Author Topic: several sites ... why not one ?  (Read 920 times)

Josellis

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several sites ... why not one ?
« on: May 12, 2006, 10:59:21 am »
I am sometimes getting confused because they are many different domains ... hydlaa, planeshift.it, etc.

So why is PlaneShift spreaded all over ? If it is because it is free, I know a website which gives free webhosting (up to 250Mb), 1 (or 2) MySQL database, A lot of bandwidth, and PHP, HTML, HTTPS, etc. The mail() function isn't available but you can ask to get it activate it at the condition that you send a proof of identity (to prevent spamming).

You are allowd to have several website for one person (or I didn't find anything contradicting that :) ).


And for the forums. why do you use "simple machines forum" it costs to have a  licence, you can have instead phpBB which is fully featured (but not as much as IPB, vBulletin or SMF).


If it is because of something else you have the site spreaded over several hosts and domains, well, <no comment> :)



Josellis :detective:

lanser

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Re: several sites ... why not one ?
« Reply #1 on: May 12, 2006, 12:10:16 pm »
And for the forums. why do you use "simple machines forum" it costs to have a  licence, you can have instead phpBB which is fully featured (but not as much as IPB, vBulletin or SMF).

SMF and Simple Machines Forum are the same and although not GPL does not require a paid license
(my emphasis )
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Netty

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Re: several sites ... why not one ?
« Reply #2 on: May 12, 2006, 12:23:02 pm »
The explanation is rather simple.

Luca (Talad) pays for the main PlaneShift site himself, so it doesn't take bandwidth from a donated Laanx server by Fragnetics. Andrew (acraig) pays for the forum hosting for the same reasons (and better uptime for us). SMF software doesn't cost anything. There's an optional "Charter Member" license, which gives access to early betas and such but the more mature versions eventually make it to a public access and are free to download and use.

Free hosting often has quite a few limitations and risks, the biggest one being bandwidth. Unless a host has made its own initiative to donate it for such a project, it's usually not worth it.

Xordan

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Re: several sites ... why not one ?
« Reply #3 on: May 12, 2006, 12:29:04 pm »
Also relying on one host for everything is bad. If it goes offline for some reason, then everything is offline instead of just one thing.

Nikodemus

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Re: several sites ... why not one ?
« Reply #4 on: May 12, 2006, 05:08:56 pm »
Josellis, why are you confused? What kind of problems do it cause to you, when you want to load one of these sites? I have completly no idea what problems this may cause to a common user. Care to explain?



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DaveG

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Re: several sites ... why not one ?
« Reply #5 on: May 12, 2006, 05:12:15 pm »
We probably should unify the domain names, though.  I'd like to see something like planeshift.org with forums.planeshift.org, bugs.planeshift.org, and laanx.planeshift.org all redirects.

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acraig

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Re: several sites ... why not one ?
« Reply #6 on: May 12, 2006, 05:24:57 pm »
I learned the hardway that it's not the bandwidth that is the problem it's the cpu usage.  I have boatloads of bandwidth with this provider ( 400GB a month! ) and also email/mysql/stats and everything.  BUT have to be careful about the CPU usage.  This is the evils of a shared server.  This is why a couple of the features of the forums have been disabled.  Things seem stable now though and I hope it can continue.  I am not going to pay $1000 a year for a dedicated server just to host forums.

As for having different sites I think we can consolidate some of that now.  planeshift.it is the 'main' ( for the lack of a better word ).  hydlaa.com is the community and bugtracker site and laanx.fragnetics.com is the server site.   

forums.hydlaa.com and bugs.hydlaa.com should all work as well.   At some point I would like to do some more unification so at the registration page you will create:  1) Your player account 2) Your forum account 3) Your bugtracker account. 
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Netty

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Re: several sites ... why not one ?
« Reply #7 on: May 12, 2006, 05:49:49 pm »
I learned the hardway that it's not the bandwidth that is the problem it's the cpu usage.  I have boatloads of bandwidth with this provider ( 400GB a month! ) and also email/mysql/stats and everything.  BUT have to be careful about the CPU usage.  This is the evils of a shared server.  This is why a couple of the features of the forums have been disabled.  Things seem stable now though and I hope it can continue.  I am not going to pay $1000 a year for a dedicated server just to host forums.

With paid hosting, yes. But with free hosting, the bandwidth limitations usually come first. Either way, it's a pain. :)

I hope you sorted everything out with your hosting provider.

Josellis

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Re: several sites ... why not one ?
« Reply #8 on: May 13, 2006, 04:39:22 am »
I can see the problem ..

try this website you can search any host on the world, any price, any bandwidth etc. and you can be really be amazed of the offers  :o

for example, I found a webhost with 15GB storage space, unlimited bandwidth, MySQL, no setup fees for $12.05 / month

but it is just a website ... and I'm just trying to help :D

And I'm getting confused cause I never know what url I need to type and on planeshift.it, when you click forums (on the link on top) you get redirected to the wrong site, and the navbar (on the left) needs a serious up-to-date cause each pages has different links  :P




Josellis :D

Karyuu

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Re: several sites ... why not one ?
« Reply #9 on: May 13, 2006, 07:24:53 am »
Luckily we're very aware of the website problems and there was a Website Criticism thread in which Netty volunteered to tackle some of these problems :}

So to avoid making repeat arguments, give it a read whenever you have time!
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zanzibar

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Re: several sites ... why not one ?
« Reply #10 on: May 13, 2006, 07:49:01 am »
The explanation is rather simple.

Luca (Talad) pays for the main PlaneShift site himself, so it doesn't take bandwidth from a donated Laanx server by Fragnetics. Andrew (acraig) pays for the forum hosting for the same reasons (and better uptime for us). SMF software doesn't cost anything. There's an optional "Charter Member" license, which gives access to early betas and such but the more mature versions eventually make it to a public access and are free to download and use.

Free hosting often has quite a few limitations and risks, the biggest one being bandwidth. Unless a host has made its own initiative to donate it for such a project, it's usually not worth it.



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Netty

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Re: several sites ... why not one ?
« Reply #11 on: May 13, 2006, 09:29:34 am »
I was a bit harsh in my original criticism, so don't take everything I've said to heart. It was mostly to motivate myself to help. However, despite a very slow progress I won't give up on the site. Just having to sort the time through commercial projects and PS site right now. =)

zanzibar,

All right... lol

acraig

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Re: several sites ... why not one ?
« Reply #12 on: May 14, 2006, 10:41:13 pm »
You should have heard me when the forums were shut down after 2 days because of using too much resources.  I had paid for a 2 year subscription and was mightly P.O'd that I got 2 days out of it.  But things seem to be resolved now. 
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