I couldn't log on to the forum for the past couple days.

 

check the offtopic forum... several have already posted about it

 

Yeah, been down for a few days now. It'd be nice if the admins put a sticky up top letting us know if it's been fixed for good, or if they're still working on it. I'm guessing it was a database problem. (?) Maybe lost it an had to restore from backups or something.

It's amazing how addicted to this site I am. Only down for a few days, and I was freaking out.

 

Same $hit that happens every couple of months. Either the whole site goes down or the search is messed up. Owner is too cheap to upgrade, that's why it's so slow all the time. Apparently administrator doesn't check in very often. I can't believe it took three days to get it back up. Maybe they're too cheap to do backup's....

If I was a site sponsor who's paying to keep this site running, I'd be pi$$ed about the way it's being managed.

 

The forum was working just fine.
downtime is the normal business model.

It's like taking crack away from a crackhead. makes them want it even more.

 

cheap mods


no money to upgrade

 

Hey Cat, two questions for you:

1) What the heck is up with these computer-generated avatars people are using all over this forum? (like your's)

2) What part of Oklahoma are you from? Seems like I don't see many other Okies around here.

 

The forum was working just fine? I beg to differ.

As for your second comment, I disagree. I'm a network engineer for several large web-commerce companies, and downtime of the magnitude this site experienced over the last several days would cause jobs to be lost without a doubt. It would have been totally unacceptable for a company who's bread and butter is made via the net to allow their site to be down for that long. There's nothing normal business model about it.

That all being said, this is not an e-commerce site, and it's VERY clear that the owner and admins have that opinion.

None of the members pay a dime for the services here, and the vendors are all small enough businesses that they can't afford to just stomp off in a huff to another forum if their banners don't get displayed for a few days. This is the largest Z forum on the internet, and merchants that advertise here probably get more exposure (read banner hits) in a week on this site than they do in 6 months to a year on any other Z forum.

So put yourself in the owners shoes. The members don't "get a voice" because they don't pay for the service and thus aren't entitled to any sort of service level agreement. Most of us, even if we register with other forums will still come here when the site is up. The advertising merchants won't go elsewhere because they know that despite the 15 days (or whatever) of downtime a year the site has, they're still getting more advertising bang for their buck here than elsewhere.

It's a crappy attitude to have, but for something that's a "side business" like this forum probably is for the owner, it has obviously been assigned a priority far down his list.

There's still nothing normal about it.

 

Well said kcobean. While it certainly can be frustrating when the site has problems, I can't really complain since I don't pay for it. Even with the occasional downtime I still think this site is a pretty darn good deal for us members. I am certainly addicted, but when the site goes down I just try to find other things to do until it comes back up! (As hard as that might be!)

 

Yep, it certainly is addictive, and the owner knows it, in fact, he's *counting* on it.

I'm certainly not standing up for the owner or admin of this forum. i think it sucks that they developed a service that so many of us practically rely on for daily entertainment, and then they don't take care of it.

 

yeah what's up with those png-alike avatars. i've seen a bunch of people with them, which made me think they are provided by this site in some way. but i don't see them in the control panel when selecting avatars. please end my confusion.

 

I'm not sure what a png-alike avatar is, but you can select a site-provided avatar or upload your own avatar (max size 122x122 pixels, I believe) if you have more than 0 posts (you're good ). Alot of people upload their own, but I think you can only have one custom avatar at a time. You can do this from the 'Edit Options' section of control panel.

Did that answer your questions

 

Nah, ml2316 and I are asking about those weird, pre-generated looking avatars that a lot of people are starting to use. I'm just wondering where they are coming from, because they are turning up everywhere. (Look at the first two posts of this thread.)

 

To end the confusion :

https://my350z.com/forum/showthread....threadid=84014