Notice and reminder

Z

Zhen Lin

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I have heard reports that there was some irritation regarding the downtime earlier today (or yesterday as the case may be for some of you). I will take this opportunity to remind you of some facts:

1. I am still a full-time student and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future - at minimum the next 3 to 4 years if not more.
2. Despite rumours to the contrary, I am indeed organic and require rest.
3. Because of time zones, I am asleep for the period leading up to peak load here.
4. I am also not at home around the time when load here is highest: that's right at the time I have to go to school.
5. The school I am currently at has a draconian network policy: no unauthorised outgoing connections. So while I am well aware of server failures and such due to a barrage of automatic email, I can't actually do anything about it.
6. Complaining or moaning about server problems doesn't achieve anything. Helping us buy new hardware does.
7. This is not a joke. I am very irritated that some people seem to not know these things.

Please keep the above points in mind the next time you want to complain about the Bulbagarden server. Thank you for your consideration.
 
Today, buying the right to complain, tomorrow, paid subscriptions for all access >_>

I'm sorry, but I have a hard time feeling much agreement with you. The fact you're pursuing further education is excellent, don't get me wrong---but running this site is a completely voluntary action, and what I take away from your own words is that you barely if ever have a chance to actually do much. Wouldn't it be a lot less stressful on you and everybody else if someone with more time to dedicate to this was in that position?
 
More like a global announcement than a sticky, I think. ;p

Seriously though....I'm not entirely sure that everyone realises and appreciates just how much work Zhen puts into BMG behind the scenes, especially considering all his real world commitments and responsibilities. It would be quite safe to say that, were Zhen not around, Bulbagarden would never have reached the position it has. He certainly doesn't need to be stressed any more than he already is just coping with everything, and endlessly sending him messages when there's an issue will only compound that problem.

If there's a problem with the server, I highly recommend people join our IRC chat room #bulbagarden on irc.pocketmonsters.net to follow the situation and get updates. Please don't try to contact either Zhen, myself, or other staff members about it. We get enough automatic email from the system when things happen to know that something is happening ourselves anyway, and demanding explanations from us is only going to make us take longer in getting the situation resolved.

As things currently stand, Bulbagarden is a victim of its own popularity. We literally can't afford to expand further at this point in time. Advertising and donations have paid for the server thusfar, but to upgrade to the next level would require a lot more than we can spend at this point in time. When the server does have problems, more often than not it's simply overload of traffic causing some kind of fault. The best thing you can do to help us when things happen is to leave the site alone for 15 mins or so, instead of what some people seem to do, and hammer us further, continuously hitting refresh until something happens.

Nando said:
Today, buying the right to complain, tomorrow, paid subscriptions for all access >_>
Click to expand...

While we will never require paid subscriptions for all access, I think it's quite fair that only those who've donated to the running of this massive server can really complain about how their money has been spent. The fact of the matter is that running this place will have cost approx $3000 US dollars for the period of July 2007 to July 2008. This is not a cheap server. We literally cannot afford anything better at this point in time. And I'm sad to say that Advertising revenues have been going down, not up. We'll know by the end of next month if this is a continuing (and worrying) trend, or if it's simply a blip from the holiday season.

Nando said:
I'm sorry, but I have a hard time feeling much agreement with you. The fact you're pursuing further education is excellent, don't get me wrong---but running this site is a completely voluntary action, and what I take away from your own words is that you barely if ever have a chance to actually do much. Wouldn't it be a lot less stressful on you and everybody else if someone with more time to dedicate to this was in that position?
Click to expand...

I don't think you have any idea just how much work Zhen is doing, or how difficult that job would be. He would certainly be under a lot less stress if we could find him an assistant or two with more time to dedicate. Finding people with the time, who actually have the necessary skills to fill in for Zhen, has proven nigh on impossible. There's a reason no other Pokémon site tried to run a wiki before us.
 
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Nando said:
I'm sorry, but I have a hard time feeling much agreement with you.
Click to expand...

I am not looking for sympathy, just awareness.

The fact you're pursuing further education is excellent, don't get me wrong---but running this site is a completely voluntary action, and what I take away from your own words is that you barely if ever have a chance to actually do much.
Click to expand...

That's because I don't actually need to do much when things are running well. For example, did you even realise I was away for 6½ weeks in summer? Or that I was hospitalised for some time the year before? No, of course not: nobody ever cares about whether or not the administrators are around when there's no trouble. It's only ever when things aren't working well that people notice their absence.

