donation drive.



Forgive me if I'm being a bit dense/ignorant, but then why keep buying crappy hardware? By the time all is said and done, you guys will end up spending more by continuing to replace hardware than if some good solution had been installed in the first place.

Many years ago, there was a bleach commercial in my homeland, where the announcer said something like "Cheap is more expensive." That is, using cheap products will end up costing more in the long run.

So why not keep FA offline for as long as it's needed -- months, even -- until the funding can be completed for a good server?

I don't know what hardware you folks use -- some off the shelf (but higher quality) PC parts, or some blade server? I would imagine the latter would be better suited for a site like FA. But then I'm rather ignorant on this types of stuff.


----------



## soundwave (Jul 2, 2008)

and if this doesnt fall through FA is screwed right?, i offered my own server that is monitored all the time, has now 3Terabytes of space, 4 gigs ram and 1 GB/s bandwidth, tho because it was declined this happens, i was told this new Server your with now was supposed to be better =/ seems like it was wrong. if you need a Host for a server just give me a click.


----------



## Lambat (Jul 2, 2008)

and if you try to buy another pc like Linux, Mac or maybe Apple, Windows have a lot of problems


----------



## hanter03 (Jul 2, 2008)

just to put a lighter side of things in place.....


I KNOW WHO DID IT.

critical hardware failure caused by a furre.







I wonder who that would be????


----------



## GeckoGurl (Jul 2, 2008)

You guys just take your time and make sure everything gets fixed correctly.  I wish I could donate right now, but I'm currently in the negative :/  I hope this fix will keep everything up and running for a while.

I miss my FA D:


----------



## ThreeTailedKitsune (Jul 2, 2008)

aw lawdeh what happened now????


----------



## Danza (Jul 2, 2008)

I miss FA already :/  no where to share my pronz D:


----------



## Firehazard (Jul 2, 2008)

Xodiac said:


> Will the new server be good enough to support Search?  You might as well kill two birds with one stone, after all.


It will.  According to Yak, they only needed 1.2 GB of RAM to make it work, and the proposed new server will have 16.  Now it's just a matter of having enough time to finish coding it.  That might be saved for Ferrox, though, since it's being programmed in an entirely different language (Python vs. PHP).



Bakensobek said:


> Forgive me if I'm being a bit dense/ignorant, but then why keep buying crappy hardware? By the time all is said and done, you guys will end up spending more by continuing to replace hardware than if some good solution had been installed in the first place.


From the prices Yak quoted, I'm pretty sure they are getting name-brand servers this time around.

Just curious, are any of the old machines still working well enough to try selling off after this upgrade?  I read that there are five of them altogether; sounds like three or four servers would fetch a fair bit of money, even used ones.


----------



## Coal_Train (Jul 2, 2008)

WOW, it seems things like this always happen at the worst times for me.

i would love to send some money to help out FA. this place is a source of pleasure for me, (no, not the fapping kind. OK, not MUCH..). i really enjoy the art (though there seems to be a disproportionate amount of M/M stuff [i am straight as an arrow]) and the small, but dedicated writers community is extremely helpful and supportive. (i am a new writer.)

but alas, unemployment currently has me in it's clutches, and money is non-existent.

i appreciate FA, and vow to support it in some way. while i am not an artist, and don't do commissions, i will try to find a way. i just don't know how right now.


----------



## farellemoon (Jul 2, 2008)

I know you're fishing for as much as you can get right now but the wolf and I have nothing we can give. However, Chem and I are going to put together a portfolio to sell at FA: United with all monies going to FA. It's the best we can do! X( Good luck with everything, I know you're doing you very best - no less - and I support this website with all my heart.

Godspeed to you and your team, Dragoneer!


----------



## YuchiDaYena (Jul 2, 2008)

Dude if you guys are just interested in porn why dont' you browse

VCL

or 

Yiffstar?

/: Gods. 

FA is not purely porn, it's a community.

Not causing drama, just putting in suggestions. 

Good Luck Dragoneer!


----------



## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 2, 2008)

YuchiDaYena said:


> Dude if you guys are just interested in porn why dont' you browse
> 
> VCL
> 
> ...



It's still porn enough PayPal wouldn't touch it with a ten-feet pole!


----------



## cesarin (Jul 2, 2008)

hanter03 said:


> just to put a lighter side of things in place.....
> 
> 
> I KNOW WHO DID IT.
> ...




artdecade did the pic, damn nice guy!


----------



## Grimfang (Jul 2, 2008)

Danza said:


> I miss FA already :/  no where to share my pronz D:



Head on over to fchan (omgnsfw). I'm sure they'll be feeling a big hit and their servers will probably be coated in fire extinguisher chemical by the time FA is back up


----------



## Seppel (Jul 2, 2008)

I can vouch that there are a few coding issues with FA (like a certain request that can be sent repeatedly a few times to hang or even crash the DB server).

Not that I would ever execute those or tell anyone about them. No, no. I love my FA.


----------



## Tim-kun (Jul 2, 2008)

I hope that it can be fixed


----------



## Mobius1 (Jul 2, 2008)

ok what u can do to save money is gut the server thats haveing the problems and trobleshoot it old school, and u say ur haveing mixed hardware faults??? first question for u is what is driveing or controlling the sever, does the sever contain its own os or is it attached to a central control?? if it has it own os make sure u have the proper drivers and reliable hardware, u could be haveing hardware conflicts with irq addressing in windows os, also upragrade to vista, it may suck for gameing but it is truely a reliable and stable os that was built for networking in mind. But if u have a central controle then u need to look at that and see if its interfaceing properly with the server. 

I use to build server and telle coms from scratch ( actually soldering in the chipsets and programming the bios, and fitting them into cases) at Sanmina Sci Corp.


----------



## karoug (Jul 2, 2008)

It probably isn't easy to swap components, reseat cards, etc. when the server is co-located in a different state. They need to put in a rack and run an OC3 into Yak's basement and let him put the servers there.


----------



## vlaadlynx (Jul 2, 2008)

^^^ My brain hurts.. and refused to process that...  (2 posts up)

Might want to edit it and make it readable. Thanks


----------



## karoug (Jul 2, 2008)

Actually, my guess is that it's a problem with memory. I'd run memtest on it for a while and/or swap out the memory but, like I wrote above, that's not so easy if you don't have the server where you can get to it.


----------



## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

Mobius1 said:


> ok what u can do to save money is gut the server thats haveing the problems and trobleshoot it old school, and u say ur haveing mixed hardware faults??? first question for u is what is driveing or controlling the sever, does the sever contain its own os or is it attached to a central control?? if it has it own os make sure u have the proper drivers and reliable hardware, u could be haveing hardware conflicts with irq addressing in windows os, also upragrade to vista, it may suck for gameing but it is truely a reliable and stable os that was built for networking in mind. But if u have a central controle then u need to look at that and see if its interfaceing properly with the server.
> 
> I use to build server and telle coms from scratch ( actually soldering in the chipsets and programming the bios, and fitting them into cases) at Sanmina Sci Corp.



This is possibly the dumbest thing that I've read in my entire life. Wow. Thanks for making my faith in humanity slip that much more.


----------



## Redregon (Jul 2, 2008)

karoug said:


> It probably isn't easy to swap components, reseat cards, etc. when the server is co-located in a different state. They need to put in a rack and run an OC3 into Yak's basement and let him put the servers there.



you know, if we're all willing to chip in to get a fibre line into Yak's place of residence on our dime, i'm betting you won't see him complain... 

mmm, juicy bandwidth!


----------



## Mobius1 (Jul 2, 2008)

Pi said:


> This is possibly the dumbest thing that I've read in my entire life. Wow. Thanks for making my faith in humanity slip that much more.


 
i am a tech lvl 1 it may be tedious but it works. i also have been working with comp's since i was 11 and im now 21


----------



## karoug (Jul 2, 2008)

Redregon said:


> you know, if we're all willing to chip in to get a fibre line into Yak's place of residence on our dime, i'm betting you won't see him complain...
> 
> mmm, juicy bandwidth!



I always heard that most bandwidth use is for porn and I suspect the porn percentage on Yak's fibre line would be significantly above average! *

(*) because of the site, not because Yak looks at a lot of porn **

(**) although, he probably does ***

(***) but not as much as Dragoneer


----------



## Geraden (Jul 2, 2008)

Mobius1 said:


> ok what u can do to save money is gut the server thats haveing the problems and trobleshoot it old school, and u say ur haveing mixed hardware faults??? first question for u is what is driveing or controlling the sever, does the sever contain its own os or is it attached to a central control?? if it has it own os make sure u have the proper drivers and reliable hardware, u could be haveing hardware conflicts with irq addressing in windows os, also upragrade to vista, it may suck for gameing but it is truely a reliable and stable os that was built for networking in mind. But if u have a central controle then u need to look at that and see if its interfaceing properly with the server.
> 
> I use to build server and telle coms from scratch ( actually soldering in the chipsets and programming the bios, and fitting them into cases) at Sanmina Sci Corp.



Be sure to click the Start Button.


----------



## Not A Fox (Jul 2, 2008)

Grimfang said:


> Head on over to fchan (omgnsfw). I'm sure they'll be feeling a big hit and their servers will probably be coated in fire extinguisher chemical by the time FA is back up




Fchan's gone to hell. /:

Really, apart from the blue layout, I can't even recognize it anymore.


----------



## Mobius1 (Jul 2, 2008)

karoug said:


> Actually, my guess is that it's a problem with memory. I'd run memtest on it for a while and/or swap out the memory but, like I wrote above, that's not so easy if you don't have the server where you can get to it.


 
that could be, but memtest wont work on a server unless u can get it to run in the os


----------



## Ebon Lupus (Jul 2, 2008)

Why don't you hire a dedicated server host and let someone that knows what they are doing handle all the headaches? It must be far cheaper than spending $4000 every 3.5 years... and constantly frustrating the people who actually do pay you guys to have this site running.


----------



## MooglyGuy (Jul 2, 2008)

Mobius1 said:


> i am a tech lvl 1 it may be tedious but it works. i also have been working with comp's since i was 11 and im now 21



Wow, your tickets must be an absolute _joy_ to read:

"the lvl 5 sql sever is down coz of it's hdd devloped problam's u shud replase the hdd ok plz assap"


----------



## Undying Song (Jul 2, 2008)

Seppel said:


> I can vouch that there are a few coding issues with FA (like a certain request that can be sent repeatedly a few times to hang or even crash the DB server).
> 
> Not that I would ever execute those or tell anyone about them. No, no. I love my FA.



Well, since you chose to mention it, that just makes one curious... : )


----------



## Mobius1 (Jul 2, 2008)

NAFFY said:


> Fchan's gone to hell. /:
> 
> Really, apart from the blue layout, I can't even recognize it anymore.


 

lol! same here^^


----------



## negima (Jul 2, 2008)

Know this is a stupid question, but do ya'll have a raid zero or anything with a raid system set up to keep you somewhat protected?
Also, what about removable SATA drives that are hot swappable? JIC one goes out, you can replace it w/o turning off the sys.


----------



## MooglyGuy (Jul 2, 2008)

Mobius1 said:


> that could be, but memtest wont work on a server unless u can get it to run in the os



Are you really this brutally retarded?


----------



## karoug (Jul 2, 2008)

Mobius1 said:


> that could be, but memtest wont work on a server unless u can get it to run in the os



Memtest 86 runs off of a boot CD so it's good. I use it all the time on servers. It doesn't always find problems though especially with registered memory. Sometimes swapping (or temporarily reducing) memory is the only way to tell.


----------



## Geraden (Jul 2, 2008)

Mobius1 said:


> that could be, but memtest wont work on a server unless u can get it to run in the os



I think this may have progressed beyond level 1 tech support.


----------



## pikachu_electricmouse (Jul 2, 2008)




----------



## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

Mobius1 said:


> i am a tech lvl 1 it may be tedious but it works. i also have been working with comp's since i was 11 and im now 21





			
				mobius1 said:
			
		

> upragrade to vista, it may suck for gameing but it is truely a reliable and stable os that was built for networking in mind



a) you suggest running a server on consumer win32 OS
b) you suggest that this consumer win32 OS can tell its network from a hole in the ground.
c) You know nothing about computers. Get out.


----------



## ThreeTailedKitsune (Jul 2, 2008)

... why is it that every time i turn around FA goes offline? T~T 
aw well ima go ta sleep hoping it'll be up tomorow... later peoples... er... furries...

http://s213.photobucket.com/albums/cc316/midgetman798/?action=view&current=387fde12.jpg


----------



## karoug (Jul 2, 2008)

pikachu_electricmouse said:


> {comic goes here}



You've been saving that haven't you?


----------



## Winterdragon (Jul 2, 2008)

Massive failure due to oogling too much of our adult artwork X3


----------



## leeter (Jul 2, 2008)

I roll in my laughter, I really am sorry, but as bad as it is it could be worse, oh and while it's not free I recommend IIS 7.0/WS2008 over POSIX/Apache anyday because of the forking issue that Apache has, and since IIS 7.0 can run both PHP and ASP.net and share events between them, Apache falls flat. Oh and I have seen the frequent suggestion of hire a pro dev to do the job, as a pro dev, and I'm not volunteering to touch the codebase or even look at it. I recommend a clustered config the old box may have problems but it will still work to do some applications such as running a 64bit DB or some such, Load balancing is your friend if you can.


----------



## Wolf_Fox_Guy (Jul 2, 2008)

ummm........ok, just curious but how do servers work and what do they do? I work on machines all day so I dont know much about this computer stuff. on another note, over 3100 rasied so far, oh yeah, teh down time may suck but I'm sure the new servers gonna be worth it. how much does the average server cost anyway?


----------



## Mobius1 (Jul 2, 2008)

MooglyGuy said:


> Are you really this brutally retarded?


 

my friends CoD4 server can't run it off the boot cd. And i do have a mental disability have a problem with that?? its called asperger's syndrome look it up then tell me again that i don't know what im talking about.


----------



## JFox (Jul 2, 2008)

Redregon said:


> you know, if we're all willing to chip in to get a fibre line into Yak's place of residence on our dime, i'm betting you won't see him complain...
> 
> mmm, juicy bandwidth!



Thank you for the funny!   ... unfortunately, it caused me to snort banana pudding.  _Banana Pudding!!!_  *pain*

I don't know of *any one* who would complain about having an OC-3 in their basement


----------



## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

Mobius1 said:


> my friends CoD4 server can't run it off the boot cd. And i do have a mental disability have a problem with that?? its called asperger's syndrome look it up then tell me again that i don't know what im talking about.



You don't know what you're talking about. And using your mental disorder as an excuse is pathetic.


----------



## negima (Jul 2, 2008)

JFox said:


> Thank you for the funny!   ... unfortunately, it caused me to snort banana pudding.  _Banana Pudding!!!_  *pain*
> 
> I don't know of *any one* who would complain about having an OC-3 in their basement





Not me! 
mmmmm.... fibres...


----------



## kawayama (Jul 2, 2008)

these are my guns
these are my furs
this is my living room

you can play with me there sometimes
if you catch me in the mood.

savage
savage
you savage...


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

karoug said:


> It probably isn't easy to swap components, reseat cards, etc. when the server is co-located in a different state. They need to put in a rack and run an OC3 into Yak's basement and let him put the servers there.



If FA could afford an OC3 line then they could probably afford a decent server too.

Problem with putting in someone's basement is environmental, power outages, network connectivity, etc.  Even an optical line is subject to Backhoe Bob syndrome.  As are power lines.  You go into a good datacenter because everything is redundant.

For $4k though they could get a decent server.  HP ProLiant DL300 series with 4gb of RAM(fully buffered and ECC Registered) and dual quad-core Xeons.  Just have to fork out some cash for a few SAS drives but hey, they're hot-swappable and HP SAS drives typically have some insane MTBF rating.


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

Pi said:


> And using your mental disorder as an excuse is pathetic.



Oh FFS, start acting like adults and not fourth graders, and if you plan on acting like fourth graders then do it somewhere else - we're supposed to be MATURE.

What's next? We're not going to have an e-penis fight on our hands are we?


----------



## Mobius1 (Jul 2, 2008)

Pi said:


> a) you suggest running a server on consumer win32 OS
> b) you suggest that this consumer win32 OS can tell its network from a hole in the ground.
> c) You know nothing about computers. Get out.


 
vista is both 64 and 32 bit, and comspacked with lots of networing features and protocalls.


----------



## DJDarkViper (Jul 2, 2008)

*edit: didn't realize how outdated my refresh was, back on page26 *


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

Mobius1 said:


> vista is both 64 and 32 bit, and comspacked with lots of networing features and protocalls.



The API is called Win32.  I wouldn't go Vista though, too many wasted resources for consumer stuff.  Go Server 2008 if you're going for Windows.


----------



## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

Mobius1 said:


> vista is both 64 and 32 bit, and comspacked with lots of networing features and protocalls.



It's still a consumer product. The API is still called "win32". The TCP/IP stack hasn't been proven, because they completely rewrote it. The server in question uses FreeBSD.


----------



## karoug (Jul 2, 2008)

Wolf_Fox_Guy said:


> ummm........ok, just curious but how do servers work and what do they do? I work on machines all day so I dont know much about this computer stuff. on another note, over 3100 rasied so far, oh yeah, teh down time may suck but I'm sure the new servers gonna be worth it. how much does the average server cost anyway?



The main difference between a regular PC and a server is an attempt to establish continuous uptime, longevity of components for a system that is rarely if ever shut down, and redundancy so that if something fails it can keep running. Noise is generally not a concern so they often sound like hairdryers. Redundancy and failover certainly includes high speed fault tolerant RAID disk storage with hot swappable 10K or 15k RPM drives, and usually redundant hot swappable power supplies. Hot swappable PCI slots and even spare memory is possible. Also, SAS or SCSI drives are used instead of the more consumer oriented SATA drives.

Well, that's the idea anyway.  You can turn a PC into a "server" by having it do server tasks and running a server operating system but it's not really made of components meant to be used like a server.


----------



## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

SilverAutomatic said:


> Oh FFS, start acting like adults and not fourth graders, and if you plan on acting like fourth graders then do it somewhere else - we're supposed to be MATURE.



Right, because it's totally mature to use your mental issues as an excuse for any sort of behavior.


----------



## leeter (Jul 2, 2008)

Pi said:


> a) you suggest running a server on consumer win32 OS
> b) you suggest that this consumer win32 OS can tell its network from a hole in the ground.
> c) You know nothing about computers. Get out.



I wouldn't suggest Win32 to anyone running a server, Win64 on the other hand is a different matter, Server 2008 is rock solid and a much better option, at the moment at least, than Posix/Apache. Why? Because Apache forks for every single connection to the server. So what does that mean realistically? Ok, lets assume they get a duel quad core system, eight processors. In a threaded environment i.e. IIS 6/7.0 the code between all of the threads is shared, and the only additional over head is session info, a common DB connection exists and is used by the entire system, this allows for optimization by the web server of queries etc. In a forked environment i.e. Apache each user is an independent process, while the code pages are shared, connections to the Db and other resources are not, furthermore each thread had the overhead of a process which is much larger than a thread, so task switching takes longer. Even using Linux 2.6 with the O(n) scheduler this becomes problematic VERY quickly on high traffic servers. As to your last assertion I am forced to agree with you they do know nothing about computers, running a server on a desktop OS is suicide at best, Posix OS's (excluding OS X) are the exception because they can be configured to remove the crap that comes with a desktop OS, but that still doesn't mean I'd run a web server off of a stock install of Ubuntu.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

leeter said:


> I wouldn't suggest Win32 to anyone running a server, Win64 on the other hand is a different matter, Server 2008 is rock solid and a much better option, at the moment at least, than Posix/Apache. Why? Because Apache forks for every single connection to the server. So what does that mean realistically? Ok, lets assume they get a duel quad core system, eight processors. In a threaded environment i.e. IIS 6/7.0 the code between all of the threads is shared, and the only additional over head is session info, a common DB connection exists and is used by the entire system, this allows for optimization by the web server of queries etc. In a forked environment i.e. Apache each user is an independent process, while the code pages are shared, connections to the Db and other resources are not, furthermore each thread had the overhead of a process which is much larger than a thread, so task switching takes longer. Even using Linux 2.6 with the O(n) scheduler this becomes problematic VERY quickly on high traffic servers. As to your last assertion I am forced to agree with you they do know nothing about computers, running a server on a desktop OS is suicide at best, Posix OS's (excluding OS X) are the exception because they can be configured to remove the crap that comes with a desktop OS, but that still doesn't mean I'd run a web server off of a stock install of Ubuntu.



UltraSPARC T2  http://www.sun.com/processors/UltraSPARC-T2/

But yeah Windows is more of a threaded environment versus the *NIX style OS's.  Plus you get with MS SQL 2005 and 2008 and you start talking about connection pooling and .Net(which runs the entire application in a VM, no run-time compilation like PHP) you get into some serious speed.....as well as serious money and high dev costs unfortunately


----------



## keeshah (Jul 2, 2008)

Tossed my loose change into the pot...

the pot is up too $3,200.00 now..


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

Pi said:


> Right, because it's totally mature to use your mental issues as an excuse for any sort of behavior.



Doesn't matter. And you say behavior like he did something terribly wrong. If you actually read the post, he states that his friend's server wasn't able to run his Call of Duty 4 gaming server just off the boot disk alone. The disability was a thought after the fact.

And it still doesn't mean you had to call it pathetic.


----------



## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

leeter said:


> I wouldn't suggest Win32 to anyone running a server, Win64 on the other hand is a different matter, Server 2008 is rock solid and a much better option, at the moment at least, than Posix/Apache.



32-bit Server 2003 is fine on my end.



			
				leeter said:
			
		

> blah blah fucking blah



If forking seriously becomes an issue... mpm-worker. If the admin's too lazy to properly configure the web server, get a new admin. Also, it's the O(1) scheduler.

And again, they're not using Linux.



			
				leeter said:
			
		

> As to your last assertion I am forced to agree with you they do know nothing about computers, running a server on a desktop OS is suicide at best, Posix OS's (excluding OS X) are the exception because they can be configured to remove the crap that comes with a desktop OS, but that still doesn't mean I'd run a web server off of a stock install of Ubuntu.



I would, and it'd probably work fine.


----------



## Zeikcied (Jul 2, 2008)

Mobius1 said:


> my friends CoD4 server can't run it off the boot cd. And i do have a mental disability have a problem with that?? its called asperger's syndrome look it up then tell me again that i don't know what im talking about.


I have Asperger Syndrome, too.  But it certainly is no excuse for anything.


----------



## JFox (Jul 2, 2008)

While I would prefer to (once I have a paycheck that doesn't get vored (in the bad/real way) by bills before I even have it in my hands) donate... 

You're more than welcome to laugh at me for saying it, but I have more random computer bits laying around - most of which aren't really server spec.. but they're free, at least -- than I know what to do with.  If you guys have a "wish list" of parts for current, future, or "re-hab" servers, I'd be happy to go rob the corner-mart (they are totally fubar-ing a relative who worked for 30 years at a company they just bought out - so my morals are hapily on hold) for shipping costs  (I'm kidding about the robbing bit, don'cha know) 

Other random thought, regarding all the complaints about a lack of search.

IF I recall correctly, waaaaay back, one of the earliest causes of MAJOR crashes was the search.  It was being used (in conjunction with some sort of bot, iirc??) to effectively DDoS the server(s) with a quarter bazillion (I forget who, but someone posted an actual number of searches-per-second the bots were attempting) searches a nanosecond.  And the server was basically like "OMGWTFBBQ*boom*".  As a note, a "similar" site, who used to have a ... I think it was a raccoon  ... as a mascot also had to disable their search feature, due to similar attacks.  It seems, anything leaning "furry" tends to get raped by such attacks.  So, untill they can figure out how to code an anti-bot search (is such a thing possible?) we can probably be sure to be without one for some time.  I'll admit it's inconvenient, but the browse feature works nearly as well, if you narrow it enough.

In the mean time, since I am "broke" in more ways than one (you know, having to decide whether or not you are going to buy gas for the car... or make it's payment is NOT cool.) I'll donate a big juicy "Thanks ever so much for all your hard work and drained wallets!" :grin:  
And I seriously do mean that.


----------



## leeter (Jul 2, 2008)

mewrei said:


> UltraSPARC T2  http://www.sun.com/processors/UltraSPARC-T2/
> 
> But yeah Windows is more of a threaded environment versus the *NIX style OS's.  Plus you get with MS SQL 2005 and 2008 and you start talking about connection pooling and .Net(which runs the entire application in a VM, no run-time compilation like PHP) you get into some serious speed.....as well as serious money and high dev costs unfortunately



Not necessarily Web Server 2008 is $340 on Newegg, far less than say a licence of RHEL would be and you get both 64 and 32 bit in the same licence, Furthermore IIS 7.0 can run PHP native so theres no need to redevelop


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## negima (Jul 2, 2008)

keeshah said:


> Tossed my loose change into the pot...
> 
> the pot is up too $3,200.00 now..



Woot! We're gettin there... only $800+ more... but more than the  4k is better... help our admins.


----------



## Lord-Typhon (Jul 2, 2008)

Well how about this.

Why not put money aside each week or month, or start up a second donation drive towards getting a dedicaterd server rather then just having to go through this everytime FA goes down?

I mean lets think about this logically.  A back up fund to get a dedicated server can be redirected towards what is currently being used in case of a emergancy.  Basically a kind of adaptable back up fund as it where.  This can lead to less down time, and a base from which you might be able to grow the funding you would need to make a truely dedicated server for FA and maintain it properly.

Now to me this just seems like common sense, but in the end it's not really my decision, it's the FA staff's call on that one.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

leeter said:


> Not necessarily Web Server 2008 is $340 on Newegg, far less than say a licence of RHEL would be and you get both 64 and 32 bit in the same licence, Furthermore IIS 7.0 can run PHP native so theres no need to redevelop



Well I just mean as far as licensing for SQL Server.  You get with 2008 + SQL 2008 and then spend the time cross porting everything to .Net and you've just used a hunk of time.  It'd work though in the end.

And PHP will run on IIS 7.0 but I'd use the Zend Core versions and be sure to get Zend Platform as well.

Oh and forgot to mention, RHEL is free, they just sell the support for it(it's technically illegal to sell it).  The sources are available on their FTP server ftp.redhat.com which then in turn is used to make CentOS


----------



## jumbaa (Jul 2, 2008)

EVIL ERRORS! LOOK AT WHAT YOU DID TO <insert name of FA's mascot here>!!!


----------



## karoug (Jul 2, 2008)

Don't forget the paypal account. There are certainly some people who donate there like I did.


----------



## negima (Jul 2, 2008)

Lord-Typhon said:


> Well how about this.
> 
> Why not put money aside each week or month, or start up a second donation drive towards getting a dedicaterd server rather then just having to go through this everytime FA goes down?
> 
> ...



I can agree with this "Rainy Day Fund" type savings... I mean, buy a new server now and keep donations coming in, put them away, or use them to better the old systems.  It's a really good idea, it's just gotta be used logically and put to use properly.


----------



## karoug (Jul 2, 2008)

I think a raffle would be neat. We could donate prizes!


----------



## negima (Jul 2, 2008)

karoug said:


> I think a raffle would be neat. We could donate prizes!



That would be an interesting venue of making money... I would donate just to see what else is put in.


----------



## leeter (Jul 2, 2008)

Pi said:


> 32-bit Server 2003 is fine on my end.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I would use 64 bit for two reasons: first the DB, a 64 bit db can nativity access more than 4gb of ram which for this is probably a really good idea, you can of course get around this using the /3gb option on 32bit WS2003/2008 but why would you when, at least for 2008 the license is good for 64bit and 64bit is faster because it doesn't have to deal with the PAE crap. Second, because the 64bit allows the web server more memory space same reasons as the db.

thanks for correcting me about the O(1) scheduler, nevertheless the point remains.

You could and it probably would, but like most programmers I have a need for speed and would strip it down to the bare minimum, I'd probably chose RHEL/CentOS over Ubuntu anyway but that's a personal choice


----------



## Lord-Typhon (Jul 2, 2008)

negima said:


> I can agree with this "Rainy Day Fund" type savings... I mean, buy a new server now and keep donations coming in, put them away, or use them to better the old systems.  It's a really good idea, it's just gotta be used logically and put to use properly.



Heh thanks, it took me a while to put that idea in to practice for myself.  Back when I didn't do this, and I whent between jobs... well lets say I didn't like staying at the Salvation Army's homeless shelter.  But since i got myself a steady line of work, I tend to use both my paypal and a norma bank account to help me keep track of my funds.  On a personal level it's nice having money I don't have to touch in reserve.  Although I really should look in to a savings, and not a checking account for that one.

You should also thank my mom, a phd in accounting, for the idea.


----------



## JFox (Jul 2, 2008)

negima said:


> Not me!
> mmmmm.... fibres...


Yeah, yeah... everyone and their fancy fibres.  Sheesh.  Back in my day... well... um, a T-1 was considered a backbone >_>;  not just an "antiquated low bandwidth constant-on connection" 
More seriously, my company's HQ is run by an OC-48 (good gawrd the bandwidth). ... our satellite sites?  "Oh yah a T-3 is MORE than enough to run all the ops computers, the VoIP phones, the security system, the database interfaces, AND wi-fi access for employees".  Riiiiiight.  (actually, believe it or not, they have FA blocked through their wi-fi.  ... then again, they have "Tech Dirt" blocked too ;;


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

leeter said:


> I would use 64 bit for two reasons: first the DB, a 64 bit db can nativity access more than 4gb of ram which for this is probably a really good idea, you can of course get around this using the /3gb option on 32bit WS2003/2008 but why would you when, at least for 2008 the license is good for 64bit and 64bit is faster because it doesn't have to deal with the PAE crap. Second, because the 64bit allows the web server more memory space same reasons as the db.
> 
> thanks for correcting me about the O(1) scheduler, nevertheless the point remains.
> 
> You could and it probably would, but like most programmers I have a need for speed and would strip it down to the bare minimum, I'd probably chose RHEL/CentOS over Ubuntu anyway but that's a personal choice



Yeah 64-bit is the way to go on x86 server machines.  Plus there's a performance advantage, right now it's minute, but Microsoft is really working on optimizations for the extra registers.

And @JFox: DS1 is still the reigning king of the internet


----------



## negima (Jul 2, 2008)

leeter said:


> I would use 64 bit for two reasons: first the DB, a 64 bit db can nativity access more than 4gb of ram which for this is probably a really good idea, you can of course get around this using the /3gb option on 32bit WS2003/2008 but why would you when, at least for 2008 the license is good for 64bit and 64bit is faster because it doesn't have to deal with the PAE crap. Second, because the 64bit allows the web server more memory space same reasons as the db.
> 
> thanks for correcting me about the O(1) scheduler, nevertheless the point remains.
> 
> You could and it probably would, but like most programmers I have a need for speed and would strip it down to the bare minimum, I'd probably chose RHEL/CentOS over Ubuntu anyway but that's a personal choice



True... I would definitely go with a 64-bit edition of Server or whatever OS allows the use and access of every little bit of ram they have in the server(s).


----------



## leeter (Jul 2, 2008)

JFox said:


> Yeah, yeah... everyone and their fancy fibres.  Sheesh.  Back in my day... well... um, a T-1 was considered a backbone >_>;  not just an "antiquated low bandwidth constant-on connection"
> More seriously, my company's HQ is run by an OC-48 (good gawrd the bandwidth). ... our satellite sites?  "Oh yah a T-3 is MORE than enough to run all the ops computers, the VoIP phones, the security system, the database interfaces, AND wi-fi access for employees".  Riiiiiight.  (actually, believe it or not, they have FA blocked through their wi-fi.  ... then again, they have "Tech Dirt" blocked too ;;



I wish we had that kind of bandwidth where I work, we have a real T-1, yes you know the ones capped at 1.4Mb it's pitifully slow compared to DSL, which alas has problems at our location. ACK


----------



## negima (Jul 2, 2008)

Go to hsbcdirect.com . They have an awesome online savings acct. that has an annual yield of 3.5... it's amazing.


----------



## karoug (Jul 2, 2008)

32 bit Windows Server 2003 Enterprise can use more memory, I use it with 8GB but I have volume licenses for everything so I don't have to purchase it. Some apps I develop for still don't support 64 bit officially so I keep my servers at 32 bit. They're just for development though and not production. 

Still, I would expect FA to use some version of an OS with a GNU type license just because of the cost.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

leeter said:


> I wish we had that kind of bandwidth where I work, we have a real T-1, yes you know the ones capped at 1.4Mb it's pitifully slow compared to DSL, which alas has problems at our location. ACK



We have DS3 over OC-48 and that's a heck of a lot of fun.  Get Microsoft downloads at 1.5MB/s.  Though I ran 1MB/s downloading OpenSolaris earlier today on my home cable line.

And it's not capped, the line's maximum bandwidth is 1.544Mbps.  But that's symmetric too, unlike our asymmetric 10Mbps/348Kbps down/up ADSL lines


----------



## anarchiemo (Jul 2, 2008)

honostly i dont know much about forums and all this (sry) but do u know how long until FA will be back?


----------



## Calorath (Jul 2, 2008)

leeter said:


> I would use 64 bit for two reasons: first the DB, a 64 bit db can nativity ...
> 
> -snip-



That's all well and good, and I would love to run exclusively in a win64 environment, but it's not really feasible/practical.

There are still some rather important *cough*proprietary*cough applications in the business world that just can't hack *cough*shitthebed*cough* it on Win64.

There's an easy solution to this.

Run both!


----------



## Sur Realis (Jul 2, 2008)

JFox said:


> IF I recall correctly, waaaaay back, one of the earliest causes of MAJOR crashes was the search.  It was being used (in conjunction with some sort of bot, iirc??) to effectively DDoS the server(s) with a quarter bazillion (I forget who, but someone posted an actual number of searches-per-second the bots were attempting) searches a nanosecond.  And the server was basically like "OMGWTFBBQ*boom*".  As a note, a "similar" site, who used to have a ... I think it was a raccoon  ... as a mascot also had to disable their search feature, due to similar attacks.  It seems, anything leaning "furry" tends to get raped by such attacks.  So, untill they can figure out how to code an anti-bot search (is such a thing possible?) we can probably be sure to be without one for some time.  I'll admit it's inconvenient, but the browse feature works nearly as well, if you narrow it enough.



Wouldn't a timer on the search function resolve this issue?

Unless, somehow, the bots could get past the timer and send a quarter bazillion searches despite, say, a thirty-second timer, which shouldn't even be possible unless someone is stupid enough to use a quarter-bazillion computers to take down a single fansite.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

Sur Realis said:


> Wouldn't a timer on the search function resolve this issue?
> 
> Unless, somehow, the bots could get past the timer and send a quarter bazillion searches despite, say, a thirty-second timer, which shouldn't even be possible unless someone is stupid enough to use a quarter-bazillion computers to take down a single fansite.



Need to just use Lucene or something for search with a floodgate enabled.

But why not drop Windows and go for HP-UX?  11i v3 allows hot swapping of RAM, I/O cards, hard drives, and even processors.  Plus it's stable like most wouldn't believe


----------



## leeter (Jul 2, 2008)

karoug said:


> 32 bit Windows Server 2003 Enterprise can use more memory, I use it with 8GB but I have volume licenses for everything so I don't have to purchase it. Some apps I develop for still don't support 64 bit officially so I keep my servers at 32 bit. They're just for development though and not production.



GO GO Windows on Windows 64, which actually works surprisingly well, I've migrated completely and haven't missed 32bit at all, Oh and web apps still run in 32bit mode regardless for some reason, you'd have to ask MS why, DB's on the other hand rock the 64bit house.


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

JFox said:


> So, untill they can figure out how to code an anti-bot search (is such a thing possible?) we can probably be sure to be without one for some time.



Most sites have this in place for log-ins and a few more are using it for searching. It's that little text box you get when you go to log in. You know 'type what's in the box above'. Stuff like that.


----------



## tesfox (Jul 2, 2008)

The only thing I can really say about this is summed best in the words of 2:

"JESUS CHILD-RAPING CHRIST ON A POPSICLE STICK FUCKING LAME!"

But I digress.  I wish I had some spare $ to throw at FA again, but alas, bills are a cruel mistress.  It's times like this that make me want to code up my own take on FA's model, maybe in Rails, if I had the time...  Work + night class = no free time.

But anyway, as for servers, I'd say go for an Xserve  I've been working with one that we just got where I work for about a month now and it's a breeze to administer.


----------



## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

Sur Realis said:


> Wouldn't a timer on the search function resolve this issue?



The problem with search is that the database's design shits for sale and can't be worked with in any sane fashion. Timers are just kludges.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

SilverAutomatic said:


> Most sites have this in place for log-ins and a few more are using it for searching. It's that little text box you get when you go to log in. You know 'type what's in the box above'. Stuff like that.



CAPTCHAs but most can be cracked.  Google Gmail's and Microsoft Hotmail's (previously uncrackable) were cracked not long ago.

We're in a stage right now trying to figure out where to go next but most indications point to something like "choose which of these is a cat" and shows a bunch of pictures


----------



## Sur Realis (Jul 2, 2008)

mewrei said:


> Need to just use Lucene or something for search with a floodgate enabled.
> 
> But why not drop Windows and go for HP-UX?  11i v3 allows hot swapping of RAM, I/O cards, hard drives, and even processors.  Plus it's stable like most wouldn't believe



Then what of making the search function be disabled for the remote computer that sends more than, say, 10 search requests in a second?


----------



## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

SilverAutomatic said:


> Most sites have this in place for log-ins and a few more are using it for searching. It's that little text box you get when you go to log in. You know 'type what's in the box above'. Stuff like that.



Sites that use a captcha for _logging in_ make me want to decapitate someone.


----------



## leeter (Jul 2, 2008)

mewrei said:


> We have DS3 over OC-48 and that's a heck of a lot of fun.  Get Microsoft downloads at 1.5MB/s.  Though I ran 1MB/s downloading OpenSolaris earlier today on my home cable line.
> 
> And it's not capped, the line's maximum bandwidth is 1.544Mbps.  But that's symmetric too, unlike our asymmetric 10Mbps/348Kbps down/up ADSL lines



Yeah, at home it's not a problem I have a Qwest ASDL 2.0 12/0.7 line that pulls 10/0.7 just fine and is Soooo nice compared to work pulling Server 2008 off of MSDN at home 20min, work: Well I started it this morning an the server is local to the city I work in and has a 500 MB fiber line into it, and it's still not done...


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

Sur Realis said:


> Then what of making the search function be disabled for the remote computer that sends more than, say, 10 search requests in a second?



Yeah that's what a floodgate is.  Lucene though uses a serialized index that functions independently from the DB and operates very similar to one.  It's very fast.

And it's amazing how fast home networking is.  Can't wait for FiOS to become more widespread.  Or some type of fiber at least.  Cable is doing me well though.  My school's connection is insane though.  I tried Bandwidthtest.com in class and it ramped up to 25Mbps


----------



## Sur Realis (Jul 2, 2008)

mewrei said:


> Yeah that's what a floodgate is.  Lucene though uses a serialized index that functions independently from the DB and operates very similar to one.  It's very fast.



I meant actually temporarily IP banning them from access to the site in whole, but I realize that if a timer on a search doesn't work then that wouldn't work either.

However, I don't like the aspect of having to choose which picture is a cat. One, it's demeaning, and two, I'm already taxing my dial-up to know ends just by going to this site period.

A verification code I could live with, as long as it doesn't stray far from the one in the registration process. I've seen some really impossible-to-read codes before, which are, well, impossible to read. Like, one would have small pictures of cats placed randomly around the image that are the same color as the text, and merged with the text half of the time, which made an T look like an I, or a P look like a B.

Edit.

Nevermind, I now understand what you meant by CAPTCHAs. I'm too lazy to keep up with this lingo. =P


----------



## Runefox (Jul 2, 2008)

I would seriously recommend that if you guys manage to breech the $4000 barrier on this, in addition to the hardware you'll be ordering, order a KVM-over-IP device, either internal or external if your colo will allow the external box. With that, you can get complete control over everything from the BIOS up, remotely, so that if the system kernel panics, or the network interface dies, or something strange happens, you can always get access to reboot it yourselves, rather than calling the colo and waiting for one of their techs to come along and press the button. It's really not that expensive in comparison to the saved downtime and cost for on-site maintenance involving the software or BIOS, and on the brighter side still, you can use the Linux bootloader to run memtest on the server if you suspect bad RAM.

You guys probably already have a good idea as to what you're going to get for the new server hardware-wise, but I would definitely have to stress that if you were unsure, you should get ECC RAM, even if it's slower. The extra stability will be a godsend, and you'll need to replace less of it as time goes on.

EDIT: 





> However, I don't like the aspect of having to choose which picture is a cat. One, it's demeaning, and two, I'm already taxing my dial-up to know ends just by going to this site period.


That's KittenAuth. It happens to be currently uncrackable by machines, and easy as pie for humans to figure out (the opposite situation is true for standard CAPTCHAs). I'm not sure what you're complaining about, other than there being several 1KB-3KB files to download, which should take less than 10 seconds on 56k.


----------



## karoug (Jul 2, 2008)

A search based on periodically indexing the available data that isn't "live" would certainly reduce resource usage even if it wouldn't be up to the minute. It could also run on another server as a scheduled task.


----------



## leeter (Jul 2, 2008)

Pi said:


> The problem with search is that the database's design shits for sale and can't be worked with in any sane fashion. Timers are just kludges.



To this I must agree wholeheartedly, either a db has a good schema or it doesn't. If it doesn't, it really sucks. On the other hand all hope is not lost, I ran into this while dumping the Northwind db to XML for a product demo a while back; most db's allow you to dump the data to and from XML, this gives you a chance to implement a new optimized, normalized schema and then dump the data back in, no loss. Is this a lot of work, yes, is it worth it, Usually.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

Sur Realis said:


> I meant actually temporarily IP banning them from access to the site in whole, but I realize that if a timer on a search doesn't work then that wouldn't work either.
> 
> However, I don't like the aspect of having to choose which picture is a cat. One, it's demeaning, and two, I'm already taxing my dial-up to know ends just by going to this site period.
> 
> A verification code I could live with, as long as it doesn't stray far from the one in the registration process. I've seen some really impossible-to-read codes before, which are, well, impossible to read. Like, one would have small pictures of cats placed randomly around the image that are the same color as the text, and merged with the text half of the time, which made an T look like an I, or a P look like a B.



I agree CAPTCHA's are annoying.  My favorite method is just using Javascript to validate the client.  Most bots don't use a full client with JS support.  You can implement a few neat techniques to verify if it's a bot or not.

And IP banning doesn't necessarily do much.  If you know how to execute a few commands on your modem, and have a dynamic IP, you can just renew it for every request.  It's inefficient but if you're talking about distributed clients, even with slowdown it can still have detrimental effects

@karoug: Again, that's Lucene.  Plus there are two versions(probably more).  Apache Lucene which is JSP based(FAAAST), Zend Lucene which is PHP based.  They're binary compatible with one another too

@leeter: Definitely.  A good solid DB schema is almost without question.


----------



## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

leeter said:


> most db's allow you to dump the data to and from XML, this gives you a chance to implement a new optimized, normalized schema and then dump the data back in, no loss. Is this a lot of work, yes, is it worth it, Usually.



... Ew?


----------



## Mobius1 (Jul 2, 2008)

Pi said:


> It's still a consumer product. The API is still called "win32". The TCP/IP stack hasn't been proven, because they completely rewrote it. The server in question uses FreeBSD.


 

i see, they may have to update the sever os to a later version


----------



## leeter (Jul 2, 2008)

Pi said:


> ... Ew?



Could be worse, you could have to start over


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

Mobius1 said:


> i see, they may have to update the sever os to a later version



They probably are using the latest version, but latest isn't necessarily greatest.  Plus server patching is no walk in the park.  Especially open source OSs.  Reason people like RHEL is because they produce fewer, but more stable, business certified editions.  Fedora is basically the testing ground for RHEL


----------



## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

Mobius1 said:


> i see, they may have to update the sever os to a later version



You know nothing about computers. Get out.



leeter said:


> Could be worse, you could have to start over



a) they are
b) they should have to start over. You can't fix some things without taking off and nuking the site from orbit.


----------



## Sur Realis (Jul 2, 2008)

mewrei said:


> I agree CAPTCHA's are annoying.  My favorite method is just using Javascript to validate the client.  Most bots don't use a full client with JS support.  You can implement a few neat techniques to verify if it's a bot or not.
> 
> And IP banning doesn't necessarily do much.  If you know how to execute a few commands on your modem, and have a dynamic IP, you can just renew it for every request.  It's inefficient but if you're talking about distributed clients, even with slowdown it can still have detrimental effects



I understand that much, but I'd think that it would take so long to change that even with distributed clients it would hold little effect. However, unfortunately, I'm behind on my knowledge of ISPs, types, and what each can do. I've been on dial-up for the past year because people refuse to bring anything other than it and satellite which is horrible for my needs out to the country, and besides that a very horribly configured Cable connection that I never saw pass 50 kb/s. Honestly, about 8 months ago I saw a picture of someone getting over an MB a second and I toppled out of my chair, I'm that far behind.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

Sur Realis said:


> I understand that much, but I'd think that it would take so long to change that even with distributed clients it would hold little effect. However, unfortunately, I'm behind on my knowledge of ISPs, types, and what each can do. I've been on dial-up for the past year because people refuse to bring anything other than it and satellite which is horrible for my needs out to the country, and besides that a very horribly configured Cable connection that I never saw pass 50 kb/s. Honestly, about 8 months ago I saw a picture of someone getting over an MB a second and I toppled out of my chair, I'm that far behind.



Well in smaller systems again it wouldn't matter, but in arbitrarily large BotNet's like(say for example's sake) the StormWorm Botnet.  Supposedly it possessed the power of a modern super computer(beyond one probably).

Get a million zombie boxes with a million connections....you do the math


----------



## leeter (Jul 2, 2008)

Pi said:


> a) they are
> b) they should have to start over. You can't fix some things without taking off and nuking the site from orbit.



Without seeing the Db schema I can't make the "The Db's dead Jim" comment, but given the performance issues you're probably right, but are you willing to here everyone kvetch about loosing everything?


----------



## Sur Realis (Jul 2, 2008)

Runefox said:


> EDIT: That's KittenAuth. It happens to be currently uncrackable by machines, and easy as pie for humans to figure out (the opposite situation is true for standard CAPTCHAs). I'm not sure what you're complaining about, other than there being several 1KB-3KB files to download, which should take less than 10 seconds on 56k.



See my post about me being amazingly behind on my internet knowledge. I'm starting to believe more and more all I'm good for is sitting on MSN and talking about how it used to be the craze of the internet to send out links to a video or flash of sorts that ended with some creepy/scary face and an obscurely loud noise made to scare people. Of course, I still see people falling for those, but it doesn't seem as common place.


----------



## Hippotaur2 (Jul 2, 2008)

Now is the time to step up to the plate and donate.

I have donated the max that the Amazon system allows.


Kev


----------



## Sur Realis (Jul 2, 2008)

mewrei said:


> Well in smaller systems again it wouldn't matter, but in arbitrarily large BotNet's like(say for example's sake) the StormWorm Botnet.  Supposedly it possessed the power of a modern super computer(beyond one probably).
> 
> Get a million zombie boxes with a million connections....you do the math



And you eventually have Shakespeare? Oh, no, wait, that would be monkeys.


----------



## sagemane (Jul 2, 2008)

Ebon Lupus said:


> Why don't you hire a dedicated server host and let someone that knows what they are doing handle all the headaches? It must be far cheaper than spending $4000 every 3.5 years... and constantly frustrating the people who actually do pay you guys to have this site running.



That would be the ideal solution, but it would definitely not be a cheap one if you want big dedicated environments and full management provided. While there is a lot of economics of scale that managed solution providers benefit from, the real cost of IT is still in labor. For a fully managed solution with a good SLA including disaster recovery, figure you're spending at least 10x the cost of the underlying hardware over its lifetime.

Part of that is just that hardware has become extremely cheap - a loaded IBM x3850 that will easily run 40 virtual machines is around $20K now. If you figure that's $500/VM in hardware and you charge $125/hr for server management, the cost of the server is only 4 hours of labor. Four years ago the computing power each one of those VMs has would have cost $3,000, but the labor still would have cost about the same, and I imagine four more years down the line it will only get more extreme.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

Sur Realis said:


> And you eventually have Shakespeare? Oh, no, wait, that would be monkeys.



Yup, the infinite amount of internet monkeys just gave us 4chan


----------



## KaniS (Jul 2, 2008)

FA runs on Windows?  Well, I think that explains why it seems so unstable...  I used to manage a server farm of about 30 windows machines and after spending hundreds of hours trying to make them stable I gave up and wrote a watchdog service to just reboot the damn things whenever they started running out of memory, showing 500 internal server error, or whatever other seemingly random things they liked to do.

This was around 1998 so windows has probably improved, but I know the fact remains that given the same hardwarey, you can handle many-fold more users on the same machine running unix vs one running windows.

I grew up on Windows and never touched unix till I was about 25, but I'm a total convert at this point.  I still use WinXP as my desktop (and must reboot weekly) but as a server I would never use windows if I could help it.

Of course, I know you can't port things overnight.  I've been migrating bits of Draconic.com from windows to Debian (and now, Ubuntu) for years.  The motivation to finish the migration quickly isn't there since the win2k server doesn't blow up very often due to having low traffic, but I do still have to reboot it once a month at least when I see the good old "virtual memory minimum too low" message.  I never have to reboot the unix server.  I have the exact same issue where I work now.  Windows server needs rebooting weekly (I automated that), unix server never needs rebooting.

So, in echo of what others have said, I do strongly encourage you to head towards a unix solution.  It's free, much faster, more reliable, and easier to find free support and free software solutions.  Oh, and I don't know what database you're using, but in my experience, free mySQL blows away MS SQL Server on speed and reliability too.


----------



## leeter (Jul 2, 2008)

mewrei said:


> Yup, the infinite amount of internet monkeys just gave us 4chan



Mewrei For the Win!!!


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

KaniS said:


> FA runs on Windows?  Well, I think that explains why it seems so unstable...  I used to manage a server farm of about 30 windows machines and after spending hundreds of hours trying to make them stable I gave up and wrote a watchdog service to just reboot the damn things whenever they started running out of memory, showing 500 internal server error, or whatever other seemingly random things they liked to do.
> 
> This was around 1998 so windows has probably improved, but I know the fact remains that given the same hardwarey, you can handle many-fold more users on the same machine running unix vs one running windows.
> 
> ...



They run FreeBSD which is worse IMHO.  Windows Servers are stable enough, certainly comperable to a lot of Linux installs.

But we need to ditch Linux, BSD, and all the slackers and go straight for old school UNIX like HP-UX or IBM AIX

@leeter: think we should send Al Gore a t-shirt that says "15 years of work and hundreds of millions of dollars and all I get is this shirt and the knowledge that I helped spawn 4chan"?


----------



## Scotty Kirax (Jul 2, 2008)

take the money and  buy 1$ scratch off tickets.


----------



## Calorath (Jul 2, 2008)

KaniS said:


> FA runs on Windows?



Nyet.


----------



## leeter (Jul 2, 2008)

KaniS said:


> FA runs on Windows?  Well, I think that explains why it seems so unstable...  I used to manage a server farm of about 30 windows machines and after spending hundreds of hours trying to make them stable I gave up and wrote a watchdog service to just reboot the damn things whenever they started running out of memory, showing 500 internal server error, or whatever other seemingly random things they liked to do.
> 
> This was around 1998 so windows has probably improved, but I know the fact remains that given the same hardwarey, you can handle many-fold more users on the same machine running unix vs one running windows.
> 
> ...



Wow you are an idiot, and an idiot who's been out of touch for a while too.

1) Furaffinity runs of FreeBSD
2) mySQL sucks it up Massively against SQL Server 2005 and 2008, which itself sucks it up massivly against Oracle.
3) Server 2008 doesn't need to be rebooted not even for updates, MS did a lot of work for this, like rewriting large chucks of the kernel.
4) 10 years makes a HUGE difference get with the times, not that windows doesn't have problems but right now it actually presents a decent solution to a server that was notorious for kernel panicking.


----------



## leeter (Jul 2, 2008)

mewrei said:


> @leeter: think we should send Al Gore a t-shirt that says "15 years of work and hundreds of millions of dollars and all I get is this shirt and the knowledge that I helped spawn 4chan"?



Yes, yes we do


----------



## Nightwatch (Jul 2, 2008)

mewrei said:


> They run FreeBSD which is worse IMHO.  Windows Servers are stable enough, certainly comperable to a lot of Linux installs.
> 
> But we need to ditch Linux, BSD, and all the slackers and go straight for old school UNIX like HP-UX or IBM AIX
> 
> @leeter: think we should send Al Gore a t-shirt that says "15 years of work and hundreds of millions of dollars and all I get is this shirt and the knowledge that I helped spawn 4chan"?


Haha, it has nothing to do with the OS. It has everything to do with crappy hardware and a crappy colo.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

Nightwatch said:


> Haha, it has nothing to do with the OS. It has everything to do with crappy hardware and a crappy colo.



Well this situation does.  However, as an opinionated nerd I reserve the right to let my opinions be known in every dire situation.

@leeter: I smell a new xkcd comic idea

And I wouldn't go after MySQL.  It's actually a pretty solid platform.  People mainly use it because it can handle connections one heck of a lot faster than MS SQL and Oracle, making it ideal for systems like PHP.  However with connection pooling and .Net/Java, you can run persistent connections to the DB and then it gets faster.

Plus MS SQL and Oracle require a lot of overhead...and licensing


----------



## Sur Realis (Jul 2, 2008)

mewrei said:


> Yup, the infinite amount of internet monkeys just gave us 4chan



If that gets you down, then consider that if they didn't bring us 4chan we would have gotten something worse.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

Sur Realis said:


> If that gets you down, then consider that if they didn't bring us 4chan we would have gotten something worse.



....been done, 7chan


----------



## raidy_and_dobe (Jul 2, 2008)

Name calling? No matter how irrelevant or how much you disagree, calling names is rude.


----------



## Sur Realis (Jul 2, 2008)

mewrei said:


> ....been done, 7chan



*Blinks.*

Huh. You ish right.

But nonetheless, had 4chan not existed, 7chan would have been worse, and so on and so on for everything you come up with that's worse than the last, because, admittedly, combined efforts have more degrading affects.

Like drugs.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

Sur Realis said:


> *Blinks.*
> 
> Huh. You ish right.
> 
> ...



Like SomethingAwful......this list could go on forever


----------



## Tangent (Jul 2, 2008)

rednec0 said:


> i do like the rich-guy idea but what about possibly trying to win the good ol' lotto? i know its a shot in the dark, but it does have an opportunity for possibly getting the $$$ needed for a complete overhaul.


Maybe the Administration doesn't have a shot at the lotto, but if every Fur in all the land buys a ticket, I'd say our chances increase drmatically. <3​


----------



## leeter (Jul 2, 2008)

mewrei said:


> And I wouldn't go after MySQL.  It's actually a pretty solid platform.  People mainly use it because it can handle connections one heck of a lot faster than MS SQL and Oracle, making it ideal for systems like PHP.  However with connection pooling and .Net/Java, you can run persistent connections to the DB and then it gets faster.
> 
> Plus MS SQL and Oracle require a lot of overhead



Point taken but given my druthers I would still use Oracle or DB2 over both any day. mySql is not a bad Db in fact it's a lot better than some of the other options and in fact it's one of the few Open Source apps that I consider to be true enterprise quality.


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 2, 2008)

raidy_and_dobe said:


> Name calling? No matter how irrelevant or how much you disagree, calling names is rude.



Never mind the part where it makes the person doing that look like a complete ass.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

leeter said:


> Point taken but given my druthers I would still use Oracle or DB2 over both any day. mySql is not a bad Db in fact it's a lot better than some of the other options and in fact it's one of the few Open Source apps that I consider to be true enterprise quality.



Agreed, though I'm not a fan of DB2.  We run it on our iSeries at work and it has issues with assigning the same primary key to 2 different requests.  This could be the .Net DB2 adapter though, I'm willing to compromise there.


----------



## Pi (Jul 2, 2008)

SilverAutomatic said:


> raidy_and_dobe said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



ahahahaha
ahahah
ahahahahahahaha
hahahahaha
lsldfkjghhhhahahahahaahahhhh


----------



## karoug (Jul 2, 2008)

There's no way they're going to be able to pay for a SQL platform, thus we get MySql, the same pretty much goes for the OS. Cost is the probably primary reason for these decisions although religious affiliation might be involved.  (Windows! Unix! Linux! I hate Microsoft!, etc)


----------



## leeter (Jul 2, 2008)

mewrei said:


> Agreed, though I'm not a fan of DB2.  We run it on our iSeries at work and it has issues with assigning the same primary key to 2 different requests.  This could be the .Net DB2 adapter though, I'm willing to compromise there.



Don't get me started on the .Net db2 adapter it is pure crap that has cause my company no end of problems, the db2 driver is the only one we had to override the data reader because otherwise it blew crap in our faces, mind writing an app to connect to all five major varieties or DB is not easy in the first place but the db2 adapter didn't help


----------



## Norithics (Jul 2, 2008)

I'll be honest. I've been annoyed with things the FA administrators have done in the past. And I don't always agree with policies in place. But I have to admit the service has really only become better over time, and for something that's free, it really is better than one would expect. So here's hoping these things get better in the future, and a sincere well-done to the Staff as of late.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

karoug said:


> There's no way they're going to be able to pay for a SQL platform, thus we get MySql, the same pretty much goes for the OS. Cost is the possibility primary reason for these decisions although religious affiliation might be involved.  (Windows! Unix! Linux! I hate Microsoft!, etc)



UNIX for the win.  And yeah we already went over that

@leeter: thought that may be the problem.  Didn't think DB software that expensive running on a server like an iSeries could be that bad.


----------



## Runefox (Jul 2, 2008)

Any software running on anything can be bad, no matter (and sometimes especially considering) how much it costs. Take Norton Antivirus for example. Big, slow, bloated, horrendously inefficient at best and ineffective at worst, yet people shell out $60-$70 per year to keep themselves protected because they're the big name in it. That's minor, though, and on the home consumer end of things. Similar things exist in the corporate world that cost huge sums of money, though I can't come up with any examples off the top of my sleepy head.


----------



## Pomander (Jul 2, 2008)

Norithics said:


> I'll be honest. I've been annoyed with things the FA administrators have done in the past. And I don't always agree with policies in place. But I have to admit the service has really only become better over time, and for something that's free, it really is better than one would expect. So here's hoping these things get better in the future, and a sincere well-done to the Staff as of late.



Seconding this.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

Runefox said:


> Any software running on anything can be bad, no matter (and sometimes especially considering) how much it costs. Take Norton Antivirus for example. Big, slow, bloated, horrendously inefficient at best and ineffective at worst, yet people shell out $60-$70 per year to keep themselves protected because they're the big name in it. That's minor, though, and on the home consumer end of things. Similar things exist in the corporate world that cost huge sums of money, though I can't come up with any examples off the top of my sleepy head.



*cough* LANDesk *cough*  Good $175,000/year for that guy xD

Can only imagine what SAP, Citrix, and those guys cost


----------



## karoug (Jul 2, 2008)

I think the software platform is pretty much not the main issue and isn't really going to change anyway. Their coders are familiar with what they've got and are writing Ferrox for it so the hardware they get just needs to avoid kernel panics and whatnot. 

I'm sure Dragoneer will research to make sure the appropriate drivers are available for whatever hardware they purchase and that the component manufacturer's don't have forums full of "this hardware sucks!" postings.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

karoug said:


> I think the software platform is pretty much not the main issue and isn't really going to change anyway. Their coders are familiar with what they've got and are writing Ferrox for it so the hardware they get just needs to avoid kernel panics and whatnot.



I think we deviated from FA's servers about 30 posts ago...Which reminds me, what was the purpose of this thread again?


----------



## Sur Realis (Jul 2, 2008)

mewrei said:


> *cough* LANDesk *cough*  Good $175,000/year for that guy xD
> 
> Can only imagine what SAP, Citrix, and those guys cost



I officially relinquish my self-proclaimed title of computer geek.

Now I shall go off storming Wikipedia, Google, and such with searches to make sense out of everything here while brainstorming on random things that may or may not pertain to the topics at hand.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

Sur Realis said:


> I officially relinquish my self-proclaimed title of computer geek.
> 
> Now I shall go off storming Wikipedia, Google, and such with searches to make sense out of everything here while brainstorming on random things that may or may not pertain to the topics at hand.



LANDesk is a client management software similar to Microsoft SMS but with a whole lot more functionality.

SAP is an ERP(Enterprise Resource Planning) software similar to JDEdwards/Peoplesoft

Citrix is like an autoconfiguring VPN for insecure networks or where it would be inconvenient or impossible to create connections to remote servers otherwise


----------



## straycat74 (Jul 2, 2008)

*Re: Server's down, Trolls About, Low on Ammo*

Dear Dragoneer, 

   I used to work IBM doing Hardware Tech Support on Thinkpads (pre-y2k). one thing I know is that L-Level Users (Lusers, PEBKAC, ID10T-errors) will never be able to do is understand a SINGLE dam thing anyone ever actually tries to tell them.

All they know how to do is bitch, piss-off, moan, complain, get nasty, quote misunderstood references they glanced at in a "trade Magazine" that they can't name from 10 years ago, and accuse everyone else of incompetence (usually when they {the Lusers} are the reasons something went wrong in the first place...).

PLEASE! Do NOT think the Intelligent people (i.e everyone with an I.q. higher than Tapioca) demean or degrade your service.

We Understand.

We might not like being without our furry-crack-habit for a few days (i.e. FAR too long for mortal man), but we understand and will wait patiently... Flaming each other in the forums for lack of pron and other distractions


----------



## karoug (Jul 2, 2008)

*Re: Server's down, Trolls About, Low on Ammo*



straycat74 said:


> Dear Dragoneer,
> ...



The first thing Dragoneer needs to decide is what color he wants his database.


----------



## Runefox (Jul 2, 2008)

karoug said:
			
		

> I think the software platform is pretty much not the main issue and isn't really going to change anyway.


True, but the server software and database software they use can dramatically affect what kind of capability/performance they can expect from the server as a whole, as well as reliability. MySQL and PostgreSQL typically work just fine for most small to medium sites, with no hard cost attached to them. I haven't seen how they would scale to something of FA's magnitude, and I don't know what the performance numbers would be on competing commercial products such as SQL Server, Oracle, and so on. Also of consequence is the server software (and configurations, which FA staff have already tweaked) used, including the OS, its capabilities and setup (kernels for the same OS can differ drastically for different purpose uses), network layer, and the HTTP daemon itself. For the daemon, Apache, like MySQL/PostgreSQL, is again decent for small to medium, but as was said earlier in this thread, if there's a lot of load and the server is multicore, it may not do as much load balancing as it should, and therefore may not harness the server's maximum potential.

There are other alternatives, but none really come up to Apache in terms of utility except for IIS, which I personally dislike but seems to be immensely successful on the large side of things. I'd imagine that a server cluster with a load balancing appliance between them and the internet would be ideal, and would work very well with Apache or IIS, but that situation is far from reality for FA at the moment from what I gather.

Note that by software, I don't mean the PHP scripts that make up the site. I mean the server software itself and the OS.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

Runefox said:


> karoug: True, but the server software and database software they use can dramatically affect what kind of capability/performance they can expect from the server as a whole, as well as reliability. MySQL and PostgreSQL typically work just fine for most small to medium sites, with no hard cost attached to them. I haven't seen how they would scale to something of FA's magnitude, and I don't know what the performance numbers would be on competing commercial products such as SQL Server, Oracle, and so on. Also of consequence is the server software (and configurations, which FA staff have already tweaked) used, including the OS, its capabilities and setup (kernels for the same OS can differ drastically for different purpose uses), network layer, and the HTTP daemon itself. For the daemon, Apache, like MySQL/PostgreSQL, is again decent for small to medium, but as was said earlier in this thread, if there's a lot of load and the server is multicore, it may not do as much load balancing as it should, and therefore may not harness the server's maximum potential.
> 
> There are other alternatives, but none really come up to Apache in terms of utility except for IIS, which I personally dislike but seems to be immensely successful on the large side of things. I'd imagine that a server cluster with a load balancing appliance between them and the internet would be ideal, and would work very well with Apache or IIS, but that situation is far from reality for FA at the moment from what I gather.



Or at least a virtualized cluster with automatic failover...btw Amazon EC2 anyone?

Also you may like LightTPD check into it sometime.


----------



## karoug (Jul 2, 2008)

Random thought:

I wonder how FurAffinity ranks in terms of network traffic and workload when compared to other sites that run only on donations and volunteers.

I'm guessing that they are pretty high up the list.


----------



## Runefox (Jul 2, 2008)

mewrei said:
			
		

> Also you may like LightTPD check into it sometime.


I was going to mention it, but it really doesn't have the feature set that Apache does. It's lightning fast, though, I used it for a while on an old AMD K6-2 400/64MB RAM "server" I built with great results. But again, I don't think it would scale well to faster hardware and multi-core behemoths.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

Runefox said:


> I was going to mention it, but it really doesn't have the feature set that Apache does. It's lightning fast, though, I used it for a while on an old AMD K6-2 400/64MB RAM "server" I built with great results. But again, I don't think it would scale well to faster hardware and multi-core behemoths.



It does decently, especially with FastCGI modules, even has built in load balancing over FastCGI.

Supposedly it's Apache compatible as well

@karoug: I checked Alexa and xkcd is a significant bit higher, but the application is a lot lighter weight too.


----------



## Runefox (Jul 2, 2008)

It's compatible with Apache modules, like mod_php4/mod_php5, mod_perl, etc. Not sure if it would do mod_rewrite or anything, but I imagine it would. I haven't used it in years, though.


----------



## Wolf_Fox_Guy (Jul 2, 2008)

*Re: Server's down, Trolls About, Low on Ammo*



karoug said:


> The first thing Dragoneer needs to decide is what color he wants his database.


I vote it arives in yifftastic yellow


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

Runefox said:


> It's compatible with Apache modules, like mod_php4/mod_php5, mod_perl, etc. Not sure if it would do mod_rewrite or anything, but I imagine it would. I haven't used it in years, though.



It has it's own rewriting engine and a different rewrite format.  Kinda bizarre IMHO but still very usable.  LightTPD + FastCGI + RoadSend PHP Binaries + mod_deflate(and caching) is an unbeatable speed combo


----------



## karoug (Jul 2, 2008)

I wonder if the images are stored in flatfiles or as BLOB objects in the database itself.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

karoug said:


> I wonder if the images are stored in flatfiles or as BLOB objects in the database itself.



I had that same thought a while ago, and if it's the latter....just.....won't say anything


----------



## Zerosarmor (Jul 2, 2008)

*Re: Server's down, Trolls About, Low on Ammo*



karoug said:


> The first thing Dragoneer needs to decide is what color he wants his database.


My vote is for blood red! XD


----------



## karoug (Jul 2, 2008)

mewrei said:


> I had that same thought a while ago, and if it's the latter....just.....won't say anything



You don't like BLOBs? What wrong with BLOBs?


----------



## Sur Realis (Jul 2, 2008)

mewrei said:


> LANDesk is a client management software similar to Microsoft SMS but with a whole lot more functionality.
> 
> SAP is an ERP(Enterprise Resource Planning) software similar to JDEdwards/Peoplesoft
> 
> Citrix is like an autoconfiguring VPN for insecure networks or where it would be inconvenient or impossible to create connections to remote servers otherwise



That only gives me a vague idea of it, but now I know there's an entire subject of computers I knew absolutely nothing about.

Oh well. Had to happen eventually, especially when all I've done for the past year is sit on dial-up and get into obscure arguments with random people.


----------



## karoug (Jul 2, 2008)

*Re: Server's down, Trolls About, Low on Ammo*



Zerosarmor said:


> My vote is for blood red! XD



Blue for Fender's tie!


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

karoug said:


> You don't like BLOBs? What wrong with BLOBs?



MySQL + BLOB types.....the database server is overworked as it is xD


----------



## karoug (Jul 2, 2008)

mewrei said:


> MySQL + BLOB types.....the database server is overworked as it is xD



Ok. I just wanted to say BLOB some more. BLOB.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

karoug said:


> Ok. I just wanted to say BLOB some more. BLOB.



We now have a new FA internet meme....BLOB


----------



## ShadowComet (Jul 2, 2008)

To the on topic, Servers die many different ways but are caused by a few main causes.

1. Spyware/Viruses Hopefully no one has been so mean.
2. Dust You do need to blow them out, just like every other computer, even laptops are of no exception
3. Have you bothered to run any defragmentation programs? Servers take a lot of abuse, so they should be taken offline for defrag at least once a week to be completely safe, or 2-3 times a month. once a month pushes it though

Spyware/Viruses attack your software, Dust burns out your hardware and not defragging can kill hardrives, no matter how redundant they are.

Anyway, just some helpful tips for everyone and anyone who wants stuff to last 10-20 years with minimal blue screens of death.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> To the on topic, Servers die many different ways but are caused by a few main causes.
> 
> 1. Spyware/Viruses Hopefully no one has been so mean.
> 2. Dust You do need to blow them out, just like every other computer, even laptops are of no exception
> ...



I dunno of any viruses that cause hardware issues.  HAL problems yes but not the actual hardware itself.BLOB


----------



## karoug (Jul 2, 2008)

mewrei said:


> I dunno of any viruses that cause hardware issues.  HAL problems yes but not the actual hardware itself.BLOB



Can you get a unix virus? I haven't even seen worms for a long time.


blob


----------



## Zerosarmor (Jul 2, 2008)

Blob, blob, blob. XD It's fun to say!


----------



## mewrei (Jul 2, 2008)

karoug said:


> Can you get a unix virus? I haven't even seen worms for a long time.
> 
> 
> blob



Much less of a BSD.  No one cares enough about those guys.....unless there's a 4chan conspiracy and there was amazingly someone smart enough among them to write one
BLOB


----------



## icehawk (Jul 2, 2008)

karoug said:


> I wonder if the images are stored in flatfiles or as BLOB objects in the database itself.



_This_. This (using SQL BLOB columns) is the #1 cause of problems I have at work.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 3, 2008)

icehawk said:


> This. This (using SQL BLOB columns) is the #1 cause of problems I have at work.



You didn't end your BLOB sentence with BLOB....BLOB


----------



## Sur Realis (Jul 3, 2008)

mewrei said:


> You didn't end your BLOB sentence with BLOB....BLOB



Shun the nonBLOBber...?BLOB


----------



## karoug (Jul 3, 2008)

icehawk said:


> _This_. This (using SQL BLOB columns) is the #1 cause of problems I have at work.



If you are replicating a database and don't share a common file system among multiple servers you pretty much need to use them. Plus, with caching and large amounts of memory it can be beneficial. How many SCSI controllers have 4 GB of cache. 



Spoiler



blob


----------



## mewrei (Jul 3, 2008)

BLOBSCSI controllers do
BLOB


----------



## Wolf_Fox_Guy (Jul 3, 2008)

mewrei said:


> You didn't end your BLOB sentence with BLOB....BLOB


shun shun.....shuuuuunnnnnn...blob


----------



## karoug (Jul 3, 2008)

mewrei said:


> BLOBSCSI controllers do
> BLOB


4 GIGA bytes?



Spoiler



blob


----------



## KaniS (Jul 3, 2008)

leeter said:


> Wow you are an idiot, and an idiot who's been out of touch for a while too.



Thank you for your "kind" correction.  I'm sorry I tried to help.

I got the impression FA ran on windows by reading a number of posts a half dozen pages ago, but I'm glad I was mistaken.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 3, 2008)

BLOB dude, BLOB.  On a minor BLOB note http://www.sun.com/storagetek/disk_systems/data_center/9990v/ BLOB


----------



## icehawk (Jul 3, 2008)

karoug said:


> If you are replicating a database and don't share a common file system among multiple servers you pretty much need to use them. Plus, with caching and large amounts of memory it can be beneficial. How many SCSI controllers have 4 GB of cache.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It's not beneficial when you have several TB of expensive fast disk taken up because the programmer was lazy and shoved the files into a BLOB.




mewrei said:


> You didn't end your BLOB sentence with BLOB....BLOB



Thats because I thought about it and got too angry to end my sentence with the word 'BLOB'.


----------



## karoug (Jul 3, 2008)

mewrei said:


> BLOB dude, BLOB.  On a minor BLOB note http://www.sun.com/storagetek/disk_systems/data_center/9990v/ BLOB


Well, that's a storage server starting at 250,000 or so. If you need one of those I doube using BLOBs would be too much of an issue since you'd probably have Oracle Application server and 50 programmers. 

Oh and BLOB.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 3, 2008)

karoug said:


> Well, that's a storage server starting at 250,000 or so. If you need one of those I doube using BLOBs would be too much of an issue since you'd probably have Oracle Application server and 50 programmers.
> 
> Oh and BLOB.



FibreChannel   Plus virtual disk support, for those who just have that much porn BLOB


----------



## karoug (Jul 3, 2008)

icehawk said:


> Thats because I thought about it and got too angry to end my sentence with the word 'BLOB'.



I'd think it's more of a pain in the butt to encode a file and store it in a database than it is to just use a string with a path in it. Maybe you can split them off into their own instance / partition / whatever you're working with and put the database file on the slower drive.


----------



## Hippotaur2 (Jul 3, 2008)

karoug said:


> I wonder if the images are stored in flatfiles or as BLOB objects in the database itself.


 
I think the images of us Fat Furs are stored as the latter... :grin:

Blob


----------



## karoug (Jul 3, 2008)

mewrei said:


> FibreChannel   Plus virtual disk support, for those who just have that much porn BLOB



I'm sure those big porn sites with streaming video use those. They're all millionaires.

[faicon]blob[/faicon]


----------



## ArielMT (Jul 3, 2008)

karoug said:


> Can you get a unix virus? I haven't even seen worms for a long time.


Unix and Linux are more prone to exploitable vulnerabilities in the application layer than to any virii or worms.  Of course, since those applications are server applications, the consequences of a single successful exploit are often at least as severe as the complete infestation of consumer client systems.


> blob


Now Playing: The BLOBs.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 3, 2008)

I wonder if we can get those "real porn" BLOBing morons to host FA for us BLOB

@ArielMT: Plus it'd have to be executed as well, which poses a problem, unless a /b/tard has an admin SSH password/keypair and knows the Firefox 3 exploit BLOB


----------



## karoug (Jul 3, 2008)

Hippotaur2 said:


> I think the images of us Fat Furs are stored as the latter... :grin:



Well, there is such a thing as a Tinyblob.

[faicon]blob[/faicon]


----------



## mewrei (Jul 3, 2008)

karoug said:


> Well, there is such a thing as a Tinyblob.
> 
> [faicon]blob[/faicon]



And here come the BLOB Macro/Micro BLOB comments BLOB


----------



## karoug (Jul 3, 2008)

mewrei said:


> I wonder if we can get those "real porn" BLOBing morons to host FA for us BLOB



Only if you want popup ads showing women with their legs spread blotting out your desktop. 

blob


----------



## mewrei (Jul 3, 2008)

karoug said:


> Only if you want popup ads showing women with their legs spread blotting out your desktop.
> 
> blob



....you act like that's a tough decision BLOB


----------



## ArielMT (Jul 3, 2008)

mewrei said:


> @ArielMT: Plus it'd have to be executed as well, which poses a problem, unless a /b/tard has an admin SSH password/keypair and knows the Firefox 3 exploit BLOB


There are more ways in than that, though none of them are quite as easy as the admittedly difficult way you highlight.  Any good sysadmin keeps abreast of what they are and how to mitigate them.

Coming soon: Meet the BLOBbers.


----------



## mewrei (Jul 3, 2008)

ArielMT said:


> There are more ways in than that, though none of them are quite as easy as the admittedly difficult way you highlight.  Any good sysadmin keeps abreast of what they are and how to mitigate them.
> 
> Coming soon: Meet the BLOBbers.



Yeah that's just one of the most likely in my mind.  A solid platform is more susceptible to compromise via social engineering than actual exploitation.

Go forth all and BLOB the internet full of BLOB


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 3, 2008)

karoug said:


> Only if you want popup ads showing women with their legs spread blotting out your desktop.



.......................

and?! XD


----------



## icehawk (Jul 3, 2008)

karoug said:


> I'd think it's more of a pain in the butt to encode a file and store it in a database than it is to just use a string with a path in it. Maybe you can split them off into their own instance / partition / whatever you're working with and put the database file on the slower drive.



It's slowly* getting better, since I now make an end run around the programmer and store the files on a filesystem (with the path/filename being the primary key,) as they're supposed to be stored.



[size=-3]* We started this time last year, and now we're almost completely finished transitioning away from storing things as BLOB[/size]


----------



## Foxboy5692 (Jul 3, 2008)

well its good that your getting a new server and doing updates and such... sucks that its has to cost so much tho XP but heres to hopes of a greater bigger future.... just a thought wouldnt it be awsome if FA got like a whole office buildings worth of space staff and money


----------



## Deko (Jul 3, 2008)

*squeaks*


----------



## Wolf_Fox_Guy (Jul 3, 2008)

Deko said:


> *squeaks*


*yips*


----------



## ShadowComet (Jul 3, 2008)

mewrei said:


> I dunno of any viruses that cause hardware issues. HAL problems yes but not the actual hardware itself.BLOB


 

That's peoples biggest mistakes, thinking of what viruses can't do, Spyware is just a subclassification in all fairness, and certain viruses can stop your fans to cause overheating, or fragment your harddrive to an alarming extent.

As I say to most of my repair customers: DO NOT THINK IT CAN'T BE DONE!!! (usually said in a half musing half serious way) 
...
...
ZING!!


----------



## TheBeastWithin (Jul 3, 2008)

We still love you 'neer. Two drops in a bucket.


----------



## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 3, 2008)

mewrei said:


> HAL problems yes but not the actual hardware itself.BLOB



HAL problems? The creation turning against its creator? That would explain *a lot* about FA.

...We will BLOB you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sixDADVVnxA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW6maJgzk7E


----------



## Zeikcied (Jul 3, 2008)

Daddy Ducky BE said:


> HAL problems? The creation turning against its creator? That would explain *a lot* about FA.


Hardware Abstraction Layer.

From what I can tell, it's something used by Unix and Linux to aid in hardware compatibility.


----------



## Antarius (Jul 3, 2008)

Whew! Looks like I'm not missing anything then!

My ISP went bankrupt and so I have to resort to dial-up until I can churn (approx a week).

I'm kinda relieved that nobody will think that I'm ignoring them! 


Not happy to hear that there are server probs, of course! That kind of goes without saying!


----------



## TehSean (Jul 3, 2008)

Can anyone explain to me what a BLOb is? All I've found is that it was a database that never really got off the ground due to aggressive competition that squelched it based on its name(which was referred to as a "backronym").


----------



## icehawk (Jul 3, 2008)

TehSean said:


> Can anyone explain to me what a BLOb is? All I've found is that it was a database that never really got off the ground due to aggressive competition that squelched it based on its name(which was referred to as a "backronym").



A large amount of 'unstructured' binary data in a database column, usually used to hold things like video/audio/images/files/etc, is a BLOB.


----------



## Pi (Jul 3, 2008)

TehSean said:


> Can anyone explain to me what a BLOb is? All I've found is that it was a database that never really got off the ground due to aggressive competition that squelched it based on its name(which was referred to as a "backronym").



It's a Binary Large OBject and is often used to completely violate the idea of a database to begin with. Dr. Codd is whirling in his grave at 15000 rpm.


----------



## TehSean (Jul 3, 2008)

So what's with all this interest in building FA around BLOb's? (because I think it's based on its fun to say name I must be missing the point)


----------



## Pi (Jul 3, 2008)

TehSean said:


> So what's with all this interest in building FA around BLOb's? (because I think it's based on its fun to say name I must be missing the point)



It was a joke.


----------



## TehSean (Jul 3, 2008)

Oh.


