(04-22-2026, 06:48 PM)davepoobond wrote: has the site been loading slow for people recently?
So as I mentioned in the trashbin thread we're under attack by the Global South for not giving back their stolen wealth. As people might have noticed the bots have figured out how to get through CAPTCHA and then post threads. (Google is aware of this from what I understand and we're just unprotected so far because we're on the free tier.)
I have no clue what they're actually doing that's eating up our resources but it's partly just that there's so many of them at any one time. There's little I can do about this on the current tier of our hosting plan because it's the lowest one our host has. At the next level I could actually ban the entire country of Vietnam temporarily and use a CDN to speed up everything for everyone.
I really have no interest in spending more on the forum BUT... our host was actually currently running a sale where IF I upgraded at the same time I extended our hosting plan into the future I could get both MORE YEARS and MORE RESOURCES at
less than it would cost if the hosting plan simply renewed in 2027.
If it's not obvious from my framing, I decided to do this. Our hosting now goes into 2030 and it's on more powerful servers and we also have a CDN. I didn't ban Vietnam but I could do it if this continues. Just turning on the CDN I already see things as way faster.
I'm definitely going to stop slacking and put up the OG archive Uncle made now because we also have even more unused hard drive space now and it feels even more guilty not to bother spending 15 minutes on this. Probably should do that theme crap too.
The "downside" to this is that in 2030 the plan will theoretically cost even more now. But to that I offer three answers:
1. I just need to be slightly more aware of sales our host runs and buy more years when it's on sale sometime in the next four years. I earlier passed during one of their sales on paying a bit less than what I paid now for better hosting to extend the hosting for another four years. Glad I did, see, procrastinating
is a benefit,
MOM.
2. Suck it up and eat the cost increase once 2030 comes around, or maybe ask people for a few bucks to take off some of the cost. It's not
that much, like ten people giving $5-10 would pay for a year of hosting. But then I would feel indebted to offering things that feel like a greater share of ownership and that starts to sound like a corporation instead of a welcoming bonfire of a LLC.
3. Do nothing because late stage capitalism is here, the empire is obviously collapsing and the revolution is guaranteed so internet hosting will be free after it.
I think everyone here would agree, rather than showing their whole ass by going mask off as a Nazi chud, that the proper path is #3.