Can say the same about you, you're here, too.


Also, while I agree we shouldn't dwell too much on the whole deal with GamerGate/Anti-GamerGate/Sexual activities, most of you are forgetting all of that adds another side to the problem which does concern the Shrine, potentially a lot: I don't care myself if all of the information brought up is true or false, all I see is that you, Sarah, have become a target of harassment (whether justified or not, again, I don't give a fuck about it), at least part of those folks knows (or should have I used know?) you run FFS, it also has, thus, become a potential target of attacks perpetrated by them. If you really care about this Shrine as much as you've said you do, please, please understand that is time for you to retire and hand ownership to someone "neutral". Having your character still attached to this place in such way now adds another layer of danger which, frankly, we can (and should) do without.
Quoting this here because I wouldn't want it to get ignored by the concerned party.

Tsk... Clearly missed the point.


(...)


Please do me a favor and delete my account from this shithole managed forum. Thank you and I hope your members are giving what they are promised...

Usually, I do not put the boot in, but in this case... good riddance.

---------- Post added at 02:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:53 PM ----------


Can say the same about you, you're here, too.


Quoting this here because I wouldn't want it to get ignored.

Partly true, I agree. At least I don�t spend my time collecting gazillions of links which are trying to discredit a person. FYI, the paragraph you quoted from yourself was what prompted my "Get-A-Life" sentence in the first place: "...you run FFS, it also has, thus, become a potential target of attacks perpetrated by them. If you really care about this Shrine as much as you've said you do, please, please understand that is time for you to retire and hand ownership to someone "neutral". Having your character still attached to this place in such way now adds another layer of danger which, frankly, we can (and should) do without."

Let me please be an admonishing bitch (again) and tell you: should it happen that this site is over, nothing will happen. Our world will not crumble to pieces, the apocalypse won�t happen, the earth will continue spinning. I think that you give way too much importance to trivial things. With "trivial" I mean compared to things like meeting friends, going to a club, reading a book, listening to some music, having sex... you know, basic stuff. I would worry should you extend that much importance towards FFShrine. I get the feeling as if you are embarrassed to be a part of this forum when it�s owned by "such a person" (a person making such a fuss about things, someone who�s attacked right now, does have personal problems, yadda, yadda).

Partly true, I agree. At least I don�t spend my time collecting gazillions of links which are trying to discredit a person. FYI, the paragraph you quoted from yourself was what prompted my "Get-A-Life" sentence in the first place: "...you run FFS, it also has, thus, become a potential target of attacks perpetrated by them. If you really care about this Shrine as much as you've said you do, please, please understand that is time for you to retire and hand ownership to someone "neutral". Having your character still attached to this place in such way now adds another layer of danger which, frankly, we can (and should) do without."
Let me please be an admonishing bitch (again) and tell you: should it happen that this site is over, nothing will happen. Our world will not crumble to pieces, the apocalypse won�t happen, the earth will continue spinning. I think that you give way too much importance to trivial things. With "trivial" I mean something basic like meeting friends, going to a club, reading a book, listening to some music, having sex... you know, basic stuff.
You seem to not get that this isn't about basic stuff only: users have donated their money to keep this place working, if the surfacing of certain information about the Webmaster has put in question her usefulness/damaging-potential in that role, maybe something should be done about it. I have no reasons to completely trust what I've brought up, but I've no reasons to not completely trust it, either. I'm sincerely convinced that whatever crap has been going on on Sarah's side (external services like Twitter included) may mean more trouble for this place. I suggest making some kind of poll, redeem "yourself" a bit and let folks which ensured this place remained online decide who gets to run it.

I have personal problems? Hahaha! Keep your petty insults to yourself, please.

Blah blah donation blah blah

Say, if FFS really crumbles down, I'd wonder if any of them would ask for refunds, and even, uh, get them.

You seem to not get that this isn't about basic stuff only: users have donated their money to keep this place working, if the surfacing of certain information about the Webmaster has put in question her usefulness/damaging-potential in that role, maybe something should be done about it. I have no reasons to completely trust what I've brought up, but I've no reasons to not completely trust it, either. I'm sincerely convinced that whatever crap has been going on on Sarah's side (external services like Twitter included) may mean more trouble for this place. I suggest making some kind of poll, redeem "yourself" a bit and let folks which ensured this place remained online decide who gets to run it.

I have personal problems? Hahaha! Keep your petty insults to yourself, please.

I never said you were having personal problems. I merely attempted to clarify that it�s important to keep some sense of perspective. And I admit I temporarily forgot users paying up to 50 Euros to keep this place alive. In that case, it�s valid to have some questions as to where that money is flowing, of course. But to combine that with what I perceive to be a witchhunt? Not the way to treat people.

I never said you were having personal problems. I merely attempted to clarify that it�s important to keep some sense of perspective. And I admit I temporarily forgot users paying up to 50 Euros to keep this place alive. In that case, it�s valid to have some questions as to where that money is flowing, of course. But to combine that with what I perceive to be a witchhunt? Not the way to treat people.
A witch-hunt? Yeah, this developed into that, but what I have originally posted at the top of page #2 is information anyone can gather on his/her own, heck, I've used public tools and websites to check potential reasons behind the silence and the amount of money required for servers originally stated by the donation-notice. I've seen for months users wondering about the very same things and some even expressed concerns privately. I've shared what I found and, again, I asked for explanations, I've even suggested other users to wait for Sarah to address those concerns, but let's just say her first answer wasn't really much of one, leading to folks like me having more suspicions.

I agree completely with you sir, when you say this place is ultimately one amongst many which could serve the same purpose(s), but if you ask money to your users, I think you at least owe them a bit more transparency and a generally better treatment. I'd dare to say, also based on a statement by Sarah herself, that she's truly being targeted by a group of folks, again, I don't know who's wrong or right in that neck of the woods, still, she's getting targeted->evidence suggested that FFShrine.org got to lose advertisers as a consequence, effectively raising the doubt (in some users' minds) if it wouldn't be better for Sarah to step down from the role she currently has at Shrine, for all I care it doesn't even have to be a permanent deal, free to come back when she has sorted whatever crap she's going through.

The business plan thing i said was more speculation on my part than actual truth, i hadn't talked to Sarah before i posted that, so i apologise for that. As Sarah pointed out, it was an outdated message that she removed after i pointed it out to her.
So correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't you not talk about things that you're not aware of yourself? If anything, it just shows how rogue Sarah is going, leaving her staff completely in the dark about what's going on. Not just people that are helping, but her fellow admins as well. I think that is as alarming as everything else.

I know why you're posting. Because it looks like everybody is accusing her of being a crook, and you want to play the part of the good guy and give people some hope that this isn't gonna go tits up but look, people don't need your promises that she is this or that. Nor do they want you to speak for her if you're not fully aware of the situation. Sarah should be capable of speaking for herself. I think she owes that much. And while she has spoken about some things, its still very vague and open to interpretation. In other words, it isn't good enough.

Donar status with rep sky high would also be nice on the side...ok jk somewhat, morning to all I also wondered about last year perks toooooooo.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't you not talk about things that you're not aware of yourself? If anything, it just shows how rogue Sarah is going, leaving her staff completely in the dark about what's going on. Not just people that are helping, but her fellow admins as well. I think that is as alarming as everything else.
I'm an admin for the forum, i have nothing to do with the running of GH nor do any of the moderators, so Sarah wouldn't need to keep me or any other staff members of the forum informed on anything to do with that, but if i did want to know something she would tell me. It's obvious to everyone that when the forum is closed that we're in need of money to keep going, i don't see that as being kept in the dark. I have LSK as a friend on fb, if he ever wanted to ask any questions about the forum when it was down he could ask me there or even add Sarah herself and ask her. She's not a hard person to talk to. She actually answered some questions on the ffshrine fb page long before all this happened.

etc..

Go back to King's Landing where you belong

NONETHELESS, Sarah deserves a round of applause for sticking on topic and actually addressing the grown-up issues instead of rising to this shameful display of childish mudslinging.


ditto.

I know not why certain strange personal business started to be relevant in oneself definition of bad.

Basically I have clocked out of this debate, not worth the eye strain. If/when the forum goes down Ill be ready.