----------



## icehawk (Jul 3, 2008)

TehSean said:


> So what's with all this interest in building FA around BLOb's? (because I think it's based on its fun to say name I must be missing the point)



Nope, you've gotten it exactly.


Now back to your regularly scheduled OMG TEH SERVER IS DYING!!!!!


----------



## TehSean (Jul 3, 2008)

I don't really mind that the server is dying. It'll be a great chance for FA to undergo some kind of positive change. I'm unsure how it'll turn out based on how little I know about the progress of Ferrox. As far as I know, it's.. just not done... and won't be for quite some time as it's the spare time, unpaid hobby of two or three people, the names of whom I've forgotten because their work isn't widely publicized! But uh. I do hope they finish the project eventually.

It could also give a chance for what few "competing" furry galleries there are besides FA to see some of the enormity that is FA's traffic during its downtime.

Sooooo. Not really much to do apart from take bets on how long FA's going to be down. I'm going to say that it'll be back in five days.


----------



## Misplaced_Spigot (Jul 3, 2008)

Couldn't have picked a better time to melt the servers, I'm leaving for a week to go to a wedding. Well, good luck and godspeed to all you murry purry furries, hope this is all sorted out soon! (Neer, will be checking my PM's for the paypal stuff whilst I'm gone).

Also, shot in the dark by someone who doesn't know much about servers nor programming, but let's say the donations go well enough (seems like it thus far)... Possible to split the budget between upgrading hardware AND hiring full-time programmers to finish and implement Ferrox during the downtime? Yes? No? GTFO?


----------



## Strawkitty (Jul 3, 2008)

TehSean said:


> I'm unsure how it'll turn out based on how little I know about the progress of Ferrox. As far as I know, it's.. just not done... and won't be for quite some time as it's the spare time, unpaid hobby of two or three people, the names of whom I've forgotten because their work isn't widely publicized! But uh. I do hope they finish the project eventually.



Just one person's(Eevee/Lexyeevee) last I heard and it's been a while since I heard that.


----------



## ohtar (Jul 3, 2008)

*Idea to help with costs*

those furs with alternate artwork accounts like Deviantart, (as many do I find) and good commission ratings should try and raise some cash to help out the site! we could pull together a decent amount to help out that way...

id offer my art towards the effort but i never get anything finished that I start XD


----------



## Sunder (Jul 3, 2008)

Well honestly I would name the new server after one of two things

Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead 1 & 2, Army of Darkness, Bubba Ho-tep) Because Christ hes a B movie actor that never gives up.

Or my personal favorite, a Valkyrie, I mean seriously they have the best names ever

*SigrdrÃ*fa: She Who Drives Victory

*Something bad ass like that.


----------



## snowmizer (Jul 3, 2008)

*Re: Idea to help with costs*



ohtar said:


> those furs with alternate artwork accounts like Deviantart, (as many do I find) and good commission ratings should try and raise some cash to help out the site! we could pull together a decent amount to help out that way...
> 
> id offer my art towards the effort but i never get anything finished that I start XD



*
I'd done that with my first Furbuy auction, I wanted to some 50% to both Furbuy and FA but the owner of Furbuy said there was no donation system so instead I gave it all to FA ^.^

It worked pretty well and plan to do it again, if more atrists did it and donated a small (or big) percentage then that could go a long long long way. I mean after all with out FA I wouldn't even have commissions ^.^; â™¥

*​


----------



## Montezuma (Jul 3, 2008)

I wouldnt mind FA being down for a MONTH if we got a server that didnt go down like a cheap who're XD

What is so different about FAs server from the other art sites to make it go down like this? or am i over simplifying the problem. Im no techie =/

FA is the only site i frequent that drops and bugs out :: puts a band aid on it::
Get back up soon! <B


----------



## AkaiOniNeko (Jul 3, 2008)

Well, at least we know what the hell is wrong with our servers on here rather than on another site I used to frequent that I got sick of because it crashed so much: Subeta. I swear, it's amazing when it isn't down. 

I feel bad for not being able to contribute because of money problems within the household, but I give kudos to the people working to fix our problems who know what the hell is going on each time. Sure, FA goes down a bit too much for other people's comfort, but it'd be more annoying if the staff didn't have the experienced people figuring out exactly /how/ the servers are fucking us all in the ass. 

And in response to Montezuma: I know DevART has a hell of a lot of income, mainly because of subscriptions and the perks that come with them, not to mention they have the funds to make a shitload of merchandise. Other smaller art sites, however, I've no clue about.


----------



## RaitonoTenshi (Jul 3, 2008)

jd345 said:


> at least you guys are working on it,i was subiting a story when it fell, >.> i hope you guys get a rich man on the fourms and probly donates a whole bundle of cash to you guys, but thats just me hoping v.v



if i win the lotto i am so buying servers for FA and self.
in the mean time how bout putting up fund raiser adds on FA.
realy i'm sure ppl would agree that anyone who companies about the adds can kiss off or buy FA the servers.


----------



## Bobkiller (Jul 3, 2008)

Wow, this can't be good.

A funny thing. I just made a picture, drew it with my crappy drawing skillz, and I go Yeah! I'm gonna upload it to....."

"Damn...forgot.." And I compleatly forgot about FA being down, silleh me. Hehe.

Good luck getting everything fixed ^^


----------



## geckonori (Jul 3, 2008)

Just to throw my two cents in... I whole-heartedly approve of a subscription fee that adds features. Perhaps even just a search function? I mean, something like $20 or $30 a year is completely reasonable. So the sooner FA implements that function, the sooner I jump aboard the subscriber train.


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 3, 2008)

RaitonoTenshi said:


> in the mean time how bout putting up fund raiser adds on FA.



No-one notices the banner ads on FA, or this wouldn't be brought up. 

On a typical page on FA (when it's up), there are presently 4 banner ads in the left-hand column and one bigger banner ad at the bottom. Of the 4 on the left, #3 is the Donate! banner, made of artwork from earlier in the year. So, yes, it's already there. (#4 is presently FA:United, but the other two are paid ads from within the furry community.)

Just please notice, everyone, that FA isn't being solely funded on donations alone, but it still makes up the bulk of it. I'm OK with the ads as they are now, because they're unobtrusive and are properly themed to FA's core audience- Furries.  But they don't get enough, IMO. More furry artists and others within the furry community who offer goods and services should advertise on FA- It's good for them, good for FA, and good for the customer, who is properly targeted. 

As for the current donation drive- HUZZAH! to everyone who donated- This is an emergency situation, and I hope the last such- But donate what you can when you can. And if you can't donate, try to lend whatever support you can, even if just a cheerleader. Drama and bitchfests just don't help ANYBODY.

I wish the admins the best of luck, and FA a speedy recovery. 

d.m.f.


----------



## Jyan (Jul 3, 2008)

yak said:


> We are actually looking for two physical servers we will use for dedicated tasks
> 
> WWW server
> 8 physical cores
> ...



Those servers look like good rigs; hopefully they will bring back the quality we had when FA (re?)started...

Stupid question, but why not improving the storage capacity on both servers? The prices of most HDDs is pretty low at the moment, it's really the time to pick 5 for the price of 4, or even 3 (that's what we have in France here); plus, if you were to add that HDD for backups and logs, you might as well take 2 and put them in RAID-1 in order to prevent further inconveniences.

Also, why the difference of cores between both servers? Isn't a quad-core for the data server more appropriate? Unless the 16GB of "ram disk-cache" proved to be efficent since then...but if you have extra money, don't hesitate to spend it 

What kind of server will you get? A "homemade" server, or a "real" one like Dell does? I'd be quite curious about which model you're gonna choose, since I've worked a lot in a Dell environment at my previous work.


----------



## meatwad44 (Jul 3, 2008)

Ok, i MAY be restating stuff that has already been said. I read through the first page of replies, and some random ones between.
   Maybe part of the problem is unlimited uploading? I personally try to never have more that 20 pieces up at a time. If you have 974 pieces of art, even if they are amazing, do ALL 974  pieces have to be online at once? It MAY piss a lot of people off, but why not limit total upload sizes for free accounts, and then even if its only a dollar a month, the number of members to this site x 1 buck = more than 0 dollars. 
   people will gripe. people will bitch. eventually people will deal. to me posting hundreds of even te most amazing art pieces is abuse and taking what a server is for granted. this is an art site, not your personal storage. pick your best, use your own darn hard drive for your own work. rotate as needed. Sure, it may not be server overload due to all the files causing the issues, but it sure as heck isnt helping things. every time you guys have the site down for even an hour, people panic because as SOON as its back up, people rush to upload as much as they can in fear of it going down again. which causes too much traffic and hey, look they made the site too busy to view for a few minutes due to bandwith. file restrictions may even help that a little.
    I think that while people may bitch, they would rather pay a dollar a month for more uploads (still free at base mind you, you dont have to pay but you get benefits if you do because you are helping out) then watch this site crash and burn like Playmouse. Anybody remember the last few days of that before it went PAY ONLY? The guy made sense. if only HALF the users paid just 1 dollar in donations, he could have kept it free for another year. instead people rushed to grab all the free artwork they could before it went pay.
   i dont see FA suffering the same fate, yet. hard work seems to be getting done. but everyone's gotta help. no, i havent donated anything yet. i dont have pay pal. but im working on it darn it! (just kinda need a job that pays money first)


----------



## robomilk (Jul 3, 2008)

There's a lot of complaining about bad coding... why don't the coders use this planned week-or-so of downtime to, y'know, fix it up a bit? Not entirely, as I think that would take a fair bit longer, but at least do what you couldn't normally if the site were online.

(And if anyone says that it's not possible because they can't access the site, learn of the wonder of backups!)


----------



## Maelstrom (Jul 3, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> *Lend a Hand?*
> Unfortunately fixes cost money, especially to the level that we need in this instance.* If anybody is willing to help out we are accepting donations via Amazon or Paypal. *We greatly appreciate any assistance in helping in this matter. Donations via Amazon can be made here. For Paypal, please PM me over the forums for the appropriate information.
> 
> As written before, we do have money to put together to a server, but not enough to replace the server having these issues. When all is said and done the other server will be fixed and repaired, and we'll drop it back into the colo.
> ...



So does this mean that the server is being repaired and not replaced at the moment?  And if so is the expected downtime still 7-10 days?


----------



## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 3, 2008)

meatwad44 said:


> Ok, i MAY be restating stuff that has already been said. I read through the first page of replies, and some random ones between.
> Maybe part of the problem is unlimited uploading? I personally try to never have more that 20 pieces up at a time. If you have 974 pieces of art, even if they are amazing, do ALL 974  pieces have to be online at once? It MAY piss a lot of people off, but why not limit total upload sizes for free accounts, and then even if its only a dollar a month, the number of members to this site x 1 buck = more than 0 dollars.
> people will gripe. people will bitch. eventually people will deal. to me posting hundreds of even te most amazing art pieces is abuse and taking what a server is for granted. this is an art site, not your personal storage. pick your best, use your own darn hard drive for your own work. rotate as needed. Sure, it may not be server overload due to all the files causing the issues, but it sure as heck isnt helping things. every time you guys have the site down for even an hour, people panic because as SOON as its back up, people rush to upload as much as they can in fear of it going down again. which causes too much traffic and hey, look they made the site too busy to view for a few minutes due to bandwith. file restrictions may even help that a little.
> I think that while people may bitch, they would rather pay a dollar a month for more uploads (still free at base mind you, you dont have to pay but you get benefits if you do because you are helping out) then watch this site crash and burn like Playmouse. Anybody remember the last few days of that before it went PAY ONLY? The guy made sense. if only HALF the users paid just 1 dollar in donations, he could have kept it free for another year. instead people rushed to grab all the free artwork they could before it went pay.
> i dont see FA suffering the same fate, yet. hard work seems to be getting done. but everyone's gotta help. no, i havent donated anything yet. i dont have pay pal. but im working on it darn it! (just kinda need a job that pays money first)





Daddy Ducky BE said:


> b.) *Mandatory fees.* Bullshit, as others have said. We're getting all this for free, and if that'd change, either for everybody or just for artists, it'll only initiate a mass exodus. Not to mention EU fraud legislation if TOS would suddenly change for everybody having joined before the change.



Read the rest about how to raise far more money (thereby making available upload a mute issue) than by mandatory fees here: http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?p=464447#post464447


----------



## Ralesk (Jul 3, 2008)

Iâ€™ve seen a few people here go all â€œjust fix the software, you shouldnâ€™t be throwing hardware at the issueâ€.

Well.  I donâ€™t exactly know whatâ€™s going on in the colo, but this seems to be a totally different case from THOSE that I remember.  I do remember the crew throwing hardware at issues when FA was slow, instead of fixing Alkoraâ€™s spaghetti code.  That I found kinda stupid too, but this time, donâ€™t forget, we donâ€™t have any performance issues.  We have availability issues.  You canâ€™t fry the box with badly written PHP.

So stop bullshitting about â€œoh this only needs some fixes in FAâ€™s codeâ€.


----------



## artdecaderoo (Jul 3, 2008)

On the topic of FA needing finances, I'm completely for paying a monthly fee for perks/etc on FA, particularly if that money is going toward overall site stability.

 Obviously FA is a huge congregation point for the furry community.  Because of that, a lot of artists use it as a focal point for getting their auctions/commissions/sites/etc exposure.  Other furry sites just don't compare when it comes to levels of traffic that FA receives.  So when FA goes down, we stop making money.  Speaking from an illustrator's point of view (who draws furry porn _for a living_), FA is both wonderful and hugely frustrating.  We're given a very large audience to offer services and artwork to, for free;  But at the same time, we are at the mercy of the unfortunate outages the site suffers from.  My sales are down almost 50% since FA went down.  And it's only been down for about 2 days.

 My point is that FA is very important to the creators in this fandom, and _I would be glad to pay a monthly fee_ to help the security and stability of the site.

 Sorry if this has already been said elsewhere in these threads, I can't read 45 pages of mostly uninformative rambles.

 Also, in before 'get a real job' comments.  I draw furry dicks for a living.  It's fucking awesome.  <3


 Good luck fixing this, guys.


----------



## Wolf_Fox_Guy (Jul 3, 2008)

ok, buggered off like 7 hours ago, monetary amouth they had rasied was like 3141 or something. I log on now, its still about teh same, so no one has donated or does teh donations page not update unless its done manually?


----------



## cbmhunter (Jul 3, 2008)

Running a server can be quite troublesome. When I installed my very first 24/7 server, everything was fine. After a few years (with minor downtimes, usually caused by failing consumer HDDs) the problems had started. Every two weeks or so, demons died or other things malfunctioned. A reboot always cured it for the next time. I checked the RAM, I swapped hardware at random - no use! The problems became more and more serious. I lost data, backups were screwed and the server became very slow once in a while.

When I installed a new circuit breaker in the main fuse box, I noticed a neutral rail carrying 70 Volts for a second or two! The main neutral rail where it was connected to carried 0V as it was supposed to do. I replaced the wire between the two rails and found out that the original wire was made of a mystical purple metal.

Massive voltage fluctuations caused all my software problems! I replaced the standard UPS with an in-line UPS and now I never had any trouble since then!


----------



## desiring_change (Jul 3, 2008)

How could people subscribe if they lived abroad and, like me, they were dinosaurs who didn't use / refused to use credit cards or PayPal? I'd be happy to take the chance of sending actual $$$ using registered airmail, but not everybody would.


----------



## Cloudchaser (Jul 3, 2008)

Redregon said:


> there would be a slight issue with that...
> 
> how much of the content on FA would be considered illegal under canadian law? (if the server resides in canada, it's subject to canadian jurisdiction)
> 
> yes, i love my country, but even i have to admit that we're a little backwards in some areas. (afaik, laws against sodomy are still in the books... just in a chapter no-one really dares read nowadays.)



I know that the reason Ychan doesn't allow cub art is that it's hosted in Canada and CP art is illegal there.

"laws against sodomy are still in the books"

Strangely, at the same time, using Biblical scripture that's against sodomy in a hateful manner is considered by law to be hate speech that's not protected by free speech


----------



## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 3, 2008)

artdecaderoo said:


> Sorry if this has already been said elsewhere in these threads, I can't read 45 pages of mostly uninformative rambles.



Still, it seems a bit silly repeating the same fallacies only one post after they have been debunked for the umpteenth time.


----------



## desiring_change (Jul 3, 2008)

_"laws against sodomy are still in the books"_

Not in the States, thankfully, and who deserves credit for it? Oh yeah -- all those eeeeevil librul activist Supreme Court Justices some of you bitch about so much. Funny that.

But, I digress...


----------



## reddragon420 (Jul 3, 2008)

Well whatever does happen i hope it is effective and not too horribly costly 
!I MISS FA!
Best wishes on a speedy recovery for the site


----------



## c0nker (Jul 3, 2008)

artdecaderoo said:


> On the topic of FA needing finances, I'm completely for paying a monthly fee for perks/etc on FA, particularly if that money is going toward overall site stability.
> 
> Obviously FA is a huge congregation point for the furry community.  Because of that, a lot of artists use it as a focal point for getting their auctions/commissions/sites/etc exposure.  Other furry sites just don't compare when it comes to levels of traffic that FA receives.  So when FA goes down, we stop making money.  Speaking from an illustrator's point of view (who draws furry porn _for a living_), FA is both wonderful and hugely frustrating.  We're given a very large audience to offer services and artwork to, for free;  But at the same time, we are at the mercy of the unfortunate outages the site suffers from.  My sales are down almost 50% since FA went down.  And it's only been down for about 2 days.
> 
> ...




this is pretty much every single word i ever wanted to say here. just...take what he said...and put my name before it instead. like.. EXACTLY.


----------



## DragonSlurp (Jul 3, 2008)

What about making FA items to sell, lik t-shirts and mugs? I'd gladly buy them to help the site.


----------



## yak (Jul 3, 2008)

negima said:


> Know this is a stupid question, but do ya'll have a raid zero or anything with a raid system set up to keep you somewhat protected?
> Also, what about removable SATA drives that are hot swappable? JIC one goes out, you can replace it w/o turning off the sys.


RAID0 is not a mirror, and offers no redundancy. 

Yes, FA employs hardware RAID on all it's servers. Database server runs off 4x 10k RPM WD Raptor had drives in RAID 10, and the current www/content server runs off 4x 500GB drives in RAID5.

Both servers have hot swappable drives.



leeter said:


> I roll in my laughter, I really am sorry, but as bad as it is it could be worse, oh and while it's not free I recommend IIS 7.0/WS2008 over POSIX/Apache anyday because of the forking issue that Apache has, and since IIS 7.0 can run both PHP and ASP.net and share events between them, Apache falls flat. Oh and I have seen the frequent suggestion of hire a pro dev to do the job, as a pro dev, and I'm not volunteering to touch the codebase or even look at it. I recommend a clustered config the old box may have problems but it will still work to do some applications such as running a 64bit DB or some such, Load balancing is your friend if you can.



We do not use the Apache web server on FA at all.
Since many months we have moved to a more efficient reverse proxy + php-fcgi, with nginx being our reverse proxy, and spawn_fcgi from Lighthttpd project running our fastcgi backend.

The old box will be retrofitted and remade to be our backup server. The hardware we are looking to buy now will be more then enough for FA right now and in the near to mid future.
FA is not yet big enough for load balancing, though I agree that service redundancy would be a cool thing to have. The possibilities of that, given our current hardware, will be considered later.



mewrei said:


> If FA could afford an OC3 line then they could probably afford a decent server too.
> 
> Problem with putting in someone's basement is environmental, power outages, network connectivity, etc.  Even an optical line is subject to Backhoe Bob syndrome.  As are power lines.  You go into a good datacenter because everything is redundant.
> 
> For $4k though they could get a decent server.  HP ProLiant DL300 series with 4gb of RAM(fully buffered and ECC Registered) and dual quad-core Xeons.  Just have to fork out some cash for a few SAS drives but hey, they're hot-swappable and HP SAS drives typically have some insane MTBF rating.



The prices are something like ~$2.5k for a dedicated web server (many cores, little everything else), and ~4k for the storage server(little CPU, a lot of RAM and storage space). 
Additional expenses will go towards upgrading our current dedicated database server.


----------



## yak (Jul 3, 2008)

Firehazard said:


> It will.  According to Yak, they only needed 1.2 GB of RAM to make it work, and the proposed new server will have 16.  Now it's just a matter of having enough time to finish coding it.  That might be saved for Ferrox, though, since it's being programmed in an entirely different language (Python vs. PHP).
> 
> 
> From the prices Yak quoted, I'm pretty sure they are getting name-brand servers this time around.
> ...


All of the old machines still working will be used in FA's architecture in the future.

"All" includes just two servers at the moment, one of which we are replacing right now. This faulty server will be fixed and made into our backup server. It already has everything required, just the motherboard has to be swapped.


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## Diti (Jul 3, 2008)

Hmm... I sent money on Amazon 1 hour ago, but the goal chart didn't move... is that normal?


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## Kahn (Jul 3, 2008)

Please tell me we're not going to have to pay to use FA. If this happens, I won't be able to use it, because I am on an insanely tight budget. I like FA being free, and want it to stay that way.


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## Diti (Jul 3, 2008)

Kahn said:


> Please tell me we're not going to have to pay to use FA. If this happens, I won't be able to use it, because I am on an insanely tight budget. I like FA being free, and want it to stay that way.


And that's why I donated. I don't want the others to pay for viewing FA.


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## Eustache (Jul 3, 2008)

I guess that introducing paying features on the site is also a pain in the neck to manage technically.

From now on, whenever I draw a prize drawing or a request, I'll ask the beneficiary to consider making a donation to FA.

(Right now I made a little donation, and I'm glad many did the same; some more donators are still needed to reach the revised goal on Amazon though!)


----------



## Balron (Jul 3, 2008)

Lol I love how Artdecade drew Fender fragging his PC  

xD If it were one of his pics I'd fav+ it :I

But sadly FA isn't on  (;A


----------



## yak (Jul 3, 2008)

Jyan said:


> Those servers look like good rigs; hopefully they will bring back the quality we had when FA (re?)started...
> 
> Stupid question, but why not improving the storage capacity on both servers? The prices of most HDDs is pretty low at the moment, it's really the time to pick 5 for the price of 4, or even 3 (that's what we have in France here); plus, if you were to add that HDD for backups and logs, you might as well take 2 and put them in RAID-1 in order to prevent further inconveniences.
> 
> ...



FA is looking to buy two 1U servers. 1U servers do not typically have more then 4x 3'5 drive bays. For the data server, we already use all 4 drive bays, and 1TB drives are the biggest drives with the sane price on the market right now. There is no further possibility to improve here.

Data servers do to run the code, and thus they do not need a lot of processing power. All they have to do is be able to server lots of small files well. That is where a fast I/O subsystem and lots of RAM for file cache come into play.

We will probable be getting two Dell servers. 

More information in the hardware decisions, specs and reasons will be posted on the fora later.




meatwad44 said:


> Maybe part of the problem is unlimited uploading? I personally try to never have more that 20 pieces up at a time. If you have 974 pieces of art, even if they are amazing, do ALL 974  pieces have to be online at once? It MAY piss a lot of people off, but why not limit total upload sizes for free accounts, and then even if its only a dollar a month, the number of members to this site x 1 buck = more than 0 dollars.


No, it's really not the problem. Hard drive space is cheap.





robomilk said:


> There's a lot of complaining about bad coding... why don't the coders use this planned week-or-so of downtime to, y'know, fix it up a bit? Not entirely, as I think that would take a fair bit longer, but at least do what you couldn't normally if the site were online.
> 
> (And if anyone says that it's not possible because they can't access the site, learn of the wonder of backups!)



That is exactly what I am planning to do. Actually, that is what I am doing already.


----------



## kantir (Jul 3, 2008)

Balron said:


> Lol I love how Artdecade drew Fender fragging his PC
> 
> xD If it were one of his pics I'd fav+ it :I
> 
> But sadly FA isn't on  (;A



Excuse me if I sound angry in this but I have to voice my opinion.
Balron do you have anything intelligent to say instead of like, whining about how the site isn't up and running so you can just browse porn all day?


----------



## yak (Jul 3, 2008)

Maelstrom said:


> So does this mean that the server is being repaired and not replaced at the moment?  And if so is the expected downtime still 7-10 days?



Original plans Dragoneer had have been changed.
If you will find enough patience in you to read all the pages of this thread, you will see in what way, and why.

Expected downtime may vary. Most of the time will be spend waiting for the purchesed servers to be shipped to us.


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## Drakkon (Jul 3, 2008)

Eustache said:


> I guess that introducing paying features on the site is also a pain in the neck to manage technically.




Actually, the technical side is quite easy to manage.  They're already doing most of it as it is.  Adding a pay management feature isn't terribly hard.

However, the legal side is more complex.  As soon as you start charging for the service, you go from being an unregulated website to being a business, with all the laws, licenses, and regulations pertaining thereto.  I personally think that they have enough to worry about with what they have without throwing that on top.

JMHO


----------



## ZiBop (Jul 3, 2008)

Wow. $6-7K? Not a lot of money, but here's hoping you guys get some decent mileage out of all that gas cash ;D

What are the quirks to donating anyway, other than helping FA get back on its feet?  Just a pat on the back and a hearty 'Thanks!' ? Or is there something more to show appreciation to those forking over a little hard earned dough? I could donate quite a bit, myself, but I'm wondering what I'd get in turn. $6-7K could buy a few yummy X11 pieces to play with, or build me a decent computer, or even buy another used car 

I just don't want to see, a few months down the road, that this hardware failure's happened again. I think a while ago a similar scenario happened. You were requesting for donations to buy newer hardware and listed impressive specs to boot, and here we are. D'oh!

Either way, good work so far, keep us updated. 

-Zi


----------



## Rayse (Jul 3, 2008)

Well i don't have a credit card but i am willing to donate.
So from now on all the money i get from commisions (havn't done one yet) well be donated.


----------



## Redregon (Jul 3, 2008)

wow, late to the party.

on the subject of search. i think that it would need to be done by the tags, so, how about this. if search does go through, maybe filter out and do not display images that aren't tagged? (*i wouldn't count adult/general/mature*)

though, to be completely honest, the current model worked fine for me to search for works. go to the browse, click in species, gender, and other tag information and filter for that. then just click till i find the picture i want to find.

searching for users, that's another one entirely.


----------



## Arrow Tibbs (Jul 3, 2008)

What about supporter accounts? You don't really get any new features, but you do get a  little title/mention somewhere on the site and maybe there's a list of names in the FA conbook when the con rolls around again.

Could just be as simple as a $12 a year thing ($1 per month) or as generous as a $100 or $200 a year thing.

Just an idea that wouldn't imply special features or removal of features.


----------



## Xodiac (Jul 3, 2008)

Firehazard said:


> It will.  According to Yak (be able to support search), they only needed 1.2 GB of RAM to make it work, and the proposed new server will have 16.  Now it's just a matter of having enough time to finish coding it.  That might be saved for Ferrox, though, since it's being programmed in an entirely different language (Python vs. PHP).



Please don't wait for Ferrox.  That, too, has been in development since forever.  I doubt I'm alone when I say I'd rather have a clunky Search now than a great search... whenever.  So long as it doesn't crash FA, of course.


----------



## Redregon (Jul 3, 2008)

Xodiac said:


> Please don't wait for Ferrox.  That, too, has been in development since forever.  I doubt I'm alone when I say I'd rather have a clunky Search now than a great search... whenever.  So long as it doesn't crash FA, of course.



thing is, by search, what do people mean by that? search for a user? search for a specific picture? search by species/adult or other tags?

if it's by tags, i will state again, if a picture is not tagged, i'd suggest it not being added to the search engine. might get people's asses in gear to make sure their submissions are tagged and tagged properly (which afaik, is a big concern for some of the staff.)


----------



## zek16 (Jul 3, 2008)

Damn, almost $4k already.


----------



## thorndraco (Jul 3, 2008)

Hell forget having a reason for subscribing right now... you should allow (keyword being allow... I'm not in any sense of the word saying that this should be a mandate) an open automated donation system that allows people to "subscribe" so they can donate a set amount each month if they want. I would gladly take the amount that most spend on an MMO and dump it tword this site each month for nothing more in return than seeing this site improve. Especially if it eventually ment we'd see un overhual of the software end of it.


----------



## thorndraco (Jul 3, 2008)

Arrow Tibbs said:


> What about supporter accounts? You don't really get any new features, but you do get a  little title/mention somewhere on the site and maybe there's a list of names in the FA conbook when the con rolls around again.
> 
> Could just be as simple as a $12 a year thing ($1 per month) or as generous as a $100 or $200 a year thing.
> 
> Just an idea that wouldn't imply special features or removal of features.



Glad to see this thought when reading back after I post.


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## ArielMT (Jul 3, 2008)

Redregon said:


> Xodiac said:
> 
> 
> > Please don't wait for Ferrox. That, too, has been in development since forever. I doubt I'm alone when I say I'd rather have a clunky Search now than a great search... whenever. So long as it doesn't crash FA, of course.
> ...


Not to mention that since this is the furry fandom, we'd need at least six choices for sorting/searching by gender. 

A quick hack right now (or when the server comes back up) is to borrow Google.
Admins could throw together a search box with a Google logo and send the post action (after assembly/processing) to "http://www.google.com/search?q=SEARCHTERMS+site%3Awww.furaffinity.net&amp;btnG=Search".
The rest of us can just head on over to Google and throw "site:www.furaffinity.net" (without quotes) on the end of search terms.

Rushing Ferrox, or even just its search feature (assuming it has one), would be so much a Very Bad Thing(TM) for any reason, let alone a server failure.


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## TehSean (Jul 3, 2008)

Tags would work well enough.


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## dineegla (Jul 3, 2008)

MuscleWolf and I just made a nice donation. We may have to do mutliples in order to make sure you're okay.

Dineegla


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## Wildroo (Jul 3, 2008)

Dragoneer and Yak: 
After reading the first two and last two pages (of 48!) I would just like to say thanks for what you're doing and what all you're going through: I know most of it is coming out of your own pockets and you provide the site for free to us- which is a big thanks! I'd love to be able to help out right now but I just lost my job and don't have any extra cash. Een though I can't help financially, I'd be willing to help in any way I can!

Thanks for everything!


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## salmy (Jul 3, 2008)

WarMocK said:


> And what do you do if artist offer submissions but do not get any customers? Oo



I've seen many people posting journals asking if anyone would be willing pay for a commission. That'd be a start..

Another option, since you got a point there, is that they don't need to pay unless the kind of art they submit is a 'commision for xxx'. Of course many furs could just *never* post their commisions, but for a small fee (don't need to even be $5/mo, it could be $5/year, it was just a random number!), it'd be silly to not show their commissions on fa!



WarMocK said:


> And what if they earn barely enough to pay the five bucks in a month? Do you want to ban their accounts for a month or two?



Dude, it's a commission! xD if you charge less than 5 for a sketch, what kind of artist are you? and if you charge so low and you get *no* buyers, then maybe you shouldn't offer commissions at all!



WarMocK said:


> Sorry, that idea sounds good for a moment, but considering what all could happen your system would be extremely unfair. :-/



I tried to give an alternative solution based on your points, but then again, I don't run FA xD Yours and mine opinions and brainstorming could very well go to the trash ^^;


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## nominus_expers (Jul 3, 2008)

It seems a little late in the game, but I hope this comment doesn't seem out of place.

I had an idea along the vein of raising funds toward the goal of preventative maintenance:

It's a little like a raffle, I don't know if it's been tried before or already shot down so please don't jump me if I'm being an idiot, but it goes something like this:

1) Artists, big name or up and coming, volunteer something they can spare (commission slot, badge, etc.).
2) Donations are made to enter a username into a raffle to win something from a given artist. 
3) A drawing is done in whatever fashion is considered appropriate.
4) FA gets money, artist and winner square the details.

In order to make it worthwhile, I suppose the actual cost of a "ticket" would need to be less than the value of the prize. It also assumes that an artist will own up to their end of the bargain, and that there are artists willing to work for free, or rather, give something back to FA for the free exposure they get. 

As a side note I'd be donating if I weren't myself having some serious hardware issues of my own... But I have so much free time I'd never miss a couple of hours to do a piece for someone who donated. I don't know how you could reward the artist though, other than giving them yet more exposure and thus improving the possibility of business for up-and-coming artists.

Oh. Wait. x3


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## Riguel (Jul 3, 2008)

salmy said:


> I've seen many people posting journals asking if anyone would be willing pay for a commission. That'd be a start..
> 
> Another option, since you got a point there, is that they don't need to pay unless the kind of art they submit is a 'commision for xxx'. Of course many furs could just *never* post their commisions, but for a small fee (don't need to even be $5/mo, it could be $5/year, it was just a random number!), it'd be silly to not show their commissions on fa!
> 
> ...



Time to put my two cents in, Commissions vary for me, as our economy isn't as great and well, I'm not "best" artist compared to some others, so it makes it a lot harder. Plus Not everyone on FA is an artist doing commissions, as soon as FA decides charging monthly, you will kill a lot of traffic toward FA, which will hurt a lot of us artist who are making money based on commissions.
Don't get me wrong, I donate to the site and help out any possible way I can, but as you can see, I just don't believe in charging people a monthly fee is the answer to our problems. As it will cost us big time in the end, closing the doors to new furs coming in.


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## lelicianath (Jul 3, 2008)

$50 for the cause. I would help more, but I've got bills due >(
All the best with our new server, Dragoneer, and I hope FA is up faster than expected...


----------



## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

Amber said:


> I don't understand why everyone is complaining so much about the site being down. This is a free site. I bet if they received $1.00 for every complaint about FA being down they would have enough money to buy better equipment so their would be no more failures. It's not their fault that there isn't enough support from their members to be able to afford the expensive equipment.
> 
> Poor Dragoneer's back must be in awful pain from everyone jumping on it...


I registered on the forums just now so that I could say this:

I agree.


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## Nidonemo (Jul 3, 2008)

"Both Tiamat and Bahamut, our main servers..."

You named the servers after elite dragons! That's so awesome! I really hope things change for the better soon.


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## farellemoon (Jul 3, 2008)

OMG! Your user name! That's hilarious!


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## Nefer (Jul 3, 2008)

Edit: Got the information.


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## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

Agreeing w/ Riguel: I for one won't be able to be on FA anymore if they start charging monthly fees. And not to complain or anything, but most of my friends are on FA, and I'd have no means to communicate with them otherwise. It would make me quite sad.

So, yeah, even though I doubt there will be monthly fees, a lone fur here is asking that they don't do that. I'd donate if I could, just cause I don't want to see such a great site end like that, but I'm unemployed and will remain as such until after I move. Though, I'll be moving in a few days, so I'll be looking for a job right away.
If I get a job, you can be sure I'll try to put some money away every pay check to donate. ^_^


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## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Agreeing w/ Riguel: I for one won't be able to be on FA anymore if they start charging monthly fees. And not to complain or anything, but most of my friends are on FA, and I'd have no means to communicate with them otherwise. It would make me quite sad.
> 
> So, yeah, even though I doubt there will be monthly fees, a lone fur here is asking that they don't do that. I'd donate if I could, just cause I don't want to see such a great site end like that, but I'm unemployed and will remain as such until after I move. Though, I'll be moving in a few days, so I'll be looking for a job right away.
> If I get a job, you can be sure I'll try to put some money away every pay check to donate. ^_^


That should say WHEN I get a job. XD


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## shinmew (Jul 3, 2008)

Awww.... man. I wish I was not having money problems my self right now. I know how it feels having to buy new hardware at the ASAP and being short the funds...


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## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

farellemoon said:


> OMG! Your user name! That's hilarious!



Who's username?

Edit: Yay, I'm at the top! ^^


----------



## SpiritCreations (Jul 3, 2008)

artdecaderoo said:


> On the topic of FA needing finances, I'm completely for paying a monthly fee for perks/etc on FA, particularly if that money is going toward overall site stability.
> 
> Obviously FA is a huge congregation point for the furry community.  Because of that, a lot of artists use it as a focal point for getting their auctions/commissions/sites/etc exposure.  Other furry sites just don't compare when it comes to levels of traffic that FA receives.  So when FA goes down, we stop making money.  Speaking from an illustrator's point of view (who draws furry porn _for a living_), FA is both wonderful and hugely frustrating.  We're given a very large audience to offer services and artwork to, for free;  But at the same time, we are at the mercy of the unfortunate outages the site suffers from.  My sales are down almost 50% since FA went down.  And it's only been down for about 2 days.
> 
> ...



Artdecaderoo said it exactly. I too make a lot of my living off of art (drawing dicks for a living IS awesome!!! ) and my sales have gone soft like a limp noodle since FA went down. What's worse is that despite my telling clients NOT to give me links to FA for their art references, they do it anyways! So, now it will be much harder to work on commissions unless they reply back to my emails and attach the reference pictures, which a lot of them won't do. So, there go my deadlines out the window. Also, since the majority of my clients are on FA, it is very hard to update them on commission status, since I know they never actually check the queue that I have set up on ArtSpots and mass emailing all my clients never seems to work. Well, I guess I'l consider this a little break in art for a bit.  

Thus, as for FA being a paid site, I would gladly pay a yearly fee to use FA. FA has been the biggest help to me in sales and communication with clients for years now and it is very valuable to me. 

However, I have been reading some ideas in posts about FA taking a certain percentage of artist's commission income to support the site. Umm... no. Sorry, but as an artist, I'm against that idea.  My money is MY money, and you try making a lot of your income off art. It's hard.  Yes, I do have a "real" job too, but still, I don't think a percentage should go to anyone but the artist UNLESS FA has some management services for artists to help promote them out there and help get them more sales. However, I do think a yearly fee would be a very good idea. Given how many thousands of people use FA, a yearly fee should really help out a lot, plus other donations that they get throughout the year. Also, I don't think FA getting a percentage of artist's income would work very well anyway, as I know I and a ton of other artists use Furbid and FurBuy to post our auctions, and we post the links to our FA journals. I don't sell via FA, I sell via the auction sites and advertise via FA.

Lastly, as for doing a commission to help with donations right now, I'd be super happy to open up a con badge slot. I just don't know if anyone would want that slot. They'd have to wait until the holidays until I can finally work on their badge (as I said above, I have a long waiting list) and my badges cost $50 (for the high-detailed work with fur texture). Example seen here: http://spiritcreations.artspots.com/image/16918/thelonious However, that would be the only way I can donate as I'm completely broke myself right now. 

Good luck getting everything back online guys!


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## nominus_expers (Jul 3, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Agreeing w/ Riguel: I for one won't be able to be on FA anymore if they start charging monthly fees.



I'm kind of in the same boat....For reasons I won't go into, I'm unable to work a normal job. I manage to cover regular expenses under the table, but I couldn't handle anything more right now -_-;;


----------



## Echo_wulf (Jul 3, 2008)

so just curiouse what is the current status on everything?


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jul 3, 2008)

Again with the monthly fee crap?

Didn't we have enough of this when Cecil and I showed Limeykat the reasons why mandatory fees were a bad idea?


----------



## YuchiDaYena (Jul 3, 2008)

No offense guys,
But just sitting here complaining is not gonna get this done any faster. 
Try and go have a life maybe? Clean house, work on art? 

All your OFF TOPIC complains is drifting people away from the updates the admins are giving /:


----------



## Gutierrez (Jul 3, 2008)

Echo_wulf said:


> so just curiouse what is the current status on everything?



Yeah, we've been on the phones for a while here.  Takes us to the big board and let us know the grand total sometime, if you can.  I know y'all have [FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica][SIZE=-1]$3,187.00 in Amazon, but how are the Paypal coffers looking?[/SIZE][/FONT]


----------



## DragonSlurp (Jul 3, 2008)

I have donated 20 bucks using amazon! =D


----------



## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

SpiritCreations said:


> Artdecaderoo said it exactly. I too make a lot of my living off of art (drawing dicks for a living IS awesome!!! ) and my sales have gone soft like a limp noodle since FA went down. What's worse is that despite my telling clients NOT to give me links to FA for their art references, they do it anyways! So, now it will be much harder to work on commissions unless they reply back to my emails and attach the reference pictures, which a lot of them won't do. So, there go my deadlines out the window. Also, since the majority of my clients are on FA, it is very hard to update them on commission status, since I know they never actually check the queue that I have set up on ArtSpots and mass emailing all my clients never seems to work. Well, I guess I'l consider this a little break in art for a bit.
> 
> Thus, as for FA being a paid site, I would gladly pay a yearly fee to use FA. FA has been the biggest help to me in sales and communication with clients for years now and it is very valuable to me.
> 
> ...



Personally I think subscriptions are only a good option if it allows EXTRA bonuses to those who subscribe, without changing anything about the site for those who don't. For instance, if you subscribe, it would be nice to be able to advertise better on the site for those who make a living off of commissions, or something like that.
Because although not everyone right now makes a living off of art they sell through FA, newer artists might still join the ranks of those people. I for one am not prepared to sell my art yet, but I might eventually. So if subscribing and doing commissions work hand in hand, then all the better for both the artists and the site moderators.

However, the point I feel MOST strongly about is that FurAffinity as it is now should remain free to everyone. I'd like to think of subscribing more as donating money and receiving some sort of bonus for donating. But it shouldn't be NEEDED to be a member of FA.

Oh, and sorry, cause I know that this was stated before, probably countless times. XD


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## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

YuchiDaYena said:


> No offense guys,
> But just sitting here complaining is not gonna get this done any faster.
> Try and go have a life maybe? Clean house, work on art?
> 
> All your OFF TOPIC complains is drifting people away from the updates the admins are giving /:



So true. I for one am packing clothes in large bags for my move. ^^

I wish the admins the best of luck with this issue.


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## AmberCoyote (Jul 3, 2008)

Amber said:


> I don't understand why everyone is complaining so much about the site being down. This is a free site.



That is correct sir!


----------



## salmy (Jul 3, 2008)

Riguel said:


> Commissions vary for me, as our economy isn't as great and well, I'm not "best" artist compared to some others, so it makes it a lot harder. Plus Not everyone on FA is an artist doing commissions, as soon as FA decides charging monthly, you will kill a lot of traffic toward FA, which will hurt a lot of us artist who are making money based on commissions.




I really don't know what would the most fair solution be, but it's clear that something like FA can't be run just by two people with their own lives that clearly don't have the resources and time to give a decent service.

Wouldn't it be best for everybody that Dragoneer and Yak had an income so they could dedicate their lives to FA?

When a website is SO popular it becomes a public service, just like google or yahoo or youtube. I *never* suggested that FA became a pay site. I'm just saying that those who earn money *thanks* to FA should be /charged/ for it, because if this page didn't exist, they wouldn't have become popular and they wouldn't earn nearly as much money as they do.

Now what's the scale? How much should Blotch be charged? How much should regular-artist-with-a-small-fandom-that-charges-5-for-a-sketch-and-gets-2-every-4-months be charged? Yes, it's a *tough* decision, it's something to think about, and people are really being generous donating up to 4000 for server hardware, but after this issue, there will be *other* issues, every other week, every other month. Are they going to ask for 4000 bucks every month now? What if this doesn't solve the problem?

Admins/owners here should make a living off it or hire people to mantain the site in a professional manner. This is not a kid's game, it's not a two-people website anymore. It has thousands of users, millions of daily pageviews, tons of bandwith... let's be fair and face these facts:

1 - A lot of people is making profit off FA, even if it's not the admins, and I doubt that even a 5% of them is donating a buck for this cause.

2 - There are TWO people to run a site like this, two people who have their own lives and barely have time to dedicate to it as there's more stuff in their lives.

3 - Thousands of users who are furry and come here everyday to see their favorite furry art, contact artists, make a comunity, can't enjoy their sandw... err, their site. Today for a db issue, tomorrow for a hardware crash, yesterday because nobody would answer at the datacenter.

What's SO bad about FA still being free for the users, but a pay site for those who EARN money off it? Where's the big deal? Where's the unfairness? Of course some artists don't earn anything or not enough, but some others could really get 2,3,5 bucks per month so they could keep getting commissions, it's only fair! Those who can't, well... find a way to make it fair for everybody, I'm not the admin! If I was, believe me that I would have either found a way for this to work properly or would have sold/given it to someone who really cares.

Dunno if I'll get a ban for expressing my opinion, or if I'll be called a troll. I hope not, but it's like... c'mon, people. Don't say it's free cuz there's banners and donations. Nothing is free in this life, unfortunately. Find more consistent ways of getting funds and we'll all be happy in the end.


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## JAH2000 (Jul 3, 2008)

well im not going to bother the staff by bitching im just going to say good luck


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## salmy (Jul 3, 2008)

Just a little addition to my previous post, so I don't have to edit it, and it just has to do with a supposed solution for the fees issue:

Don't charge /all/ artists who do comissions. Charge only artists who do commissions AND have more than X pageviews/watchers/favorites. This way only good artists who get the most off comissions would have to pay a fee. Still, it doesn't need to be a high fee. Admins know how much FA costs every month. They can do the math and I'm sure they could come up with something that would be rediculous for a fee but that would actually cover FA's needs.


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## Redregon (Jul 3, 2008)

well, i'm for a subscription idea that'll get you perks, but if it comes down to FA taking a slice of my direct commissions (print sales through Rabbit Valley i'm not against as that's a business arrangement) i will make commission sales elsewhere... and i know i'm not alone in that respect.

if a mandatory fee were to be implemented, it will drive a lot of people away.

and besides, why are so many people here keen on taxing the artists? what about the viewers? i mean, without the artists and writers, this entire site is just a clusterfuck of people chatting. it wouldn't be an art/writing site at all. 

paying for perks, yes. i agree with that. something like weekly spotlights, direct sales links to art on the artists site (without having to surf through to RV) or even something small like more icon flexibility or something like that. 

but charging artists directly with no concern for their finances will drive a lot of artists away and this site will degenerate into a y-gallery kinda deal. if that were the case, i would keep my free account and do all my business through another site like my own or furbid or whatever.

nevermind the shitstorm of drama that will certainly ensue... 

there is a need for more income, this site has worked fairly well, but in times like this, it's obvious that a little income here and there would help prevent issues like these from becoming massive problems whereas they'd be able to just be slight inconveniences.


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## Redregon (Jul 3, 2008)

salmy said:


> Just a little addition to my previous post, so I don't have to edit it, and it just has to do with a supposed solution for the fees issue:
> 
> Don't charge /all/ artists who do comissions. Charge only artists who do commissions AND have more than X pageviews/watchers/favorites. This way only good artists who get the most off comissions would have to pay a fee. Still, it doesn't need to be a high fee. Admins know how much FA costs every month. They can do the math and I'm sure they could come up with something that would be rediculous for a fee but that would actually cover FA's needs.



do you think the artists like Blotch, Spirit Creations or Artdecade would stick around for that?

my guess is very likely not.

besides... what would stop them from trimming their gallery and just redirecting people to their own sites? don't forget, a lot of artists have actual sites for their art and aren't 100% reliant on FA for storage and display of their work.

and WHOO!!! 50th page post!


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## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

@Salmy: I agree that it isn't really "free" but it IS choice based. My art, though plenty have told me they like it, I say it sucks. It's not good enough to earn any money at all, and what's worse is that I now don't have a scanner and need to buy one to submit any art. I don't have a tablet either, and I don't have photoshop. My best art comes from pencil+paper, but even that I can't do anymore. So forcing people to pay money would be very bad, as FA would lose likely 90% if not more of it's members.

Though, don't get me wrong, you didn't say anyone should be forced to pay, but those who can make a living from JUST commissions... well that's obviously a lot of money earned from art they made for free. It's free money, is what it is. And everyone else has to work for their money: the mods, the artists that buy commissions. There's three groups of people here (Admins who work outside jobs to keep the site running, artists who work outside jobs to buy art, and artist who sit and draw for hours to sell art for pretty much free money), and it's not fair to two of them.

My suggestion, though not likely that anyone will do this out of the kindness of their hearts, is that those who make a living solely off of commissions should donate a fair amount from their earnings to keep the site up and running, and to keep THEIR OWN earnings coming in.
For instance, I don't like having others paying for my art. That idea sickens me cause my art was free for me to make. I'd still pay for other's art if I really wanted it, AND I would donate money whenever I can to keep the site "free" to others. But all this would require an outside job, one that can pay for my living as well as supply a little extra every month or so for DONATIONS to FA.
THAT's out of the kindness of my heart.

For those who sit on their asses for hours every day to make digital art that was free for them to make and sell that for a tonne of money, and then refuse to donate (not that it should be forced...), THAT's not kind at all, that's taking advantage of FA. I may not be an admin, but even I won't stand for that.
The only thing that needs to be changed here is the greediness of those using FA for their living. If you donate, then awesome, you're very kind. If you're laughing your head off as you screw FA for money, that's not acceptable. If you actually CAN'T pay, then fine, but I KNOW there are plenty out there who are using FA just to make money from selling digital penises. >.>

And... I've got to stop posting such huge posts. v_v


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## Echo_wulf (Jul 3, 2008)

Gutierrez said:


> Yeah, we've been on the phones for a while here. Takes us to the big board and let us know the grand total sometime, if you can. I know y'all have [FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica][SIZE=-1]$3,187.00 in Amazon, but how are the Paypal coffers looking?[/SIZE][/FONT]


  ??? lol im lost and confuzzled X.x


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## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

Or, here is an idea (which I might just do myself, once I can actually submit art):
For those who create commissions to sell, instead of setting a price and selling it, try letting your buyers DECIDE how much your art is worth to them. Basically, donating to others to create art.
It's the same thing with what's happening with the music industry. Bands are creating and publishing their own music and selling it for what their listeners think it's worth.
Those who really like the art and will want to see more will DEFINITELY donate for more art, because if they don't, the artist can't AFFORD to make more.

If anyone here reads CTRL+ALT+DELETE (CAD), the webcomic, they know this idea pretty well. Tim Buckley works that way. He makes a LIVING from what he does, but every cent he makes is from those who donate to see more. His real fans.
And personally, I'd do that any day for artists who have impressed me.
I'd pay money just to see them make more, because I don't want to see their art career end.


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## salmy (Jul 3, 2008)

Redregon said:


> if it comes down to FA taking a slice of my direct commissions i will make commission sales elsewhere... and i know i'm not alone in that respect. if a mandatory fee were to be implemented, it will drive a lot of people away.
> 
> and besides, why are so many people here keen on taxing the artists? what about the viewers? i mean, without the artists and writers, this entire site is just a clusterfuck of people chatting. it wouldn't be an art/writing site at all.
> (...snip...)
> ...



I'm sorry, but nothing of what you've said here sounds fair at all for me :/ Taxing the viewers? xD You must be kidding! Who would buy a commision from you if we can't see your art before hand?

So, FA is good as long as you can make money off it, but if you have to *share* a little of that money back to him, that's not good, huh?

Is it just me only or this sounds a little bit egoist?

The good thing about FA is that I don't have to keep track of all of my artists that have their galleries in their own sites or in other sites all around the world. FA is big, it's useful, it has a way of working that pleases me and a lot of people. I'm sure many artists became known thanks to FA. People can post the biggest crap and nobody will complain, or they can post the most wonderful piece of art and it will get a lof of possitive comments. It's a safe place for *any* kind of artist in that way.

But of course, it's not worth to be payed back in any way.

What I don't understand is why you think it's cool to pay RabbitValley or Furbid for their service or your host company for your site and that you think that it's not cool to pay FA... it's like.... why?


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## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

Am I saying too much? Should I shut up?..


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## Gutierrez (Jul 3, 2008)

Echo_wulf said:


> ??? lol im lost and confuzzled X.x



Just a miss, apparently.  Was comparing the server drive to the PBS funding drives.  But could we get a total of what donations have been received between both Amazon and Paypal?  Would be nice to see the full amount.  And just a suggestion, I think FA needs a nice commemorative server crash tote to give away for every donation over a certain amount.


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## Echo_wulf (Jul 3, 2008)

I personaly think we are trying to overflood them with ideas .... i think they already have a plan set for the future snd right now their only goal is to get the new server and get it up and running.... there was a reason fa was founded asa free site. nd its more awesome because of it and in order to make some money off it to up the goods ^.^ i think is very important.  wich is why i think they were going to do the paid custom page thing and i know enoughartistsvwould do that enough for fa to make a great prophet. no need to turn this into another deviant.... cuz im sure someone would just make another site... cuz i really hate da myself...


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## Echo_wulf (Jul 3, 2008)

Gutierrez said:


> Just a miss, apparently. Was comparing the server drive to the PBS funding drives. But could we get a total of what donations have been received between both Amazon and Paypal? Would be nice to see the full amount. And just a suggestion, I think FA needs a nice commemorative server crash tote to give away for every donation over a certain amount.


 yeah that would be nice to know and lol thats a funny idea but im sure they may keep em for parts just in case


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## Redregon (Jul 3, 2008)

salmy said:


> I'm sorry, but nothing of what you've said here sounds fair at all for me :/ Taxing the viewers? xD You must be kidding! Who would buy a commision from you if we can't see your art before hand?
> 
> So, FA is good as long as you can make money off it, but if you have to *share* a little of that money back to him, that's not good, huh?
> 
> ...



okay, 1. calling me egotistical is not going to get your point across better, it's only going to make you look like a bit of a douche.

i would support Rabbit Valley taking a slice on behalf of FA since they're the ones printing, getting paper, paying for ink, shipping, that kinda thing. when i do my own direct commissions, the material is all stuff that i've paid for. which means that it's all done on my own dollar. it's not egoist, it's business sense. 

i've said it before, i'm more than willing to pay for a subscription if it means that there will be perks or whatever, but if i have to pay simply to take commissions, i'll just find another site.

nevermind how the whole "tax the artists" has been debated back and forth ad-nauseum by this point and the general consensus is that it's not a good idea. i'd suggest reading back through the entire post before continuing.


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## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

Echo_wulf said:


> I personaly think we are trying to overflood them with ideas .... i think they already have a plan set for the future snd right now their only goal is to get the new server and get it up and running.... there was a reason fa was founded asa free site. nd its more awesome because of it and in order to make some money off it to up the goods ^.^ i think is very important.  wich is why i think they were going to do the paid custom page thing and i know enoughartistsvwould do that enough for fa to make a great prophet. no need to turn this into another deviant.... cuz im sure someone would just make another site... cuz i really hate da myself...



*smiles* me too. I totally agree with everything you just said. They're the mods, after all. They don't need us to make their decisions for them.
And, although we have no idea what we could do with customizing profile pages, I for one would pay for that upgrade.
In fact, though my word may not be worth much here, as soon as I move and get a job (it shouldn't take more than a week or two to get a job. I'm moving on the 6th), I'll start donating, just cause I want to see this site remain free to viewers. ^_^

As for DA, heh, I left there for the same reason, and more. And so I don't want to see FA become another DA.
Because DA stands for DumbAsses. XD

Oh... I'll have to sign up for a paypal account, too. Wonder if that'll be user-friendly enough...


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## snake_mearano (Jul 3, 2008)

I agree with the idea of charging a fee for subscription, kind of like how Deviantart does it. Even though Deviantart is... Deviantart. It's free for those who want basic usability, posting and submitting and what have you, but if you want real exposure to those who matter, print setups and all that, you pay a fee. : ) Even if it's not much.

Personally I also beleive that because this -is- a free site, we should be thankful and happy for whatever two guys and a server can give us. Honestly it doesn't surprise me that hardware begins to fail. It always fails, eventually. Nothing is forever, but fixing it can be a real three-prong pain in the butt. Specifically because hardware isn't cheap. So honestly I'm thankful for everyone who's already donated. I will in a few short days as my paypal account verifies my bank account. ^_^

I've only recently started adding my artwork to this site, I originally lurked on here as a mere viewer until I added everything, and received a quite warm welcome. So yes, I fully intend to help out the cause, as a FA-head, and an artist.

For everything that's already come from this site, I'm thankful enough. : )
Any more would be a blessing.


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## Riguel (Jul 3, 2008)

Redregon said:


> well, i'm for a subscription idea that'll get you perks, but if it comes down to FA taking a slice of my direct commissions (print sales through Rabbit Valley i'm not against as that's a business arrangement) i will make commission sales elsewhere... and i know i'm not alone in that respect.
> 
> if a mandatory fee were to be implemented, it will drive a lot of people away.
> 
> ...


Honestly I couldn't agree with you more, a subscription is a great idea, Deviantart does something like, still allowing users to make free accounts but also have the option for a subscribed account. This would be probably be the best option for FA to go by. But if it ends up they charge everyone a fee monthly to stay at their site then no I'm not even going to stay(as much as that hurts to say it), I'd go back to Deviantart or start my own site through freeforums.org(free website/hosting). Seriously you can't beat that! I'm totally against FA charging monthly fees, especially if its going to be aimed only at artist, cause then that won't be fair for the other users to get off scottfree while we pay to keep the site alive. That just doesn't seem fair in my opinion.


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## Echo_wulf (Jul 3, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Am I saying too much? Should I shut up?..


 
lol no. everyone is intitled to their opinion


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## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

Redregon said:


> okay, 1. calling me egotistical is not going to get your point across better, it's only going to make you look like a bit of a douche.



I hope you guys don't start an insulting frenzy. That would kill the point of this thread completely.
Be nice guys, kay? ^_^


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## Riguel (Jul 3, 2008)

Kraton said:


> *smiles* me too. I totally agree with everything you just said. They're the mods, after all. They don't need us to make their decisions for them.
> And, although we have no idea what we could do with customizing profile pages, I for one would pay for that upgrade.
> In fact, though my word may not be worth much here, as soon as I move and get a job (it shouldn't take more than a week or two to get a job. I'm moving on the 6th), I'll start donating, just cause I want to see this site remain free to viewers. ^_^
> 
> ...


I honestly don't like DA, reason I use FA for my artwork. They've complicated DA to the point its not only hard to submit a submission with its 10 million categories, but also its limit on inspiration(for furry porn artist, your out of luck) and your submissions barely get recognized since its on DA's frontpage for maybe, I dunno, 5 milliseconds.


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## Echo_wulf (Jul 3, 2008)

Kraton said:


> *smiles* me too. I totally agree with everything you just said. They're the mods, after all. They don't need us to make their decisions for them.
> And, although we have no idea what we could do with customizing profile pages, I for one would pay for that upgrade.
> In fact, though my word may not be worth much here, as soon as I move and get a job (it shouldn't take more than a week or two to get a job. I'm moving on the 6th), I'll start donating, just cause I want to see this site remain free to viewers. ^_^
> 
> ...


 ^.^ yeah i would pay for that too /. everyones opinion can count . and goodluck on your move...i just hope i can get out of this hellhole soon enough..


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## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

Altough this may be late, personally, i dont like the idea of having to pay to get commissions.
Since, in my case, im trying to get commissions to get money for things i really need right now, and with no job i can take this is my only way.
Also, since my commissions are so cheap, if they took a percentage i would end up with nothing since paypal already takes some percentage off.
Just my opnion.


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## Ashi (Jul 3, 2008)

Wow, you all are just ripping out each others throats out or what? Rofl.

I'm so tossing in my two-cents. Being a commission artist and having x# of watches/pageviews/favorites and forced to pay for something I didn't intend on would drive me away for sure. I don't know about other artists, but that's just a dick move in my book. :/

Now what everyone is saying about a Subscription account by CHOICE like DA, you have the regular accounts like everyone has now or you can purchase perks via Subscription... That does sound really nice, depending on the perks. I'd probably would subscribe, perks and supporting the site, woohoo! C:


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 3, 2008)

I read the first page, and then read the last page but had to make an account before posting. :3   So I'm sorry if this is a little late or no longer applicable to the discussion. 

Seeing as people are discussing the prospect of needing money for fee's, I just wantedo to mention that this is a very dangerous topic. One that can easily cause the collapse of this entire site very quickly if it isn't handled carefully. If this site has any hope of having 'fees' then they'll have to do it in a couple of ways.

1: Somewhat the way Deviant Art has it set up. Free accounts to view, free accounts to post art, but if you want to surf the site more easily and so on, you'll need a subscription which brings me to point two.

2: Search engine is required for that plan to be practical. Bad service with fee's will not go a long way. Now those in charge of Fur Affinity, I am not insulting you, so please do not take offense with how I phrased it. I've been here for long time and never really cared much that the search engine doesn't work most of the time, I like it when it does! :3  But I don't insult the site for it.

BUT if you start charging subscriptions, you need to give people a REASON to WANT to pay the small fee. If there is no realistic incentive, you'll have a lot of trouble persuading these under age kids's parents to be willing to pay money to a furry art website ignorant of how much porn their kids actually view here. 

The other thing to keep an eye on is the free accounts. If you make them useless, or unwanted, you'll lose people, and fast, and they'll migrate. A new site will inevitabley be founded because people on the net are loyal so long as what they are loyal too dont' screw them over. Once that happens, they're loyalty is gone, and it'll take years to recover. SO, if you 'screw' the people with free accounts, they'll leave, a new site will be founded and FA will likely become something very low. 

I Love this place, so I hope it doesn't go down for a very, very long time (if ever!) because the people here are fun, the moderators actually deal with the Trolls, the community is a furry community and are very nice people overall, and I've made a lot of buddies, friends and artist friends here. ^_^  So despite all these crashes as of late, I for one am VERY THANKFUL to you guys, who run this site, for all the time, effort and sacrifices you've made for this site to run. ^_^

Thank you.

-Crystal Mendrilia


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## Jijix (Jul 3, 2008)

Right now, I'm an artist on FA who makes 100% of their living off of FA. Whether it be direct via PM or something, or from people who I meet up with IRL through FA, from one way or another FA's keeping me alive and funding my move to another country.
It'd be irresponsible of me not to donate. I couldn't afford much, but I gave to it.

Personally, I think it'd be cool to have Premium accounts or something. Maybe if one donates a certain amount one can use the search feature, or have bigger icons or something like that.

I personally disagree with asking for a percentage of the commissions outright.
Myself, I charge what I charge as the lowest price as I think is reasonable for the work that I do. If I have to pay to be paid, I'm going to have to raise my prices, and I don't want to do that. I'm sure I don't speak for myself on this one. 

Also there is a good reason for us fixing our prices. This way, it assures that we are paid fairly, and it assures that no one else is gypped. If I put 12 hours into a piece and I only got paid $20, I'd be pretty fucking pissed off, just as I'm sure the person who paid me $120 for the same level of effort would be angry, too.


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## Ashi (Jul 3, 2008)

Jijix said:


> Right now, I'm an artist on FA who makes 100% of their living off of FA. Whether it be direct via PM or something, or from people who I meet up with IRL through FA, from one way or another FA's keeping me alive and funding my move to another country.
> It'd be irresponsible of me not to donate. I couldn't afford much, but I gave to it.
> 
> Personally, I think it'd be cool to have Premium accounts or something. Maybe if one donates a certain amount one can use the search feature, or have bigger icons or something like that.
> ...



I second this! :V


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## Riguel (Jul 3, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> I read the first page, and then read the last page but had to make an account before posting. :3   So I'm sorry if this is a little late or no longer applicable to the discussion.
> 
> Seeing as people are discussing the prospect of needing money for fee's, I just wantedo to mention that this is a very dangerous topic. One that can easily cause the collapse of this entire site very quickly if it isn't handled carefully. If this site has any hope of having 'fees' then they'll have to do it in a couple of ways.
> 
> ...



You make very good points Crystal, I'm happy you posted this :3


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## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

Jijix said:


> Right now, I'm an artist on FA who makes 100% of their living off of FA. Whether it be direct via PM or something, or from people who I meet up with IRL through FA, from one way or another FA's keeping me alive and funding my move to another country.
> It'd be irresponsible of me not to donate. I couldn't afford much, but I gave to it.
> 
> Personally, I think it'd be cool to have Premium accounts or something. Maybe if one donates a certain amount one can use the search feature, or have bigger icons or something like that.
> ...




Me too


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 3, 2008)

Fixed prices isn't very practical because of the different skill level of different artists X demand.

Also, the idea of FA taking a % of commission income?  You can't honestly be suggesting that whoever did suggest it.    >.>  That's a good way to crash this site.


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## karoug (Jul 3, 2008)

I started a "perks for paid subscribers" suggestion thread since I'd really be interested in what kind of perks people can come up with. I'm reasonably certain that non-subscribers wouldn't have their level of use lowered.


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## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

i would like to see, if u subscribe to FA, them letting you change your page a bit like SA.
Altough SA kinda sucks, i like the fact you can change ur page, so that would be a good way to get people to subscribe. ^^


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## Riguel (Jul 3, 2008)

I would also like to see a subscription add on allowing users to change their page - but also not to much it becomes myspace all over again -rolls eyes-
But having a subscription shouldn't take away from what the current free users already have in my opinion.


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## Ahkahna (Jul 3, 2008)

Kraton said:


> @Salmy: I agree that it isn't really "free" but it IS choice based. My art, though plenty have told me they like it, I say it sucks. It's not good enough to earn any money at all, and what's worse is that I now don't have a scanner and need to buy one to submit any art. I don't have a tablet either, and I don't have photoshop. My best art comes from pencil+paper, but even that I can't do anymore. So forcing people to pay money would be very bad, as FA would lose likely 90% if not more of it's members.
> 
> Though, don't get me wrong, you didn't say anyone should be forced to pay, but those who can make a living from JUST commissions... well that's obviously a lot of money earned from art they made for free. It's free money, is what it is. And everyone else has to work for their money: the mods, the artists that buy commissions. There's three groups of people here (Admins who work outside jobs to keep the site running, artists who work outside jobs to buy art, and artist who sit and draw for hours to sell art for pretty much free money), and it's not fair to two of them.
> 
> ...



Not to knock this off topic but I think you're flying a little irrationally here.

You are speaking for yourself and maybe a small percentage of others as far as commissions being "free art". Not all of us make a crazy amount of money from what we do and all that we make goes towards bills, rent, medical, food, things to help us live on a daily basis. For some of us, taking commissions IS a job, it get's monotonous, boring, frustrating just like any other job.

To say I don't work for my money is ignorance at it's highest. Just because so and so can draw and render really well doesn't mean they don't put effort into it. Just because someone is OCD doesn't mean they enjoy being a busboy at restaurants. To add onto this, consider the fact that when you buy something from somewhere else, say from the grocery store, those farmers who grew the crops- I'm pretty sure all the insecticides, fertilizers, mortgage payments for the hundreds of acres of land, aren't really all that free. Just like markers, ink, paper, and time aren't free.

who's to say we don't take commissions we don't really want to do, but in essence HAVE to in order to keep our house? feed ourselves? I didn't work at a restaurant because I enjoyed having people criticize my waiting abilities, I did it because I needed the money to continue on.

Now, this as I said was your own opinion on yourself, however dragging others into your ideal views is a little unnecessary.


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## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

Ashi said:


> I second this! :V



And I third it. *smiles and nods*

Though it may mean less income, so most people won't do it, if/when I decide to start doing commissions, I won't make set prices for my art. I'd rather my fans decide for themselves how much they like my art and pay for what it's worth. If my fans are fair and kind enough, and I know most people on FA are, they might even pay more than I'd expect just cause the love the art that much. It's a risky move to let others decide how much they want to pay for my art, but it'll make my relationship with my fans all the better.
I'm on FA for friendship and family. I know some people on here that are more family to me than my biological family will ever be. The art, to me, is just to make the experience pretty. ^_^


----------



## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 3, 2008)

Riguel said:


> I would also like to see a subscription add on allowing users to change their page - but also not to much it becomes myspace all over again -rolls eyes-
> But having a subscription shouldn't take away from what the current free users already have in my opinion.




The more that is taken away from the current 'free users' the more users, (that includes artists) that they will lose for it.


----------



## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

Riguel said:


> I would also like to see a subscription add on allowing users to change their page - but also not to much it becomes myspace all over again -rolls eyes-
> But having a subscription shouldn't take away from what the current free users already have in my opinion.



i dont think they would.
Then again, like someone earlier in this forum said, as we are talking they might already have a plan set, so until they actually bring the site up and say something, we are pratically just throwing ideas and guessing whats going to happen.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

Ahkahna said:


> Not to knock this off topic but I think you're flying a little irrationally here.
> 
> You are speaking for yourself and maybe a small percentage of others as far as commissions being "free art". Not all of us make a crazy amount of money from what we do and all that we make goes towards bills, rent, medical, food, things to help us live on a daily basis. For some of us, taking commissions IS a job, it get's monotonous, boring, frustrating just like any other job.
> 
> ...



Sorry, you're right. I knew this when I posted it, I just didn't really know of a good way to say it, and the way it came out came sorta as a flop. I apologize, and trust me when I say I understand what you mean here.
And, I accept the criticism in that post, and will not say anything in return to it, cause I'm not a jerk like that. I know it was rather ignorant, I wish it had come out better.
I'm not very good with words. My apologies.


----------



## Ruffyluv (Jul 3, 2008)

like dragoneer said earlier, if everyone donated a dollar they could run the site for a year, i know some people just dont have the ability cause of lack of bank account or credit card but even if half of us donated a dollar every 6 months it'd work out to the same


----------



## Ashi (Jul 3, 2008)

Ahkahna said:


> Not to knock this off topic but I think you're flying a little irrationally here.
> 
> You are speaking for yourself and maybe a small percentage of others as far as commissions being "free art". Not all of us make a crazy amount of money from what we do and all that we make goes towards bills, rent, medical, food, things to help us live on a daily basis. For some of us, taking commissions IS a job, it get's monotonous, boring, frustrating just like any other job.
> 
> ...



Woah, I didn't even see Kraton's post there. That was just Horrible to all senses. I agree completely Ahkahna. Drawing is no less of a job as a Bus Driver, Lunch Lady, or anything really. For those who do commissions to survive on we take on all sorts of pictures in order to SUPPORT ourselves just like any other working man/woman on a payroll.

But again, Ahkahna is right you're entitled to your opinion and all but that whole bit of dragging everyone else in on it... Yeah. Just plain offensive to ANY artist out there.

---

Glad to see you at least KNEW it was a bad call. xD; You didn't seem like a jerk, but that post was a bit out of line.


----------



## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Sorry, you're right. I knew this when I posted it, I just didn't really know of a good way to say it, and the way it came out came sorta as a flop. I apologize, and trust me when I say I understand what you mean here.
> And, I accept the criticism in that post, and will not say anything in return to it, cause I'm not a jerk like that. I know it was rather ignorant, I wish it had come out better.
> I'm not very good with words. My apologies.



Dont worry about it, u were speaking ur opnion. 
But yeah, my only job is being an artist right now that people can commission, i already have low prices and it would be bad if FA suddenly thought about take a percentage off.
But again, you were just speaking ur mind. ^^


----------



## Riguel (Jul 3, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> The more that is taken away from the current 'free users' the more users, (that includes artists) that they will lose for it.


 And truthfully I wish not to see that happen, I really do enjoy being at FA, but if it comes to them "restricting" the free users, then I sadly hate to say it, but I would probably pack my bags :/


----------



## Ainoko (Jul 3, 2008)

I have an idea that may get aquite a few of you artists out there pissed off at me, but I think that it would be a great way to bring cash in to the site. 

What I propose is this, some of us have 1GB, 2GB or of art, music, peotry, and stoeis faved in our galleries. What if FA charges a set rate per GB of data to be copied to DVDr and sent to the member. 

For example, say that Timmy turner has 25GB of art, stories, poetry and music faved, and he wants to permanately save it. FA charges $5 per GB of data for a max of $20 per DVDr then tha cash would go to the site's general fun for maintense and upkeep.

But something like this would have to agreed on by everyone.


----------



## Riguel (Jul 3, 2008)

Ashi said:


> Woah, I didn't even see Kraton's post there. That was just Horrible to all senses. I agree completely Ahkahna. Drawing is no less of a job as a Bus Driver, Lunch Lady, or anything really. For those who do commissions to survive on we take on all sorts of pictures in order to SUPPORT ourselves just like any other working man/woman on a payroll.
> 
> But again, Ahkahna is right you're entitled to your opinion and all but that whole bit of dragging everyone else in on it... Yeah. Just plain offensive to ANY artist out there.
> 
> ...


Let's try not to start a flame war eh? :3


----------



## Echo_wulf (Jul 3, 2008)

.... everyone needs to calm down ..im sure they know what their doing... severall great points have been brought up a few im sure they are going to think about but they are smart enough to realize what they need to do to get money AND to stay loyal to their oyal ones


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## Ashi (Jul 3, 2008)

Riguel said:


> Let's try not to start a flame war eh? :3



I did edit it. C:


----------



## Ahkahna (Jul 3, 2008)

As I said, I understand  It's ok.

Now, 

BACK ON TOPIC


----------



## Riguel (Jul 3, 2008)

Ainoko said:


> I have an idea that may get aquite a few of you artists out there pissed off at me, but I think that it would be a great way to bring cash in to the site.
> 
> What I propose is this, some of us have 1GB, 2GB or of art, music, peotry, and stoeis faved in our galleries. What if FA charges a set rate per GB of data to be copied to DVDr and sent to the member.
> 
> ...


In my opinion, I'm not really too fond of that idea, especially since there is ways around it too.


----------



## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

Well, we just have to wait and see.
As i said, for one I dont have a job, or a solo paypal account, its mine and my husband, cuz he is the only one that works, its a low pay job too, so everything goes for his college, which is...alot.
So, right now its impossible for me to get the money to FA, ofcourse if I am able to one day, I will.
Since I do life FA more then DA somehow. ^^


----------



## Riguel (Jul 3, 2008)

Chaotic said:


> Well, we just have to wait and see.
> As i said, for one I dont have a job, or a solo paypal account, its mine and my husband, cuz he is the only one that works, its a low pay job too, so everything goes for his college, which is...alot.
> So, right now its impossible for me to get the money to FA, ofcourse if I am able to one day, I will.
> Since I do life FA more then DA somehow. ^^


Could it be its not confusing and restricting creativity?


----------



## Ashi (Jul 3, 2008)

Riguel said:


> In my opinion, I'm not really too fond of that idea, especially since there is ways around it too.



Yeah, I'm scooting away from that one a bit too... xD; Just not my flavor since there's lots of other choices to try too!


----------



## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

Riguel said:


> Could it be its not confusing and restricting creativity?



Sorry but what do u mean? ^^;


----------



## Ashi (Jul 3, 2008)

Chaotic said:


> Sorry but what do u mean? ^^;



Yeah, they lost me too. >>'


----------



## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

For the record I just wanted to say that while I'm glad you understand and are ok with it being "my opinion" it... wasn't exactly my opinion. I don't mindlessly post anything without thinking it over first or anything like that, and WHILE I was posting it, I wasn't too happy with the words that were coming out. I just sorta had writers block... ish...
For lack of a better way to explain, I couldn't think of a better way to write that all down, and it turned out really ignorant.
But I'm glad that I was forgiven, though. Thanks. ^^


----------



## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

Kraton said:


> For the record I just wanted to say that while I'm glad you understand and are ok with it being "my opinion" it... wasn't exactly my opinion. I don't mindlessly post anything without thinking it over first or anything like that, and WHILE I was posting it, I wasn't too happy with the words that were coming out. I just sorta had writers block... ish...
> For lack of a better way to explain, I couldn't think of a better way to write that all down, and it turned out really ignorant.
> But I'm glad that I was forgiven, though. Thanks. ^^



Everyone makes mistakes.


----------



## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 3, 2008)

Ainoko said:


> I have an idea that may get aquite a few of you artists out there pissed off at me, but I think that it would be a great way to bring cash in to the site.
> 
> What I propose is this, some of us have 1GB, 2GB or of art, music, peotry, and stoeis faved in our galleries. What if FA charges a set rate per GB of data to be copied to DVDr and sent to the member.
> 
> ...



That is a method of bringing in money, AND losing most of the top grade artists and all of the medium (save possibly a select few) and all amature artists. 

I of course would leave over night, but I don't hate you for thinking that. I also don't give my opinion on this, I simply state what 'will' happen if your plan was implimented. 

I think it would be an absolute disasster for this site if that happened.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that by losing the artists which would obviously happen, we'd also lose a lot of people who watch the art because of how little art would be worth looking at for them personally.   (can't forget being great at what you do doesn't mean you're going to be watched and enjoyed by everyone. Your art needs to appeal to them too.)


----------



## Ashi (Jul 3, 2008)

Kraton said:


> For the record I just wanted to say that while I'm glad you understand and are ok with it being "my opinion" it... wasn't exactly my opinion. I don't mindlessly post anything without thinking it over first or anything like that, and WHILE I was posting it, I wasn't too happy with the words that were coming out. I just sorta had writers block... ish...
> For lack of a better way to explain, I couldn't think of a better way to write that all down, and it turned out really ignorant.
> But I'm glad that I was forgiven, though. Thanks. ^^



Nah it's okay, when you type stuff in a rush it happens. To me - A lot. xD; Sorry if I did sound snappish, but I deal with people IRL who think like that only on completely serious terms so I got easily frustrated.

So to you, My apologies also. C:


----------



## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

Ashi said:


> Nah it's okay, when you type stuff in a rush it happens. To me - A lot. xD; Sorry if I did sound snappish, but I deal with people IRL who think like that only on completely serious terms so I got easily frustrated.
> 
> So to you, My apologies also. C:



Ugh me too, i almost snapped at my brother in law...XDD 
Cuz he was saying commissions are stupid and stuff.


----------



## Ashi (Jul 3, 2008)

Chaotic said:


> Ugh me too, i almost snapped at my brother in law...XDD
> Cuz he was saying commissions are stupid and stuff.



Yeah, me it's my own father and 80% of everyone else I know. xD;


----------



## Riguel (Jul 3, 2008)

Chaotic said:


> Sorry but what do u mean? ^^;


DA has over complicated their submission system so it makes it hard to submit one artwork without going through ten million menus/categories, not to mention, Plus a lot of "mature"(I'm not just talking about porn) content isn't allowed on DA.

EDIT: I hope I was able to better explain my comment about DA ^^;
But truthfully this is my personal opinion on it.


----------



## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

Riguel said:


> DA has over complicated their submission system so it makes it hard to submit one artwork without going through ten million menus/categories, not to mention, Plus a lot of "mature"(I'm not just talking about porn) content isn't allowed on DA.



That is true, altough, mature content is allowed, if its photo's of naked ladies.
For some reasons..ugh.
Altough they put a new censor opnions so its getting a tiny bit better....tiny...tiny bit. XD


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## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

Chaotic said:


> Ugh me too, i almost snapped at my brother in law...XDD
> Cuz he was saying commissions are stupid and stuff.


Lol, next thing you know his skin will turn green, his nose long and pointy, his arms too long for his body, and warts all over his skin. My description of a Troll.

Just kidding, though. Wanted to see how people would react to my description. XD


----------



## Riguel (Jul 3, 2008)

Chaotic said:


> That is true, altough, mature content is allowed, if its photo's of naked ladies.
> For some reasons..ugh.
> Altough they put a new censor opnions so its getting a tiny bit better....tiny...tiny bit. XD



Hehe, Its been a while since I've submitted anything, is their submission system any better? (not trying to get off topic but just pure curiosity now)


----------



## Riguel (Jul 3, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Lol, next thing you know his skin will turn green, his nose long and pointy, his arms too long for his body, and warts all over his skin. My description of a Troll.
> 
> Just kidding, though. Wanted to see how people would react to my description. XD



When I hear troll for some reason I think of shrek >>;


----------



## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

Riguel said:


> Hehe, Its been a while since I've submitted anything, is their submission system any better? (not trying to get off topic but just pure curiosity now)



Submission is more confusing cuz they put new categories like it was stated here before, but the censorship categories is good.
I think atleast, my art was deleted alot before they put this censorship, now you can actually choose your categories of censorship, violence, nudity, sexual intentions (?), etc. ^^;


----------



## ArielMT (Jul 3, 2008)

The stress before a long holiday weekend?  Ah, gotta love holidays, especially ones involving lots of explosives! ^^


----------



## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

ArielMT said:


> The stress before a long holiday weekend?  Ah, gotta love holidays, especially ones involving lots of explosives! ^^



w00t, this is going to be my second year experiencing 4th of july.


----------



## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 3, 2008)

Everyone talks about DA and FA like they 'could' be the same in the end. They cant.   Simply because of the porn. 

