GA.org taking a poop as I speak

[Greymatter Glass]

looks like php is crashed. Site loads, but doesn't render properly.

Anyone else seeing this?

[DanBrooks]

yup

GP.org is still up though

[mer]

they were both down for a couple days. gp just got fixed first. i'm sure ga is soon to follow.

[vetropod]

poopies :twitch:

[lucidvisions]

What's with the new fees? I truthfully think its a bit expensive for having a page next to all of your competition. Not to take away from what Justin has done because it's really been a great service to all of us. But I thought any reimbursment that Justin should need and rightfully deserve could be made coming from the ads and all of that. It seems to me that it's been made more confusing for people to find the sites within, and unless you pay, thats just the way it will be. It sucks in away that none of us were "grandfathered" in with a oppurtunity for a minor discount. I know that I'm bitching and complaining here but the last thing I expected was the downfall of GA.org by making the artists pay. If I'm way off base please let me know, there are probably issues with the site I don't understand and would like to know more. I just know that I can't afford it right now will probably take our money elsewhere to finally get a real site.

Josh

[vetropod]

Here, here. It was nice while it lasted... :depressed

[mer]

i'm not sure i follow. i just started building a gallery there last week and it was all free. i saw an ad to pay a little extra for some extra features but thats all. did i miss something?

[vetropod]

i'm not sure i follow. i just started building a gallery there last week and it was all free. i saw an ad to pay a little extra for some extra features but thats all. did i miss something?

The people who pay sit on top of everyone else. There's one paying member right now, and you have to scroll waaaaay down past all of her stuff to see anyone else' work.

Also, if you're not a paying member and someone goes to your page now, there's like a weird interceptor page that shows only thumbnails without the text or click-able links.

It was nice being able to put work up there to share with the community and to see what everyone else is doing, but now it seems like one will have to wade through a bunch of other stuff to see the general fair.

[mer]

when did this start? i hadn't noticed any of that, maybe because i'm logged in whenever i look at my stuff? is this just at GA or is it GP too? i really don't think i would be willing to pay. both of these sites are really just for showing other glassblowers my work. why would i send customers to a group showing? that's silly.

edit>> i just logged out and checked my GP page and it looked the same as usual. idk

[Dom]

It seems that gp takes a poop on a regular basis.

[mer]

so it's back up but i still don't get what you guys were talking about. the link that i give others goes to this screen (and all the links work normally). this is the only way that i've ever seen any gallery look. your galleries look the same way to me. do you get something different?

[justin]

I just found and fixed the problem that was affecting GA. I lost a server this week and now we're running on 2 instead of 3 so everything is slow and messed up. I'm also getting ready to move the entire operation to a new colo that is actually within physical access to me as opposed to the less expensive one across the country where it's at now. In order to do this I'm going to have to be running in 2 places at once... otherwise everything would be gone for about a week (at least.) The 3 servers we were on were already getting quite overloaded so what I am doing now is buying the parts and software licenses for one really really badass server. This is looking like it's going to be right around $4k total for the new machine. But it'll be a huge upgrade over what we're using now, with redundant hot swappable everything, top of the line dual quad core xeons, tons of fast memory, etc. This will mean the sites will be much faster and much more reliable.

This new server would not be possible without the money I've been getting from those people who have signed up for premium accounts. There seems to be a common misconception that I am getting rich here. In reality I'm trying to keep my head above water and keep things moving forward and sometimes it seems like it all might just crash and burn no matter how hard I work at it. Fortunately there are a lot of very supportive people in my communities who take the time to email and let me know how stoked they are on what I'm doing.

It was definitely not my first choice to charge anyone money for anything, especially when ad revenues were adequate. But these ad revenues have been dropping for about a year. Maybe it's simply changes in the ad market, maybe it's that unknown variable revenue share that the powers who be get to change on a whim. The bottom line is that I'm serving more and more visitors and bringing in less and less money from ads, and if things didn't turn around quick I'd be going back to work for the man instead of setting up a new server.

My #1 concern with the creation of the premium accounts was that this would remain a FREE community, nobody would have to start paying for anything they'd already been getting for free. And I think I did a pretty good job of that. I created an all-new set of features, ones that make perfect sense to offer to paying subscribers but would never be missed by the casual free user. The one thing that really seems to bother some people is the front page list. My personal feeling on this is that the paying supporters of the site deserve the recognition. You still get your stuff on the front page if you're not paying, you just don't get to be as high on the page.

On a philosophical level, I think it's much better for these communities to be member-funded as opposed to advertiser funded. Why? Because whoever is paying the bills exercises a certain degree of control over the community. I am stringently bound to keep my site within the [often vague and restrictive] terms of the ad networks. I have to censor certain things, I have to make certain parts of my site run a certain way. If the community was purely member-funded, it would no longer be under the control or at the mercy of the ad networks. While I don't see that happening any time soon, I do like the idea of starting to shift things in that direction. I think by becoming investors in our own community, rather than just trying to get as much as possible out of it for free, we gain a greater sense of affinity and membership to that community.

Not everyone is going to be into this concept. There will always be a certain percentage of people who hear the word "community" and think "somethin for nothin." But then there are the "lets build something cool together" people and those are the ones I'm in this for.

Keep the feedback coming....

[lucidvisions]

Justin, so the strange page that shows up now when clicking on others pages is a flaw because of changing servers? Excuse my inemptness over the computer mumbojumbo. If that is the case I'm a lot happier. I know you're not getting rich off of this and I sincerely appreciate what you have offered to the community with this site. I personally don't have too much of an issue throwing down a couple of bucks to keep it as it was, I just felt that the prices were a bit high to keep what we had before, but I my be misunderstanding what is actually going on. jmho. Again, Justin, THANK YOU! The site helped get us to where we've come, but $ is tight here also. I pledge to give when we can and purchase an account when it's possible.

Josh

[justin]

I'm a little confused about the page you're referring to, do you mean the new user profile page? The uer profile page has nothing to do with the premium accounts, it was intended as an improvement over the old concept of a "Main Gallery Page" because it provides more of a centralized user profile as opposed to just a section of galleries. Also it sounds like the gallery browser on that page might not be working for some of you, please let me know if that thing is not expanding for you. It should be providing a very quick way to browse all of a person's pages and also should have image popups when you mouse over the little icons.
-J