I want to believe Sarah is doing everything possible to make things better for us, but, there is evidence that she is also quiet about some things that really should have been discussed with the community when it happened, namely the things LSK brought up on page 2. Not once has Sarah ever brought up the additional security measures on the board until page 4 of this thread and not once has Sarah ever mentioned anything about not being able to pay for server costs herself since Sarah is in debt. Not to mention, we lost our advertisers that would reduce server costs, also not discussed with the community. Those three points have done two things: jacked up the server costs and now the servers are being paid by everyone in the community, not including the owner in debt. (Now I'm asking myself, when did these changes occur, since Sarah doesn't ever mention it. My only estimate would be sometime after August of last year when "that" movement began.)

The past donation threads have users with the same concerns that we're talking about in this thread, and no one got a response from Sarah about it! "GH is dead, how are we suppose to use these privileges?!" -no response. Again, not to be rude, this place is ran by someone with a lack of communication skills and leadership skills, something that should be required for such a large and active community. I know this is going to make Sarah "smh" again, but this is making you look like you're taking advantage of the community, even when you're not!

Can you really blame us for blowing this out of proportion when our voices have fallen on deaf ears in the past?

I guess our voices will tell you when the next donation lockdown happens again. (and don't bother trying to say there won't be one, it'll happen. Probably between August-October 2015, if nothing changes)



I just feel like the place would be better off being transferred to someone that is a great leader and owner, that's willing to listen to their community and make decisions based on their voices. Someone that is also financially stable and can also pay out of their pocket when donation goals may not be met is a plus as well.

Message posted in 2 sections.

Well, sorry for the late post and not being able to further explain everything, but its just to point out that my forum is ready.

I'm working at archiving some lossless post here and here and making a better theme for the forum too.

But since I don't know how everything will evolve, I will let the community decide whatever they want: migrate or stay ? before making my forum public.

Didn't take a rocket scientist to guess this was probably happening.

Go back to King's Landing where you belong

But Tyrion Lannister is no longer in King's Landing...

But Tyrion Lannister is no longer in King's Landing...

I tried to word it without spoilers.... so for anyone who got the reference would understand that I found the user "Tyrion Lannister"'s post quite rude and demeaning so I told him to go back to King's Landing to.. face justice . That was the true meaning hidden behind the fact that his username represents Tyrion Lannister who as we all know belongs in King's Landing, not on ffshrine..

I tried to word it without spoilers....


But Tyrion Lannister is no longer in King's Landing...

That's how you do it.

Honestly I don't think that's a spoiler. People have either read the books and are up to date with the show, or have only seen the show. I'm the person who's only seen the show. And surely everyone is caught up by now. People should be. :p


That's how you do it.

Yes, I know. I've used spoiler tags in some of my own threads

Yes, I know. I've used spoiler tags in some of my own threads

But season 4 just ended, not everyone has zero life.
Plus with thousands of shows every month, not everyone is going to be caught up.

And "if you're a true fan" doesn't even begin to validate anything.

What people "should" be with their lives is none of your business.

Why does everything I say have to be blown way out of proportion..? It was a joke...

Why does everything I say have to be blown way out of proportion..? It was a joke...

Welcome to Shrine.

*shakes head*

Lighten up

But season 4 just ended

It started a year ago and ended 10 months ago

For intents and purposes, I win.

It started a year ago and ended 10 months ago

The filming, yes. It didn't air until April 2014.

The filming, yes. It didn't air until April 2014.

... a year ago? Like DAK said?

Why does everything I say have to be blown way out of proportion..? It was a joke...

Nothing's being blown out of proportion. We're just discussing, that's all


The filming, yes. It didn't air until April 2014.

Yes, which was a year ago. It's April 2015. 10 episodes over 10 weeks, which is 2 months. It premiered April 2014 (a year ago), ended in June of 2014 (10 months ago)


... a year ago? Like DAK said?

Correct









Season 5 of Game of Thrones™ premieres Sunday, April 12th at 9PM only on HBO�

... a year ago? Like DAK said?

He said "a year and ten months ago"

Or maybe I can't read

Edit: yep I read it wrong. Either way we're both correct

don't want to derail this thread anymore

Thread's dead already. Beyond the point of any SyFy remake.


He said "a year and ten months ago"

Or maybe I can't read

He said it started a year ago and ended 10 months ago.

I still have the remuxes for the episodes just sitting and waiting.

I think I'll start a marathon of highlight episodes from each season tomorrow night.

Youtube should have some really nice "previously on Game of Thrones" material.

True Blood blurays had a nice 4 minute "previously" that showed a lot of crap that happened in previous season I was thankful for.


Edit: yep I read it wrong. Either way we're both correct

So everybody wins. Great. Just great.

Threadtopic? Hey Threadtopic, where are you??!

Threadtopic? Hey Threadtopic, where are you??!


Thread's dead already

Im quite down for a new forum.

Im quite down for a new forum.

Me too. One where members have to post and be involved in order for it to remain open. Unlike all the trolls hiding in their caves on this place....

A witch-hunt? Yeah, this developed into that, but what I have originally posted at the top of page #2 is information anyone can gather on his/her own, heck, I've used public tools and websites to check potential reasons behind the silence and the amount of money required for servers originally stated by the donation-notice. I've seen for months users wondering about the very same things and some even expressed concerns privately. I've shared what I found and, again, I asked for explanations, I've even suggested other users to wait for Sarah to address those concerns, but let's just say her first answer wasn't really much of one, leading to folks like me having more suspicions.

I agree completely with you sir, when you say this place is ultimately one amongst many which could serve the same purpose(s), but if you ask money to your users, I think you at least owe them a bit more transparency and a generally better treatment. I'd dare to say, also based on a statement by Sarah herself, that she's truly being targeted by a group of folks, again, I don't know who's wrong or right in that neck of the woods, still, she's getting targeted->evidence suggested that FFShrine.org got to lose advertisers as a consequence, effectively raising the doubt (in some users' minds) if it wouldn't be better for Sarah to step down from the role she currently has at Shrine, for all I care it doesn't even have to be a permanent deal, free to come back when she has sorted whatever crap she's going through.

Sorry for posting so late, have been scrubbing the terrace, cleaned the summer furniture and our bikes, the sun was shining and it was warm, both of which was too good to pass.

I have to say that I never cared who runs this forum, I didn�t know if it was one person or a group of people. Until yesterday I just didn�t ask myself. Nonetheless, I mused about it in passing when those "we-need-money"-messages popped up. What I want to say is that I probably still wouldn�t know all of this if people wouldn�t have provided that data via some information they linked. The tricky thing about this kind of information is how it�ll be treated once it is combined with less stable individuals, people bringing their personal issues into the discussion. One just cannot expect them to work with this knowledge in a responsible way, they just don�t work like that (Hell, in the past I twisted such info on another forum, too - and I�m ashamed). IMO it would have been wiser to self-censor your information so that it wouldn�t have been abused. I don�t know, only saying "Sarah has some personal problems, she can explain those herself if she wants to." Don�t get me wrong, usually I hate censoring of any kind. But when people are attacked it crosses a line, I think.

I also think that it�s wrong to ask for her removal. If it�s true and she is right in the middle of some sort of transition, it would be bad to take something away from her in which she invested time, money and her passion (sounds cheesy, I know). Changing a gender is never easy and aside from psychological problems the physiological pain is tremendous. Having something to occupy your mind with is therefore a very good thing. In light of this, I think it�s brave for her to be this outspoken against discrimination, if I would be in her situation, I would certainly be a coward. Furthermore, being attacked doesn�t make things easier, especially when a thread has been derailed. And now I�m gossiping myself. Fuck.

Anyway, I have decided to be patient about all of this. I cannot change it anyway, and I don�t want to. Time will tell if this will be sorted out, I can wait.

BTW, I very much enjoy that you and I have a discussion lacking aggression :)

I have to say that I never cared who runs this forum, I didn�t know if it was one person or a group of people. Until yesterday I just didn�t ask myself. Nonetheless, I mused about it in passing when those "we-need-money"-messages popped up. What I want to say is that I probably still wouldn�t know all of this if people wouldn�t have provided that data via some information they linked. The tricky thing about this kind of information is how it�ll be treated once it is combined with less stable individuals, people bringing their personal issues into the discussion. One just cannot expect them to work with this knowledge in a responsible way, they just don�t work like that (Hell, in the past I twisted such info on another forum, too - and I�m ashamed). IMO it would have been wiser to self-censor your information so that it wouldn�t have been abused. I don�t know, only saying "Sarah has some personal problems, she can explain those herself if she wants to." Don�t get me wrong, usually I hate censoring of any kind. But when people are attacked it crosses a line, I think.