You mustn't forget that this website, Fur Affinity is a Furry website. The Furry Fandom is very open to sexuality and in some cases don't view what most would consider as porn, porn but Love and beautiful art. Just the act of sex isn't enough to stimulate a sexual response in the fandom.  Sure there's a lot of porn but that happens when a fandom is so okay with sexuality. 

This Fandom for example, is so acceptable of homosexuals, male and male, while most other fandoms are only okay with girl and girl but not male and male. Further the Furry Fandom also brings out an animalistic side of us, our natural tendancies are acknowledged more than other fandoms would be willing to accept. 

The censores on DA were put into place for legal reasons, not their personal interests. When they turned themselves into a business, everything changed. If Fur Affinity were to go into it as a business, then everything would need to change or they could be open to all kinds of law suits and other stupid stuff. 

BUT, the Furry Fandom needs the Fandom's traits or it will move away from here. SO my point here is simple. 

When saying we should become more like DA, realize that we shouldn't become exactly like them. Don't get too carried away with 'reasons' and nit picking the details like the submission menu's shouldn't be so pointlessly huge.

DA is for professionals now afterall. FA is for a Fandom.


----------



## Riguel (Jul 3, 2008)

Chaotic said:


> Submission is more confusing cuz they put new categories like it was stated here before, but the censorship categories is good.
> I think atleast, my art was deleted alot before they put this censorship, now you can actually choose your categories of censorship, violence, nudity, sexual intentions (?), etc. ^^;



Well that's a bit better, though adding a bit more categories, scares me since it was getting ridiculous to submit any artwork.


----------



## Firehazard (Jul 3, 2008)

Redregon said:


> thing is, by search, what do people mean by that? search for a user? search for a specific picture? search by species/adult or other tags?
> 
> if it's by tags, i will state again, if a picture is not tagged, i'd suggest it not being added to the search engine. might get people's asses in gear to make sure their submissions are tagged and tagged properly (which afaik, is a big concern for some of the staff.)


Hear, hear.  Ferrox is going to eliminate the standard categories anyway, from what I hear, so untagged art is going to be impossible to find at that point.  People need an incentive to tag stuff.  I would like to see the tagging system expanded, though, so that there's a way to specify some of the things that categories normally take care of, like digital vs. traditional, etc.



ArielMT said:


> A quick hack right now (or when the server comes back up) is to borrow Google.
> Admins could throw together a search box with a Google logo and send the post action (after assembly/processing) to "http://www.google.com/search?q=SEARCHTERMS+site%3Awww.furaffinity.net&amp;btnG=Search".
> The rest of us can just head on over to Google and throw "site:www.furaffinity.net" (without quotes) on the end of search terms.


The thing is, that currently does not work at all if you do it from Google's own site.  I tried it a while back.  I think the admins have Google's crawlers blocked on purpose.  And they can't access mature- and adult-tagged art anyway.



salmy said:


> When a website is SO popular it becomes a public service, just like google or yahoo or youtube. I *never* suggested that FA became a pay site. I'm just saying that those who earn money *thanks* to FA should be /charged/ for it, because if this page didn't exist, they wouldn't have become popular and they wouldn't earn nearly as much money as they do.
> 
> Now what's the scale? How much should Blotch be charged? How much should regular-artist-with-a-small-fandom-that-charges-5-for-a-sketch-and-gets-2-every-4-months be charged? Yes, it's a *tough* decision, it's something to think about, and people are really being generous donating up to 4000 for server hardware, but after this issue, there will be *other* issues, every other week, every other month. Are they going to ask for 4000 bucks every month now? What if this doesn't solve the problem?


The question is, HOW the heck are you supposed to charge them?  You'd first have to even _know_ what they make off commissions, and how many of those commissions happened specifically because of FurAffinity.  Unless you're proposing hiring a psychic to read the users' minds, there's no way to know this.  I suppose you could add a tool that allows artists to open up a certain number of commission slots so users can just click a button and automatically transfer the money and send the request.  But how are you going to ensure that the artist actually uses it?  I prefer to _not_ take money until the commission is finished, to the point where I don't even tell the customer what my PayPal address _is_ until then.  And so on.  Requiring artists to use FA's own system, at the risk of being banned or something if they so much as post a journal offering commission slots if they don't, is going to make a lot of people pissed off.



salmy said:


> Dunno if I'll get a ban for expressing my opinion, or if I'll be called a troll. I hope not, but it's like... c'mon, people. Don't say it's free cuz there's banners and donations. Nothing is free in this life, unfortunately. Find more consistent ways of getting funds and we'll all be happy in the end.


You're serious?  What bassackwards websites have you been on where people get banned for offering their opinions?  Hell, I've been on sites where the admins get called "Nazis" on a daily basis but nobody's ever been so much as suspended for saying so or worse.


----------



## Ainoko (Jul 3, 2008)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ainoko  
I have an idea that may get aquite a few of you artists out there pissed off at me, but I think that it would be a great way to bring cash in to the site. 

What I propose is this, some of us have 1GB, 2GB or of art, music, peotry, and stoeis faved in our galleries. What if FA charges a set rate per GB of data to be copied to DVDr and sent to the member. 

For example, say that Timmy turner has 25GB of art, stories, poetry and music faved, and he wants to permanately save it. FA charges $5 per GB of data for a max of $20 per DVDr then tha cash would go to the site's general fun for maintense and upkeep.

But something like this would have to agreed on by everyone. 





CrystalMendrilia said:


> That is a method of bringing in money, AND losing most of the top grade artists and all of the medium (save possibly a select few) and all amature artists.
> 
> I of course would leave over night, but I don't hate you for thinking that. I also don't give my opinion on this, I simply state what 'will' happen if your plan was implimented.
> 
> ...



Like I stated in the original post, this would have to be agreed upon by all of the artists on the site, not just the admins.


----------



## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> Everyone talks about DA and FA like they 'could' be the same in the end. They cant.   Simply because of the porn.
> 
> You mustn't forget that this website, Fur Affinity is a Furry website. The Furry Fandom is very open to sexuality and in some cases don't view what most would consider as porn, porn but Love and beautiful art. Just the act of sex isn't enough to stimulate a sexual response in the fandom.  Sure there's a lot of porn but that happens when a fandom is so okay with sexuality.
> 
> ...



I know that for a fact, altough i use FA for both my anthro and human work, simply put, im on DA mostly for my friends and husband since they post more there.
And I know, FA is way different, thats why people choose it.
I wasnt saying for FA to be like DA though, ugh.... i like FA how it is right now. ^^


----------



## Echo_wulf (Jul 3, 2008)

ArielMT said:


> The stress before a long holiday weekend? Ah, gotta love holidays, especially ones involving lots of explosives! ^^


 LOL i agree ich is why im trying to get ppl to calm down. think about them..... a good holiday and boom they have to spend their moneies on hardware instead of fun.. and not to mention allthe ppl so stressed out b/c of it.... ppl just calm down im sure they know what they r going to do


----------



## Riguel (Jul 3, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> Everyone talks about DA and FA like they 'could' be the same in the end. They cant.   Simply because of the porn.
> 
> You mustn't forget that this website, Fur Affinity is a Furry website. The Furry Fandom is very open to sexuality and in some cases don't view what most would consider as porn, porn but Love and beautiful art. Just the act of sex isn't enough to stimulate a sexual response in the fandom.  Sure there's a lot of porn but that happens when a fandom is so okay with sexuality.
> 
> ...


Yeah I would agree, we are dealing with two differences. :3


----------



## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 3, 2008)

Ainoko said:


> Quote:
> Originally Posted by Ainoko
> Like I stated in the original post, this would have to be agreed upon by all of the artists on the site, not just the admins.



It's not practical to think it's even a possibility, by your statement just now that all arists would have to agree on it, not just the admins.   That's my point.


----------



## YuchiDaYena (Jul 3, 2008)

Just a note to EVVERYONE HERE 

ADMINS
Normal members
Complaining or not

HAVE A HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY Y'ALL


----------



## Wolf_Fox_Guy (Jul 3, 2008)

does anyone know how much they've raised allready? I've heard of like three or four folks saying they donated but when I look at te hdonation meter it dosnt say its moved since last night.


----------



## ArielMT (Jul 3, 2008)

Firehazard said:


> ArielMT said:
> 
> 
> > A quick hack right now (or when the server comes back up) is to borrow Google.
> ...


I completely forgot about that last bit.  >.<


----------



## Firehazard (Jul 3, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> The censores on DA were put into place for legal reasons, not their personal interests. When they turned themselves into a business, everything changed. If Fur Affinity were to go into it as a business, then everything would need to change or they could be open to all kinds of law suits and other stupid stuff.


That's another thing.  Whether dA is being honest or not about being unable to operate legally if they allowed sexual art (I'm a little suspicious, since there are plenty of actual all-out porn sites that operate at a profit and aren't breaking any laws), it is something that FA would have to take into account before offering any paid services.  It might just be, though, that since dA has a photography category, they'd have to personally guarantee that all models are over 18, which of course they can't do.  FA, which already does not allow nude photography, wouldn't have that problem Disregard that; I just remembered that DA already does require legal clearance for the nude photography they do allow, so God only knows what their reasons really are.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> Everyone talks about DA and FA like they 'could' be the same in the end. They cant.   Simply because of the porn.
> 
> You mustn't forget that this website, Fur Affinity is a Furry website. The Furry Fandom is very open to sexuality and in some cases don't view what most would consider as porn, porn but Love and beautiful art. Just the act of sex isn't enough to stimulate a sexual response in the fandom.  Sure there's a lot of porn but that happens when a fandom is so okay with sexuality.
> 
> ...



Thanks to you, I didn't have to type this myself. XD
I'm thinking the same thing. FurAffinity, being a free site (lets forget the subscription thing for now, cause even with that it'd still be a free site), is not a business. It doesn't need to abide by the same rules as DA, and should never have to. The only warning FA ever needs for the mature art here is what we already have: the age restriction, and the coloured outline.

I think the only paying anyone should be doing on this site is donating and the subscription idea, which in the end is still donating.
We give to the site, and they give back. We're all happy, and no one is making any more money than anyone else.

With DA, I'll be willing to bet that some of the mods likely live with some... accessories... that they don't really need. Who knows, some of them might even have a condo some place.
That's how businesses work, the DA mods are earning more money than they are spending.
FA, not being a business, is a give and receive site. We all pitch in in SOME fassion, and we all are happy in the end.
And I for one am quite happy with the way things have been going with FA. Random crash or not, I'm pleased. So what if the site goes down for an hour once a month or less. I can wait. ^^


----------



## Ainoko (Jul 3, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> That is a method of bringing in money, AND losing most of the top grade artists and all of the medium (save possibly a select few) and all amature artists.
> 
> I of course would leave over night, but I don't hate you for thinking that. I also don't give my opinion on this, I simply state what 'will' happen if your plan was implimented.
> 
> ...



That is what I meant, I should have worded it better in the original post. I thought of this idea as I know that I am not the only one here with over 20GB of art faved. And there is an ulterior motivew behind the suggestion as well. Selling members DVDs of the art in thier faves galleries would allow the admins to purge all of the data in said galleries. Thus causing less stress on the servers.


----------



## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

YuchiDaYena said:


> Just a note to EVVERYONE HERE
> 
> ADMINS
> Normal members
> ...



Happy 4th of july to u too


----------



## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Thanks to you, I didn't have to type this myself. XD
> I'm thinking the same thing. FurAffinity, being a free site (lets forget the subscription thing for now, cause even with that it'd still be a free site), is not a business. It doesn't need to abide by the same rules as DA, and should never have to. The only warning FA ever needs for the mature art here is what we already have: the age restriction, and the coloured outline.
> 
> I think the only paying anyone should be doing on this site is donating and the subscription idea, which in the end is still donating.
> ...



Oh, and I know that some people have their deadlines and whatnot, and if the timing is bad enough, an hour could make things worse. But really, we're all understanding people, and if the site crashes for an artist for an hour, it crashes for everyone else too. No one would mind if a commission is an hour late, etc. ^^


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## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

Chaotic said:


> Happy 4th of july to u too



Isn't today the 3rd? o_o


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## ArielMT (Jul 3, 2008)

Just one request for the admins: Take and post a movie of the faulty motherboard, if y'all decide to, um...  ahem... let it celebrate Independence Day in a fittingly appropriate manner.


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## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Oh, and I know that some people have their deadlines and whatnot, and if the timing is bad enough, an hour could make things worse. But really, we're all understanding people, and if the site crashes for an artist for an hour, it crashes for everyone else too. No one would mind if a commission is an hour late, etc. ^^



Thank god i finished my last commission on FA before it crashed. XD
I only need to know if he liked it. ^^;


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## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Isn't today the 3rd? o_o



yeah but that person who wished a happy 4th might not be here tomorrow, prolly not many of us are going to be on the computer at all. XD


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## Riguel (Jul 3, 2008)

Well everyone, I'm out for the day, I have some assembly programs to write, so I will be taking leave. Please enjoy your Fourth of July. -waves his paw at everyone- :3


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## Wolf_Fox_Guy (Jul 3, 2008)

ArielMT said:


> Just one request for the admins: Take and post a movie of the faulty motherboard, if y'all decide to, um...  ahem... let it celebrate Independence Day in a fittingly appropriate manner.



YEAH!!!! I second that....wait, sledge hammers and desicrating its charged remains for being so damn buggy is something we do on the fourth of july ><;???


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## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

Riguel said:


> Well everyone, I'm out for the day, I have some assembly programs to write, so I will be taking leave. Please enjoy your Fourth of July. :3



See yas and a happy one to u too O:


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## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

Wolf_Fox_Guy said:


> YEAH!!!! I second that....wait, sledge hammers and desicrating its charged remains for being so damn buggy is something we do on the fourth of july ><;???



Hell yeah! XD


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## Ainoko (Jul 3, 2008)

ArielMT said:


> Just one request for the admins: Take and post a movie of the faulty motherboard, if y'all decide to, um...  ahem... let it celebrate Independence Day in a fittingly appropriate manner.



EPIC!!!! love it


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## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

Chaotic said:


> yeah but that person who wished a happy 4th might not be here tomorrow, prolly not many of us are going to be on the computer at all. XD



I for one will be online tomorrow as if it were an ordinary day, because for some reason the forth of july and the fireworks were celebrated on the 1rst over here, which confused me as of why there were fireworks until I was told.

But, yes. Happy 4rth of July everyone. ^^


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 3, 2008)

Firehazard said:


> That's another thing.  Whether dA is being honest or not about being unable to operate legally if they allowed sexual art (I'm a little suspicious, since there are plenty of actual all-out porn sites that operate at a profit and aren't breaking any laws), it is something that FA would have to take into account before offering any paid services.



There's actually a lot of potential factors in that. For example, what country are the servers based in? What ISP used will become an issue soon... and so on. Just because some sites can do it legally, doesn't mean other sites can.  Just look at torrent sites for example. 

But this is just a side point, not the point you're going to bring up I'm sure. *reads on*.




Firehazard said:


> It might just be, though, that since dA has a photography category, they'd have to personally guarantee that all models are over 18, which of course they can't do.  FA, which already does not allow nude photography, wouldn't have that problem




Well, according to new U.S. laws (I'm not sure if they passed it or not yet), DRAWING children in ART is illegal now, on the condition of course that it's sexual OR nude. (though I question how that impacts the furry world, haha.  But that also impacts the U.S. Not the world.)



Firehazard said:


> Disregard that; I just remembered that DA already does require legal clearance for the nude photography they do allow, so God only knows what their reasons really are.



Actually since there is absolutely no proof of God or any other Deity actually to not only be believed in but to even exist, I question if God would know or could actually know what DA is thinking...  Even if God was real, I wonder if he could use his omnipotence to change his future mind which he of course knows through his omnisience? Of course, could he use his omnipotence to change our minds since we have free will, even though God is omniscient? Hmmm....


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 3, 2008)

Kraton said:


> I for one will be online tomorrow as if it were an ordinary day, because for some reason the forth of july and the fireworks were celebrated on the 1rst over here, which confused me as of why there were fireworks until I was told.
> 
> But, yes. Happy 4rth of July everyone. ^^



Sounds like me too Hehe. I'm soooo not doing fireworks anymore!  We got ticketed for it recently, and thankfully my father fit the bill! It was a lot of money!!!  T_T  I'll 'bark' and say publically I'll not do that anymore. Not worth it!  Besides, here in the U.S. we get crappy fireworks. (wants to go to China hehe)

Happy 4th of July Everyone!!  ^_^


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## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

Kraton said:


> I for one will be online tomorrow as if it were an ordinary day, because for some reason the forth of july and the fireworks were celebrated on the 1rst over here, which confused me as of why there were fireworks until I was told.
> 
> But, yes. Happy 4rth of July everyone. ^^



I actually dont know, depends on what i have to do. ^^;


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## wolfmagik (Jul 3, 2008)

Heh. All i'm really doing over the 4th is going to a small party, getting hammered and playing Rock Band.


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## Pi (Jul 3, 2008)

Wolf_Fox_Guy said:


> YEAH!!!! I second that....wait, sledge hammers and desicrating its charged remains for being so damn buggy is something we do on the fourth of july ><;???



It's not "damn buggy", it's just not a motherboard that was ever intended to go into a server.


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## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> Sounds like me too Hehe. I'm soooo not doing fireworks anymore!  We got ticketed for it recently, and thankfully my father fit the bill! It was a lot of money!!!  T_T  I'll 'bark' and say publically I'll not do that anymore. Not worth it!  Besides, here in the U.S. we get crappy fireworks. (wants to go to China hehe)
> 
> Happy 4th of July Everyone!!  ^_^


What we had here was pretty good, actually. And it was a planned event, not just people firing them up themselves. So completely legal.
If I could have recorded it and posted it for you to see, I would have. But alas I don't have a digital camera... nor a time machine. XD


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## Ashi (Jul 3, 2008)

I just got reminded of how much I love FA.
Post one thing on DA = Auto hate. >>;

I MISS YOU FA, COME BACK SOON PLZ. <3


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## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

Ashi said:


> I just got reminded of how much I love FA.
> Post one thing on DA = Auto hate. >>;
> 
> I MISS YOU FA, COME BACK SOON PLZ. <3



I like DA, but, FA makes me draw more.
I guess both of them have their ups and downs.


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 3, 2008)

Kraton said:


> What we had here was pretty good, actually. And it was a planned event, not just people firing them up themselves. So completely legal.
> If I could have recorded it and posted it for you to see, I would have. But alas I don't have a digital camera... nor a time machine. XD



*Cry* But... but....!!  T_T   i want my fireworks... T_T


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## Wolf_Fox_Guy (Jul 3, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> *Cry* But... but....!!  T_T   i want my fireworks... T_T



hey, at least you dont live in a state where they're illegal...<< dumb state legislature. *hands her a sparkler*


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## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> *Cry* But... but....!!  T_T   i want my fireworks... T_T



Yeah, that really is too bad. I think you might have liked it. And that's not to say that I know you at all, but because for me, fireworks... eh... I don't really care much for them.
But on the 1st, what I saw was pretty nifty.
So I think many here would have liked it.

Also, I wanted to say, nice to meet you all. I'm actually glad I registered for the forum now. I've been in FA for a while now, but this gives me the chance to get my name (or alias, rather) out a little more.
Plus you all are so nice! Out of all places I've been to, I fit in with the fandom the best. ^_^


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## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

Wolf_Fox_Guy said:


> hey, at least you dont live in a state where they're illegal...<< dumb state legislature. *hands her a sparkler*



I lived in a country the only people who could have any fireworks were the carnival people or the actual fireworks people, we couldnt *sad*


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## wolfmagik (Jul 3, 2008)

Chaotic said:


> I lived in a country the only people who could have any fireworks were the carnival people or the actual fireworks people, we couldnt *sad*



That sucks. The municipality that i'm currently living in, due to wildfires last year, has put a complete ban on fireworks. you can't even wave a sparkler around.


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 3, 2008)

Wolf_Fox_Guy said:


> hey, at least you dont live in a state where they're illegal...<< dumb state legislature. *hands her a sparkler*



Actually I do.  T_T  That's why we got a ticket for using them.


AND yes, a pleasure to meet you all too. ^_^ Though I'm not longer interested in forum hopping, I only dropped by for this since I wanted to see how long the wait would be since I have a picture to upload... T_T


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## Wolf_Fox_Guy (Jul 3, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> Actually I do.  T_T  That's why we got a ticket for using them.
> 
> 
> AND yes, a pleasure to meet you all too. ^_^ Though I'm not longer interested in forum hopping, I only dropped by for this since I wanted to see how long the wait would be since I have a picture to upload... T_T


eh, good idea, but do feel free to drop back in. I certainly wouldnt mind seeing someone hop around teh forums. tis kinda boring with FA down


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## artdecaderoo (Jul 3, 2008)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> Again with the monthly fee crap?
> 
> Didn't we have enough of this when Cecil and I showed Limeykat the reasons why mandatory fees were a bad idea?



Optional fee for perks, not mandatory fee for usage.


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## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

Being around forums atleast lets u have something to do, because for some reason i think this downtime its gonna take awhile unfortanelly. x.x
I have many pics to upload, its gonna be annoying to do when FA gets up. ^^;
I need to stop drawing so much. ._.


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## ArielMT (Jul 3, 2008)

Chaotic said:


> I have many pics to upload, its gonna be annoying to do when FA gets up. ^^;
> I need to stop drawing so much. ._.


I wish I had your problem.  :<


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## JAH2000 (Jul 3, 2008)

its been two days this thread has alrety seen 57,000 views people really must want there porn back or......er art


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## Mattcat (Jul 3, 2008)

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 372 (45 members and 327 guests)

*waves hello to crowd of guests*


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## nobleawolf (Jul 3, 2008)

unlike some people i have a life other the FA, and i'm not gonna go emo or start cutting my wrists because ZOMG FA IS DOWN ITS THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!!!

my only Q would be, FA has been up and down alot lately, and it got annoying when you where trying to upload something and OH NOs ITS DOWN right in the middle of uploading shit. Is that because of the hardware failure that was going on/hardware slowly dieing?


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## mishachan (Jul 3, 2008)

Chaotic said:


> I need to stop drawing so much. ._.



Blasphemy!  You should never say something like that.


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## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

ArielMT said:


> I wish I had your problem.  :<



lol, i just draw too much cuz i finish my pictures too fast, end up bored, draw again. XD


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## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

Lol, if you don't want to draw as much, lend me your scanner. That'll solve both our problems. XD
I've got a pile of art next to me that's (last I counted) 9 pages high. I can't submit any of it.


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## Ainoko (Jul 3, 2008)

As of the latest veiw count vs posts = 57054 vs 845 = 67.52 views per post


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## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

nobleawolf said:


> unlike some people i have a life other the FA, and i'm not gonna go emo or start cutting my wrists because ZOMG FA IS DOWN ITS THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!!!
> 
> my only Q would be, FA has been up and down alot lately, and it got annoying when you where trying to upload something and OH NOs ITS DOWN right in the middle of uploading shit. Is that because of the hardware failure that was going on/hardware slowly dieing?



We arent cutting our wrists, actually for awhile we werent even talking about FA, we were talking about 4th of July. ^^;
I have a life too, but some of my life is draw, and i like to show what I draw since people tell me i inspire them with some drawings, also to see what people have to say about it.
FA is down, is not a big whoop, it just sad cuz i also have friends there and a commissioner that needs to reply to my note and i cant check either.
Also, alot of art to upload, but for that DA will do for now.


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## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Lol, if you don't want to draw as much, lend me your scanner. That'll solve both our problems. XD
> I've got a pile of art next to me that's (last I counted) 9 pages high. I can't submit any of it.



That wouldnt work since i draw mostly on my tablet...XD


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## QT Melon (Jul 3, 2008)

Please keep on topic. This isn't a chatroom. We do have the IRC for that. Better yet please visit other areas of our forums. I'm sure the admins would appreciate it greatly.


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## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

Chaotic said:


> That wouldnt work since i draw mostly on my tablet...XD



Oh.... lol, that's something else I need to get. XD
Just the fact that someone has a tablet means their art will likely be a tenfold better than mine. v_v kinda unfair.


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## Kraton (Jul 3, 2008)

QT Melon said:


> Please keep on topic. This isn't a chatroom. We do have the IRC for that. Better yet please visit other areas of our forums. I'm sure the admins would appreciate it greatly.



Hmm... ok. Will do. ^^


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## Arshes Nei (Jul 3, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Oh.... lol, that's something else I need to get. XD
> Just the fact that someone has a tablet means their art will likely be a tenfold better than mine. v_v kinda unfair.



This isn't a forum for idle chatter. This is about FA's server Hardware fault and related. Please take the topic elsewhere, like Art Shack or Off Topic. Thank You.


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## WarMocK (Jul 3, 2008)

QT Melon said:


> Please keep on topic. This isn't a chatroom. We do have the IRC for that. Better yet please visit other areas of our forums. I'm sure the admins would appreciate it greatly.


Agreed.
btw: what was the link to the Amazon Buck-O-meter again? I'm trying to get at least some money to donate (5 EUR or so) since it's for a good cause after all. I know it's not much, but I can't spend more atm. :-(


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## Arshes Nei (Jul 3, 2008)

Donations are an announcement: http://forums.furaffinity.net/announcement.php?f=11&a=8

Thank you for contributing!


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## AnthroStick (Jul 3, 2008)

How much do you guys need anyways?


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## WarMocK (Jul 3, 2008)

Arshes Nei said:


> Donations are an announcement: http://forums.furaffinity.net/announcement.php?f=11&a=8
> 
> Thank you for contributing!



Thanks!
Already found the link in another thread. ^^
I might get some money from my parents tomorrow (*keeping fingers crossed*) so I can put some cash on my PayPal account again.


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## Ainoko (Jul 3, 2008)

Gave $10.00 towrds the fund. Not much but that's all I can ATM.


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## Arbiter (Jul 3, 2008)

Arshes Nei said:


> Donations are an announcement: http://forums.furaffinity.net/announcement.php?f=11&a=8
> 
> Thank you for contributing!



i heard that the stats havn't moved for a while now


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## DJDarkViper (Jul 3, 2008)

average of $24 per donation going on atm, 80% to $4,000. Wow, haha, Yak wasn't kidding when he mentioned the dedication 

throwing $25 your way FA. If i can figure out Amazon oO


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## floxxy_lady (Jul 3, 2008)

Well, this is the suck...I wish FA people luck, as that is all I have--I am POOR, and not at all technologically-inclined...


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## selth (Jul 3, 2008)

I gave $50... can't give more until some stuff is cleared, but hopefully you'll have your servers by then!

FA, survive!


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## Ainoko (Jul 3, 2008)

Ok, look for the blue box in the upper rigth corner, input $25.00 in the field in the box, then click the donate now bix right below the blue box

Then just follow the prompts


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## QT Melon (Jul 3, 2008)

If people don't mind waiting. I may put a slot list for 3 people who donate $150 or more to get a commission from me as a thank you. I just am backed up in commissions so I won't be able to start until Mid Fall.


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## DJDarkViper (Jul 3, 2008)

the benefit for me here is i finally got off my lazy ass and got an Amazon account haha, Books, here i come!


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## tehlynxie (Jul 3, 2008)

I'll make a donation.


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## 2_gryphon (Jul 3, 2008)

Myr said:


> Throwing hardware at the problem again is just another patch job. You have a developer on your team who once told me he could reprogram the entire site in a week, and here it's been years and one missed expectation of an upgrade after another. Seriously, save your cash and put it into a professional or accredited programmer.



I'm not a member of the FA staff, but I have to say... How can you bitch about a free service? What, aren't you getting your money's worth?


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## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 3, 2008)

SpiritCreations said:


> However, I have been reading some ideas in posts about FA taking a certain percentage of artist's commission income to support the site. Umm... no. Sorry, but as an artist, I'm against that idea.  My money is MY money, and you try making a lot of your income off art. It's hard.



So basically, you're willing to spend more money to get less business because FA will be closing up to anyone but the lucky few?



Jijix said:


> I personally disagree with asking for a percentage of the commissions outright.
> Myself, I charge what I charge as the lowest price as I think is reasonable for the work that I do. If I have to pay to be paid, I'm going to have to raise my prices, and I don't want to do that. I'm sure I don't speak for myself on this one.





Redregon said:


> well, i'm for a subscription idea that'll get you perks, but if it comes down to FA taking a slice of my direct commissions (print sales through Rabbit Valley i'm not against as that's a business arrangement) i will make commission sales elsewhere... and i know i'm not alone in that respect.
> 
> if a mandatory fee were to be implemented, it will drive a lot of people away.
> 
> ...





SpiritCreations said:


> Yes, I do have a "real" job too, but still, I don't think a percentage should go to anyone but the artist UNLESS FA has some management services for artists to help promote them out there and help get them more sales.



That's effectively what FA is doing right now (when it's up, that is). You should be thankful enough as an artist for all the free advertizing FA is giving you and pay a few cents, and I mean _cents_! Do you really need 5 cents off every $10 commission (4 percent for payment service, 1 percent for FA) so badly? Then why are you even on the internet? You must be living under a bridge! You'd have to pay much more dearly in lost business if mandatory fees will be introduced. And even if you're such a miser that you need those additional 5 cents, charge your customer! $10 commissions now $10.05.

Also, what's the use of having to pay mandatory fees or "subscriptions" no matter whether you make business or not, instead of only paying when/if you do business? Only paying if you're in business makes the site much more attractive and thus much more money will come around both for you artists and for FA.

Really guys, I could understand it if FA would be charging an arm and a leg, but we're not talking about that. Make $100, FA charges you $1 (+ 4% for payment service = 5 bucks total). Make $1,000, FA charges you $10 (+4% for payment service = 50 bucks total). Those are ridiculously low amounts!

Tax the viewers? WTF? You commissioned artists make money thanks to FA, viewers don't, so you should be thankful enough to pay a few _cents _off your 10 bucks and 40 bucks commissions! Why charge all your potential customers and drive them away? You'll only suffer yourselves from your own selfishness there. But if 1% off each commission goes to FA, you artists will make even more business than you are right now with FA being down all the time. There's really no excuse *not* to help both FA and yourselves by microscopic taxation for all the things FA is giving you, including business.

Also, newsflash for everybody who didn't catch it: You'll never have to use PayPal anymore in your lives in order to receive your money.



SpiritCreations said:


> However, I do think a yearly fee would be a very good idea. Given how many thousands of people use FA, a yearly fee should really help out a lot, plus other donations that they get throughout the year.



That's exactly where you're going wrong. The reason so many people are on FA is because it's _free_, for goodness' sake!



SpiritCreations said:


> Also, I don't think FA getting a percentage of artist's income would work very well anyway, as I know I and a ton of other artists use Furbid and FurBuy to post our auctions, and we post the links to our FA journals. I don't sell via FA, I sell via the auction sites and advertise via FA.



And how many people are on Furbid or FurBuy in comparison to FA? And how many pieces of art are sold on Furbid or FurBuy in comparison to how many commissions are commissioned for and delivered on FA?



CrystalMendrilia said:


> The censores on DA were put into place for legal reasons, not their personal interests. When they turned themselves into a business, everything changed. If Fur Affinity were to go into it as a business, then everything would need to change or they could be open to all kinds of law suits and other stupid stuff.



And that's exactly why we've left PayPal behind. Other payment services don't mind about porn. FA would only make money off of things individual artists are making money off via FA already, and what about the people running the servers where FA is on? If there'd be any legal problem with making money off the stuff that's on FA, there'd also be a problem with simply having it on the FA servers, and that's never happened before.



Firehazard said:


> The question is, HOW the heck are you supposed to charge them?  You'd first have to even _know_ what they make off commissions, and how many of those commissions happened specifically because of FurAffinity. Unless you're proposing hiring a psychic to read the users' minds, there's no way to know this. I suppose you could add a tool that allows artists to open up a certain number of commission slots so users can just click a button and automatically transfer the money and send the request. But how are you going to ensure that the artist actually uses it? I prefer to _not_ take money until the commission is finished, to the point where I don't even tell the customer what my PayPal address _is_ until then. And so on. Requiring artists to use FA's own system, at the risk of being banned or something if they so much as post a journal offering commission slots if they don't, is going to make a lot of people pissed off.



I've been talking about this before in regards to eBay and PayPal (again: WE'RE NOT GONNA GO PAYPAL, kthxbai). Of course people can choose to use other payment methods off-site, but what if there's a simple one-click opportunity right next to their commission? Plus, it's gonna give both artists and their potential customers a better experience AND better business because FA will be much more stable if they'll choose to pay that way. Using FA on-site payment serves their own best interests. And don't forget they'll know they're effectually supporting the furry community that they feel part of. It's staying in the family, so to speak.



CrystalMendrilia said:


> Well, according to new U.S. laws (I'm not sure if they passed it or not yet), DRAWING children in ART is illegal now, on the condition of course that it's sexual OR nude. (though I question how that impacts the furry world, haha. But that also impacts the U.S. Not the world.)



Most Western jurisdictions require "realism", "photorealism", or "likelihood" when it comes to drawings depicting minors. Hence, stick figures as well as furries are off the hook in most places as long as furries won't exist IRL due to genetic engineering.

There only was some uncertainty in US courts from 1996 until 2003 on how to classify "photorealistic" artificial images of humans. They would have been illegal if depicting minors one way or the other, the only question was whether they fell under general indecent porn laws or actual CP laws. The 2003 PROTECT Act, as responding to 2002 Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (where the FSC tried to gain a right to do business with their art due to the fuzziness of the 1996 CPPA), cleared that up by defining them as clearly CP (by applying the so-called _Miller test_ for obscenity, which is "applying the moral standards" of an imaginary "average community member"). The prior fuzziness caused quite a few misunderstandings internationally, especially in the media, when it came to drawings of minors in suggestive or explicit situations.


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## salmy (Jul 3, 2008)

Redregon said:


> When i do my own direct commissions, the material is all stuff that i've paid for. which means that it's all done on my own dollar. it's not egoist, it's business sense.



But don't forget that when you do a commission that somebody requested to you via FA, it's because FA provided you with a place to show your art, and thanks to the way FA works, you're getting known, you're getting a fandom and you're getting paid for your work.

Nobody is saying that you should give your soul to FA, just a small contribution as a payback. Since most people (including me) are too egoistical to do something for someone else even if they've done it to us first, I'd just say: make it mandatory.

So people won't leave, I'd try to find the fairiest way possible. You say that a monthly fee just for offering commissions is unfair. Well, okay, maybe it is, but it was just an idea. Very improvable, like everything. Maybe FA could offer a payment gateway so commission buyers can pay the artists through or something, and.. pick a dollar from every comission they got through that system? Would that be more fair? What's more... if FA acted as a 'scrow' and hold the money from the buyer (so the artist knows he's gonna be paid) and then release it to the seller after the commision is done (so the buyer knows that the commision's gonna be done), we'd have a system for which everybody would get a benefit of (and not just monetary).

Of course, this shouldn't be mandatory, but an useful tool that maybe people would find convenient.

Dunno, I'm getting tired of giving ideas that nobody seem to care of, anyway xD


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## Echo_wulf (Jul 3, 2008)

2_gryphon said:


> I'm not a member of the FA staff, but I have to say... How can you bitch about a free service? What, aren't you getting your money's worth?


 

x.x i agree ... they have apretty cruddy system anyways.. i know how that goes with my dell from 92..... it suck all balls motherboard cant hold crap anymore with theese new programs... nothing is compatable on it... so in other words its best to just get a new system ... who knows a new system may be able to do things that didnt even thing f b4 hence upgradding my fav free website ^.^



dang 10 more pages and i would have had my 69


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## Yuudoku (Jul 3, 2008)

I would donate, but alas I'm jobless and am currently trying to save the money that I do have, which isn't much. Let alone the fact that I have no debit or credit card of any kind. Even though I'm not hosting a site like FA, I myself am having tech related issues involving very old and dying hardware which is a major bitch with out any method of back up. Bye bye documents. 
~
I do however like the idea of paying for additional features such as a customizable user page, even if in such a way as custom css coding. Good luck admins. I'll donate as soon as I get cash. >.O


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## Eevee (Jul 3, 2008)

2_gryphon said:


> I'm not a member of the FA staff, but I have to say... How can you bitch about a free service? What, aren't you getting your money's worth?


I _am_ a member of the FA staff and I still think this (and the six thousand other comments echoing the same sentiment) is woefully naive.

The site does not _cost_ anything to use, but that does not mean it has no value or is otherwise worthless.  People have poured tremendous amounts of time and resources into FA -- whether by donating, working on it directly, adding to the community, merely using it to arrange their art and talk to other furs, or otherwise contributing their loyalty, mindshare, content, social networking, free advertising, etc.  In exchange, they rightfully expect some degree of reliability and stability, amongst other things.  If FA dies, true, nobody is out any money, but everyone loses the effort and faith they had poured into it.  I don't blame anyone who would feel betrayed, although I would hope they'd also have the sense to recognize the inherent problems that are going to crop up when a free (and originally completely unprofitable) site hits critical mass.

If someone offers to fix your broken sink for free but does a bad job or doesn't do it at all, are you going to think "well this didn't cost anything so I can't bitch"?  Of course not; someone still betrayed your trust and wasted your time when you could have found a better free service or paid for something you're assured will work.  If anything, a broken free service is _worse_; when it lets you down you can't get any sort of refund at all.

Money is not the only thing that makes the world go 'round.


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## Echo_wulf (Jul 3, 2008)

Eevee said:


> I _am_ a member of the FA staff and I still think this (and the six thousand other comments echoing the same sentiment) is woefully naive.
> 
> The site does not _cost_ anything to use, but that does not mean it has no value or is otherwise worthless. People have poured tremendous amounts of time and resources into FA -- whether by donating, working on it directly, adding to the community, merely using it to arrange their art and talk to other furs, or otherwise contributing their loyalty, mindshare, content, social networking, free advertising, etc. In exchange, they rightfully expect some degree of reliability and stability, amongst other things. If FA dies, true, nobody is out any money, but everyone loses the effort and faith they had poured into it. I don't blame anyone who would feel betrayed, although I would hope they'd also have the sense to recognize the inherent problems that are going to crop up when a free (and originally completely unprofitable) site hits critical mass.
> 
> ...


  ^.^ yep most definatly my view aswell


----------



## Geraden (Jul 3, 2008)

Eevee said:


> I _am_ a member of the FA staff and I still think this (and the six thousand other comments echoing the same sentiment) is woefully naive.



I agreed with the comment, but not in a way that meant people shouldn't express displeasure or frustration that FA is down.  I took it to be directed against the people who are berating the staff members as if they've been paid to do a job and have screwed it up.

Edit: and for the record, I didn't notice it was 2 when I typed this up, so I'm not just being a fanboy XD


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## Eevee (Jul 3, 2008)

We _have_ been paid, though.  Just not with dollars.

Goodwill is tremendously more valuable, as this donation drive has already demonstrated quite well.


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## fx1 (Jul 3, 2008)

I just registered to say thanks for this website  I've also made a small donation. Take your time picking the best possible hardware, probably you have to make a some soft of compromise, because you never have unlimited funds no matter how much people donate :-D Hardware is nothing without drivers, and open source operating systems often have less than perfect drivers, I've had that experience too, even if it was just simple desktop usage..


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## cesarin (Jul 3, 2008)

jeebus, 59 pages already?
it was on 33 when I left yesterday D:


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## Geraden (Jul 3, 2008)

Eevee said:


> We _have_ been paid, though.  Just not with dollars.
> 
> Goodwill is tremendously more valuable, as this donation drive has already demonstrated quite well.



The difference is, when you pay for a service with goodwill and faith, the proper response when hard times hit is not to remove it, but to increase it.  I agree that expressing frustration is completely acceptable and expected, but not in the form of, essentially, trolling the FA staff.


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## Gutierrez (Jul 3, 2008)

It looks like the progress bar on the amazon site is broken.  Anyone know the current numbers?


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## Eevee (Jul 3, 2008)

Geraden said:


> I agree that expressing frustration is completely acceptable and expected, but not in the form of, essentially, trolling the FA staff.


Of course not; I'm targeting the deluge of "it's free so nobody can complain about anything ever".


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## Ainoko (Jul 3, 2008)

Gutierrez said:


> It looks like the progress bar on the amazon site is broken.  Anyone know the current numbers?



Yes, I would like to know the current toatl on Amazon. I know that at least $150.00 was added in the past 75 minutes. Yet the counter dowsn't show the new total.


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## DrGamez (Jul 3, 2008)

Eevee said:


> Money is not the only thing that makes the world go 'round.



Well how about a dragon kick to the face to make you go round?


----------



## Ainoko (Jul 3, 2008)

Eevee said:


> Of course not; I'm targeting the deluge of "it's free so nobody can complain about anything ever".



Eevee, I for one do appreciatate what all admins are doing at the moment to get the site back up an running. Now if you can fix the Amazon counter, we will get to know the current donation total.


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## Kazfox (Jul 3, 2008)

I may sound off here, but with the price of Gas These days i can barely afford to keep my work going. I want to help out so much but im not in line to do so. Life first Internet later :/ And yes, seems like people have been pretty harsh on the FA staff. i hear it in SL and LJ. Chill people, they're tryin!


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## artdecaderoo (Jul 3, 2008)

Eevee said:


> If FA dies, true, nobody is out any money, but everyone loses the effort and faith they had poured into it.



I completely agree with the over all point of your post.  

Not to be of a singular mind here, and _absolutely _not to seem ungrateful to FA for the massive amount of traffic and free advertising I get from use of the site, but when FA goes down, I DO see a very significant drop in sales.  There is simply no other place online as good as FA to get the word out on what services one is trying to offer the fandom.  It's a great site for artists of all types, general community, watchers, and fans, despite it's issues.

Again, good luck fixing everything, guys!


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## fx1 (Jul 3, 2008)

Gutierrez said:


> It looks like the progress bar on the amazon site is broken.  Anyone know the current numbers?


Amazon has an 'Unpay' feature, that complicates things, no use displaying funds in realtime. Just my guess.


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## WarMocK (Jul 3, 2008)

Kazfox said:


> Chill people, they're tryin!


Yes they are, and they're doing a good job here. ^^
Thank you guys!


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## Echo_wulf (Jul 3, 2008)

Kazfox said:


> I may sound off here, but with the price of Gas These days i can barely afford to keep my work going. I want to help out so much but im not in line to do so. Life first Internet later :/ And yes, seems like people have been pretty harsh on the FA staff. i hear it in SL and LJ. Chill people, they're tryin!


  ive been trging to say that all day... no one is calming down... but after this if there is n e thing i can do for the fa staff i will gladly.... im still waiting on monies so j can donate though....


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 3, 2008)

Daddy Ducky BE said:


> And that's exactly why we've left PayPal behind. Other payment services don't mind about porn. FA would only make money off of things individual artists are making money off via FA already, and what about the people running the servers where FA is on? If there'd be any legal problem with making money off the stuff that's on FA, there'd also be a problem with simply having it on the FA servers, and that's never happened before.



The other issue about why this website would crash if such a system were implimented is untouched, BUT you did want to discuss the other aspect about if it were legal or not.

There's a fine difference between a website that is not a business and a website that is. >.>  Further it will depend on the laws of the country the servers are founded upon. 

I'm no lawyer but I do know a few things about certain laws because I like to read, and a few things about what people are trying to do.  Furry or not, they would like to make it change. If Bush were to have his way, yes stick figure porn of little kids would be technically illegal though not specified obviously as to specify stick figures would be silly. (Though being silly isn't a reason Bush would hold back a statement as he's demonstrated many times hehe.)




Daddy Ducky BE said:


> There only was some uncertainty in US courts from 1996 until 2003 on how to classify "photorealistic" artificial images of humans. They would have been illegal if depicting minors one way or the other, the only question was whether they fell under general indecent porn laws or actual CP laws. The 2003 PROTECT Act, as responding to 2002 Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (where the FSC tried to gain a right to do business with their art due to the fuzziness of the 1996 CPPA), cleared that up by defining them as clearly CP (by applying the so-called _Miller test_ for obscenity, which is "applying the moral standards" of an imaginary "average community member"). The prior fuzziness caused quite a few misunderstandings internationally, especially in the media, when it came to drawings of minors in suggestive or explicit situations.



Hehe you used the stick figure reference first. XD.

Well you seem quite decently versed, but my point still stands of what their 'goal' is and what they are continueing to push for. I think it's silly to get all bent out of shape over art, AND counter productive to their goal in battling child rapists.

It'd be like Mother Against Drunk Driving, M.A.D.D. being so against Drunk Driving for the sake of the Children, gotta protect the children, we love the children and want to HELP them, by beating down Drunk Drivers... while driving everyday talking on a cell phone.

I've simply stated what their goal is, and so on. I don't pretend that I'm clear on the current set of things, it's just not that important to me. :3 Personally I'm against children being raped by adults when they're too young to really understand what's going on and even older when they do which is probably worse in retrospect. But, if you want to help stop it, then don't encourage them to take out their urges in a playground instead of the privacy and safety of their own home and some paper towels. (use a real towel! Save the trees! Recyle, Reduce Resuse, and close the loop!) *Dancing from some commercial I saw as a kid of a dinosaur singing those words.*



LASTLY (NOT in response to Daddy Duck), I have faith in the people running Fur Affinity that they wouldn't make such a gross error by charging a % or charging anything for comissions. It's a good way to destroy the website as history on the internet has proven many, many times. ESPECIALLY on an AMATURE ARTIST WEBSITE like this.   ^_^  Sorry to be so blunt guys.


----------



## Gutierrez (Jul 3, 2008)

fx1 said:


> Amazon has an 'Unpay' feature, that complicates things, no use displaying funds in realtime. Just my guess.



Nah, I've had it up checking it periodically because there's no grass growing in my office to beat the little green bar for excitement and watchability.  It's pretty responsive, and when I threw my donation in the other day the change happened right away.  That and the donation count hasn't changed in last day or so.


----------



## Ainoko (Jul 3, 2008)

Gutierrez said:


> Nah, I've had it up checking it periodically because there's no grass growing in my office to beat the little green bar for excitement and watchability.  It's pretty responsive, and when I threw my donation in the other day the change happened right away.  That and the donation count hasn't changed in last day or so.




The green bar on the Amazon page hasn't moved for over 24hours.


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## lupinator (Jul 3, 2008)

MY PRECIOUS FURRY DONGS! NUUUUUUUU


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## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 3, 2008)

As the rest of your post seemed to amount to, "But what's not illegal today could be illegal tomorrow!" and lots of other off-site IRL what-ifs (that didn't get any more reliable or scientific when the Meese Commission tried to corroborate them once again as has been tried for a few centuries since the Age of Enlightenment now), I'm getting right to your last paragraph:



CrystalMendrilia said:


> LASTLY (NOT in response to Daddy Duck), I have faith in the people running Fur Affinity that they wouldn't make such a gross error by charging a % or charging anything for comissions. It's a good way to destroy the website as history on the internet has proven many, many times. ESPECIALLY on an AMATURE ARTIST WEBSITE like this.   ^_^  Sorry to be so blunt guys.



References? Links? Also, why go away if it's no mandatory charge? You'd still be able to pay for your commissions the old-fashioned way as you're doing it now. It's just that we're thinking here of adding a few more convenient payment methods that'd even help FA get off the ground.


----------



## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

i would have to say again, just like most the artists, we need the commission money to pay our stuff too, some arent able to have a job and only are able to get money from the commissions, so that would be unfair for us too.
i think the idea before was better, if u want to get donations for FA, make the subscription idea, thats better and more efficient and no FA menbers would leave.

Not to sound selfish, but, u need to think of the people that do the commissions too.
But like most people said, FA is working on fixing the problems, and this idea has been there, but its not that good of an idea.

But yeah, if u need donations, do like DA, do a member subscription thingie, and trust me, more people would go for the subscription then the commission idea.


----------



## Undying Song (Jul 3, 2008)

Chaotic said:


> i would have to say again, just like most the artists, we need the commission money to pay our stuff too, some arent able to have a job and only are able to get money from the commissions, so that would be unfair for us too.
> But yeah, if u need donations, do like DA, do a member subscription thingie, and trust me, more people would go for the subscription then the commission idea.



Heh yeah, I'm pretty much in that boat right now, myself.


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## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 3, 2008)

Chaotic said:


> i would have to say again, just like most the artists, we need the commission money to pay our stuff too, some arent able to have a job and only are able to get money from the commissions, so that would be unfair for us too.



Again, no mandatory charges. Why do you keep talking as if mandatory charges would be suggested?



Chaotic said:


> Not to sound selfish, but, u need to think of the people that do the commissions too.



Exactly. We're talking about how artists like you can make more money than you are making now by introducing voluntary profit sharing of CENTS, for goodness' sake. I've said it before, if that's too much for you (even if it would be mandatory, which is not what we're talking about!), you shouldn't even be on the internet in the first place. And what's so bad if you make your customers pay a few cents more to compensate for your short-time losses that are gonna pay off very soon?

I've said it before, it'd be more popular than the current donations system because both artists, customers, and viewers will be getting more out of it than they get out of simple donations, where they only get what they're taking for granted: Site being up. It's also much better than costly luxury customary bling-bling for your ads and your profiles that'll keep the coders and the hardware busy while they have much more important things to do right now, result in more outage times because FA will never have the funding to get stable, and because it'll cost far more especially for artists that way. Giving voluntary 5 cents off every of your $10 commissions is putting 5 cents where your mouth is. It's much easier doing this when you're actually doing business (as you do with every paid commission) than when you're not. By not giving those voluntary 5 cents, you're depriving yourself of all the money you can't make with FA being down all the time.

Otherwise, if you mean by "subscriptions" mandatory fees for everyone just to view and join FA, you'll lose the most as an artist because most people won't be coming here anymore in the first place. And on top of it, you'd have to pay more money for doing less business.

Again: If this ridiculously low voluntary profit sharing is too much for you, you really shouldn't be here in the first place for your own good. Give me one single good reason why it's a bad idea to make more money for yourself that way.


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## Spottycat (Jul 3, 2008)

I think that offering additional options to users who subscribed with a payment structure similar to that which perhaps LiveJournal provides would not be unreasonable by any means.

Personally, I browse this site every day and would be willing to pay for additional features if that means that somebody is going to be paid to code those features in a more expedient manner. (none of this waiting a year for things to get done...)

If a subscription type thing is offered, it's basically a promise to the userbase that the code is going to get worked on faster due to extra funds being available to do it with, right?

Hmm..  anyways.  It's all just my opinion.  Figured I'd add another voice to the good ol' rabble~rabble.


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## Rukario (Jul 3, 2008)

I went and chipped in a little bit towards the new hardware. I hope it all goes well.


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## Bladewing (Jul 3, 2008)

Have a $10 towards fixing it up!


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## Kitsune_86 (Jul 3, 2008)

I chipped in some as well.

Cute picture on the 'home page'. I've wanted to do that sometimes to my own computers. =)


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## Rave (Jul 3, 2008)

Ainoko said:


> The green bar on the Amazon page hasn't moved for over 24hours.



True! And rather confusing... I made a couple donations yesterday that should have taken the total higher than it appeared to, even after it did eventually change a little the other day. I just don't follow how that thing works.


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## greenmonkey (Jul 3, 2008)

I sent FA my 10 dollars... hope it helps for something!


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## ArielMT (Jul 3, 2008)

Rave said:


> True! And rather confusing... I made a couple donations yesterday that should have taken the total higher than it appeared to, even after it did eventually change a little the other day. I just don't follow how that thing works.


http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=22341

We slashdotted it! XD


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## Firon (Jul 3, 2008)

I chipped in as well. Here's hoping FA comes back soon.


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## dave hyena (Jul 3, 2008)

Rave said:


> True! And rather confusing... I made a couple donations yesterday that should have taken the total higher than it appeared to, even after it did eventually change a little the other day. I just don't follow how that thing works.



There is a cap on the maximum amount of donations which can be paid into the account over a certain period of time, so beyond that point, the counter will not immediately update:

http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=22341


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## DJDarkViper (Jul 3, 2008)

Id be all for a 'subscription' based thing like DA, for access to things much like DA. Like beta testing new features, bigger thumbnails, something to that effect. 

Also, im still a little bit of a newb to the WHOLE site, as i msotly jsu tmeander around the front page and friends pages, but do you guys have a merchandise store setup? that could net some income to anybody who wants an official Fender for themselves say. 
(if a store did exist, i extend my utmost apologies for my incompetence XD)


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## Rave (Jul 3, 2008)

ArielMT said:


> http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=22341
> 
> We slashdotted it! XD



Aha! So this is actually a GOOD thing. I feel better now.


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## dave hyena (Jul 3, 2008)

DJDarkViper said:


> but do you guys have a merchandise store setup? that could net some income to anybody who wants an official Fender for themselves say.



At the moment, the nearest analogue to such a thing is here:

http://www.rabbitvalley.com/department_5089_0_0.html
^
The Furaffinity store, you can buy T-shirts and thereby help FA out and get something for yourself too.

http://www.rabbitvalley.com/department_5099_0_0.html
^
That is an FA:U store.


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## mewrei (Jul 3, 2008)

I may subscribe to services if the platform becomes more reliable


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## foxystallion (Jul 3, 2008)

WTF? Amazon has been correct with their book keeping for the hundreds of commercial transactions that I have made via their system and seems to have properly handled hundreds of millions of others.  Before I donated, Amazon stated that there had been $3187 in donations, which did not change after I donated.

Hurrah for FA's generously caring members!


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## bunnies_are_emo (Jul 3, 2008)

Man...that stinks. Well I hope everything goes well with getting the new server. I donated as well through amazon, so i hope it helps ^^


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## jfili1021 (Jul 3, 2008)

Just sent $30.00 US with paypal  hope this helps a bit.  I decided to send the money to FA instead of renewing my DA subscription.  I can live with the ads and not being able to see art from the year 2000 or being able to post without a DA subscription but this is more important   Again thanks to all the furs & artists whomade me happy


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## foxystallion (Jul 3, 2008)

dave hyena said:


> There is a cap on the maximum amount of donations which can be paid into the account over a certain period of time, so beyond that point, the counter will not immediately update:
> 
> http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=22341



There is a $50 limit on a single donation as I discovered while donating. I doubt, however, if there is a cap on total donations because my debit card account already shows the donation that I made a few minutes ago. Amazon is accepting the money but apparently the display is kaput; it showed $3187 both before and after I donated.  I'm really quite eager to know how much the FA community has put forth for the latest rescue.


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## wolfmagik (Jul 3, 2008)

Hmm. with $3200 raised and 135 payments (as of 3 July 08, 6:49 PM Eastern time) it means that people are donating an average of about $25.


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## Nefer (Jul 3, 2008)

Dont forget what comes in over Paypal, which doesnt seem to be tracked like over Amazon.  So the FA staff should be well off very fast for any money needs for the service.    

I piped in with 20$ over Paypal myself.


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## geckonori (Jul 3, 2008)

I have to agree with Daddy Ducky BE when it comes to the voluntary commission charge. It's a very nice and simple idea, and if it could be implemented properly it would really help bring in some money to FA. Now let me try to help emphasis his point: if FA were to take 5% off of your income (i.e. 50 cents of every $10), how can you truly be upset about that? How can you call that unfair? Those two quarters aren't going to net you anything more than a soda. Compare that to how much money the US government takes off of every paycheck. It's more along the lines of 25%. And you don't even get to choose what that money goes off to fund! The FA charge would always fund FA. That's a good thing.


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## Ket-Ralus (Jul 3, 2008)

I just donated $50.

Honestly, Dragoneer, if you started the subscription thing, I'd do it. I was thinking about donating to this site regularly anyway. As long as the non-subscribers continue to enjoy all of the functionality that they currently have, bring on the extra goodies for those willing to fork over the cash to support the site. Everybody wins.

P.S. I'm also in Fairfax County. Howdy, neighbor.


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## Dragoneer (Jul 3, 2008)

Kinmotsu7 said:


> Honestly, Dragoneer, if you started the subscription thing, I'd do it. I was thinking about donating to this site regularly anyway. As long as the non-subscribers continue to enjoy all of the functionality that they currently have, bring on the extra goodies for those willing to fork over the cash to support the site. Everybody wins.
> 
> P.S. I'm also in Fairfax County. Howdy, neighbor.


We'll do it when we have something good to offer. Or have a better infrastructure. For now though, I'm more worried as to our current problems.


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## P.R.O.G (Jul 3, 2008)

I am soo sorry  i am a minor.


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## Ffaux (Jul 3, 2008)

I donated also.. not alot, as don't have alot lol.. but i hope it helps anyhoo


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## Azraelle (Jul 3, 2008)

I've thought about something like a Featured Artwork section on FA - users can pay a small charge (like <$5) to have one of their submissions featured on the front page for a day or so, in a section below the recent submissions.  As it is, when I upload an image, it stays on the front page for maybe a minute before newer submissions bump it off - what I call the exposure window, where I seem to get the most new watchers who are attracted by my submission.  Sometimes I'd be willing to pay an extra fee to have it stay up a little longer to get more exposure.


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## P.R.O.G (Jul 3, 2008)

I wish hugs fixed the server


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## yak (Jul 3, 2008)

salmy said:


> 2 - There are TWO people to run a site like this, two people who have their own lives and barely have time to dedicate to it as there's more stuff in their lives.


To avoid confusion I will say that there are more then just two people working on this website. 
The two people you see are just unfortunate enough to have to face and work with the public during this time. It would be very unfair for them to receive all of whatever credit that can be given.




Gutierrez said:


> Just a miss, apparently.  Was comparing the server drive to the PBS funding drives.  But could we get a total of what donations have been received between both Amazon and Paypal?  Would be nice to see the full amount.  And just a suggestion, I think FA needs a nice commemorative server crash tote to give away for every donation over a certain amount.



We will inform you folks of this and much more post-fact and not sooner, sorry.


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## P.R.O.G (Jul 3, 2008)

It's ok i guess..We will be right here when this is all said and done.


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 3, 2008)

Daddy Ducky BE said:


> References? Links? Also, why go away if it's no mandatory charge? You'd still be able to pay for your commissions the old-fashioned way as you're doing it now. It's just that we're thinking here of adding a few more convenient payment methods that'd even help FA get off the ground.




I'm not going to partake in a 'war' or 'debate' or whatever you want to call what you and I are about to get into, I'm really not interested in a Forum discussion about something so insignifigant. I will reply tot his though and likely leave it at that, though if you want the final word, I'll read it. ^_^

Umm, obviously asking for links and references is a waste of time in this as they are uhh, gone. : /   It's been years, I moved on, I too wouldn't remember the actual names of the art sites that have gone under because, they're gone. : / Art websites isn't my life, and so I tend to forget. BUT are you suggesting that you haven't been hopping around art web sites for years and therefore have not seen any go under yet?

I was speaking strictly as though it were a mandatory charge, as from the few posts I skimmed, they suggested it was mandatory, so I responded thus. 

In the end, the more pain in the butt F.A. chooses to be in an attempt to raise money from the artists, the more people will pack their bags and leave. Rather you feel whatever their reasons are for leaving are unjustified or not, doesn't matter. The people packing their bags will have their reasons, and will still be packing their bags regardless of others opinions. 

The more F.A. chooses to cause artists and / or viewers problems, the more they'll lose. Now this obviously isn't a Fur Affinity specific thing to consider! This is simply how life is be it on the net or off. I find it odd that there's actually someone out there who would debate agqainst this fact but hey, I believe there are exceptions to everything. ^_^

As to explain why I have faith in the people who run Fur Affinity? Uhh, *points at how much they've raised already over this.*   AND if I had the money, I'd donate a fair share from my account. I happen to like this website! It's my favorite website for art. ^_^  Aside from the community not being filled with jerks, the art ranging from great to the opposite is good. It encourages amatures to post more. ^_^ 

If it weren't for F.A. I probably would have never picked up my tablet and decided to actually draw, because friends I met here encourages me when I needed it. ^_^ Amongst other reasons for liking this website, even if the search engine never works.   I don't mind! I never had a real problem finding good art, and hopping around meeting people is easier when you jump page to page instead of picture to picture in some unemotionally run search algorithm.


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## RaireEX08 (Jul 3, 2008)

^_^ 'Happy to say that I donated via PayPal, so all these mysteries are mysteries to me! 
Amazon's own 'Our website crashed because folks were donating to another place' appeal is probably due to start soon too.


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## Dragoneer (Jul 3, 2008)

2_gryphon said:


> I'm not a member of the FA staff, but I have to say... How can you bitch about a free service? What, aren't you getting your money's worth?


Because we're not superheros who can mind-meld with electronics to force them to work. Or shoot lasers from our nipples.

Were I a superhero, I'd be Dr. McAwesome, whose power to prescribe can stop even the most deadly ailment. With my Justice Stethoscope I'd be able to tune in to the heartbeat of crime and keep a watchful ear out for impending doom.

But seriously, if people are complaining... it's because FA meant something to them. And it doesn't bother me to be honest, because I know that means restoring the service is just that much more imperative.


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 3, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> Because we're not superheros who can mind-meld with electronics to force them to work. Or shoot lasers from our nipples.



Amen!


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## Revamp (Jul 3, 2008)

I hear that. but still what the heck is the status on how much money is raised? I dont know where the heck to look. You should be ashamed Crystal...for saying Amen! ...jk lol


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## Ffaux (Jul 3, 2008)

nipple lasers..
XD awesome..


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## Dragoneer (Jul 3, 2008)

Revamp said:


> I hear that. but still what the heck is the status on how much money is raised? I dont know where the heck to look. You should be ashamed Crystal...for saying Amen! ...jk lol


I've posted it several places, but we will keep attempting to raise money until Monday. At that point we'll order the servers (yes, more than one now) and make things not only more than right, but more than awesome.


----------



## Revamp (Jul 3, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> I've posted it several places, but we will keep attempting to raise money until Monday. At that point we'll order the servers (yes, more than one now) and make things not only more than right, but more than awesome.



That's the right way to go. Though how do you describe something that's more than awesome? lol 

I have an idea. If you do have a subscription service someday, maybe a good addition to people that do pay will have a search bar haha.


----------



## Dragoneer (Jul 3, 2008)

Revamp said:


> That's the right way to go. Though how do you describe something that's more than awesome? lol


Write your words down on paper, outline them with Elmer's glue... then sprinkle gold glitter on top. Shake off the paper, prepare for blinged out fontage, old school style.

THAT is more than awesome.


----------



## Kattywampus (Jul 3, 2008)

Sending a dollar, to make you holler.


----------



## Ffaux (Jul 3, 2008)

[FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica][SIZE=-1]Offa the amazon site..:*

Total Collected:*[/SIZE][/FONT]  [FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica][SIZE=-1]US $6,831.35[/SIZE][/FONT]​      [FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica][SIZE=-1]*# of Payments:*[/SIZE][/FONT]  [FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica][SIZE=-1]287[/SIZE][/FONT]​


......holy...wow!


----------



## yak (Jul 3, 2008)

Hey guys, allow me to take my time to say a big 'ol honking


THANK YOU!​
The Amazon donation page finally processed the backlogged donations. Check it out - 

http://zme.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/my-pay-page/P2AS2N2AKBDLV4/105-8052410-0114065


----------



## Dragoneer (Jul 3, 2008)

Ffaux said:


> [FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica][SIZE=-1]Offa the amazon site..:*
> 
> Total Collected: *[/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica][SIZE=-1]US $6,831.35[/SIZE][/FONT]
> [FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica][SIZE=-1]*# of Payments:*[/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica][SIZE=-1]287[/SIZE][/FONT]
> ...


Let me be the first to say: Holy fucking shit!

And let me also say: _WE LOVE YOU ALL! _


----------



## Undying Song (Jul 3, 2008)

*$6,831.35*

Wow. Just. . ._Wow._

Beautiful. *grins* And to think, my $55 isn't even in there! Because I donated through Paypal. : )

I'm excited to see how much ends up there by Monday! I'm also that much more excited to find out how much was sent through Paypal, but I already said that elsewhere.


----------



## Dragoneer (Jul 3, 2008)

yak said:


> The Amazon donation page finally processed the backlogged donations. Check it out...


And for the record... there are still a few more processing. It didn't get them all.


----------



## Kattywampus (Jul 3, 2008)

Oh damn.  o.o  Time for champagne.


----------



## Razoth (Jul 3, 2008)

Tad over the posted goal? >
Chipped in my share.


----------



## JAH2000 (Jul 3, 2008)

time for a drink indeed


----------



## Monak (Jul 3, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> Let me be the first to say: Holy fucking shit!
> 
> And let me also say: _WE LOVE YOU ALL! _



*WE LOVE YOU TOO!*


----------



## DJDarkViper (Jul 3, 2008)

CONGRATS!!! WAAAAAAAAAY ove rthe mark but HEY that jsut means higher quality equipment 

i think this is a big enough event to update Wikifur and Wikipedia on these events? XD


----------



## redfoxnudetoons (Jul 3, 2008)

Total Collected: 	
US $6,831.35

# of Payments: 	
287


Wow....

That's allot of money! That averages out to be $23.80 per donation!

Way to go!

=^.^=


----------



## MilkJunkie (Jul 3, 2008)

Wow... that's a alot of money, almost 7,000! You guys better have a ball buying us awesome server stuff with that.


----------



## Razoth (Jul 3, 2008)

Only 172% of the goal was met...


----------



## Ffaux (Jul 3, 2008)

MilkJunkie said:


> Wow... that's a alot of money, almost 7,000! You guys better have a ball buying us awesome server stuff with that.



aye! something with many awesome flashing lights... 

Kit from Knightrider stylee =P

...awesome....


----------



## SDWolf (Jul 3, 2008)

yak said:


> The Amazon donation page finally processed the backlogged donations.


 
Looks like I tossed my $50 into the hat just before it updated; it was around the $3,700 when I last looked.  And now....  HOLY SHIT!!  :-D


----------



## Drakaji (Jul 3, 2008)

Wow that's awesome. Here's to a better FA! *cheers*


----------



## Rukario (Jul 3, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> And for the record... there are still a few more processing. It didn't get them all.




Duuuuuuuude. 


Wow. 
This calls for a party. 
And thats not even counting paypal.


----------



## DJDarkViper (Jul 3, 2008)

Drakaji said:


> Wow that's awesome. Here's to a better FA! *cheers*



*raises glass* A toast! Long live, FA!


----------



## kerus (Jul 3, 2008)

Sent $25, hope it gets through, im using a electronic-visa-card-thing with $25 on it(alot more secure than using my real card .


----------



## KaiserVadin (Jul 3, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> After investigating and digging around, we've determined many of the recent errors/outages on FA's side to be result of a server hardware fault. We've got some mixed signals coming from the server, and we're investigating them to try to resolve issues. No one item is pointing towards origin of failure so we are unable to determine what the point of failure is at this time.
> 
> Given we were planning on purchasing a new server for backup, we are re-allocating that money right now to purchasing a new data server with built in backup capabilities. The new server will replace the failing data server until we can make proper repairs.
> 
> ...


I AM VERY SORRY but I hate talk about donations ...

PS: Please don't ban me for this !


----------



## mishachan (Jul 3, 2008)

KaiserVadin said:


> I AM VERY SORRY but I hate talk about donations



Okay... and...?


----------



## draigfaol (Jul 3, 2008)

Holy crap...... At this rate, FA could get a fully dedicated IBM Blade Server.


----------



## Geraden (Jul 3, 2008)

Is there any chance you'll end the donation drive early?  Don't get me wrong, the more donations the better.  But the earlier FA comes back up, the better, too.


----------



## Danza (Jul 3, 2008)

Now the question is, will all this money actually be put to good use... and if so will the end users IE the people who have just donated $7,000 in a matter of days actually get any benefit... This sounds stupid but my alliance with FA depends on this, I simply wouldn't be able to be happy with FA and how its run if after all this its just how it was before, with constant problems, at least 1 a week and often terrible lag...

So here is to hopefully a new and improved FA *cheers*


----------



## yak (Jul 3, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> And for the record... there are still a few more processing. It didn't get them all.



Oh shi......


----------



## Dragoneer (Jul 3, 2008)

Geraden said:


> Is there any chance you'll end the donation drive early?  Don't get me wrong, the more donations the better.  But the earlier FA comes back up, the better, too.


Due to the 4th of July weekend we have no choice but to wait until Monday to put in the order as it is. So we'll continue to try to raise money into this weekend.

At this point, we'll be adding a Dell PowerEdge 2970 and 1950 to the system. As more donations come in, we'll add more RAM to existing servers and see what we can do about upgrading other things, like processors. We could potentially jump the DB server to dual quad-core CPUs and add much more firepower to the entire system.



Danza said:


> Now the question is, will all this money actually be put to good use... and if so will the end users IE the people who have just donated $7,000 in a matter of days actually get any benefit...


We will be improving everything across the board. Everything.


----------



## Mobius1 (Jul 3, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> Due to the 4th of July weekend we have no choice but to wait until Monday to put in the order as it is. So we'll continue to try to raise money into this weekend.
> 
> At this point, we'll be adding a Dell PowerEdge 2970 and 1950 to the system. As more donations come in, we'll add more RAM to existing servers and see what we can do about upgrading other things, like processors. We could potentially jump the DB server to dual quad-core CPUs and add much more firepower to the entire system.
> 
> ...


 
nice but aim for the newer 45 nm chipsets ( wolfdales ) they run extremely cool and only use under 1.3v and are alot cheeper to.


----------



## Petrock (Jul 3, 2008)

Looks like the techies are gonna have fun. XD


----------



## Dragoneer (Jul 3, 2008)

Mobius1 said:


> nice but aim for the newer 45 nm chipsets ( wolfdales ) they run extremely cool and only use under 1.3v and are alot cheeper to.


That's the plan. Get the best bang for the buck. Cooler running chips mean high longevity. Benefits go all around.


----------



## Tsampikos (Jul 3, 2008)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> Total Collected:
> US $6,831.35
> 
> # of Payments:
> ...



It goes to show you that every little bit helps!


----------



## Damaratus (Jul 3, 2008)

Really an amazing community around here, it's been wonderful to see the outpouring of support for getting things back up and even better than before.  Not to mention the many suggestions that could be utilized in the future.  Thanks everyone, you've all done quite an astounding thing over the past couple of days.


----------



## TheSnowedOne (Jul 3, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> That's the plan. Get the best bang for the buck. Cooler running chips mean high longevity. Benefits go all around.



Should be a nice system all up.

I really don't evny you guys; IRC servers are for the most part very low spec requirement.   For us it is all about the connectivity provided the box itself is reasonable (small raid and a couple of gigs of RAM with a reasonable number of CPUs).   Maintaining a large server for community work is certainly a lot more effort and kudos for having the drive to do it!

It is fantastic to see the community come together to help out though - having had to be the one to foot the bill for a lot of community stuff for decades now it is nice to see at least some people willing to put a bit of cash in to help the cause.


----------



## Balto.Woof (Jul 3, 2008)

Keep the server offline till enough money is raise to get the PROPER equipment.  I'm having Width drawl symptoms right now.  But, I'm seriously tired of inconsistent service. I'm fully willing to even pay for a membership is that will help with maintenance of the server. 

How much would be needed to build a server that could take care of the needs for at least 18-24months?


----------



## Dragoneer (Jul 3, 2008)

Balto.Woof said:


> Keep the server offline till enough money is raise to get the PROPER equipment.  I'm having Width drawl symptoms right now.  But, I'm seriously tired of inconsistent service. I'm fully willing to even pay for a membership is that will help with maintenance of the server.
> 
> How much would be needed to build a server that could take care of the needs for at least 18-24months?


I think if we raised another $3K or so we could not only cover that, but upgrade the DB server significantly as well. That'd pretty much cover us hardcore.


----------



## Trip (Jul 3, 2008)

Well, I haven't read all the bitching and moaning and hopefully lots of positive stuff that has transpired in the 30+ pages since last night, but I did check the donation page and I have to say, *way to go FA!* I can't believe how much money we've raised so quickly. It makes me really happy to see so many furries pulling together! ^^

I can't wait to see Fur Affinity on some shiny new servers!


----------



## Undying Song (Jul 3, 2008)

Trip said:


> Well, I haven't read all the bitching and moaning and hopefully lots of positive stuff that has transpired in the 30+ pages since last night, but I did check the donation page and I have to say, *way to go FA!* I can't believe how much money we've raised so quickly. It makes me really happy to see so many furries pulling together! ^^
> 
> I can't wait to see Fur Affinity on some shiny new servers!



Hiya, Trip! I'm with you, sweetie. : 3


----------



## SDWolf (Jul 3, 2008)

*Wow*

*wags broadly*

This is truely awesome. For all those who only donated a couple dollars, there's your proof that your contributions do, indeed, count. I wonder, do you think we could have Amazon break 7k by day's end? Maybe 8k by Monday? Why stop now?  *gives amazon another nudge*  

More awesome than the amount of money, though, is the way the community has pulled together to pull this off. Flames, trolls, and leaked code/databases aside, things like this make me feel a little more pride about being a part of this fandom. To wit: We rock!

To the admins: Just don't blow it all on fireworks and champagne!


----------



## Dragon-Commando (Jul 3, 2008)

I would recommend getting the best stuff you can just like everyone else. But I will also add that it's not the newest stuff you should be looking at.

You probably thought of this already, but it isn't a good Idea to get stuff thats only been available to purchase for a fue weeks, even a month, as it hasn't had time show any issues it might have. I would recommend getting parts that are known to be reliable instead of parts that claim to have top performance. I havent kept up with the latest stuff, so I can't make recomendations.

Last time I built a computer I got all the latest stuff, and now I'm paying for it with constant hardware issues. And even though you are getting enterprise grade parts, the same thing still holds true. "_Its not proven till its proven itself_" -sounds silly, but it's true.


----------



## Dragoneer (Jul 3, 2008)

*Re: Wow*



SDWolf said:


> More awesome than the amount of money, though, is the way the community has pulled together to pull this off.  Flames, trolls, and leaked code/databases aside, things like this make me feel a little more pride about being a part of this fandom.  To wit:  We rock!


If the Amazon alone breaks $10K I'll do something ultra special for the site. I don't know what yet, but... I'll figure it out.


----------



## Arcturus (Jul 3, 2008)

Why the 2970? That's an Opteron box. And really, you want to go Xeon. They give a lot more performance and just plain run better.

And this is from an ex-AMD server fanboy, but AMD have gone mostly to shit :/


----------



## Dragon-Commando (Jul 3, 2008)

Arcturus said:


> Why the 2970? That's an Opteron box. And
> And this is from an ex-AMD server fanboy, but AMD have gone mostly to shit :/


 
Wow, never thaught I'd hear that!


----------



## Dragoneer (Jul 3, 2008)

Arcturus said:


> Why the 2970? That's an Opteron box. And really, you want to go Xeon. They give a lot more performance and just plain run better.
> 
> And this is from an ex-AMD server fanboy, but AMD have gone mostly to shit :/


It was the series I was looking into. I'm all about quad-core Xeons myself.


----------



## nobleawolf (Jul 3, 2008)

Chaotic said:


> We arent cutting our wrists, actually for awhile we werent even talking about FA, we were talking about 4th of July. ^^;
> I have a life too, but some of my life is draw, and i like to show what I draw since people tell me i inspire them with some drawings, also to see what people have to say about it.
> FA is down, is not a big whoop, it just sad cuz i also have friends there and a commissioner that needs to reply to my note and i cant check either.
> Also, alot of art to upload, but for that DA will do for now.



ahhhh hi, i wasn't refering to everyone, i was refering to the douche-jobs that can't live with out there porn or not blasting some knuckle children off because OMF FA IS DOWN..... AGAIN, MY LIFE IS RUINED... AGAIN

ahhhh don't u have IM's.... or email accounts.... u should always have more then one way to get incontact with people incase something like THIS where to happen..... again.... and again.... again

granted i make fursuits, i like showing off my work on here.... but FA is down and it ussualy happens every so often.... there for i don't care, i have other place i can post my work and IM's i can talk to people over and email.... many ways to get ahold of someone.

though i would pay like 10 or 20 bucks a year, if it ment it wouldn't go down every so often, but i don't care, its a damn free website.


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 3, 2008)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> Total Collected:
> US $6,831.35
> 
> # of Payments:
> ...



I put in my thousand pennies...  Have you?  And I've only got 7900 pennies to play with. 

d.m.f.


----------



## ozoneserpent (Jul 3, 2008)

I uncovered dragoneer's secret documentation of what he really plans to do with the donation money.

http://www.negativeworld.org/user/renjaku/laserneer.jpg

Really though, this is awesome.  I chipped in too, $15 a few weeks back, and another ten earlier today.  Happy server buying. =D


----------



## Sekaj (Jul 3, 2008)

ozoneserpent said:


> I uncovered dragoneer's secret documentation of what he really plans to do with the donation money.
> 
> http://www.negativeworld.org/user/renjaku/laserneer.jpg
> 
> Really though, this is awesome.  I chipped in too, $15 a few weeks back, and another ten earlier today.  Happy server buying. =D




I almost choked on my drink when I saw that! XD


----------



## Arcturus (Jul 3, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> It was the series I was looking into. I'm all about quad-core Xeons myself.



Same. It's what I looked for when I was speccing up machines and suggesting them at yak.


----------



## Emerald_Sage (Jul 3, 2008)

*Re: Wow*



Dragoneer said:


> If the Amazon alone breaks $10K I'll do something ultra special for the site. I don't know what yet, but... I'll figure it out.



How about a nice working search engine and filter so I don't have to see crap I don't want to see in order to find nice art <.<


----------



## nobleawolf (Jul 3, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> It was the series I was looking into. I'm all about quad-core Xeons myself.



you know I am an AMD/ATI fan and even i would go with the Xions, AMD's server boards suck compared to the intels at this time.


----------



## SDWolf (Jul 3, 2008)

Sekaj said:


> I almost choked on my drink when I saw that! XD


 
*COUGH CHOKE GASP!!*  XD

Note to self:  Clicking forum links whilst drinking iced tea is a VERY BAD idea.


----------



## Geraden (Jul 3, 2008)

Of course, now what I see happening is some minor thing will cause the servers to go down shortly after the upgrade, since something will often go wrong when you make drastic changes, and all the trolls in this thread will moan for days that they (read: everyone else) donated 7 grand and it's still not working.


----------



## Ri'en Karrot (Jul 3, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> After investigating and digging around, we've determined many of the recent errors/outages on FA's side to be result of a server hardware fault.
> 
> With luck, the new server will going be ordered tomorrow. It WILL cost roughly $1,000 more than we currently have budgeted, and given that, we are once again asking for donations. The server will be ordered, money or not, but doing so is going to put us into severe debt at this time. The new system is going to cost us almost $4,000 and will make added emphasis on data security (with build in battery backups). The recent HD failure set us back roughly $250 from that goal. At current estimates, we have about $2,250 in our coffers to apply to a new server.
> _
> ...



Despite the site outages and indeterminable amounts of downtime scattered here and there, I really feel things are being taken care of behind the scenes. I've been very happy to use this site and not have to pay for a "better version" like other gallery sites, and I hope that everything will go well each time there is need for an update or repairs. Good luck with the donations!


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 3, 2008)

Just as an aside, if I may...

Two brand names mentioned give me the creeps, due to personal experience....

Dell (let's put it this way: they fucked me three ways to next Sunday, several times over!) and Western Digital (the ONLY HD I've ever had failed on me in every 'puter I've ever owned).

Otherwise... Get the best for FA, OK? 

d.m.f.


----------



## Dragon-Commando (Jul 3, 2008)

I've never had a western digital drive fail on me, and I've had them in my computers since 1997.

I still had the same one I got in 1997 as a file drive (in a local server) untill a month agoe, and it still runs perfect. I could plug it in right now and it would give me another 5+ years of service.


----------



## Nidonemo (Jul 3, 2008)

ozoneserpent said:


> I uncovered dragoneer's secret documentation of what he really plans to do with the donation money.
> 
> http://www.negativeworld.org/user/renjaku/laserneer.jpg
> 
> Really though, this is awesome.  I chipped in too, $15 a few weeks back, and another ten earlier today.  Happy server buying. =D



Why...why...WHY DID I CLICK THAT!?


----------



## SDWolf (Jul 3, 2008)

dmfalk said:


> Just as an aside, if I may...
> 
> Two brand names mentioned give me the creeps, due to personal experience....
> 
> ...