Wouldn't it be a lot less stressful on you and everybody else if someone with more time to dedicate to this was in that position?
Click to expand...

Are you volunteering? Do you know of any other qualified, trustworthy candidates?
 
Most of us are college students and/or have full-time jobs. We're not paid to administrate this site, so it's a relatively low priority. Flooding our inboxes demanding explanations is only going to take more time away from what we have to get done before we can attend to Bulbagarden.

Complainers: Until you can raise the funds and staffing to run a site this size, shut up. Honestly, don't you have anything better to do than freak out if a Pokémon site is down for a while? It's not like we will be gone forever, and it's not like you're missing anything when no one else can access the site. Just go somewhere else for information until the site is back.

People who have donated: Your donations go to upgrading the server. It takes a certain amount of money, a quota, to obtain a new server. Just because a few people donate doesn't mean we can afford to do anything yet. Think of it like one of those fund raising charts with a thermometer that is gradually filled in with a marker until it reaches the top, the goal.
 
Kasumi said:
Of course he's not volunteering, he's just complaining without knowing the real facts behind running a site like this.
Click to expand...

Don't speak for me, thank you.

I have no money to donate (or I would have already) but if there was absolutely any way I could help otherwise, all Zhen would have to do is tell me and I'd be more than happy to try and help.
 
Since I have donated money to Bulbagarden in the past, I now have the official right to complain about the server problems as much as I want. *Gets whacked hard in the face with a metal pan*

I actually have a question about the latest incident with the server. In past when the forums have been down, I have always been able to access Dogasu's Backpack, which is hoted by Bulbagarden. But I was unable to do so in this particular case, and I assume it was the same with other sites hosted by Bulbagarden as well. In the future when the server goes down, is it more likely to involve just the forums, or will there be more frequent occurences like this last time where all of Bulbagarden (including hosted sites) went down?
 
There's a difference between a particular site being down and the services being down. If web service is down then all hosted sites are affected. If the database service is down then all database-driven sites (i.e. BMGf, Bulbapedia etc.) are affected, leaving only the static pages (i.e. Dogasu's site, the Bulbagarden front page, etc.).
 
I know.

I'm working with a few other members on a website that'll prominently feature fan art. We could try to help you out with that.
 
I reserve the right to complain and whine anyway, damn it!

(I also reserve the right to beat the stuffing out of anyone who doesn't respect the fact that Zhen does what he can as far as spending time on this hellhole goes).

(I also also reserve the right to point and laugh at anyone who says "hire someone with more time" without suggesting a competent someone to hire.)
 
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So, what would it take to make Bulbagarden perform like we all would want? I'm tired of excuses. Just tell us what it will take! Once we know, we can start working on a solution.
 
If I knew that, I'd be running an IT consulting business.
 
Nobody is saying you have to ride to the rescue.

What we have to to do first is define the problem. Is it the arrangement we currently have with our host the problem? If so, what do we do about it?

Honestly, Zhen Lin, I want to work with you to make Bulbagarden better.
 
The problem is that at peak load, the server is incapable of handling all the incoming requests at the rate they are coming in. Specifically, it appears that at peak load, data is not being read off and/or written to the hard disk fast enough. There are a few ways to alleviate that - get faster hard disks, or eliminate the need to read off/write to the hard disk, i.e. increase the RAM available for caching (not possible on this server as we have hit the maximum). But in a sense that's only treating the symptoms - I do not know why there should be so much disk I/O going on at peak load.
 
So in the end, sadly, it all boils down to money. We've outgrown the server we're on, which itself is a pretty beefy thing. We can't simply upgrade it, we've hit max specs for the motherboard. We'd have to get an entirely new one at this point. Can we afford it? ....unless advertising revenues start spiking like they were in November and December, we're not even going to be able to afford what we have now without a donation drive of some description.
 
It's not like we can write to Kerry Stokes and ask him for a $5000 cheque, is it?

What are the speccies of the server we're currently using?
 
Fight the good fight, Zhen Lin. You're doing a great job. Your health and then school come first, ignore the whiners. School is and will always be a lot more important than a Pokemon website, and I say this as someone who has donated a fair amount to this site. They can learn to effing deal.
 
Please note: The thread is from 18 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
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