I also think that it�s wrong to ask for her removal. If it�s true and she is right in the middle of some sort of transition, it would be bad to take something away from her in which she invested time, money and her passion (sounds cheesy, I know). Changing a gender is never easy and aside from psychological problems the physiological pain is tremendous. Having something to occupy your mind with is therefore a very good thing. In light of this, I think it�s brave for her to be this outspoken against discrimination, if I would be in her situation, I would certainly be a coward. Furthermore, being attacked doesn�t make things easier, especially when a thread has been derailed. And now I�m gossiping myself. Fuck.

Most of this discussion should not be about the forum owner's gender for crying out loud. Most of that was brought on by other members when it honestly never should have in the first place.

It's more in the matter of a certain group of individuals (read Sarah's earlier posts please) that are looking to damage everything in this person's life, including this very forum. Now the owner is in debt trying to protect themselves from these individuals and has no funds to contribute towards the server costs. Also, these individuals reported our advertisers (which would keep server costs down otherwise) and pushed Sarah into buying extra security measures because of all of this. Now all the inflated server costs have been thrust upon everyone in the community to pay for in order for the forums to stay up.

Whether we can believe what Sarah has stated to be true or not is up in the air, but I'm just basing this all on what has been stated by Sarah and what we can find in public on our own, like Leon Scott Kennedy has done (and even myself, looking into the forum's hosting company pricing). We're not asking to remove herself from the community, just to transfer ownership to someone that isn't being threatened for their life so we don't have to continue the additional, and un-needed, security costs.

An owner that can pay for the rest of the costs that donations do not would be nice too. Maybe if donors are offered some great perks to contribute, and not privileges to a dead site, they may never have to run into this that issue of paying out-of-pocket at all possibly.

I am not going to go into a lengthy discussion on what this topic has disintegrated into but I do wanna say this. Why the fuck do some donors demand "perks" when they have freely downloaded hundreds, thousands or even millions of dollars worth of music in the download sections of this forum!?

I know Sarah suggested some kind of reward but that was out of gratitude and kindness from her own heart. To me it is a simple matter, if you love this place for the community here or you just wanna continue downloading or sharing cool shit then you should consider donating with no strings attached. I have donated in the past but I have never expected or demanded anything in return.

Who asked who for stuff first and now who owes who again?

I'm sorry to mix the answer to both of your quotes, but I'd probably end up repeating some stuff.

@Zoran | SonicAdventure
I do understand what you're saying, seriously, but even if you "love" this place (I think the active contributors do, they're probably the ones donating the most, but this is speculation on my part), there is a breaking point: my, oh my, Shrine has allowed folks to download soundtracks for years… Big. Fucking. Deal. Not the first place, not the last. I don't know how many of those who donated money are actually concerned with stuff like perks, but it's a fact, let me stress it again, a fact that the perks promised were for a website dead (content-wise) for years… And I'd venture a guess users didn't even get forum-related perks (again, advertised on the donation-notice). You don't care about it Zoran? Good for you, still, don't expect it to be the same for everyone else, not everyone becomes that attached to what is merely, for all intent and purposes, a simple tool to share messages/images/URLs. Presently, the Shrine isn't really offering anything special enough to set it aside from the rest of pirates' dens. Though I've approached it only in November 2007, it is my understanding that some of the content which found its way on Galbadia Hotel came from the users, so without this community, where… Or rather… What would FFS be? Nothing.

I know I could have expressed my concerns in regards to the whole deal privately to at least Jessie, first, but I was under assumption he couldn't really give the answers I wanted (an assumption he had confirmed), besides, this is a matter mainly concerning Sarah and the community, I thought the heat of it should have been shared with them, too.
I understand also the concerns about the privacy of such information, but:

1) Had Sarah acted as a more responsible Webmaster/mistress, some wouldn't have felt it was time to take matters into their own hands. As I've stated previously, users contacted me about donation-drives and, having witnessed how Sarah didn't bother to answer to legitimate questions on the board, over time, forgive me for thinking I wasn't going to get much better out of her.
2) This is something trivial, but I've noticed that when I'm logged out of the forum, the block of sections "containing" Question, Feedback, Assistance is hidden. Plus, it has been stressed enough times that the main concerns for users here aren't her personal issues, judging by some of the opinions expressed in this very thread, I'm going to believe folks wouldn't even bother "adding fuel to the fire"; they'd simply move to another place.

I'm going sound like the piece of scum lacking empathy/sympathy, but in regards to the removal-from-her-role suggestion (which, I state again, it doesn't even have to be permanent):

- You can't expect money-senders to be always understanding. Someone's got legitimately annoyed. Even though I don't know Sarah at all (I'll have "talked" with her 2/3 times - maybe -, in all the years I've been here) and I honestly wish her to successfully get out of whatever mess(es) she's got herself into [I've dealt with harassment in my early years], I'm still thinking it would be a display of correctness|maturity on her part to hand the reins of Shrine to someone who is competent and able to support it financially, both aspects she showed to not being able to handle in a satisfying manner, any more. Please understand that by suggesting to let Sarah "take a vacation" we're also looking out for ourselves and our security, we can't have someone who's been targeted like herself in such a position; who can safely say those folks harassing her aren't going to target us and our personal data, too? They do know she runs FFS.

Hi, I just wanted to ask how do I know if I actually have a premium account? I donated 30 bucks and I�m not sure if It registered

Join the club of people that paid buddy, if your expecting a global award or some shiny icon for donar status then put it in your picture and signature.

Join the club of people that paid buddy, if your expecting a global award or some shiny icon for donar status then put it in your picture and signature.

Maybe or maybe not, it would be nice :)

At least Game of Thrones returns tomorrow. (!!!!!!!!!!!)

if you guys want to randomly shoot the shit, please make a thread in GD-- it makes it hard to follow what's going on here.

wanted to give a brief update: i fixed the older donation messages that reflected outdated costs. again, i'm sorry about that-- i can see how they caused concern with people. i had honestly forgotten they were even there.

i've updated that, i'm about halfway done adding perks for everyone. as i mentioned previously i'm out of town but i'm getting back tonight so i can wrap up adding the perks and work on the other stuff soon here. i'll also go back through the thread and answer more of the questions tonight/early tomorrow

PS, tarenki: go to your private messages. if your PM limit is 3,000, that means you're in the supporter usergroup.

You tell 'em Sarah!

You tell 'em Sarah!

Looks like someone is in the right spot ... (Scissors)

... yet there was no need for a donation drive before the Download subforums were active... and none of this garbage being spewed around.

http://37.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_loujs4cSPV1qizvnso1_500.gif


Goodbye everyone, I'll use my diamond hard erection to open the door.

See you all on the new forums!

See you all on the new forums!

Why?

... yet there was no need for a donation drive before the Download subforums were active... and none of this garbage being spewed around.

Was waiting for this response. Heya Darth. :)

Was waiting for this response. Heya Darth. :)

Heh... I always strike... just... biding my time.

And in this case, since it is a true statement, I actually agree. Folks want shrine pruned, you know just what to cut first, don't ya?, :awsm:

Hey my apologies if I sound like a douchebag before, I�m grateful to ffshrine and all the uploaders around I just wanted to check out if I was missing some step to enhance the account but I�m cool just to see the site It�s still alive and well

I am not an IT girl, so I do not understand the technicals of most of this. As such I have no way to really judge the monies issues. Sarah's personal issues are none of mine. I only take issue with the personalized comments about her. However the money goes, the site HAS always come back on. I know I'd never have most of my music without this place, nor some friends. And, as it stands, this is still Sarah's site. The very site you are using to make your plans to jump ship. All I feel is that she deserves my thanks and respect at the least. Replacing the shrine is a difficult thing to define. It has a life of it's own, and most other forums miss ouut on that somehow.

You're not an IT girl, but several people here are. Sarah's getting overcharged, and Darth Revan seems to be blaming the download subforum itself of such high costs. Well no, she's the one that decided to keep the Expensive Hotel. Help us persuade her NOT to or something.