 
I'm somewhat neutral when it comes to Dell.  I've found that most of their hardware reliability issues are well-balanced by their business-level support (consumer-level is another story).  That said, I think hardware reliability should be paramount given FA's history, so I'd suggest looking at IBM if possible, even if it means going with something lower-end, as they tend to last forever.

And I totally agree about Western Digital.  They might've been good 15 years ago, but anything made by them in the last 10 years is a gamble at best (though not quite as bad as Maxtor).  I'd go with Samsung if at all possible (they run forever) or Segate as a second choice.  Then again, you generally don't have a choice when buying a server from Dell, IBM, or HP (avoid at all costs).

Granted, my info is a little out of date, so the best advice I can give is to not listen to my (or anyone else's) advice, and do the research and read the reviews yourself.  :smile:

Best of luck!


----------



## Firehazard (Jul 3, 2008)

Over $6000 already?  Sweet Genius!

Now, let's talk extended warranty.  Srsly y'guys.  It sounds like these new servers will have enough gumption to be useful to FA for quite a few years; it'd be with a few hundred extra apiece to ensure that they'll stay running that long.

Also to those who have not already seen this, I am selling prints with all profits going to FurAffinity through Sunday evening.  So if anyone is interested in ever buying prints of my art, now would be a good time because it means money that would going to me anyway would be getting passed on towards these new servers.


----------



## Nidonemo (Jul 3, 2008)

I haven't had any problems with Dells, older ones may be trouble, but the two main computers I've had such pain with would be the early Apple iMac, the kind that were like all one unit, looked all nerdy and colorful? Remember? Crash city. The second was my Gateway laptop. So many negative things are linked with the word "gateway". What comes to mind? Hell for one, right?


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 3, 2008)

Chaotic said:


> That is true, altough, mature content is allowed, if its photo's of naked ladies.
> For some reasons..ugh.
> Altough they put a new censor opnions so its getting a tiny bit better....tiny...tiny bit. XD



One furry/toon artist I watch on DA, Fernando Faria (14-bis or Airaf - He has two DA accounts) keeps having his pics sensored by DA admins. I've suggested several times, publicly and privately, that he should come over to FA, where his art won't be sensored. However, everytime I have, something goes wrong with FA- The new account feature is up, then down, or FA crashes. If more of us try to woo him this way, I think he, and his fans who are on both DA and FA, would be happier.

DA does have issues, yes. *nod*

d.m.f.
(It's why I refuse to submit ANY of my writing to DA, incidentally.)


----------



## Runefox (Jul 3, 2008)

Really? WD is the worst hard drive manufacturer you've used? Really?

>_> IBM (DeskStars/DeathStars)... Maxtor (everything (yes, everything, especially those low profile drives))... Generally WD is middle of the road for me. Better than Hitachi, not as good as Samsung or Seagate (who now own Maxtor... D=). For me, they've lasted well beyond their warranty so far.


----------



## SDWolf (Jul 3, 2008)

Runefox said:


> Really? WD is the worst hard drive manufacturer you've used? Really?
> 
> >_> IBM (DeskStars/DeathStars)... Maxtor (everything (yes, everything, especially those low profile drives))... Generally WD is middle of the road for me. Better than Hitachi, not as good as Samsung or Seagate (who now own Maxtor... D=). For me, they've lasted well beyond their warranty so far.


 
*Did you know that...*
For quite a while, IBM DeskStars were actually manufactured by *drumroll*  Western Digital.  Dunno if that's still the case nowadays, though.


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 3, 2008)

ArielMT said:


> Just one request for the admins: Take and post a movie of the faulty motherboard, if y'all decide to, um...  ahem... let it celebrate Independence Day in a fittingly appropriate manner.



OK.... That would be WORTH $10k of donations!  BURN BABY BURN!!! 

d.m.f.


----------



## ArielMT (Jul 3, 2008)

In the consumer grade area, WDs have historically beat Maxtors in reliability, from my experience.  I worked in a shop that went through hard disks faster than floppies for MS-DOS boxen, with literally hundreds of each brand in stock, and we replaced at least half again as many dead Maxtors as we did Western Digitals.

But y'all definitely want to go for something above consumer grade, of course.


----------



## SGrayWolf (Jul 3, 2008)

$20 more coming yer way, for heated leather seats. :}


----------



## ArielMT (Jul 3, 2008)

ozoneserpent said:


> I uncovered dragoneer's secret documentation of what he really plans to do with the donation money.
> 
> http://www.negativeworld.org/user/renjaku/laserneer.jpg
> 
> Really though, this is awesome.  I chipped in too, $15 a few weeks back, and another ten earlier today.  Happy server buying. =D




...  >>1000GET and 'Neer's a-chargin' his nipple lasers!

You owe me a new keyboard and a bottle of Sunkist.


----------



## SGrayWolf (Jul 3, 2008)

You just nailed post 1000 Ariel, you win... um... I don't know... << >>


----------



## cassandrarising (Jul 3, 2008)

ozoneserpent said:


> I uncovered dragoneer's secret documentation of what he really plans to do with the donation money.
> 
> http://www.negativeworld.org/user/renjaku/laserneer.jpg



Given how many people have been disturbed by that pic, I'd say FA has been down entirely too long  We're all losing our resistance to the perversely strange.

Also, holy dogs those donations add up!


----------



## selth (Jul 3, 2008)

I doubt any of Fa's admins need to hear about that but...
reardless the brand, regardless the batch...

hard drives can's be expected to last for much more than 2 years at full capacity.

now, one does with the fund he has...

I'm not saying you should change hard drives every two years on every machine. it's just, with an important machine, you use new pieces to prevent problems that are known to happen, such as HD degradation.

now, they do backup everything regulary, so I'm sure they handle this the best they can!

just more a free hint for people posting here, really...


----------



## White Crow (Jul 3, 2008)

SDWolf said:


> *Did you know that...*
> For quite a while, IBM DeskStars were actually manufactured by *drumroll*  Western Digital.  Dunno if that's still the case nowadays, though.



You've got it backward.  From 1998 to 2000, IBM manufactured some of WD's high-end 7200rpm IDE drives.  WD has never made drives for IBM.

In any case, Western Digital's Raptor series are quite different from their current 7200rpm consumer drives.  Ever taken one apart?  You'd swear it was a SCSI drive on the inside.  While we can debate how appropriate they are for a heavily-loaded server, I don't think you'll find any data suggesting they are "crap" for enthusiast desktops.


----------



## ozoneserpent (Jul 3, 2008)

ArielMT said:


> ...  >>1000GET and 'Neer's a-chargin' his nipple lasers!
> 
> You owe me a new keyboard and a bottle of Sunkist.


The whole bottle huh, that's freakazoid worthy drink spewing there.  You deserve a new one, but I have to hide from neer. :sad:


----------



## Drakkenlupen (Jul 3, 2008)

About $6,900 to 288 donators. That is pure awesome right there guys. I think that the coders can almost afford comfy desk chairs now!


----------



## Jonnie (Jul 3, 2008)

Yay for the awesome news!  If I could've, even now I would definitely have put more than just $10 in.




Runefox said:


> ...not as good as Samsung or Seagate (who now own Maxtor... D=). For me, they've lasted well beyond their warranty so far.



I've got a Seagate from about 15 years ago that still works.  ^_^
(And a Maxtor from about the same time that...doesn't)


----------



## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

dmfalk said:


> One furry/toon artist I watch on DA, Fernando Faria (14-bis or Airaf - He has two DA accounts) keeps having his pics sensored by DA admins. I've suggested several times, publicly and privately, that he should come over to FA, where his art won't be sensored. However, everytime I have, something goes wrong with FA- The new account feature is up, then down, or FA crashes. If more of us try to woo him this way, I think he, and his fans who are on both DA and FA, would be happier.
> 
> DA does have issues, yes. *nod*
> 
> ...



Both DA and FA have their ups and downs. ^^;
No site is, perfect.
But like someone said before, they are both different sites completely, and people enter them for different reasons.
But yeah your right, but if you check, they let u put mature if its photos of naked ladies...which u see on the front page even if the photography sucks completely...x.x


----------



## Chaotic (Jul 3, 2008)

Also yay for FA getting what it needs. 
Hopefully this will be a lasting thing.
Sorry i couldnt send any money, really tight on money now (joining for marriage things right now).


----------



## Bobskunk (Jul 3, 2008)

Hurf.  Congrats on all the donations, FA Staff.  I saw that you'd already far surpassed the goal, but I'd already planned on it...

Maybe you should keep that donation link up for any extended error pages you guys have to put up..? Of course, may they be less frequent with the new server!


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 3, 2008)

*Re: Wow*



Dragoneer said:


> If the Amazon alone breaks $10K I'll do something ultra special for the site. I don't know what yet, but... I'll figure it out.



Giving our track record of 'ultra special' things. I'm scared to find out what that might be. XD


----------



## gravija (Jul 3, 2008)

check it amazon updated finally O.O


----------



## fatalglory128 (Jul 3, 2008)

So I just gave $50 for the cause.  Hey, I think of it this way, after having bought and played Boom Blox for the Wii, would I trade that to help FA?  HELL YES.


----------



## Rhainor (Jul 3, 2008)

Everyone needs to check out this other thread.  Like, right now.

Holy shit, awesomeness.


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 3, 2008)

Dragon-Commando said:


> I've never had a western digital drive fail on me, and I've had them in my computers since 1997.
> 
> I still had the same one I got in 1997 as a file drive (in a local server) untill a month agoe, and it still runs perfect. I could plug it in right now and it would give me another 5+ years of service.



To be fair, the WD HD that died on me was bought in a laptop in 1995, dying two years later- I was offline for 4 months until I could get a new one. P'haps they improved from '97 onwards. Nonetheless, the only HD I've ever had go bad was a WD. 

(I prefer Japanese HDs, since they've been very nice to me.  But that's my experience, YMMV.  )

d.m.f.


----------



## KemonoDragon (Jul 3, 2008)

I've been following this thread and have apoint to make.
First of all i agree with part of what Myr said, such as getting reliable software; however, I don't feel this is a immeadiate need, it is something to consider for a long-term, in search of better words, data protector. 
Of course Myr did exagerate, i haven't had as many problems as he stated, i should be able to donate $10, with my next paycheck, so give me your paypal info.


----------



## Selunca (Jul 3, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> We're looking into something like that in the future, but if we go that route we will NOT remove any functionality from the site. On a personal level I loathe DeviantArt because it's a pain in the ass to use unless you pay. If we did something like that it would be to allow userpage customizations and other little nifty features that you could use to personalize your FA without reducing functionality from other people.
> 
> It would help a bit, but not as much as you'd think. We've already got some rules in the works to address some issues like that, but more on that... well, later.



I think I would pay the subscription just to help out. I havn't the mind to donate otherwise, I'm a bit of a bird brain and forget all the time, but having it taken right out of my paypal every month would be lovely. Especially if you could chose the amount you'd like to donate, so it was easily managed. 

Thanks for doing such great work Dragoneer. I look forward to the site being back. Some of us do have patients.


----------



## Rhari (Jul 3, 2008)

I can't believe we've breached $10,000! Way to go FA!


----------



## rubixcuber (Jul 4, 2008)

Why does the Amazon page have a $50 maximum? *grumble*

Well, for reasons even I don't understand I have contributed another $100.

I don't even know anyone on this site. Who are you people? *runs away*

Edit: Especially with the $50 max, aren't there actually a lot less than 288 people who have donated? I mean, 3 of them are me.


----------



## Trip (Jul 4, 2008)

Sweet zombie Jesus, over $10,000? That's incredible!

Order one of everything, Dragoneer! =P


----------



## Firehazard (Jul 4, 2008)

This is incredible.  This is exponential.  This is... ALGEBRAIC!

Guys, when you get the new boxes, you gotta snap a photo of the new data server sitting next to the old one.  Like, a close-up.  With maybe a foot of space between them.  I have a sweet idea for a picture.

EDIT: Oops, did I say "*A* picture"?  I meant a potential meme!


----------



## Dusty-Waber (Jul 4, 2008)

i dont know why people get so angry about this, or make personal attacks against you (dragoneer), or other staff members for things that happen

its not like.. you force us to stay here, you dont force us to pay you, and you dont force us socialize with you o.o

personally, i love FA
sure, it sucks when it goes down, but i get a free space on my bingo card when it does, and that makes me happy

i think people should relax and not get so caught up in something like this.. i mean really, you had a hardware failure and your working on fixing it

are you supposed to have a magic wish granting genie to do it for you to make people happy?

anyway i think you guys are doing a good job, things might go wrong, but its the attitude you take towards them and hpow you fix it that shows your aptitude


----------



## Arcturus (Jul 4, 2008)

Avoid IBM. They charge too much for their servers, simply for getting the 'IBM' name, when most of the parts are identical to what you get in, say, a Dell server.

And don't be bringing that desktop crap up in here. Yes, Dell desktops are SHIT. But their servers are incredible.

(Simply because, pissing of a business tends to hurt the bottom line a lot more than a few consumers, because margins on those are crap anyway)


----------



## Redregon (Jul 4, 2008)

it's great that people are getting involved and i don't want to be a wet blanket, but a request to keep the comments at the least partially on topic? awesome! thanks!

a few things i'm curious about if it does come to pay for perks or something...

1. the legality. i know that DA officially hardassed about nudes and such and since FA don't allow nude pics it's not so bad, but what about the angry mothers out there (you know they're there) that would like nothing better than to blame someone else other than themselves for a total lack of good parenting skills and control over their crotch squirtlings?

2. the Trolls (partially related to 1.) would probably see FA being a business and wanting to get "the lulz" by causing shit even more... though it could frighten some away as if you can prove monetary loss by a hacker or other online miscreant, you have more of a case against them... ref Ross "Sibe" Reddick vs. Sean Rabbit.

3. the actual perks of donating... even if it's a silly little icon on the userpage for gratitude or something like that all the way to full browsing priveliges, search features and the like, what would donating or subscriptions get you?

4. Tax. if FA becomes a business and the admins start to actually get revenue from that, how will Uncle Sam feel about that? will there be sales tax? what about taxes for other countries like Canada or the U.K.?

don't get me wrong, i'd love to see the future of FA be a lot more stable than it currently is (being that it's fueled mainly by a handful of people and their love for the fandom) but i think there are some serious questions to take into consideration.


----------



## ShadowComet (Jul 4, 2008)

salmy said:


> I really don't know what would the most fair solution be, but it's clear that something like FA can't be run just by two people with their own lives that clearly don't have the resources and time to give a decent service.
> 
> Wouldn't it be best for everybody that Dragoneer and Yak had an income so they could dedicate their lives to FA?
> 
> When a website is SO popular it becomes a public service, just like google or yahoo or youtube. I *never* suggested that FA became a pay site. I'm just saying that those who earn money *thanks* to FA should be /charged/ for it, because if this page didn't exist, they wouldn't have become popular and they wouldn't earn nearly as much money as they do.


 
The thing you don't understand is that there is no way to truely say "Oh, you have to pay cause you make money off of your art." I'm sure Dragoneer even has things to pay for in the real world, and that is probably why things are run the way they are, by donations from people who ARE able, you people scream "Monthly Fees", and really, if you have to start charging one set of people, you will eventually have to start charging everyone else too, it's called fact of life, things cost.

Tip for possibly getting more donations to upgrade software:

People obviously like the site, especially those who can afford donations and are most likely wiling to give them, so maybe, if FA Admins want to upgrade something, explain how it will benefit FA and you may actually get more donations. Have some kind of *DONATION NEWS* in a sort of start up page before entering the actual page, I dunno...see where it gets you.

I have no job, and if I was to start making money from commissions right now, I'd need to invest every penny into bills and food, an artists life is by no means rich, not until they are dead and people actually realize them for their greatness.


----------



## ShadowComet (Jul 4, 2008)

Redregon said:


> it's great that people are getting involved and i don't want to be a wet blanket, but a request to keep the comments at the least partially on topic? awesome! thanks!
> 
> a few things i'm curious about if it does come to pay for perks or something...
> 
> ...


 
You make a valid point about taxes, Donations are Non-Taxable under current Tax Laws in Canada and the US (Not sure about the UK) and Donators can actually deduct donations (at least where I come from) from their Income Tax, as long as you have the receipt and it's not some make believe place. I love Canada.


----------



## smash (Jul 4, 2008)

kayfox said:


> I would like to see FurAffinity buy a real server, an IBM or some such, with all those important features, like miles of documentation, tested configurations and remote management features.
> 
> I have a few old IBM machines, and even they have features such as:
> Redundant power supplies.
> ...



The configuration I use at work is rock solid.  IBM BladeCenter chassis SAN booting blades using Qlogic daughter cards, and a Brocade fabric switch module, SAN booting off of a NetApp filer.   REdundant everything.  then running each blade as a VMWare ESX 3.0.2 server with 16 GB o ram on a dual quad-core HS-21 blades.  Set up two or three blades that way, and a 4th HS20 blade to act as the virtual datacenter machine.  The only spinning disks are in the filer, and the only moving parts in the server are the fans.

My personal solution is a scaled down version of the same running lycanthrope.net/transwarp.com/smashwolf.com and several other sites.   It's a Sun V40Z Quad Opteron with 32 GB of RAM SANbooting off of a NetApp FAS270 filer, with half a terabyte of VMstorage for VMWare ESX server.   Then we rent out VM's to clients.  It's all colocated at a well connected colo in Silicon Valley.  Below is a picture of the server I have colocated.  Not much to look at but the disk bays on the server are EMPTY.

FA should get some serious hardware and technology, and be done with it.  You can get yourself intoa used IBM BladeCenter with HS20 blades, 2 GB fabric, and an ethrnet switch module, and Qlogic, cards for the moeny they have raised, and I know NetApp filers are easy to find on the used market.   There's something to be said about double parity with battery backed RAID 4 on fibre channel disks, and not having a system disk be a single point of failure.


----------



## master_debater (Jul 4, 2008)

Donations are almost up to $7,000!  That should buy a very nice server.  What will you guys buy if we reach $10,000?


----------



## Undying Song (Jul 4, 2008)

master_debater said:


> Donations are almost up to $7,000!  That should buy a very nice server.  What will you guys buy if we reach $10,000?



Over $10,000 has already been made, counting the donations through Paypal!


----------



## Alphares (Jul 4, 2008)

All I can say is congrats and thanks to the FA staff...
I've never seen a community as good as this one.
All this donations show how much we all love and enjoy FA and that is surely not only the artist's and watcher's work....

And I think the same...
Why complaining? The guys do the best they can. If not, I still don't complain about things that I get for FREE!


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 4, 2008)

Drakkenlupen said:


> About $6,900 to 288 donators. That is pure awesome right there guys. I think that the coders can almost afford comfy desk chairs now!



Keep in mind right now (11pm PDT 3 July), it's stuck- again- at 289 donors.... When it's updated, you better have fresh underwear handy, because it's gonna be bigger. MUCH bigger. 

d.m.f.
(And for those who go "commando", better fetch fresh trousers...  )


----------



## master_debater (Jul 4, 2008)

Undying Song said:


> Over $10,000 has already been made, counting the donations through Paypal!



So what kind of computer awsomeness with that buy?

Multiple quad core processors?  The RAID 6 array from hell?  128 GB of EEC RAM?

Perhaps they could also set up twin $5,000 computers that are identical and configured to load balance traffic.

This could take a lot of careful thought.


----------



## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 4, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> I'm not going to partake in a 'war' or 'debate' or whatever you want to call what you and I are about to get into, I'm really not interested in a Forum discussion about something so insignifigant. I will reply tot his though and likely leave it at that, though if you want the final word, I'll read it. ^_^
> 
> Umm, obviously asking for links and references is a waste of time in this as they are uhh, gone. : /   It's been years, I moved on, I too wouldn't remember the actual names of the art sites that have gone under because, they're gone. : / Art websites isn't my life, and so I tend to forget. BUT are you suggesting that you haven't been hopping around art web sites for years and therefore have not seen any go under yet?
> 
> ...



So this is just a misunderstanding because you thought it would be mandatory?

The downsides of pack mentality: One person gets it wrong and complains, from then on nobody listens to the original suggestion anymore, only to the complains. I've said it from the start that eBay didn't have to force anybody to use PayPal either (note: WE'RE NOT GONNA USE PAYPAL HERE), and I've said it over and over and over.



Redregon said:


> 4. Tax. if FA becomes a business and the admins start to actually get revenue from that, how will Uncle Sam feel about that? will there be sales tax? what about taxes for other countries like Canada or the U.K.?



Just tell Uncle Sam (or maybe the Cayman Islands?) that FA is still a non-profit organization and that all earnings go right back into maintenance. This worked even for a music video TV channel I was once working at.


----------



## master_debater (Jul 4, 2008)

dmfalk said:


> Keep in mind right now (11pm PDT 3 July), it's stuck- again- at 289 donors.... When it's updated, you better have fresh underwear handy, because it's gonna be bigger. MUCH bigger.
> 
> d.m.f.
> (And for those who go "commando", better fetch fresh trousers...  )




This is because We are FA and FA is Anonymous and Anonymous is Legion.


----------



## core2catgirls (Jul 4, 2008)

go intel Skulltrail  but the con is that everything is 200$ - 500$


----------



## KickahaOta (Jul 4, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> You make a valid point about taxes, Donations are Non-Taxable under current Tax Laws in Canada and the US (Not sure about the UK) and Donators can actually deduct donations (at least where I come from) from their Income Tax, as long as you have the receipt and it's not some make believe place. I love Canada.



Errr, I won't question your knowledge of Canadian tax law, but you're fairly far off on the US version.

First of all, of course, every state has their own tax code, and what's taxable in one state can vary pretty wildly from what's in another state. But yes, I can't think of any state that puts a sales tax on donations -- unless the donation gets you a good or service in return. In that case, you may have to pay sales tax on the value of the good or service. So, for example, if I donate $50, but that donation gets me $20 worth of goodies, in some states I'd have to pay sales tax on $20 of my donation. (This is to keep stores from just saying "No, no, we're not _selling_ our stuff -- we're just _giving_ it away, in return for a fixed set of 'donations'. So there's no salex tax on that.")

When it comes to federal income tax (and the vast majority of state income taxes), charitable donations are deductible. But. The charity can't be just any organization; it has to be registered as a charity with the Internal Revenue Service (the US federal tax collectors), and meet all sorts of rules for what a charity can and can't do. For any donation over a significant size (more than $25 I think), if you want to deduct it, your check or your Paypal confirmation isn't enough; you need a written receipt from the charity saying how much you donated, when you donated it, and the value of any goods and services you're getting in return for your donation. (And again, the value of the goods and services isn't deductible.)

If Fur Affinity were to apply to be a US charity, the exchange of letters and phone calls would be a heck of a lot of fun to watch, but the result wouldn't be what we're hoping for. ("We are sorry, but after careful consideration, we conclude that 'furry porn' is not fit the charitable classification of 'educational literature'.")


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 4, 2008)

master_debater said:


> This is because We are FA and FA is Anonymous and Anonymous is Legion.



Well, that's only 10% of my guesstimate of how many FA users there actually are (I figure about 3300, but I could seriously be off, either way)... Now, imagine if closer to 100% of FAers donated... Dragoneer would be right in saying FA could run a year on a buck per FAer. 

I only put in $10.. Not much... But FA's important- Every dollar counts. 

d.m.f.


----------



## Bigbelf (Jul 4, 2008)

I deeply apologize and regret that at the moment i do not have any money that i can give up....i know lately i havent even checked the site, but i am devote to it and want others to be able to enjoy it because i know alot of others almost need the site, if i somehow can get a hold of some amount of money i will try to send it, but i would have to crate a paypal account as well *sighs* best of luck with getting the server running again


----------



## Artie (Jul 4, 2008)

dmfalk said:


> Well, that's only 10% of my guesstimate of how many FA users there actually are (I figure about 3300, but I could seriously be off, either way.)



As of this post, the forum alone has 9903 registered members.  I'm sure the actual FA site has WAY more than that, because you have to register for the forum entirely separately, they don't share the same user database.


----------



## Ket-Ralus (Jul 4, 2008)

*Re: Wow*



Dragoneer said:


> If the Amazon alone breaks $10K I'll do something ultra special for the site. I don't know what yet, but... I'll figure it out.


"The *SURPRISE *isss..." (said in best Michael Scott impersonation)

Nevertheless, I'll be pleased if that goal can be met.


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 4, 2008)

Artie said:


> As of this post, the forum alone has 9903 registered members.  I'm sure the actual FA site has WAY more than that, because you have to register for the forum entirely separately, they don't share the same user database.



Damn.... @.@

*loses his shorts* 

d.m.f.
(Yes, I know, separate databases... Still... Damn! @.@ )


----------



## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 4, 2008)

Artie said:


> As of this post, the forum alone has 9903 registered members.  I'm sure the actual FA site has WAY more than that, because you have to register for the forum entirely separately, they don't share the same user database.



Going by the current average of $25 per donator, that means a potential of almost $250,000 from this forum alone! :shock:


----------



## HiroJudgement (Jul 4, 2008)

Well, the thing got itself around $3000 yesterday alone...


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 4, 2008)

Daddy Ducky BE said:


> Going by the current average of $25 per donator, that means a potential of almost $250,000 from this forum alone! :shock:



Hence the "Damn! @.@ "

Same goes with FA proper... @.@

d.m.f.
(We're not donating ENOUGH! @.@ )


----------



## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 4, 2008)

I still stand by saying though that voluntary percentages via one-click payment services would raise much bigger funding for FA than donating alone, and would pay off much better for the artists in the end as well.


----------



## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 4, 2008)

I just wanted to say this, and I feel it is important to bring up a few points. I won't pretend that I have read the posts lately, and instead admit I haven't. I, therefore, have no idea what-so-ever how far I am from topic here but....

Fur Affinity is a great website! Not only can you find some great artists like GreenMonkey *lovals* Inuki *lovals* DCRabbit *lovals* Furball *lovals* and many, many more that I wish I was willing to take the time to name, BUT this website is a great draw for the amatures! Some of my fans argue with me when I say I suck or am still an amature, which I am!     BUT if you compare my art now to how I 'was' when I started posting here... there's huge improvement. 

If Fur Affinity didn't allow Amatures to post without fear of being bombarded by absolute jerk off *censore* *half censore*hole fu*partly censored*tards who can't cope with their pitiful lives and therefore feel inclined to take it out on people, like me who are trying to get off stick figures and into decently done art, i probably wouldn't have ever gotten off my lazy ass and DRAWN MY PICTURES like I have. ^_^

I have no doubt there are many other artists who can say they owe Fur Affinity for being the foundation of our inspirations and help. I've had help and suggestions from some of my friends like MatoC whom I initially met and got to know through Fur Affinity! F.A. is the foundation of my friendship!  ^_^ THANK YOU F.A.!

What drew me here? Fur Affinity was a free site filled with awsome people, like you all, and awsome staff, like you all (whom are staff hehe) who dedicate your time and effort into the site, and/or dedicate your time for fun too this site. 

*smiles* I've really enjoyed my time here, and look forward to the site returning, as I know it will. AND I feel it is important for those of you whom run the site to realize that you DESERVE a BIG Ego Boost!  Why? Because you've raised this much money from a bunch of porn adicts who don't want to pay money, artists who are thankful for all you've done for us, kids who persuaded their parents to pay a bit of money to help out their favorite site, and those like me, who can't donate and feel like crap for it!  I just can't. I have a job (that's waiting for me) I have no money!  >.< Otherwise I would have donated. 

I believe you SHOULD donate no matter how inconvenient it may be, to something you spend a lot of time on and, and especially, Like! Seriously if you like it, down a few bucks!

People downloading things off the net is a serious issue because it's costing those whom make the T.V> shows, Movies, and so on lots of money... it isn't that they are greedy, it's that by not giving them their money, you aren't giving them your vote that you LIKE THEM!  If you don't give them your vote, they dont get the ability to give you more.  Suppose 100% of Pepsi drinkers started drinking Coke instead over night for a year?   Pepsi would have a serious issue, because everyone is voting that Coke is better. Watch how fast Pepsi would change their formula!

If you all Love Fur Affinity, give them your vote!  Even though the initial goal was met a while ago, you should give them your vote too!  Just because the goal is met, doesn't mean that it is no longer needed to give them your vote!  Even if it's only a dollar!

If you can afford it, down it!  I would if it every dollar didn't go to food and gas. T_T  In a month or so, I'll finally get a pay check hehe. :3   BUT the point is, even if it's just a dollar, that's helpful! 

One Dollar X 100 people downing "Just a Dollar" =$100 towards Fur Affinity and UPGRADES for BETTER servers, and fall back funds for the next crash!

You might think it's nothing, or you might think "Eh, the goal was met..." BUT Fur Affinity is a great site, and if you like it... VOTE FOR IT!


----------



## ShadowComet (Jul 4, 2008)

KickahaOta said:


> Errr, I won't question your knowledge of Canadian tax law, but you're fairly far off on the US version.
> 
> First of all, of course, every state has their own tax code, and what's taxable in one state can vary pretty wildly from what's in another state. But yes, I can't think of any state that puts a sales tax on donations -- unless the donation gets you a good or service in return. In that case, you may have to pay sales tax on the value of the good or service. So, for example, if I donate $50, but that donation gets me $20 worth of goodies, in some states I'd have to pay sales tax on $20 of my donation. (This is to keep stores from just saying "No, no, we're not _selling_ our stuff -- we're just _giving_ it away, in return for a fixed set of 'donations'. So there's no salex tax on that.")
> 
> ...


 
Fun...yay for us goofy Canadians... sucks for you people though...damn...glad my government sees most furry as "Anti-Animal Cruelty" or something along those lines...but man...thats TERRIBLE!!

Canada 1      US 0

Suxors to the extreme!


----------



## Rhainor (Jul 4, 2008)

dmfalk said:


> (I figure about 3300, but I could seriously be off, either way)





Artie said:


> As of this post, the forum alone has 9903 registered members.  I'm sure the actual FA site has WAY more than that, because you have to register for the forum entirely separately, they don't share the same user database.





dmfalk said:


> Damn.... @.@
> 
> *loses his shorts*
> 
> ...



Last figure I can remember hearing was that the FA main site had (I _think_; I'm not in the slightest sure that my memory is correct here) over 80,000 registered user accounts.  Now, plenty of those are banned, or people with multiple accounts, or just abandoned, but that's still a shitload of users.


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## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 4, 2008)

Rhainor said:


> Last figure I can remember hearing was that the FA main site had (I _think_; I'm not in the slightest sure that my memory is correct here) over 80,000 registered user accounts.  Now, plenty of those are banned, or people with multiple accounts, or just abandoned, but that's still a shitload of users.



A potential of 2 million bucks? @.@


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## Rhainor (Jul 4, 2008)

Daddy Ducky BE said:


> A potential of 2 million bucks? @.@



I wouldn't go that far.

But, for example, let's say there are 50,000 _active_ users.  If each one of them donates just _one dollar_, that's fifty thousand dollars.


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## THEO1 (Jul 4, 2008)

as of this post

Total Collected: 	
US $6,931.35
# of Payments: 	
289

are the standings... i wish i myself could have helped out but i can definitely say... OMFG!!!! to everyone who donated even a cent... thank you  this is the truth behind the FA community... our community... was in need, and those who could, broke their piggy banks and gave all they could... a special thanks to you indeed. it restores my faith in humanity to see so many people actually care about something like this.

and again, a a heartfelt thank you goes out to the moderator team for keeping the site running as smoothly as you can, working your hardest to fix everything, putting up with the drama, and just generally caring so much about the FA community, from what i hear often giving out of your own pockets to take care of it.


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## Anepo (Jul 4, 2008)

i did not donate  Wish i could of though. Im going to canada next month and am completely financially unable to help. wont even have enough money to stay for 1 month like i had planned but will still stay because a friend will help me there. But great job everyone who donated. It shows we stick together.


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## Hanzo (Jul 4, 2008)

bout time we are getting a new server


----------



## Ralesk (Jul 4, 2008)

KickahaOta said:


> If Fur Affinity were to apply to be a US charity, the exchange of letters and phone calls would be a heck of a lot of fun to watch, but the result wouldn't be what we're hoping for. ("We are sorry, but after careful consideration, we conclude that 'furry porn' is not fit the charitable classification of 'educational literature'.")



Hahah XD  Thatâ€™d be definitely interesting to read, yes XD


----------



## RANQuickFox (Jul 4, 2008)

so thats what, ~$7000 in 2 days? That link on the 403 error page helped a great deal I am sure, as visiting these forums is a pastime few of the member base would seem to indulge, but checking the site to see if its back up yet is something that most users would be doing daily once they realize that it down.

It is good to know that this community has enough members willing to pay their dues to help bring this service back as soon as possible... I cant think of many communities of this size who would be so quick to donate their hard earned money for a service they were used to getting for free; clearly an indication that we don't take FA for granted :grin:


----------



## Echo_wulf (Jul 4, 2008)

OMG awesome ^.^ i wish i could have donated myself... but im still waiting for payday... this is awesome i love how we can all ban together and support this ^.^ good luck and best wishes to the future investments ^.^


----------



## Danza (Jul 4, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> Due to the 4th of July weekend we have no choice but to wait until Monday to put in the order as it is. So we'll continue to try to raise money into this weekend.
> 
> At this point, we'll be adding a Dell PowerEdge 2970 and 1950 to the system. As more donations come in, we'll add more RAM to existing servers and see what we can do about upgrading other things, like processors. We could potentially jump the DB server to dual quad-core CPUs and add much more firepower to the entire system.
> 
> ...



Awesome, thats what I wanted to hear *muurs* =D

Hardware aside the team should consider making software tweaks all the same, the biggest downside to FA that I have noticed is the complexity of the menus and general interface, especially to new comers :3


----------



## Kanic (Jul 4, 2008)

I am very glad to see that there are generous furs within the fandom. I donated $100 myself not meaning to brag but still, it shows how close knit the FA community is.


----------



## 2ndVenus (Jul 4, 2008)

*kisses Kanic* You have a heart of gold...or something even rarer ^^


----------



## Baby Giraffe (Jul 4, 2008)

*rock fingers* W00T! And people think furries are heartless sex addicts.

Almost 7 grand in the matter of days! You guys need to give yourselfs a pat on the back. I'm donateing today as it's payday!

We Require Moar RAM!!


----------



## Riguel (Jul 4, 2008)

Happy *Fur*th of July Everyone! ^__^


----------



## Kahn (Jul 4, 2008)

I wish I could donate, but I just can't do it. That however doesn't mean I don't care, because I do want to see things get better for the servers and stuff, I'm just not financially able to help out like I would've liked to. I do wish the team luck in getting everything up as quickly and smoothly as possible.


----------



## Drecano (Jul 4, 2008)

I didn't realize FA pwned the target goal by 3k.....heh I just asked for the Paypal info so I could send too.  Still gonna contribute though and whenever I can in the future.


----------



## Drakkenlupen (Jul 4, 2008)

Let's see if we can hit 10K by Monday.  
That's bound to keep FA running for about forever. And make the coders happy. And give us a shiny search bar. And make me stop replying on this forum.


----------



## kaarsten (Jul 4, 2008)

Holy -insert colorful language here-!

Nearly 7k?!

Dude.

Whoah. That's... A lot.


----------



## Netsuko (Jul 4, 2008)

It's good to see that even a small fraction of this large community manages to pulll togheter such a huge amount of money in only a matter of days.

Way to go everyone! :-D


----------



## Odjit-Sanura (Jul 4, 2008)

Happy Furth of July to the neighbours south of Canada!  

On the note of the serer, I would have donated myself but Im kinda broke from being sick and my paycheck being shorted this month.

im glad things will once again after the weekend be back up and running smoothly soon


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 4, 2008)

kaarsten said:


> Holy -insert colorful language here-!
> 
> Nearly 7k?!
> 
> ...



That's just the Amazon side of the donations, which hasn't been updated in over 12 hours as of this writing.

Don't stop! 

d.m.f.


----------



## Dragzonox (Jul 4, 2008)

Not so long ago, I found FA... (She told me?)
It's quite a nice site, or... I think it's the best Furry Fandom[FONT=&quot][/FONT] site there is, because it's pretty much free of prejudice (as far as I know)..
Now I want it up as fast as possible..
-sending random amount of money to FA-


----------



## KickahaOta (Jul 4, 2008)

So clearly the Amazon counter is broken again -- it hasn't budged from [FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica][SIZE=-1]$6,931.35 for at least a day. Any bets on where it will be when it updates again? If the donation trend has kept up, it may well be at $10K by now (and that's not even counting the PayPal donations).

Dragoneer-or-anybody-else-who-would-know, is the counter the amount that people have donated, or the amount that FA will actually get? (Amazon keeps 2.9% plus 30 cents of each donation; so with 289 donations and $6931.35 on the board, that means Amazon will have kept about $216 for the 2.9-percent part, plus $86.70 for the 30-cents part -- about 300 bucks in all. What's not clear is whether the 'tote board' shows the total before or after the 300 bucks have been taken out.)
[/SIZE][/FONT]


----------



## Growly (Jul 4, 2008)

WOW!! I just wanna say, congrats everyone on raising SO much money!
I donated my pitiful contribution, but now I don't feel quite as bad about being poor, since everyone else chipped in as well. ^^ Good job team!


----------



## GeckoGurl (Jul 4, 2008)

Wow I'm impressed with all of the donations!  Yayz and thanks to everyone who donated!  You can really tell when a website is more of a community when everyone can pull together and help out when times are hard.

*Pat everyone on back who was able to donate*

Bayru


----------



## snake_mearano (Jul 4, 2008)

Hey all;

Holy crap, great job everybody! But don't think I'm not going to chip my $$$ in as well, as soon as Paypal confirms my account.

OH well! At least we can see the full magnitude of people at their best, willing to give what they can for the good of their kind. ^_^

Makes me proud, and definitely helps to restore my faith in the fact that world isn't full of stupid people. At least, not totally. : )

Keep it up everybody! This way we'll have our server back, and we might even have enough for another one! Woot!


----------



## Vitae (Jul 4, 2008)

edit: you know what, nevermind.

Let me just say this,
if it were actually worth paying money for this site, I would.
If you all offered something, say like a pay service, in return for a monthly donation I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Further edit:
Seriously, offer something in return for my money. Say, like Deviantart. 
Offer larger thumbnails, bigger upload disk space, ability to have a "paid featured artist", SEARCH FUNCTIONS, maybe even a print service. 
Even say, an ad free environment.
I would be willing to pay upwards of 10$ a month for this, and I'm sure MANY here would as well.


----------



## nrr (Jul 4, 2008)

Vitae said:


> Holy crap
> I can't believe people pay for this.
> Wow.


inorite!

But, then again, these people have a sophomoric obsession with sex and porn, so it's only logical that they pay for this.

... even when half of these people don't have steady jobs.


----------



## OxfordTweed (Jul 4, 2008)

Vitae said:


> edit: you know what, nevermind.
> 
> Let me just say this,
> if it were actually worth paying money for this site, I would.
> ...




In what way is it not worth paying for the site? Yes, I agree that it would be kind of cool to have subscription incentives, but not having them is no reason not to donate.

EDIT: Everything's gone through, and I put an early donation in. End of the month donation will go through for anything purchased after today.


----------



## kerus (Jul 4, 2008)

Looks like the amazon counter has been updated again!

Collected: US $8,857.02
# of Payments:389


----------



## Sslaxx (Jul 4, 2008)

Vitae said:


> edit: you know what, nevermind.
> 
> Let me just say this,
> if it were actually worth paying money for this site, I would.
> ...


<--------------- Door is that way.

Bye.


----------



## kaarsten (Jul 4, 2008)

It's not long before I'll be able to say it...

>


----------



## nrr (Jul 4, 2008)

Sslaxx said:


> <--------------- Door is that way.
> 
> Bye.


You know, your pompous attitude sometimes pisses me off.  No wonder Jess pressed as many buttons as she did.


----------



## Monak (Jul 4, 2008)

if they keep getting donations through monday I bet it will be close if not over 20 thousand from both sites.  That is if no one renigs on Amazon


----------



## Dusty-Waber (Jul 4, 2008)

Redregon said:


> it's great that people are getting involved and i don't want to be a wet blanket, but a request to keep the comments at the least partially on topic? awesome! thanks!



im all for keeping on topic, but you werent even on topic  yourself xD

the original topic was the crashes, not fa getting a paid subscriptiion, that was one of the sub topics in this discussion, so dont say we need to stay on topic~


----------



## ArielMT (Jul 4, 2008)

Riguel said:


> Happy *Fur*th of July Everyone! ^__^


I see what you did there.


CrystalMendrilia said:


> *smiles* I've really enjoyed my time here, and look forward to the site returning, as I know it will. AND I feel it is important for those of you whom run the site to realize that you DESERVE a BIG Ego Boost! Why? Because you've raised this much money from a bunch of porn adicts who don't want to pay money, artists who are thankful for all you've done for us, kids who persuaded their parents to pay a bit of money to help out their favorite site, and those like me, who can't donate and feel like crap for it! I just can't. I have a job (that's waiting for me) I have no money! >.< Otherwise I would have donated.


That ought to say something about the more furry kind of porn addicts...  We who got furry porn for free are giving freely, without requirement or coercion, to ensure it stays free.  FA is a wonderful site for furry art of all types.  And...  um...  of all types.

And what good is a site if its visitors make themselves too broke to get 'Net access?  The thought counts, too, but just don't forget to act once you can.  :3


> One Dollar X 100 people downing "Just a Dollar" =$100 towards Fur Affinity and UPGRADES for BETTER servers, and fall back funds for the next crash!
> 
> You might think it's nothing, or you might think "Eh, the goal was met..." BUT Fur Affinity is a great site, and if you like it... VOTE FOR IT!


Seconded.

What I'd like to see is a micropayment donation subscription similar to what twit.tv uses.  Just set it and forget it.


----------



## Sslaxx (Jul 4, 2008)

nrr said:


> You know, your pompous attitude sometimes pisses me off.  No wonder Jess pressed as many buttons as she did.


Eh? Learn the difference between pompous and facetious, please, whoever you are.


----------



## SammyFox (Jul 4, 2008)

I don't agree with a yearly or monthly charge for the privilege of using furaffinity, especially since most of us don't have credit cards and paypal's too stupid to not bitch about a site like furaffinity.

if I were to have to pay and I didn't have any mean to pay, and I'd get kicked out from the site just because of that, that'd really suck.

imagine if you were to kick out hundreds of users who don't have a way to pay? that'd be very bad.


----------



## nrr (Jul 4, 2008)

Sslaxx said:


> Eh? Learn the difference between pompous and facetious, please, whoever you are.


There is no need.  You do have a penchant for being an upstanding douchebag at times, and I'm calling you out on it.

Again, it's not surprising that she pressed as many buttons as she did.  You have the gall to dish it out, but you don't have the appropriate equipment to take it.


----------



## Drakaji (Jul 4, 2008)

*Re: Wow*



Dragoneer said:


> If the Amazon alone breaks $10K I'll do something ultra special for the site. I don't know what yet, but... I'll figure it out.




[FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica][SIZE=-1]*Total Collected:*[/SIZE][/FONT]  [FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica][SIZE=-1]US $8,857.02[/SIZE][/FONT]​      [FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica][SIZE=-1]*# of Payments:*[/SIZE][/FONT]  [FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica][SIZE=-1]389[/SIZE][/FONT]​

Hahah, better start planning.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

Eevee said:


> I _am_ a member of the FA staff and I still think this (and the six thousand other comments echoing the same sentiment) is woefully naive.
> 
> The site does not _cost_ anything to use, but that does not mean it has no value or is otherwise worthless.  People have poured tremendous amounts of time and resources into FA -- whether by donating, working on it directly, adding to the community, merely using it to arrange their art and talk to other furs, or otherwise contributing their loyalty, mindshare, content, social networking, free advertising, etc.  In exchange, they rightfully expect some degree of reliability and stability, amongst other things.  If FA dies, true, nobody is out any money, but everyone loses the effort and faith they had poured into it.  I don't blame anyone who would feel betrayed, although I would hope they'd also have the sense to recognize the inherent problems that are going to crop up when a free (and originally completely unprofitable) site hits critical mass.
> 
> ...



Heh, I'm glad someone finally said that... That's my opinion, too. Only reason I didn't say something like that is because I thought I'd get hounded on cause of it. I mean, most people seem to care more about money than time and effort. It's kinda sad, actually.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

DrGamez said:


> Well how about a dragon kick to the face to make you go round?



BOOT TO THE HEAD *kicks the rude person in the head*
lol, the Frantics XD


----------



## Geraden (Jul 4, 2008)

nrr said:


> There is no need.  You do have a penchant for being an upstanding douchebag at times, and I'm calling you out on it.



http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/upstanding


----------



## yak (Jul 4, 2008)

.
.
.

Anyone who continues insulting each other after this post get banned for a week.

.
.
.


----------



## WarMocK (Jul 4, 2008)

Kraton said:


> BOOT TO THE HEAD *kicks the rude person in the head*
> lol, the Frantics XD


aaaw please, you wanna make your hands dirty on such a $insertproperwordhere? ;-)

Just visited the Buck-O-Meter again: $8,857.02, 389 donations.
I wonder what will come first: 400 donations, or $10000?


----------



## Seth C Triggs (Jul 4, 2008)

I added 10 bucks. I am very proud of the fundraising effort! This is really great news.

-Seth


----------



## Geraden (Jul 4, 2008)

WarMocK said:


> aaaw please, you wanna make your hands dirty on such a $insertproperwordhere? ;-)
> 
> Just visited the Buck-O-Meter again: $8,857.02, 389 donations.
> I wonder what will come first: 400 donations, or $10000?



Given the average donation amount, likely 400 donations.  The average would have to go up to $103 to crack 10k first.


----------



## WarMocK (Jul 4, 2008)

Geraden said:


> Given the average donation amount, likely 400 donations.  The average would have to go up to $103 to crack 10k first.


Oh great, you just ripped me out of my dream-mode ... *sniff!*


----------



## Sslaxx (Jul 4, 2008)

Seth C Triggs said:


> I added 10 bucks. I am very proud of the fundraising effort! This is really great news.
> 
> -Seth


It's excellent news! I'm looking forward to seeing what the new servers will do to the performance of FA.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

So what's the current amount at now? Have they reached their 4k goal?


----------



## WarMocK (Jul 4, 2008)

Kraton said:


> So what's the current amount at now? Have they reached their 4k goal?


$8,857.02 on Amazon, not counting in the money they got via PayPal. xD


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

WarMocK said:


> $8,857.02 on Amazon, not counting in the money they got via PayPal. xD



O_O
So then they now have enough to get the new server? Yay! ^_^

We should all have a big FA party!


----------



## Anepo (Jul 4, 2008)

lol ^^ maybe i should start a website like this ^^ then i would get a visa for canada for sure lol. after my trip to canada now to apply for an immigration and visiting a friend i will have maybe 1000$ if my work place pays for the injuries i got 2 days ago this month otherwise gona have about 100$ lol ^^ But well done people. 
(and yea im NOT asking for money lol.) The last thing i wish to do is ask for money. although my entire family asks me for money. if i hadnt helped them i would of had 25k right now hehehe instead of 1k ^^ Now im WAY off topic sorry im just super bored at home atm. but yea.....

Well a job well done... Search engine in order anyone? just make sure you buy a powerful enough server to handle it ^^ And yea to the USA: Happy 4th of july.


----------



## ANTIcarrot (Jul 4, 2008)

Amazing Amazon donate-o-meter:
http://zme.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/my-pay-page/P2AS2N2AKBDLV4/104-0155161-6415102

Currently up to $8,860.

Can the admins buy a Dell server yet?


----------



## Sslaxx (Jul 4, 2008)

If http://forums.furaffinity.net/showpost.php?p=466214&postcount=1 is anything to go by, then they should be able to come Monday, yes!


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

Sslaxx said:


> If http://forums.furaffinity.net/showpost.php?p=466214&postcount=1 is anything to go by, then they should be able to come Monday, yes!



Heh, very expensive indeed. I hope I can start donating as soon as I get my job and first paycheck. I'd best take a look at that Amazon site and see if I can figure out how donations work ahead of time. I don't want to waste time being confused when the time comes around to donate. ^^


----------



## ShadowComet (Jul 4, 2008)

Vitae said:


> edit: you know what, nevermind.
> 
> Let me just say this,
> if it were actually worth paying money for this site, I would.
> ...


 


Sslaxx said:


> <--------------- Door is that way.
> 
> Bye.


 


nrr said:


> You know, your pompous attitude sometimes pisses me off. No wonder Jess pressed as many buttons as she did.


 
Sslaxx is correct in his comment, FA has no invasive Ads and only Ads that apply to our Fandom that we enjoy so much, compare to other porn sites and you'll toss your "Ad free environment" speech out the window. A good reason to leave image sizes the way they are is a good way to prevent plagerism, if you have the original size image, it makes it easier to claim. Admitting a search bar would be nice, but honestly I get by with the semi tag search.

If anyone is being pompus, it's those who want FA to start charging people or benefit people who give donations, we aren't all from relatively rich families, and as someone else had stated further back, those who did donate, about half or more probably shouldn't have donated cause they need their money, which means they can't do it all the time, or in the amount it would be worth giving "Extras" for.

I would love to donate to FA, but the problem is, I make $0 at this time, and probably for a while. So now ask yourselves who is really being pompus?

Congrats to Dragoneer and his team on the $9000 in donations, may this amount prove that we don't need special program treatment.


----------



## Cypress131 (Jul 4, 2008)

*throws money at*
>.<;

My vision is clear, and cause is just!...
*looks under couch cushions for more*

Let's a get a nice one. :3

edit: I agree with ShadowComet and Sslaxx. 'Donations' shouldn't be given for benefits in return. Anyone who donates, then asks for compensation, doesn't understand the definition or context of the word.
I don't get a paycheck, but to keep the site up, running, and efficient in a time of need, I'd gladly pitch in what I can. As would most people here.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> Sslaxx is correct in his comment, FA has no invasive Ads and only Ads that apply to our Fandom that we enjoy so much, compare to other porn sites and you'll toss your "Ad free environment" speech out the window. A good reason to leave image sizes the way they are is a good way to prevent plagerism, if you have the original size image, it makes it easier to claim. Admitting a search bar would be nice, but honestly I get by with the semi tag search.
> 
> If anyone is being pompus, it's those who want FA to start charging people or benefit people who give donations, we aren't all from relatively rich families, and as someone else had stated further back, those who did donate, about half or more probably shouldn't have donated cause they need their money, which means they can't do it all the time, or in the amount it would be worth giving "Extras" for.
> 
> ...



Well said man. ^^


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

Cypress131 said:


> *throws money at*
> >.<;
> 
> My vision is clear, and cause is just!...
> ...



Yep, same here. In fact, if I had a steady income and a means to donate, I would donate just because I love the site so much and wish to see it continue as it already has been.

And, in a sense, we already get a lot back for our donations. We have FA, and the way it is now, that's good enough for me. Donations are a way to show our gratitude to the FA mods for the wonderful place to hang out they've provided.
I love it here/there, and if I had $1000 to my name right now, I'd donate all of it, regardless of all the things I currently need that money for.

Unfortunately, I have 0$ to my name. I could likely sell this computer for $10, but that'd be kinds pointless, wouldn't you agree?

I full well intend to donate as soon as I have a good steady income.


----------



## SDWolf (Jul 4, 2008)

ShadowComet said:
			
		

> If anyone is being pompus, it's those who want FA to start charging people or benefit people who give donations, we aren't all from relatively rich families, and as someone else had stated further back, those who did donate, about half or more probably shouldn't have donated cause they need their money, which means they can't do it all the time, or in the amount it would be worth giving "Extras" for.
> 
> I would love to donate to FA, but the problem is, I make $0 at this time, and probably for a while. So now ask yourselves who is really being pompus?


 
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you on this point, though only this point.

If the FA admins are considering offering a paid account option, they are well within their rights to do so, and the users are well within their rights to suggest it. FA could clearly benefit from having a steady income of some kind, and I think the admins have already made it clear that they wouldn't take functionality away from free accounts if they went this route.

As I posted here, I would pay just to have the _option_ of turning off the ads and the _option_ of having a star or other such indicator by my name, and that's it. Nothing more.

Why make it optional? Because I'm sure there are many who, despite paying, would still prefer to leave the ads on, or would prefer not to be publically recognized as a paid member. Is that pompus? I don't think so.

Edit: And to be clear, I'm not talking about getting perks for donating (which would be a bad idea). Rather, I'm talking about the idea of FA offering a paid membership option, vaguely similar the model that LiveJournal uses, though not so elaborate.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

SDWolf said:


> I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you on this point, though only this point.
> 
> If the FA admins are considering offering a paid account option, they are well within their rights to do so, and the users are well within their rights to suggest it. FA could clearly benefit from having a steady income of some kind, and I think the admins have already made it clear that they wouldn't take functionality away from free accounts if they went this route.
> 
> ...



Well, that's not so bad. ^^
I don't think it's pompus. Frankly, I wouldn't mind that at all, just so long as FA doesn't change the way it currently is. I love it too much to see it change, though something small like being able to make adds invisible or simply a nice little golden star (really pointless decoration) next to one's name, isn't a bad thing. It certainly doesn't change enough to make me want to leave.

Edit: Though really, I still like the idea of donating out of gratitude towards the site.
FA is.. my online home. Regardless of the art there, it's the people that make me want to stay.
I've never fit in anywhere better.


----------



## Redregon (Jul 4, 2008)

SDWolf said:


> I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you on this point, though only this point.
> 
> If the FA admins are considering offering a paid account option, they are well within their rights to do so, and the users are well within their rights to suggest it. FA could clearly benefit from having a steady income of some kind, and I think the admins have already made it clear that they wouldn't take functionality away from free accounts if they went this route.
> 
> ...



not trying to sound like a troll or whatever, but no matter what direction the site is taken in, even if it's no change, Someone will complain about it. it's just human nature. 

as it stands, it would be cool to see this turn into something more than just a free site, but you know what, in the end, it's not my call to make. i can make suggestions, but that's all that they are and i accept that.

and on a semi related note, i've got the itch to do some drawings... can someone direct me to a OC exchange kinda thing? (you can PM if you would rather not clog up this thread.)


----------



## xionos (Jul 4, 2008)

ANTIcarrot said:


> Amazing Amazon donate-o-meter:
> http://zme.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/my-pay-page/P2AS2N2AKBDLV4/104-0155161-6415102
> 
> Currently up to $8,860.
> ...



Getting a Dell would be a baaaaaaaad idea ^^;


----------



## ShadowComet (Jul 4, 2008)

SDWolf said:


> I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you on this point, though only this point.
> 
> If the FA admins are considering offering a paid account option, they are well within their rights to do so, and the users are well within their rights to suggest it. FA could clearly benefit from having a steady income of some kind, and I think the admins have already made it clear that they wouldn't take functionality away from free accounts if they went this route.
> 
> ...


 
Your idea is broken. There are already a number of things to distinguish people, and you want to add another one? Are you trying to make people feel inferior? We already feel inferior in a number of ways and you want to add yet another one? And the Ads thing is really getting stupid, cause I haven't seen one yet that didn't apply to the Fandom, I don't care how annoyed people 'think' they are at the Ads, because each one has a furry purpose. Now if it was MTV ads or other such things, then your 'options' idea would be justified, but in this case, it just isn't.

Thankyou for proving just how pompus people with money backing them can really be.

And if I get banned for this, it proves just one thing, that I'm absolutely 100% right.


----------



## cesarin (Jul 4, 2008)

just like conventions, they should add "supersponsor" kind of stuff, for month or for year.. golden page, badges... special stuff ( free posters?.. ) and other shit would do 


anyway *donates a bit of money*


----------



## SachiCoon (Jul 4, 2008)

In all honesty, I really don't see the harm in offering FA users paid subscriptions, so long as that doesn't take away from what the free accounts have always had. No one is being forced to pay for anything on this site aside from the maintainers, so how is offering something a little extra to the users who ARE willing to pay something doing any harm? It's not pompous or arrogant in the least bit. 

Depending on what the paid subscriptions offer, I'd totally be willing to get a subscription if that's something that is decided on in the future.


----------



## Koda (Jul 4, 2008)

Its like how LiveJournal does it. 

3 levels: 
1. Free no ads, all the same features, just less user icons basically
2. Ad-supported, more user icons
3. Pay-for, no ads, more user icons

I'm sure I'm missing some stuff there, but I could care less. I'm happy with level 1 membership there, as I don't use it much. But yeah, I'd support something *inexpensive and not monthly (either quarterly or yearly), $4.15 a month would translate to 50 bucks a year* which would really just give some sort of gold star type thing near your name that said Hey! This person gave us money! Lets make them feel special <3. 

RSS for FA paid users. Now that would be something I'd pay for!! The way I currently browse FA is just go through messages first, then go through browse until I start seeing stuff I've seen before. RSS would ROCK for that.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

Redregon said:


> not trying to sound like a troll or whatever, but no matter what direction the site is taken in, even if it's no change, Someone will complain about it. it's just human nature.
> 
> as it stands, it would be cool to see this turn into something more than just a free site, but you know what, in the end, it's not my call to make. i can make suggestions, but that's all that they are and i accept that.
> 
> and on a semi related note, i've got the itch to do some drawings... can someone direct me to a OC exchange kinda thing? (you can PM if you would rather not clog up this thread.)



True. And neither would I complain at all if there were some way to subscribe to FA... I simply don't want my FA experience to change at all, nor would I want to see anyone leave because of a silly little issue like donating and subscribing.

Ooh, another idea to add to what you get for subscribing (if they decided to do that), how about a News Letter being sent to your email whenever there is something special going, likely related to the adds themselves?

Or... wait, is there already a news letter? I have no idea. If there is, I mighta turned that option to receive them off...
 *shrugs*


----------



## ShadowComet (Jul 4, 2008)

SachiCoon said:


> In all honesty, I really don't see the harm in offering FA users paid subscriptions, so long as that doesn't take away from what the free accounts have always had. No one is being forced to pay for anything on this site aside from the maintainers, so how is offering something a little extra to the users who ARE willing to pay something doing any harm? It's not pompous or arrogant in the least bit.
> 
> Depending on what the paid subscriptions offer, I'd totally be willing to get a subscription if that's something that is decided on in the future.


 
This is just what the problem is, we don't need anything else, we really don't. You want extras, go somewhere else that will give them to you, lets keep FA a free and FAIR site for anyone who logs on.

I believe in a level of equality that has no exceptions, you give it to one person in any way shape or form, then you give it to everyone, and if those magical people want to subscribe, then everyone has to, basically to say you can't eat your cake and have it too.


----------



## SachiCoon (Jul 4, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> lets keep FA a free and FAIR site for anyone who logs on.



You seem to forget that the site ISN'T free for anyone that logs on. It should be obvious by now that every penny spent to keep this site up and going is coming straight out of Dragoneer's bank account, and all for the sake to keep FA up and going for YOUR entertainment. You think THAT'S fair? Yeah, okay, he's gotten a shit ton of donations, but all by people who've done so by choice.


----------



## Dragoneer (Jul 4, 2008)

KickahaOta said:


> [FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica][SIZE=-1]Dragoneer-or-anybody-else-who-would-know, is the counter the amount that people have donated, or the amount that FA will actually get? (Amazon keeps 2.9% plus 30 cents of each donation; so with 289 donations and $6931.35 on the board, that means Amazon will have kept about $216 for the 2.9-percent part, plus $86.70 for the 30-cents part -- about 300 bucks in all. What's not clear is whether the 'tote board' shows the total before or after the 300 bucks have been taken out.)
> [/SIZE][/FONT]


The Amazon donations show what you donated, not the end amount we get. For all Paypal and all Amazon donations you can subtract roughly 3% to get the end total. I only report the figure of money actually get on our side, though will calculate full donations -vs- actual amount when I report the final figure, just for accuracy's sake... and to show how awesome this community is.


Growly said:


> I donated my pitiful contribution, but now I don't feel quite as bad about being poor, since everyone else chipped in as well. ^^ Good job team!


Every lil' bit helps. 


kerus said:


> Looks like the amazon counter has been updated again!
> 
> Collected: US $8,857.02
> # of Payments:389


Great Scott!


----------



## MilkJunkie (Jul 4, 2008)

SachiCoon said:


> In all honesty, I really don't see the harm in offering FA users paid subscriptions, so long as that doesn't take away from what the free accounts have always had. No one is being forced to pay for anything on this site aside from the maintainers, so how is offering something a little extra to the users who ARE willing to pay something doing any harm? It's not pompous or arrogant in the least bit.
> 
> Depending on what the paid subscriptions offer, I'd totally be willing to get a subscription if that's something that is decided on in the future.


 
Yeah, I can see where that's a good idea. I mean, jeez... this started as some conversation about servers, now everyone's whining and complaining about some sort of superiority complex they have all thanks to the idea that we'd have some kind of added service for those who paid.

Well, here's an idea. If you don't like that idea, then don't even bat an eyelash at the idea of paying. As Sachi said, no one is being forced to pay, and if they feel inclined to pay just to be "superior," then that's an issue they need to work out by themselves... or with a professional. 

Think about it this way. Most people don't do charity. It's a bad thing to think about, but it's true. Unless people are actually getting something for their money (goods, services), odds are they aren't going to cough up the dough. So, giving something to those who donate usually works to convince people to do so - thus being in FA's favour. Admittedly, some people probably think that if they give money, then they're paying for FA, which is true quite frankly... But some people probably just don't think in such a manner, or as many people have said, don't have enough money just to give a random amount for nothing.

But personally I say go for it. Offer some kind of paid membership service! What harm could it do? People who don't wanna pay or can't obviously won't/don't have to. So stop whining about it! It's going to be the same FA one way or the other no matter what happens, and we'll still be saving our superiority complexes for all the artists who are better than us.


----------



## SDWolf (Jul 4, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> Your idea is broken. There are already a number of things to distinguish people, and you want to add another one? Are you trying to make people feel inferior? We already feel inferior in a number of ways and you want to add yet another one?


 
Who's "we?" This isn't about making people feel superior over others, it's about supporting FA. Most services show a tag/icon/star/whatever on their paid members by default; I'm advocating an option NOT to show it if one so chooses.



ShadowComet said:


> And the Ads thing is really getting stupid, cause I haven't seen one yet that didn't apply to the Fandom, I don't care how annoyed people 'think' they are at the Ads, because each one has a furry purpose. Now if it was MTV ads or other such things, then your 'options' idea would be justified, but in this case, it just isn't.


 
The purpose of the ads is to earn income for FA. To wit: Every time you see and/or click on an ad, you are, in essence, indirectly paying FA. I would rather pay FA directly and be given the option to turn off the ads.



ShadowComet said:


> Thankyou for proving just how pompus people with money backing them can really be.


 
*You're welcome.* I _wish_ I had money backing me. Between my student loans, my car payment, and my rent, I work my ass off to pay my bills. And I still think a paid membership option would be a good idea.



ShadowComet said:


> And if I get banned for this, it proves just one thing, that I'm absolutely 100% right.


 
Meh.... There's no future in being a wannabe martyr.


----------



## Dragoneer (Jul 4, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> I believe in a level of equality that has no exceptions, you give it to one person in any way shape or form, then you give it to everyone, and if those magical people want to subscribe, then everyone has to, basically to say you can't eat your cake and have it too.


While a great idea, this only truly works in a communist-like approach to things when you work for the greater good and everybody pitches in with the same equality. Since that's not how life works... neither can the site. Our donation drive to fix and improve the site has broken all expectations, but this is one event -vs- the longevity of the site itself.

In the end my philosophy is to give everybody cake, and if some people want extra icing, we'll give them extra icing.


----------



## ShadowComet (Jul 4, 2008)

SachiCoon said:


> You seem to forget that the site ISN'T free for anyone that logs on. It should be obvious by now that every penny spent to keep this site up and going is coming straight out of Dragoneer's bank account, and all for the sake to keep FA up and going for YOUR entertainment. You think THAT'S fair? Yeah, okay, he's gotten a shit ton of donations, but all by people who've done so by choice.


 
Then donate by choice, and I know full well where the money comes from, don't you dare suggest otherwise, and I mean don't even dare try. The whole reason he got donations up and running was so he could address the issue of funds. This whole subscription by choice, gold stars, and other crap, does not make things equal, not by a long shot.

Another thing about equality, I don't care if your black, white, red, green, barbie, ken, male female, christian, buhdist, muslim, or bloody super man, you be an idiot and your gonna get a smack for some additude adjustment.


----------



## TheFlamingJam (Jul 4, 2008)

Koda said:


> Its like how LiveJournal does it.
> 
> 3 levels:
> 1. Free no ads, all the same features, just less user icons basically
> ...



Minor thing here: LJ no longer allows you to choose #1 (probably because it doesn't generate any revenue from them).


----------



## Anbessa (Jul 4, 2008)

so, as soon as I receive a paypal addy I'm going to throw in a couple euros.

anyway, a subscription would be a nice thing, although optional only. I agree wholly and fully that the page itself shoudl be free for all, and remain so. the users wandering off so they wouldn't have to pay say we, $5 would leave a vacuum. (all the while spending hundres of male ungulates to the latest video game without a second thought, of course)
donation via eGold sounds acceptable to me, but I wouldn't be much help... I rarely sell a comission via FA.  but then again, I don't have to live off it, as others do. there I can understand ressentiments against that. so, let's keep that system also an option, shall we?

forgot the name, but someone here mentioned limiting one's galery to 20 images tops. I say, WTF?
why should I limit my galery to 20 pics only, when a week at work can create 30 scribbles that I all deem worthy showing around? why should I not be able to show interested people where I come from, art-wise?
memory is cheap nowadays. it's also NOT the issue, as has been stated numerous times. besides, that idea is stupid.

@Akinoko: the images in your fav list are not re-posted, they are _linked_ to their original place. so if you click it, it sends you back there. which means, not much extra memory is wasted with huge fav galeries... besides, memory is, guess what? cheap. ^^ 
I can only speak for myself, but I have a large collection of my favourite artists on my hard drive, so why having someone else burn it onto a DVD, when loading it onto an USB and hitting a copy shop would be cheaper?


I also want to say a huge thank you to the FA staff, to everyone! despite the few outages since I have hit that page with the upload of 250 of my 'best' images in one day (sorry for that, I should have been more easy on all users) I feel at home at FA, spending my most time there since then. and this means something...


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

MilkJunkie said:


> Think about it this way. Most people don't do charity. It's a bad thing to think about, but it's true. Unless people are actually getting something for their money (goods, services), odds are they aren't going to cough up the dough. So, giving something to those who donate usually works to convince people to do so - thus being in FA's favour. Admittedly, some people probably think that if they give money, then they're paying for FA, which is true quite frankly... But some people probably just don't think in such a manner, or as many people have said, don't have enough money just to give a random amount for nothing.
> 
> But personally I say go for it. Offer some kind of paid membership service! What harm could it do? People who don't wanna pay or can't obviously won't/don't have to. So stop whining about it! It's going to be the same FA one way or the other no matter what happens, and we'll still be saving our superiority complexes for all the artists who are better than us.



Quite true, and I wish you guys would stop arguing about it, cause it really won't harm anyone. Donaters and (if they make that option possible in the future) Subscribers aren't better than anyone at all, and no one should be applauded for paying any sort of money, because we're all equal, and I say we should all be applauded JUST for being part of the community.

And personally, what could you ask for more than what they're giving anyway? Subscribing is pointless because of this one point:
It's still donating.
Why is it still donating? Well look at it this way:
Isn't FA awesome already? Could you REALLY say that you could do ANYTHING to make it any BETTER than it already is?
FA is my favourite place to be on the web. Simple. Add in some tiny options for those who wish to donate, and you're not changing anything at all. The only reason for subscribers is for those who wish to make themselves _look_ greedy by trying to get something MORE out of their donations.

You know what you get for donating? FA. That's what we get for giving, both money and TIME. We all put in SOME FORM of effort to make FA better, don't we? FA would not be FA without it's members, and so we are what makes FA so amazing. Donating is simply because we love to be here, and we ALL don't want to see FA die because of lack of some green pieces of paper.

I DON'T WANT anything MORE than I've already got, and if giving up money to keep FA the way it is, and keep us all happy is important, then I do it freely cause money means nothing to me. My friends, my family, all those I've grown to care about over FA. They are what matters most to me.

So if you want to pay money, regardless of if it's donating or subscribing (I see no difference in the end), go ahead. Your reward for paying is knowing you did more than expected and helped us ALL to be happy.

No one HAS to donate, but I'm sure ALL of us would freely give up money if it would help us all to keep our wonderful FA up and running...
so long as giving that money doesn't make things worse for our real lives, of course. that's important too. ^^


----------



## ShadowComet (Jul 4, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> While a great idea, this only truly works in a communist-like approach to things when you work for the greater good and everybody pitches in with the same equality. Since that's not how life works... neither can the site. Our donation drive to fix and improve the site has broken all expectations, but this is one event -vs- the longevity of the site itself.
> 
> In the end my philosophy is to give everybody cake, and if some people want extra icing, we'll give them extra icing.


 
I'm sorry to have to say this, and to you of all people, but if we keep thinking that kind of way, how will anything become equal? And being equal has nothing to do with communism as a whole, at least not in the way everyone sees it as because of the communist scare that was oh...better part of more than a hundred years ago?

To create a rich man, you have to create poor people. Don't tell me the world doesn't work in equalities when this is true.


----------



## raidy_and_dobe (Jul 4, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> Then donate by choice, and I know full well where the money comes from, don't you dare suggest otherwise, and I mean don't even dare try. The whole reason he got donations up and running was so he could address the issue of funds. This whole subscription by choice, gold stars, and other crap, does not make things equal, not by a long shot.
> 
> Another thing about equality, I don't care if your black, white, red, green, barbie, ken, male female, christian, buhdist, muslim, or bloody super man, you be an idiot and your gonna get a smack for some additude adjustment.




Why are you such an angry person? Everybody here should be for equality. But the fact is some of us have really bad computers on our end, or marvelous ones. You don't know what we have- therefore if they do the paid-for accounts without stars or what-have you nobody would know who's paid for.  Just like your compy, they don't know what you have unless you say... or they're hackers. 

Now then, right now our main objective is to help FA. Cast opinions, sure. That's fine. Let them know what you think about their ideas... but a simple "I disagree." works way better then trying to get members of the community all wired up. 

But... that's just my opinion. =)


----------



## Reyman (Jul 4, 2008)

SachiCoon said:


> In all honesty, I really don't see the harm in offering FA users paid subscriptions, so long as that doesn't take away from what the free accounts have always had. No one is being forced to pay for anything on this site aside from the maintainers, so how is offering something a little extra to the users who ARE willing to pay something doing any harm? It's not pompous or arrogant in the least bit.
> 
> Depending on what the paid subscriptions offer, I'd totally be willing to get a subscription if that's
> something that is decided on in the future.


 
I definitly agree with you. But what about the people who have had accounts for months/years. Will they have to pay also or will they just stick with what they got?


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> Then donate by choice, and I know full well where the money comes from, don't you dare suggest otherwise, and I mean don't even dare try. The whole reason he got donations up and running was so he could address the issue of funds. This whole subscription by choice, gold stars, and other crap, does not make things equal, not by a long shot.
> 
> Another thing about equality, I don't care if your black, white, red, green, barbie, ken, male female, christian, buhdist, muslim, or bloody super man, you be an idiot and your gonna get a smack for some additude adjustment.


*shoves a chocolate-chip muffin in his mouth with a smile* please don't fight, kay?


----------



## raidy_and_dobe (Jul 4, 2008)

I want a muffin D:


----------



## SachiCoon (Jul 4, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> Then donate by choice, and I know full well where the money comes from, don't you dare suggest otherwise, and I mean don't even dare try. The whole reason he got donations up and running was so he could address the issue of funds. This whole subscription by choice, gold stars, and other crap, does not make things equal, not by a long shot.
> 
> Another thing about equality, I don't care if your black, white, red, green, barbie, ken, male female, christian, buhdist, muslim, or bloody super man, you be an idiot and your gonna get a smack for some additude adjustment.



Your ideas of superiority, equality and fairness are very warped, my friend. If someone chooses to spend their money on something they aren't being forced to spend money on to help someone maintain a site that they themselves are keeping up and running on their own fundings, then they sure as hell DO deserve something special. No one is forcing you or anyone else to spend a dime on this site.


----------



## SachiCoon (Jul 4, 2008)

Reyman said:


> I definitly agree with you. But what about the people who have had accounts for months/years. Will they have to pay also or will they just stick with what they got?



That would be up to them :3


----------



## Reyman (Jul 4, 2008)

raidy_and_dobe said:


> Why are you such an angry person? Everybody here should be for equality. But the fact is some of us have really bad computers on our end, or marvelous ones. You don't know what we have- therefore if they do the paid-for accounts without stars or what-have you nobody would know who's paid for. Just like your compy, they don't know what you have unless you say... or they're hackers.
> 
> Now then, right now our main objective is to help FA. Cast opinions, sure. That's fine. Let them know what you think about their ideas... but a simple "I disagree." works way better then trying to get members of the community all wired up.
> 
> But... that's just my opinion. =)



Thats very true. Its pretty much sounds like hes trying to get the admins to make new furries pay for certain qualities of FA. We need to stay focused on the task at hand. Getting FA back up not start a war or any trouble of paying. This is a furry  community not xbox live.


----------



## raidy_and_dobe (Jul 4, 2008)

Reyman said:


> This is a furry  community not xbox live.



That is all too true, my friend. All too true.


----------



## Redregon (Jul 4, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> I'm sorry to have to say this, and to you of all people, but if we keep thinking that kind of way, how will anything become equal? And being equal has nothing to do with communism as a whole, at least not in the way everyone sees it as because of the communist scare that was oh...better part of more than a hundred years ago?
> 
> To create a rich man, you have to create poor people. Don't tell me the world doesn't work in equalities when this is true.



so, please help me on this, i'm not sure i'm grasping it in it's entirety.

if, and i do mean IF FA decides to implement some sort of "pay for perks" kinda deal, and i decide to send some cash off to get those perks, how is that being unfair to those that choose not to? i'm the one that's paying money for a service, so, why should i foot the bill for the people that are unwilling or unable to do so themselves? forcing me to do so, now THAT's unfair (and Dragoneer is kinda right, if this is what you mean, that is part of Communism.)

it's capitalism, pure and simple.

besides, Communism is only really an ideal that imo lazy people aspire to... you want something, work for it. you don't work for it, well, then maybe you didn't want it enough.


----------



## ShadowComet (Jul 4, 2008)

Kraton said:


> *shoves a chocolate-chip muffin in his mouth with a smile* please don't fight, kay?


 
Nothing left to fight over, an admin agrees with the rich people, I've already lost.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

Reyman said:


> Thats very true. Its pretty much sounds like hes trying to get the admins to make new furries pay for certain qualities of FA. We need to stay focused on the task at hand. Getting FA back up not start a war or any trouble of paying. This is a furry  community not xbox live.



*gives out muffins to others*

I know my opinion may not matter very much here, but I'm going to try to stop the arguing here.

Donators/Subscribers, it doesn't matter. If we pay at all, it's cause we already love the site as it is. I don't think anyone should get anything "special" for donating, because FA IS special. We donate as THANKS for the wonderful site. FA admins don't need to thank us back for that. If they do, we'll end up feeling the need to thank them again. And then it becomes an endless battle of "Thank you." and "No, thank YOU." XD

Thinking this way, since we all are already equal, no one person mattering more than another, subscribing to the site when we're already donating IS rather pointless. Since subscribing is by choice, and doesn't offer much to make anyone any better than anyone else, simply Donate. If you want to pay money, Donate. Your only ADDED reward to donating is FEELING GOOD about it. And that's all it should be. ^_^


----------



## ShadowComet (Jul 4, 2008)

Redregon said:


> so, please help me on this, i'm not sure i'm grasping it in it's entirety.
> 
> if, and i do mean IF FA decides to implement some sort of "pay for perks" kinda deal, and i decide to send some cash off to get those perks, how is that being unfair to those that choose not to? i'm the one that's paying money for a service, so, why should i foot the bill for the people that are unwilling or unable to do so themselves? forcing me to do so, now THAT's unfair (and Dragoneer is kinda right, if this is what you mean, that is part of Communism.)
> 
> ...


 
you are missing the other point, I also said that everyone else would also have to start paying aswell. You people are completely lost on true equality.


----------



## cesarin (Jul 4, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> Then donate by choice, and I know full well where the money comes from, don't you dare suggest otherwise, and I mean don't even dare try. The whole reason he got donations up and running was so he could address the issue of funds. This whole subscription by choice, gold stars, and other crap, does not make things equal, not by a long shot.
> 
> Another thing about equality, I don't care if your black, white, red, green, barbie, ken, male female, christian, buhdist, muslim, or bloody super man, you be an idiot and your gonna get a smack for some additude adjustment.




dude, you seriously need to get out and get a life for once.. you dont even know how life works right?
the world is entirely "layered", there will be always people above us and below us.
and we always want to be "special"
the problem when everyone is special... NOONE INREALITY  IS.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

Redregon said:


> so, please help me on this, i'm not sure i'm grasping it in it's entirety.
> 
> if, and i do mean IF FA decides to implement some sort of "pay for perks" kinda deal, and i decide to send some cash off to get those perks, how is that being unfair to those that choose not to? i'm the one that's paying money for a service, so, why should i foot the bill for the people that are unwilling or unable to do so themselves? forcing me to do so, now THAT's unfair (and Dragoneer is kinda right, if this is what you mean, that is part of Communism.)
> 
> ...



Now, I'm very sorry if you don't want to hear this, but hear me out.
Is FA not good enough for you right now that you have to pay to make it satisfactory?


----------



## Ceceil Felias (Jul 4, 2008)

*ATTENTION, EVERYONE

SHUT THE SMURF UP*

57 pages and it's been nothing but a mess as people fling mud at each other, oftentimes even when they're trying to say the same thing or are working to the same end. I've seen it firsthand back when I was posting 40 pages ago.


----------



## cesarin (Jul 4, 2008)

*edit*
anyway some people like to get named and recognized for their effort
by implementing the gold thing, memebership, goldmember stuff..etc... will usually encourage people to BID, the gold stuff is like a "thank you".
or the usual "thank you for participating" diplomas you get for helping people.

and goodarn edit system doesnt seem to work on FIREFOX3


----------



## SachiCoon (Jul 4, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> Nothing left to fight over, an admin agrees with the rich people, I've already lost.



LMFAO!!! I wish I was rich.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

Ok, I didn't want to say this, but I guess I have to...

STOP YOUR DAMN BICKERING!
THIS THREAD IS FOR DISCUSSING THE SERVER BREAKDOWN PROBLEM, NOT FIGHTING!

DON'T MAKE ME ASK THE ADMINS (who might not listen to just me...) TO BOOT ALL YOU NEGATIVE PEOPLE!


----------



## Redregon (Jul 4, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> you are missing the other point, I also said that everyone else would also have to start paying aswell. You people are completely lost on true equality.



i can understand your concerns, but pretty much the majority consensus (if you had read through the entire thread) was that if FA were to institute mandatory fees for use, the site would die. pretty much everyone here has agreed to that up until this point. it's only really gotten to the point where people can agree on paying for perks, not basic accounts.

please do some research into what's being thrown around, it will probably answer all the questions you may have on the matter.


----------



## raidy_and_dobe (Jul 4, 2008)

SachiCoon said:


> LMFAO!!! I wish I was rich.



Don't we all? -glares as gas prices-


----------



## Ceceil Felias (Jul 4, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Ok, I didn't want to say this, but I guess I have to...
> 
> STOP YOUR DAMN BICKERING!
> THIS THREAD IS FOR DISCUSSING THE SERVER BREAKDOWN PROBLEM, NOT FIGHTING!
> ...


Copycat. D:<


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:


> Copycat. D:<



Lol, I so didn't see yours, sorry. XD


----------



## ShadowComet (Jul 4, 2008)

cesarin said:


> *edit*
> anyway some people like to get named and recognized for their effort
> by implementing the gold thing, memebership, goldmember stuff..etc... will usually encourage people to BID, the gold stuff is like a "thank you".
> or the usual "thank you for participating" diplomas you get for helping people.
> ...


