Since it's about time you were all updated on the current situation with the site, it's probably best to start at the beginning. You shall have the full story, nothing left out.
Our first issue came when the PayPal account was frozen and all funds within. We have been fighting since the first day it was frozen to rectify the situation and free up the funds that were there. Since we operate on a smaller budget than most of our fellow sites, the funds were not substantial and equated to a little over 1 month of bills.
Staff covered the bills of the site for as long as they could, but eventually something had to give. First on the culling list was the 10Gbit Auto Box which is why the Pre times have dropped quite a bit and another reason why the Auto is currently either not running or pretty patchy from time to time.
Our second issue raised it's ugly head when we believe someone to have reported the Domain for not having the correct "Whois" info. This meant that it was subsequently suspended. This seems a common tactic these days to easily take sites offline.
Our third and most recent issue was due to a staff member who had control of the server and the payment links being away on holiday. This meant that none of the other staff could access the payment info in order to pay for the server (again out of staff pockets) The server was suspended and we moved to an old back up as a temporary solution.
So here we are with no funds and now no Domain and an expired server !...... Yeah Great !
But not to be beaten......
At the last minute, the payment information was able to be sent to another staff member who paid the bills, which enabled us to set about getting the server back online again. This was finally completed yesterday.
We had funds in the BTC account so we managed to get hold of another Domain to use. The .me that we now operate under. The costly ddos protection for the site was also renewed at this time..
The following, further steps are currently being taken to get us back on track.
So there you have it. Our problems and, hopefully, our solutions. I understand their has been talk in IRC about our demise and the possibility of us vanishing. Please don't listen to it. We have come this far. We have been taken down before, Domains taken away from us and yet we keep bouncing back. This time will be no different. We are just in a dark place right now, but together, as a team, as a family, as a community ! We can come through it. We WILL come through it.
Our first issue came when the PayPal account was frozen and all funds within. We have been fighting since the first day it was frozen to rectify the situation and free up the funds that were there. Since we operate on a smaller budget than most of our fellow sites, the funds were not substantial and equated to a little over 1 month of bills.
Staff covered the bills of the site for as long as they could, but eventually something had to give. First on the culling list was the 10Gbit Auto Box which is why the Pre times have dropped quite a bit and another reason why the Auto is currently either not running or pretty patchy from time to time.
Our second issue raised it's ugly head when we believe someone to have reported the Domain for not having the correct "Whois" info. This meant that it was subsequently suspended. This seems a common tactic these days to easily take sites offline.
Our third and most recent issue was due to a staff member who had control of the server and the payment links being away on holiday. This meant that none of the other staff could access the payment info in order to pay for the server (again out of staff pockets) The server was suspended and we moved to an old back up as a temporary solution.
So here we are with no funds and now no Domain and an expired server !...... Yeah Great !
But not to be beaten......
At the last minute, the payment information was able to be sent to another staff member who paid the bills, which enabled us to set about getting the server back online again. This was finally completed yesterday.
We had funds in the BTC account so we managed to get hold of another Domain to use. The .me that we now operate under. The costly ddos protection for the site was also renewed at this time..
The following, further steps are currently being taken to get us back on track.
- A Mass Email is being sent to all accounts that have not logged in within 1 week. We will notify them of the change to our Domain and this will hopefully allow more users to find their way back home to us. We urge you to also let people know the new URL as and where you can.
- We are looking at new ways to accept donations. PayPal is hard to get away from and we pay many of our bills this way. Currently we are going to reactivate the Donate page, but donations can currently only be accepted in BitCoins (BTC) until we can find suitable methods for keeping a PayPal account unfrozen. We currently have a half assed plan to somehow convert BTC and transfer to a PayPal account and then pay bills, but one of the things that worries us is the lack of popularity in BTC. But at least it's a start right ?
So there you have it. Our problems and, hopefully, our solutions. I understand their has been talk in IRC about our demise and the possibility of us vanishing. Please don't listen to it. We have come this far. We have been taken down before, Domains taken away from us and yet we keep bouncing back. This time will be no different. We are just in a dark place right now, but together, as a team, as a family, as a community ! We can come through it. We WILL come through it.