She never has answered any question I put to her regarding that. I have no inside track to persuade her. I do not understand having it around myself. However, Darth IS correct. Before the dl forums were around, there simply was no high costs to cover. Now the dl forum overshadows all. His animosity to the sub forums is well known and justified, actually.

Of course, historically correct, so? You two have been "hinting" as if dropping the download subforum altogether now would magically resolve the financial crisis and bring the Shrine back to its good old days.

Too bad! Unless you include the Hotel.

Well, I happen to be at odds with Darth about that. I am mainly here to download/upload. So he and I are on opposite sides of that coin. Yet somehow we remain friendly and not insult each other. Fantastical.

I do not want to lose the sub forums at all. I do not want to lose this place. I thrive here. I love it here. A little more rough and tumble than some forum, but far more interesting and vital. I do not want to see any changes in my favorite place.

This does not mean I do not understand the frustrations of certain donors. Certainly there are issues. I have no answer to that. I do not pretend to. I resigned myself to these donation drives years ago. And every time, I am braced for the place to fall. It has not yet. Obviously that may change soon enough. And if so Sarah has no one to blame but herself, since she does not seem to keep even her staff in the loop. Nothing I can say or do about that.I frequent many sites. Another spot to drop into is always welcome. I am saddened by the atmosphere in which it is happening, but nothing I can do about that either. Time will tell.

I will admit I did download the soundtrack to the first two Mass Effect games, as they weren't available locally in Australia at the time. I DID purchase physical copies when I could and I do not support nor blatantly attack those who do use the download section (unless they attack myself first, then the gloves are off). Point is, that before the download section appeared, we never saw the site down nor did Sarah have to ask for people to donate. So one can draw the conclusion that if the download section wasn't added, then the monetary problems would be nonexistent.

Most of the 'Old Guard' have moved on, yet there are some who are still here... I do not support the download section at all. However, with Amanda, while we have butted heads in the past, it's her choice to upload/download, just as it's my choice not to. Who the Hell do you think you are Vrantheo to judge us? We have our opinion just like you do... Don't have to like it, but at least respect it.

I don't feel entitled to judge anyone, because we should just equally judge each other in the open. Maybe I have a smug and jocular attitude sometimes, but I do respect everyone, by trying to be straightforward.

You already saw lots of people in this thread shouting "WHAT DID THE FUNDS PAY FOR", "WHERE DID THE MONEY GO" and such, and most of them are from the DL subforum itself.

And when you "drew that conclusion", you seemed to have confused the DL subforum with the "download section". The DL subforum is just people posting links, which shouldn't cost much. Galbadia Hotel, on the other side, is the monstrous place that hosts tonnes of MP3s, has been down for "quite a while", and seemingly sucks up the most ridiculous amount of the funds.

You're mistaking us for enemies, fellows. The Hotel is probably what you should be against. But it's all up to Sarah, we should all keep questioning her for information.

Not a fellow, and not an enemy. I have never meant to say so.

Not a fellow, and not an enemy. I have never meant to say so.

We've cleared the air a bit. Sorry if the intense banter offended you :)

And this goes to Revan too.

Hey my apologies if I sound like a douchebag before, I�m grateful to ffshrine and all the uploaders around I just wanted to check out if I was missing some step to enhance the account but I�m cool just to see the site It�s still alive and well

You've already got the added perks from donating. You don't use an avatar, so you wouldn't notice the added dimension size allotted for that and you should have increased space for private messages.

So many pages to read... In case of this site dead I invite you to visit VGM Central hub (dchub://vgmcentral.no-ip.com) via DC++ client. At least we all can chat there.

I am still waiting for the answer which should address other concerns raised in this thread (as well as the "matters" I shared with Jessie), just saying. Still haven't finished going through the thread?

I am still waiting for the answer which should address other concerns raised in this thread (as well as the "matters" I shared with Jessie), just saying. Still haven't finished going through the thread?

Doesn't look we're going to get a response anytime soon if even at all.

Doesn't look we're going to get a response anytime soon if even at all.
Wanna know something? At this point I don't think an answer from her might really make a difference; same old litany. Why did I even bother… Should have known by now how it was going to end.

Disgusting.

You See when something's wrong in the forum, wait a couple months for your admin to reply or how about this forget about receiving an answer, its a pattern Sarah has built-up. I'm not convinced any real progress will be taking seriously. Your approach of "let's keep it together guys" doesn't instill hope rather acts more like a whistle to calm everyone's attention.


Please do me a favor and delete my account from this shithole managed forum. Thank you and I hope your members are giving what they are promised...



-Neo_chip

But mang....that identity theft article is from 2008. And where's my free gamez?

>tfw no free games

Sigh, where are the games sarah!? YOU PROMISED THERE WOULD BE GAYMS!

Anyway, if that is true, then I guess she is still struggling with it, she hasn't answered about it, she's dodging the question like malaria only leaving cryptic info without concrete proof, I've already started posting music on this other boards anyway but still man.

Anyway, the lockdown thing would still counts as paying for pirated content, wouldn't it?


http://media.giphy.com/media/sMTVmMIl7S4bC/giphy.gif

>Check out the links
>Download links are hosted @ Filesonic, which is dead.

Despite acknowledgement of further pirating/sharing of copyrighted content (old news~), it has nothing to do with the server finances we've been debating about.

But yeah, at this point I'll be sharing content elsewhere.

i'm willing to answer any questions, as i have been doing from the start. the forums aren't going anywhere.

this thread is completely filled with nonsense and libel from the group of people harassing me. i'm willing to tolerate any questions, what i'm not tolerating is links to the people engaging in this harassment which contained things up to and including my home address and the names of my family members. you do that, i'm banning you. i had to ban one user already. the people some of you are choosing to believe i've already had to contact the police over three times.

please keep the thread productive and on topic and i'll answer any questions. insults, personal attacks, libel, links to my dox? not happening.

everyone *should* have their perks. if you haven't received them yet, PM me and i'll sort it out. i'll start trying to go back and answer some more questions here in a second.

cstrife0777: if you can explain/detail your concerns i'll gladly address them

i'm willing to tolerate any questions

Why do the servers cost so much? Is this purely from traffic? Is it from GH's dead weight? Like, actually break down the cost per month or something. If all of our assumptions (as far as costs, traffic, etc.) are wildly off then could you please give us some accurate ones?

I'm just quoting some concerns within the last few pages.

Among those leechers some of you despise so much may be individuals helping with donations and, on a level which strictly concerns users and uploaders, leeching refers to someone which downloads and doesn't bother to interact, right? Well, half of it sucks, the other half is still awesome news for the community as a whole: they download->they potentially extend the "life" of a link by 30/60/XX number of days. They don't really deserve much of the crap folks seem to be sending their way.

Onto the rest.

Hm. Thanks for the recent answers, Sarah. Guess I will still have trust, another chance is deserved, but I'm gonna be honest: I've stirred up the drama and even now I don't regret it, I've seen users waiting too long for answers they weren't getting. For what it's worth, all I've come across has been seen through the eyes of an outsider whose pressing concerns were trying to understand the reasons behind the silence and offering some possible answers to the community. Now, I'd like to get a bit more info on a few things:

- Jessie mentioned suggesting the addition of a donation-bar to the place, and I also recall other users bringing it up over the years. Would you consider attempting that some time in the future? It may help, it may not, but to me a donation-meter still sounds better than completely shutting down the board to put up a notice.

- I'm not privy just to how much Jessie can actually do as Admin, so I may very well be talking crap, but: do you have someone helping you completely administer things? (I mean stuff like managing servers, fixing up the occasional technical issue, adding those perks) If not, would you consider looking for someone? I do understand finding someone to trust with such privileges is hard, but it seems you can use the help.

http://forums.ffshrine.org/f7/about-donations~-167299/

http://forums.ffshrine.org/f7/latest-donation-drive~-172322/

Thread 181230

http://forums.ffshrine.org/f7/thanks-donations-~-181185/

I don't know if any of the user found in the threads above ultimately got their perks, but given they've tried to remind a few times how they had yet to get any of that crap, I'd be inclined to believe they also would have stated they� Huh� Finally got it. Just proves of rather crappy/lazy management, not like there's a lack of that, anyway.
I've forgot to mention yesterday the business plan of inflating the costs is a disgusting move on your part, but whatever, tangotreats pointed it out much more nicely than me.
I do "know" Sarah was currently following up with 2, sometimes 3 advertisers in multiple instances (messages are spread in this very section of the board and on the Facebook's Shrine group). Is it now hard for you to find advertisers? Then, shouldn't you have done something "drastic" about it sooner? You've stated on Facebook the resources for GH and the rest are pooled together, but that shouldn't be hard to fix: backup the board somewhere (I guess that would require quite the downtime, but I think that would be the first downtime users are going to be happy about), wipe everything else� GH and that useless website about the FINAL FANTASY series (not updated in years)� And restore the board.