 
And make people who might never be able to, feel like they are betraying FA even more than some of us already feel.


----------



## Ceceil Felias (Jul 4, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Lol, I so didn't see yours, sorry. XD


It's no problem, I just felt like being silly. <3 The more momentum behind STFU, the better.


----------



## tashafox (Jul 4, 2008)

Can someone tell us what the total raised through Amazon and Paypal is right now? Guestimate?  


I'm very curious!


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## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> And make people who might never be able to, feel like they are betraying FA even more than some of us already feel.



*pets* you're not betraying FA if you lack the ability to donate, and if you care enough about it to still be sticking around.


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## ShadowComet (Jul 4, 2008)

Redregon said:


> i can understand your concerns, but pretty much the majority consensus (if you had read through the entire thread) was that if FA were to institute mandatory fees for use, the site would die. pretty much everyone here has agreed to that up until this point. it's only really gotten to the point where people can agree on paying for perks, not basic accounts.
> 
> please do some research into what's being thrown around, it will probably answer all the questions you may have on the matter.


 
I read that part of the thread days ago, if anything it only validates that special treatment is a bad idea.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

tashafox said:


> Can someone tell us what the total raised through Amazon and Paypal is right now? Guestimate?
> 
> 
> I'm very curious!


Unless I have my number wrong, somewhere around 8,980 or something.


----------



## tashafox (Jul 4, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Unless I have my number wrong, somewhere around 8,980 or something.



That's not including Paypal though. I can see the Amazon total. I know we are already past the 10k mark, but there hasn't been an update since then.


----------



## raidy_and_dobe (Jul 4, 2008)

Also, here's a small idea. Why not move the bickering or whatever over into a ranting thread. I believe there's a FA's Down and I need to post about it thread... that seems like a nice start. 

For the rest of us, let's have some tea, hot dogs, and discuss the business at hand while we show our friends that don't live in the states some fireworks on youtube tonight?


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> I read that part of the thread days ago, if anything it only validates that special treatment is a bad idea.



OK, I'm sorry dude. You seem like a really nice guy, but I gotta say this:
Choosing to decide upon whether or not to have subscription options based solely on what you're saying, and not the concerns of others...
THAT would be special treatment.

I hope you can clearly see how I've been taking both sides and weighing them equally. Personally I'm not against the subscription idea, but I'm not saying we should do it, simply because to me it seems like there really is no reason to do it. For those who WOULD subscribe anyway, they'd just end up donating that money instead.
There's no difference between the two, so long as money is given out of the goodness of one's heart.


----------



## Dragoneer (Jul 4, 2008)

tashafox said:


> Can someone tell us what the total raised through Amazon and Paypal is right now? Guestimate?
> 
> 
> I'm very curious!


About $11,500.


----------



## Anepo (Jul 4, 2008)

Kraton said:


> OK, I'm sorry dude. You seem like a really nice guy, but I gotta say this:
> Choosing to decide upon whether or not to have subscription options based solely on what you're saying, and not the concerns of others...
> THAT would be special treatment.
> 
> ...



I agree with you. as they say if its not broken dont fix it ^^ By that i mean if he isnt close to loosing money or is loosing money trying to run the server then i think we do not need a subscription thing. As long as there are donations which can pay for everything. Like me for example if i wasnt gona waste all my money on trying to find happiness in canada if i get a visa then i would gladly donate. However the problem is there are very strict rules about visa cards in my country and debit cards cant be used online here. So using my brother's paypal to donate is a bad idea. Im basicly a furry in the closet lol.


----------



## UnicornPrae (Jul 4, 2008)

Donated only a little, but everything counts I suppose. And give how much we have now. Whatever our sweet guys on FA do I guarantee it will be boss.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

Anepo said:


> I agree with you. as they say if its not broken dont fix it ^^ By that i mean if he isnt close to loosing money or is loosing money trying to run the server then i think we do not need a subscription thing. As long as there are donations which can pay for everything. Like me for example if i wasnt gona waste all my money on trying to find happiness in canada if i get a visa then i would gladly donate. However the problem is there are very strict rules about visa cards in my country and debit cards cant be used online here. So using my brother's paypal to donate is a bad idea. Im basicly a furry in the closet lol.


Well, I wish you the best of luck moving to Canada. I don't think it would be possible to actually welcome you here upon arrival, but it's the thought that counts, right?


----------



## Sslaxx (Jul 4, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> About $11,500.


Very impressive sum!

Nice going, Dragoneer!


----------



## ShadowComet (Jul 4, 2008)

I'm only going to say this once, and only once.

I joined FA cause it seemed like a relatively fair community to which I could post art, get feedback, introduce myself to a wider set of viewers, and not worry about being blocked from certain things to help me in my endeavor.

If this thing goes through about donation benefits, I'll leave, and I know you are all saying "Small loss" but how will you ever know if I'm gone? We have the ability to be a relatively equal and fair community, and you want to throw away any chance of that, and that is why I would leave, I don't want to be with people who would throw away oprotunity, the phrase "One small step" well, if we become a small step, eventually it will become a giant leap. And you people want to throw it away? Fine, but I won't be a part of it, I refuse to.


----------



## Anbessa (Jul 4, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> And make people who might never be able to, feel like they are betraying FA even more than some of us already feel.



why are you so bitter? see, I work very hard, only to be broke one to two weeks before the next paycheck. do I walk around accusing people of being 'rich' at random?

I don't know what you do at FA, but I'm sure you do your share to the community idea, whcih is quite enough, thank you very much (no sarcasm here). like, a community/forum without people using it is dead, no matter if members would pay for it or not.

aside that, true equality as you seem to crave does not exist, and can never exiost in any way within any human society. humans are too individual for it. we are no insects like ants or bees. so, stop demanding what can't be given.


----------



## Anepo (Jul 4, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Well, I wish you the best of luck moving to Canada. I don't think it would be possible to actually welcome you here upon arrival, but it's the thought that counts, right?



Yes it is thank you ^^ but i hope i will come 1st august to canada still have to figure out a way to apply for an immigration visa. Dont have a clue what the next few weeks are gona be but we will see.


----------



## Kanic (Jul 4, 2008)

2ndVenus said:


> *kisses Kanic* You have a heart of gold...or something even rarer ^^


 
*receives said kiss* As a US military man the people are always supporting me, so it only feels right that I should give back to the ones who support me.


----------



## AlexInsane (Jul 4, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> I'm only going to say this once, and only once.
> 
> I joined FA cause it seemed like a relatively fair community to which I could post art, get feedback, introduce myself to a wider set of viewers, and not worry about being blocked from certain things to help me in my endeavor.
> 
> If this thing goes through about donation benefits, I'll leave, and I know you are all saying "Small loss" but how will you ever know if I'm gone? We have the ability to be a relatively equal and fair community, and you want to throw away any chance of that, and that is why I would leave, I don't want to be with people who would throw away oprotunity, the phrase "One small step" well, if we become a small step, eventually it will become a giant leap. And you people want to throw it away? Fine, but I won't be a part of it, I refuse to.



Didn't you get the memo? Equality is overrated.

Also, if I'm offered the chance to act like even more of an elitist prick than before, I'll take it. 

Please note that if you leave the site, we will throw a party. There will be cake and you will get none of it.


----------



## alex_kl5 (Jul 4, 2008)

Wait, what...?

Is FA going away for good?  Is it becoming a paying site?

....Huh?


----------



## raidy_and_dobe (Jul 4, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> I'm only going to say this once, and only once.
> 
> I joined FA cause it seemed like a relatively fair community to which I could post art, get feedback, introduce myself to a wider set of viewers, and not worry about being blocked from certain things to help me in my endeavor.
> 
> If this thing goes through about donation benefits, I'll leave, and I know you are all saying "Small loss" but how will you ever know if I'm gone? We have the ability to be a relatively equal and fair community, and you want to throw away any chance of that, and that is why I would leave, I don't want to be with people who would throw away oprotunity, the phrase "One small step" well, if we become a small step, eventually it will become a giant leap. And you people want to throw it away? Fine, but I won't be a part of it, I refuse to.



Quit trying to get everyone's attention by posting such jibberjabber! Equality is an awesome thing, super awesome! It's special.... but sadly equality usually only shows up in numbers.  

I'm not arguing with you over this, I simply want you to leave it as is. You've already said "I lost" and continue the entirety of your argument.  We know you don't agree, you've said your points. You made an effort to explain yourself, but not in a very friendly manner.  Not many seem to agree with your opinion... you're not running for an election- stop pursuing your case to win...

edit: http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=22228

And it -is- a holiday in the states so let's try to be more cheery!


----------



## Kanic (Jul 4, 2008)

alex_kl5 said:


> Wait, what...?
> 
> Is FA going away for good? Is it becoming a paying site?
> 
> ....Huh?


 
I doubt it highly, the fact that FA raised over eleven thousand in donations in a few days tells me that the site is gonna remain free for quite a while.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> I'm only going to say this once, and only once.
> 
> I joined FA cause it seemed like a relatively fair community to which I could post art, get feedback, introduce myself to a wider set of viewers, and not worry about being blocked from certain things to help me in my endeavor.
> 
> If this thing goes through about donation benefits, I'll leave, and I know you are all saying "Small loss" but how will you ever know if I'm gone? We have the ability to be a relatively equal and fair community, and you want to throw away any chance of that, and that is why I would leave, I don't want to be with people who would throw away oprotunity, the phrase "One small step" well, if we become a small step, eventually it will become a giant leap. And you people want to throw it away? Fine, but I won't be a part of it, I refuse to.



Would it make you more or less want to stay if I asked you to? It seems to me like some others here don't get the issue that you're trying to point out here, but I do. I see why you're concerned about the idea of subscribing, but I seriously don't see that concern as a real issue here. No one will feel less important than others just because others are able to donate money, and given the option to subscribe won't make anyone feel better than others. Though true, we are individual, we're still all equal in the fact that we're all kind hearted people. The reason we're "equal" is because discrimination doesn't (or at least SHOULDN'T) exist in the fandom. That's why I joined, because no one seems to discriminate against anyone for being different. Being COMPLETELY equal won't stop discrimination, but being unique won't create discrimination so long as we all refuse to put others down for being who they are.

That's why I'm saying nothing will change with subscribers. Our ideals won't change, no one will get looked down upon for it. We're equal in that sense.

So... if it makes any difference at all, please don't leave the fandom.


----------



## ToeClaws (Jul 4, 2008)

Woo!  Just saw the current sum - awesome job everyone!  Shows what folks getting together can do.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

Holy crap! SO many people from Canada, and in my general area?! How come I don't see any of you around? Until recently, I thought I was the only one in Canada like me...


----------



## maxgoof (Jul 4, 2008)

I can has Fer Affinity?


----------



## Nidonemo (Jul 4, 2008)

maxgoof said:


> I can has Fer Affinity?



*joins, teary eyes*


----------



## selth (Jul 4, 2008)

fun fact : this topic has had over 91k viewers... think it'l reach the 100k?


----------



## cesarin (Jul 4, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> I'm only going to say this once, and only once.
> 
> I joined FA cause it seemed like a relatively fair community to which I could post art, get feedback, introduce myself to a wider set of viewers, and not worry about being blocked from certain things to help me in my endeavor.
> 
> If this thing goes through about donation benefits, I'll leave, and I know you are all saying "Small loss" but how will you ever know if I'm gone? We have the ability to be a relatively equal and fair community, and you want to throw away any chance of that, and that is why I would leave, I don't want to be with people who would throw away oprotunity, the phrase "One small step" well, if we become a small step, eventually it will become a giant leap. And you people want to throw it away? Fine, but I won't be a part of it, I refuse to.



its not like you will magically cease to have said benefits.




Dragoneer said:


> About $11,500.




holy shit....
I hope  you guys can get a nice server with that sum
if the ammount increases.... Id buy a smaller "backup" server just in case as well D:


----------



## Deltaru (Jul 4, 2008)

Kanic said:


> I doubt it highly, the fact that FA raised over eleven thousand in donations in a few days tells me that the site is gonna remain free for quite a while.



Dragoneer has expressed that he will keep Fur Affinity free for as long as humanly possible (IE, so long as there are enough donations to support it). The fact that he has managed to collect so much means that if we keep donating, then the site will be less likely to crash, and this will happen less often. Saying this, I haven't donated a penny as I have no money to spare whatsoever. It's really amazing that as soon as it went down the emergency funding went straight in like that.
I'm shocked that people didn't abandon it. Not me, it's my only viable adult gallery, I can't use DA or AGNPH as they both suck ass in terms of submissions, and I don't want to join another site as I just love this one <3. But then again, if AGNPH was better, it would crash more often than it does from sheer size.


----------



## Anbessa (Jul 4, 2008)

Deltaru said:


> I'm shocked that people didn't abandon it. Not me, it's my only viable adult gallery, I can't use DA or AGNPH as they both suck ass in terms of submissions, and I don't want to join another site as I just love this one <3. But then again, if AGNPH was better, it would crash more often than it does from sheer size.


 
positively shocked, I guess? maybe furries ain't as cheap as I thought, after all.

what is AGNPH, please?


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

Anbessa said:


> positively shocked, I guess? maybe furries ain't as cheap as I thought, after all.
> 
> what is AGNPH, please?



I SO wish I could have donated as well. Not that I feel I NEEDED to, but I wanted to help.^^


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 4, 2008)

xionos said:


> Getting a Dell would be a baaaaaaaad idea ^^;



I still cringe everytime I hear "Dell"--- They sold me a crappily-constructed laptop, then played games with the bills to the point I paid $1k MORE than my contract was for, all because of erroneous bookkeeping on their part (checks went through, but payment wasn't recorded, they claim), and THEN when I finished them off, they demanded ANOTHER ~$100!

So, yes, I have my beef with Dell, and I'm GLAD I switched to an older iMac. ('01 "lampshade" model with LCD screen on boom- It fits my needs and DOESN'T CRASH!  )

I spent 16 years on Microsoft machines, and finally got fed up. The iMac was the best $400 eBay buy I've gotten, and it's been nice to me for over a year and a half, now. 

I do hope FA buys something built like a tank- It takes no shit from NO-ONE... 

d.m.f.


----------



## SDWolf (Jul 4, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> About $11,500.


 
@.@

Eleven grand in three days....  Over half of that in the last 24 hours or so.  Wow....


----------



## SDWolf (Jul 4, 2008)

dmfalk said:


> I do hope FA buys something built like a tank- It takes no shit from NO-ONE...


 
That would be an IBM you're thinking of.


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 4, 2008)

cesarin said:


> just like conventions, they should add "supersponsor" kind of stuff, for month or for year.. golden page, badges... special stuff ( free posters?.. ) and other shit would do
> 
> 
> anyway *donates a bit of money*



That's one way to look at it- Another is a PBS-style membership. I, too, would like to see slomething like this done, without ever forcing ANYONE to pay for anything on FA if they don't want to. Just as FA is run entirely by volunteers at a great expence, so too should be donations to FA- All volunteer.

And no, FWIW, it isn't the porn that makes me want to donate, though I certainly enjoy that aspect- It's because this IS a free (as in freedom) community and service- Furry's big watering hole. 

That's the spirit of the Fourth of July- Oooh, look at the date! 

d.m.f.


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 4, 2008)

SachiCoon said:


> You seem to forget that the site ISN'T free for anyone that logs on. It should be obvious by now that every penny spent to keep this site up and going is coming straight out of Dragoneer's bank account, and all for the sake to keep FA up and going for YOUR entertainment. You think THAT'S fair? Yeah, okay, he's gotten a shit ton of donations, but all by people who've done so by choice.



That's the definition of "free", hun-- As in "freedom".

d.m.f.


----------



## Danza (Jul 4, 2008)

What does dmf stand for anyway O_O  never ever heard that phrase before, oh and $11,500... amazing, I would have chipped in at least $15 or so but I am quite financially restricted at the moment, still... Looking forward to the good that will come from all of this, congrats to everyone who donated, who needs a payment system when all it takes is for the problem to be highlighted and this epic fund raiser happens


----------



## Firehazard (Jul 4, 2008)

*WARNING: Long, serious, and very much off-the-official-topic post follows.*

OK, ShadowComet, I see what's going on here.  You have a worldview in which the traditional system of selling things for money is "favortism" towards people who can afford said things, and therefore immoral.  I can only imagine how bitter that must make you knowing that you live in a world that operates almost exclusively on that system day in and day out -- and that (unless you live in a commune) you're personally subject to it.  And for that you have my sympathy.

But see, here's the thing you have to realize.  People who can afford $30 a year or whatever to upgrade their accounts on a website are _not_ "rich," as you continually call them.  Some of the people who barely squeak by living solely off furry commissions are among those who would pay that fee.  More importantly, NOT everyone looks down on everyone who has less money than they do.  SERIOUSLY.  Apparently you must have never met anyone who had more money than you who wasn't an jerk or you'd realize it already.  Once again, I have nothing but sympathy for you if that is the case.  But speaking from experience, it's not true.  I KNOW people who have more money than I do.  Hell, that's damn near everybody I've ever met!  And they've all been nice people.

So I can only conclude that you're just suffering from either severe paranoia or severe jealousy.  Either you assume that everyone who has more buying power than you thinks you're scum for having less, no matter how nice they appear on the outside; or, you can't stand the idea that other people can afford things that you can't.  If it's the former, please, PLEASE see some kind of psychologist or something because you _can't_ go through life thinking everyone's secretly a jerk.  And if it's the latter...

...Well, look at yourself.  Look at your own financial situation.  You can at least afford an Internet connection, apparently, which makes you better off than most of the world.  All those things other people can afford, that you can't, _don't matter._  There are a lot of things I'd like to have that I can't.  Every now and then I find myself wishing I could, but the thing is, I have learned something called contentment.  I know that money, and most of the things it can buy, don't bring true happiness, so I don't bother.  Heck, I sometimes feel a little smug knowing I can get by with less when people far richer than me are always wanting more.

And here's something to chew on: If more people realized that... there would BE less inequality.  There would be fewer people screwing over their employees and customers to make more money because the world has deluded them into thinking they'll be happier that way.  There would be fewer people wanting to buy million-dollar mansions and yachts and BMWs, and more people realizing they have more money than they need and giving it to people who need it more.

It all starts with us, dude.  It all starts with you and me.


----------



## Danza (Jul 4, 2008)

Hey I actually agree with you there Fire, very off topic but yeah, money never ever leads to happiness, a man earning 10x the amount than you is no... way... in hell 10x happier, often more sad, stressed and wanting some free time.

That aside, fix the software too, and increase the friggen avatar cache sizes, my avatars on the actual site look like crap because I have to filter them down so much just to meet the pathetically small limit


----------



## stevefarfan (Jul 4, 2008)

Firehazard said:


> *WARNING: Long, serious, and very much off-the-official-topic post follows.*
> 
> OK, ShadowComet, I see what's going on here.  You have a worldview in which the traditional system of selling things for money is "favortism" towards people who can afford said things, and therefore immoral.  I can only imagine how bitter that must make you knowing that you live in a world that operates almost exclusively on that system day in and day out -- and that (unless you live in a commune) you're personally subject to it.  And for that you have my sympathy.
> 
> ...



The key is that we continue to respect each other. =)


----------



## Undying Song (Jul 4, 2008)

Firehazard said:


> The long, serious, and very much off-the-official-topic post



You are very wise. : )


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 4, 2008)

UnicornPrae said:


> Donated only a little, but everything counts I suppose. And give how much we have now. Whatever our sweet guys on FA do I guarantee it will be boss.



It really does, and it already is. 

d.m.f.


----------



## Danza (Jul 4, 2008)

Undying Song said:


> You are very wise. : )



Indeed, reminds me of my way of thinking just well summarized 

what does d.m.f mean D:


----------



## Firehazard (Jul 4, 2008)

It's just his initals.  D. M. Falk, as shown in his username.

I suppose it could also mean "Drink My Falafel," but I prefer to err on the side of caution here.


----------



## Danza (Jul 4, 2008)

Firehazard said:


> It's just his initals.  D. M. Falk, as shown in his username.
> 
> I suppose it could also mean "Drink My Falafel," but I prefer to err on the side of caution here.



oh... LAWL, he posts that often at least in this topic I thought it was some kind of furry abbrivation 

BBFA !!

Bring Back Fur Affinity, chant with me now


----------



## cesarin (Jul 4, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> you are missing the other point, I also said that everyone else would also have to start paying aswell. You people are completely lost on true equality.



stop being delusional, noone said you will be forced to pay!
no idea where the hell you keep getting these ideas that subscription or bonus stuff  = forcing the rest to pay
its not like everyone is being forced to pay in livejournal!


----------



## gliengul (Jul 4, 2008)

dmfalk said:


> I do hope FA buys something built like a tank- It takes no shit from NO-ONE...



On the scale of servers(with tanks as an analogy) this is an M2 Bradley scout tank.
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=555&fb=1&l=en&oc=MLB1041&s=biz

When you want a tank in the datacenter you pay in ways that most of the people won't understand.


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 4, 2008)

Danza said:


> What does dmf stand for anyway O_O  never ever heard that phrase before, oh and $11,500... amazing, I would have chipped in at least $15 or so but I am quite financially restricted at the moment, still... Looking forward to the good that will come from all of this, congrats to everyone who donated, who needs a payment system when all it takes is for the problem to be highlighted and this epic fund raiser happens



My initials. 

And look- I don't have much money, myself- I had $79 left to spend for the rest of the month, and I put in $10. It's alot of money for me, but I feel it's worth it.

d.m.f.


----------



## Danza (Jul 4, 2008)

gliengul said:


> On the scale of servers(with tanks as an analogy) this is an M2 Bradley scout tank.
> http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=555&fb=1&l=en&oc=MLB1041&s=biz
> 
> When you want a tank in the datacenter you pay in ways that most of the people won't understand.



LOL $12,000... gonna read the stats 

holy sh*t, xeon processors

But this is the ultimate rig...

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=555&fb=1&l=en&oc=MLB1041&s=biz

Dear lord... thats like what... Â£13,000  thats quite a bit n..n

Edit: never mind it says $12,000 lol... just choose the better storages and such and it goes to $26,000 xD


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 4, 2008)

Firehazard said:


> It's just his initals.  D. M. Falk, as shown in his username.
> 
> I suppose it could also mean "Drink My Falafel," but I prefer to err on the side of caution here.



LOL! 

d.m.f.


----------



## gliengul (Jul 4, 2008)

Danza said:


> Edit: never mind it says $12,000 lol... just choose the better storages and such and it goes to $26,000 xD



If you want to see scary prices, try adding a pre-installed OS (some of them are more expensive than the hardware 8) )


----------



## Redregon (Jul 4, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Holy crap! SO many people from Canada, and in my general area?! How come I don't see any of you around? Until recently, I thought I was the only one in Canada like me...



nope, you should check out the TorFur email list, it's pretty much the busyest email list for SW Ontario (and surrounding area... though it's primarily Toronto Centric.)

and YAY! CANADA!!!


----------



## Hippotaur2 (Jul 4, 2008)

*$11,500 ?!?*

Holy Deep Pockets Bat Man!

<eats muffins and drinks falafel in celebration> :grin:


----------



## Nighthawke (Jul 4, 2008)

I'd say build two servers. One being the master server the other the database housing the files. Set up Fibre Channel between the two units so there will be fewer bottlenecks.

Fault redundancy can be maximlized with RAID 3+1 or 5+1 arrays in both units.

Overbuild with plenty of RAM or you'll be crying 6 months down the road.


----------



## Lt_Havoc (Jul 4, 2008)

Ok people, one thing: what will happen to all the money that got donated? Who is supervising all that money and who tells me that somone of the FA staff gets long fingers and runs off with the money? WE talk about nearly 12.000 Dollar here! If I would have donated, I would love to know what will happen to all that money and where it is going and where it went. 

Yes, I do not trust this whole thing, because its all too risky. Who tells me that DRagoneer just says "Fuck that, I take the donated money and make holidays in Vegas!" or something? 

Another thing: will all the money really improve the site as a whole? I mean, really, expect of new hardware, do we get anything else? We will again see the same drama, the same copy and pasted arts, the same art theft and stuff beyond any imaginble and no one seems to do a thing. 

If I would know, that the money I send to the fond will really help improve the site, in mantaining it and in keeping it "clear and tidy" then I would spend some cash, but as it is now, I just dont want to risk it. 

Does no one else asked this before? You guys spend money on something you may never get back if things goe FUBAR and you all say "Oh, I just lost 1000 dollars, but who cares."? 

I know, I will get a lot of flak for this, but I think somone needs to ask this question even if its a unpleasent one.


----------



## jmlukens (Jul 4, 2008)

Hippotaur2 said:


> <eats muffins and drinks falafel in celebration> :grin:



You don't drink falafel. It's a food, like a meatball. To be consumed by chewing.


----------



## CHICAGOÂ¤lollie (Jul 4, 2008)

Man, you guys ought to have critical hardware faults more often!


----------



## filthy (Jul 4, 2008)

Jeez, I see almost $9k on that Amazon site.

You know, we'd REALLY like a search function.


----------



## CHICAGOÂ¤lollie (Jul 4, 2008)

filthy said:


> You know, we'd REALLY like a search function.


NOW IS NOT TIME FOR SEARCH
NOW IS TIME FOR SERVER

SERVER TIME IS NEVER SEARCH TIME


----------



## Redregon (Jul 4, 2008)

Lt_Havoc said:


> Ok people, one thing: what will happen to all the money that got donated? Who is supervising all that money and who tells me that somone of the FA staff gets long fingers and runs off with the money? WE talk about nearly 12.000 Dollar here! If I would have donated, I would love to know what will happen to all that money and where it is going and where it went.
> 
> Yes, I do not trust this whole thing, because its all too risky. Who tells me that DRagoneer just says "Fuck that, I take the donated money and make holidays in Vegas!" or something?
> 
> ...



well, for one, you have no assurance other than the admin's words... which i'm guessing you won't take, so, there will be no pleasing your concerns in this respect.

secondly, this is about hardware. the issue with content is more a user and moderator issue (of which i also have gripes towards one or two particular people... don't ask.) and that can only be resolved by keeping the ToS and AUP updated and (and here's the most important one) ENFORCED. regardless of wether mod A is worried that he'll be unloved, regardless of wether mod B hasn't had their morning coffee, they are there to do a job, so they should bl##dy well do it. (/end angst)

honestly, i'd say that in all fairness, all we have to go on is the admin's words on the issue... though, if things DO go south because someone fucks off with the cash, there is enough of a paper trail and there would be enough angry furs that it would make making their lives a living hell a very distinct and easy possability... but honestly, let's all hope it doesn't get to that.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

Lt_Havoc said:


> Ok people, one thing: what will happen to all the money that got donated? Who is supervising all that money and who tells me that somone of the FA staff gets long fingers and runs off with the money? WE talk about nearly 12.000 Dollar here! If I would have donated, I would love to know what will happen to all that money and where it is going and where it went.



No offense, but I stopped reading your post after that.
It's called TRUST, man. If you like and trust FA enough to donate, then this isn't an issue. If you don't trust the ones supplying you with such a site, then why are you on FA anyway? I mean, really. You're not expected to donate or anything. If you don't trust it, then ok. That's really all fine and dandy. No one's gonna have a problem with you, no matter what your reason for not wanting to donate. Whether you don't have the money to donate, don't have a means to donate, or don't trust where the money is going, that doesn't stop others from donating, and I'm sure FA will be fine regardless of if you donate or not. Heck, I'm not donating cause I don't have any money. Though I trust FA and it's mods. If I had money to donate, I would.


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## Lumpy (Jul 4, 2008)

CHICAGOÂ¤lollie said:


> NOW IS NOT TIME FOR SEARCH
> NOW IS TIME FOR SERVER
> 
> SERVER TIME IS NEVER SEARCH TIME


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## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

Kraton said:


> No offense, but I stopped reading your post after that.
> It's called TRUST, man. If you like and trust FA enough to donate, then this isn't an issue. If you don't trust the ones supplying you with such a site, then why are you on FA anyway? I mean, really. You're not expected to donate or anything. If you don't trust it, then ok. That's really all fine and dandy. No one's gonna have a problem with you, no matter what your reason for not wanting to donate. Whether you don't have the money to donate, don't have a means to donate, or don't trust where the money is going, that doesn't stop others from donating, and I'm sure FA will be fine regardless of if you donate or not. Heck, I'm not donating cause I don't have any money. Though I trust FA and it's mods. If I had money to donate, I would.


I wanna say right now, sorry, cause this didn't come out quite right...
I just hope my point was understood, and not mistaken as something like, "you don't trust them, then GTFO." cause I really didn't mean it to sound that way.


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## kaarsten (Jul 4, 2008)

CHICAGOÂ¤lollie said:


> Man, you guys ought to have critical hardware faults more often!



>.>

EVERYONE DDoS FA!

-shot and dragged off screaming-


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## Alagon (Jul 4, 2008)

I agree, you either trust the person and donate, or you either don't trust them or are skint (like me) and don't donate.
In the end, there's nothing else to do..


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## gliengul (Jul 4, 2008)

Lt_Havoc said:


> Ok people, one thing: what will happen to all the money that got donated? Who is supervising all that money and who tells me that somone of the FA staff gets long fingers and runs off with the money? WE talk about nearly 12.000 Dollar here! If I would have donated, I would love to know what will happen to all that money and where it is going and where it went.
> 
> Yes, I do not trust this whole thing, because its all too risky. Who tells me that DRagoneer just says "Fuck that, I take the donated money and make holidays in Vegas!" or something?



It would be interesting to see the balance sheet for that, but $12k is nothing in an IT shop. I could spend that all on hardware and still come up at least 3 servers short of what a site the size of FA should be running on.

Yes, it is lots of money from the standpoint of an individual person, but we're talking about the entire FA community. We're talking about thousands of people. On that scale that money isn't even enough for coffee, let alone the doughnuts. 

Besides which it is a bit rude to assume that the guy who has been paying FA's bandwidth bills for years now is just going to rip off the place he's invested so much in.


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## Monak (Jul 4, 2008)

I see people talking about a gold or premium membership , I can say having joined sites that offer "perks" for upgrading that unless their is some real good perks and even than it would be a stretch.  Making something like that would make things seem even more elitist than they already are.  If a plan was implimented to make a fund for FA it shouldn't involve restricting or denying less fortunate members site access.


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## Undying Song (Jul 4, 2008)

Lupercaleb said:


>



You have a lovely PacRat icon! :]


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## dmfalk (Jul 4, 2008)

alex_kl5 said:


> Wait, what...?
> 
> Is FA going away for good?  Is it becoming a paying site?
> 
> ....Huh?



Short answer: No.

d.m.f.


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## sixesandsevens (Jul 4, 2008)

if they get a really fancy server do think maybe the search function could be useable


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## icehawk (Jul 4, 2008)

jmlukens said:


> You don't drink falafel. It's a food, like a meatball. To be consumed by chewing.



Will it blend?

If it blends, you can drink it.


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## Redregon (Jul 4, 2008)

Monak said:


> I see people talking about a gold or premium membership , I can say having joined sites that offer "perks" for upgrading that unless their is some real good perks and even than it would be a stretch.  Making something like that would make things seem even more elitist than they already are.  If a plan was implimented to make a fund for FA it shouldn't involve restricting or denying less fortunate members site access.



nobody said it would restrict or deny anything to anyone simply because they cannot or will not subscribe.

this point keeps coming up so much that i'm wondering wether they're coming from trolls, or people that just cannot or will not read the thread up until this point.

:LOL: Hahah, looks like someone was having fun with the post-count DB and the titles 

now i'm afraid to make another post!


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## Drakaji (Jul 4, 2008)

icehawk said:


> Will it blend?
> 
> If it blends, you can drink it.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l69Vi5IDc0g
It blends, now drink!


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## dmfalk (Jul 4, 2008)

icehawk said:


> Will it blend?
> 
> If it blends, you can drink it.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falafel

d.m.f.


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## Lt_Havoc (Jul 4, 2008)

You know, that thing blends everything.......expect Chuck Norris........


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## Drakaji (Jul 4, 2008)

Lt_Havoc said:


> You know, that thing blends everything.......expect Chuck Norris........



This is true, nothing can touch him. 
Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one bird.

Anyway we should probably be on topic else codewolf will hunt us down D:
Uh... congratz on the amazing donation count and hopefully search shall return someday soon.


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## Artie (Jul 4, 2008)

I just want to say two things.

1) If FA comes back online with no changes at all other than the fact that the site remains up as it was, then my donation will have been worth it.  I've been using FA for years and I feel I have gotten more than enough use out of the site to warrant a donation for PAST use just to support CONTINUED use, even if it ends up being the same as before.  Of course, improvements are in the pipeline, so that's a moot point anyway.  But that's just MY view on that matter.

2) Some people are talking about a whole subscription/premium account deal as if it will take things away from the non-paying users.  First of all, there hasn't even been any official talk that something like this would ever happen, and second, the consensus from EVERYONE has been not to take any of the current functionality away from the free users at the very least.  Which means anyone who doesn't pay would not lose anything anyway, if following everyone's suggestion.  If suddenly someone with a paid account can upload multiple images at once or view more submissions per page or has a gold star by their name, then I, as a NON-paying user, have not lost anything at all.  So I don't understand all the hostility there.  I would be willing to bet that if anything, if FA ever DOES have a *voluntary* subscription model, that the *free* users of the site will have even more functionality than they currently do anyway!  I don't see anything that affects the user experience THAT much being limited to paying users.  Of course, that's saying IF there ever will be a paid account option anyway.  No one has said there will, it's all random speculation by users at this point.

The main reason I would want a paid account option would be so I could make regular "donations" without having to *remember* to.  It's something I'd like to set up and just either have charged automatically each month/quarter/whatever, or to get a reminder that my subscription is almost over so I could renew it.  Of course I have already tossed money into the hat in this donation drive.

I would honestly say out of all the sites I visit on the internet, FA is probably the one I would consider the most worth giving money to considering the amount of use I get out of it.  Well, maybe that and YouTube.


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## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

Great, now I wanna go try blending different things... XD


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## Kanic (Jul 4, 2008)

Drakaji said:


> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l69Vi5IDc0g
> It blends, now drink!


 
haha awkward lol ^^


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## Kanic (Jul 4, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Great, now I wanna go try blending different things... XD


 
Me too XD


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## yak (Jul 4, 2008)

Lt_Havoc said:


> Ok people, one thing: what will happen to all the money that got donated? Who is supervising all that money and who tells me that somone of the FA staff gets long fingers and runs off with the money? WE talk about nearly 12.000 Dollar here! If I would have donated, I would love to know what will happen to all that money and where it is going and where it went....


Though nobody empowered me with such a task, I will taking a personal responsibility in keeping you all updated on the status of the donations and the hardware that will purchase using them.


Right now I can say that the amount donated so far greatly surpasses every expectation I originally had and planned for, and I had higher expectations to begin with then what the donation page claimed the goal was.

This opens up interesting opportunities in the field of hardware we can purchase, and allows us to make said purchases from brand names like Sun, IBM, Dell or HP.  Other brands are not being considered at this time.

Originally we planned to get a replacement server for the currently malfunctioning one, but since then have decided to both scale up, and relatively scale out. This means that there will be two physical servers bought, each of them dedicated.  Also, the other currently running server, our database box, would be upgraded with more RAM to keep it going for quite a while more.

Hardware that would be bought would be by a magnitude more powerful then FA demands at the moment, which means the need to upgrade again would not rise any time soon. This, of course, does not include events of the hardware failure.  
This would also mean that there would be more possibilities opened for FA in the future which FA can explore, now that it would have the hardware to support them. Bandwidth, however, would still be a problem and we will be working on some kind of a solution to stabilize FA's income and cover the bandwidth costs - which, if we are successful, would probably mean FA would expand to cover more services and service types.

--

At the moment we are deciding on the hardware configuration that we would purchase.
Given that today is Friday, and is a national holiday in US, the purchase would probably be done on Monday, and then there would be about a week+ time when we wait for the delivery.

Some time after that would be spent on installing the hardware at the colocation facility, installing an operating system and environment, and copying over the data from the malfunctioning server. Right after that and a run through a comprehensive list of testing, FA would be brought back online. Some quirks are expected to happen, so patience would be appreciated until we sort them out ASAP.

--

These are all the updates I have for you right now.
More will come as they become available.


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## yak (Jul 4, 2008)

Also, a humble request - please keep away any offtopic, personal, RP or chatroom like conversations off this thread. Create threads of your own.


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## Yoko Beaumont (Jul 4, 2008)

yak said:


> Though nobody empowered me with such a task, I will taking a personal responsibility in keeping you all updated on the status of the donations and the hardware that will purchase using them.
> 
> 
> Right now I can say that the amount donated so far greatly surpasses every expectation I originally had and planned for, and I had higher expectations to begin with then what the donation page claimed the goal was.
> ...



Thanks yak. Always appreciated to be kept in the loop, dear. <3

Oh, also, I love FA a lot, and wouldn't consider going elsewhere.


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## Dragoneer (Jul 4, 2008)

Hippotaur2 said:


> *$11,500 ?!?*
> 
> Holy Deep Pockets Bat Man!
> 
> <eats muffins and drinks falafel in celebration> :grin:


Try *$13,000+* now.

If we manage to break $15K additional upgrades to the DB server will be done as well in addition to RAM. The database server uses a Tyan B3992G24V4H motherboard/chassis configuration. The server supports 16 x 240Pin slots for RAM, and we are currently only using 4X 2GB DIMMs. That means we have 12 RAM slots free. Since the RAM supported by this motherboard costs $200 per 4Gb of RAM we could very easily bring the DB server's RAM to 32GB without breaking a sweat.


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## Artie (Jul 4, 2008)

yak said:


> At the moment we are deciding on the hardware configuration that we would purchase.
> Given that today is Friday, and is a national holiday in US, the purchase would probably be done on Monday, and then there would be about a week+ time when we wait for the delivery.
> 
> Some time after that would be spent on installing the hardware at the colocation facility, installing an operating system and environment, and copying over the data from the malfunctioning server. Right after that and a run through a comprehensive list of testing, FA would be brought back online. Some quirks are expected to happen, so patience would be appreciated until we sort them out ASAP.



Wow, sounds like it's going to be something along the lines of 2-3 weeks before FA actually comes back online with all that must be done (With at least one week spent just waiting for the new hardware).  I suppose it's all for the best though.  FA will probably get slammed with traffic and submissions when it comes back up, so here's hoping the new servers will be able to handle it when the time comes.


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## Dragoneer (Jul 4, 2008)

Artie said:


> Wow, sounds like it's going to be something along the lines of 2-3 weeks before FA actually comes back online with all that must be done (With at least one week spent just waiting for the new hardware). I suppose it's all for the best though. FA will probably get slammed with traffic and submissions when it comes back up, so here's hoping the new servers will be able to handle it when the time comes.


We will try to get it done as soon as we can, but we will do things RIGHT. Restoring FA service is a priority, but we are handling this as professionals. Configuration, tweaking and testing before we go live.


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## Toonces (Jul 4, 2008)

Did anyone suggest yet a "subscription" service that amounts to little more than, say, an icon next to my name that designates me a supporter?

That'd be cool as hell. I don't want any extra features, but an icon would be awesome.


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## Redregon (Jul 4, 2008)

yak said:


> Though nobody empowered me with such a task, I will taking a personal responsibility in keeping you all updated on the status of the donations and the hardware that will purchase using them.
> 
> 
> Right now I can say that the amount donated so far greatly surpasses every expectation I originally had and planned for, and I had higher expectations to begin with then what the donation page claimed the goal was.
> ...



May i make a suggestion? if it's not too much, is there an extended warranty kinda deal you can get with them? i know Dell is not the best to go with (i've heard Sun makes a top quality one, but don't quote me on that.

but yeah, if you can finagle an extended warranty kinda deal (for like, 2 years including no-questions asked replacement or somethingl ike that.)


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## Redregon (Jul 4, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> Try *$13,000+* now.
> 
> If we manage to break $15K additional upgrades to the DB server will be done as well in addition to RAM.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb6ErLPt4t8

Tank server commences


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## dmfalk (Jul 4, 2008)

Mmm, I like Sun. 

d.m.f.


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## gravija (Jul 4, 2008)

WTF . . . way to go all yall. Jeebus, with that kind of loot the things could be overnighted :J LOL ANYWHO, i dont think any other fanbase woulda ponied up sooo quickly. Its truely amazing if you ask me . . . so much monies in soooooo little time. Millville was trying to raise 10k for a city park rebuild and it took them over a yr LOL . . .and a bank had to donate 7k of that. All of us furries did MORE than that amount in a few days . . .proud bunch we are, and proud of each other we should be. just wow, alright admins, thanks fer the updates and whatnot, we hope the moola that came/is still coming in, will get us the best of the best hardware ( not going overly crazy like one server featured a few . . . bunch of pages back ) around. ( tho i wouldnt try fer dell, dell is well . . . hell . . . .a shell . . . . they FELL . . .  any of that working ) They are ok fer a while and are rather stable . . . but to get them FIXED . . .most the new stuff requires DELL manufacted parts . . . . bleh. anywho awesome amounts will hopefully lead to a site soo much more awesome than we have now. ( knowing that WILL take time n.n ) CONGRATS ADMINS, for running a site with such and overwhelmingly generous, and caring community such as this.


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## SachiCoon (Jul 4, 2008)

13K? Jesus H. Christ that's awesome! ^-^


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## Balto.Woof (Jul 4, 2008)

Honestly, I'm very FA Dependent.  Its real hard since it crashed right after AC.
IMHO.  Keep it offline as long as need be until we have top of the line Equipment bolted into the rack.

$13,000 is outstanding!  Good Job everyone!

Balto Woof


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## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

yeah, wow... makes me proud to be one of the rest of you. ^_^
I mean, I know that I didn't donate, but... wow, you guys and girls that helped out are amazing. Simply amazing.


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## stevefarfan (Jul 4, 2008)

hmmmm.... I wonder if it's a good idea to keep some money in reserve, since a revived FA may need more bandwidth than normal.


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## Artie (Jul 4, 2008)

TooncesFA said:


> Did anyone suggest yet a "subscription" service that amounts to little more than, say, an icon next to my name that designates me a supporter?
> 
> That'd be cool as hell. I don't want any extra features, but an icon would be awesome.



This has been brought up either in this thread or another, and I totally agree with it.  But some others have said that they even think that wouldn't be fair.  *shrug*  I see nothing wrong with a tiny little graphic recognizing suppoters of the site on FA.  But whatever.


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## Waffle (Jul 4, 2008)

So any word on when orders may be finalized and the server back up?


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## Danza (Jul 4, 2008)

Wow $13,000 thats awesome, as I said previously, no need for charging or payments to be made because when things get serious its clear the users of FA are very loyal in wanting to see the sight flourish, anyone know how many users FA has, I am looking at you 'neer and Yak ;P


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## Waffle (Jul 4, 2008)

Artie said:


> This has been brought up either in this thread or another, and I totally agree with it.  But some others have said that they even think that wouldn't be fair.  *shrug*  I see nothing wrong with a tiny little graphic recognizing suppoters of the site on FA.  But whatever.



I understand the point but it would kind of suck for us who are tight on money.  A one time fee maybe but a subscription is out of my reach.


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## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

Waffle said:


> So any word on when orders may be finalized and the server back up?



Well they said it would take likely a week for the new equipment to arrive, and maybe give that a week or two to get everything installed properly and tested and whatnot to make sure it's all going to be flawless.
I personally can wait as long as it needs to take to be done. This is going to be awesome, I know it. ^_^


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## Hippotaur2 (Jul 4, 2008)

jmlukens said:


> You don't drink falafel. It's a food, like a meatball. To be consumed by chewing.


 
I'm quite aware of that. I've had it many times; even made it myself.

'Twas making a joke because somefur else had said something about drinking it; hence the laughing face thingy.

I can't pass up a chance at being silly...


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## Hippotaur2 (Jul 4, 2008)

Lt_Havoc said:


> Ok people, one thing: what will happen to all the money that got donated? Who is supervising all that money and who tells me that somone of the FA staff gets long fingers and runs off with the money? WE talk about nearly 12.000 Dollar here! If I would have donated, I would love to know what will happen to all that money and where it is going and where it went.
> 
> Yes, I do not trust this whole thing, because its all too risky. Who tells me that DRagoneer just says "Fuck that, I take the donated money and make holidays in Vegas!" or something?


 
With the Amazon donation thing you have 30 days to get your money back.


----------



## oniontrain (Jul 4, 2008)

Lt_Havoc said:


> Yes, I do not trust this whole thing, because its all too risky. Who tells me that DRagoneer just says "Fuck that, I take the donated money and make holidays in Vegas!" or something?


I'm cool with that as long as he puts it all on black.


Think of what you could get for $24k!


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## SachiCoon (Jul 4, 2008)

Lt_Havoc said:


> Yes, I do not trust this whole thing, because its all too risky. Who tells me that DRagoneer just says "Fuck that, I take the donated money and make holidays in Vegas!" or something?



That's the risk you take when you participate in any charity.


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## seadog-driftwood (Jul 4, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> Try *$13,000+* now.
> 
> If we manage to break $15K additional upgrades to the DB server will be done as well in addition to RAM. The database server uses a Tyan B3992G24V4H motherboard/chassis configuration. The server supports 16 x 240Pin slots for RAM, and we are currently only using 4X 2GB DIMMs. That means we have 12 RAM slots free. Since the RAM supported by this motherboard costs $200 per 4Gb of RAM we could very easily bring the DB server's RAM to 32GB without breaking a sweat.



Tha-tha-thaaa... thirteen thousand?

HhÉ™sterts!!! (Translated from Hittite: Stars [above]!)

Wow, that's... beyond impressive. I'm amazed. I'd not be at all surprised if that $15 000 is exceeded by Monday.


----------



## Xodiac (Jul 4, 2008)

Redregon said:


> thing is, by search, what do people mean by that? search for a user? search for a specific picture? search by species/adult or other tags?
> 
> if it's by tags, i will state again, if a picture is not tagged, i'd suggest it not being added to the search engine. might get people's asses in gear to make sure their submissions are tagged and tagged properly (which afaik, is a big concern for some of the staff.)



Tags are good.  Other searchables are user name and picture name.  If search looked through descriptive text and comments on pictures that would also be useful, but definitely secondary to the stuff above.  Searching through journal entries should probably be a separate search function, if it is included at all.


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## Artie (Jul 4, 2008)

Hippotaur2 said:


> With the Amazon donation thing you have 30 days to get your money back.



According to Amazon:

_... you may use Amazon.com's Unpay function to cancel a payment or get a refund up to seven (7) days after you make a payment--with no questions asked._

I also noticed,
_To cover our administrative and processing costs, Web sites collecting money with the Honor System are assessed 2.9% of your payment plus a fixed cost of $0.30 per transaction._

I wonder if the total shown is the total paid, or the total FA is actually receiving?  Oh well, 2.9% of $13,000 is $377 (plus the 30 cents per transaction), so I guess it's a small price to pay for making donations so simple.


----------



## Artie (Jul 4, 2008)

Xodiac said:


> Tags are good.  Other searchables are user name and picture name.  If search looked through descriptive text and comments on pictures that would also be useful, but definitely secondary to the stuff above.  Searching through journal entries should probably be a separate search function, if it is included at all.



Searching by tags alone would probably be the most useful and least resource intensive way to handle search.  So long as things are properly tagged.  I really like the idea of anyone being able to add tags to any submission.  Perhaps with tagging rights revoked if a certain number of a user's added tags are found to be inappropriate.  With the entire userbase participating in tagging everything on the site, it would make it the most useful.


----------



## Nidonemo (Jul 4, 2008)

*starts suffering withdrawal symptoms* *twitches, foams, farts*

It...hurrrrrts... X_x


----------



## Fate (Jul 4, 2008)

Never underestimate how much furries are willing to pay for pornography. This whole problem is because the server that presently exists is run on a gaming mainboard that FreeBSD doesn't have drivers for. I would assume that for all of the money donated up to now, it's at least possible to purchase an intelligently-designed machine whole and complete, rather than piecemealing a hideous abortion of PRO GAMERZ parts.

Seriously, that shit's roughly equivalent to slapping a spoiler on a Honda Civic and calling it OK for off-road chores.


----------



## YuJoBen (Jul 4, 2008)

Amber said:


> I don't understand why everyone is complaining so much about the site being down. This is a free site. I bet if they received $1.00 for every complaint about FA being down they would have enough money to buy better equipment so their would be no more failures. It's not their fault that there isn't enough support from their members to be able to afford the expensive equipment.
> 
> Poor Dragoneer's back must be in awful pain from everyone jumping on it...



I totally agree. Even if they are going about this the wrong way, let them fix it on their own. Quit griping about it, they have done so much for us and are trying their best to maintain this awesome site. If you want it back up so bad, don't complain, donate some damn money.


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## wolfe97 (Jul 4, 2008)

you know i really love how MEMBERS AND AVID USERS of FA come to the forums and trash the site at every even minor failure. the fact of the matter is...if FA is REALLY so shitty GTFO and stay out! if you hate this site (which i know you don;t....you just love drama) then you should just leave instead of posting derragotory remarks about both the site and the staff that keep it up and running for you free of manditory charge. you really need to learn a little more respect for the FA staff....i'm pretty sure they all know what they're doing...elsewise the site wouldn;t run AT ALL.


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## Rhainor (Jul 4, 2008)

Okay, time to put on the Moderator hat.

This thread is for discussion of the current site outage and what's being done to remedy the situation.  There are far too many posts in this thread that do not add anything of value to the conversation.  *If you feel the need to complain about something, take it elsewhere.*

Were this thread centered around any other subject, it would have been locked several hundred posts ago.  Stay on-topic and civil, please.


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## Firehazard (Jul 4, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> Try *$13,000+* now.
> 
> If we manage to break $15K additional upgrades to the DB server will be done as well in addition to RAM. The database server uses a Tyan B3992G24V4H motherboard/chassis configuration. The server supports 16 x 240Pin slots for RAM, and we are currently only using 4X 2GB DIMMs. That means we have 12 RAM slots free. Since the RAM supported by this motherboard costs $200 per 4Gb of RAM we could very easily bring the DB server's RAM to 32GB without breaking a sweat.


BUT WHAT ABOUT THE WARRANTY.  Or at least a server whose parts can all be easily replaced piecemeal if one goes wrong, and money put aside for said replacement, but I'm still rooting for a warranty.  Plus, I can only hope the collocation site has the insurance to cover you in case the place goes up in flames or something.

Seriously I'm going to keep asking this until I get a response.  I'll switch to PM if need be.  The more expensive these new servers get, the more expensive it will be to replace them.  I mean we get all these people in this thread saying that Dells, or IBMs, or whatever, are reliable and won't break -- and so do Dell, IBM, and whatever -- but all the guarantees in the world ain't worth jack if the warranty expires in a year.  I say make 'em prove it.


----------



## alex_kl5 (Jul 4, 2008)

Hey there.  I really hope I don't sound like an ass, because I know you're working on this.

Is there some sort of time line that we can follow here.  I don't mind the waiting, I just don't like doing it blind...


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 4, 2008)

Although I could think of a few things I'd love FA to add (like a streaming radio feature, for all those music/audio submissions- Just click and get an .m3u or .pls randomly generated representing the selected FA artist's gallery), but I'm otherwise quite happy with it so far- I don't really have any complaints about FA or its admins.

And I donated. Not much, yes, but every buck counts, and FA made it possible to be a viable community that works for everyone. 

And yes, there are shitters, who get off shitting on FA, its admins and/or FA users. They'll stay on FA, like it or not, because they're addicted to their fecund activity.

Thankfully I'm not one of those. 

Even though FA's exceeded their goals, keep donating- The bigger the tally, the betterr it will be once FA is finally up.

(I don't ever want to see a repeat of Yerf's demise.  )

GO FA!

d.m.f.


----------



## Rhainor (Jul 4, 2008)

alex_kl5 said:


> Hey there.  I really hope I don't sound like an ass, because I know you're working on this.
> 
> Is there some sort of time line that we can follow here.  I don't mind the waiting, I just don't like doing it blind...



Dragoneer said sometime yesterday (I think it was) that they wouldn't be able to purchase the new equipment until Monday, since it's a holiday weekend and all.  In the meantime, all there is to do is watch (more or less) the donations roll in, and talk about stuff.

Once the equipment is ordered, it'll probably be a few days (maybe a week) before it arrives, at which point they'll need to get everything set up, which will probably take another day or two.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 4, 2008)

wolfe97 said:


> you know i really love how MEMBERS AND AVID USERS of FA come to the forums and trash the site at every even minor failure. the fact of the matter is...if FA is REALLY so shitty GTFO and stay out! if you hate this site (which i know you don;t....you just love drama) then you should just leave instead of posting derragotory remarks about both the site and the staff that keep it up and running for you free of manditory charge. you really need to learn a little more respect for the FA staff....i'm pretty sure they all know what they're doing...elsewise the site wouldn;t run AT ALL.



I hope I'm not perceived as one of those people he speaks of. Sure, I've talked out of context in this thread a bit, but I have nothing but gratitude towards FA and it's admins.
My apologies for causing any trouble.


----------



## jd345 (Jul 4, 2008)

hey Dragoneer, how much is a IBM server anyway? >.>


----------



## Dragoneer (Jul 4, 2008)

Artie said:


> According to Amazon:
> 
> _... you may use Amazon.com's Unpay function to cancel a payment or get a refund up to seven (7) days after you make a payment--with no questions asked._
> 
> ...


Amazon has some weird bugs with their system and a lot of information that doesn't seem to stack up. It mostly works, and it works where we need it most. But it's got a looooot of problems. I'd love to have a better system, but for now it is what it is.

For as long as I've used Amazon's Honor System (what, about three years now?) I have never been able to reliably check the last 15, 30, 90, etc days worth of payment history. Sometimes it works ok... sometimes it doesn't work at all (such as right now). And worse, I have *NEVER* been able to get the "view last deposits" function to work. Not once. 

Amazon put enough effort into the Honors System to make sure it takes money, and that's about it. They never put in enough effort to make it user friendly or to make the history, search or other tools reliable whatsoever.


----------



## Yukiko Omegamu (Jul 4, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> Amazon has some weird bugs with their system and a lot of information that doesn't seem to stack up. It mostly works, and it works where we need it most. But it's got a looooot of problems. I'd love to have a better system, but for now it is what it is.
> 
> For as long as I've used Amazon's Honor System (what, about three years now?) I have never been able to reliably check the last 15, 30, 90, etc days worth of payment history. Sometimes it works ok... sometimes it doesn't work at all (such as right now). And worse, I have *NEVER* been able to get the "view last deposits" function to work. Not once.
> 
> Amazon put enough effort into the Honors System to make sure it takes money, and that's about it. They never put in enough effort to make it user friendly or to make the history, search or other tools reliable whatsoever.



ya i know that feeling its a good system but is ravaged with bugs if they had a way to inform about it would be good but that lacks.

hell server failing happens but life goes on you do your best if shit breaks people cant complain since its a free service which of course means "as-is" so the demand is just as equal. If it was a paid service then i can understand people getting all prissy but that isn't the case.

i know i had a ungrateful client once that nearly put the server in smoke and nearly a great financial loss in process.


----------



## Drex150 (Jul 4, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> Amazon has some weird bugs with their system and a lot of information that doesn't seem to stack up. It mostly works, and it works where we need it most. But it's got a looooot of problems. I'd love to have a better system, but for now it is what it is.
> 
> For as long as I've used Amazon's Honor System (what, about three years now?) I have never been able to reliably check the last 15, 30, 90, etc days worth of payment history. Sometimes it works ok... sometimes it doesn't work at all (such as right now). And worse, I have *NEVER* been able to get the "view last deposits" function to work. Not once.
> 
> Amazon put enough effort into the Honors System to make sure it takes money, and that's about it. They never put in enough effort to make it user friendly or to make the history, search or other tools reliable whatsoever.



Is there a particular reason you prefer Amazon over Paypal than? I am not sure of the pros or cons of either as I hardly use either. Is there higher fees for Paypal maybe? Just curious.


----------



## Yukiko Omegamu (Jul 4, 2008)

Drex150 said:


> Is there a particular reason you prefer Amazon over Paypal than? I am not sure of the pros or cons of either as I hardly use either. Is there higher fees for Paypal maybe? Just curious.


paypal asks too much information and exposes real life information that sometimes people don't want to disclose. its also not available in some countries


----------



## Syno (Jul 4, 2008)

Sheesh....
If people really want the site up DONT WHINGE about it being down.
I have noticed a lot of people whinging in here and not being pro-active and donating.

I myself will be donating a little money soon... yes it wont be a lot but geez even i am willing to pay in USD (being in australia that will mean i pay an extra few cents in every dollar or something) so if i am willing to donate and at a higher price to myself then darn everyone should have a go and donate IF they can.

And i dont like some people saying "you didnt donate so why should i?" well some people have circumstances beyond their control... dont get nasty to them... because the way i see it FA is a community and in communities everyone should have a chance to be part of that community with out being ridiculed over small things...

I do hope the site is up soon, I like the site and like seeing art works and artists develop their talents.


----------



## SGrayWolf (Jul 4, 2008)

If everything goes well hardware-wise, perhaps a financial bonus to the hard working programmers and staff for FA could be possible? They certainly deserve it. :}


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## Hamsterchan (Jul 4, 2008)

I was going to donate...until I saw how much you all ready have. There is a lot of folks with money on this site. Wow. I just have a small question, how much will the top notch hardware cost and what would you do with the extra money? You said you will make extra tweaking of the system. Fine but if there is some extra money, how about a search engine that don't lag the site and like what was said, a  streaming radio feature? How about something nice for the site with the extra money? Since people donated their money, they should enjoy it.


----------



## tobias104 (Jul 4, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> Try *$13,000+* now.
> 
> If we manage to break $15K additional upgrades to the DB server will be done as well in addition to RAM. The database server uses a Tyan B3992G24V4H motherboard/chassis configuration. The server supports 16 x 240Pin slots for RAM, and we are currently only using 4X 2GB DIMMs. That means we have 12 RAM slots free. Since the RAM supported by this motherboard costs $200 per 4Gb of RAM we could very easily bring the DB server's RAM to 32GB without breaking a sweat.



Just trying to help, I looked around and you can actually get it for under $150 for 4GB by buying each 2GB stick individually if you use this RAM.


----------



## Armaetus (Jul 4, 2008)

I apologize for my idiocy for not fully understanding what happened with the server in the R&R forum a couple days ago....and I am impressed by the amount donated in just a few days..

If I had a little money, I'd send $5 your way as it would not be the first time I donated either..but again I don't have the money to toss around (and not any right now as of this posting) like the ones who donated $50-100....every little bit helps, I guess?


----------



## Zardus_the_Hunter (Jul 4, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> Both Tiamat and Bahamut, our main servers, are produced by Thinkmate, a professional IT company which specializes in servers.



 Who named the servers? XD


----------



## Nidonemo (Jul 4, 2008)

Zardus_the_Hunter said:


> Who named the servers? XD



Isn't it cute!? XD


----------



## VampiricFang (Jul 4, 2008)

Bahamut....isn't that an Aeon name in Final Fantasy 10? Hm..


----------



## Bladewing (Jul 4, 2008)

VampiricFang said:


> Bahamut....isn't that an Aeon name in Final Fantasy 10? Hm..



It's also from Arabic mythology. Here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahamut


----------



## dravus (Jul 4, 2008)

VampiricFang said:


> Bahamut....isn't that an Aeon name in Final Fantasy 10? Hm..



actually....Bahamut was used in pretty much all the FF games

with the exception of 12 (the bastards)


----------



## Fate (Jul 4, 2008)

The error message is misspelled. It's "ensure", not "ensue."


----------



## DCRabbit (Jul 4, 2008)

Monak said:


> I see people talking about a gold or premium membership , I can say having joined sites that offer "perks" for upgrading that unless their is some real good perks and even than it would be a stretch.  Making something like that would make things seem even more elitist than they already are.  If a plan was implimented to make a fund for FA it shouldn't involve restricting or denying less fortunate members site access.




 Yup. If this site goes pay I'm outta there. And a good many of the big names would be outta there too.. like MBR, EWS, Bernal, gNAW, etc.. The whole point of posting to a site like FA is to have a place for *everyone* to see the stuff. If I wanted my stuff on a pay site, I'd be already working exclusively for Sexyfur or ClubStripes of such..

 Not saying the admins are planning it.. but this is food for thought to all the users that are floating the idea.


----------



## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 4, 2008)

DCRabbit said:


> Yup. If this site goes pay I'm outta there. And a good many of the big names would be outta there too.. like MBR, EWS, Bernal, gNAW, etc.. The whole point of posting to a site like FA is to have a place for *everyone* to see the stuff. ...



Hehe, I brought up that point with people like you in mind. ^_~  It's actually a very obvious result, I can't fathom why everyone keeps talking about the idea of F.A. going pay as though it were a realistic or good option in this situation.


----------



## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 4, 2008)

Fate said:


> The error message is misspelled. It's "ensure", not "ensue."



Actually, "ensue" is quite accurate in this sense. ^_~  It's just an atypical word to use, that most people probably look at it and 'feel' that something is wrong with it. :3


----------



## Artie (Jul 4, 2008)

DCRabbit said:


> Yup. If this site goes pay I'm outta there. And a good many of the big names would be outta there too.. like MBR, EWS, Bernal, gNAW, etc.. The whole point of posting to a site like FA is to have a place for *everyone* to see the stuff. If I wanted my stuff on a pay site, I'd be already working exclusively for Sexyfur or ClubStripes of such..
> 
> Not saying the admins are planning it.. but this is food for thought to all the users that are floating the idea.



As I stated in a previous post (Not sure if it was in this thread or elsewhere), not one post on the subject of "subscriptions" has suggested taking anything away that everyone currently gets for free.  Nothing would, or should, be taken away from non-paying people.  Everyone is in agreement on this.  But this is just people who are floating the idea as you put it.  There hasn't been any admin input on the matter.  People are just brainstorming ways to make it easier to give money to FA without needing to be reminded in donation drives like this.

I would be happy enough to subscribe and get NOTHING aside from a reminder to subscribe again when my "subscription" is up.  Thus ensuring I don't forget to give money again.  Well, I do like the thought of a special little star/icon/whatever next to my name on the site while said subscription is in effect, basically to show "This user donated to FA in the past X months!".. but I can't think of any FUNCTIONS I'd want just for paid users ultimately.

Kind of like Sponsors at Anthrocon.  They don't really get anything that a regular attending member can't get even cheaper, but they get a nifty ribbon showing that they're a Sponsor.


----------



## Fate (Jul 4, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> Actually, "ensue" is quite accurate in this sense. ^_~  It's just an atypical word to use, that most people probably look at it and 'feel' that something is wrong with it. :3



enÂ·sue 
Pronunciation:
\in-ËˆsÃ¼, en-\
Function:
verb
Inflected Form(s):
enÂ·sued; enÂ·suÂ·ing
transitive verb
: to strive to attain : pursue
intransitive verb
: to take place afterward or as a result

Main Entry:
enÂ·sure 
Pronunciation:
\in-Ëˆshur\
Function:
transitive verb
Inflected Form(s):
enÂ·sured; enÂ·surÂ·ing
: to make sure, certain, or safe : guarantee

(Source: Merriam-Webster online dictionary)

Now, let's play a game. A game where we replace the word with one of the examples from each definition.

1) Ensue (transitive)
We are keeping it offline until the issue can be fixed to attain no further damage occurs.

This example doesn't work. It's grammatically incorrect. Also, it makes no damn sense.

2) Ensue (intransitive)
We are keeping it offline until the issue can be fixed to result no further damage occurs.

Once again, grammatically incorrect.

3) Ensure
We are keeping it offline until the issue can be fixed to guarantee no further damage occurs.

This example both functions properly, and proves that you are baseline incompetent at dealing with a language that you presumably know. Thank you for playing, we have some lovely prizes. Unfortunately, you don't get any.


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 5, 2008)

Fate said:


> enÂ·sue
> Pronunciation:
> \in-ËˆsÃ¼, en-\
> Function:
> ...




en-sue
â€“verb (used without object), -sued, -suÂ·ing. 1.	to follow in order; come afterward, esp. in immediate succession: As the days ensued, he recovered his strength. 
2.	to follow as a consequence; result: When those two friends meet, a battle of wits ensues.


>.> Uhh, the Dictionary.com sites mulitple dictionary references which all agree with this, sorry. >.>  

It was correct.


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## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

Fate said:


> enÂ·sue
> Pronunciation:
> \in-ËˆsÃ¼, en-\
> Function:
> ...



*pets CrystalMendrilia's head* No offense, but that was kinda rude. And besides, Ensue means to begin/commence/happen as a result. Though ensure seems to fit better, ensue is still grammatically correct.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> *pets CrystalMendrilia's head* No offense, but that was kinda rude. And besides, Ensue means to begin/commence/happen as a result. Though ensure seems to fit better, ensue is still grammatically correct.



Aaannd... I was a little late to say this. XD


----------



## Fate (Jul 5, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> It was correct.



It's still not correct, it's the wrong verb tense. That's what I was trying, and apparently failing, to communicate. You really should have had such things as 'verb tenses' in grade school English, which leads me to suspect that you're either an extremely slow learner or simply poorly-educated.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

Fate said:


> It's still not correct, it's the wrong verb tense. That's what I was trying, and apparently failing, to communicate. You really should have had such things as 'verb tenses' in grade school English, which leads me to suspect that you're either an extremely slow learner or simply poorly-educated.



Well I guess that's true about the wrong verb tense. Ensues would have been better, but seeing as it's still the same word, you have to give them at least some credit for that. It could have been better, yes, and it was a simple mistake. You shouldn't be rude about it just because of one word. >.>


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Aaannd... I was a little late to say this. XD



*Huggles* 



Fate said:


> It's still not correct, it's the wrong verb tense. That's what I was trying, and apparently failing, to communicate. You really should have had such things as 'verb tenses' in grade school English, which leads me to suspect that you're either an extremely slow learner or simply poorly-educated.



Wow, still subjecting me to rude insults and so forth eh? Impressive. ^_^

Just because it isn't common doesn't make it wrong, 'dude'. 

"The site's data and integrity remains intact, but we are keeping it offline until the issue can be fixed to ensue no further damage occurs."

...intact, but...   ...fixed, to ensue...  Hmm... uncommon  but considering the word 'but' was there, it technically is accurate. 

I wouldn't trust a dictionary that's out of date like the one you sited. ^_^ 

Also this discussion is over because you seem utterly incapable of acting civilized when someone casually points out something in a vain attempt to help, simply because you disagree with their comment. That's pretty sad, but also makes a very pointless person to 'debate' with.  Bye.


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## selth (Jul 5, 2008)

:3 me likes discutions about english... so...

ensue
â–¶  verb RESULT, follow, be consequent on, develop, proceed, succeed, emerge, stem, arise, derive, issue; occur, happen, take place, come next/after, transpire, supervene; formal eventuate; poetic/literary come to pass, befall. 

ensure
â–¶  verb 
    ensure that the surface is completely clean: MAKE SURE, make certain, see to it; check, confirm, establish, verify. 
    legislation to ensure equal opportunities for all: SECURE, guarantee, assure, certify, set the seal on, clinch. 

source... Oxford university press, Concise Oxford Thesaurus.

Thesaurus... more powerfull than a dictionary, it helps finding bonds you never knew and new words.

words are power, used to say my english teacher... I'm French, I prefer english over French... 

difference I see between to ensue and to ensure: ensue suppose it's already happened or that it's so sure it's gonna happen that there can't any other possibility.

to ensue is not to ensure, that is certain!

I mean no offence, I mean no harm, just to calm stuff.

It's human to make mistakes, it takes will and conscience to learn from them. I mean... all people think they know, but... in the end, no one knows all.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> *Huggles*
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Heh, I couldn't agree more. Regardless of who was right and wrong, he should have stated his point politely, but he chose not to. That was his fault, there. No one else's.

And sorry I couldn't have been of more help in this matter. XD


----------



## seaweed (Jul 5, 2008)

Fate said:


> It's still not correct, it's the wrong verb tense. That's what I was trying, and apparently failing, to communicate. You really should have had such things as 'verb tenses' in grade school English, which leads me to suspect that you're either an extremely slow learner or simply poorly-educated.




Wow, rude much?  I have a learning disability and ADHD, and I have an IQ higher than most people on here. And guess what? I have never been very good with grammar, and I bet I would have made a similar mistake if it had been me. 
So you want to make fun of me because of that, I wonder?


And aren't we supposed to ONLY be talking about the outage anyways?


So.. in that thought.. 

I will very strongly suggest that we not worry or argue over paying for FA with subscriptions and the like. The staff as already said that it isn't going to happen, so that should be good enough for everyone for now.

I am going to donate for my husband any myself. I do post my art up here, and my husband doesn't draw, but it is one of the few ways (besides LJ) that he can keep up with his friends.

I would suggest,  or respectfully ask, that after Monday, when the parts are ordered, that a staff member, no matter which one, give us updates as often as possible (once a day, or every other day?)  to tell us where you are and what is happening. I bet that others are just as interested as I am to know what is going on.


Also, a question for the staff.. if you get more money than what you need for your updates, what will be done with it?   I trust you guys, I am just curious.


----------



## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 5, 2008)

selth said:


> :3 me likes discutions about english... so...



I'm just letting you know I'm not going to read your post because I really am pulling out of this pointless 'debate'  BUT this isn't the thread for a detailed discussion on English anyways.  I only let you know because I don't want you to wait for a response from me if you seeked one. ^_^ 

Please take no offense by this. 



Kraton said:


> Heh, I couldn't agree more. Regardless of who was right and wrong, he should have stated his point politely, but he chose not to. That was his fault, there. No one else's.
> 
> And sorry I couldn't have been of more help in this matter. XD



I thought it was very polite of you actually. ^_^ *Huggles!*  when F.A. is back up, send me a PM. ^_~  (as I probably will forget to come back to the forums haha.)


REGARDING THE SERVER

I'm curious, because earlier they said there'd be a big gift if $10,000 was broken, and we're passed $13,000 now. :3 THere any ideas yet on what it'll be staff?

Also, side question, does that mean you'll be over nighting the hardware?   XD (some friends and I were joking about that idea, but then got curious if you actually were going to do that or not, haha)


----------



## CHICAGOÂ¤lollie (Jul 5, 2008)

IT'S JUST A WORD
Get over it or take it elsewhere. We're here for servers, not spelling.


----------



## selth (Jul 5, 2008)

look better, it's not even a word but a letter...


----------



## Hippotaur2 (Jul 5, 2008)

Ensue that you ensure to stay on topic. 

Servers...outages...and when our beloved FurAffinity will be back.

Not grammar, payment systems for viewing FA, or drinking falafel. 

(Yes, I know you eat them.)


----------



## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 5, 2008)

selth said:


> to ensue is not to ensure, that is certain!
> 
> I mean no offence, I mean no harm, just to calm stuff.



I was skimming and spotted that line so I thought I'd mention this. ^_^

This is very true, but I never suggested it was the same. He's simply asserting what he thinks the sentence 'should' state as what the F.A. staff meant to say, rather than reading it for what it actually states which in the end isn't much different, but is still an accurate way to describe what they were describing, as per english.   

Now I really am out of this, I just didn't want anyone thinking I was suggesting that the words 'were' the same, because they aren't. Check their spelling.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

seaweed said:


> I would suggest,  or respectfully ask, that after Monday, when the parts are ordered, that a staff member, no matter which one, give us updates as often as possible (once a day, or every other day?)  to tell us where you are and what is happening. I bet that others are just as interested as I am to know what is going on.
> 
> 
> Also, a question for the staff.. if you get more money than what you need for your updates, what will be done with it?   I trust you guys, I am just curious.



1. I'm curious as well, and I think that would be a great idea for someone over there to keep us all informed. I'm not a computer genius, but I understand and know enough that I'll be able to grasp whatever details are said.

2. Yeah, as previously stated, I'm curious as well. After FA is fixed and everything, what are all of you planning to do with extra money? You know, future plans and investments. I mean, even after it's all running again, better than before even, I'll still want to donate just cause I love FA that much (not because of the art, mind you. I could do without a lot of the porn... though I'm not complaining or anything), and the people I've met through it. So knowing what y'all plan to do with the money left over might be a good idea. If I know what I'm donating towards, then I would have a better idea of how MUCH to donate a month.
I obviously wouldn't want to go overboard with donating, but I wouldn't want it to be TOO minuscule to even be of any use.

Unless otherwise told/suggested how much to donate, I'll likely donate 1-5 bucks a month, depending on my pay checks, etc.


----------



## SDWolf (Jul 5, 2008)

CHICAGOÂ¤lollie said:


> IT'S JUST A WORD
> Get over it or take it elsewhere. We're here for servers, not spelling.


 
Agreed.  There are bigger things in life to worry about than alleged mechanical errors.  To wit:  No one cares; surely you must have something better to do than nit-pick the error page.  =P


----------



## selth (Jul 5, 2008)

so... to return to the main topic...

to answer "what did they say they'd do with the money?"

I read, yesterday, that they would be updating the other servers.

I stripped much of the details though.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> I thought it was very polite of you actually. ^_^ *Huggles!*  when F.A. is back up, send me a PM. ^_~  (as I probably will forget to come back to the forums haha.)



Ok. ^_^ I'm always up for the chance to make more friends.

And back on topic for me (sorry I haven't been on topic much tonight), I have a question I wish to ask as well:

Other than donations, is there any way a simple FA artist such as myself would be able to help the restoration process along? I don't expect there to be really anything I can do, but in case there is, I'm asking.


----------



## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Ok. ^_^ I'm always up for the chance to make more friends.
> 
> And back on topic for me (sorry I haven't been on topic much tonight), I have a question I wish to ask as well:
> 
> Other than donations, is there any way a simple FA artist such as myself would be able to help the restoration process along? I don't expect there to be really anything I can do, but in case there is, I'm asking.



Art for Donations to FA!


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> Art for Donations to FA!



You're referring to a fund raiser of sorts? Selling commissions to raise money and then donate that to FA?
That's a really great idea... *bites lip a bit* and although I can't actually do that yet, cause I don't have a scanner, or a tablet, or photoshop, etc., I'll keep that in mind for the future.


----------



## SDWolf (Jul 5, 2008)

Firehazard said:


> BUT WHAT ABOUT THE WARRANTY. Or failing at that, a server whose parts can all be easily replaced piecemeal if one goes wrong, and money put aside for said replacement. Plus, I can only hope the collocation site has the insurance to cover you in case the place goes up in flames or something.
> 
> Seriously I'm going to keep asking this until I get a response. I'll switch to PM if need be. The more expensive these new servers get, the more expensive it will be to replace them. You think Dells, IBMs, or whatever, are reliable and won't break? All the guarantees in the world ain't worth jack if the warranty expires in a year.


 
I'm inclined to agree wholeheartedly on this.  IBM, Dell, Sun, and even HP *cringe* all offer remarkably good support for their server hardware.  We'd be crazy not to take advantage of that, as even the highest-rated, most reliable, proven, rock-solid hardware can fail at the drop of a hat.

While most companies will honor a warranty out of courtesy if a failure happens within a week or two of the warranty expiring, the best thing FA could do is make sure the hardware is covered for its expected lifetime.  If you plan on keeping the servers for at least three years, then go ahead and spring for three years of coverage, as that's usually cheaper than renewing it every year.


----------



## Tyroon (Jul 5, 2008)

well I have to say, it could be something as simple as a problem with a Proxy if you used a Proxy server.

  The collage I went to had a problem with thereâ€™s for over a year took them that long to work out what was going on and fix it.. actually donâ€™t know if they managed to fix it as by that time my course had finished lol...

  Any way that resulted in continues page load errors and would some times have the internet cut out completely until some one restarted it to get it going again...

  Donâ€™t know if that could be the problem for you lot as well? But we were on the other side of the server trying to get connections out to the internet rather then connecting to it over the internetâ€¦


  <.=.< although I have to say you lot follow the same idea path for computer and server names apparently, my large black computer is called Bahamut and have wanted to get a server for a long time pre planed name Tiamat ^.=.^â€™


----------



## Tamius (Jul 5, 2008)

Are there gonna be updates posted here?


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## shadowcolt (Jul 5, 2008)

Hey guys, good luck with the servers! Just ignore the others who troll  Bet they couldn't run it better


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## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

shadowcolt said:


> Hey guys, good luck with the servers! Just ignore the others who troll  Bet they couldn't run it better



Heh, that's true, too. XD

Well, it's 1:32AM here, so I'm heading off.
Again, sorry for the off-topic stuff.
Goodnight to everyone.


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## Firehazard (Jul 5, 2008)

SDWolf said:


> Firehazard said:
> 
> 
> > You think Dells, IBMs, or whatever, are reliable and won't break?  All the guarantees in the world ain't worth jack if the warranty expires in a year.


Whoa.  That sounded really rude.  That could do with a bit of editing, eh?


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## Fuzzypaws (Jul 5, 2008)

Firehazard said:


> Whoa.  That sounded really rude.  That could do with a bit of editing, eh?



Whuh...?  He agreed with you, dude.


----------



## Artie (Jul 5, 2008)

The number of users on the forum has certainly grown due to this outage. 

Crossdog367 got user ID 10000, and I believe Kashito91 was actually the 10,000th user.  (The actual user count is off by 3 from the newest user ID)


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## Houshou (Jul 5, 2008)

Life is too short to be: Angry, upset, whiny, dramatic, sad, pouty, misguided, misunderstood, loathing, berzerk, and a jerk.

The only thing out of life that you are guaranteed is death.

So when life hands you something and you like it, don't act in a manner that was stated above. Take it with whatever grain of salt there is, because it may not always be there, and be grateful that you had the opportunity to be a part of it.

Life is too fast. Take a step back, breathe deep, hold it for 30 seconds, and exhale very slowly. Do this 3 times. Now, say something nice about what FA (Site, admins, and/or Forums) has given to you.

And finally, 
Please be patient as they are doing their best to provide us, once again, with a damn good site.

Thank You FA! Without you, I wouldn't be The Flying Squirrel of Death, Houshou!


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## Abyss666 (Jul 5, 2008)

Artie said:


> The number of users on the forum has certainly grown due to this outage.
> 
> Crossdog367 got user ID 10000, and I believe Kashito91 was actually the 10,000th user.  (The actual user count is off by 3 from the newest user ID)



Lol, now were going to crash the FAF servers too. Good luck with server repairs and once I get paid next week or the week after, I'll try to send something FA's way. You guys certainly deserve it for all the time I've spent browsing the galleries.


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## Koda (Jul 5, 2008)

You know, it might be a good idea to place the order over the weekend instead of monday, that way the credit card crap will already be taken care of and the only further waiting would be manufacture/shipment/deployment. 

*shrug* just my 2 cents


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## ArielMT (Jul 5, 2008)

Firehazard said:


> Whoa.  That sounded really rude.  That could do with a bit of editing, eh?


If you're referring to your own earlier post which you quoted, I think so.  While it's unfortunately entirely too true in the consumer market, where they're all looking to cut as many corners as possible (so much so that they're cutting their bottom lines, or threatening to), it's a different matter entirely in the server market.  Reliability is a much bigger selling point in this arena, and that requires proven support and good, long-lasting hardware, things that the big guys can't get away with cutting back on here like they can in the home/personal computer market.

I agree with SDWolf entirely on the rest of the response.


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## Kanic (Jul 5, 2008)

Dragoneer should take pictures of the new server and post them here. That way we can all bow down and worship it. LOL j/k XD


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## Ashkihyena (Jul 5, 2008)

*Opens mouth to say something, then shuts it* Again, not worth the fucking trouble.


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 5, 2008)

Tamius said:


> Are there gonna be updates posted here?



Yes.



shadowcolt said:


> Hey guys, good luck with the servers! Just ignore the others who troll  Bet they couldn't run it better



Actually compared to any other website I"ve been to for art (excluding D.A. because I've never had / seen the issue arise to base a comparison.)  Fur Affinity actually does respond to requests for help regarding Trolls. 

