forum down this afternoon

[Karl Card]

I kinda feel like the point that is being missed here is ADDICTION.....

I go to my shop, work a bit, come back up for a break and it is a habit to jump on smc... it just happens. I hate it when it is down but do understand that it is not a human fault doing so on purpose... it just seems to stop my forward motion, kinda like a wall in the middle of the road....

good people, good advice, now if we can just get some good food in here..

[steven carter]

Josh, it's 'owned', just like any for-profit business, I'd guess.

I would hope that someone is making a profit somewhere, because when the server needs replaced, it will need to be purchased, they don't just give them away. I am in the IT profession an know the expense of infrastructure and maintenance that is needed to keep an operation afloat. That is one of the reasons I am a CONTRIBUTOR to the creek. It seems to me that those who choose not to contribute would be among the last to complain about the site being down occasionally. I certainly think that to say it is down ALOT in inaccurate.

Steve

[Mike Minto]

I would hope that someone is making a profit somewhere, because when the server needs replaced, it will need to be purchased, they don't just give them away. I am in the IT profession an know the expense of infrastructure and maintenance that is needed to keep an operation afloat. That is one of the reasons I am a CONTRIBUTOR to the creek. It seems to me that those who choose not to contribute would be among the last to complain about the site being down occasionally. I certainly think that to say it is down ALOT in inaccurate.

Steve

Steven, I knew that would come up. I was a contributor last year. There are reasons for why I'm not, anymore. Also, the thread was started by a CONTRIBUTOR. I just seconded the motion. Oh, and define 'alot' and 'occasionally', will you, to clarify things?

[Keith Outten]

I know that a lot of people miss The Creek when our server goes down or when our bandwidth provider has network issues. I also know that a lot of people here rely on SawMill Creek for tech support problems that happen during the business day, there always seems to be someone online here that can help when your in a pinch.

I'm real glad that so many miss us during the times when we are offline but you can rest assured that when it happens I am scrambling as fast as humanly possible to get The Creek flowing again.

I have been promising that we will be bringing our new server online for a long time. We really do have a new server and it is a monster compared to any server we have ever placed online. It was expensive but we were able to pay for it upfront so the cost is history

Aaron Koehl has the new server in his home office.......tap tap tap wait wait wait.
Come On Aaron git er done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For those of you who are interested the SawMill Creek server is physically located in my office on the second floor over my work shop in rural Gloucester County Virginia. When you connect to The Creek you are not at some server farm....there are always wood chips on the floor and plenty of lumber leaning against the wall here

Fun facts!!! We are now averaging between 41,000 to 48,000 individuals who visit The Creek every day. It is absolutely amazing how far we have come as a Community that gathers in a woodworking shop.
.

[Mike Minto]

Steve,

Well said!!!

Heather

PS I also agree with the ADDICTION comment, my homepage is SMC.

Yes, details and specifics aside - well said!

[Mike Minto]

I would hope that someone is making a profit somewhere, because when the server needs replaced, it will need to be purchased, they don't just give them away. I am in the IT profession an know the expense of infrastructure and maintenance that is needed to keep an operation afloat. That is one of the reasons I am a CONTRIBUTOR to the creek. It seems to me that those who choose not to contribute would be among the last to complain about the site being down occasionally. I certainly think that to say it is down ALOT in inaccurate.

Steve

Oh, don't let me forget to say - there are MANY ways to contribute - tips, modification advice, encourgement, etc - not just the $6 you may have contributed to what is, regardless of one's opinion, a for profit thing (am I wrong?).

[Keith Outten]

Mike,

There isn't much of a profit running The Creek but it has to be owned by a corporation to protect our personal assets. I doubt that you would be willing to risk your home running a service that is online 24 hours per day that allows people from anywhere in the world to publicly post information that may very well cost you everything you own.

Why don't you come on over to my house and help me work on The Creek for free. We each average about a thousand hours per year, after eight years you probably would get real tired of working for free. We will still need others to help keep our server running and someone to take care of the banking, pay the bills/taxes and do all the book keeping. I will be glad to provide you with free keyboards because you will wear them out real quick answering all of the email and Private Messages generated by the 40,000 people that visit The Creek every day. Visitors can't post here but they can send us email and plenty of it.

All of the information that you share here is for the benefit of this Community, I rarely get the chance to be part of the conversation here because I spend most of my time under the hood.

How many people paying 50 cents per month does it take to pay for a new server that cost several thousand dollars.....every two years? Oh yeah we don't even get the two quarters because PayPal gets their percentage upfront. We also pay a monthly fee for a commercial internet connection and we have phone bills and electric bills and so on, and so on........

Give us a break guy, there is much more going on here than most can imagine and it never stops.........24 hours per day 365 days per year.
.

[Andy Hoyt]

Thanks, Keith.

I'm closing this thread.