Also, while I agree we shouldn't dwell too much on the whole deal with GamerGate/Anti-GamerGate/Sexual activities, most of you are forgetting all of that adds another side to the problem which does concern the Shrine, potentially a lot: I don't care myself if all of the information brought up is true or false, all I see is that you, Sarah, have become a target of harassment (whether justified or not, again, I don't give a fuck about it), at least part of those folks knows (or should have I used know?) you run FFS, it also has, thus, become a potential target of attacks perpetrated by them. If you really care about this Shrine as much as you've said you do, please, please understand that is time for you to retire and hand ownership to someone "neutral". Having your character still attached to this place in such way now adds another layer of danger which, frankly, we can (and should) do without.

(In Response to LSK above...)
Thank you for that statement. I was going to try to discuss that situation without offending Sarah or anyone else on either side, but you said it better than anyone.

The extra security in place may protect us, but, we are the ones paying for it in the end, since Sarah cannot. I think that should give everyone a voice in where ffshrine goes and what should happen. This is as much as our home as it is for Sarah, Jessie, Leon Scott Kennedy, myself and for over 13,000 active members in the community.

I want to believe Sarah is doing everything possible to make things better for us, but, there is evidence that she is also quiet about some things that really should have been discussed with the community when it happened, namely the things LSK brought up on page 2. Not once has Sarah ever brought up the additional security measures on the board until page 4 of this thread and not once has Sarah ever mentioned anything about not being able to pay for server costs herself since Sarah is in debt. Not to mention, we lost our advertisers that would reduce server costs, also not discussed with the community. Those three points have done two things: jacked up the server costs and now the servers are being paid by everyone in the community, not including the owner in debt. (Now I'm asking myself, when did these changes occur, since Sarah doesn't ever mention it. My only estimate would be sometime after August of last year when "that" movement began.)

The past donation threads have users with the same concerns that we're talking about in this thread, and no one got a response from Sarah about it! "GH is dead, how are we suppose to use these privileges?!" -no response. Again, not to be rude, this place is ran by someone with a lack of communication skills and leadership skills, something that should be required for such a large and active community. I know this is going to make Sarah "smh" again, but this is making you look like you're taking advantage of the community, even when you're not!

Can you really blame us for blowing this out of proportion when our voices have fallen on deaf ears in the past?

I guess our voices will tell you when the next donation lockdown happens again. (and don't bother trying to say there won't be one, it'll happen. Probably between August-October 2015, if nothing changes)



I just feel like the place would be better off being transferred to someone that is a great leader and owner, that's willing to listen to their community and make decisions based on their voices. Someone that is also financially stable and can also pay out of their pocket when donation goals may not be met is a plus as well.
I could also suggest additional perks for donators, but I'll leave that to you or let the others give you suggestions. The two issues I see with this is that 1) you don't have a sort of "gimmick" that would consider us to more likely donate to you and 2) you have no real way to sort out posts based on specific requirements.

Examples:
*) A photo rendering site that has premium hi-quality renders locked to regular users unless you "unlock" the post with points we earn from "thanking" others and posting in general discussion.
*) A rom download site that limits the amount ALL visitors can download daily unless they register and make posts to be able to accumulate additional points for more downloads.

You could maybe have a special donator's section for only donators and admins/moderators, a flash game section, I could go on....

---------- Post added at 01:25 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:20 AM ----------

Some more~

Most of this discussion should not be about the forum owner's gender for crying out loud. Most of that was brought on by other members when it honestly never should have in the first place.

It's more in the matter of a certain group of individuals (read Sarah's earlier posts please) that are looking to damage everything in this person's life, including this very forum. Now the owner is in debt trying to protect themselves from these individuals and has no funds to contribute towards the server costs. Also, these individuals reported our advertisers (which would keep server costs down otherwise) and pushed Sarah into buying extra security measures because of all of this. Now all the inflated server costs have been thrust upon everyone in the community to pay for in order for the forums to stay up.

Whether we can believe what Sarah has stated to be true or not is up in the air, but I'm just basing this all on what has been stated by Sarah and what we can find in public on our own, like Leon Scott Kennedy has done (and even myself, looking into the forum's hosting company pricing). We're not asking to remove herself from the community, just to transfer ownership to someone that isn't being threatened for their life so we don't have to continue the additional, and un-needed, security costs.

An owner that can pay for the rest of the costs that donations do not would be nice too. Maybe if donors are offered some great perks to contribute, and not privileges to a dead site, they may never have to run into this that issue of paying out-of-pocket at all possibly.

I'm sorry to mix the answer to both of your quotes, but I'd probably end up repeating some stuff.

@Zoran | SonicAdventure
I do understand what you're saying, seriously, but even if you "love" this place (I think the active contributors do, they're probably the ones donating the most, but this is speculation on my part), there is a breaking point: my, oh my, Shrine has allowed folks to download soundtracks for years� Big. Fucking. Deal. Not the first place, not the last. I don't know how many of those who donated money are actually concerned with stuff like perks, but it's a fact, let me stress it again, a fact that the perks promised were for a website dead (content-wise) for years� And I'd venture a guess users didn't even get forum-related perks (again, advertised on the donation-notice). You don't care about it Zoran? Good for you, still, don't expect it to be the same for everyone else, not everyone becomes that attached to what is merely, for all intent and purposes, a simple tool to share messages/images/URLs. Presently, the Shrine isn't really offering anything special enough to set it aside from the rest of pirates' dens. Though I've approached it only in November 2007, it is my understanding that some of the content which found its way on Galbadia Hotel came from the users, so without this community, where� Or rather� What would FFS be? Nothing.

I know I could have expressed my concerns in regards to the whole deal privately to at least Jessie, first, but I was under assumption he couldn't really give the answers I wanted (an assumption he had confirmed), besides, this is a matter mainly concerning Sarah and the community, I thought the heat of it should have been shared with them, too.
I understand also the concerns about the privacy of such information, but:

1) Had Sarah acted as a more responsible Webmaster/mistress, some wouldn't have felt it was time to take matters into their own hands. As I've stated previously, users contacted me about donation-drives and, having witnessed how Sarah didn't bother to answer to legitimate questions on the board, over time, forgive me for thinking I wasn't going to get much better out of her.
2) This is something trivial, but I've noticed that when I'm logged out of the forum, the block of sections "containing" Question, Feedback, Assistance is hidden. Plus, it has been stressed enough times that the main concerns for users here aren't her personal issues, judging by some of the opinions expressed in this very thread, I'm going to believe folks wouldn't even bother "adding fuel to the fire"; they'd simply move to another place.

I'm going sound like the piece of scum lacking empathy/sympathy, but in regards to the removal-from-her-role suggestion (which, I state again, it doesn't even have to be permanent):

- You can't expect money-senders to be always understanding. Someone's got legitimately annoyed. Even though I don't know Sarah at all (I'll have "talked" with her 2/3 times - maybe -, in all the years I've been here) and I honestly wish her to successfully get out of whatever mess(es) she's got herself into [I've dealt with harassment in my early years], I'm still thinking it would be a display of correctness|maturity on her part to hand the reins of Shrine to someone who is competent and able to support it financially, both aspects she showed to not being able to handle in a satisfying manner, any more. Please understand that by suggesting to let Sarah "take a vacation" we're also looking out for ourselves and our security, we can't have someone who's been targeted like herself in such a position; who can safely say those folks harassing her aren't going to target us and our personal data, too? They do know she runs FFS.