Some trolls came at me but I blunted their swords and splintered their shields easily enough, but someone else made a good argument that I should still report them in case they attack others who aren't as prepared as I was. : /   Trolls are annoying in that, they actually do that and think their life has 'some' meaning, and/or that their actions somehow impact things.   

When I requested assistance, the Troll was taken care of, within 24 hours.  ^_^ I was impressed.


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## Toonces (Jul 5, 2008)

Jesus Christ guys even with the website down we find ways to manufacture drama.


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## Talbotlynx (Jul 5, 2008)

TooncesFA said:


> Jesus Christ guys even with the website down we find ways to manufacture drama.




With furries, drama is a way of life. lol
If we can't find it, one of us is bound to make it. 

At least the trolling is handled well. Best I've been on in terms of trolling and other issues being handled at all.


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## Balto.Woof (Jul 5, 2008)

Talbotlynx said:


> With furries, drama is a way of life. lol
> If we can't find it, one of us is bound to make it.
> 
> At least the trolling is handled well. Best I've been on in terms of trolling and other issues being handled at all.



"Furries - We Know Drama"


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## Talbotlynx (Jul 5, 2008)

Balto.Woof said:


> "Furries - We Know Drama"




Y'know, I was gonna put it like that, but I used up my quota on saying that at some point last year. XD


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## Abyss666 (Jul 5, 2008)

TooncesFA said:


> Jesus Christ guys even with the website down we find ways to manufacture drama.



Just a natural part of the fandom, drama tends to leak everywhere and can materialize at a moments notice with even the smallest group of furs. Sometimes I get the feeling that some furs feel the need to join in ongoing drama or invent their own the same way you and I need food and water.


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## dmfalk (Jul 5, 2008)

Abyss666 said:


> Just a natural part of the fandom, drama tends to leak everywhere and can materialize at a moments notice with even the smallest group of furs. Sometimes I get the feeling that some furs feel the need to join in ongoing drama or invent their own the same way you and I need food and water.



Verbal masturbation. *nod* 

d.m.f.


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## RANQuickFox (Jul 5, 2008)

Hamsterchan said:


> I was going to donate...until I saw how much you all ready have.


The more people donate, the better the hardware FA will end up getting... the fact that people have continued to contribute past the original $2000 goal, and continued to donate to well over double the $4000 goal will mean that the hardware we can expect will be a far cry from the bare minimum that FA needed... the reality that whether you want to pay for it or not, FA is costing someone money to sustain is one you should face.
If you were willing to put in money to get FA back on its feet again, why not put in money to help keep it on its feet this time? In the end it amounts to the same thing... dont let the current community generosity deter you from doing your part for the greater good, every donation counts!


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 5, 2008)

TooncesFA said:


> Jesus Christ guys even with the website down we find ways to manufacture drama.



Wait, did I just post something involving an actual Troll and Drama?  I was just commenting on trolls in general,  I think I missed something!


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## Vincentmoon (Jul 5, 2008)

RANQuickFox said:


> The more people donate, the better the hardware FA will end up getting... the fact that people have continued to contribute past the original $2000 goal, and continued to donate to well over double the $4000 goal will mean that the hardware we can expect will be a far cry from the bare minimum that FA needed... the reality that whether you want to pay for it or not, FA is costing someone money to sustain is one you should face.
> If you were willing to put in money to get FA back on its feet again, why not put in money to help keep it on its feet this time? In the end it amounts to the same thing... dont let the current community generosity deter you from doing your part for the greater good, every donation counts!




which is a GOOD idea I must say, 
when you have a community of 100000 users
have a sever that can take 500000, gotta have headroom


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## Anepo (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> No offense, but I stopped reading your post after that.
> It's called TRUST, man. If you like and trust FA enough to donate, then this isn't an issue. If you don't trust the ones supplying you with such a site, then why are you on FA anyway? I mean, really. You're not expected to donate or anything. If you don't trust it, then ok. That's really all fine and dandy. No one's gonna have a problem with you, no matter what your reason for not wanting to donate. Whether you don't have the money to donate, don't have a means to donate, or don't trust where the money is going, that doesn't stop others from donating, and I'm sure FA will be fine regardless of if you donate or not. Heck, I'm not donating cause I don't have any money. Though I trust FA and it's mods. If I had money to donate, I would.




I trust them myself. Although i do know what half of the money is going to be used for ^^ A celebration... all im gona say is: strippers in fursuits and beer! lol


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## Anepo (Jul 5, 2008)

Amber said:


> I don't understand why everyone is complaining so much about the site being down. This is a free site. I bet if they received $1.00 for every complaint about FA being down they would have enough money to buy better equipment so their would be no more failures. It's not their fault that there isn't enough support from their members to be able to afford the expensive equipment.
> 
> Poor Dragoneer's back must be in awful pain from everyone jumping on it...



Actually i think they would all be driving a bugatti veyron if they got a $ for that ^^ But oddly enough this is the best time for the server to break down for me personally ^^ Not that i want the server to be broken... But lets just say ive got a broken arm so........... well browsing FA wouldnt be the same ^^ all im gona say lol (yea just had to make a really dirty joke sorry) But i hope you will post the specs on the new server so i can cry in the corner over my crappy computer.


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## Rhainor (Jul 5, 2008)

Koda said:


> You know, it might be a good idea to place the order over the weekend instead of monday,...



I don't think they *can*.

Don't quote me on that, though.


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## silvermidnight (Jul 5, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> Wait, did I just post something involving an actual Troll and Drama?  I was just commenting on trolls in general,  I think I missed something!



I dunno if that post was meant for you, I know that going through some of the posts in this thread that there are people that were causing drama waves. Hopfully that's over now. 

I'm wondering if there is any new ETA to when FA will be back up?


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## Guano (Jul 5, 2008)

I hope FA is back up soon.

Really though, I don't care how long it takes as long as the data is ok...There's a lot of favorites of mine I REALLY hope weren't deleted. One-of-a-kind stuff.


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## Sageon (Jul 5, 2008)

Guano said:


> I hope FA is back up soon.
> 
> Really though, I don't care how long it takes as long as the data is ok...There's a lot of favorites of mine I REALLY hope weren't deleted. One-of-a-kind stuff.



I hear ya. Wish I took time to remember some of the email address of the artists I look at.


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## Sslaxx (Jul 5, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> Wait, did I just post something involving an actual Troll and Drama?  I was just commenting on trolls in general,  I think I missed something!


I think that was referring to the post some 20-odd pages back between myself and Nrr. Best leave it there, I think.


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## talakestreal (Jul 5, 2008)

Dang. I dont' check in here for 2 days, and the donation amount has doubled.  Wow.  I should hope that that would be more than enough money to do what they need to do. 

Then again, I know nothing about computers, so I might be completely wrong in that.  I'm quite impressed though, by that total. Wow.  It boggles the mind.


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## Sslaxx (Jul 5, 2008)

It's very impressive going. Nice stuff!


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## dr-bored (Jul 5, 2008)

I'm not sure if this has been said before, there's been a lot of posts..

But pending how many users there really are on Furc (though some may be inactive, deleted, whatever, let's assume there's about 8000 that are active and of proper age) if each person donated 50 cents, JUST FIFTY CENTS, FA would have the 4000 dollars they need to buy a freaking awesome new server.

From all the people that don't have money to spare.. you don't have to donate fifty bucks or a hundred, or twenty or even ten, just fifty cents, or a dollar, c'mon! You probably have two quarters in your pocket right now, slam them on the table and let's get FA back up and running.

I want to see more artwork from all my favorite artists, and if all I have to do is pay fifty cents, I'll sure as hell do that. In fact, I will right now! 

(Dragoneer, how many active users are there on furc? If you have that info handy, pop out a calculator and put this little fact up on the first page of this forum. It might motivate the constant 'no-money-ers' to donate if all they have to do is donate a dollar or a couple of cents.)


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## Kanic (Jul 5, 2008)

I don't blame the ones who haven't donated especially with the current state of the economy if you live in the US that is. With the way things are going every penny you can get your paws on is important. It's not that they don't care about the site or are ungenerous. They are just taking there life into account before they donate. I don't see anything wrong with that. That is why FA is great, it allows you to have the choice of wheter to donate or not. Just my opinion though.


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## Daddy Ducky BE (Jul 5, 2008)

ShadowComet said:


> If anyone is being pompus, it's those who want FA to start charging people or benefit people who give donations, we aren't all from relatively rich families, and as someone else had stated further back, those who did donate, about half or more probably shouldn't have donated cause they need their money, which means they can't do it all the time, or in the amount it would be worth giving "Extras" for.



I didn't see anybody saying that donators should be charged. I fact, it's been happening all along without anybody having to demand it, both PayPal and Google charge a percentage of your donations for the service of getting your money to FA.

What we have been talking about was implementing a similar routine about commissions, only on a voluntary, optional basis as one of other ways. Don't want to automatically share up to 5% of the money you make in commissions with FA? Then don't do it, we'd just be giving you the case-by-case opportunity to do it whenever you want to. And I still stand by saying that such a one-click opportunity to give something back to FA only if you're making money would give FA much better funding than the current donations system and subscriptions rolled into one.



Redregon said:


> it's capitalism, pure and simple.
> 
> besides, Communism is only really an ideal that imo lazy people aspire to... you want something, work for it. you don't work for it, well, then maybe you didn't want it enough.



Reply moved here: http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?p=470918#post470918


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## jro2020 (Jul 5, 2008)

dr-bored said:


> I'm not sure if this has been said before, there's been a lot of posts..
> 
> But pending how many users there really are on Furc (though some may be inactive, deleted, whatever, let's assume there's about 8000 that are active and of proper age) if each person donated 50 cents, JUST FIFTY CENTS, FA would have the 4000 dollars they need to buy a freaking awesome new server.
> 
> ...


basically irrelevant as to if everyone kicked in fifty cents,  since according to amazon those of us who donated have already shattered the $4000 goal and it is quickly nearing $9000. That doesn't even include the paypallers.

of course maybe this is just an old account which includes previous requests(?) so keep chipping in.


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## dr-bored (Jul 5, 2008)

jro2020 said:


> basically irrelevant as to if everyone kicked in fifty cents,  since according to amazon those of us who donated have already shattered the $4000 goal and it is quickly nearing $9000. That doesn't even include the paypallers.
> 
> of course maybe this is just an old account which includes previous requests(?) so keep chipping in.



Holy crap, good point. Well, if we keep busting the marker, then hopefully furaffinity will be able to gather up some savings that they can invest into fixing future problems, and updating in the future as well.. So, keep donating XP


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## Riguel (Jul 5, 2008)

Wow they took down the amazon link to donate off the front page.


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## selth (Jul 5, 2008)

aaaw.... I smell an incomming update!


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## Houshou (Jul 5, 2008)

*mimics Dragooneer*

The results are in! And we now have enough money to buy....4 new SERVERS!
2.5 are being dedicated to the WWW and 1.5 are being setup as Data / Backup Beasts!


.............

If only, right?


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## Panpan (Jul 5, 2008)

I'm a little confused by the concept of basing what the site needs on how much you are able to make people shovel out...

I -really- hope the admins are doing what absolutely needs to be done, and not just making assumptions or being like 'Wow, this is cool, let's do it because we can!' Y'know? ...Because that is a very strange thing to do.


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## Riguel (Jul 5, 2008)

selth said:


> aaaw.... I smell an incomming update!



-crosses fingers- One can hope :3


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## Ruffyluv (Jul 5, 2008)

Panpan said:


> I'm a little confused by the concept of basing what the site needs on how much you are able to make people shovel out...
> 
> I -really- hope the admins are doing what absolutely needs to be done, and not just making assumptions or being like 'Wow, this is cool, let's do it because we can!' Y'know? ...Because that is a very strange thing to do.




its not strange at all, what they're trying to do is build for the future so they dont run out of space in a month or this failure happens again because they just did the minimum of work to get things up and running

i'm hoping they buy the best they can get so that it can keep running a few years before it needs upgrading again


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## Armaetus (Jul 5, 2008)

I'll be chipping in $5 later today.

For all those needing their porn fix....try VCL, Furry Art Pile and Yiffstar?


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## Ainoko (Jul 5, 2008)

Any new updates on the Amazon link or with PayPal?


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## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

Kanic said:


> I don't blame the ones who haven't donated especially with the current state of the economy if you live in the US that is. With the way things are going every penny you can get your paws on is important. It's not that they don't care about the site or are ungenerous. They are just taking there life into account before they donate. I don't see anything wrong with that. That is why FA is great, it allows you to have the choice of whether to donate or not. Just my opinion though.


Heh, and when I said I didn't have any money, that was meant literally. XD
Oh... wait, I have 1 penny in my wallet.
Too bad that will equal to 0 once donated, cause of Amazon and Paypal taking away a certain amount of it... XD
I promise though that once I have money to donate (I'll also have to open up a new bank account once I move. I'll see what has to be done at that time), I will donate some.
I just really don't have anything. XD


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## seaweed (Jul 5, 2008)

Panpan said:


> I'm a little confused by the concept of basing what the site needs on how much you are able to make people shovel out...
> 
> I -really- hope the admins are doing what absolutely needs to be done, and not just making assumptions or being like 'Wow, this is cool, let's do it because we can!' Y'know? ...Because that is a very strange thing to do.






As it was already said before.. they are not doing things "just because they can", Dragoneer has already explained that if they get more than they need for the servers, then they will use it for more RAM to make the servers run faster.

They are not doing things "to be cool", they are doing things to give us a better experience here.


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## foxystallion (Jul 5, 2008)

SammyFox said:


> I don't agree with a yearly or monthly charge for the privilege of using furaffinity, especially since most of us don't have credit cards and paypal's too stupid to not bitch about a site like furaffinity.
> 
> if I were to have to pay and I didn't have any mean to pay, and I'd get kicked out from the site just because of that, that'd really suck.
> 
> imagine if you were to kick out hundreds of users who don't have a way to pay? that'd be very bad.



Anyone of any age can go into any US Post Office, purchase a Postal Money Order, and snail mail it.  In any case, most of the discussions have referred to voluntary payments for extra services such as additional viewing bandwidth, a CSS customizable userpage,  or the absence of annoying flashing ads.


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## Ainoko (Jul 5, 2008)

seaweed said:


> As it was already said before.. they are not doing things "just because they can", Dragoneer has already explained that if they get more than they need for the servers, then they will use it for more RAM to make the servers run faster.
> 
> They are not doing things "to be cool", they are doing things to give us a better experience here.



But he also stated that they would get the best servers they can with the donations. So the more donations = better servers not to mention more RAM as well.


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## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

You guys and girls are so awesome. I didn't even have to donate (though I plan to in the future), and already I'm going to have a better experience on FA than before.
A personal thanks to everyone here. ^_^


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## Armaetus (Jul 5, 2008)

On the mention of absence of ads for premium, I find that useless for those who are using Firefox with the Adblock Plus and Flashblock plugins as those completely negate the use for even giving that option for no-ads on FA. I already block everything but the donate ads anyway.


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## Astro Fenn (Jul 5, 2008)

Eghh.... I don't understand Computers, ahh well, hope this thing is fixed soon.


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 5, 2008)

Sslaxx said:


> I think that was referring to the post some 20-odd pages back between myself and Nrr. Best leave it there, I think.





silvermidnight said:


> I dunno if that post was meant for you, I know that going through some of the posts in this thread that there are people that were causing drama waves. Hopfully that's over now.



Whew. ^_^ Good I didn't want to partake in a 'flame war' or something just as silly. ^_^



mrchris said:


> For all those needing their porn fix....try VCL, Furry Art Pile and Yiffstar?



Yiffstar pissed me off. XD  Some mod there calling himself 'Snoopy' decided one of my (not worst) pictures didn't meet their 'quality standards'.  Obviously he's never looked at the art on the website he mods because, sure I always see a world of problem with every picture I post, they simply aren't that bad. XD  I personally like VCL. I also forgot about Furry Art Pile. Haha thanks for reminding me!  I think I actually did make an account there once. XD

Yiffstar's community has too many jerks, that's why I focused my art on Fur Affinity, this place is actually nice to be at.


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## nothingkat (Jul 5, 2008)

I say make Furaffinity an optional paysite. Let those who pay have special options such as multiple icons, an actual whole-site search feature, unlimited amount of watches, faster connections, no ads, their artwork featured on the front page of Furaffinity as "newly uploaded art" and so on.

Those who don't pay get only one avatar option. A limited amount of people to watch, Advertisments, speed limits, and no whole-site search feature, and no "newly uploaded art" front page exposure.

It's my understanding that those who truly enjoy Furaffinity would gladly support it and in exchange Furaffinity can offer them a faster furry art finding experience.

If you do it THIS way, I can guarantee that Furaffinity can go on and on. Learn from the mistakes of previous sites. Eventually donations will dwindle and the site will go away. Take hold of this feature now.

You want to save FA? This is the way. "Optional" payment NOW!

It will still be free, technically.


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## OxfordTweed (Jul 5, 2008)

I think the Amazon counter is broken again.





nothingkat said:


> It's my understanding that those who truly enjoy Furaffinity would gladly support it and in exchange Furaffinity can offer them a faster furry art finding experience, and no "newly uploaded art" front page.




Am I understanding you correctly in that the recent uploads would only show for unsubscribed users? I'm not really sure what the point of that would be. I've found most of the people I watch from the new stuff on the front page.


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## Sekhmet (Jul 5, 2008)

Just letting you guys know I donated too! I hope we can get some awesome technology for the site! =)


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## codewolf (Jul 5, 2008)

added in my contribution


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## nothingkat (Jul 5, 2008)

Zeddish said:


> Am I understanding you correctly in that the recent uploads would only show for unsubscribed users? I'm not really sure what the point of that would be. I've found most of the people I watch from the new stuff on the front page.




I re-edited my last post to make it correct. I propose only allowing 'paid' artists to have the front page. It makes the most sense.


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## Ribbonpaws (Jul 5, 2008)

i wonder how many would go else where with what peeps are proposing for a "paid site" 
Dragoneer said he would post a thread on this later and that if we went to a subscribing membership thing, non paying users wouldnt lose anything that we already have....even the front page. 

While i dont mind having a subscription, i say we pulled together nicely when needed to donate.


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## nothingkat (Jul 5, 2008)

Ribbonpaws said:


> i wonder how many would go else where with what peeps are proposing for a "paid site"
> Dragoneer said he would post a thread on this later and that if we went to a subscribing membership thing, non paying users wouldnt lose anything that we already have....even the front page.



The front page is a GREAT way to get people to pay, if you ask me. If people want to go elsewhere, let them. There is no other site that panders this specifically to furry artists like FA. If they want VCL, they can enjoy being lumped in one giant ball of a million pictures.

I say bring the search feature back to those who pay. Let the front page go to those who pay. Even increase bandwidth to those who pay, if that's an option they can manage. I'll even go as far as to say 'Private messaging' only to those who pay. Furaffinity is not free and should be free to collect a small portion so it can run without trouble.

Think about it. Everytime it goes down, people pour a lot of money to get it back up in a few days. If it had the money there, it can take care of everything with little delay.

Even as little as 5 bucks a month can help this site. Donations can now lead to a better FA experience. I know we like the word 'donation' but a FA Supporting Member title doesn't sound to bad, either.


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## Armaetus (Jul 5, 2008)

OK, $5 sent your way Drago.

I don't know about 'paid' artists being on the front but what about new or amateur artists? How will they be recognized if all the 'big' artists are hogging the spotlight? I'd not want my commission pieces to not be shown because I am not a 'big' artist..it's just not fair...perhaps a grace period for new users and to keep the fake accounts/trolls at bay by not allowing them to comment or submit for two days..


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## nothingkat (Jul 5, 2008)

That's just it. There won't be 'big' artists. Just 'FA Supporting Member' artists.  Or to put it in another term.

$5 will make you a big artist on FA.


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## WarMocK (Jul 5, 2008)

Hey! Where's the donation link to the amazon site? Oo
I just wanted to have a look at the current donation stats and it's gone. :-(


----------



## shadowedskunk (Jul 5, 2008)

well.. i guess we will have to wait a little bit till things are back online again

OH MAH GAWD MAH PENIS WILL DIE!!!

rofl take yer time ill be back when yah set stuff workin again


----------



## kaarsten (Jul 5, 2008)

nothingkat said:


> That's just it. There won't be 'big' artists. Just 'FA Supporting Member' artists.  Or to put it in another term.
> 
> $5 will make you a big artist on FA.



It's just that. It's not fair to the other artists. He already said it'll probably be for stuff like more user page customization and such. He already said he's not taking away existing features from free users, if he ever does make a subscription feature.


----------



## Lumpy (Jul 5, 2008)

WarMocK said:


> Hey! Where's the donation link to the amazon site? Oo
> I just wanted to have a look at the current donation stats and it's gone. :-(



there's a link in dragoneer's original post


----------



## Abyss666 (Jul 5, 2008)

WarMocK said:


> Hey! Where's the donation link to the amazon site? Oo
> I just wanted to have a look at the current donation stats and it's gone. :-(



Its still linked in Dragoneers first post http://zme.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/my-pay-page/P2AS2N2AKBDLV4/105-8052410-0114065

Total Collected: US $8,857.02 
# of Payments: 389 
as of 12:44PM July 5


----------



## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 5, 2008)

nothingkat said:


> If you do it THIS way, I can guarantee that Furaffinity can go on and on. Learn from the mistakes of previous sites. Eventually donations will dwindle and the site will go away. Take hold of this feature now.
> 
> You want to save FA? This is the way. "Optional" payment NOW!
> 
> It will still be free, technically.







nothingkat said:


> I say make Furaffinity an optional paysite. Let those who pay have special options such as multiple icons, an actual whole-site search feature, unlimited amount of watches, faster connections, no ads, their artwork featured on the front page of Furaffinity as "newly uploaded art" and so on.
> 
> Those who don't pay get only one avatar option. A limited amount of people to watch, Advertisments, speed limits, and no whole-site search feature, and no "newly uploaded art" front page exposure..



Unlimited amount of watches... there's a limit to how many watches we have now? + even if there is, limiting the amount of watches would be a bad move. 

Not being able to search the whole site would be very unfair to the artists. 



nothingkat said:


> If you do it THIS way, I can guarantee that Furaffinity can go on and on. Learn from the mistakes of previous sites. Eventually donations will dwindle and the site will go away. Take hold of this feature now.
> 
> You want to save FA? This is the way. "Optional" payment NOW!
> 
> It will still be free, technically.



I wonder what your basis for comparison is... Besides, trying to persuade a lot of the top level artists to pay for this by force is obviously a bad move... learn, from the past mistakes. :3 

the Furry Fandom has grown a lot yes, but we aren't Deviant Art, nor could we support that. 

Yes it will still be free technically but if FA were to go that way, lots of people would leave, + the next furry art website to be established the way the people want it to be, since you're pro changing that, will become a magnet for attention by the fandom and quickly grow into what F.A. has accmoplished already. 



nothingkat said:


> I propose only allowing 'paid' artists to have the front page. It makes the most sense.



Which would of course take away from the appeal Fur Affinity has, since that is anti-amature artist. 

Fur Affinity is a great website because it's a fun place to be, the people are nice, the website is great to amature artists, and good artists, and the bad artists who are aspiring to get off stick figures. ^_^  

Simply by limiting exposure to the people who are the majority of Fur Affinity, and those who make the website so fun (non-artists) then peiople will leave with the obvious results the internet demonstrates time and time again when a site, "Goes pay!" as they say with some kind of hateful conviction. 



Ribbonpaws said:


> i wonder how many would go else where with what peeps are proposing for a "paid site"
> Dragoneer said he would post a thread on this later and that if we went to a subscribing membership thing, non paying users wouldnt lose anything that we already have....even the front page.



A lot would go elsewhere. That's obvious.

Dragoneer is too intelligent at running a websie to make the kind of errors people are suggesting. If the staff do go into some sort of pay subscriptions, they'll do it correctly. 

Even names like Inuki don't pay on for subscriptions on Deviant Art. (though others have for her as a gift. That's so kind!)



Ribbonpaws said:


> While i dont mind having a subscription, i say we pulled together nicely when needed to donate.



I agree.


----------



## Microsoftt (Jul 5, 2008)

If FA was ever made as a pay site, it would only be okay by me if current users lost nothing. Including artists not having to pay to have their submissions show on the front page. I can't tell you how much I'm against that, I think it's stupid to modify anyone's previous abilities on FA and locking ANYTHING that was implemented as for free before now only for pay. What you should do is ADD features for paying users, but leave everything as it is exactly the same for everyone else. FA really needs a lot added to it, so you could add quite a bit that many people would be willing to pay for, even if everything else is the same.

One, obviously a search. "Browse" is a half-assed attempt at a search, but it's basically useless and I've never used it. Ever. Also, the ability to delete comments from your submissions, journals and shout page. The ability to make submissions and journals that have comments disabled to begin with. How about a list of "current members online" only visible to payers and/or people's personal pages showing an online/offline status (and, of course, an invisible mode)? The ability to edit comments you've made, or even edit comments you receive (for the lulz)?

Basically, don't charge for things people already have for free. Don't waste your time trying to get everyone's money without giving anything new in return, instead, work on making FA not suck so much. If you charged for things I already have, I'd probably leave FA and just browse Lulz and DeviantArt more. And I don't like DeviantArt.


----------



## mukichan (Jul 5, 2008)

Microsoftt said:


> Also, the ability to delete comments from your submissions, journals and shout page.



You can already delete shouts on your shout page. :3 But the deleting comments from submissions and journals sounds awesome!


----------



## nothingkat (Jul 5, 2008)

Ribbonpaws said:


> i wonder how many would go else where with what peeps are proposing for a "paid site"
> Dragoneer said he would post a thread on this later and that if we went to a subscribing membership thing, non paying users wouldnt lose anything that we already have....even the front page.
> 
> While i dont mind having a subscription, i say we pulled together nicely when needed to donate.





kaarsten said:


> It's just that. It's not fair to the other artists. He already said it'll probably be for stuff like more user page customization and such. He already said he's not taking away existing features from free users, if he ever does make a subscription feature.



I seem to be confused by the term 'fair'. What's not fair is having the website knocked down due to horrible financing. He may say he's not about removing features already given to people but the 'front page' is not a feature. The search option is not yet a feature given to anyone. But exclusive bandwidth, more avatars, front page exposure. If he thinks people are going to pay just to have a customized user page, well prepare for yet another downfall.

I think if, for free, you can surf the site, view artists, comment, receive comments, upload your artwork, watch your favorite artists -- then that's all one would need.

But if someone wants to have a faster bandwidth experience, search the entire site, send private messages back and forth to people, customize their 'gallery' or even have multiple galleries. Have a journal.  Have multiple avatars for each picture uploaded/journal entry posted, have front page exposure, Well - 

these are features that an artist would glady pay for on a stable server. Even 5 bucks a month. It's not much but it can provide enough to keep FA running.


----------



## BondoFox (Jul 5, 2008)

This is sounding more and more like Public Television.  "We'll get back to the show, JUST AS SOON AS we receive five *additional* pledges of $100 apiece!"

I decided I'd come to FA because it was a free site.  My art isn't worth paying for and it's a nice place to not only display it but also to meet/greet other artists.  If it does become a paysite, I'm out of here.  My art also isn't worth someone else making money over.

BondoFox -- my FREE multi-artist/author website -- is and always WILL be free.

BondoFox


----------



## nothingkat (Jul 5, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> I wonder what your basis for comparison is... Besides, trying to persuade a lot of the top level artists to pay for this by force is obviously a bad move... learn, from the past mistakes. :3
> 
> the Furry Fandom has grown a lot yes, but we aren't Deviant Art, nor could we support that.
> 
> ...




Okay I get it. If it's free, more people will join.

But how many times have free sites disappeared? Remember when Furnation use to be the prime free site? It's hardly even a website anymore.  And Furaffinity is a BLOATED version of that and in the few years it was up, it's been down more often than one can remember.

I don't understand why people keep saying it's not 'fair' to deny this and that. It's a privilege to even have them.

People are going to leave one website for another but it's not because they have to pay for special features. The basics will still be there. People tend to enjoy FA and want to support it but they will lose more people rapidly through these downtimes. They can fix it and reward those who support it -- therefore limited the number of downtimes. They can even pay to have professional coders touch up the site. 

And if they still want to leave because a website wants to make money and maintain itself, then let them leave. Furaffinity needs SUPPORTERS, free, donated, or charged.

People who are paying are paying for the chance to be exposed in FA. It wouldn't matter if you are an amateur or a "professional" furry artist. (I mean, is there even a difference now? Big-name artist still get the most exposure)

But this is about exposure. it's about maintaining a website that goes down too often.


----------



## Microsoftt (Jul 5, 2008)

mukichan said:


> You can already delete shouts on your shout page. :3 But the deleting comments from submissions and journals sounds awesome!



Oh, okay.

Also, I thought I'd like to add more: put in more advertisements and have a "disable ads" option for paid users.


----------



## jfili1021 (Jul 5, 2008)

Thanks to the wonderfull administrators for all their had work in getting up as quickly as they can!  Bravo!


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

ok, now I'm starting to get annoyed...
People need to stop discussing making FA a pay site or having subscribers optional, etc. It's NOT going to happen, and anyone who thinks it should happen really has NO SAY in the matter. You're wasting your time, so STOP ARGUING ABOUT IT! >.<


----------



## Armaetus (Jul 5, 2008)

jfili1021 said:


> Why don't they make it like DA I pay $30.00 a year subscription which..... Get up to 120 Deviations per page when browsing
> Browse with No Ads
> Browse Way Back all the way to 2000
> Customize 20 slots on your front page
> ...



Which I find useless in some points..

1) 60 is enough per page
2) Adblock Plus and Flashblock can do that with Firefox
3) Pointless if you ask me
4) More useless gimmicks, why do that when you can browse the original, shrink it to mobile phone size and put it on your mobile?
5) Even more useless gimmicks

I see no reason to go copycatting DA this way...I just want all the basic features in a site like this (functional search being one big thing)


----------



## DarkSunDS (Jul 5, 2008)

God, will you stop proposing to make FA a pay site...?
It's just a very stupid and selfish idea. Based on the amount of donations given, I doubt FA needs more money, unless it crashes badly again, and I doubt it's going to happen soon, considering all the money they've got now and what they can buy compared to the current hardware. Either way, I'd hate to see such a user-friendly community becoming a pay site.


----------



## jfili1021 (Jul 5, 2008)

Sorry All!


----------



## Krim (Jul 5, 2008)

@Nothingkat

I'm sorry...I could very well be wrong but your idea sounds a bit like "Lets do what DA did and make the site suck ass for anyone who isn't a paid subcriber only lets make it alot worse that way they'll be forced to subscribe if they actually want to do anything worth while!"


----------



## freakether3 (Jul 5, 2008)

*Re: Server Hardware Fault / OLA U Muchachos/chas!!!*

you guys.......there R so many of us here!........
this site is _*too*_ important to the real underground
of Artists & Musicians!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

if everybody gave the amount of a pack of Ciggies...or whatever...
FA would B _*really-rolling*_!
do U DIG being here.....
nothing is Free!!!....
not even FREEDOM.


----------



## jfili1021 (Jul 5, 2008)

Let's start over, hello my name is Jeremie I love FA! Hopefully I will make a lot of friends here!  lol


----------



## SpiritCreations (Jul 5, 2008)

Redregon said:


> do you think the artists like Blotch, Spirit Creations or Artdecade would stick around for that?
> 
> my guess is very likely not.
> 
> ...



Daaww! :3 You put me in the art category of Blotch? XD You're such a sweetie.  

And yeah, I agree with what you are saying. I have my own website (which Dragoneer helped me get because he is the awesomeness and a fantastic person) but I don't *need* FA to make my sales. However, I do love FA very dearly. I love the people watching me and all the fun comments we throw back and forth at each others. I love helping others improve on their art while receiving criticism about my own.  I really love the community. So, if FA ever became a site where artists of a certain level had to pay, then I would just keep my free account and sell elsewhere. However, I do like the idea that someone had where if you subscribed, then you got extra happy bonus features, but you don't *have* to subscribe if you can't afford it. 

Also, just so ya'll know, even the artists who have a large following aren't necessarily rolling in money.  We're still barely making it as it is and a good portion of us have to have our crappy regular day jobs like everyone else just to get by and pay our bills. We're called "starving artists" for a reason.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

No one said this site was free to run, but it is free to those who use it and don't have the capability to donate. I'm sure most of us here would donate if we could. That's why it's a free site: it doesn't cost us anything, we're not paying to keep it running, we're donating because we can, and because we care about the site. We don't HAVE to pay, we WANT to pay.

And hello Jeremie, my name (as most would know me on here as) is Kraton. Get to know me a little better, and I might give out my real name. ^^


----------



## RainsongGryphon (Jul 5, 2008)

*headtilt*

Why am I hearing 'make FA a paysite' suggestions?

The furs behind the scenes needed about $5,000 to ensure good, long-lasting hardware and hosting for a month.  Last I checked, the fandom doubled that two days ago, with who knows how many _more_ donations coming in with the past 48 hours.

Unless there's something I really havn't thought of, doesn't this mean we're pretty much set for the next year or so?  Even if the staff uses some of the proceeds for themselves, there seems to be enough to cover everything for a good long awhile, and then some.


----------



## Vincentmoon (Jul 5, 2008)

IF they do it

Free users - keep AS IS, able to view all the art, dont make artists able to make "VIP/Premium only" pics.. that would royally  piss me OFF..
some adverts, not as bad as DA where it like crashes old computers...
maybe put like a 20 second(no more!!) flood control for comments and notes on them

VIP/Premium users- same features as free user, plus NO adverts, no flood control, search function, somewhat customizable profile page, Bigger avatars, HIGHER file-size upload( yet still viewable by the free users), a little Badge under ur username...


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

RainsongGryphon said:


> *headtilt*
> 
> Why am I hearing 'make FA a paysite' suggestions?
> 
> ...



Exactly. We don't need to pay for FA, we're donating more than enough already. Heck, if people keep donating like this, FA's 15k they have now will turn to 25k rather quickly. The Admins are all set for money, so we can end this silly and rather pointless discussion.


----------



## Verona (Jul 5, 2008)

I hope FA comes back soon, the day isn't complete without checking it.


----------



## Vincentmoon (Jul 5, 2008)

Verona said:


> I hope FA comes back soon, the day isn't complete without checking it.





I know how it feels
it's like checking one's email, part of my daily morning routine


----------



## Nidonemo (Jul 5, 2008)

Verona said:


> I hope FA comes back soon, the day isn't complete without checking it.



DUDE! Just the words I wanted to convey! Thank you!


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

Vincentmoon said:


> I know how it feels
> it's like checking one's email, part of my daily morning routine



Yeah, me too... I keep accidentally checking FA and then remembering that it's down. v_v *sigh* I miss it.
But at least I can talk with everyone here. It's the people I enjoy spending time with the most that I miss.


----------



## Rhainor (Jul 5, 2008)

Verona said:


> I hope FA comes back soon, the day isn't complete without checking it.



It's gonna be at least next weekend before it's back up.  They're won't be ordering the new equipment 'til Monday, and then it's gotta be shipped, unpacked, set up, configured, turned on, double-checked...and *then* they'll open it back up.


----------



## marmietiger (Jul 5, 2008)

donated.

I use FA waaay to much to not.

<3 I honestly don't care how long it takes to get back on. I appreciate all the effort going into making this site what it is :3


----------



## purpleweeble (Jul 5, 2008)

If they do make those VIP accounts or whatever, I say we get a Poll system, like DA. That would be nice.


----------



## ToeClaws (Jul 5, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> Try *$13,000+* now.
> 
> If we manage to break $15K additional upgrades to the DB server will be done as well in addition to RAM. The database server uses a Tyan B3992G24V4H motherboard/chassis configuration. The server supports 16 x 240Pin slots for RAM, and we are currently only using 4X 2GB DIMMs. That means we have 12 RAM slots free. Since the RAM supported by this motherboard costs $200 per 4Gb of RAM we could very easily bring the DB server's RAM to 32GB without breaking a sweat.



First off, double-woo!  This is awesome news.  Second, for the folks who think it's a large sum of money that can't possibly be exhausted on a few pieces of hardware, think again.  I have been in this industry for many long years, spec'd out many generations of servers.  What Dragoneer is building for FA is BIG machine.  Stuff is fairly cheap when it's conventional, but when you're taking systems with a dozen (or more) memory slots and each stick of RAM being 4 gigs, that doesn't come cheap.  I spec'd out some similarly big machines for the university I work at and some of them rang in around $40K.  So trust me - they will be able to use every cent of the donations on hardware.

Now... I do find it amusing (and awesome) that such a beast of a system is going to be used for yiffy endeavours.


----------



## purpleweeble (Jul 5, 2008)

Haha gosh furries are loaded with money! We donate so so much XD


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

*waves happily at everyone* ^_^ *goes back to waiting for his favourite site to come back online*


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

ToeClaws said:


> Now... I do find it amusing (and awesome) that such a beast of a system is going to be used for yiffy endeavours.



It's not ALL yiffy though. In my opinion, the last thing FA is about is the porn. The free porn is just a big bonus, I think. What makes FA so wonderful is the amazingly kind people. It's why I fit in so well. No one discriminates, and that's just what I hope to see in any place where I'd hang out.
Y'all are so awesome. I fully intend to donate as soon as I get a job. ^_^


----------



## Zipeau (Jul 5, 2008)

I donated, because i love FA to much for it to go down.


----------



## silenced (Jul 5, 2008)

Here's a bright idea:

I dont think a paysite for features that are in need of having anyways would be the way to go. Instead, how about not using said promiced money from donations to buy a new server to instead fo to an Anthrocon trip and a room full of expencive personal hardware that could have been spent on the new server in the first place?

How about using the donation coffers for the needed server hardware instead of for personal gain? I am sorry, but I will not give funds to ego-driven admins that think the donation bucket is their own personal checking account.

*ahem*


----------



## AnraX (Jul 5, 2008)

hmmm hopes its SUN This time and not all wiggely x86 arc thay gona run this time


----------



## Krim (Jul 5, 2008)

silenced said:


> Here's a bright idea:
> 
> I dont think a paysite for features that are in need of having anyways would be the way to go. Instead, how about not using said promiced money from donations to buy a new server to instead fo to an Anthrocon trip and a room full of expencive personal hardware that could have been spent on the new server in the first place?
> 
> ...



Dude...seriously did you even read anything before posting? Of course their using the donations to purchase the hardware needed to bring FA back (and keep it up) the subscribtion jabber going on right is about what (some) people THINK FA should do in the future to secure funds to continue running the site.


----------



## Anbessa (Jul 5, 2008)

I don't know why people insinst on proposing subscriptions as though they would become mandatory... which they won't at all. it has been made very clear multiple times during this thread.

other features as:

capping the count of watches possible: I didn't know there was one. either way, it's nonsense. what would be accomplished through it?

front-pager exposure of latest submissions for subscibers only: and what about talented amateurs? besides, what looks like utter crap can mean the highlight of the year to the enxt one. thus: schnickschnack.

there were other nonsense which would make me pack my things and go very fast even though I could afford a subscription: because it would be very unfair to other artists who couldn't afford it. and I can imagine a lot of established ones who wouldn't stand in for it out of principle.

I'm not sure what I should do with a poll system... I put up a journal entry, ask my questions and wait for the answers to trickle in.

I would have a couple suggestions for features for all that would need some work, though.

first, maybe an additional submission theme might be helpful; "Fetish clothing/tame" res. "adult". since I and a couple other artists would use that one a lot. 
and in my opinion the species list would need a work-over. and maybe add "pea" to the "Apple". XD
making the use of tags mandatory would help with search functions greatly, I can imagine. not everyone feels inclined to use them. if the search could include the custom tags, it would be awesome, as long as they would be found with 'near hits', too. but that would probably be too much anyway, so there.

personally, I could use a working 'delete' button for my received PMs. after one screwing-over in the distant past I amassed six or seven pages of PMs I don't need anymore. 
also, being able to edit one's own replies (and submission comments more easily), as soemone asked before, would be icing on the cake, if only to wipe out misstypings or unsafe wordings made late at night, found the second you hit 'add reply?'. or you could fill that empty reply box you just sent off with a healthy "Duh!"... XD


----------



## starlightcorvina (Jul 5, 2008)

nothingkat said:


> If people want to go elsewhere, let them. There is no other site that panders this specifically to furry artists like FA.



If they took your terrible advice and made the site crappy for free users, I -would- go elsewhere. I don't want to, because I do like FA more than other furry sites, but I wouldn't stick around for that.

As for there not being other sites for furry artists, I suggest you check out Artspots and Yiffit. I know there are others out there, too, but those are the main ones that come to mind.


----------



## cesarin (Jul 5, 2008)

watch count cap?
are you insane? lol


----------



## Balto.Woof (Jul 5, 2008)

So.... They removed the donation link for Amazon.com, eh?


----------



## silenced (Jul 5, 2008)

Krim said:


> Dude...seriously did you even read anything before posting? Of course their using the donations to purchase the hardware needed to bring FA back (and keep it up) the subscribtion jabber going on right is about what (some) people THINK FA should do in the future to secure funds to continue running the site.



All that dosen't matter, they lied when they said that there was a new server thanks to donations, if you happen to remember, but instead there was no new server, just a quickfix, no real hardware replacement, and it was moved to another location. So what ever happened to that money that was donated for it? Preyfur's pocket, 'nuff said. :] You dont think he will give up such a solid source of income from all you furs do ya? Why dont you think about it for a while and it may just sink in.


----------



## starlightcorvina (Jul 5, 2008)

nothingkat said:


> But if someone wants to have a faster bandwidth experience, search the entire site, send private messages back and forth to people, customize their 'gallery' or even have multiple galleries. Have a journal.  Have multiple avatars for each picture uploaded/journal entry posted, have front page exposure, Well -



So you think free users shouldn't be able to use search if they ever get it running again? Oh, and also they wouldn't be able to send or receive private messages or have a journal?

I think you're nutty. If they make those changes, well, I know of a few dozen people who would be headed elsewhere.


----------



## Silenced0 (Jul 5, 2008)

To those of you who have donated to the server fund: The donations were not used for a new server, they were used for Anthrocon tickets and various personal items. *You have been scammed.*

The server was only moved, no new server was bought.

I am not the only one who had posted something about this, and I realize that when Dragoneer reads this or when any of the others involved reads this it will get deleted and I may likely be banned. *That course of action will only show that what I am saying is true.*


----------



## LoinRockerForever (Jul 5, 2008)

hiphopopotimus said:


> Why not just run FA on the forum server? its always up



It then be a question of, if the server can keep up with all that traffic. I honestly think that might cause this one to go down too. And god dam it, I was going to post up more of my stories too!! * grr * oh well, I guess I will just start on the new ones then I guess. ( Figures when I was about to do something today lol )


***** On a side note *****

Someone spilled coffee on the server didn't they? Yeah they did, admit it!!!


----------



## LonelyFox (Jul 5, 2008)

LoinRockerForever said:


> It then be a question of, if the server can keep up with all that traffic.
> 
> I honestly think that might cause this one to go down too.
> 
> ...




someone ALWAYS spills coffee on it.. its always the god damn coffee >.<

why coffee WHY?!


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

starlightcorvina said:


> I think you're nutty. If they make those changes, well, I know of a few dozen people who would be headed elsewhere.



Including me.


----------



## Sslaxx (Jul 5, 2008)

Silenced0 said:


> To those of you who have donated to the server fund: The donations were not used for a new server, they were used for Anthrocon tickets and various personal items. *You have been scammed.*
> 
> The server was only moved, no new server was bought.
> 
> I am not the only one who had posted something about this, and I realize that when Dragoneer reads this or when any of the others involved reads this it will get deleted and I may likely be banned. *That course of action will only show that what I am saying is true.*


Evidence, please?

*sighs at one post trolls*


----------



## Anbessa (Jul 5, 2008)

because most admins drink coffee, not tea.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

Silenced0 said:


> To those of you who have donated to the server fund: The donations were not used for a new server, they were used for Anthrocon tickets and various personal items. *You have been scammed.*
> 
> The server was only moved, no new server was bought.
> 
> I am not the only one who had posted something about this, and I realize that when Dragoneer reads this or when any of the others involved reads this it will get deleted and I may likely be banned. *That course of action will only show that what I am saying is true.*



Of course, this is EXACTLY what someone who is greedy and would do this for themselves would say. >.>
What you selfish people don't realize is that the admins are not like that, and if you care to keep up with your foolish antics, then GTFO. Seriously, the fandom has no room for greed, self-minded folks like you.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

Anbessa said:


> because most admins drink coffee, not tea.



I prefer a cup of hot cocoa as my pick-me-up.
I'd probably be the first Admin (if I became one in the future, but I don't own a site, so... not gonna happen) who prefers hot chocolate above the other choices.


----------



## Ainoko (Jul 5, 2008)

WarMocK said:


> Hey! Where's the donation link to the amazon site? Oo
> I just wanted to have a look at the current donation stats and it's gone. :-(




Here you go...

http://zme.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/my-pay-page/P2AS2N2AKBDLV4/105-4736477-5806021


----------



## LoinRockerForever (Jul 5, 2008)

Silenced0 said:


> To those of you who have donated to the server fund: The donations were not used for a new server, they were used for Anthrocon tickets and various personal items. *You have been scammed.*
> 
> The server was only moved, no new server was bought.
> 
> I am not the only one who had posted something about this, and I realize that when Dragoneer reads this or when any of the others involved reads this it will get deleted and I may likely be banned. *That course of action will only show that what I am saying is true.*



Lets assume that is true for a minute, do you really think that the people who donated care? They might, but I doubt they do. Cause they will just keep coming back here for there Fetish. Not to take a cynical view on this, but honestly it makes no difference. Its not like most people today appreciate real art, or even know what it is. Not like I do either mind you, and I am guilty of just +faving sexual pictures more so than other pictures that are not sexual in anyway. Honestly, have you noticed more sexual pictures get +fave than the most others? I mean, I look at the works on FA but do not Fave them. Such a shame no? But this brings me to my point, no one cares sadly enough to what the money is being used for. Once the server is back up, its all a forgotten memory XD Silly no? But alas, that is how these things work out.

Again, if its true they don't care. If its slander? Blah, again there is such apathy in this world, they just won't care lol. 

I could be wrong, and maybe, just maybe some people will demand there money back. But in that case most of the "furries/scalies" are so afraid of having there fetish known in the Real world, that they won't say or do anything.

Again apologizes on the cynical view on this, but its truth.

~LoinRocker


----------



## Silenced0 (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Of course, this is EXACTLY what someone who is greedy and would do this for themselves would say. >.>
> What you selfish people don't realize is that the admins are not like that, and if you care to keep up with your foolish antics, then GTFO. Seriously, the fandom has no room for greed, self-minded folks like you.


 

How exactly is that greedy? I did not say what I said for personal gain.


----------



## seaweed (Jul 5, 2008)

Silenced0 said:


> To those of you who have donated to the server fund: The donations were not used for a new server, they were used for Anthrocon tickets and various personal items. *You have been scammed.*
> 
> The server was only moved, no new server was bought.
> 
> I am not the only one who had posted something about this, and I realize that when Dragoneer reads this or when any of the others involved reads this it will get deleted and I may likely be banned. *That course of action will only show that what I am saying is true.*





No, that course of action would be banning a troll for a ridiculous notion that has no basis in fact.

Actually, you *ARE* the only person who has posted something about this. I have been following this thread as it has been going on.



As they say on the World of Warcraft forums, PROOF, OR IT NEVER HAPPENED.


----------



## silenced (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Of course, this is EXACTLY what someone who is greedy and would do this for themselves would say. >.>
> What you selfish people don't realize is that the admins are not like that, and if you care to keep up with your foolish antics, then GTFO. Seriously, the fandom has no room for greed, self-minded folks like you.



I happen to agree, but I wouldnt use such harshness, as calling someone greedy for their own opinion is bigitory and rude. But of course this is the internet and anyone, including idiots have their say too.


----------



## ArielMT (Jul 5, 2008)

Pay the troll no mind.  The facts to shoot him down are self-evident, and he knows it.  (Or if he doesn't, then he's incapable of learning.)  His only reason for existence is to stir up needless drama for his own lulz at our expense.


----------



## seaweed (Jul 5, 2008)

silenced said:


> I happen to agree, but I wouldnt use such harshness, as calling someone greedy for their own opinion is bigitory and rude. But of course this is the internet and anyone, including idiots have their say too.





Yes, you do.


----------



## Silenced0 (Jul 5, 2008)

LoinRockerForever said:


> Lets assume that is true for a minute, do you really think that the people who donated care? They might, but I doubt they do. Cause they will just keep coming back here for there Fetish. Not to take a cynical view on this, but honestly it makes no difference. Its not like most people today appreciate real art, or even know what it is. Not like I do either mind you, and I am guilty of just +faving sexual pictures more so than other pictures that are not sexual in anyway. Honestly, have you noticed more sexual pictures get +fave than the most others? I mean, I look at the works on FA but do not Fave them. Such a shame no? But this brings me to my point, no one cares sadly enough to what the money is being used for. Once the server is back up, its all a forgotten memory XD Silly no? But alas, that is how these things work out.
> 
> Again, if its true they don't care. If its slander? Blah, again there is such apathy in this world, they just won't care lol.
> 
> ...


 
I understand exactly what you're saying, I am guilty of it as well. I have my doubts that what I'm saying will get through to people, but to try is the best anyone can do.


----------



## AlexInsane (Jul 5, 2008)

I don't know whether to laugh or to cry or to do both at once or to just hang myself.

*settles for banging his head on the wall as hard as he can*


----------



## seaweed (Jul 5, 2008)

Silenced0 said:


> I understand exactly what you're saying, I am guilty of it as well. I have my doubts that what I'm saying will get through to people, but to try is the best anyone can do.







So we are still waiting on proof.. Care to prove that you are right, or do you just want to continue looking like an idiot and a troll?


----------



## kemonolove (Jul 5, 2008)

ãŸã£ãŸä»Šã€å¯„ä»˜é‡‘ã‚’ã—ã¦ãã¾ã—ãŸã€‚ ^-^
I just did a donation. ^-^

ã‚ˆã‚Šè‰¯ã„ã€FAã®ç’°å¢ƒã«ã—ã¦ãã*ã•ã„ã€‚
Please make it environment of better FA.


----------



## Ainoko (Jul 5, 2008)

seaweed said:


> No, that course of action would be banning a troll for a ridiculous notion that has no basis in fact.
> 
> Actually, you *ARE* the only person who has posted something about this. I have been following this thread as it has been going on.
> 
> ...



Seaweed, I have been following this thread as well and I agree, this is the first time I have seen a post like this. If the troll were to read every post (close to 1500 as of right now) he would LEARN the truth, but apparently he is too lazy to read. The only way someone would come up with such a hair-brained idea like that would be for them to start read the thread from the page of thier first post.

I can't wait for the site to come back up, but do dread the massive onslaught of submissions. And with those of us who are watching thousands of artists, we are going to get deluged with subissions. FA is and will be my primary site to visit daily, followed by www.furry-furry.com , fchan, and finally www.yiffstar.com (where I mostly get short stories to read and to get some fresh ideas for the stories and novel I am currently writing.


----------



## LoinRockerForever (Jul 5, 2008)

Silenced0 said:


> I understand exactly what you're saying, I am guilty of it as well. I have my doubts that what I'm saying will get through to people, but to try is the best anyone can do.




It won't. Trust me, but honestly there is no use wasting breathe on it either. Its best if the subject is dropped. Trying is an admirable thing, but again there is no use wasting time or energy or it. People will do, what they want too, when they want too, and how they want too. But at this point its just hurting your cause. Once the server is back up, its all forgotten, but its all good. Why? Cause this is where people like us come, to unwind, throw away the real and let our minds fly away. Will they really care about what the money is used for? No, will they ever? No, and I would like to point out, maybe showing some evidence before hand could of helped you. ( Someone stated this earlier in the thread ) Another person in the thread also stated that the admins of the site aren't really like that. ( which I guess is more believable due to the fact that they do spend time on the forums and on the site themselves. Which I naturally assume people have gotten to know them )

But, lets drop this sorry subject. Lets just move on, holding on to such ideas and cloudy thoughts can make one unreasonable.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

silenced said:


> I happen to agree, but I wouldnt use such harshness, as calling someone greedy for their own opinion is bigitory and rude. But of course this is the internet and anyone, including idiots have their say too.



Sorry if I seemed like an idiot for saying that, but I didn't mean that their opinion was what was greedy, it was their mind I spoke of. That person, if given the same situation and choice to either spend the money as it should be used or to keep it for himself, would have kept it for themselves. It is clear that this is how the person thinks because they think others would be like that as well. That person thinks everyone is as selfish and greedy as themselves and thus fully believe without any shred of evidence that the admins would keep the money for themselves.


----------



## Sslaxx (Jul 5, 2008)

Silenced0 - put up or _shut up_. You are not contributing any evidence that we are being scammed.


----------



## UnicornPrae (Jul 5, 2008)

What is the total raise now? We are such a generous bunch we furry breed. And I agree second guessing the future is a waste of time. 

Aren't the FA mods amazing they work so hard and must put up with such an awful amount of troll dung. I would gladly hand them a big shovel...usage for them to decide.


*CLANG!!!* 

Well that is one use...Ya FA! Forever.


----------



## Eevee (Jul 5, 2008)

Silenced0 said:


> To those of you who have donated to the server fund: The donations were not used for a new server, they were used for Anthrocon tickets and various personal items. *You have been scammed.*


*putting things in bold makes them true

(you are dumb)*


----------



## AlexInsane (Jul 5, 2008)

Damn, I wish I was smart enough to pull a scam job like that. 

*snrk*


----------



## Anbessa (Jul 5, 2008)

remind me again, guys, which came first... AnthroCon, or the donation request?

now will you please stop feeding a troll with obviously two fake accounts kthxbai


----------



## Balto.Woof (Jul 5, 2008)

AlexInsane said:


> Damn, I wish I was smart enough to pull a scam job like that.
> 
> *snrk*



Well, I want 10% of I'm going to tell!!!!   lmao.. 

Trolls....... *shakes his head*


----------



## LoinRockerForever (Jul 5, 2008)

Sslaxx said:


> Loin and/or Silenced0 - put up or _shut up_. Neither of you are contributing any evidence that we are being scammed.




No no no no, I am not agreeing that there is a Scam thing going on. I am saying there is no need wasting breath on it.

Read back on what I said, and you will see this. I am saying if its true, whatever, if its false, whatever.

Read and you will see. Another misleading assumption. And if you read my second post you will see I asked for said evidence.


----------



## Arshes Nei (Jul 5, 2008)

Silenced0 said:


> To those of you who have donated to the server fund: The donations were not used for a new server, they were used for Anthrocon tickets and various personal items. *You have been scammed.*
> 
> The server was only moved, no new server was bought.
> 
> I am not the only one who had posted something about this, and I realize that when Dragoneer reads this or when any of the others involved reads this it will get deleted and I may likely be banned. *That course of action will only show that what I am saying is true.*



1. Hard drive died in one of the servers, was replaced. A hard drive is not a server. Please see the Site Status forum for details.
2. Request for Donations for a new server came AFTER Anthrocon. This is a different issue altogether. Server being moved has nothing to do with the requests.

I find out you're using dupe accounts to bolster your argument, yes I will ban them.


----------



## Kanic (Jul 5, 2008)

Arshes Nei said:


> 1. Hard drive died in one of the servers died, was replaced. A hard drive is not a server. Please see the Site Status forum for details.
> 2. Request for Donations for a new server came AFTER Anthrocon. This is a different issue altogether. Server being moved has nothing to do with the requests.
> 
> I find out you're using dupe accounts to bolster your argument, yes I will ban them.


 
Woot, bring down the banhammer on the trolls!


----------



## Silenced0 (Jul 5, 2008)

Anbessa said:


> remind me again, guys, which came first... AnthroCon, or the donation request?
> 
> now will you please stop feeding a troll with obviously two fake accounts kthxbai


 
What other account?


----------



## Drake_Husky (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Of course, this is EXACTLY what someone who is greedy and would do this for themselves would say. >.>
> What you selfish people don't realize is that the admins are not like that.


 
Some admins are like that actually and are pretty damn selfish I met a few in my time, sure not all admins are selfish, but some are. 

If there was some proof or reciepts or business accounting books to prove that the money is indeed being used for good use then I could see donating, right now though I don't see giving up my hard earned money to something without a little proof of the upgrades are true and are coming from the money that I donate, and I can see where this troll may be coming from in a sense. That's just my two cents, either way the money is there. Things will be fixed and eventually things will go back to normal until the next time something occurs.

Either way hopefully they do spend the money on a nice hardcore server for the site, it could definatly use it with the amount of traffic going on.


----------



## Javarod (Jul 5, 2008)

Hmmm, ifn they ever decided to have a subscription level, I wouldn't see much wrong with it, after all, the site does cost money to run. That said, I could see splitting it into two tiers, one for those of us who mostly just watch or produce a very small amount, and another pay tier for those that need more out of the site (extra storage space, more customization of their page, how about an email address in the FA domain name?, perhaps a way to put a payment option such as PayPal directly on their FA commission page). 

That wouldn't bother me, so long as I get what I have now, with the exception of storage space (I don't use much, so a cap isn't a big deal to me, long as its reasonable, and for those that need the extra space, they can pay, or rotate art off as necessary). More important would be the price, $5/mo isn't all that big a deal for example, and with how many subscribers would be more than enough to fund running the site and future improvements, because even free services cost something, much of the work is done in the admin's spare time, no? Enough donations could allow them to devote more time to FA by allowing them to work less at their real job.


----------



## Niiku (Jul 5, 2008)

nothingkat said:


> I say make Furaffinity an optional paysite. Let those who pay have special options such as multiple icons, an actual whole-site search feature, unlimited amount of watches, faster connections, no ads, their artwork featured on the front page of Furaffinity as "newly uploaded art" and so on.
> 
> Those who don't pay get only one avatar option. A limited amount of people to watch, Advertisments, speed limits, and no whole-site search feature, and no "newly uploaded art" front page exposure.
> 
> ...




Wow dude, I have to say, that was probably the most douchebaggy thing I've heard anyone say thus far in this thread.

To assume that anyone who wouldn't fork over money does not TRUELY enjoy FA is kind of a mistake. I enjoy FA very much. I do business here. BUT I cannot afford to be paying sites money just to have the right to post pictures up.

I guarantee that if FA goes paysite, me, and hundreds like me, will leave the site in favor of the various other free art galleries out there.


----------



## silenced (Jul 5, 2008)

Drake_Husky said:


> Some admins are like that actually and are pretty damn selfish I met a few in my time, sure not all admins are selfish, but some are.
> 
> If there was some proof or reciepts or business accounting books to prove that the money is indeed being used for good use then I could see donating, right now though I don't see giving up my hard earned money to something without a little proof of the upgrades are true and are coming from the money that I donate, and I can see where this troll may be coming from in a sense. That's just my two cents, either way the money is there. Things will be fixed and eventually things will go back to normal until the next time something occurs.
> 
> Either way hopefully they do spend the money on a nice hardcore server for the site, it could definatly use it with the amount of traffic going on.



Thank you, finally some common sense, after all, it is free! :3

Actually, donations began looooooong before Anthrocon, hard drives are fairly cheap nowadays, so where did the rest of it go? No proof? I can make the same argument about proof in this respect, and if users are actually paying, wouldnt they like to see where exactly their money is actually going instead of just a "preyfur@yahoo.com" Thanks.


----------



## calaverx11 (Jul 5, 2008)

Wow dude...just...wow...

Y'all are idiots.

Between the scam artist conspiracy theorists and the whiners who hate FA but still rely on it for porn, you guys got your work cut out for you.


----------



## mukichan (Jul 5, 2008)

Silenced0 said:


> To those of you who have donated to the server fund: The donations were not used for a new server, they were used for Anthrocon tickets and various personal items. *You have been scammed.*
> 
> The server was only moved, no new server was bought.
> 
> I am not the only one who had posted something about this, and I realize that when Dragoneer reads this or when any of the others involved reads this it will get deleted and I may likely be banned. *That course of action will only show that what I am saying is true.*



0.o; WTF? Anthrocon was BEFORE this whole donating thing... :/ People come back from AC, fA was up for maybe... uh... a half-day at most... And it goes dead... The move was beginning of June. 80% of us pretty much knew this.

And, uh, who's the other person that posted something like that? I might have not read every single post in this thread, but I can say that I haven't come across anything as fucked up as this.


----------



## AlexInsane (Jul 5, 2008)

silenced said:


> Thank you, finally some common sense, after all, it is free! :3
> 
> Actually, donations began looooooong before Anthrocon, hard drives are fairly cheap nowadays, so where did the rest of it go? No proof? I can make the same argument about proof in this respect, and if users are actually paying, wouldnt they like to see where
> exactly their money is actually going instead of just a "preyfur@yahoo.com" Thanks.



You're equating charity with a scam.

You = 101% FAILURE.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

1. You know, the ONLY thing that is completely true here is that there is no point arguing over nothing.
2. Ignore the troll.
3. Let the admins do their job.
4. No complaining, and no more trying to order the admins around, telling them what to add in and what to change. It's not your job to deal with FA's servers and any changes, so stop talking like you have any say in the matter.
5. And just wait patiently while the admins do their work to get the site back online.

*goes back to waiting patiently for the site to be back up.*


----------



## Kanic (Jul 5, 2008)

Come on now, enough with the flaming already, Dragoneer has said many times that difference in opinion is fine, but you don't gotta be rude about it or flame others. Squash it already


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

AlexInsane said:


> You're equating charity with a scam.
> 
> You = 101% FAILURE.



More like 158% failure on their parts. XD
Edit: Sorry, inside joke.


----------



## silenced (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> More like 158% failure on their parts. XD



I said nothing about a scam, or equating it to a charity, you mist the point entirely, and there is no measure of scale or percentage high enough to equate your own fail. Plus, it is easy to belittle someone isn't it, especially with using this place to create your own lil possie. Usage of common sense is free, you do know this right? hello? no one home? yeah.. keep your own belittling to yourself. Thanks.


----------



## Verona (Jul 5, 2008)

Rhainor said:


> It's gonna be at least next weekend before it's back up.  They're won't be ordering the new equipment 'til Monday, and then it's gotta be shipped, unpacked, set up, configured, turned on, double-checked...and *then* they'll open it back up.




I hope, because, well i'm on DA too, but FA is way much better, especially the admins. Sometimes I have ideas to leave DA, like many artists did.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

silenced said:


> I said nothing about a scam, or equating it to a charity, you mist the point entirely, and there is no measure of scale or percentage high enough to equate your own fail. Plus, it is easy to belittle someone isn't it, especially with using this place to create your own lil possie. Usage of common sense is free, you do know this right? hello? no one home? yeah.. keep your own belittling to yourself. Thanks.


*laughs* whatever you say dude.


----------



## Amber (Jul 5, 2008)

***This is to all you bitchers out there***

Holy crap, are you guys seriously serious?!? 

If you don't want to donate, I have a simple and easy solution for you-DON'T DONATE!

Just please don't say that the donation money isn't going to good use. Don't you guys realize that it costs money monthly to run/maintain a site of this magnitude? Don't you realize that a lot of time is put into this site and in the world we currently live in time IS money?

My personal website does not even compare to FurAffinity and yet it still costs me money monthly and a tremendous amount of time. 

This site also helps a lot of artists make money via commissions. I bet if you total all the money all of the artists on FurAffinity have made because of this site it would not even come close to the money that has been donated to the site and OMG guess what? FurAffinity does not even take a cent from artists have made money because of this site.

How about the fact that FurAffinity is also a great place to make friends, and come on a free place to look at porn!! You can't tell me that the owners/admins of this site don't deserve some money for all of the good work they have done!

Oh yeah, and guess what?!?-- Donating money to them is OPTIONAL!

Last plea- Quit your bitching!!


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 5, 2008)

Zeddish said:


> I think the Amazon counter is broken again.


Very much so.

d.m.f.


----------



## flinters (Jul 5, 2008)

It's an interesting situation to watch.  In the absence of information and facts, people are quick to make up their own without any shred of evidence to back up their arguments, pro or con.  

Such is the emodrama of the fandom.

As for me, I'm disappointed that the site is down as I am rather prolific and I do indeed have a good two dozen new pics to post and share.  I will wait patiently and when the time comes I will share them with fans.   Hardware failures happen- you deal with it as best you can.  In this case, instead of a band-aid, they are going for surgery instead and I have to agree that this downtime is worth having a more reliable system in the future.   

If the site went to a pay version, it would pretty much be the death knell.  It's been tried before with webcomic sites and it is a sad thing.  The other alternative free sites all suffer from poor design, backend support, or content.  No, I'll wait for FA to come back and be thankful for what we have.

Besides, this is all a good chance for people to open up the curtains and discover there is a real world out there.  Get out and enjoy it, folks.


----------



## Arshes Nei (Jul 5, 2008)

No one said that he shouldn't put a spreadsheet on where the money is being spent, however, you made the accusation that it is a scam and it is not. Your timelines are off. Unless you're killed by a drunk driver on the 19th of June...then maybe we can make an exception


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

Amber said:


> ***This is to all you bitchers out there***
> 
> Holy crap, are you guys seriously serious?!?
> 
> ...



Say Amber, would you do me a favor and add that person to your ignored list, followed by smiling and moving on from that little issue?
You seem like a nice enough person, so I see no point in letting that person annoy you. *offers cookie*


----------



## Ashkihyena (Jul 5, 2008)

flinters said:


> It's an interesting situation to watch.  In the absence of information and facts, people are quick to make up their own without any shred of evidence to back up their arguments, pro or con.
> 
> Such is the emodrama of the fandom.
> 
> ...



I know how you feel man, I was waiting on a commission and then what happens, bam, the server goes down. :roll: and its going to take forever for the new server to get up, oh well, at least Iggy will be able to work on it while the server is down.    If the new server doesn't crash before it gets put up.


----------



## Dusty-Waber (Jul 5, 2008)

silenced said:


> I said nothing about a scam, or equating it to a charity, you mist the point entirely, and there is no measure of scale or percentage high enough to equate your own fail. Plus, it is easy to belittle someone isn't it, especially with using this place to create your own lil possie. Usage of common sense is free, you do know this right? hello? no one home? yeah.. keep your own belittling to yourself. Thanks.



not everyone here is paranoid


----------



## Dragoneer (Jul 5, 2008)

Anbessa said:


> remind me again, guys, which came first... AnthroCon, or the donation request?


Which came first? AnthroCon.

And I'd have to be _seriously retarded_ to try to scam the community and blowing my money on AnthroCon and do something that obvious. Especially when A) I live within driving distance of the con and B) I pre-registered for the damn thing when I lived in Kyrgyzstan (and can proove it).


Arshes Nei said:


> 1. Hard drive died in one of the servers, was replaced. A hard drive is not a server. Please see the Site Status forum for details.


Not to mention, we didn't request or ask for money to replace the hard drive when it failed. We took money allocated to the backup server plan and bought the HD (I bought it from the Microcenter in Fairfax, VA, too.). I also overnighted another 74GB 10K RPM Raptor from Newegg to have on hand as a hot-spare in case anything were to go wrong (Gushi currently has it, and I'll be picking it up from him soon).



silenced said:


> Actually, donations began looooooong before Anthrocon, hard drives are fairly cheap nowadays, so where did the rest of it go? No proof? I can make the same argument about proof in this respect, and if users are actually paying, wouldnt they like to see where exactly their money is actually going instead of just a "preyfur@yahoo.com" Thanks.


Donations for the backup server did take place prior to AC, and that money is still held onto. A decent amount of money was raised during that drive as well, though nowhere near enough to repair and fix the problems which we are currently having. $160 of that money was used to purchase the new HD for the DB server when it failed. The rest was being kept until July to order the new backup server to ensure that everything else in the new colo could smooth itself out first. Unfortunately, as of July 1st, conditions changed in such manner that things changed themselves.

And as I have done in the past, I will once again publically post updated transaction logs of all donations to the date and to the penny next week. I have nothing to hide. I am all for concern, but if you have a question... ask it. Don't dress it up in drama and conspiracy theories.

By the by, it's "Preyfar". Not Preyfur.


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 5, 2008)

nothingkat said:


> I re-edited my last post to make it correct. I propose only allowing 'paid' artists to have the front page. It makes the most sense.



That's OK for FEATURED artists (and I wouldn't mind this feature- Everytime you check the main page, a Featured Artist is selected), but what about those of us who can't afford to pay and need the exposure? I think your idea hurts the very people that make FA what it is.

Unless you really don't care about us struggling furry artists, writers and musicians......

d.m.f.


----------



## Eevee (Jul 5, 2008)

nothingkat said:


> I say make Furaffinity an optional paysite. Let those who pay have special options such as multiple icons, an actual whole-site search feature, unlimited amount of watches, faster connections, no ads, their artwork featured on the front page of Furaffinity as "newly uploaded art" and so on.
> 
> ...
> 
> You want to save FA? This is the way. "Optional" payment NOW!


"Now" is extremely relative.  All of this still needs implementing.


----------



## tehlynxie (Jul 5, 2008)

Impressive assbagerage. 



Mah chicken is died (reply) NO THE CHICKEN IS A LIE!!! IIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! Conspiracy scam!!! Zomg fagatards!!! 


  And itâ€™s like  , wow.   


  Lol

  Any hoo, donation sent ^^. Thank you to the people who run FA for putting so much work into a FREE site for all of us. Iâ€™m impressed with how much retardation they put up with .


----------



## silenced (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Say Amber, would you do me a favor and add that person to your ignored list, followed by smiling and moving on from that little issue?
> You seem like a nice enough person, so I see no point in letting that person annoy you. *offers cookie*



*smiles* yeah.. another friend made in light of your thoughts of thinking someone is a degenerate, you hate them so much youll go as far as getting others to side with you about something thats not really important to make yourself look good? bravo. *claps*

"yay, ignore the asshole guy and side with me cuse I offered you a cookie!" And I thought hitler was ruthless. its comfortable hiding behind the net huh, if thats how ya get your jollies off, then you disgust me too. Take that drama elsewhere.


----------



## nothingkat (Jul 5, 2008)

dmfalk said:


> That's OK for FEATURED artists (and I wouldn't mind this feature- Everytime you check the main page, a Featured Artist is selected), but what about those of us who can't afford to pay and need the exposure? I think your idea hurts the very people that make FA what it is.
> 
> Unless you really don't care about us struggling furry artists, writers and musicians......
> 
> d.m.f.



The featured artist is not what I'm referring to. I'm talking about the 'recently uploaded' artwork that moves rather fast since there are so many uploads going on. That can be limited to paying members. And since anyone can pay, anyone can have their artwork exposed. It's not FA's job to expose the artwork - but they can at least support those who support it back.

As for those people claiming that FA should NOT be a subscription site, let me rephrase that what is free should remain free. Free registration, free uploads, free gallery, free commenting and so forth..

But if you pay, you should get the better treatment. Multiple galleries, multiple avatars, customized profile page, customized gallery page, Private messaging back and forth (which is currently free for all but they should limit that), and yes, recently-uploaded exposure.

Unless people are okay with watching the site go down every 5 days only to re-donate money. This site needs some major revamping and for those who really LOVE Furaffinity will happily "donate" 5 bucks a month in exchange for...

the search feature?


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

tehlynxie said:


> Iâ€™m impressed with how much retardation they put up with .



Me too. Even I got annoyed a couple times in here. I envy the mods and their huge amount of patience.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

nothingkat said:


> The featured artist is not what I'm referring to. I'm talking about the 'recently uploaded' artwork that moves rather fast since there are so many uploads going on. That can be limited to paying members. And since anyone can pay, anyone can have their artwork exposed. It's not FA's job to expose the artwork - but they can at least support those who support it back.
> 
> As for those people claiming that FA should NOT be a subscription site, let me rephrase that what is free should remain free. Free registration, free uploads, free gallery, free commenting and so forth..
> 
> ...



Should I just add you to my ignored list?


----------



## Anepo (Jul 5, 2008)

Yea somehow i doubt you are scamming lol. Always some idiots who dont trust anyone. If you dont trust him. Dont donate. But has Dragoneer ever been proved of being untrustworthy? Not to my knowledge and if he was scamming (WHICH HE IS NOT!) He would milk this thing. Not take one big donation. So just shut up. If he was scamming also he wouldn't have a list of moderators who take care of things around here like at a company. And he does not have any reason to scam. SO innocent until proven guilty. And he is definetly not guilty! He has helped the furry communities more then anyone could imagine.


----------



## Amber (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Say Amber, would you do me a favor and add that person to your ignored list, followed by smiling and moving on from that little issue?
> You seem like a nice enough person, so I see no point in letting that person annoy you. *offers cookie*




Lol!

*Takes cookie and smiles happily!*


----------



## nothingkat (Jul 5, 2008)

Niiku said:


> Wow dude, I have to say, that was probably the most douchebaggy thing I've heard anyone say thus far in this thread.
> 
> To assume that anyone who wouldn't fork over money does not TRUELY enjoy FA is kind of a mistake. I enjoy FA very much. I do business here. BUT I cannot afford to be paying sites money just to have the right to post pictures up.
> 
> I guarantee that if FA goes paysite, me, and hundreds like me, will leave the site in favor of the various other free art galleries out there.



Douchbaggy? Thanks for using this word.

Also the only person doing any assuming here is yourself. I never said that those who do not pay don't truly enjoy FA. You put those words in my mouth. 

What I did say is that those who really enjoy what FA has to offer would probably not mind paying in exchange for supporting the site AND some extra features.

If you are going to leave just because they have the option to make some money, then I am glad you can enjoy making a business out of a website who gets nothing in return.

Great support!


----------



## Silva-Dragon (Jul 5, 2008)

Some one shoot me in the foot if i ever spend five hours reading 99 pages of conspiracy theories again.


----------



## Dragoneer (Jul 5, 2008)

silenced said:


> Actually, donations began looooooong before Anthrocon, hard drives are fairly cheap nowadays, so where did the rest of it go? No proof? I can make the same argument about proof in this respect, and if users are actually paying, wouldnt they like to see where exactly their money is actually going instead of just a "preyfur@yahoo.com" Thanks.


By the by, Zippo, hiding behind a secondary account, intentionally causing drama and thinking _that you will not be noticed_ by the administrative staff isn't cool. You were warned before that such behavior would have repurcussions.

Ban re-instated.


----------



## nothingkat (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Should I just add you to my ignored list?



You could always just not reply or read other people's opinion. AKA: Being ignorant.

Furaffinity is costing real people real money. It's only safe to maintain it through voluntary upgrades rather than attempt to collect this cash whenever the site is going down or, in this case, is down.

It will definitely keep FA running smoothly for a good long while!


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> By the by, Zippo, hiding behind a secondary account, intentionally causing drama and thinking _that you will not be noticed_ by the administrative staff isn't cool. You were warned before that such behavior would have repurcussions.
> 
> Ban re-instated.



*gives bearhug* Yay for the admins! ^_^


----------



## Sslaxx (Jul 5, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> By the by, Zippo, hiding behind a secondary account, intentionally causing drama and thinking _that you will not be noticed_ by the administrative staff isn't cool. You were warned before that such behavior would have repurcussions.
> 
> Ban re-instated.


Thanks, Dragoneer. You may want to ban silenced0 (his sock-puppet account), too.


----------



## jd345 (Jul 5, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> By the by, Zippo, hiding behind a secondary account, intentionally causing drama and thinking _that you will not be noticed_ by the administrative staff isn't cool. You were warned before that such behavior would have repurcussions.
> 
> Ban re-instated.


 
hey dragoneer, i was thinking, do you have a "Ban E-Mail Address" on your options? at Nsider, there was 2 ways to ban a Nsider by "Ban account" if the user has another account, the admins chose "ban address" so they'll be ban for the time you wanted them, try making a power to a admin here at the fourms ^_^


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

Har-har!


----------



## Dragoneer (Jul 5, 2008)

jd345 said:


> hey dragoneer, i was thinking, do you have a "Ban E-Mail Address" on your options? at Nsider, there was 2 ways to ban a Nsider by "Ban account" if the user has another account, the admins chose "ban address" so they'll be ban for the time you wanted them, try making a power to a admin here at the fourms ^_^


I can ban several ways. I prefer not to have to, but I will when it comes to drama.

I'm all for asking questions and people wanting to know where their money is going. It's smart. Trust, but verify. However, causing drama and conspiracy theories of it isn't going to be tolerated.


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 5, 2008)

purpleweeble said:


> Haha gosh furries are loaded with money! We donate so so much XD



I wish that were true- As it is, it looks like only ~2% of FA's users are even chipping in a buck. The average is less than $25.

We can do better than that!

d.m.f.


----------



## Anbessa (Jul 5, 2008)

nothingkat said:


> The featured artist is not what I'm referring to. I'm talking about the 'recently uploaded' artwork that moves rather fast since there are so many uploads going on. That can be limited to paying members. And since anyone can pay, anyone can have their artwork exposed. It's not FA's job to expose the artwork - but they can at least support those who support it back.



huh? anyone can pay? do you have numbers, please, since I doubt you know what you are talking about.
and it being not FA's job to expose artwork, answer me this: what are the numerous galeries for if not for exposing art?

[QUOTEAs for those people claiming that FA should NOT be a subscription site, let me rephrase that what is free should remain free. Free registration, free uploads, free gallery, free commenting and so forth..[/QUOTE]

agreed 100%. every subscription and stuff shoudl remain optional. not everyone can afford monthly payments and some countruies are simply ignored by paypal. and maybe other services, too.




> But if you pay, you should get the better treatment. Multiple galleries, multiple avatars, customized profile page, customized gallery page, Private messaging back and forth (which is currently free for all but they should limit that), and yes, recently-uploaded exposure.



agreed, but most of the ideas you offer are more or less useless gimmicks. customized galeries and front pages rarely work like intended, and it's a fact that the people at large tend to look for buttons in exact the same places, and if one button is somewhere else they can't find it and go somewhere else. would you want that? not really, I guess.
who needs multiple galeries? if you do drawing and fursuits, two related accounts work quite well. and more accounts that are used shouldn't be allowed in the first place anyway. and why limit PM traffic for non-paying users? the reason for it just eludes me.
all things you propose would only create elitist groups for no reason.




> Unless people are okay with watching the site go down every 5 days only to re-donate money. This site needs some major revamping and for those who really LOVE Furaffinity will happily "donate" 5 bucks a month in exchange for...
> 
> the search feature?



there are more important things that this dreadful search feature. besides, FA going down every 5 days? gee, I must have failed to notice it until recently...

keep on distributing your ideas and thoughts, but please keep them practical.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

dmfalk said:


> I wish that were true- As it is, it looks like only ~2% of FA's users are even chipping in a buck. The average is less than $25.
> 
> We can do better than that!
> 
> d.m.f.


Sorry. I wish I could donate, but I haven't had a job in a year and a half, and all I have in my wallet is a single canadian penny, which can't really be donated can it?
Though if there were a way to donate that penny, I would.


----------



## Kaibo (Jul 5, 2008)

Dragoneer, 1 thing, silence is NOT zippo, zip isn't even registered on the forums since his original account ban was never lifted


----------



## Dragoneer (Jul 5, 2008)

Kaibo said:


> Dragoneer, 1 thing, silence is NOT zippo, zip isn't even registered on the forums since his original account ban was never lifted


The e-mail address and other information tells another story.


----------



## jd345 (Jul 5, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> I can ban several ways. I prefer not to have to, but I will when it comes to drama.
> 
> I'm all for asking questions and people wanting to know where their money is going. It's smart. Trust, but verify. However, causing drama and conspiracy theories of it isn't going to be tolerated.


 
well i'm not doing that, but i got it alot when i was at Nsider, and we called them Spammers, we Nsiders had a lot of trems for text, like SPAM (means Super Pathetic Annoying Messages)


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

Kaibo said:


> Dragoneer, 1 thing, silence is NOT zippo, zip isn't even registered on the forums since his original account ban was never lifted



I'm thinking maybe Silence0 was using a whole new account with new email address, etc. Though I'm not in his head, so I don't know for certain.

