Teacup.

I was part of this forum where a big drama exploded a few weeks ago. Now it’s cooled down and it’s time to do my ranting.

The whole drama is over hosting. User A who shall be known as Missing, hosts around half the people on the board and the activity that is associated with the board. Missing is quite friendly with the owner of the board, who I’ll call Owner, and another person on the board who I’m going to name…Friend.

So, we’re all chugging along together until…oh noez, Missing goes, well, missing. So Owner and Friend check up on Missing with a txt message and Missing told them she’d be gone about two weeks on vacation. But after that, she’ll be back. The masses are appeased for the time being.

The two-weeks deadline come and goes. The masses are unsettled, but not ready to put a pitchfork in someone’s eyes yet until…OH NOEZ, Missing’s domain suddenly goes missing and the server is not serving and mass hysteria ensues.

So one of Missing’s hostee starts a thread on the forum asking whether Missing’s domain is giving out a 404 error to anyone else? A few people agrees with the 404 error. By about the seventh post, users are getting agitated that they might lose their files and all that. By the 15^th post, Missing is being crucified for being MIA. Until about the…20^th post, someone finally has some mind to say that perhaps Missing is in serious health troubles. Thank god, about time. After that, the discussion about the promised torture that shall be inflicted upon Missing on her return dies down dramatically.

Approximately one week passes…

Friend starts a new thread plugging her website that provides hosting to people in need. Well, that’s all great and dandy. I even had a look and it wasn’t too bad, it was pretty decent…besides the damn welcoming message that is probably meant to rub some dirt in Missing’s face! Intro went something like this (excuse my forgetfulness but after I saw that message, I never went back to her website):

…free but reliable hosting…

OK, I know what you’re thinking. “Oh for fuck’s sake, it’s just a damn word which has been italicized! See, even I can italicize it without sounding offensive!” But I think I need to remind you that this is my blog, my rants, my opinions.

So, I see that italicized font and I’m thinking there can be no way that this is some fucking coincidence that Friend not only has a domain after Missing’s sudden indefinite vacation, oh no, it’s a hosting domain, which is supposedly reliable. And that’s what I have an issue with. Nothing is reliable. Nobody is reliable.^** So essentially, Friend is promising something that she in actuality, can’t deliver. (By the way, after all these “reliability” crap, a few days ago, her whole server threw a hissy fit and wasn’t very reliable when pages hosted by her kept throwing up errors to visitors.)

My issues with this whole drama:

1) The people hosted by Missing shouldn’t have stoked the fire of crucifying Missing for “missing files” because the hosted were responsible for their own damn files. They should have made a fucking back-up weekly, or monthly, or whenever they have time to. Not to rely on Missing for back-up. Even if she did promise to have a backup of her whole website including hostees, the hostees should have jolly well have their own files anyway.

I’ve been hosted by a handful of people since I started this whole website thing. And I’ve never once relied on their back-up. This whole image files and whatever, I have it on my hard-drive. If there’s not enough space, I use GSpace. What’s that I hear about “oh noez, yours is a simple website. I use WP and I can’t get a back-up of my database unless my host does it for me!!11!!11″ Well, WP has it’s own database back-up system. Or you can use one of the many plug-ins available to do that. If a script doesn’t have many plug-ins or in-built functions to back-up a database, search through Google for a solution!

2) The whole “I can’t believe Missing would host people and then suddenly go AWOL!” business. Missing hosted all of you out of the kindness of her heart. She pays for the space and name. But does she ask the hostees to pay for the space that they are allocated/used? Nope. So those hostees should suck it up and shut up. Just be grateful she even hosted all these people.

3) Before mother nature can blow away the “Missing gone missing!” drama ashes, maybe even before the fire even burnt out, Friend opened her website with the whole “reliable” thing going on. The whole nature of it cannot be classed as co-incidental. I’ll be really lenient with my thinking and go with the masses that maybe she bought the domain name and had the whole idea for the website to be a hosting domain way before the whole “Missing gone missing!” drama started, but there is no way in hell the whole “reliable-in-your-face” thing could have been done before the drama.

—

^** In hindsight, I realize by saying that, I would instantly be painted as an extreme pessimist. I neither agree nor disagree with that statement. I am merely stating that while living my life up until now, and even my parents telling me, that I should never rely on anything or anyone except yourself. And this advice has served me well.