donation bar: yeah, this is something i will look into if the advertiser situation somehow doesn't pan out. getting advertisers is a long process; you need to apply, wait to be accepted, to a trial run to see what kind of CPM the ads can pull.. and then, after that, sometimes the CPM tanks after about a month or so because it can be adjusted based on a CPM/CPA/CPC hybrid model. i'll post an update here on how the ad situation looks in about a month? that should be long enough to get a solid estimate on the CPM

help with administration: frankly, there aren't a lot of people technically competent enough that i trust. i have no issues with handling the back end of things, i've done so for over 10 years and have mostly kept the site stable for that long. in that entire time we've had brief downtime a few times, and only once in those 10 years have we had to do a board restore that lost more than a month of data. before i became webmaster here? we had complete board wipes four times in three years. jessie has done a lot to help me manage the front end; the moderation and administration of the forums, and he deserves tons of thanks for doing so. i want to add even more staff to keep things running smoothly, and that will be happening once i handle the more urgent stuff.

more on advertisers: finding an advertiser isn't hard. finding a good one can unfortunately be relatively challenging. see above; i'm actually testing to find out the CPM on one of the new ones right now.

on transparency issues: i admit i haven't been as transparent about the fact that we lost advertisers & had some security concerns as i should have been. i'm trying to fix that now, which is why i'm answering questions. my gut instinct was to try to fix things and get everything under control without having to worry the userbase, but i realize that backfired and wasn't fair to anyone. i'm sorry for not giving people a heads up sooner; that's on me, and you're right to have been bothered by it. i thought i could get things under control in time.

additional perks: i'm definitely open to suggestions for more perks! a donator-only forum is definitely a possibility. we could make a separate thread for suggestions and vote on them, if you like?

Dear Sarah,

I have donated via the e-mail address [email protected]. Could you kindly check? Tried to PM but failed to find the way...

Dear Sarah,

I have donated via the e-mail address [email protected]. Could you kindly check? Tried to PM but failed to find the way...

ah, it looks like it didn't go through because of your usergroup. it should work now-- thank you. the PM should also work if you have any other questions

I don't understand the need to ban a user which directed at you legitimate "concerns":

1) Gaining profit from piracy is a violation of pretty much every advertiser's Terms of service, fuck me with a chainsaw if that doesn't make obtaining new advertisers "impossible" for this place.

2) For better or worse, a group of folks supposedly caused FFShrine to lose advertisers; what makes you think there won't be a repeat of that event?

donation bar: yeah, this is something i will look into if the advertiser situation somehow doesn't pan out. getting advertisers is a long process; you need to apply, wait to be accepted, to a trial run to see what kind of CPM the ads can pull.. and then, after that, sometimes the CPM tanks after about a month or so because it can be adjusted based on a CPM/CPA/CPC hybrid model. i'll post an update here on how the ad situation looks in about a month? that should be long enough to get a solid estimate on the CPM

help with administration: frankly, there aren't a lot of people technically competent enough that i trust. i have no issues with handling the back end of things, i've done so for over 10 years and have mostly kept the site stable for that long. in that entire time we've had brief downtime a few times, and only once in those 10 years have we had to do a board restore that lost more than a month of data. before i became webmaster here? we had complete board wipes four times in three years. jessie has done a lot to help me manage the front end; the moderation and administration of the forums, and he deserves tons of thanks for doing so. i want to add even more staff to keep things running smoothly, and that will be happening once i handle the more urgent stuff.

more on advertisers: finding an advertiser isn't hard. finding a good one can unfortunately be relatively challenging. see above; i'm actually testing to find out the CPM on one of the new ones right now.

on transparency issues: i admit i haven't been as transparent about the fact that we lost advertisers & had some security concerns as i should have been. i'm trying to fix that now, which is why i'm answering questions. my gut instinct was to try to fix things and get everything under control without having to worry the userbase, but i realize that backfired and wasn't fair to anyone. i'm sorry for not giving people a heads up sooner; that's on me, and you're right to have been bothered by it. i thought i could get things under control in time.

additional perks: i'm definitely open to suggestions for more perks! a donator-only forum is definitely a possibility. we could make a separate thread for suggestions and vote on them, if you like?

That's great but


Why do the servers cost so much? Is this purely from traffic? Is it from GH's dead weight? Like, actually break down the cost per month or something. If all of our assumptions (as far as costs, traffic, etc.) are wildly off then could you please give us some accurate ones?

Why do the servers cost so much? Is this purely from traffic? Is it from GH's dead weight? Like, actually break down the cost per month or something. If all of our assumptions (as far as costs, traffic, etc.) are wildly off then could you please give us some accurate ones?

the numbers that people are throwing around are... from people that have no idea what it takes, financially or otherwise, to run a site like this. bargain basement servers from kimsufi are for things like seedboxes for torrents and sketchy sites, they're awful for a big site like this. as sites grow in size, the headaches grow exponentially. people are using traffic estimates that aren't even *close* to on track. someone compared what a site like this uses to a 200mb sql database... that would be taken up in no time at all. our database is *gigabytes*.

i don't know if people remember, but a few years ago everyone was complaining about the speed of the forums. the reason why that went away? we upgraded our servers. tiny bargain basement shady sites aren't meant for these kind of sites.

we run three separate servers, none of which are from sketchy sites. they're from reputable hosting companies. the last time we tried using a sketchy one, they disappeared overnight and we had to use a months old backup. i don't want that happening again.

historically, GH has paid for the forums because forum advertisements don't work quite as well. that's the reason i'm not ditching the idea of GH but there are some technical headaches that need to be sorted out.
I will say that if I was running this site in Sarah's place, I wouldn't trust advertisers with sustaining the place and prune the excess content regardless if we had them or not. Extremely risky and just not cost-effective for the community as a whole.

but that's my opinion so i'll just shutup now...

"Gigabytes" isn't a specific number here. Doesn't explain why the database is so big. Doesn't give an estimate of cost. Doesn't give an estimate of traffic. If GH isn't paying for the forums anymore, but is taking up server space, shouldn't it be dropped? The links don't work, so that's obviously why the traffic has dipped.

leon: if that was really the case, youtube wouldn't be able to find advertisers. the issue isn't just the content, it's compliance with DMCAs and other rules. FFS goes above and beyond what is neccessary to be in compliance with DMCAs. notice how we still have ads? yes, some assholes tried to knock those off as well... they haven't. it simply isn't generally a problem. the issue isn't all advertisers are kicked off, the issue is that we just need to find a good one right now-- most of the ones running in the rotation are paying pennies

cstrife & despair: i can look into trimming some of the fat, for sure. the DB is big because we've been running this instance of the forum for over a decade-- actually, i think it might be closer to 15 years. which is all kinds of crazy. someone else mentioned pruning; pruning the threads isn't a great idea (it hurts search traffic which hurts revenue) but pruning things like old user accounts is something that i'll be doing soon. beyond that, there are other optimizations i'll be looking into (possibly cloudflare, maybe move one of the boxes to a cheaper server). GH costs money, yes, but traditionally it's always paid for the forums, not vice versa. that's the longterm plan once i get everything functional there, which is why i'm not dropping the place entirely.

the actual stats are roughly ~12GB of SQL space for the forums alone, almost 50GB of it when you include everything on the entire site, and couple that with ~200,000 pageviews/day across everything most of which are highly DB intensive... running that isn't cheap. but yes, there are things we can do to make it cheaper, and i intend to do that.

to some extent we could sacrifice some degree of speed in exchange for keeping the overhead lower. about a year and a half ago-ish (guesstimate, don't remember exactly), the forums were much slower but everything then was being served on a mysql/web combo server instead of two seperate ones. there were complaints about speed... a lot. that's why we moved to two seperate servers for web/db (and then there's still the backup/fileserver..)

~12GB of SQL space for the forums alone, almost 50GB of it when you include everything on the entire site, and couple that with ~200,000 pageviews/day

My god....

Well thank you for the answer.

to some extent we could sacrifice some degree of speed in exchange for keeping the overhead lower. about a year and a half ago-ish (guesstimate, don't remember exactly), the forums were much slower but everything then was being served on a mysql/web combo server instead of two seperate ones. there were complaints about speed... a lot. that's why we moved to two seperate servers for web/db (and then there's still the backup/fileserver..)
That's something I'm sure all of us do NOT want to happen, especially since we're always growing bigger and bigger by the day. Why bother downgrading when we'll soon have to upgrade once again to accommodate for the expected increase? Unless you setup a systematic prune of all threads ~5 years and older, I don't see any reason to do this.

Anyways, hopefully we'll see your words put into action.

Hm. Frankly, I don't know why this place has yet to be completely fucked up, "DMCA-wise," Galbadia Hotel used to work and mp3s were hosted on dl1.ffshrine.org; maybe they just didn't care enough.