Edit: or... maybe not. *shrugs*


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 5, 2008)

AnraX said:


> hmmm hopes its SUN This time and not all wiggely x86 arc thay gona run this time



Sun have been using x86 hardware for as long as I can remember- And that goes back to '91.  Thing is, they do it DAMN efficiently with blazing fast server response. Suns are the ONLY x86 machines that have ever truly impressed me, and why I think getting Sun servers would be the best way to go. 

To the admins, especially 'neer and Yak: Please seriously consider getting Sun servers. 

THEY are shorts-creamingly awesome. 

d.m.f.


----------



## nothingkat (Jul 5, 2008)

Anbessa said:


> huh? anyone can pay? do you have numbers, please, since I doubt you know what you are talking about.
> and it being not FA's job to expose artwork, answer me this: what are the numerous galeries for if not for exposing art?
> 
> As for those people claiming that FA should NOT be a subscription site, let me rephrase that what is free should remain free. Free registration, free uploads, free gallery, free commenting and so forth..
> ...





Furaffinity is well known for going down. I seriously hope you did not take my '5 days' as being anywhere near an accurate number.  But at least you probably caught my idea.

As for what I offered for subsciptions, yes, they are gimmicks. But they are something. If you want to offer your own ideas or fix up what I offered, feel free. Most people tend to simply say "OH THAT'S STUPID" rather than say:

"Well how about this , instead..."

It would be nice to hear what options people would be willing to pay for. Naturally, everyone wants it free but I'm talking to those who would be willing to pay for various features. 

As for FA being the museum and not the presenter, that's what I am referring to by "FA not responsible for exposing art". No one should get special treatment.

And paying for upgraded options are not 'special treatment'. There are people who will happily pay and never use any optional features.

I also was not referring to Paypal. It's an obvious choice to have but money orders plus many other online credit card payment services are there for the taking. I'm not to familiar with a majority of them but Paypal is definitely not the only one.


----------



## LoinRockerForever (Jul 5, 2008)

Arshes Nei said:


> 1. Hard drive died in one of the servers, was replaced. A hard drive is not a server. Please see the Site Status forum for details.
> 2. Request for Donations for a new server came AFTER Anthrocon. This is a different issue altogether. Server being moved has nothing to do with the requests.
> 
> I find out you're using dupe accounts to bolster your argument, yes I will ban them.



Well, there you go. That ends the trolls argument, and explains that.
=D


----------



## Anbessa (Jul 5, 2008)

wait, what? is this zippo guy probably located in switzerland? that nick suddenly reminded me of some spamming idjit who used to annoy the hell out of a german furry forum...


----------



## Artie (Jul 5, 2008)

It kind of makes me laugh that people want to see proof of where this money is going *now*, when it's already been stated that servers will be ordered on *Monday*.  There can't be proof of something that hasn't been done yet.

I have no doubt that on Monday there will be a post detailing the hardware that has been purchased with all its specs and how much it cost, once the actual purchase has been made.

And if I may ask, as epic of an upgrade as this is sounding like it's going to be, can we see actual photos of the servers once they arrive, and of them being installed at the colo?   Not because I want proof, but just because I think it would be neat to see.   It's always neat to actually see the stuff a site you visit is running on.


----------



## Kaibo (Jul 5, 2008)

whats the mail address ?


----------



## LoinRockerForever (Jul 5, 2008)

Amber said:


> ***This is to all you bitchers out there***
> 
> Holy crap, are you guys seriously serious?!?
> 
> If you don't want to donate, I have a simple and easy solution for you-DON'T DONATE!


And this is true too.

But in all seriousness, if you visit this site like I do(and you know who you are lol) You should try and make a donation, I did. (Honestly I think its only fair)


----------



## Sslaxx (Jul 5, 2008)

Kaibo said:


> whats the mail address ?


Oh, I'm sure you know that...

...Zippo.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

Artie said:


> It kind of makes me laugh that people want to see proof of where this money is going *now*, when it's already been stated that servers will be ordered on *Monday*.  There can't be proof of something that hasn't been done yet.
> 
> I have no doubt that on Monday there will be a post detailing the hardware that has been purchased with all its specs and how much it cost, once the actual purchase has been made.
> 
> And if I may ask, as epic of an upgrade as this is sounding like it's going to be, can we see actual photos of the servers once they arrive, and of them being installed at the colo?   Not because I want proof, but just because I think it would be neat to see.   It's always neat to actually see the stuff a site you visit is running on.



I agree. I'm interested in seeing what the server equipment looks like, as I've never seen that kinda thing before.


----------



## Kaibo (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> I'm thinking maybe Silence0 was using a whole new account with new email address, etc. Though I'm not in his head, so I don't know for certain.
> 
> Edit: or... maybe not. *shrugs*




I've known Zippo for a while now, he has changed and he's drama free now, but me thinks Dragoneer has a grudge on him.


----------



## Kaibo (Jul 5, 2008)

Sslaxx said:


> Oh, I'm sure you know that...
> 
> ...Zippo.




DUDE! i am NOT zippo

ffs i'm not even american...


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

LoinRockerForever said:


> And this is true too.
> 
> But in all seriousness, if you visit this site like I do(and you know who you are lol) You should try and make a donation, I did. (Honestly I think its only fair)


What should be taken most note of here is "should" and "try." Meaning if you think you can afford it and can actually send the money, it would be rather nice and generous of anyone who donates.
Share the wealth, right? ^^


----------



## Fernin (Jul 5, 2008)

Simple fact, the second you limit the abilities of people who wish to post or keep their art on FA or the ability for others to find and view that art the site will loose a substantial number from it's user base. The same thing will happen if you limit communication or community tools to paying accounts. FA has succeeded as well as it has for basically one reason: it's free and it's effective. As soon as it becomes a pay site, all those who lack the spare funds to access will leave and with them will go a large part of the communities love and support.

Or at least that's how I see it.


~Fernin


----------



## LoinRockerForever (Jul 5, 2008)

Kaibo said:


> DUDE! i am NOT zippo
> 
> ffs i'm not even american...





Is that even a big deal anymore to say that? That your not American?

Does it even matter? lol Sounds like there addressing Screen names not nationalities lol


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

Kaibo said:


> I've known Zippo for a while now, he has changed and he's drama free now, but me thinks Dragoneer has a grudge on him.


Okay, okay. No need to jump me or anything. I don't know the guy, I'm just stating possibilities, regardless of what the chances of them being true are.
*offers cookie* truce?


----------



## LoinRockerForever (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> What should be taken most note of here is "should" and "try." Meaning if you think you can afford it and can actually send the money, it would be rather nice and generous of anyone who donates.
> Share the wealth, right? ^^



Exactly =D


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

Fernin said:


> Simple fact, the second you limit the abilities of people who wish to post or keep their art on FA or the ability for others to find and view that art the site will loose a substantial number from it's user base. The same thing will happen if you limit communication or community tools to paying accounts. FA has succeeded as well as it has for basically one reason: it's free and it's effective. As soon as it becomes a pay site, all those who lack the spare funds to access will leave and with them will go a large part of the communities love and support.
> 
> Or at least that's how I see it.
> 
> ...


*gawks a moment* Wicked-cool avatar. o_o


----------



## Sslaxx (Jul 5, 2008)

Kaibo said:


> DUDE! i am NOT zippo
> 
> ffs i'm not even american...


Join date today, your first post was to claim Zippo != Silenced/Silenced0.

'Neer, you may need to (re-)instigate an IP ban?


----------



## Kaibo (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Okay, okay. No need to jump me or anything. I don't know the guy, I'm just stating possibilities, regardless of what the chances of them being true are.
> *offers cookie* truce?




*chuckles* i'm not jumpin anything mate, just saying whats on the ol nuggin


----------



## Dragoneer (Jul 5, 2008)

Sslaxx said:


> Oh, I'm sure you know that...
> 
> ...Zippo.


Kaibo is not Zippo.



Kaibo said:


> I've known Zippo for a while now, he has changed and he's drama free now, but me thinks Dragoneer has a grudge on him.


Yes, and the condition of Zippo's original unbanning was that he behave. Starting conspiracy theories and accusing us of such nature when we haven't even had time collect all the donations, process them or purchase the new equipment is... stupid.

We do not need drama over this, and I will not tolerate it.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

Sslaxx said:


> Join date today, your first post was to claim Zippo != Silenced/Silenced0.
> 
> 'Neer, you may need to (re-)instigate an IP ban?


Good point. Buuut, I'm not getting into this. I don't want to argue, and most of this, though with good reason, seems mostly like assumptions to me. If there's a chance of being wrong and being hated in the end for being wrong, I'd rather not take sides.

As a wise old Ent once said, "I am on nobodies side, because no one is on my side."
I take no sides, except my own. Hey, someone has to look after my sorry ass. XD


----------



## Kaibo (Jul 5, 2008)

Sslaxx said:


> Join date today, your first post was to claim Zippo != Silenced/Silenced0.
> 
> 'Neer, you may need to (re-)instigate an IP ban?



ok, before you start accusing ppl, do your homework, Dragoneer knows who i am and i am certainly not Zippo, yes i joined today because Zippo got me aware of this ordeal and i can't leave a message when you're no member.


----------



## Anbessa (Jul 5, 2008)

nothingkat said:


> As for what I offered for subsciptions, yes, they are gimmicks. But they are something. If you want to offer your own ideas or fix up what I offered, feel free. Most people tend to simply say "OH THAT'S STUPID" rather than say:
> 
> "Well how about this , instead..."



there is actually a thread going on not far away where these things are discussed. there are enough good ideas out there. I do not need repeating them.

of course, mindlessly bashing somebody else's ideas is rude; I tried to give reasons why I don't think the ones you brought up here are good ones.



> It would be nice to hear what options people would be willing to pay for. Naturally, everyone wants it free but I'm talking to those who would be willing to pay for various features.



that's what I thought you were. many other propose such ideas, too, but make it sound as though they'd want it mandatory, whcih would kill every fandom-related site quickly. quicker than relying on donation, believe me. people on the net are that way.



> As for FA being the museum and not the presenter, that's what I am referring to by "FA not responsible for exposing art". No one should get special treatment.



then you should remove all recent submissions from the starting page per se. because if someone does not want to pay, or simply can't, nobody can tell for sure. so it wouldn't be fair to exclude a high-class artist, struggling to live being a student, say we, from that function because s/he can't afford the couple green, while someone who barely knows how to hold a pencil, and draws for the lulz - but has the funds - clutters that page with stick figures. as you said, noone should get special treatment.




> And paying for upgraded options are not 'special treatment'. There are people who will happily pay and never use any optional features.



want to rephrase that? because I think you are contradicting yourself... every extra option you pay for is special treatment indeed, because you pay for it. if you donate, then the latter part of that statement comes true, giving money without expecting something immediately back in return. except maybe a smoothly running site, for example.



> I also was not referring to Paypal. It's an obvious choice to have but money orders plus many other online credit card payment services are there for the taking. I'm not to familiar with a majority of them but Paypal is definitely not the only one.



let me clarify something for you, please.
the artists and audience on FA doesn't indeed hail only from the north-american continent. they are from all over the world. thus, money orders won't work; money transfers take lots of time and insane fees sometimes (a money transfer between indian banks takes so long it's easier and safer to use cash there). not everybody has easy access to credit cards good to pay via internet with. I for one wouldn't be allowed one for various reasons, and in other countries outside germany it's more ridiculous... soem even have no online paying service available at all.
so, what should those do? wander off and retrieve the rest of the world from their wondrous works?
excuse me, but that wouldn't work out either, optional or not.

so, what's wrong with a little exposure on the front page? some here exÃ¼plained that they found many new artists via that function.


----------



## Kaibo (Jul 5, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> Kaibo is not Zippo.
> 
> 
> Yes, and the condition of Zippo's original unbanning was that he behave. Starting conspiracy theories and accusing us of such nature when we haven't even had time collect all the donations, process them or purchase the new equipment is... stupid.
> ...




Seriously mate, i think someone else is trying to make him look bad, or picking up where he left off, Zippo is not a drama queer anymore unlike some other ppl around here who accuse me


----------



## jd345 (Jul 5, 2008)

Kaibo said:


> Seriously mate, i think someone else is trying to make him look bad, or picking up where he left off, Zippo is not a drama queer anymore unlike some other ppl around here who accuse me


ether that, or they are just spammers


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

Kaibo said:


> ok, before you start accusing ppl, do your homework, Dragoneer knows who i am and i am certainly not Zippo, yes i joined today because Zippo got me aware of this ordeal and i can't leave a message when you're no member.



And THAT is why I didn't take sides.
Score one for me in making the right decision for once! *high-fives self... somehow...*


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 5, 2008)

Drake_Husky said:


> If there was some proof or reciepts or business accounting books to prove that the money is indeed being used for good use then I could see donating, right now though I don't see giving up my hard earned money to something without a little proof of the upgrades...



Check out the link below - Dragoneer already said he would post up the records as soon as  he can some time next week.

http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=22411



Arshes Nei said:


> Your timelines are off. Unless you're killed by a drunk driver on the 19th of June...then maybe we can make an exception



rofl



Dragoneer said:


> By the by, it's "Preyfar". Not Preyfur.



That, is the definition of 'ownage of the trolls'.



Now, if some of you are done picking on the admins and such, we should leave them to their devices so that they can order us some nice, new, fast, porn servers.


----------



## Kaibo (Jul 5, 2008)

jd345 said:


> ether that, or they are just spammers



quite possible mate


----------



## flinters (Jul 5, 2008)

Financing option:

I would personally be happy if I could post auctions on Furbuy and have them be linked directly to the images here on FA.  If the artsit page had an Auctions tab that took a small percentage or a flat listing fee for auctions cross promoted, I wouldn't mind.

Even on the main page, a 'current auctions' list would be nifty.  

Why Furbuy over Furbid, you may wonder?  I just have to believe they have a more competent administration.  

I'm sure this has been discussed to death in the past.  A thought.


----------



## nothingkat (Jul 5, 2008)

Fernin said:


> Simple fact, the second you limit the abilities of people who wish to post or keep their art on FA or the ability for others to find and view that art the site will loose a substantial number from it's user base. The same thing will happen if you limit communication or community tools to paying accounts. FA has succeeded as well as it has for basically one reason: it's free and it's effective. As soon as it becomes a pay site, all those who lack the spare funds to access will leave and with them will go a large part of the communities love and support.
> 
> Or at least that's how I see it.
> 
> ...



Well if what remains free stays free, then no one will notice any difference. My idea of making FA a paysite really only refers to various upgraded features. Not the initial service.

If FA ever went to a full paid-site, it would fail hard. An art site should never be pay-only but rather pay-optional.

At this point, even if all they offered were a 'faster bandwidth access' to the sight, people would hop on it. Afterall, bandwidth IS money.


----------



## Kaibo (Jul 5, 2008)

Sslaxx said:


> Oh, I'm sure you know that...
> 
> ...Zippo.




And if you don't believe me, ask Pegla Skunk and Taross, afterall i've spend the whole afternoon at there place irl


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 5, 2008)

Kaibo said:


> And if you don't believe me, ask Pegla Skunk and Taross, afterall i've spend the whole afternoon at there place irl



Okay, now we're getting into the "irl" stuff, and....

...that's just plain boring. Movin' on!

As for the new ideas for the severs, I kinda do like that customization one the more I think about it. Not overly done like MySpace (bleh) can be. Small friends list would be nice too!


----------



## nothingkat (Jul 5, 2008)

Anbessa said:


> want to rephrase that? because I think you are contradicting yourself... every extra option you pay for is special treatment indeed, because you pay for it. if you donate, then the latter part of that statement comes true, giving money without expecting something immediately back in return. except maybe a smoothly running site, for example.



When I mean 'special treatment' I don't mean paying for extra options. I mean getting art or music exposure through personal favoritism of the FA staff. Also donations should always remain for those who want to donate money but I'm sure FA can give some incentives for people who help support it monthly.

I'm sure cases where payment online or via mail being nearly impossible will come in extremely isolated cases. These can be worked out via the staff and the member, I'm sure. Again, I'm no pro but I'm positive that payment can travel overseas.


----------



## Sslaxx (Jul 5, 2008)

Kaibo said:


> And if you don't believe me, ask Pegla Skunk and Taross, afterall i've spend the whole afternoon at there place irl


And Pegla has just confirmed that. Fair enough.

My apologies.


----------



## dmfalk (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Sorry. I wish I could donate, but I haven't had a job in a year and a half, and all I have in my wallet is a single canadian penny, which can't really be donated can it?
> Though if there were a way to donate that penny, I would.



I'm not blaming you- You have a ligitimate reason. Not everyone that have not donated is jobless/penniless-- The entire burden is being rested on just about 2%, when better than 30% might actually afford even just one buck. (I love Canadian pennies- They're not perfectly round- Or at least they weren't for a number of years.  )

d.m.f.


----------



## Kaibo (Jul 5, 2008)

Sslaxx said:


> And Pegla has just confirmed that. Fair enough.
> 
> My apologies.



Apology accepted, just make sure to do your homework and don't accuse ppl for just joining.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

dmfalk said:


> I'm not blaming you- You have a ligitimate reason. Not everyone that have not donated is jobless/penniless-- The entire burden is being rested on just about 2%, when better than 30% might actually afford even just one buck. (I love Canadian pennies- They're not perfectly round- Or at least they weren't for a number of years.  )
> 
> d.m.f.


If that's because they were easier to stand on an end, then I agree. Though it's still easily done, just more or less easier to tip over.

and... that was way off topic. sorry admins.


----------



## Reyman (Jul 5, 2008)

I don't get it. I've read most of the replys and 1 fourth of the thread is about changes, what to do, how to do it, what equipment you should use. No this thread is about informing the people about status of the site, not to critisize the admins that work there ass off to get the job done. If your not an admin dont tell one what to do. Thats a striaght ban right off the back, but the nice admins of FA wont do that. Just let them do the job. If your here to chat with friends make another thread this is a status thread not a message center. 
Hats off to the FA staff and good luck getting the site back up.
-Reyman


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## Anbessa (Jul 5, 2008)

nothingkat said:


> When I mean 'special treatment' I don't mean paying for extra options. I mean getting art or music exposure through personal favoritism of the FA staff. Also donations should always remain for those who want to donate money but I'm sure FA can give some incentives for people who help support it monthly.



ah, this makes it clearer. forgiveness for poking.



> I'm sure cases where payment online or via mail being nearly impossible will come in extremely isolated cases. These can be worked out via the staff and the member, I'm sure. Again, I'm no pro but I'm positive that payment can travel overseas.



not so isolated at all, I might say. especially for austria, paypal has some nasty rules which makes it almost impossible for most private persons to use it, for whatever reasons. maybe a weird law regarding contracts made via internet. in other countries you need a credit card in order for it. I don't know what eGold requires, though.
payment can travel overseas allright. but you'll still need to undertake large measures to ensure noone doscovers the cash inside that envelope, and believe you me, some people have fingers like a second sight when it comes to 'feel' cash bills inside envelopes. I myself have sent cash to the US two times safely, but don't ask what I had to do to ensure it. and it cost me extra money to do so, too.
again, money transfer can take several percents of the sum as fee, and several weeks to accomplish. any online payment service like paypal for example, is worth gold (if it works at all, and not some weird incident makes them freeze your account; never happened to me, but you can never know): one klick, and a couple seconds later the other side has your money. everything else is the respective bank's business. but: see above. it's not available to everyone around the world.


----------



## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 5, 2008)

nothingkat said:


> Okay I get it. If it's free, more people will join.



Actually I've been saying the more people that will stay, Truth be it though, the less free it is, the less that will join too but that isn't the important issue here. ^_^



nothingkat said:


> But how many times have free sites disappeared? Remember when Furnation use to be the prime free site? It's hardly even a website anymore.  And Furaffinity is a BLOATED version of that and in the few years it was up, it's been down more often than one can remember.



Well I'm not attacking what you're saying in this paragraph obviously, but I can't help but remark that Furnation didn't have this kind of dedicated people willing to donate, or Staff that actually care AND aren't stupid.



nothingkat said:


> I don't understand why people keep saying it's not 'fair' to deny this and that. It's a privilege to even have them.



Umm, "I" never said it wasn't 'fair' to deny this or that actually. There are also good reasons why I never said or would say that.



nothingkat said:


> People are going to leave one website for another but it's not because they have to pay for special features. The basics will still be there. People tend to enjoy FA and want to support it but they will lose more people rapidly through these downtimes. They can fix it and reward those who support it -- therefore limited the number of downtimes. They can even pay to have professional coders touch up the site.



Well if you compare how many would be loss by the plans you laid out, these down times are nothing compared to how many we'd lose. But I assume you're referring to people watching the art, while I was referring to the artists.



nothingkat said:


> And if they still want to leave because a website wants to make money and maintain itself, then let them leave. Furaffinity needs SUPPORTERS, free, donated, or charged.
> 
> People who are paying are paying for the chance to be exposed in FA. It wouldn't matter if you are an amateur or a "professional" furry artist. (I mean, is there even a difference now? Big-name artist still get the most exposure)



The big artists would leave for the most part actually, secondly Fur Affinity is not a professional website when you compare it to actual professional art websites like Deviant Art.

People hit it big in the industry there, while many who have hit it big, there or through other things, they most often remove all their art from Fur Affinity because they can't afford their art to be discovered and thus them associated with these pictures. That's, simply the way it is. Don't forget, we're talking about the business world. 

DA can get away with it, because DA is a professional website. 

No amature artist is going to down money for exposure. Most of the top artists won't either. (just like many great artists on DA don't.)  



nothingkat said:


> But this is about exposure. it's about maintaining a website that goes down too often.



I'll assume you typoed that. :3  I think you meant this isN'T about exposure, ... 

I can't help remarking though, that umm... *points to how much money was raised* kind of dissproves even the 'need' for what you're suggesting. Either the Staff is going to spend the money correctly and save what's needed correctly, or they are going to waste it all, and thus a stable income for the sight won't make any real difference.

They're either going to do it right, or wrong. But raising money as needed certainly isn't the issue because...  As I've been saying...  Fur Affinity is a GREAT website, and because of how great the Staff, Community, Atmosphere and so on are here, they've gotten a lot of loyal people all across the world. 

I can't help but acknowledge this as it's right in our face... Thus i find the idea of how hard everyone is discussing the notion of changes, limiting privlages, giving more, in favor of more stable income into Fur Affinity, at the cost of quantity, atmosphere, and loss of a % of the community. (Since all the evidence isn't in yet, I cannot put an estimation on the % yet.)


----------



## Pi (Jul 5, 2008)

This thread reminds me of racing golf carts around in first gear until their engines explode.


----------



## Straitfox (Jul 5, 2008)

I hope this site gets back up because I have alot of art to upload.

and also, I hope this site doesn't become like devart....that sucks, I mean come on, we should have the same stuff like DA, but without all the hatred and stuff.

And where the hell is that search bar!?  Seriously, when i was on vacation I could swear that the admins were putting it in then *POOF* it went offline.


----------



## Rave (Jul 5, 2008)

I can recall when that Penny Arcade comic raised $20,000 for a charity over some considerable amount of time...it was hailed at the time as an amazing show of their site's great influence and the importance and power of the Internet to generate large sums for worthy causes etc., and the feat was referenced all over the Net in various quarters.  

Now, a bit more quietly, and at a much faster rate, FA may very well have raised around $10,000 in...not much more than a few days, though outside of "furry" circles, nobody will probably much hear or care about it. FA is quietly getting freakin huge... 

Be afraid, Internet,...be very afraid! =D


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

@Pi: *cracks up* I wanna try that, just for fun. XD
@CrystalMendrilia: If they're being annoying, just ignore the person. No reason to ruin your good mood. (And I'm kinda assuming you're in a good mood, just from the way you reply. You sort of... radiate cheerfulness. *shrugs*)


----------



## Anepo (Jul 5, 2008)

There is one problem though with ANY server you get you know that right? ^^ As soon as there is a new server the really dirty horny artists will try to fill it up before it even gets started with yiff ^^ will take only 1 day for them to fill the new server lol ^^ because they have been using all the time FA has been down to draw naughty art.


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## Anepo (Jul 5, 2008)

Rave said:


> I can recall when that Penny Arcade comic raised $20,000 for a charity over some considerable amount of time...it was hailed at the time as an amazing show of their site's great influence and the importance and power of the Internet to generate large sums for worthy causes etc., and the feat was referenced all over the Net in various quarters.
> 
> Now, a bit more quietly, and at a much faster rate, FA may very well have raised around $10,000 in...not much more than a few days, though outside of "furry" circles, nobody will probably much hear or care about it. FA is quietly getting freakin huge...
> 
> Be afraid, Internet,...be very afraid! =D



Furries for presidents! ^^ We can soon buy ourselfs president positions ^^


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## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

Anepo said:


> There is one problem though with ANY server you get you know that right? ^^ As soon as there is a new server the really dirty horny artists will try to fill it up before it even gets started with yiff ^^ will take only 1 day for them to fill the new server lol ^^ because they have been using all the time FA has been down to draw naughty art.



Is that a problem? XD (lol, jk)


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## flinters (Jul 5, 2008)

Anepo said:


> Furries for presidents! ^^ We can soon buy ourselfs president positions ^^




"Um, Mr. President?  Yes, the furries are here to see you about your presdiential position..."


(he bends over, pants down, tail up)  "I'm ready for them."


----------



## yak (Jul 5, 2008)

RainsongGryphon said:


> *headtilt*
> 
> Why am I hearing 'make FA a paysite' suggestions?
> 
> ...





Kraton said:


> Exactly. We don't need to pay for FA, we're donating more than enough already. Heck, if people keep donating like this, FA's 15k they have now will turn to 25k rather quickly. The Admins are all set for money, so we can end this silly and rather pointless discussion.



Yes, we have the money to make a one time purchase of the hardware that we need right now.

But you are both missing out on the fact that supporting the colocation, power and bandwidth this website uses costs money, every month. And not just money, but nearly a thousand dollars a month. Yes, 1000$/mo.

This is the reason FA has to start making money. To cover it's running costs. So far, that money has been coming out of donations and supplemented by FA's pocket money. But generous as they can be, donations are not a stable source of income to rely on, and FA needs to ensure stability.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

flinters said:


> "Um, Mr. President?  Yes, the furries are here to see you about your presdiential position..."
> 
> 
> (he bends over, pants down, tail up)  "I'm ready for them."


That was a really disturbing mental picture you just put into our minds. Thanks.


----------



## Balto.Woof (Jul 5, 2008)

Pay-for Premium memberships.  Limit basic memberships to 20 picture submissions and no video posts.   Limit the amount they of peeps they can watch to 200.

I'd pay.  I think it would only be fair due to the amount I use FA.


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## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

yak said:


> Yes, we have the money to make a one time purchase of the hardware that we need right now.
> 
> But you are both missing out on the fact that supporting the colocation, power and bandwidth this website uses costs money, every month. And not just money, but nearly a thousand dollars a month. Yes, 1000$/mo.
> 
> This is the reason FA has to start making money. To cover it's running costs. So far, that money has been coming out of donations and supplemented by FA's pocket money. But generous as they can be, donations are not a stable source of income to rely on, and FA needs to ensure stability.



So... what, am I the only one here who, once I have a job, am willing to donate $5/pay check to FA? Cause so long as affording it isn't an issue, you can bet your ass I will donate. I love this site too much to see it fall. And that's not anyone forcing me or convincing me to donate, I WANT to donate.
And assuming that pay checks will be every 2 weeks (as most jobs appear to be), that's like $10 a month coming from me.

So while $10 a month from only me won't be enough to call it a stable income, I don't think it's fair to speak as if my intentions aren't good enough or anything. If you admins want a more stable income, you'd better hope that there are more like me in the fandom that is willing to pay that much, that often. It's not even a subscription at all, it's just me donating. But if you MAKE it into a subscription, then you're likely to lose this FA member.


----------



## Artie (Jul 5, 2008)

yak said:


> Yes, we have the money to make a one time purchase of the hardware that we need right now.
> 
> But you are both missing out on the fact that supporting the colocation, power and bandwidth this website uses costs money, every month. And not just money, but nearly a thousand dollars a month. Yes, 1000$/mo.
> 
> This is the reason FA has to start making money. To cover it's running costs. So far, that money has been coming out of donations and supplemented by FA's pocket money. But generous as they can be, donations are not a stable source of income to rely on, and FA needs to ensure stability.



I have a feeling that if FA already had a stable source of income like that, then we wouldn't even be having this downtime right now.  The money would have been on hand to order new hardware right away, eh?  Meaning there would be SOME downtime, but not nearly as much, since there wouldn't have been a need to pause for a donation drive.  That is the importance of having some kind of regular funds coming in.

It's definitely important for the admins not to use ALL the money on hardware purchases.  It's important to keep money on hand for future emergencies, as well as the monthly operating costs.  Spending ALL the money that comes in on the site AS SOON as it comes in, would be a foolish move.

Additionally, I still think free users shouldn't have anything taken away from the current functionality of the site, and should probably have even MORE once additional features are added to the site.  I think FA would make a substantial amount of regular, stable income if there were *voluntary, donation-like "subscriptions"*, which wouldn't actually offer anything substantial over a free user.  Simply recognition of being a site supporter, if anything.  I'd go for that.


----------



## TranzAndri and Co. (Jul 5, 2008)

Unfortunately, our choosing to become a member on FA was hinged on many factors, one of the biggest being that it was free. We're of a dirt poor variety, and paying money to share our artistic talents with others and appreciate others' own works isn't something we'd be interested in. We like FA and all, but it just doesn't work out on buying a subscription. 

Besides my own personal feelings, I feel that to "ensure stability", as it was said, it would be slightly foolheardy to make subsciptions limit the available services to those who can't pay or have to choose between this and something else. If something like that were enacted, I predict about 70% of the members would find other sites that may not be as good as FA, but will still be free and good for their work to be hosted on. I've seen this happen with things like this before. There's nothing less pretty than the fragmenting of a good thing. Especially something that brings so much art into view, whether it's poetry, prose, music, or art.

-Tranz, Kari, Sili, and Jade aka TranzAndri and Co.


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## ANTIcarrot (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> So... what, am I the only one here who, once I have a job, am willing to donate $5/pay check to FA?



No, but you might be the only one willing to do so _manually_. Given how quickly $4000 was raised (and how quickly similar donation drives elsewhere in furrydom work) I suspect the admins would be surprised at how many would be willing to give money...

Provided that the admins could spend two seconds setting up subscription payments. Like this: http://www.solfire.com/donations/ Sure Paypal may get 1% of all donations, but Furaffinity gets to keep the other $2000 a month!


----------



## Straitfox (Jul 5, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> After investigating and digging around, we've determined many of the recent errors/outages on FA's side to be result of a server hardware fault. We've got some mixed signals coming from the server, and we're investigating them to try to resolve issues. No one item is pointing towards origin of failure so we are unable to determine what the point of failure is at this time.
> 
> Given we were planning on purchasing a new server for backup, we are re-allocating that money right now to purchasing a new data server with built in backup capabilities. The new server will replace the failing data server until we can make proper repairs.
> 
> ...



If I may what server or servers you were using and what you are ordering now, I ask this because I may be able to help if I can, my father works with networking and servers and as for helping get this site faster I do not know what I can give for your site.  I am all out of money...I am so sorry.  But I hope everything goes well.


----------



## Marohen (Jul 5, 2008)

Hmm... In regards to this whole pay-site delemma... Really, I don't think FA is--with its present staff and state--capable of putting up a subscription system.

Who will add any potential beneficial features to it? Yak? One guy? And he's probably busy enough trying to deal with the presently haphazard code for FA (No offense, man). At this point, the only way to make subscription reasonable is to _take away_ current features from the average user.

Granted, a stable income always is good, but even that must come at a price; the site is fated to become something very different then it presently is... And considering the trend DA went through, that change is doomed to ruin the spirit of the site.

So, what will it be, a good site that is unpredictable and unstable, or a bad site that is reliable? Personally, I'd stick with the latter, because of present pleasure for FA and my present displeasure for DA.

If there's any wisdom in the advice, try to avoid everything DA did; FA isn't just a site for furry porn, its a place where a guy can get noticed no matter how insignificant they might be, and that's worth protecting more then anything else.

Boy, do I like to ramble! But that's what you get for having FA down so long; I'm bored as hell!


----------



## yak (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> So while $10 a month from only me won't be enough to call it a stable income, I don't think it's fair to speak as if my intentions aren't good enough or anything. If you admins want a more stable income, you'd better hope that there are more like me in the fandom that is willing to pay that much, that often. It's not even a subscription at all, it's just me donating. But if you MAKE it into a subscription, then you're likely to lose this FA member.



Oh come on, holster your weapons and be reasonable.

Never I said that FA would be a payed for website. I didn't say anything about subscriptions neither. In fact, I did no say anything outside of mentioning that FA needs a more stable income on money, and has to start making it in one way or another.
For all that it's worth it you many not even notice how FA will be making money at all. Now is not the time for that kind of discussions and decisions. 

The generosity on donations is greatly appreciated. Please do not think that it is not. 
But unfortunate and rumor breaking as it is, donations do not fully power FA. The amount of them greatly fluctuates with time. Sometimes they cover nearly all of the bills, some other times there are almost none of them. Either way even with the goodwill of our users and you, the amount of donations is still not enough to power FA, and that situation would only get worse with each successive month.

Imagine yourself in the position of having to take $1000 out of your pocket every month to pay for FA. It's mind bending. 

FA needs to secure means to be self-sustained. It has to generate enough income to pay it's own bills, for all yours and our sake and to ensure it's future. And as I have already said, it does not necessarily mean obtrusive methods would be used, or the quality of service degraded.


----------



## SilverAutomatic (Jul 5, 2008)

I think part of the reason why donations may be low is because we're too lazy to do it manually! XD

There should be an option to make an automatic monthly donation with the amount of our choosing.

Kinda like one of those charities you see on TV, you know;
"For the price of just a cup of coffee..."

Yeah... XD


----------



## Delian (Jul 5, 2008)

Look people, it has been said many times already. *Site will be free, and most useful features will be free*. Nothing will be taken away from anyone and as much as possible will be given to everyone. That most likely includes search feature.

But some people need SOMETHING they can pay for. They want to pay, but they need something. Anything, as long as it's something that they can use, but not something that everyone needs. Perks, not needed, but nifty.


----------



## nrr (Jul 5, 2008)

AnraX said:


> hmmm hopes its SUN This time and not all wiggely x86 arc thay gona run this time


... so you suggest running the site on SPARC hardware?  Two problems with this as far as I can tell.

There's probably only one person on FA's staff who's proficient at being a Solaris sysadm.  You're dumb if you're going to run a production application on SPARC hardware and not use Solaris.

The last time that Sun built a "basic" SPARC offering (i.e., something not geared toward heavily multi-threaded tasks and not special-purpose) was several years ago.


----------



## yak (Jul 5, 2008)

Marohen said:


> Hmm... In regards to this whole pay-site delemma... Really, I don't think FA is--with its present staff and state--capable of putting up a subscription system.
> 
> Who will add any potential beneficial features to it? Yak? One guy? And he's probably busy enough trying to deal with the presently haphazard code for FA (No offense, man). At this point, the only way to make subscription reasonable is to _take away_ current features from the average user.



Dude, you have _no idea_ how much time it takes, even daily, to keep FA running on the hardware that, due to several factors, lacks to provide the performance required.

These factors would simply be nonexistent after this upgrade, leaving much more time to actually work on the service the website provides instead of working of maintaining that service in the working state.

I am not saying things would be brought onboard instantly, it will take time, but with the hardware stability and no longer a need to maintain in.. there would be much more time freed.


----------



## Marohen (Jul 5, 2008)

yak said:


> FA needs to secure means to be self-sustained. It has to generate enough income to pay it's own bills, for all yours and our sake and to ensure it's future. And as I have already said, it does not necessarily mean obtrusive methods would be used, or the quality of service degraded.



You're half-true there, my friend.

For example, I like these new Ads on FA, they "Ad"ed (Haha, get it?) to the site both aesthetically and financially.

But, the fact of the matter is, a site like FA can't live off Ad's alone, the only _effective_ means of retaining a _stable_ income is through some form of subscription, that is the tragic fact.


----------



## Marohen (Jul 5, 2008)

yak said:


> Dude, you have _no idea_ how much time it takes, even daily, to keep FA running on the hardware that, due to several factors, lacks to provide the performance required.
> 
> These factors would simply be nonexistent after this upgrade, leaving much more time to actually work on the service the website provides instead of working of maintaining that service in the working state.
> 
> I am not saying things would be brought onboard instantly, it will take time, but with the hardware stability and no longer a need to maintain in.. there would be much more time freed.



Understood, then the issue of _how_ is not a factor. The only factor that remains is the moral and philosophical issues that come with subscription.


----------



## Threetails (Jul 5, 2008)

How about some new gallery indexing features (such as enabling tag indexing within your gallery or allowing the creation of sub-galleries or sub-folders), easier drop-box features to make using multiple avatars easier, more species/category tags, an "ad-free" account with no banners, and enabling the long-defunct search feature as part of a "premium package?"

I'd pay for that... maybe not much, but $3-5 a month.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

yak said:


> Oh come on, holster your weapons and be reasonable.
> 
> Never I said that FA would be a payed for website. I didn't say anything about subscriptions neither. In fact, I did no say anything outside of mentioning that FA needs a more stable income on money, and has to start making it in one way or another.
> For all that it's worth it you many not even notice how FA will be making money at all. Now is not the time for that kind of discussions and decisions.
> ...



Ok, so then do you have any ideas of how to maintain a steady income other than donations and without going into making it a payed site? Because I really do not want to see the site become even slightly similar to DA, and although I'm willing to donate money every time I get a pay check, I really wouldn't know how to help otherwise.


----------



## ArielMT (Jul 5, 2008)

Sslaxx said:


> 'Neer, you may need to (re-)instigate an IP ban?


In my experience, IP bans work only against the more ignorant trolls, and that assumes they're not using short-lease IPs like AOL, dial-up, and some other ISPs do.


Anepo said:


> There is one problem though with ANY server you get you know that right? ^^ As soon as there is a new server the really dirty horny artists will try to fill it up before it even gets started with yiff ^^ will take only 1 day for them to fill the new server lol ^^ because they have been using all the time FA has been down to draw naughty art.


That's a problem...  How?  :-D  In all seriousness, the only thing that really frightens me once FA comes back up is that the message center is going to fill up so quickly that I won't have a chance to read and see everything (including the things I'd then want to unsee) before my brain asplodes from the sheer numbers.


Anepo said:


> Furries for presidents! ^^ We can soon buy ourselfs president positions ^^


I'd vote for one!


Gregarbeast said:


> If I may what server or servers you were using and what you are ordering now, I ask this because I may be able to help if I can, my father works with networking and servers and as for helping get this site faster I do not know what I can give for your site. I am all out of money...I am so sorry. But I hope everything goes well.


That's by and large answered over in the New Servers thread.


----------



## Baby Giraffe (Jul 5, 2008)

the saying; "Those who don't know the past are doomed to repeat it." Seems to ring a bell.

The site will be different. There will be a few kinks in the beginning. The site WILL be better in time. Now we just need to pull our heads of our asses, smell the fresh air, and pay attention, slow down, and smell the flowers.

If we are cautious then this won't happen again. Think of the souls that run this site. *hugs the lot of you* Your like freaking gods! I'd drop my pants and say to piss off at this point....but thats just me.

*rock fingers* And yet is another opinion that non of you will pay attention to!


----------



## Waccoon (Jul 5, 2008)

Threetails said:


> How about some new gallery indexing features (such as enabling tag indexing within your gallery or allowing the creation of sub-galleries or sub-folders)



Only if navigation is improved.  I prefer to see pictures as a flat gallery, rather than have to step through multiple galleries, unless each gallery has, say, more than 10 pictures.  Also, there would have to be some indication of whether said galleries contain pictures at all.  I always forget that FA has a "scraps" gallery, and if I remember to check it, it usually contains zero pictures, anyway.

Frankly, I wish the site coders would work on correcting the XHTML/CSS/JS syntax issues, first, before adding yet more features.  Some code cleanup would go a long way to dealing with bandwidth issues, too.  I already offered to help with this on the code support forum, but didn't get a reply.


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## dmfalk (Jul 5, 2008)

Artie said:


> Additionally, I still think free users shouldn't have anything taken away from the current functionality of the site, and should probably have even MORE once additional features are added to the site.  I think FA would make a substantial amount of regular, stable income if there were *voluntary, donation-like "subscriptions"*, which wouldn't actually offer anything substantial over a free user.  Simply recognition of being a site supporter, if anything.  I'd go for that.



"Subscriptions" would be the wrong term, here, I'd think- Ideally, it should be a PBS-style membership or, as someone has mentioned, a convention-style "supersponsor" program. Some sort of sponsorship program would be best, with only a few perks that don't take anything away from the regular users- Just added benefits like, say, Featured Artist of the Day, or somesuch- Maybe a random rotating Featured Artist, so the hundreds of sponsoring artists can get seen randomly.

Or... Like eBay, perhaps- Sponsorship stars, either donated by the FA user or on behalf of said FA user. (eBay's stars are colour-coded according to the level of feedback they've received.)

But no, no paysite, no disabled functions- Just pure FurAffinity. 

d.m.f.
(Who doesn't mind the ads as they currently are- They're furry or by furries in context. In fact, there should be more furry ads. Step out of that, and better have a DAMN GOOD reason to advertise something non-furry on a furry community site.)


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## Kilroy (Jul 5, 2008)

Geez people, slow down! I'm having a hard time keeping up with the pages! Seems like every time I click the next page button there's a new one already up! 

And a little more on topic, I am absolutely amazed at the amount of financial support the site has received! All I can say is, where the hell was the love when _-I-_ needed it? 

Ah well, I only wish I could chip in, but I still need foodstuffs! (And yes, even a measely $1 could keep me without food. I'm not really in a position where I can buy anything I want. Hell, I'd buy ramen noodles if I had a way to cook them any time I wanted!)


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## dmfalk (Jul 5, 2008)

SilverAutomatic said:


> I think part of the reason why donations may be low is because we're too lazy to do it manually! XD
> 
> There should be an option to make an automatic monthly donation with the amount of our choosing.
> 
> ...


Indeed, it should be totally voluntary without loss of features who don't, plus some sort of mechanism to do automatic donations, should the donor so desire. IN NO WAY should those who can't/won't donate, for whatever reason, ever be left out of the full FA community experience. Whether or not they do, it's their FA, too. 

d.m.f.


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## dmfalk (Jul 5, 2008)

nrr said:


> ... so you suggest running the site on SPARC hardware?  Two problems with this as far as I can tell.
> 
> There's probably only one person on FA's staff who's proficient at being a Solaris sysadm.  You're dumb if you're going to run a production application on SPARC hardware and not use Solaris.
> 
> The last time that Sun built a "basic" SPARC offering (i.e., something not geared toward heavily multi-threaded tasks and not special-purpose) was several years ago.



I've been on SPARCs using BOTH FreeBSD and Solaris, as a user.

d.m.f.


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## xids31 (Jul 5, 2008)

^^ Hello just wanted to say that no matter what happens, FA will change whether small or big. Change is coming. Now hopefully (and it most likely wont) change for the worst, FA has been a true get-a-way from everyday life for me. I've made friends who share a similar bond that isnt widely accepted IRL. For that I'm thankful to be apart of it. I know it seems like a scary situation on how FA will continue to run. Shoot this is the first time (since Ive been here) that FA has had this bad of a problem, which in my opinion is a very good track record. I know im just one person but I believe in hoping for the best. We gotta realize that the ppl that run this site know the repercussions of anything they do(especially since theyll definately hear about it in forums ^^). So Ill be waitin for ya FA(that means all of ya guys), to see your art, read your journals, and make new friends. (very sappy i know big whoop wanna fight about it, lol)

Oh btw shrmp is the fruit of the sea! :shock:


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## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

dmfalk said:


> "Subscriptions" would be the wrong term, here, I'd think- Ideally, it should be a PBS-style membership or, as someone has mentioned, a convention-style "supersponsor" program. Some sort of sponsorship program would be best, with only a few perks that don't take anything away from the regular users- Just added benefits like, say, Featured Artist of the Day, or somesuch- Maybe a random rotating Featured Artist, so the hundreds of sponsoring artists can get seen randomly.
> 
> Or... Like eBay, perhaps- Sponsorship stars, either donated by the FA user or on behalf of said FA user. (eBay's stars are colour-coded according to the level of feedback they've received.)
> 
> ...



Well, a sponsorship program sort of idea is a lot better than submissions to FA, but when it comes to any "benefit" of it, the only thing I'd agree with is the idea of, on the home page (likely where it shows the advertisement for donating) it might show the avatar of the most recent donator (since the last refresh, of course). It's not advertising for that artist or anything, nor are they getting anything that they wouldn't already have without donating, so it's not a bad idea.

Though, personally, I don't need or want anything given back after donating (not that I'd disagree with the above idea, I just wouldn't pay attention to it).

And personally, I think that if FA were to add ANYTHING new at all, it should be an easier means to donate, rather than going to Amazon or Paypal. Though that may be wishful thinking on my part.


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## dmfalk (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Ok, so then do you have any ideas of how to maintain a steady income other than donations and without going into making it a payed site? Because I really do not want to see the site become even slightly similar to DA, and although I'm willing to donate money every time I get a pay check, I really wouldn't know how to help otherwise.



I think Yak might be mentioning of selling server space for dedicated websites- Like personal sites for non-FA doings & such.

d.m.f.


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## Armaetus (Jul 5, 2008)

I wonder how many of the FA staff actually chip in for the monthly costs...I know Drago handles the bulk of the burden but how much do others such as yak, codewolf and others contribute to the $500ish per month?


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## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

Oh, and is there a mailing address where I can send a check? I'm not sure how Amazon and Paypal work exactly, but I'm pretty sure that (if I'm willing to pay for a freaking 10 cent stamp XD) sending through the mail (a check is safer than bills, any day) is cheaper than those sites.
However, I could be wrong. If so, please inform me. XD


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## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

dmfalk said:


> I think Yak might be mentioning of selling server space for dedicated websites- Like personal sites for non-FA doings & such.
> 
> d.m.f.



Hmm, like renting a room or apartment kinda thing, only online?
I'd say not a bad idea, but personally I don't know what repercussions might come with that. XD
Don't want to make myself look like an idiot.


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## Pi (Jul 5, 2008)

dmfalk said:


> I've been on SPARCs using BOTH FreeBSD and Solaris, as a user.
> 
> d.m.f.



And?

You're not a Solaris admin, nobody on the FA staff is, and I doubt any of them want to learn. Plus, if they want to run FreeBSD they can do it with more bang for the buck on commodity hardware.


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## dmfalk (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Well, a sponsorship program sort of idea is a lot better than submissions to FA, but when it comes to any "benefit" of it, the only thing I'd agree with is the idea of, on the home page (likely where it shows the advertisement for donating) it might show the avatar of the most recent donator (since the last refresh, of course). It's not advertising for that artist or anything, nor are they getting anything that they wouldn't already have without donating, so it's not a bad idea.
> 
> Though, personally, I don't need or want anything given back after donating (not that I'd disagree with the above idea, I just wouldn't pay attention to it).
> 
> And personally, I think that if FA were to add ANYTHING new at all, it should be an easier means to donate, rather than going to Amazon or Paypal. Though that may be wishful thinking on my part.



"FA is brought to you in part by (insert icon of user here)" - I like that Idea, too. It actually could fit well with my suggestion. 

d.m.f.


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## Artie (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Oh, and is there a mailing address where I can send a check? I'm not sure how Amazon and Paypal work exactly, but I'm pretty sure that (if I'm willing to pay for a freaking 10 cent stamp XD) sending through the mail (a check is safer than bills, any day) is cheaper than those sites.
> However, I could be wrong. If so, please inform me. XD



Please inform ME where I can mail a letter with a 10 cent stamp!   XD


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## S.G. (Jul 5, 2008)

dmfalk said:


> I think Yak might be mentioning of selling server space for dedicated websites- Like personal sites for non-FA doings & such.
> 
> d.m.f.



That might very well work. It could be like FUBU (For Us, By Us), only FFBF (For Furs, By Furs), haha. Seriously, they could sell server space for stand alone artist sites, maybe even such things like furbid, furbuy and other sorts...


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## dmfalk (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Hmm, like renting a room or apartment kinda thing, only online?
> I'd say not a bad idea, but personally I don't know what repercussions might come with that. XD
> Don't want to make myself look like an idiot.



Just like the many sites that offer personal webspace, yes.

d.m.f.


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## Kanic (Jul 5, 2008)

The amount of donations and generosity gives a very good image to the furry fandom.


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## Balto.Woof (Jul 5, 2008)

$10 per month for a premium account.   'Nuf said.


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## Kilroy (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Oh, and is there a mailing address where I can send a check? I'm not sure how Amazon and Paypal work exactly, but I'm pretty sure that (if I'm willing to pay for a freaking 10 cent stamp XD) sending through the mail (a check is safer than bills, any day) is cheaper than those sites.
> However, I could be wrong. If so, please inform me. XD



Man, I wish our stamps were that cheap! I don't know what they cost over here now though; I've got those forever stamps 

Also, might cost more, since I _think_ stamps from Canada to the US go by air mail (like it does the other way around, I know that much!) and cost more than the normal stamp.


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## Armaetus (Jul 5, 2008)

I wish some of you folks could stop bringing up "Premium/paid account" ideas. It won't and will never be done! (at least not for now....)


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## Dragoneer (Jul 5, 2008)

Artie said:


> I have a feeling that if FA already had a stable source of income like that, then we wouldn't even be having this downtime right now.  The money would have been on hand to order new hardware right away, eh?


That's correct. We'd have had a nest egg to prepare for situations like this and could have expedited a fix for it.


TranzAndri and Co. said:


> Unfortunately, our choosing to become a member on FA was hinged on many factors, one of the biggest being that it was free.


I can promise you that if we went that route the services and offerings on FA would not change. It'd be nothing like what DeviantArt does... AT ALL. FA will remain free for usage, but just please remember that nothing truly ever comes for free. There are ALWAYS COSTS, whether you see them or not. Anything that we were to offer would be optional, would "fluff" and would not take away from the basic access.

But the bottom line? FA costs almost $1,100 a month in basic operations. Where will we be a year from now, two? We need to work on producing lil' frills to get people to donate, things that are nifty... but do not reduce the daily usage of the site.

Either way, this REALLY is not the thread for this.


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## nothingkat (Jul 5, 2008)

Premium accounts could equate to faster bandwidth access and no ads.

Sounds simply enough. I mean, I'm sure more can be added but that's not a bad start.

I see some people (NO ONE SPECIFIC MENTIONED) who are talking about leaving the site if it becomes a pay-site and I really hope they understand that , from what I take, the site will always be free as how it stands.

And that just the optional upgrade and 'fancier' accounts with some perks will cost money. You know, to offset the cost to run the server. Furry may be supportive and great and all that but-- running servers do cost real money.


Dragoneer said it himself. If they had a steady flow of income, downtimes like these wouldn't happen as often as it does.


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## Balto.Woof (Jul 5, 2008)

mrchris said:


> I wish some of you folks could stop bringing up "Premium/paid account" ideas. It won't and will never be done! (at least not for now....)



Because, the ones that will dump $50 a month in art commissions will complain because they dont have enough money..  And they will leave?  *shrugs*

Sounds like the best way to pay for CoLo and equipment to me.


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## OrientPaladin (Jul 5, 2008)

I agree on the premium account idea. Heck, if you wanted you could just make it a cheap 5$/month for no ads and add a few bells a whistles for people who are into that sort of thing. It wouldn't create any sudden explosion of money, but it would be a steady flow, enough to build up a nest egg. 

Also...question.

Nevermind...I forgot. ^_^;


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## Balto.Woof (Jul 5, 2008)

nothingkat said:


> Premium accounts could equate to faster bandwidth access and no ads.
> 
> Sounds simply enough. I mean, I'm sure more can be added but that's not a bad start.
> 
> ...



100 people pay for a $10 premium account..  That's $1,000 per month!!  This pays for CoLo..  You know more than 100 people would signup within 30days.  

The foot traffic on FA is only going to increase exponentially over the next 12months.  The Con attendance is going up 10-15% annually.  I think new furs entering the community will be double that.  

If this site doesn't start bring in just enough to pay for its services, its going to become a problem quickly.

I know at least 8 people personally that would pay for a premium account if it were provided.  

Since we're at a standstill with FA's equipment down, might be a good time to look at revamping things.


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## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

Kilroy said:


> Man, I wish our stamps were that cheap! I don't know what they cost over here now though; I've got those forever stamps
> 
> Also, might cost more, since I _think_ stamps from Canada to the US go by air mail (like it does the other way around, I know that much!) and cost more than the normal stamp.


True, I didn't think of that.
Technically I don't know the prices of stamps right now, I was just guessing. XD

As for those who are still talking about subscriptions:
WHY must there be ANY sort of "bonus" for paying monthly? Can't you just donate monthly and be happy with that?
I mean, really, there's nothing that could be added to FA to make it any better, or give you any reason to want to subscribe. MOST people will keep their free accounts and be fine with it. So why not simply donate monthly like I plan to do?

Sure, even I think there are some things that could be added to FA, but if they added anything, they would make it all available to ALL members, not just those who donate. And besides, the only really helpful additions would be:
A) making donating easier and cheaper on both ends.
and B) (and this is something I really couldn't care less for) a search bar for searching usernames (not artwork titles, because there have been SO many duplicate names that it really wouldn't work).


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## Dream (Jul 5, 2008)

About this whole premium accounts thing...I don't think you're all realizing it ain't gonna happen, and uhh...well as Dargoneer basically said to you guys probably multiple times.  Shuddup about it.  Seriously, the ideas are appreciated and all but if you want to, talk about it elsewhere, this post is about the servers and FA being down, not about ideas or suggestions to increase Fur Affinity's income.


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 5, 2008)

Kraton said:


> @CrystalMendrilia: If they're being annoying, just ignore the person. No reason to ruin your good mood. (And I'm kinda assuming you're in a good mood, just from the way you reply. You sort of... radiate cheerfulness. *shrugs*)



^_^ Oh, that's because I am!   *Huggles*  I'm glad to know I radiate that more than I used to seem. People used to always think I was angry because I actually type with punctuation, and unabreviated words, and when I am in a debate, I speak clearly and make my points in decent detail, which apparently means I'm angry all the time. XD   So I'm glad someone can see I'm cheerful. ^_^  Besides, the next episode of Doctor Who came out today! I finally get to see what happens!  (I chose those words carefully. I finally get to see what happens!  Rather then telling you where I am in the season. American T.V. is a few episodes behind from where I am hehe. Plus those who haven't been able to watch them 'yet', I don't want to break anything. It's a good season!)


REGARDING THE SERVER STUFF.

So what is the plan? A new server being ordered, hardware updates, and so on. I'm just curious what the plan is (if the plan has been decided yet or not)

AND how much has been raised so far to persuade you guys to remove the donation link on the main page? (or is there a different reason it was removed?)


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## Kraton (Jul 5, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> ^_^ Oh, that's because I am!   *Huggles*  I'm glad to know I radiate that more than I used to seem. People used to always think I was angry because I actually type with punctuation, and unabreviated words, and when I am in a debate, I speak clearly and make my points in decent detail, which apparently means I'm angry all the time. XD   So I'm glad someone can see I'm cheerful. ^_^  Besides, the next episode of Doctor Who came out today! I finally get to see what happens!  (I chose those words carefully. I finally get to see what happens!  Rather then telling you where I am in the season. American T.V. is a few episodes behind from where I am hehe. Plus those who haven't been able to watch them 'yet', I don't want to break anything. It's a good season!)
> 
> 
> REGARDING THE SERVER STUFF.
> ...



Well, without trying to boast or anything, I tend to be good at knowing how others are feeling at any given moment, without even being in the same room. And the fact that I'm usually pretty nice means it's easy for me to see when others are as well.

I'm glad I was correct though, cause I don't like seeing people upset.

Edit: yay, I passed 100 posts. XD


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## Dragoneer (Jul 5, 2008)

mrchris said:


> I wonder how many of the FA staff actually chip in for the monthly costs...I know Drago handles the bulk of the burden but how much do others such as yak, codewolf and others contribute to the $500ish per month?


The coders contribute their time and effort. The admins contribute in other ways, some via art, assistance, time or support. Yes, we have had staff donations before.  For the most part it generally works out in the end.


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## AnthroStick (Jul 5, 2008)

Yeah. How much do you need?


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## Draconas (Jul 5, 2008)

i have a neighbor that salvages metals and various machines to be scrapped and recycled, he happens to find some supercomputers and crap all major companies in my town uses, they're multi-million dollar machines but these idiots throw them out as if they cost nothing but five bucks, i wish i could send a few in to you guys or something, they probably need major works anyways


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## Pi (Jul 5, 2008)

Draconas said:


> some superdomputers and crap all major comapnies in my town uses, they're multi-million dollar machines but these idiots throw them out as if they cost nothing but five bucks



That class of machine is not likely to be very useful as a web or database server.


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## selth (Jul 5, 2008)

hmm... depends what kind of machine. if you find pieces of a spark...


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## Straitfox (Jul 5, 2008)

yak said:


> Oh come on, holster your weapons and be reasonable.
> 
> Never I said that FA would be a payed for website. I didn't say anything about subscriptions neither. In fact, I did no say anything outside of mentioning that FA needs a more stable income on money, and has to start making it in one way or another.
> For all that it's worth it you many not even notice how FA will be making money at all. Now is not the time for that kind of discussions and decisions.
> ...



I second with Yak.  I mean come on, Devart is making some income but frankly I want FA to be up to speed.  So maybe just make it with a twist with a subscription system, you get better stuff or something like at a con, devart has this month, 3 month and year subscription thing.

I say you gotta start somewhere to make money I say.


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## RailRide (Jul 5, 2008)

Spoketh several pages ago:


yak said:


> These factors would simply be nonexistent after this upgrade, leaving much more time to actually work on the service the website provides instead of working of maintaining that service in the working state.
> 
> I am not saying things would be brought onboard instantly, it will take time, but with the hardware stability and no longer a need to maintain in.. there would be much more time freed.



So, what you're saying here, is that because FA (before the current outage) was running on hardware that really was unsuited to running a site with the kind of traffic FA generates, it required a great deal of technical babysitting that cut into time that would otherwise been used making the current code less of a "botched abortion" (my words to 'net-cat' at AC) and/or advancing the Ferrox codebase?

---PCJ


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## uncia (Jul 5, 2008)

RailRide said:


> Spoketh several pages ago:
> 
> 
> So, what you're saying here, is that because FA (before the current outage) was running on hardware that really was unsuited to running a site with the kind of traffic FA generates, it required a great deal of technical babysitting that cut into time that would otherwise been used making the current code less of a "botched abortion" (my words to 'net-cat' at AC) and/or advancing the Ferrox codebase?
> ...



_since the yak is asleep (I hope!)..._

In a word, "yes", although you also hit the secondary issue there which wasn't "planned" for; i.e. that Ferrox should've _eased_ the need for that degree of babysitting a year and odds back.
As things currently stand, the more oomph possible power-wise the better, in order to help get FA and the community over the hump (to draw a familiar analogy? ). 

$4k was always going to be a long way shy on that score, but that reckoned without the community's desire to get things set again on the best possible footing.  +thx, of course.

d.


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## Ainoko (Jul 5, 2008)

TranzAndri and Co. said:


> Unfortunately, our choosing to become a member on FA was hinged on many factors, one of the biggest being that it was free. We're of a dirt poor variety, and paying money to share our artistic talents with others and appreciate others' own works isn't something we'd be interested in. We like FA and all, but it just doesn't work out on buying a subscription.
> 
> Besides my own personal feelings, I feel that to "ensure stability", as it was said, it would be slightly foolheardy to make subsciptions limit the available services to those who can't pay or have to choose between this and something else. If something like that were enacted, I predict about 70% of the members would find other sites that may not be as good as FA, but will still be free and good for their work to be hosted on. I've seen this happen with things like this before. There's nothing less pretty than the fragmenting of a good thing. Especially something that brings so much art into view, whether it's poetry, prose, music, or art.
> 
> -Tranz, Kari, Sili, and Jade aka TranzAndri and Co.



I see your point, but what the other are saying that if FA were to become a subscription site, don't remove the features already in place for the free members. I like the idea that if you subscibe to the site, you would be recognized as a supporting member, like PBS.


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## KalebFenoir (Jul 5, 2008)

Draconas said:


> i have a neighbor that salvages metals and various machines to be scrapped and recycled, he happens to find some supercomputers and crap all major companies in my town uses, they're multi-million dollar machines but these idiots throw them out as if they cost nothing but five bucks, i wish i could send a few in to you guys or something, they probably need major works anyways


 
*chuckles* I'm sorry, but a weird mental image just popped up for me. Three people going from one to another of each other's places, trying to one-up each other's machines. First guy shows off his decent machine. Second guy shows off his better machine. Then you get Third guy, mister 'salvage the supercomputers', opening the door to his computer room showing it chock full of super-computer stuff... and not needing to say a thing. Or saying something like 'I rent it out to NASA sometimes so they can bring the space shuttle down safely. Something about calculating orbital trajectories.' XD

And that's my odd thought, inspired by your talk of a salvaging neighbour. XD


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## yak (Jul 5, 2008)

RailRide said:


> Spoketh several pages ago:
> 
> 
> So, what you're saying here, is that because FA (before the current outage) was running on hardware that really was unsuited to running a site with the kind of traffic FA generates, it required a great deal of technical babysitting that cut into time that would otherwise been used making the current code less of a "botched abortion" (my words to 'net-cat' at AC) and/or advancing the Ferrox codebase?
> ...



Yes, you can put it this way.



			
				uncia said:
			
		

> _since the yak is asleep (I hope!)..._


Peekaboo... 
With all that money... I still can not afford a good night's sleep


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## uncia (Jul 5, 2008)

yak said:


> Peekaboo...


_*rofl*_. Short night hours in Moldova?


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## Zentio (Jul 5, 2008)

mrchris said:


> I wish some of you folks could stop bringing up "Premium/paid account" ideas. It won't and will never be done! (at least not for now....)



Agreed.
And if it does happen, I hope it's not like some idiots have been suggesting where they limit free accounts.
I hope it's just better perks for those that pay.


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## Ainoko (Jul 5, 2008)

Zoltan said:


> Agreed.
> And if it does happen, I hope it's not like some idiots have been suggesting where they limit free accounts.
> I hope it's just better perks for those that pay.



I agree


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## Undying Song (Jul 5, 2008)

Zoltan said:


> Agreed.
> And if it does happen, I hope it's not like some idiots have been suggesting where they limit free accounts.
> I hope it's just better perks for those that pay.



It won't be! Dragoneer has already stated, and very recently, that all shall remain the same. If or when "paid accounts" are added, those paying would get "fluff", I think is how he put it..


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## Armaetus (Jul 5, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> The coders contribute their time and effort. The admins contribute in other ways, some via art, assistance, time or support. Yes, we have had staff donations before.  For the most part it generally works out in the end.



I know they contribute time and effort for the website, but do they sometimes chip in for the monthly payment of $500?


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## seaweed (Jul 5, 2008)

Okay guys, Dragoneer has already said that this is *NOT* the place to talk about what, if any, sort of paid features there will be on FA once it comes up.

I said this once, and it was ignored, but I will try to say it again..

Can we *PLEASE* for the love of whatever deity you believe in, STOP FREAKING TALKING about paid features for FA?!?!?

This thread is supposed to be about the outage. 

This is really ridiculous. I left at 3:30 EST to go to work. I came back around 10:30 EST and there were 15 PAGES of chatting about possible paid features.


Please, for the love of my sanity, stop.


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## rexar (Jul 5, 2008)

I have a Sun Enterprise 450 server and an SGI Origin 2000, but they're a little old and I hear y'all have about 2U of rack space at your disposal, so that probably wouldn't be of much help.

(also I'm greedy)


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## Takun Lion (Jul 5, 2008)

mrchris said:


> I know they contribute time and effort for the website, but do they sometimes chip in for the monthly payment of $500?



Does it matter?  Volunteer staff and all.


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## uncia (Jul 5, 2008)

Undying Song said:


> It won't be! Dragoneer has already stated, and very recently, that all shall remain the same. If or when "paid accounts" are added, those paying would get "fluff", I think is how he put it..


*nods*. And as was conjectured before, albeit with need for "consideration" (e.g. per http://forums.furaffinity.net/showpost.php?p=4426&postcount=11 )

=
Anyhow; somewhat digressing from the current $ tally vs. "ideal" target question, at present, I guess; apols. Update??


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## Crossdouble (Jul 5, 2008)

instead about caring what can be done NEWLY to FA it first has to come on again, and that should be the main target and topic here!


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## seaweed (Jul 5, 2008)

Crossdouble said:


> instead about caring what can be done NEWLY to FA it first has to come on again, and that should be the main target and topic here!






THANK YOU!! I LOVE YOU!!   *otterhugs*


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## mukichan (Jul 5, 2008)

seaweed said:


> Okay guys, Dragoneer has already said that this is *NOT* the place to talk about what, if any, sort of paid features there will be on FA once it comes up.
> 
> I said this once, and it was ignored, but I will try to say it again..
> 
> ...




indeed... I was having fun reading all the comments and stuff up until I saw more and more of people ranting about paid subscriptions and all that BS. =_=; And upon reading so many of that, I've kinda grown pretty bored...


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## Allester (Jul 5, 2008)

~ Removed at Request


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## uncia (Jul 5, 2008)

Crossdouble said:


> instead about caring what can be done NEWLY to FA it first has to come on again, and that should be the main target and topic here!


Heh, heh.... yep; but besides "the community needs your $ (now, please)", how much more is there to say on that topic?

Many people are understandably reluctant to donate until they are /reassured/ of the direction things are taking, rather than doing so unilaterally. This is _not_ a bad thing in its own right of course, but in order to coax out the last few $k required "ideally" there's no harm in ensuring such concerns are at least _listened_ to.
(Of course, if the ultimate $ target has already been reached, fair enough, but I suspect that's not quite the case at present and/or a buffer zone would be *very* desirable).

d.


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## seaweed (Jul 5, 2008)

Allester said:


> *clipped*



tl:dr


Please read post #610, kthnx.


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## Wolf_Fox_Guy (Jul 5, 2008)

ok, so its been a few days and theres so many threads and so many pages about it I dont know whats what anymore. what is happenning exactly? do we have the money for the server? have we ordered them yet? when should the site be back up?


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## seaweed (Jul 5, 2008)

Wolf_Fox_Guy said:


> ok, so its been a few days and theres so many threads and so many pages about it I dont know whats what anymore. what is happenning exactly? do we have the money for the server? have we ordered them yet? when should the site be back up?




Heya, wolfie. *grin*

Yes, they have enough but they are still talking donations for more upgrades...

No, they have not been ordered yet, they will be on Monday.

We aren't sure yet, but it may be 1-2 weeks because they are going to impliment it, then test it, then after that it will go live.



BTW, don't temp people by saying "bite me" in your icon. We otters are bitey folks,


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## Artie (Jul 5, 2008)

Wolf_Fox_Guy said:


> ok, so its been a few days and theres so many threads and so many pages about it I dont know whats what anymore. what is happenning exactly? do we have the money for the server? have we ordered them yet? when should the site be back up?



I hope Dragoneer or one of the admins sets up a separate, dedicated status thread soon.  It's too hard for people to follow the news in this thread, it gets buried so fast.

Where we stand now:
Donations are still coming in.  Servers will be ordered on Monday.  Exactly what gets ordered ultimately depends on how much money there is to work with come Monday.  I believe last I heard there were plans to order two shiny new servers, as well as upgrade FA's current servers so they're more competent.  It was also noted that it may take a week+ for the servers to be delivered once they're actually ordered, and following that, there's installing the OS, copying over the data, setting everything up to work on the new hardware, etc.  I would say we're looking at possibly 2 more weeks of no FA, minimum.  But on the upside, when it does come back, it should be more stable than ever.  To do this right will take a bit of time.

That is all based on information I have gathered from reading this thread.


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## Wolf_Fox_Guy (Jul 5, 2008)

seaweed said:


> Heya, wolfie. *grin*
> 
> Yes, they have enough but they are still talking donations for more upgrades...
> 
> ...


hey seaweed, I see you dusted off your forum account huh?

I will tell whoever I want to bite me, be they otter or not then are welcome to try, may I say very few will succed. 


but 1-2 more weeks? I guess if they have to then they have to but god, so if they test it and it hases a bug or something will that slow them down alot? . T_T I miss my art....and pron......and gramaticly correct porn to. putside of my anime club this place is like my only source of femal attention. <<.......which is really sad to say XD


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## uncia (Jul 5, 2008)

seaweed said:


> Yes, they have enough but they are still talking donations for more upgrades...


Depends where the line's drawn on "enough". Upgrades don't work in quite that manner since it's not simply a matter of bolting on extras, but rather uplifting the baseline, too.
If the target/"ideal" config has been respecced, the target $ is no longer the same, so couldn't say for sure whether that's been reached or not.


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## Wolf_Fox_Guy (Jul 5, 2008)

Artie said:


> Where we stand now:
> Donations are still coming in.  Servers will be ordered on Monday.  I would say we're looking at possibly 2 more weeks of no FA, minimum.  But on the upside, when it does come back, it should be more stable than ever.  To do this right will take a bit of time.
> 
> That is all based on information I have gathered from reading this thread.




well, would you happen to know exactly how much they've gotten together so far? not only that but, with this amount of time taht its takeing?....I cant really complaine since its free but, if I were paying ro something I gotta say I hope that time includes teh time taken to gold plate and nuke proof teh things.......><.....I need my sexual pics of cat girls and vixens and stuff T_T I miss tehm sooo bad

(btw, hope you dont mind me editing and abridging it some. those words are in there and I didnt try to rearange them to make it seem like anything but teh facts I wanted to get to)


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## seaweed (Jul 5, 2008)

Wolf_Fox_Guy said:


> hey seaweed, I see you dusted off your forum account huh?
> 
> I will tell whoever I want to bite me, be they otter or not then are welcome to try, may I say very few will succed.
> 
> ...





Well, I am expecting to see you in September (I hope) and we shall see who bites whom... *insert evil laughter*

Yeah, I have never been a huge forum poster here, but I guess this thread has brought the poster out in me.  (Please PM me, we do need to talk about Sept, hehe)

It is hard to say what is going to slow them down when they get the hardware, or how long those slowdowns may take. 
Unfortunatly, we really just have to wait and see, and I hope that they take my suggestion and put up a thread to tell us what is going on from day to day when they get it...


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## Artie (Jul 5, 2008)

Wolf_Fox_Guy said:


> well, would you happen to know exactly how much they've gotten together so far? not only that but, with this amount of time taht its takeing?....I cant really complaine since its free but, if I were paying ro something I gotta say I hope that time includes teh time taken to gold plate and nuke proof teh things.......><.....I need my sexual pics of cat girls and vixens and stuff T_T I miss tehm sooo bad



At 7:15 PM EDT yesterday (About 16 1/2 hours ago), Dragoneer posted that they had received *$13,000+* in donations.  And I have still seen posts from folks saying they've been donating since then.  I honestly have no idea, but I wouldn't be surprised if the total is somewhere over $15,000 by now.

The reason it's taking so long is because Friday was a holiday, and now it's the weekend, so anything ordered won't be shipping until Monday anyway.  Thus waiting until Monday to place the order will give them a better idea of exactly how much money they have to work with and just how much they can afford to drop on FA's shiny new hardware.  All the unexpected extra money coming in will lead to even better future-proofing for the site, ensuring plenty of room for FA to grow without this kind of trouble again.

(And don't expect ALL the funds to be used on the new hardware.  It would be smart of FA to keep a chunk of these donations in reserve for future emergency hardware replacements and upgrades, so if something goes wrong in the future, things can be fixed FAST instead of needing to ask for donations again, like is happening now.  Plus there's the monthly bandwidth costs anyway.  But basically, the more money that comes in by Monday, the better the upgrades to FA will be.)


...I feel like someone on staff the way I've been posting.   (Which I'm not.)


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## Wolf_Fox_Guy (Jul 5, 2008)

seaweed said:


> Well, I am expecting to see you in September (I hope) and we shall see who bites whom... *insert evil laughter*
> 
> Yeah, I have never been a huge forum poster here, but I guess this thread has brought the poster out in me.  (Please PM me, we do need to talk about Sept, hehe)
> 
> ...



I personally hope they do not make one. fact is I think most furriess are ready to riot right now and I think that would let us see some of them. I know I would much rather get to talk to starluna or firefly during some looting rather then through a PM....it just seems more fun like that.


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## Javarod (Jul 5, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> Which came first? AnthroCon.
> By the by, it's "Preyfar". Not Preyfur.




Yeah, Preyfur is that vore sneaking around here taking care of flamers.    :shock::lol::twisted:


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## SDWolf (Jul 6, 2008)

Edit:  I've moved my reply regarding paid Sponsorship to a more appropriate thread.  Carry on.


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## Calorath (Jul 6, 2008)

Artie said:


> At 7:15 PM EDT yesterday (About 16 1/2 hours ago), Dragoneer posted that they had received *$13,000+* in donations.  And I have still seen posts from folks saying they've been donating since then.  I honestly have no idea, but I wouldn't be surprised if the total is somewhere over $15,000 by now.
> 
> The reason it's taking so long is because Friday was a holiday, and now it's the weekend, so anything ordered won't be shipping until Monday anyway.  Thus waiting until Monday to place the order will give them a better idea of exactly how much money they have to work with and just how much they can afford to drop on FA's shiny new hardware.  All the unexpected extra money coming in will lead to even better future-proofing for the site, ensuring plenty of room for FA to grow without this kind of trouble again.
> 
> ...



You've completely ruined all the inane speculation, rumoring and offtopic bantering that has been going on in the past 100 pages or so...

Your type of behavior doesn't belong in this thread.


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## Misharu (Jul 6, 2008)

man, this sucks. oh well...the problem will be fixed soon...right?


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## Ashkihyena (Jul 6, 2008)

Misharu said:


> man, this sucks. oh well...the problem will be fixed soon...right?



Its probably going to take a couple of weeks.  They got to order the new server, get everything working.  Ugh, I just hope all the data has been saved so it can be restored.


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## Corona688 (Jul 6, 2008)

leeter said:


> I wouldn't suggest Win32 to anyone running a server, Win64 on the other hand is a different matter, Server 2008 is rock solid and a much better option, at the moment at least, than Posix/Apache. Why? Because Apache forks for every single connection to the server.


 Are you serious?  Apache's supported threading for years and _years_ now.  In any case a POSIX system won't get Windows viruses, doesn't have any real native viruses to speak of(despite being such a big juicy target -- 50% of internet servers anyone?), and won't be randomly rebooting to install Windows Updates.


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## seaweed (Jul 6, 2008)

Misharu said:


> man, this sucks. oh well...the problem will be fixed soon...right?





Well..... yes and no.


The faulty hardware will be replaced soon.  They are going to order it on Monday.

But, it will probably take a week to arrive and maybe another week to impliment and test, so that will take a while.


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## SilverAutomatic (Jul 6, 2008)

seaweed said:


> Well..... yes and no.
> 
> 
> The faulty hardware will be replaced soon.  They are going to order it on Monday.
> ...



Well... depending on the warehouse it's shipping out of to where they plan to ship it too, most shipping right now takes about 2 - 6(?) days. Add another two or three for placement and testing, so just over a week -monday-, give or take I'd say.


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## SDWolf (Jul 6, 2008)

Corona688 said:


> Are you serious? Apache's supported threading for years and _years_ now.


 
However much I like Win64, moving FA to a Windows platform would be a very bad idea.  Not because Windows, or because of IIS, but because of PHP.

You see, PHP in Windows is NOT thread-safe, meaning it will crash under a load with a lovely "PHP has encountered an access violation at [address]" message being spewed at the user.

Since the current incarnation of FA is written in PHP/MySQL, switching the site over to Windows would mean frequent crashes due to PHP's faulty code, or trying to port the site over to ASP or ASP.NET.

For the sake of compatibility and stability, not to mention the coders' sanity, let's not switch platforms.


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## Misharu (Jul 6, 2008)

SilverAutomatic said:


> Well... depending on the warehouse it's shipping out of to where they plan to ship it too, most shipping right now takes about 2 - 6(?) days. Add another two or three for placement and testing, so just over a week -monday-, give or take I'd say.



but still, its a long time to wait. Oh well, nothing I or anyone can do about it


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## LoinRockerForever (Jul 6, 2008)

Well, back to the main issue.

What is it that actually broke on the server Hard drive? Board cracked? Bad ribbon connections? I am curious hehe


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## SilverAutomatic (Jul 6, 2008)

LoinRockerForever said:


> Bad ribbon connections? I am curious hehe



Somehow I doubt a bad ribbon connection would spawn a $4000 fundraiser drive. XD

Unless they be made of furry gold!!

XD


Actually, isn't the most common HD failure due to HD Disk errors? Corrupted files and all that? I'm no techie, I just remember seeing that somewhere...


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## Roci (Jul 6, 2008)

I don't know any of the parties involved in this fracas, But I sort of have to side with Myr on this one. FA gets banged on more than a nickel hooker teasing a furry with a pocketful of quarters.
 If the site is taking such a horrendous pounding that it shreds hardware, You have two alternatives:
One: Pay per view. Do you know where FA would be if everyone who used the site kicked in just *One US Dollar*? No more than that now. Just a buck. A sum a poor broke furry can scare up in their couch.
That's how you get real servers, Real coders, and all the rest.
 Money. Bite the bullet, and say the word. It's no shame.

Alternative the second: Throttling and a credit system that limits access for those who won't contribute (Please note that doing code, re-design of web pages and general server voodoo can count just as much as any picture or story contribution. Result: Fewer users on at peak hours, and off peak hours where everyone on the Net gang bangs the server (Or the wad of proverbial and technological duct tape that passes for a server) reduced to periods where the traffic doesn't let the factory smoke out of your hardware.  

Now, let me make something plain.

I don't care for the way the current management runs FA, and have never hidden that fact. All I know is what I see. I don't know any of the FA staff from a week old box of doughnuts.

I *DO* Know that there have been, are and continue to be several dozens of furry web sites and hundreds of Furries who do every aspect of computer work for their bread and butter.

I don't give a tinker's damn for anyone's politics, social clicks, convention passions, or anything else. Furries can pull conventions out of their backsides when it suits them, but Furries can't seem to find the unity of purpose to help out a major "Furry" web site?

I'm sorry, but I don't buy it, not even if you gave it to me for free.

Personally, I won't feel any great sense of loss if FA were to cease to be. But some will. and it will be yet another case of our critics being able to say (with utter justification) that we can't even take care of something that's only good for us somehow, unless it is a(nother) Convention.

Are we not more than the sum of our parts?

Now would be a real good time to show that we are.

It's not my expectation that we will, mind, but wouldn't it be fun, fun, fun to keep rubbing FA like salt into the wounds of the prudes who think that Furry=Failure?

Roci


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## lupus_shearhart (Jul 6, 2008)

New to the forum, but not new to FA, and certainly not new to hardware failures. I'm not trying to be condescending in the least bit, nor am I trying to make myself seem better than anyone else. I'm not here attempting to troll. I'm simply asking for clarification, and maybe a clue or two as to why the long delay.

I work for the government. I'm used to lowest-bidder crap for hardware. We've had (very) critical hardware failures at least six times since the beginning of my employment, as a result, corrupting and destroying terabytes of data. And the equipment, I can guarantee, is a bit more advanced than a simple web-server. Over 128 terabytes of arial photographs, photographs of title and deed documents, mortgage documents, among other heavily used information that is maintained on a daily basis. And despite several NIC, motherboard, hard drive, RAID controller, CPU, and RAM failures, it's never taken us longer than a weekend to revive our systems. This includes a full redeployment of Windows Server 2003, and several UNIX and Sun virtual systems, a full restore of an active directory environment for over 7,000 computers, and 6,000 employee accounts, completed by two people, including a full security lockdown/test setup. Myself, and my supervisor were said two people. This is minus order/shipping times, which took five business days. So my question is, if two barely mediocre hacks such as myself and (less so, he's pretty good) my supervisor can take care of these issues in a short amount of time, why is FA going to be down for so long?