Enlighten me some more, please: exactly what kind of technical-competence would be required to manage this place? I'm not talking about the forums alone, obviously, I'm seriously asking because, well, it looks like FFS might really use a general overhaul: non-working servers and a lack of optimization which this place might have benefited from… Not really helping your statement.

I'd say even a total purge and rebirth of the Shrine wouldn't hurt much at this moment. Just schedule a deadline and notify everyone to backup their stuff, then repost them on a new site instance.

Hate to repeat this, but what about finally upgrading to vBulletin 5 while we're at it, again?

I'd say even a total purge and rebirth of the Shrine wouldn't hurt much at this moment. Just schedule a deadline and notify everyone to backup their stuff, then repost them on a new site instance.

Hate to repeat this, but what about finally upgrading to vBulletin 5 while we're at it, again?

I, for one, am not against such a thing!

We can rebuild it.

"We can rebuild him...we have the technology"

I, for one, am not against such a thing!

We can rebuild it.

I am. Some of the thread would be nearly impossible to rebuild, and so much content would be lost on the DL forums that we would be flooded with re-up requests for months, if not years, afterward. Hell...we're pretty much already flooded with re-up requests.

I'll add my 2 cents on various issues:

Can't we just let go of the old Galbadia Hotel ?

I'm also in agreement that the donation bar would be a much better idea than locking the forum. I didn't donate this time because money is a bit of an issue, but I usually do.

Pruning the user DB would probably be a nice start. Just taking down account that have been abandonned for the last 2-3 years would be a start.

Also, I'm with Leon on the advertising problem: if someone told the advertisers that we break their ToS, we're fucked with that ad-revenue. it happened once, and history loves to do encores.

Keep in mind, I haven't read the whole thread, and this is just a simple opinion from a forum user.

Some of the thread would be nearly impossible to rebuild, and so much content would be lost on the DL forums that we would be flooded with re-up requests for months, if not years, afterward. Hell...we're pretty much already flooded with re-up requests.

"Responsive response" to re-up requests serve better than a huge pile of not-sure-if-obsolete threads and posts anyway.

"Responsive response" to re-up requests serve better than a huge pile of not-sure-if-obsolete threads and posts anyway.

you try that when the re-up requests come so fast that no matter how many uploaders and how much goodwill there is, you can't rebuild anything. Just think of the shitstorm that would start in the film score download section. just think of the links still active in threads that are not active anymore. there are tons of them. tons. some aren't even that ancient.

I'm not saying we shouldn't erase stuff, I'm pretty sure there are tons of old topics in the various DL sections that could be erased to gain space. Also maybe resetting the request sections, as not much would be lost. That or saving the big threads, that are pretty much the core of the various DL subforums. I don't know, but reseting the forum would be a bit much to my taste. not that I want to save stuff, as a lot of my old threads would be pruned and I couldn't care less (I'll just re-up), it's for the big ones where people have invested a lot of time and exchanged a lot I'd feel bad for. There are not so many of these. that represent maybe, for exemple, 10 pages out of the 900+ of the film score sub-forum.

That's exactly why I said:

Just schedule a deadline and notify everyone to backup their stuff, then repost them on a new site instance.

In other words, pick over and sort out the "important" uploads and just scrap the rest (mostly dead links and other no-one-cares-anymore stuff), then the re-up requests will be useful to signify what's still missing and wanted.

That's exactly why I said:


In other words, pick over and sort out the "important" uploads and just scrap the rest (mostly dead links and other no-one-cares-anymore stuff), then the re-up requests will be useful to signify what's still missing and wanted.

I'm not speaking of uploads. that's the thing. I'm speaking of threads. some of them, like the big star trek, Dr Who or Old Anime ost threads act not only as "posting" threads, but also as a knowledge database on what is out there, what exists in that particular field. Same with the Blade Runner soundtrack threads, and there are probably others. I'm still saying pruning heavily the forum is a better option than starting it from scratch alltogether.

I'm speaking of threads that act not only as "posting" threads, but also as a knowledge database on what is out there, what exists in that particular field.

Just copy them too! What's stopping us from doing the same?

Just copy them too! What's stopping us from doing the same?

I tried, years ago to make a complete archive of the Old Anime ost thread. it took me close to a month and was still incomplete. Unless there is a way to save some threads and copy them on the new shrine, saving some of these isn't possible, or is gonna be hard as hell to do.

Exactly. Lie the trek thread also serves as a social gathering point. You lose years of history and context and I am just not for that at all.

Exactly. Lie the trek thread also serves as a social gathering point. You lose years of history and context and I am just not for that at all.

Indeed. It'd be the same with other threads, like the blade runner soundtrack one, or the Old Anime OST thread on the anime subforum. of course that one is savable (I did it earlier, take a bit more than a hundred megs all by himself). The trek thread is nearly as long. the "BIG ORCHESTRAL ACTION MUSIC THREAD!" is twice as big, and the Dr Who audiodrama thread has long been passed the 1000 pages. even by putting a 1000 posts per page, it would take a long time to save, it would be impractical to use, hence, better keeping these big, social gatheringy thread and pruning the thousands of one-two page threads.

So people don't want to rebuild a site for the better of the future, because it'll be time consuming to replace some stuff? Okay... well, what happens if this place asks for donations once again? I think that's when a lot of people will laugh, say fuck this, and leave everything behind anyway. The difference between the two is, well, you can prepare before the inevitable happens.

But I guess that's just not something people are willing to accept, because you still lose "years of history". Uh huh, and I get that. But that history doesn't mean much if the site goes down a black hole when we're not prepared for it anyway.

You lose years of history and context and I am just not for that at all.

Do you actually reread any of that? I don't think a newcomer will either.

Do you actually reread any of that? I don't think a newcomer will either.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. No one is going to go back hundreds and hundreds of pages and read all of that. Even if it's just to reference something. And a newcomer definitely isn't going to read 100s of pages just to get caught up and join the conversation. He/she will probably read the very fist page and maybe a few after that and then jump to the last page. Maybe read a few pages before the last pages.

Of course, threads like the Lossless VGM Thread, Lossles Anime Music Thread and other threads of that sort are a different story. But the threads where there's just conversations about stuff going on isn't. I can understand wanting to keep every bit of it, but it isn't completely necessary.

And AGAIN, the search function is crap.

For the sharing part of the Shrine, a simple database, or even just a text spreadsheet, basically a dumbed down Discogs/VGMdb with links, would already suit our needs very well.

It's all moot. I do not believe Sarah will make major changes, and even if she did I do not, sadly, believe the bit about no more donation drives. It seems inevitably we will have one, whatever Sarah "hopes". I resigned to that years ago.

It's all moot. I do not believe Sarah will make major changes, and even if she did I do not, sadly, believe the bit about no more donation drives. It seems inevitably we will have one, whatever Sarah "hopes". I resigned to that years ago.

I agree with you on that.

Hilarious, simply hilarious.

I'm going to be "that guy" again and remind some of you that the driving force behind this place is the rampant piracy going on in it. Keyword here is piracy, why am I bolding it? Because any goddam pirate which is worth a fraction of such definition knows that in the case of boards like this one (which offers enormous amount of pirated content), there's the threat of getting shutdown for good at any moment (no, the litany "it has yet to happen" doesn't hold any value, nor changes shit), so he/she should:

- Keep a copy of personal+desired links on owned device (PC, etcetera)

- Not bother "generating" or taking part in such discussions

- Not really give a crap if the content ends lost for some reason

Short summary: I also understand the desire of keeping a few "developed" threads, but we should not forget that we may lose such content anyway, because of external "reasons/actions", so, why let all of this become an issue? You lost "X", tough luck, take some small relief in the fact you were part of "it", but be smart and move on.

Sigh, whatever, I pity the fool(s) which will still donate to the Shrine when the next drive shows up, but if you're still that stupid you deserve to be "robbed".

Hilarious, simply hilarious.