On another account, we had a full RIS server failure in the middle of a deployment of sixty new public-access terminals. It took approximately six working hours after the "NTLDR.EXE is missing" message to repair, including a full upgrade to WDS over RIS, and several added images. The issue was a dying on-board RAID controller. Putting more than thirty computers on the connection at once over-taxed the system and finally got it to drop. Now the system is back up and running, and can handle over three hundred simultaneous imaging connections without even so much as a double-take.

On a third account, the Clerk's Office home page has gone down due to hardware failures twice in its existence, exists on old Gateway (I didn't make the decision, politicians with tight pockets did) servers, and has a total down-time of 15 hours since its creation in 2002. Average hits per day? 1,265,000. The site has obviously undergone several changes since 2002, however has remained stable despite being hosted on a $1300 server with a single T3 connection. (The Hamptons and the real estate being what it has been with foreclosures and the like have increased the number of hits significantly, and the sever still rarely sees above 80% load.)

I fail to see how it could possibly take a group of people two weeks to install, deploy, and test a single group of web-servers, some of the most basic kinds of servers to set up.

Maybe I'm just short-sighted. Maybe my standards are a little high/stringent. Maybe working with private sector businesses, then subsequently the government has me a little tight-arsed with what I expect out of a site. But all that aside, why over a week from hardware install to final deployment? Even working two hours a day, that should only take three days. And that's assuming you're using a *nix-based web server, and throwing IIS into the trash where it belongs. (SQL injection attacks FTL. See also: Comcast.)

If you'd like, I'll gladly take over, complete the project. What's the donation amount up to now? $10k? With 6 hours and a $10k budget, I'd build a server cluster that could handle the load FA recieves on a daily basis, and still have about 60% resources free. Then again - that's also assuming the inflated government prices companies usually throw at us. Seeing as it's technically private sector, I'm sure I could also complete the project under-budget too, given the chance to shop around some. Hell - have the server built by Dell, and get yourself some 4-hour support, and guaranteed compatibility. Critical hardware failure? Four hours to repair and be back up and running, or your money back. Our section of the government switched to Dell two years ago for most of its servers, and down-time has been no longer than four hours per incident since. Total cost more than custom-built? $1150.00 Not too shabby, considering we've gotten over $8,000 worth of free parts out of it.

Sorry if my first post is a little confrontational. It's just a touchy subject with me when I know it can be done quicker, with the same amount of confidence, using different resources. I'm only trying for some answers, not to ruffle any feathers or to rub any fur the wrong way. I suck at art. I'm a barely mediocre musician. I'm an okay author. I only do two things exceptionally well. Cars and Computers. Cars aren't very useful to the furry community. Computers can be. I'm more or less just offering my services to the community.


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## bane233 (Jul 6, 2008)

Hay is the site going to crash when they bring it back up, Because every one is going to try to upload their stuff at the same time? Iâ€™m just curious!


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## LoinRockerForever (Jul 6, 2008)

SilverAutomatic said:


> Somehow I doubt a bad ribbon connection would spawn a $4000 fundraiser drive. XD
> 
> Unless they be made of furry gold!!
> 
> ...



Meh true enough. But I was just listing stuff, just trying to pull an answer. (doubt there awake at this hour thou )


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## arcticsilver (Jul 6, 2008)

bane233 said:


> Hay is the site going to crash when they bring it back up, Because every one is going to try to upload their stuff at the same time? Iâ€™m just curious!



hahaha i see that happening just like trying to download Firefox 3 or maybe the latest Ubuntu release.  Always a fun time trying to get something to download/upload when that happens.


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## LoinRockerForever (Jul 6, 2008)

Roci said:


> I don't know any of the parties involved in this fracas, But I sort of have to side with Myr on this one. FA gets banged on more than a nickel hooker teasing a furry with a pocketful of quarters.
> If the site is taking such a horrendous pounding that it shreds hardware, You have two alternatives:
> One: Pay per view. Do you know where FA would be if everyone who used the site kicked in just *One US Dollar*? No more than that now. Just a buck. A sum a poor broke furry can scare up in their couch.
> That's how you get real servers, Real coders, and all the rest.
> ...



Not bad suggestions, but and the same time whats more important?

Money or Hits on the website? Putting a charge on the site to access it, would make I would dare say half of there reg peeps drop. Lets face it who isn't trying to save money? Heck I am not totally against the idea, but what would you do?

Spend money to post up your pics and pay more to view? Or find a site that does that for free?


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## ravewulf (Jul 6, 2008)

bane233 said:


> Hay is the site going to crash when they bring it back up, Because every one is going to try to upload their stuff at the same time? Iâ€™m just curious!



Based on what the new servers should be like, I doubt it. But you never know


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## MizuRei (Jul 6, 2008)

Arshes Nei said:


> Unless you're killed by a drunk driver on the 19th of June...then maybe we can make an exception



I fuckin' lol'd

Anywho seriously made an account just to say... all the drama and shit on this forum has been as entertaining as FA itself so if it takes a couple weeks so be it. There's plenty of art sites out there, heaven forbid you have to fap to HUMAN porn lmao.

But seriously, an Admin only thread with frequent updates would be great, looking forward to FA's return, yadda yadda.

~Rei


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## markwhitewolf (Jul 6, 2008)

lupus_shearhart said:


> Sorry if my first post is a little confrontational. It's just a touchy subject with me when I know it can be done quicker, with the same amount of confidence, using different resources. I'm only trying for some answers, not to ruffle any feathers or to rub any fur the wrong way. I suck at art. I'm a barely mediocre musician. I'm an okay author. I only do two things exceptionally well. Cars and Computers. Cars aren't very useful to the furry community. Computers can be. I'm more or less just offering my services to the community.



Lupus, I can see where you're going with your post.  I think the critical difference between government ordering/bidding and the private sector is that the government can demand overnight shipment and delivery, expedited assembly and guaranteed compatibility.  For someone like 'Neer and the other admins to be trying to pull off a teardown and recompile of the site onto some brand new hardware is going to take more time than someone in 'our' shoes.  

At least where I'm at, there's Norton Ghost, site licensing for software and dedicated access to racks for install, without the hassle of getting to a location with hardware.  The hardest thing that's done around my way is dragging a big piece of hardware down to a server room on a pallet jack and getting it into place.  Critical server outages are nothing new for most large businesses and governmental agencies, but this is a website that isn't accustomed to the manner of traffic that larger groups receive, and a rollout of brand spanking new hardware is going to take a little time to get in place.  The other issue in this case was the matter of getting the money together from nice folks like myself and others who put their pennies in the pot for replacement hardware.  In the case of governmental agencies, as I am sure you know, there are on-file purchase orders and pre-established lines of credit that permit replacement of failed equipment in pretty much a snap.

I don't want to stir up trouble either, nor am I trying to pick any kind of fight.  In my case, I'm just trying to look at it from a standpoint that, in FA's case, this is essentially like starting up the site from scratch, only that there are already gigs and gigs of data (*cough* porn *cough*) that need to be reestablished onto a new set of servers...

Either way, I'm more than a little pleased to see that the admins, the users and just passersby are willing to show a little support for a website that has brought a little joy to everyone here.  Thank you everyone for working so hard, and for chipping in, as every little bit helps.

I hope what I've said here makes sense...I'm tired and not capable of stringing together the normal bit of eloquence that I try to impart otherwise.


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## Artie (Jul 6, 2008)

lupus_shearhart said:


> I fail to see how it could possibly take a group of people two weeks to install, deploy, and test a single group of web-servers, some of the most basic kinds of servers to set up.



Well, first there was no money to start with.  When you work for an actual company/the government, they kind of pay for the hardware needed and any expedited shipping necessary to get it ASAP.  (Dragoneer had already said that if FA had some source of regular donations/funding to begin with, this downtime would not be as long as it has been, because they'd have had the money to get things back up faster instead of needing to wait for donations.)

Once enough donations had started rolling in, it was basically the holiday weekend.  Can't do much to order anything over a holiday weekend (And any place you would be able to get such service from would probably charge an arm and a leg for it.  Great if you work for a company and have paying customers, but FA isn't a business.)

Which brings us to the plan of ordering the new servers on Monday.  Could they be overnighted?  Sure, but I think that would be a waste of hundreds of dollars that could be spent on additional equipment.  There's no corporate funding backing this, again.  Donations need to be stretched as much as possible.

So that leaves something like a week or however long standard shipping might take on the new hardware.  At which point the folks in charge will take care of all the set up and data migration and testing before putting the site live again, in their free time.

I don't think there's anything unreasonable about that.  You can't compare FA to a corporate/government entity.  There's a big difference in the amount of money that can be spent and whether it can be at the drop of a hat.


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## lupus_shearhart (Jul 6, 2008)

markwhitewolf said:


> Lupus, I can see where you're going with your post. I think the critical difference between government ordering/bidding and the private sector is that the government can demand overnight shipment and delivery, expedited assembly and guaranteed compatibility. For someone like 'Neer and the other admins to be trying to pull off a teardown and recompile of the site onto some brand new hardware is going to take more time than someone in 'our' shoes.



That's the reason I pointed out the fact that Dell is a viable option. Four-hour support doesn't require a government-bid contract. It doesn't require a long history of any sort. It just requires a bit of cash, and a bit of time speaking with a sales associate on the phone to assure you're getting what you want. Believe me, the government gets no such expedited assembly, guaranteed compatibility, or overnight shipping either. (It's taken us over four weeks to recieve some components from Gateway after purchasing an overnight shipment contract for $8,000 on top of the $10,000 spent to purchase the public access terminals.) I really wish they did. It would make my job thousands of times easier and less stressful.



markwhitewolf said:


> In the case of governmental agencies, as I am sure you know, there are on-file purchase orders and pre-established lines of credit that permit replacement of failed equipment in pretty much a snap.



That's just the thing, the governmental/private-sector server setups from Dell are the same 4-hour support setups anyone can get by purchasing a Dell server. They're not exclusive to businesses and the government. That's part of the extra expense in buying one. Yes, you can get the actual hardware for a few hundred dollars cheaper elsewhere, but the issue becomes compatibility, reliability, and the ease of replacement. With a pre-built/full-ordered system from Dell, you get a unique Service Tag/Support ID combination that links the server to its specific hardware, software, warranty, and assigned support specialists, just like their desktops. Yes, it costs a little more, but the peace of mind is worth it, IMO. (Not on a desktop, those are worth it to build yourself. But on a server that has an uptime requirement? It's just about the only thing Dell is good for!)

While other companies, such as Gateway, IBM, and recently Hewlett Packard require a long credit history, and several other proofs of "fidelity,' Dell will sell their systems to just about anyone who can afford them, and give the same four-hour support, no matter what. If you're just a total money-wasting geek like me, and are putting together a blade-computing system in your basement, or a multi-million dollar conglomerate, you get the same four-hour support. Period. This is exactly why I'm researching a Dell blade-server system for my new house I'm getting in a few months. Four hour support for three years or more. Thin-client computing FTW.



Artie said:


> I don't think there's anything unreasonable about that.  You can't compare FA to a corporate/government entity.  There's a big difference in the amount of money that can be spent and whether it can be at the drop of a hat.


That's just it. When we implimented the active directory structure, we had a smaller budget than the average US household does for a new PC. We were a two-person IT team. Again - maybe I'm a little jaded towards being stringent because of what kind of hardship I had to endure to bring the Clerk's office out of the stone-age, and maybe I'm a little too harsh because I had to fight tight-wad politicians for a year to get the RAID arrays we're using to host the information, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a three-day implement-test-deploy stage for a couple of simple web/database servers. I understand the blight of shipping. Trust me, Gateway has pushed more buttons than I'd like about that. But I'm not even talking about shipping at this point. Shipping could take a month, for all I care. It's the length of time allocated for hardware/software installation, implementation and testing. That has nothing to do with the difference between the government and private sector and FA's situation.


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## Pi (Jul 6, 2008)

Are you all infuckingcapable of reading? This thread has gone in the same circles since page 10.


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## Artie (Jul 6, 2008)

Pi said:


> Are you all infuckingcapable of reading? This thread has gone in the same circles since page 10.



But it helps me increase my post count! :mrgreen:


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## markwhitewolf (Jul 6, 2008)

lupus_shearhart said:


> While other companies, such as Gateway, IBM, and recently Hewlett Packard require a long credit history, and several other proofs of "fidelity,' Dell will sell their systems to just about anyone who can afford them, and give the same four-hour support, no matter what. If you're just a total money-wasting geek like me, and are putting together a blade-computing system in your basement, or a multi-million dollar conglomerate, you get the same four-hour support. Period. This is exactly why I'm researching a Dell blade-server system for my new house I'm getting in a few months. Four hour support for three years or more. Thin-client computing FTW.



That last part there really got me.  Thin-client computing FTW indeed sir, FTW indeed.  As far as my personal life is concerned, I keep it simple.  No reason for anything like you're getting...yet.  I may yet look into Dell for that four-hour support though, since it'd be nice to be able to demand to have my equipment back online without having to haggle.

As far as Dell selling their servers to any schmo that will shell out the cash for their product, I do believe you and I are in total agreement.  I was glad to read 'Neer drop Dell for the server shopping, because that's just about the only thing Dell is good for anymore.  Ever use a Vostro laptop?  I have, and that thing went back to Dell so fast the box was still sealed. *laughs*  However, I've heard that Dell makes a killer server box, and that they back it up in a stellar fashion, even with the basic support contract.  I personally believe that for mission-critical software, a 4-hour contract is essential.  FA, however, could likely get away with the 8-hour that Dell offers if you ask, and save a boatload of money.  However, the downside to that, as you've mentioned, is a drop in the chances of getting free parts installed.

I'll leave it up to the folks in charge of getting FA back online.


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## Fate (Jul 6, 2008)

I was right. It's ensure.

Oh, yeah. And Pi's right, by the way. Administrators and moderators: Requesting thread closure for circlejerking.


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## icehawk (Jul 6, 2008)

lupus_shearhart said:


> That's the reason I pointed out the fact that Dell is a viable option. Four-hour support doesn't require a government-bid contract. It doesn't require a long history of any sort. It just requires a bit of cash, and a bit of time speaking with a sales associate on the phone to assure you're getting what you want.



You just answered your own question. At work a hardware problem like this would last approximately half an hour, since, as soon as we noticed the machine having problems, it'd be taken out of production and the warm spare would be promoted. But I can only do that because we have the budget to say "ok, this is important, we need backup." A site that has donations as a large component of its income doesn't usually have that luxury.


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## markwhitewolf (Jul 6, 2008)

icehawk said:


> You just answered your own question. At work a hardware problem like this would last approximately half an hour, since, as soon as we noticed the machine having problems, it'd be taken out of production and the warm spare would be promoted. But I can only do that because we have the budget to say "ok, this is important, we need backup." A site that has donations as a large component of its income doesn't usually have that luxury.



Nothing like a nice warm spare to keep the racks humming.


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## capthavoc123 (Jul 6, 2008)

Reyman said:


> Sooner or later instead of downloading any song for free there going to start forcing people to pay for limewire pro.



Uh, you've always had to pay for LimeWire Pro. That's why it's called LimeWire Pro.


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## OxfordTweed (Jul 6, 2008)

capthavoc123 said:


> Uh, you've always had to pay for LimeWire Pro. That's why it's called LimeWire Pro.



I think what the OP meant was that the basic one would go away, and you'd be forced to pay for the pro version if you wanted to use it.


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## Escafanatic421 (Jul 6, 2008)

I just want to send my thanks to people who have all contributed to the donations to bring this site back to life. I did have a thought, though, and if this has already been brought up before I apologize.

The goal for getting a new server was 4k, and it sounds like we've cleared that by more then double. I recall a certain website that called for donations to purchase a new server and when they had substantially cleared all goals they made a donation to charity with the excess amount of dollars.

FA is a community, and a powerful one, what sort of statement could it make by  giving a large, charitable donation say to a Wildlife Conservation fund or something similar? Or even just making a call to give support to a charity?

Just something I thought about after seeing all the support that's come through.


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## nrr (Jul 6, 2008)

dmfalk said:


> I've been on SPARCs using BOTH FreeBSD and Solaris, as a user.


Yer, as have I, with the addition of Debian GNU/Linux.

A lot of things didn't work to my satisfaction on anything but Solaris on sun4m/sun4u equipment though, but that might just be me.  I'm used to commercial UNIXes, and when something like my NIC or framebuffer isn't supported like it should be, I see support there as a net loss and go back to something that does support my hardware.

Like I said, in a production environment, you're dumb not to use Solaris on SPARC hardware.


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## falderal (Jul 6, 2008)

That's too bad you guys are down. From what I have skimmed around so far, there's some varied views here. Every view is good for those who presented it in a sane manner.
In all seriousity, you guys should become ITIL certified in the foundations level (as I am v3). Just a suggestion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITIL
Then no one could complain because ITIL is tried and true techniques.

A little off topic, but anyways, more on topic here, I was talking with one of our system engineers where I work at. I told him about generally taking $4000 dollars and asked him if that was a good thing to spend on a server. He said the average median general configured servers with general server hardware we have cost us about $5000 a piece and that's just for one of the many many ones we have. I think you should ask another thousand from folks, and if you do, I'll plunk some money of my own down to help.

I am assuming Furaffinty's are rack mounted systems. So, the way I was reading it the servers are in an outsourced commercial building that does nothing but regular server hosting? That's probably costing about several hundred dollars a month for that. I would be surprised if it is in the thousands.

Back track, the bandwidth cost for networking to and from furaffinitys site to online is probably included in the hosting facility or do you pay seperate? Either way, if you didn't there's probably several hundred dollars. It ain't like paying the fifty dollars a month for cable modem service.

So, what I'm trying to say is: Thanks for keeping it free and I'm quite sympathetic to what you folks go through daily.


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 6, 2008)

Okay guys, don't start suggesting money making plans for the site. This thread isn't for that. ^_^  IF you really want to discuss it that badly, just read the previous pages as it has been discussed multiple times. ^_^



Pi said:


> Are you all infuckingcapable of reading? This thread has gone in the same circles since page 10.



Woah, it's silly to 'expect' people who just join the site as they obviously just did (since they have 2 or 3 posts so far) would or should read over 100 pages in this thread. No need to be rude about it, just politely let them know not to do the circle 'again'.

I'm tired of that same circle too, but seriously... cool off. ^_^


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## Anepo (Jul 6, 2008)

OH DEAR GOD! i just had a revelation! Make the membership have a SEARCH engine ^^ But not the normal accounts. That means EVERYONE will want a membership lol ^^ 4TW.


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## Anepo (Jul 6, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> Okay guys, don't start suggesting money making plans for the site. This thread isn't for that. ^_^  IF you really want to discuss it that badly, just read the previous pages as it has been discussed multiple times. ^_^
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Btw of course we are running in circles! It's so damn hard to get that tail that keeps chasing us!


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## taliesin_dragoon (Jul 6, 2008)

Where to discuss about how to use the money? Okay don't hate me, but I will throw my two cents right here.

My suggestion is: even if using the buncha spare money for charity would be very sexy, I'd keep the money in case something goes bullshitty once again. Maybe a little part of it could be donated, but really, keep some good bucks in case something goes wrong again. Because I know that: if you have money to fix any future problem, nothing will happen. If you don't have them, get ready to have a good load of sh*t thrown on your hardware by fate... ^^'


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## kaeota (Jul 6, 2008)

taliesin_dragoon said:


> Where to discuss about how to use the money? Okay don't hate me, but I will throw my two cents right here.
> 
> My suggestion is: even if using the buncha spare money for charity would be very sexy, I'd keep the money in case something goes bullshitty once again. Maybe a little part of it could be donated, but really, keep some good bucks in case something goes wrong again. Because I know that: if you have money to fix any future problem, nothing will happen. If you don't have them, get ready to have a good load of sh*t thrown on your hardware by fate... ^^'



I read somewhere back (about page 40 i think) that the more that's donated the more that gets upgraded. FA is a lot more than just one server after all.


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## Sekhmet (Jul 6, 2008)

taliesin_dragoon said:


> Where to discuss about how to use the money? Okay don't hate me, but I will throw my two cents right here.
> 
> My suggestion is: even if using the buncha spare money for charity would be very sexy, I'd keep the money in case something goes bullshitty once again. Maybe a little part of it could be donated, but really, keep some good bucks in case something goes wrong again. Because I know that: if you have money to fix any future problem, nothing will happen. If you don't have them, get ready to have a good load of sh*t thrown on your hardware by fate... ^^'




I don`t think thats a bad idea. Whereas donating is wonderful, they should keep the extra in reserve for the site itself. As you said, incase something goes wrong again. Its a lot safer.


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## Anbessa (Jul 6, 2008)

hm, some interestign thoughts. but...



Roci said:


> If the site is taking such a horrendous pounding that it shreds hardware, You have two alternatives:
> One: Pay per view. Do you know where FA would be if everyone who used the site kicked in just *One US Dollar*? No more than that now. Just a buck. A sum a poor broke furry can scare up in their couch.
> That's how you get real servers, Real coders, and all the rest.
> Money. Bite the bullet, and say the word. It's no shame.



I'm sorry to rain on your parade, sir, but that wouldn't work. see, the majority of people on the 'net take every service for free, and start to whine if even a couple cents are charged.
meanwhile there are people worth knowing with not a single dollar to their dime, if at all. no job (for whatever reason), no bank account. no bank account, no credit card or any other means of transferring money with a single click.
and, honestly, do you think FA would be so full with audience, artists, writers, whatever, if you'd have to pay a dollar to see something you
a) can have somewhere else for free (VCL anyone?)
b) isn't probably to your liking, which you would not see until you paid, and clicked the miniature to full size?

what works with TV, doesn't necessarily work with art. a movie that isn't exactly to your liking can still make your evening, somehow. a piece of art that left you disappointed, well... leaves you disappointed.
I know where FA would be now if you had charged a dollar per view from the beginning: nowhere.



> Alternative the second: Throttling and a credit system that limits access for those who won't contribute



allow me to assurel you that a healthy, honest, entertaining and helpful comment is as much contributed as the artwork it's aimed at. so, how would you determine who contributes and who doesn't? would you try and set up a scale, saying, "As long as you don't meet this point in terms of contributions, sorry, no full acess to this site. thanks for playing." let me assure you, almost NOBODY would stand up to something that arbitrary. maybe not even you...
and why, WHY, *WHY* is everyone so keen on limiting acess to those who don't have the means to pay for services? I just can't seem to wrap my sorry head around it.



> (Please note that doing code, re-design of web pages and general server voodoo can count just as much as any picture or story contribution. Result: Fewer users on at peak hours, and off peak hours where everyone on the Net gang bangs the server (Or the wad of proverbial and technological duct tape that passes for a server) reduced to periods where the traffic doesn't let the factory smoke out of your hardware.



peak hours, aha. which probably means the majority of US located users, since not many are online here again when we european furries log in... as much as I like that idea, it would be highly unfair to US inhabitants. is it their fault everybody else wants to come in and find out?
yes, coding and such requires as much art as it does to create something with, say we, a pencil and a piece of paper. but, how do you weight each, since everybody has another scale as for the work that flows into the results? 




> I don't give a tinker's damn for anyone's politics, social clicks, convention passions, or anything else. Furries can pull conventions out of their backsides when it suits them, but Furries can't seem to find the unity of purpose to help out a major "Furry" web site?
> 
> I'm sorry, but I don't buy it, not even if you gave it to me for free.
> 
> ...



you know, I was thinking the same more often than not. but: we all are individuals, maybe more so than the average group of trekkies, for example. as individuals it sometimes feel bothersome to pull the same string among others you barely know.
believe me, I have helped at a lot of furry cons in the past, and it's always, inevitably almost, the very same group of helpers you only need to look at with a plea for help in your eyes. everyone else is a consumer at best.
and, even though they would be capable to help, they never will. it's not their job... there are enough to help out.

another reason might be, that if you have worked at coding something so big, you probably won't be too keen to let someone at it you not even know by real name...


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## Tails Clock (Jul 6, 2008)

Well I've been reading for a while and am constantly hearing:
"Remove features from the non-payers so that you can make more people pay" Which would make many leave, including me.
"Don't do anything at all, we raised so much money just by donating" But then we'd end up in this situation again some time later, unable to view the site and waiting until our money is sent, and then the new stuff is bought.
"Give extra features to monthly payers" This does not effect any free-users in the slightest and brings in income for FA as well as helps the artist that is paying. Everyone wins.
I'm sure the admins already see this, but I am surprised how many people don't... Even though I've yet to read the latest posts as there are just too many for me. I know that when I leave college and get a job I'd be more than happy to pay for extra features regardless of how useful they'd be to me.


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## demonwerewolf110 (Jul 6, 2008)

i wonder if anybody noticed waaay back there that 'ensue' is only one letter off from 'ensure' and it may have just been a typo...;P


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## Redregon (Jul 6, 2008)

you know, i don't know if it was suggested before, but here's a thought for paid subscribers (a perk) 

creation of Groups/clubs.

i.e. creating a group or club for, say, 3D fans, for fox/husky/giraffe/amorphous blob fans?

and also, not something for paid members only, but how many people here have an iPhone/iPod touch and surf FA on that? what about an iPhone redirect and layout meant to take full advantage of the way that it works?

Also, in response to the idea of throttling the signal for non-paid users... now only is that a shady idea imo, but it also is very much against network neutrality... corporations may be doing it, but that doesn't make it right (hell, there's a class action against bell/Sympatico from users of Videotron and other DSL companies routing their signal through sympatico lines based on the fact that they (bell) knowingly throttled the signal from their third party users in bad faith... give it time and if it actually has a ruling set, there will be prescident set for other companies and users to charge companies (at least in canada) for throttling signals.)
Sauce: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2979/125/


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## Anbessa (Jul 6, 2008)

oh, it was a typo, granted. but still the two words have vastly different meanings.
even as a not-native speaker I know the difference...

I think the easiest thing to raise steady money would be a membership, either montly, quartely, or anuual. or each as option, which would suit me better, personally.

but, let's see how much this situation leaves of the donated money before we divide it.


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## uncia (Jul 6, 2008)

Sekhmet said:


> taliesin_dragoon said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


"Reserve" is good in theory but at present, no-one knows what there might be $-wise in reserve, because no-one knows what is required $-wise for the new setup... and it certainly ain't $4k, thanks to the generosity of many. 
Increasing the baseline specification as far as possible is generally the sensible option as, in the event of most failures, that would hopefully have either enough wriggle space to keep online (if a memory stick fails) or be /relatively/ inexpensive to resolve (if a hard drive fails) compared with the overall setup cost.
Saving too much in reserve means the entire setup or large part thereof would have to be upgraded again, sooner rather than later. i.e. the donation drive is most certainly _not_ finished, as far as I can see. (sorry! ^^)

Cheers,
David.


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## kerus (Jul 6, 2008)

Total Collected: US $10,477.15
# of Payments: 475


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## Scribble (Jul 6, 2008)

Give paying users access to a fully working Search function. I bet that'd bring in the money.


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## mukichan (Jul 6, 2008)

lupus_shearhart said:


> New to the forum, but not new to FA, and certainly not new to hardware failures. I'm not trying to be condescending in the least bit, nor am I trying to make myself seem better than anyone else. I'm not here attempting to troll. I'm simply asking for clarification, and maybe a clue or two as to why the long delay.
> 
> I work for the government. I'm used to lowest-bidder crap for hardware. We've had (very) critical hardware failures at least six times since the beginning of my employment, as a result, corrupting and destroying terabytes of data. And the equipment, I can guarantee, is a bit more advanced than a simple web-server. Over 128 terabytes of arial photographs, photographs of title and deed documents, mortgage documents, among other heavily used information that is maintained on a daily basis. And despite several NIC, motherboard, hard drive, RAID controller, CPU, and RAM failures, it's never taken us longer than a weekend to revive our systems. This includes a full redeployment of Windows Server 2003, and several UNIX and Sun virtual systems, a full restore of an active directory environment for over 7,000 computers, and 6,000 employee accounts, completed by two people, including a full security lockdown/test setup. Myself, and my supervisor were said two people. This is minus order/shipping times, which took five business days. So my question is, if two barely mediocre hacks such as myself and (less so, he's pretty good) my supervisor can take care of these issues in a short amount of time, why is FA going to be down for so long?
> 
> ...




... I think my brain just fried. xD Kinda sorta understand the little bits and pieces but, to me it looks like you're saying that the fA admins and staff aren't doing a great job compared to people like you who has the government basically spoiling them with equips and stuff for you to work with. I'm not trying to cause drama, I just want to know what exactly is being said here. I mean, I just literally woke up like 10 minutes ago and still feel a lil groggy. xD lmao


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## seaweed (Jul 6, 2008)

Okay, for the last f**king time guys, PLEASE DO NOT TALK ABOUT PAY FOR USE OR SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR FA ONCE IT COMES BACK UP.

This thread is FOR THE OUTAGE ONLY!

I swear that whoever writes about it after this post, I will report it. every single one.

I am REALLY REALLY tired of people CONTINUOUSLY not paying attention to this.

Make your own f**king thread if you want to so we don't have to read it.


Try me. See if I don't report you.


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## steelbeard (Jul 6, 2008)

What happens when you deprive a world of furries of their fursmut site (FA) ??

you get a 112 page !!!!! forum thread !!!!

Holy cow, I've seen some replies but this takes it to another level.


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## blade (Jul 6, 2008)

Seaweed, relax.  They're just batting around ideas and nothing is set in stone.


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## WolfoxOkamichan (Jul 6, 2008)

So uhh... any news on when we're gonna have it up?


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## Kraton (Jul 6, 2008)

demonwerewolf110 said:


> i wonder if anybody noticed waaay back there that 'ensue' is only one letter off from 'ensure' and it may have just been a typo...;P



I thought of that too, actually. don't know why I didn't mention it. XD


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## Kraton (Jul 6, 2008)

seaweed said:


> Okay, for the last f**king time guys, PLEASE DO NOT TALK ABOUT PAY FOR USE OR SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR FA ONCE IT COMES BACK UP.
> 
> This thread is FOR THE OUTAGE ONLY!
> 
> ...



Thank you, and personally, I'm just going to add anyone who continues on that subject to my ignored list. Easily done.


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## Yellow07 (Jul 6, 2008)

FA has had its ups and downs; still I'm surprised its gained so much money from donations =3 Shows how kind a community the fandom is 

lol there has seemed to be several arguments that have been repeated over and over, still at least things are moving foreword; shame it had to happen right near the US holoday period, 4th a special day to yanks ^^ Not so grand for us brits >.>  

XDXDXD

Anyway, where are they getting this new piece of kit from? The location of the store house will show you delivery time, also installment and such will be done in the admin staffs own free time, they have their jobs and other stuff to do also... in fact that deserves a lot of credit really, like volunteer work really; operating a site while juggling lifes other stuff =3

Also, how much has been raised? Curious =3 I mean if there is more than enough, more backup kit could be purchased or, as someone else has suggested, donate to charity ^^ The Furry Fandom has raised heaps of money for chairties over the world; lol in fact er're in the Guinnis world book of records XD Seriously!


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## Guardian (Jul 6, 2008)

Well it's nice to see so many Donated to FA. They were barely expecting to make 4k and made more than double that. Maybe it'll keep the site running alot longer and maybe even give Dragoneer a little bit of a bonus for working so hard.


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## ArielMT (Jul 6, 2008)

WolfoxOkamichan said:


> So uhh... any news on when we're gonna have it up?


Not 'til the hardware arrives, and the hardware can't even ship 'til the morrow at the earliest.  If I read the threads here right, they're going to wait until shops open before they order, by which time they'll have a clear idea of how much money they can spend.


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## lupus_shearhart (Jul 6, 2008)

mukichan said:


> ... I think my brain just fried. xD Kinda sorta understand the little bits and pieces but, to me it looks like you're saying that the fA admins and staff aren't doing a great job compared to people like you who has the government basically spoiling them with equips and stuff for you to work with. I'm not trying to cause drama, I just want to know what exactly is being said here. I mean, I just literally woke up like 10 minutes ago and still feel a lil groggy. xD lmao



No. To be honest, I _wish_ the government would spoil us with equipment. Instead, we get lowest-bidder-crap, barely adequate budgets, and are told to run the world on a common house-hold PC budget. Like I said in another post, when we set up the active directory structure for all of the offices, we had a budget the same of that of the average US household does for a new PC. Things have since changed, but to be honest, when things first started, we counted ourselves lucky to be using decommissioned Optiplex GX1 desktops as servers. When I say we had to bring the Clerk's office out of the stone-age, I meant it. In a time where Vista was starting to become Microsoft's new standard, they were still upgrading to 2000, running on P2-450's, and figured 128 megs of RAM was all anyone ever needed.

Yeah - other parts of the government (military, CIA, FBI, federal stuff) get top-of-the-line, instant-support, 1-hour-hand-delivery-of-parts... but our section? Every year, it's a struggle just to keep our paychecks and health benefits, let alone trying to get a thousand or two into the budget for upgrades and maintenance.

My question, after my long mini-rant was simply this:
Shipping aside. (Shipping sucks. I've seen things take months due to back-orders. I understand that blight fully.) How could it possibly take two weeks from reciept of components to final deployment? I understand underestimating one's own abilities as to not give people false hope, but two weeks?

Congrats on the donations, congrats on the new budget. And congrats on managing a system this large with relatively few screw-ups. I'm not trying to crack on anyone. Again - I'm just trying to get a scope as to what's going on that could possibly take the time it is. And if I could offer my help in any way, let me know.


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## Meca Penguin (Jul 6, 2008)

US$ 10,477.15 only throught Amazon.

That means that Dragoneer will make something neat! Can't wait to see what that will be.
Also, I'd like to say that, after reading a hundred pages, FA has the best community I've ever seen, and the most open and cool headed one even. I guess that your dedication, love and caring for FA is what makes it special, and I hope that never changes. Congratulations to all of you. All of the 50.000 active users.

I'm sure that you will get much more money than 15k.
After all, you all deserve a wonderful place like FA.


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## steelbeard (Jul 6, 2008)

I was going to make a comical suggestion about having a spare ZX81 that FA could borrow for the site but I suspect that it would pre-date the majority of the fandom and therefore be lost.

Honest.. I do still have one in the atic.. no idea if it still runs as it probably hasn't been powered up for about twenty five years!


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## ArielMT (Jul 6, 2008)

Guardian said:


> Well it's nice to see so many Donated to FA. They were barely expecting to make 4k and made more than double that. Maybe it'll keep the site running alot longer and maybe even give Dragoneer a little bit of a bonus for working so hard.


It's bigger than that.  The original goal was $2,000 before Neer bumped it up on Tuesday evening.  The reported Amazon donations alone are currently 524% of the original goal.


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## Guardian (Jul 6, 2008)

WolfoxOkamichan said:


> So uhh... any news on when we're gonna have it up?


 
I expect 2 weeks at the earliest. Since shpping computer components usually is a bit.. slower than most purchases online. Unless they do it at a nearby store, which I highly doubt as much better deals can be found online.

Then there's the effect of actually imputting the device, which can take  less than a day or alot longer if it causes complications. But since it's furs who are doing the computer work, ( Who most of which seem to be very technologically advanced in one way or another. ) It shouldn't take too long.

Just find something else to do for a week or two, while checking back 15 minutes every day, like spring cleaning lol.


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## Guardian (Jul 6, 2008)

ArielMT said:


> It's bigger than that. The original goal was $2,000 before Neer bumped it up on Tuesday evening. The reported Amazon donations alone are currently 524% of the original goal.


 
I didn't see that. I thought the original goal was 4k. Oh well, I guess that's even better eh? :3


----------



## lupus_shearhart (Jul 6, 2008)

steelbeard said:


> I was going to make a comical suggestion about having a spare ZX81 that FA could borrow for the site but I suspect that it would pre-date the majority of the fandom and therefore be lost.
> 
> Honest.. I do still have one in the atic.. no idea if it still runs as it probably hasn't been powered up for about twenty five years!



Ooh ooh ooooooohhhh! PASS IT MY WAY! >.> I heart vintage hardware. Srsly, you're not using it! I still have fun with my Tandy Trash-80. But - ehh.


----------



## RailRide (Jul 6, 2008)

As someone who has ground their way through all 112* pages of this thread, it occurs to me that with all the first-time posters here, an oft-discussed aspect of the currently missing search function is overlooked. 

It was turned off for being a serious resource hog, buried within a codebase so inefficient and poorly written that hardware upgrades would _still_ not make it viable.  Remember that FA was rather hurriedly put together in response to _SheezyArt_ abruptly banning adult submissions. Hence the Ferrox project, which at last progress report (noted a few weeks ago in these forums for those who only started reading them during this outage) even the incomplete code presently *has* a working search.

In any case, a working search function for the _current_ set of programming that runs FA behind the scenes would have to be coded from scratch, and even if such a project were begun (or put in motion as a result of the current downtime), I strongly suspect that it would rely on user-specified tags, which *a lot* of FA artists (including many high-profile ones) have been *ignoring*  ever since they were implemented. (I myself added tags to all my existing submissions at the time the feature was added, and at 280+ submissions now, I'm ahead of the game). 

The drop-down lists are slated to go away, since covering most existing and future requests would eventually make uploading a tedious process--witness DA users already complaining here about the time needed to wade through the category selection tree every time they upload. Not to mention that drop-down lists fail on submissions that qualify for multiple entries in a single category. 

Long story short, even if these mad schemes of cooking up additional features long-promised for the general membership and then reserving them for hypothetical subscription users came to fruition (which it won't), there's no way they'd be finished in time for FA's resurrection. (and an actual search, if it _could_ be coded before the new servers go live, *still* wouldn't cover a large chunk of submissions thanks to many of the same users clamoring for a search function in the first place)

---PCJ

*(it was 112 when I started writing this)


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## lupus_shearhart (Jul 6, 2008)

My apologies, I read another thread only to find out you guys are planning on using PowerEdge or HP systems. It is of my strong, STRONG recommendation to go with the PowerEdge series. With the way the systems are designed (clock timing in par with each other component in the system, etc.), the load-balancing systems involved, and the OpenManage system that integrates with the BIOS I/O, it's hard not to choose them.

But in any case, good luck. I guess my questions will go unanswered. But that's fine. Take all the time you need, guys.


----------



## Sslaxx (Jul 6, 2008)

steelbeard said:


> I was going to make a comical suggestion about having a spare ZX81 that FA could borrow for the site but I suspect that it would pre-date the majority of the fandom and therefore be lost.
> 
> Honest.. I do still have one in the atic.. no idea if it still runs as it probably hasn't been powered up for about twenty five years!


Weren't those advertised as being capable of running a nuclear power station?


----------



## ArielMT (Jul 6, 2008)

Guardian said:


> I didn't see that. I thought the original goal was 4k. Oh well, I guess that's even better eh? :3


Indeed. :3

I think that we furries are stepping up enough to not only afford 'em some seriously sweet hardware, but maybe to pay the extra (and I guarantee it'll be a _HUGELY_ expensive extra!) to have the new hardware shipped overnight.


----------



## Crossdouble (Jul 6, 2008)

basically that topic gets out of hand and should finally be closed, only announcements should be made IF there are any news.

I do not care about your crappy crap slap stuff you all talk about in here.

You click that link on the main page to get the info when it comes back online. so you go to the last page and what do you find? Lesbs talking about Amber sex and whatnot for nice subscriptions just that they show "OH YES I HAVE DONATED I AM THE KING OF FA".

NO! That topic is not there for that. 

It should inform the others simply and quickly how the status is, the status of the online-being of FA, NOT about the status what the ones who give in a buck, how they are treated from now on. 
Because in my opinion it does not matter we all sit in the same boat.


----------



## STrRedWolf (Jul 6, 2008)

Crossdouble said:


> basically that topic gets out of hand and should finally be closed, only announcements should be made IF there are any news.
> ...
> It should inform the others simply and quickly how the status is, the status of the online-being of FA, NOT about the status what the ones who give in a buck, how they are treated from now on.
> Because in my opinion it does not matter we all sit in the same boat.



Seconded.  Please close and have admins update this main sticky thread instead.


----------



## SDWolf (Jul 6, 2008)

WolfoxOkamichan said:


> So uhh... any news on when we're gonna have it up?


 
*When It's Readyâ„¢*


As has been mentioned before, they're ordering the equipment on Monday (tomorrow). Allow a few days for shipping. Then, once everything arrives they'll have to:
Test to make sure nothing's DOA
Install the OSes
Get everything configured properly
Deal with unexpected hardware/software quirks
Copy the data from the old servers to the new
Test everything
Fix any problems that crop up during testing
Repeat steps 6 and 7 as many times as needed
Bring the site back online
I suspect we're looking at a week or two, with steps 4-8 being the most time-consuming.


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## mukichan (Jul 6, 2008)

Crossdouble said:


> basically that topic gets out of hand and should finally be closed, only announcements should be made IF there are any news.
> 
> I do not care about your crappy crap slap stuff you all talk about in here.
> 
> ...



LOL! you're still pissed at me about that? Eesh, I thought you knew better than to dig up months old BS. xD I've moved on from that, why don't you?


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## Indagare (Jul 6, 2008)

I think FA is going to have to seriously consider getting ads and possibly giving people the option to pay to avoid seeing such ads. You guys rock in the time and dedication you put into the site, but the donation system is no way to support a site long-term.


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## mukichan (Jul 6, 2008)

lupus_shearhart said:


> No. To be honest, I _wish_ the government would spoil us with equipment. Instead, we get lowest-bidder-crap, barely adequate budgets, and are told to run the world on a common house-hold PC budget. Like I said in another post, when we set up the active directory structure for all of the offices, we had a budget the same of that of the average US household does for a new PC. Things have since changed, but to be honest, when things first started, we counted ourselves lucky to be using decommissioned Optiplex GX1 desktops as servers. When I say we had to bring the Clerk's office out of the stone-age, I meant it. In a time where Vista was starting to become Microsoft's new standard, they were still upgrading to 2000, running on P2-450's, and figured 128 megs of RAM was all anyone ever needed.
> 
> Yeah - other parts of the government (military, CIA, FBI, federal stuff) get top-of-the-line, instant-support, 1-hour-hand-delivery-of-parts... but our section? Every year, it's a struggle just to keep our paychecks and health benefits, let alone trying to get a thousand or two into the budget for upgrades and maintenance.
> 
> ...



Huh, now I understand it a lil better. Thanks for clearing it up a little. :3


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## ArielMT (Jul 6, 2008)

Indagare said:


> [An OT suggestion]


Please suggest that over in the "What new perks would you be willing to pay extra for?" thread.


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## mukichan (Jul 6, 2008)

Indagare said:


> I think FA is going to have to seriously consider getting ads and possibly giving people the option to pay to avoid seeing such ads. You guys rock in the time and dedication you put into the site, but the donation system is no way to support a site long-term.



would both ads and donations be enough, though? I'd like to hope that there's any stable options that could support FA monthly.


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## Kittyoffandomdoom (Jul 6, 2008)

Crossdouble said:


> basically that topic gets out of hand and should finally be closed, only announcements should be made IF there are any news.
> 
> I do not care about your crappy crap slap stuff you all talk about in here.
> 
> ...


Wow...just wow....its funny, here i am check up on the whole FA thing and listening to MSI's Stupid MF, and BAM I found one here! Please do us all a favor, go be a waste of space and life somewhere else.  I mean really, you talk about people talking about things not needed, and then you go and add more to the pile, just do like i normally do, if you don't like what you see, GO SOME PLACE ELSE!!!

Then again i can't really except better from most of you damn dirty humans, now can I...


----------



## PurpleDragon (Jul 6, 2008)

How come all the pictures are online and accessible when FA is supposedly down? Example: http://data.furaffinity.net/art/grrrwolf/1209207947.grrrwolf_grrr-embrace-blue.jpg *scratches head, a bit lost*

Edit: If it has already been clarified on the past 114 pages: TL;DR


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## mukichan (Jul 6, 2008)

PurpleDragon said:


> How come all the pictures are online and accessible when FA is supposedly down? Example: http://data.furaffinity.net/art/grrrwolf/1209207947.grrrwolf_grrr-embrace-blue.jpg *scratches head, a bit lost*



Whoa... didn't notice that before... 0.o I wanna know too... Is the data portion of the server like... still working or something? *is tech-stupid*


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## vlaadlynx (Jul 6, 2008)

Yes. The Database server is still working. Thats what actually hosts the Data. It's the webserver that's Dead.


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## mukichan (Jul 6, 2008)

vlaadlynx said:


> Yes. The Database server is still working. Thats what actually hosts the Data. It's the webserver that's Dead.



0.0 Oh!! Thank you for clearing that up!! :3


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## Guardian (Jul 6, 2008)

vlaadlynx said:


> Yes. The Database server is still working. Thats what actually hosts the Data. It's the webserver that's Dead.


 
Dragoneer is hording all the smexy furry data for emself :|


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 6, 2008)

Anepo said:


> Btw of course we are running in circles! It's so damn hard to get that tail that keeps chasing us!



Hah, good point. :3



taliesin_dragoon said:


> My suggestion is: even if using the buncha spare money for charity would be very sexy,



Now I'm pro Charities and all, but it would be rude if they were to donate the extra money to a charity becuase the money came from people, donating to a charity, Fur Affinity Fund. FAF (not to be confused, with FAP heh.  !  *Ducks under a tomato*  *SPLAT!* T_T)



seaweed said:


> Okay, for the last f**king time guys, PLEASE DO NOT TALK ABOUT PAY FOR USE OR SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR FA ONCE IT COMES BACK UP.
> 
> This thread is FOR THE OUTAGE ONLY!
> 
> ...



You need to calm down. You're getting mad at people who simply are ignorant that their ideas have already been brought up, that their ideas are unwanted, that their ideas don't belong here, and that they are accidentally causing stress around them by making their suggestions. Go ahead and report them if you are so bent on being pissed off at innocent people. They won't get into trouble unless of course, they ignore everyone's warnings that they shouldn't spam their suggestions in this thread. 



demonwerewolf110 said:


> i wonder if anybody noticed waaay back there that 'ensue' is only one letter off from 'ensure' and it may have just been a typo...;P



We shouldn't bring that up again, it's off topic and would only cause stress. :3  Though I too think it was just a typo, but I prefer to think it was on purpose. :3  I view it as creative english because they phrased it accurately in an atypical manner. ^_^

The funny thing about English is almost nobody knows how to speak it so if something is phrased out of the norm, people get bent out of shape over it and think it's wrong because it 'feels' wrong, or 'doesn't seem right..." when in reality it IS right or IS NOT right, regardless of feeling and how it seems.


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## Javarod (Jul 6, 2008)

lupus_shearhart said:


> Ooh ooh ooooooohhhh! PASS IT MY WAY! >.> I heart vintage hardware. Srsly, you're not using it! I still have fun with my Tandy Trash-80. But - ehh.





Speaking of Tandy's, anyone got a 1000HX laying around? Needn't work, just needs to look good as I want the case.


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## pnkr0cker (Jul 6, 2008)

ArielMT said:


> Ten bucks from me to the link.  It's all I can spare right now.
> 
> As a support tech at a mom-and-pop ISP (meaning I wear more than one hat), I can vouch for that.  Putting everything on one server is the _least_ appealing option of 'em all, no matter how much horsepower it has, and I unfortunately know from experience, having done that out of necessity in the past.



if IP changing is a problem wouldnt a static ip address fix that?


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## uncia (Jul 6, 2008)

Guardian said:


> Well it's nice to see so many Donated to FA. They were barely expecting to make 4k and made more than double that.


No-one said the donation drive was over yet. 
The more, the better... (+thx)


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 6, 2008)

Indagare said:


> I think FA is going to have to seriously consider getting ads and possibly giving people the option to pay to avoid seeing such ads. You guys rock in the time and dedication you put into the site, but the donation system is no way to support a site long-term.



Don't bring up money making ideas on this therad please. ^_^  This thread isn't meant for that sort of topic, and it's highly unwanted (and over done) in this thread already. Thanks you.   Welcome to the Forums!  ^_^


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## redfoxnudetoons (Jul 6, 2008)

Total Collected: 	
US $10,477.15

# of Payments: 	
475

==

Woah....

Dragoneer must be s#!ting bricks by now.

$10K on Amazon alone!

Wow!


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## vlaadlynx (Jul 6, 2008)

To all the people talking about donating 'extra' cash to charity:  You forget that in addition to the server costs, there is a ~$1000 cost for bandwith *every month* that has to be covered.  So any extra would most certainly be applied to keeping the site up in the future.


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 6, 2008)

lupus_shearhart said:


> No. To be honest, I _wish_ the government would spoil us with equipment. Instead, we get lowest-bidder-crap, barely adequate budgets, and are told to run the world on a common house-hold PC budget. ...



The core problem is government, like schools, don't budget their money worth a damn where it counts, so everything that branches from it suffers. If they'd stop wasting their money, it's amazing how much better things could get. 

But here in California, their, 'solution' is to take advantage of the ignorance of the Californian public by putting a School BOND in every election to put more money into the schools for them to waste, and take advantage of the fact that the average person in California doesn't know what a BOND is!

There are simliar examples to be found all over the place in each state, and more than just this example per state.



RailRide said:


> It was turned off for ...



THANK YOU!!!    For those of you interested in learning why the Search Engine is actually down, go seek out this guy's post on page 113. Post #1694


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 6, 2008)

vlaadlynx said:


> To all the people talking about donating 'extra' cash to charity:  You forget that in addition to the server costs, there is a ~$1000 cost for bandwith *every month* that has to be covered.  So any extra would most certainly be applied to keeping the site up in the future.



AND the money donated is for the Charity of Fur Affinity too. It would be like donating to help fight Cancer, and than they give the money to Mothers Against Drunk Driving.   :3

I'm pro charities, but not charities giving to charities.


----------



## vlaadlynx (Jul 6, 2008)

I think those of us who have actually read all 115 pages are now just trying to quickly head off conversations about questions that have already been asked, and discussed to death, lol.


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## vlaadlynx (Jul 6, 2008)

redfoxnudetoons said:


> ... Dragoneer must be s#!ting bricks by now.
> 
> $10K on Amazon alone!
> 
> Wow!



  He promised us 'something special' if amazon broke 10k. We're all anxious to see what that is


----------



## seaweed (Jul 6, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> You need to calm down. You're getting mad at people who simply are ignorant that their ideas have already been brought up, that their ideas are unwanted, that their ideas don't belong here, and that they are accidentally causing stress around them by making their suggestions. Go ahead and report them if you are so bent on being pissed off at innocent people. They won't get into trouble unless of course, they ignore everyone's warnings that they shouldn't spam their suggestions in this thread.





But it has already been said numerous times by numerous people, and people were (and apparantly still are) posting about it. So apparantly simple ignorance is not an excuse. Laziness seems to be the issue here.

How many times do we have to be nice and say it before we can finally get mad and try to get the point across in a more forceful way??  I asked nicely several times with no responce, but apparantly getting "pissed off" works. It has finally slowed to a dull crawl.




To keep this on topic, I wonder if i could get Yak or Dragoneer's opinion on this.. I have suggested it, but I think it got lost in all the posts..


When you order the hardware tomorrow, do you guys think you could make a new thread that you would update once a day to tell us what is going on? What is working and maybe any bugs you may be working out?
I know that alot of us techie type people may be interested in what is going on, and if not, then the others don't have to read it..  It wouldn't have to be much, it doesn't have to take a lot of time out of your day, just a 5 minute update on what is going on..
Maybe you can make it admins can post and we can only read it, so it wont end up getting bloated like this thread did..

You guys think that may be possible?


Just a suggestion.


----------



## ArielMT (Jul 6, 2008)

pnkr0cker said:


> ArielMT said:
> 
> 
> > Dragoneer said:
> ...


Huh?  Sorry, but you've completely lost me.  The discussion (which I've fully quoted above) was about consolidating hardware, a theoretical solution which was completely examined and decided was a bad idea before this thread left the first page, not about static or dynamic IP addresses.  I'm thoroughly confused as to the basic thought you were trying to express.


----------



## Pi (Jul 6, 2008)

ArielMT said:


> Huh?  Sorry, but you've completely lost me.  The discussion (which I've fully quoted above) was about consolidating hardware, a theoretical solution which was completely examined and decided was a bad idea before this thread left the first page, not about static or dynamic IP addresses.  I'm thoroughly confused as to the basic thought you were trying to express.



He's suggesting that all trolls get static IP addresses so they can get banned easier.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 6, 2008)

seaweed said:


> But it has already been said numerous times by numerous people, and people were (and apparantly still are) posting about it. So apparantly simple ignorance is not an excuse. Laziness seems to be the issue here.
> 
> How many times do we have to be nice and say it before we can finally get mad and try to get the point across in a more forceful way??  I asked nicely several times with no responce, but apparantly getting "pissed off" works. It has finally slowed to a dull crawl.



*pets* it's nice that you're this concerned, but I think after this long, it's just getting to be too much. Since you're already annoyed about them, I suggest you just do what some of us others have done and just add them to your ignored list. And for the record I'm suggesting this for your sake. There's no reason to let ignorant/lazy people get on your nerves, and frankly YOU being annoyed is causing me to be annoyed.
So just block them, kay?


----------



## LoinRockerForever (Jul 6, 2008)

To be frank, I haven't read most of whats going on. Is there another troll again? or not? I don't know >_< 

But any new word on the site? * just posting to find out and I am at work, don't really have time to uh....you know read to find out for myself * <_<;;;


----------



## markwhitewolf (Jul 6, 2008)

LoinRockerForever said:


> To be frank, I haven't read most of whats going on. Is there another troll again? or not? I don't know >_<
> 
> But any new word on the site? * just posting to find out and I am at work, don't really have time to uh....you know read to find out for myself * <_<;;;




Nothing new as of yet.  Donations are still rolling in and the plan is still to order hardware on Monday, wait for shipping, and then get it onto the racks as fast as possible.


----------



## falderal (Jul 6, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> Okay guys, don't start suggesting money making plans for the site. This thread isn't for that. ^_^  IF you really want to discuss it that badly, just read the previous pages as it has been discussed multiple times. ^_^
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Aye, I've been with the main furaffinity site probably longer than I have been posting on the forums. I don't typically like forums for such reasons because they tend to have such off topic discussions now a days at many places other than here, and no one that wants to moderate them really good like deleting posts.
I just don't like forums in general. I would rather read a book. I wish there were other technologies than what technologies are used for forums, but that's just me.


----------



## ArielMT (Jul 6, 2008)

LoinRockerForever said:


> To be frank, I haven't read most of whats going on. Is there another troll again? or not? I don't know >_<


Nope, no new troll, just a confused someone.


> But any new word on the site? * just posting to find out and I am at work, don't really have time to uh....you know read to find out for myself * <_<;;;


No news, aside from Amazon updating this morning to show just over $10K, and yak posting over in "It's over $9,000!" a PayPal donations update:


yak said:


> Before I went to sleep, Paypal donations were over $6k


----------



## Crossdouble (Jul 6, 2008)

I AM GONNA REPORT THIS FINALLY! STOP WITH YOUR SHIT!


----------



## Kraton (Jul 6, 2008)

ArielMT said:


> No news, aside from Amazon updating this morning to show just over $10K, and yak posting over in "It's over $9,000!" a PayPal donations update:



Sweeeeet! So we've definitely passed the 15k point. ^^
I've got 25 bucks on me, but that's for groceries for myself these next couple weeks. *sigh* I wish I had a job right now, so that I could afford to donate.
I want to see that 16k become 25k, and I want to help it reach that amount!


----------



## Danza (Jul 6, 2008)

Crossdouble said:


> I AM GONNA REPORT THIS FINALLY! STOP WITH YOUR SHIT!



lol fail, is there even any reasoning behind this ? O_O


----------



## Yellow07 (Jul 6, 2008)

Meca Penguin said:


> US$ 10,477.15 only throught Amazon.
> 
> That means that Dragoneer will make something neat! Can't wait to see what that will be.
> Also, I'd like to say that, after reading a hundred pages, FA has the best community I've ever seen, and the most open and cool headed one even. I guess that your dedication, love and caring for FA is what makes it special, and I hope that never changes. Congratulations to all of you. All of the 50.000 active users.
> ...



So true ^^ Still, peeps have been known to 'throw a wobbily' XD But yeah; I noticed that too... how generally cool and kind the fandom is ^^ Hence why we're in the record books lol


----------



## WarMocK (Jul 6, 2008)

Yellow07 said:


> Hence why we're in the record books lol


Well, time to call Guinness. ^^


----------



## LoinRockerForever (Jul 6, 2008)

markwhitewolf said:


> Nothing new as of yet.  Donations are still rolling in and the plan is still to order hardware on Monday, wait for shipping, and then get it onto the racks as fast as possible.



kk cool Thanks for the response. 

 	Quote:
 	 	 		 			 				 					Originally Posted by *LoinRockerForever* 

 
_To be frank, I haven't read most of whats going on. Is there another troll again? or not? I don't know >_<_

Nope, no new troll, just a confused someone.


Well okay lol Just making sure.


----------



## Yellow07 (Jul 6, 2008)

Kittyoffandomdoom said:


> Wow...just wow....its funny, here i am check up on the whole FA thing and listening to MSI's Stupid MF, and BAM I found one here! Please do us all a favor, go be a waste of space and life somewhere else.  I mean really, you talk about people talking about things not needed, and then you go and add more to the pile, just do like i normally do, if you don't like what you see, GO SOME PLACE ELSE!!!
> 
> Then again i can't really except better from most of you damn dirty humans, now can I...



cool down lol both of you XD

lol 'damn dirty humans'? look in the mirror

Please, none of this argument stuff, there's enough of that on you tube; stick it to talking about what the threds about, you'll get those but just ignore them ^^


----------



## Yellow07 (Jul 6, 2008)

WarMocK said:


> Well, time to call Guinness. ^^



We're already in there freind!  I should scan the page in but someone might bite me on the rear for copyright XD


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## WarMocK (Jul 6, 2008)

Yellow07 said:


> We're already in there freind!  I should scan the page in but someone might bite me on the rear for copyright XD


Nah, it would be more like FAIR USE. ^^
After all, the FA staff could start a party like the guys from Mozilla did when Firefox broke the world record, including some hardcore merchandizing for some extra cash to pay the bills. ;-)


----------



## muddypaws (Jul 6, 2008)

Myr said:


> You guys go through servers and hardware like wildfire through brush. Do yourselves a favor, take that money, save it, and then spend it hiring someone to do professional code for your site. You've been over-taxing your resources for years and you know it. You've known it even since before 'project Ferrox' was first boasted years ago. Throwing hardware at the problem again is just another patch job. You have a developer on your team who once told me he could reprogram the entire site in a week, and here it's been years and one missed expectation of an upgrade after another. Seriously, save your cash and put it into a professional or accredited programmer. If you can't afford that, then at the very least you should be hiring a professional consultant to give real advice. You're way past overdue for a major software upgrade. Both the users of FA and your colo will appreciate this.



That's a reasonable solution, but then FA might end up a pay site.

Not that I don't mind paying my fair share, but went I have funding so tight I squeak, I can't even donate funds to help. There may be others in the same boat.

Unfortunately, I don't have any suggestions to address the problem with the server.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 6, 2008)

Yellow07 said:


> We're already in there freind!  I should scan the page in but someone might bite me on the rear for copyright XD


Way, REALLY? Are we? Can you give me a link so I can check it out?
This is news to me, that's for certain. Wow... Guinness world book of records.
I am DEFINITELY proud to be a furry. ^_^


----------



## uncia (Jul 6, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Way, REALLY? Are we? Can you give me a link so I can check it out?
> This is news to me, that's for certain. Wow... Guinness world book of records.
> I am DEFINITELY proud to be a furry. ^_^


Largest "furry fan club" and number of mascots in a parade (AC for both) is not the same as largest $ raised on a donation drive. FA might be somewhat pushed to get an entry on the latter, but I sha'n't give up hope yet.


----------



## Kraton (Jul 6, 2008)

uncia said:


> Largest "furry fan club" and number of mascots in a parade (AC for both) is not the same as largest $ raised on a donation drive. FA might be somewhat pushed to get an entry on the latter, but I sha'n't give up hope yet.


Awesome. ^^
Gawd, I wish I could afford to go to the anthrocon 2008 this year. I don't know anyone offline like myself. (hence why I spend so much time on FA)


----------



## Danza (Jul 6, 2008)

*chuckles* try being English lol, an extra $1000 just for the plane fare makes it very hard to go to AC :/


----------



## seaweed (Jul 6, 2008)

Danza said:


> *chuckles* try being English lol, an extra $1000 just for the plane fare makes it very hard to go to AC :/




Hell, gas prices make it hard for AMERICANS to get to AC.  I didn't go, though I am probably at least a day's drive away.




Back to the topic at hand.. I \'m still waiting for an admin to pipe on on my suggestion I made a couple pages ago..  You think it may happen?


----------



## SDWolf (Jul 6, 2008)

uncia said:


> Largest "furry fan club" and number of mascots in a parade (AC for both)


 
Actually, Further Confusion 2008 shattered AC's 2007 parade record.  

Don't know what the current stats are, so AC might've reclaimed the record.


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## Danza (Jul 6, 2008)

seaweed said:


> Hell, gas prices make it hard for AMERICANS to get to AC.  I didn't go, though I am probably at least a day's drive away.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



O_O   you Americans are lucky 

try $10 a gallon then tell me your gas is expensive ;P

Back on topic I think it may due, but I think the priority is just to get things sorted and make sure there is as little/no data loss n..n


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## Armaetus (Jul 6, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Awesome. ^^
> Gawd, I wish I could afford to go to the anthrocon 2008 this year. I don't know anyone offline like myself. (hence why I spend so much time on FA)



Erm, AC already passed. It was June 23-24 to the 30th I believe....

I wonder how this is going to affect those going to FA: United! this year..


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## tehlynxie (Jul 6, 2008)

teh mods have epic patience skillage XD


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 6, 2008)

vlaadlynx said:


> I think those of us who have actually read all 115 pages are now just trying to quickly head off conversations about questions that have already been asked, and discussed to death, lol.



I wouldn't go so far to say that... I mean questions are questions, but it's the suggestions on how to make money for F.A. that needs to be beaten down.  Over done, unwanted, and in pretty much all cases, already discussed. :3


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 6, 2008)

seaweed said:


> But it has already been said numerous times by numerous people, and people were (and apparantly still are) posting about it. So apparantly simple ignorance is not an excuse. Laziness seems to be the issue here.



That's crazy. You actually 'do' think they 'should' and are 'expected' to read over a hundred pages of this befoer posting anything in this thread! O_O You, 'really do' think that. O_O




seaweed said:


> How many times do we have to be nice and say it before we can finally get mad and try to get the point across in a more forceful way??  I asked nicely several times with no responce, but apparantly getting "pissed off" works. It has finally slowed to a dull crawl.



Well if you think 'you're' the cause of why it's slowed down, then yeah, it has worked. ^_^   BUT, to answer your question I think if they ignore it once, then you can get mad, but not throwing a temper tantrum over it. If you look at their post count, every time I've seen you get 'pissed off' has been to people with 1 - 3 posts (at the time of your temper tantrum) and thus obviously were unaware of the situation.

Therefore, you're getting mad at people who are ignorant that you call lazy because you actually expect them to read all hundred plus pages of this thread.


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 6, 2008)

muddypaws said:


> Unfortunately, I don't have any suggestions to address the problem with the server.



This isn't the thread for suggesting things to 'help' the financial stand point of Fur Affinity. ^_~  It's been discussed many times, and nobody wants it brought up again hehe. Just read through all sorts of the previous hundred pages for more information. ^_^


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 6, 2008)

Danza said:


> O_O   you Americans are lucky
> 
> try $10 a gallon then tell me your gas is expensive ;P



Haha yeah, I always get a kick out of how much Americans (and I) complain about our gas out here. I mean it's legitimate to complain about them because it's a serious growing problem here with everything else going on, but it 'still' could be as bad as the U.K. So keep our heads up like the steriotype says we should!  :3


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## uncia (Jul 6, 2008)

SDWolf said:


> Actually, Further Confusion 2008 shattered AC's 2007 parade record.
> 
> Don't know what the current stats are, so AC might've reclaimed the record.


Bring back the wikifur link? http://furry.wikia.com/wiki/Fursuit_parade ;>

OK; if there's a category for largest list of donators to a furry website in the Guinness Book of Records, but I doubt that. 
Keep on rolling those in, please, nonetheless. ^^

=
@seaweed: yes, I'm almost certain there /will/ be progress updates on the order/build/install, if that's the question still on your mind.


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## nothingkat (Jul 6, 2008)

Hey the server is down.


Since this is the only topic people want to talk about I guess I'll still to that.

The server is down.

It's not up, it's down.


You know what can fix this? Optional payment plans for people who wa--

Oh wait, that's right. "Nobody" wants to discuss this. This is only about the server being down.

Because it's down you know.


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## Kraton (Jul 6, 2008)

mrchris said:


> Erm, AC already passed. It was June 23-24 to the 30th I believe....
> 
> I wonder how this is going to affect those going to FA: United! this year..



Oh, that's right. FA: United is the one on August 1-3, right?
Well, wish I could go to THAT. XD
I always miss all the fun.


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## Pi (Jul 6, 2008)

nothingkat said:


> Hey the server is down.
> 
> 
> Since this is the only topic people want to talk about I guess I'll still to that.
> ...



the wob server is down like a clinton intern

but for the fileserver, which is up like my cock.


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## markwhitewolf (Jul 6, 2008)

Pi said:


> the wob server is down like a clinton intern
> 
> but for the fileserver, which is up like my cock.




May I say, excellent use of throwback presidential scandal there, and poignant to boot!


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## Kraton (Jul 6, 2008)

Pi said:


> the wob server is down like a clinton intern
> 
> but for the fileserver, which is up like my cock.


Lol, you know, that's why I simply added that person to my ignored list. They keep going on and on about the same thing.
Optional subscriptions isn't going to happen. Anyone who wants it to happen should go make their own site and try to make money off of that.
For those of us who are done with that pointless topic, lets get back to the real topic.

Now, is the reason for such a large crash known yet? Or have they not pinpointed the exact cause of this?


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## seaweed (Jul 6, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> That's crazy. You actually 'do' think they 'should' and are 'expected' to read over a hundred pages of this befoer posting anything in this thread! O_O You, 'really do' think that. O_O
> 
> Well if you think 'you're' the cause of why it's slowed down, then yeah, it has worked. ^_^   BUT, to answer your question I think if they ignore it once, then you can get mad, but not throwing a temper tantrum over it. If you look at their post count, every time I've seen you get 'pissed off' has been to people with 1 - 3 posts (at the time of your temper tantrum) and thus obviously were unaware of the situation.
> 
> Therefore, you're getting mad at people who are ignorant that you call lazy because you actually expect them to read all hundred plus pages of this thread.





Look, dude. This is the last time I am going to respond. I am not going to get into a flame war here.

I never, EVER said everyone should read all 115 pages, but they can at least read a page back, or maybe even two, and see what people are saying to see if the topic has already been covered. And that goes for ANYONE who posts here. It doesn't matter if they have posted here one time or 100 times.  
Why would I bother to look how many posts a person has? Like I said, it shouldn't matter.

Do I think my 'temper tantrum' worked?  Well, the talk about paying for FA slowed down. Is that a coincidence?  I really don't care. It stopped. That is all I care about. 

Ignorance may occasionally be an excuse, but laziness for not reading at least a tiny ways back is not.



That is all I have to say. Let's please get back to the topic at hand.


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## velyogendra (Jul 6, 2008)

I'm amazed that there's 118 pages about this. If FurAffinity wants to charge for their service, and I know this might hurt some artists who are poor; then I guess they'll have to. Me? I'm disabled, out of work, and using my sister-in-laws computer. I couldn't tell her that I look at this site (because of the Gay Furrys I like to look at and masterbate too). So, I would be out of luck, untill I did get a job (hopefully by next year). That's my say about this.


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## mukichan (Jul 6, 2008)

Pi said:


> the wob server is down like a clinton intern
> 
> but for the fileserver, which is up like my cock.



what... an interesting way to put that. @_@;


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## seaweed (Jul 6, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Now, is the reason for such a large crash known yet? Or have they not pinpointed the exact cause of this?




The issue was not with the database servers that actually HELD the information, but I believe it was with one of the web servers that was hosting the page to GET to all of that information, if I understand it correctly. 
Please, someone correct me if I am wrong on this.

If you have an exact link to a picure on your FA page, you can get to it, as someone a couple of pages ago proved. It is just that the main webpage with all the links and hosting and such is down for the count.

But it sounds like they are not only going to add 2 new servers for this, but they are going to add more RAM as well to lighten the load on the servers, that should speed it up exponentially.


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## CrystalMendrilia (Jul 6, 2008)

seaweed said:


> Look, dude. This is the last time I am going to respond. I am not going to get into a flame war here.



There really isn't much to say too you if you're bent on considering this a 'flame' war. All I'm trying to point out, is demanding such a thing is silly and you retort to them as though you demand it.  Now you do say a couple pages back, which I of course agree with, but doesnt' change that the past couple pages might not have what they bring up.

As for why doesn't their page count matter? Uhh, well actually it does to help make sure you don't get mad at so meone who simply doesn't deserve it, but you certainly don't care about fault, you just want to be angry to the point you're willing to go out of your way on innocent people to do it. Plain and simple. 

I don't like that, because it they don't deserve what you do to them.


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## Kraton (Jul 6, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> There really isn't much to say too you if you're bent on considering this a 'flame' war. All I'm trying to point out, is demanding such a thing is silly and you retort to them as though you demand it.  Now you do say a couple pages back, which I of course agree with, but doesnt' change that the past couple pages might not have what they bring up.
> 
> As for why doesn't their page count matter? Uhh, well actually it does to help make sure you don't get mad at so meone who simply doesn't deserve it, but you certainly don't care about fault, you just want to be angry to the point you're willing to go out of your way on innocent people to do it. Plain and simple.
> 
> I don't like that, because it they don't deserve what you do to them.



Can you two please not argue? You're on the same side. ^_^
Though I haven't really known you long at all, you both seem like fairly nice people. Even if it's by your own choice, you don't deserve to have your day ruined cause of some silly arguments.
If you have a problem with someone and they just won't quit, ignore them then. No reason to ruin your mood.
FA will be back up and running soon enough. Time will fly by and before you know it, it'll feel like just yesterday when it went down. So try to be happy that it isn't down permanently, kay?


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## Drakaji (Jul 6, 2008)

CrystalMendrilia said:


> Haha yeah, I always get a kick out of how much Americans (and I) complain about our gas out here. I mean it's legitimate to complain about them because it's a serious growing problem here with everything else going on, but it 'still' could be as bad as the U.K. So keep our heads up like the steriotype says we should!  :3



Look at Venezuela...

*edit* Found a recent update
http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/01/news/international/usgas_price/index.htm


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## Kraton (Jul 6, 2008)

Drakaji said:


> Look at Venezuela...
> 
> *edit* Found a recent update
> http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/01/news/international/usgas_price/index.htm



Ha, that's funny. I remember recently when it was just above a buck for the US, and it was the same here. NOW, it's $3.45 average in the US, and STILL about $1.10 over here. XD
Canada ROCKS!


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## seaweed (Jul 6, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Ha, that's funny. I remember recently when it was just above a buck for the US, and it was the same here. NOW, it's $3.45 average in the US, and STILL about $1.10 over here. XD
> Canada ROCKS!




*shakes her fist angerly*

DARN YOU,CANADAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!


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## Kraton (Jul 6, 2008)

seaweed said:


> *shakes her fist angerly*
> 
> DARN YOU,CANADAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!



XD and this was like RECENT, too. Maybe a month or two ago when I last heard it was about $1 over there. ^_^

Hey, if you don't like the high gas prices, move to Canada. I'll give you a warm welcome.
Oh, and it's not nearly as cold up here as most seem to think in the US. XD
Temperature outside right now (and during most other days) is around 85 degrees, sometimes a little cooler because of the wind. Rather nice weather, too.


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## Wolf_Fox_Guy (Jul 6, 2008)

Pi said:


> the wob server is down like a clinton intern
> 
> but for the fileserver, which is up like my cock.





<<write for blood hound gang much?


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## seaweed (Jul 6, 2008)

Wolf_Fox_Guy said:


> <<write for blood hound gang much?





I think the wuffie wants to do it like they do on the Discovery Channel!


*slaps self*


Stay on topic, darnit!


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## uncia (Jul 6, 2008)

Kraton said:


> XD and this was like RECENT, too. Maybe a month or two ago when I last heard it was about $1 over there. ^_^
> 
> Hey, if you don't like the high gas prices, move to Canada. I'll give you a warm welcome.


Erm, litre meet gallon...?

(Now be a good fur and dun keep seaweed off topic after they've been complaining about other people being so  _*snowie ducks* ^^_)


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## bpdude (Jul 6, 2008)

not sure many of you know me, but I've been on FA for (I believe) 11/2-3 years. I'm not a big artist, if one at all (as you can see obviously from my home page =)). Sorry for not commenting or anything. I'm not a very outgoing person (kinda shy). But as for this thread... HOW DID THERE GET TO BE 118+ pages!!!??????

Anyways, I'd very gladly donate, but I sadly have no money. Sorry! =(
I really would, but, seeing as I'm only 17, and have no job (yet), I can't help at all financially. Again, sorry.

Kraton, I'm glad there's someone willing to "uphold the law", so to speak. I'm glad there's someone there to 'regulate' things. I admire those kinds of people! =)

Hope FurAffinity is up soon.


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## mukichan (Jul 6, 2008)

seaweed said:


> I think the wuffie wants to do it like they do on the Discovery Channel!
> 
> 
> *slaps self*
> ...



Are those numchucks in your pants or are you just happy to see me?

^w^


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## BondoFox (Jul 6, 2008)

Kraton said:


> I agree. I'm interested in seeing what the server equipment looks like, as I've never seen that kinda thing before.



You'd be disappointed.  Look at your own PC and think of one 1/3-1/2 bigger, with extra fans that sounds like a small jet engine when you turn it on  

Some are longer and about an inch high.

And with the exception of extra cooling, extra processors and memory, and multiple hard drives, it'll do what your PC does, only faster  

BondoFox
www.bondofox.net
www.derekscorner.com


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## seaweed (Jul 6, 2008)

mukichan said:


> Are those numchucks in your pants or are you just happy to see me?
> 
> ^w^





Oh, I'm just happy to see you baby!   (Boy, I hope my hubby doesn't read this, LOL!)


Darnit.. I need to talk about the outage!  darn all of you and your interesting conversations!


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## seaweed (Jul 6, 2008)

BondoFox said:


> You'd be disappointed.  Look at your own PC and think of one 1/3-1/2 bigger, with extra fans that sounds like a small jet engine when you turn it on
> 
> Some are longer and about an inch high.
> 
> And with the exception of extra cooling, extra processors and memory, and multiple hard drives, it'll do what your PC does, only faster





And for about 5 times the money, LOL!!


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## Pi (Jul 6, 2008)

Kraton said:


> Now, is the reason for such a large crash known yet? Or have they not pinpointed the exact cause of this?



It's been known for years. Whoever bought the original equipment didn't know the first thing about buying hardware that goes into servers.


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## selth (Jul 6, 2008)

out of pure curiosity, how many people here have seen a mainframe?


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## Rianu (Jul 6, 2008)

What's the current amount of money donated btw?


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## Pi (Jul 6, 2008)

selth said:


> out of pure curiosity, how many people here have seen a mainframe?



I've seen more weird hardware than I care to recollect. Almost came across owning an AS/400, which I think counts as mainframe.


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## icehawk (Jul 6, 2008)

Kraton said:


> I agree. I'm interested in seeing what the server equipment looks like, as I've never seen that kinda thing before.



It looks like this, it sounds like a jet trying to take off when you start it, and you could use it as a hair dryer if you were to stick your head behind it while it's running.


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## Kraton (Jul 6, 2008)

uncia said:


> Erm, litre meet gallon...?
> 
> (Now be a good fur and dun keep seaweed off topic after they've been complaining about other people being so  _*snowie ducks* ^^_)


Yeah, I know. I'm speaking of a gallon here. Though I don't drive anything (yet), all I'm hearing today is the prices are around $1.10 a gallon and $1.11  a gallon at all gas stations in this area. Our gas just hasn't really gone up all that much in the past little while. Not as much as the US, at least.

Oh, and right. We should remain on topic. Sorry. *shuts up, cause he doesn't really have much to say that is on topic*


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## RaireEX08 (Jul 6, 2008)

selth said:


> out of pure curiosity, how many people here have seen a mainframe?



I'm a fan of 'Reboot'... so does that count? (hah, a joke - 'Wiki if you don't get it) 

It's nice to see this topic continuing nicely, but more importantly, to see the monies keep rolling in! Great job everyone! ^_^


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## Dragon-Commando (Jul 6, 2008)

icehawk said:


> It looks like this, it sounds like a jet trying to take off when you start it, and you could use it as a hair dryer if you were to stick your head behind it while it's running.


 
LOL, I had a SCSI drive that used to sound like a jet engine when you turned it on. It was in an, at the time, high speed local file server.
The drive was in its own enclosure with its own power supply because it was so loud we needed to turn it off when we didn't need it.

The drive was one of the first high speed drives you could buy that had 1GB of space, thats right, only 1GB.


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## Artie (Jul 6, 2008)

Rianu said:


> What's the current amount of money donated btw?



$10,477.15 via Amazon, plus over $6,000 via PayPal.  So, *over $16,477.15 total* so far.


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## Kraton (Jul 6, 2008)

icehawk said:


> It looks like this, it sounds like a jet trying to take off when you start it, and you could use it as a hair dryer if you were to stick your head behind it while it's running.


Cool. If I ever need a REALLY expensive hair dryer, I'll know what to shop for. XD
Though I don't use hair dryers. XD
*shuts up to let others get back on topic*


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## mukichan (Jul 6, 2008)

Kraton said:


> *shuts up to let others get back on topic*



Are we gonna stay on topic though? We're all drifting off one way or another. lmao!


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## TehSean (Jul 6, 2008)

Just don't post if you have to type out something akin to "Darn, I should really stay on topic"
FA's provided a big big forum under the header Off-Topic/The Black Hole for that kind of fun.

You're revealing that you had no intention of being on topic and should apologize by not responding.

In order to remain on topic, I just hope that all this flow of money will lead to giving that Eevee person some money to live on so they can devote more time to Ferrox. That way we can get our search back and stuff.


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## uncia (Jul 6, 2008)

Pi said:


> I've seen more weird hardware than I care to recollect. Almost came across owning an AS/400, which I think counts as mainframe.


Nah, just one of their midrange pieces of kit. Would still look kinda neat in a domestic setting. 
I'm pretty sure (from personal experience) that FA doesn't want the running costs of the high-end gear, even though system load would never again be an issue...

@Artie: $ tally has bounced to-and-fro on Amazon: no longer up-to-date owing to lag in their system, but will wait and see I guess. Looks like the card companies are going to be creaming around $500 off the top at present estimates.
@TehSean: the fundraising is for hardware only at present, afaik: FA certainly could use kit to that dimension $-wise and wouldn't go very far at coder rates, anyhow, even as a one-off "bonus". -v-


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## selth (Jul 6, 2008)

all hail FA! you definately can survive...


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## GeltyDrake (Jul 6, 2008)

Don't Panic!


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## Ainoko (Jul 6, 2008)

Rianu said:


> What's the current amount of money donated btw?



On amazon the current donations stand at $10,559.15
Paypay I beleive is sitting at or around $7,500.00


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## Arshes Nei (Jul 6, 2008)

Ok, this is nearly 2000 posts of arguing that has been covered in pages that no one is going to bother to read. It's also spreading out to other posts. I don't see any real point in keeping this thread open when things are being recycled. It should have been closed earlier.

FA thanks those who have donated, and the other threads cover where you can donate, ie the Amazon page as an announcement, and that the end of this weekend will be a decision as to what servers to order. It will take time to get those servers shipped, contents moved and put back online.

Again thanks to all but this thread is now closed.


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