I'm going to be "that guy" again and remind some of you that the driving force behind this place is the rampant piracy going on in it. Keyword here is piracy, why am I bolding it? Because any goddam pirate which is worth a fraction of such definition knows that in the case of boards like this one (which offers enormous amount of pirated content), there's the threat of getting shutdown for good at any moment (no, the litany "it has yet to happen" doesn't hold any value, nor changes shit), so he/she should:

- Keep a copy of personal+desired links on owned device (PC, etcetera)

- Not bother "generating" or taking part in such discussions

- Not really give a crap if the content ends lost for some reason

Short summary: I also understand the desire of keeping a few "developed" threads, but we should not forget that we may lose such content anyway, because of external "reasons/actions", so, why let all of this become an issue? You lost "X", tough luck, take some small relief in the fact you were part of "it", but be smart and move on.

Sigh, whatever, I pity the fool(s) which will still donate to the Shrine when the next drive shows up, but if you're still that stupid you deserve to be "robbed".

Indeed. Hence why i've started archiving a few threads for my own personal use. I do most of what you say (I keep a .doc file with tons of "to DL stuff" on it), and I don't care that much. I just put so much time in some threads I'd be a tad sad to see them go the way of the dodo. Hence the archiving.

let's call that a professionnal deformation (hey, I'm a librarian, I like archiving stuff.). it's also because I'm a librarian I'm aware you have to prune the forum of its dead weight, as I do when I take the lesser/never used book from my library to give them to charities or to sell them if orders from my hierarchy say so. (you don't throw a book to the bin, people. you just don't). I know pruning could reduce the cost. although I'm more than a bit skeptical on that. I'll just leave it at that and let this matter drop.

I had forgotten how much drama this place had the ability to conjure. amazing, really. worse than a library staff reunion.

Donors are not robbed in that sense though. We payed for the forum to be reopened, and 'tis. So in the roughest terms we have received exactly what was payed for. Technically. As for content I rarely depend on this place. There are other forums out there, where I get no drama and any content I want. I am here almost strictly for the interaction and discussion aspects. Bad piratess. Baaaaad.....:notgood:

Donors aren't robbed? Really?! I wouldn't be sure about that, if you pay to "pirate", you're doing piracy wrong.

Leon I have explained more than once that I believe aspects of this site transcend being a mere piracy hub. Everyone has their opinions, of course. Either way Shrine still seems to be the sole public source for sessions, leaks and expanded/unreleased stuff. Other sites dry up when we are closed. There are tons of places to get official cd releases, but fewer with a social element and none for the leaks. Ask the who audio drama folks, or the custom cover artists. There is more of a community here, serving several different interests. Shrine seems to be unique in this way. And the bulk of the folks affected have not commented in these threads. (Likely pay no attention to the help forum anyhoo).....

You and I both are but drops in the sea and while I know myself that, despite someone's opinion, there are actual discussions to be found around even in the Download Links sections… I'd dare to ask who seriously believes the biggest bulk of donors isn't keeping this place up simply because it has proven, time and time again, to be a good/great source for the latest music release, whether movie, video game or anime-related. To most, this is a piracy hub. Come, download, leave.

We'll see what happens when the next donation drive comes up. I personally don't think the Shrine will "survive" it (either because it ends up forced to close, or because, as someone else already stated, users will say screw it and go elsewhere).

Entirely possible. I am fairly sure we will find out sooner than later.

Let's not overcomplicate things. What we can do now is either help Sarah reform the Shrine to cut the expenses, or build a Noah's Ark quick, or both. Nothing else.

Better build your ark, cause I really doubt the the forum will be changed, at least drastically.

Yeah, come up with your own alternative board/whatever, you owe to yourself a place which can be maintained by its owner (both technically and financially).

IMHO we'll be needing general consensus before taking every step of said "Ark" construction. The hosting plan, the software of choice, then the design of site structure, etc. The rest of us aren't even past the first step, and Zaykho's project is already quite ahead by himself. I wonder how he's progressing now.

Good luck in getting general consensus, most users seemingly don't even bother to read this thread, nor the feedback section.

I've got a question. The donation message at the end of March said that FFShrine pushes "over 30TB" of traffic per month. That would be equivalent to over 1TB per day. Earlier in this thread, Sarah said:


the actual stats are roughly ~12GB of SQL space for the forums alone, almost 50GB of it when you include everything on the entire site, and couple that with ~200,000 pageviews/day across everything most of which are highly DB intensive... running that isn't cheap. but yes, there are things we can do to make it cheaper, and i intend to do that.
So if we assume 1TB/day and 200,000 page views/day, that would be an average of 5MB per page view.

But when you look at the total size of the HTML, JS, CSS, images, etc., a typical page view on the forums only requires a pretty consistent ~1.2 MB from ffshrine.org. Many pages are much larger than that due to high-res images - for example the custom covers thread. But those images aren't hosted by ffshrine.org. They're hosted off-site on services like imgur or other image hosting sites.

Also, most repeat visitors will be pulling less than 1.2MB/page view because they have some of those assets cached on their computer and thus won't need to request them from ffshrine.org each time. So how exactly do you get to 30TB/month with only 200,000 page views/day when the average page view requires 1.2MB or less? That would mean the monthly bandwidth would be something closer to 7TB or less, which is significantly smaller than the total quoted in the donation message.

Of course, Sarah said that those 200,000 page views/day were "across everything," but it's obvious that the forums account for the overwhelming majority of traffic to ffshrine.org. The rest of the site hasn't been updated in ages and is mostly dead content as far as I can tell. But for the sake of thoroughness I checked Galbadia Hotel, Zelda Shrine, the home page, and most of the other subdomains on ffshrine.org. Each of them had page sizes far below 5MB/page view, so they can't explain the "30TB/month" figure either. All of them were far below 1MB/page view, in fact - smaller than the forums.

In short, the math doesn't add up. How do you end up at 30TB/month with 200,000 page views/day when the average page size is far, far below 5MB everywhere on FFShrine.org?

Good luck in getting general consensus, most users seemingly don't even bother to read this thread, nor the feedback section.

Well, you've seen what happened in the Lossless VGM thread. A dude or two just went ahead without asking other people, then tadaa, presented another half-assed site. This wouldn't work well.

The bandwagon effect is essential for a successful Ark, but yeah, it's hard to motivate a community.

Let's not overcomplicate things. What we can do now is either help Sarah reform the Shrine to cut the expenses, or build a Noah's Ark quick, or both. Nothing else.

ark it is, then buddy. get your hammer, wood and nails, and start building. Like Amanda, I have a plan b in place.

---------- Post added at 04:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:19 PM ----------


Well, you've seen what happened in the Lossless VGM thread. A dude or two just went ahead without asking other people, then tadaa, presented another half-assed site. This wouldn't work well.

The bandwagon effect is essential for a successful Ark, but yeah, it's hard to motivate a community.

depends. some people have already built arks. hell, at least one has already sailed away, with only one member mad enough to dedouble himself and be both on the ark and here. I also know of at least one other ark. but keep in mind, most of the arks are invitation only. it keeps most of the drama out.

Yea, we should all (as a community) migrate to a sole new Promised Land, this impatience to abandon ship will only weaken the community by fragmenting it. I can only speak for myself but at the moment zaykho has the most concrete contingency that's been brought forth and I feel that we should all go with zaykho as he leads us to the new Promised Land. Neo_Chip, if you're reading this I implore you to wait for zaykho to bring his place online and come with us.

Otherwise I would've done so long ago too. Not to mention I only have the techniques to craft an Ark; I don't have enough "materials" at my disposal.

It's been all talk and no action from me regrettably, but I'd still like to promote better collaboration.

Well, you've seen what happened in the Lossless VGM thread. A dude or two just went ahead without asking other people, then tadaa, presented another half-assed site. This wouldn't work well.

The bandwagon effect is essential for a successful Ark, but yeah, it's hard to motivate a community.

Zaykho's has come along really nicely, and so far he's added whatever features we've asked for. It's got about 100 users but I think most of those are from people who made "just in case" accounts on day 1 and never came back.

Haven't seen any of the big names from the lossless vgm thread anywhere besides here so they probably won't ever jump ship until another drive comes in.

Zaykho's has come along really nicely, and so far he's added whatever features we've asked for. It's got about 100 users but I think most of those are from people who made "just in case" accounts on day 1 and never came back.

Haven't seen any of the big names from the lossless vgm thread anywhere besides here so they probably won't ever jump ship until another drive comes in.


Everything will change when this damn new theme/board will come up, I spend a lot of time to make this one far better than any other forum board.

Wait the neolight theme to come, then, uploaders, leechers etc.... will love this new place. :p