ZappBots Forums

[Chris Savage]

AM I the only one that can't get into the ZappBots forums lately? Last week or so it has been down more than it has been up. 

[granz]

ZappBot's forum has been down quite a bit, lately. I've started to get pretty frustrated. In my looking around for portable electronics labs, I've wanted to post about my Portable Workstation - Notebook (https://zappbots.altervista.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=327) but have been unable to because I cannot trust that people will be able to see it. This particular one would be good on Instructables, but I have several other posts over on ZapBots forum that would not fit in as 'Ibles.

I guess that is one sign of getting old; I want my legacy to live on. 

[JKnightandKARR]

I been getting the one error screen.

[Chris Savage]

I been getting the one error screen.

Same, but it used to go away after an hour or so. Now it's been days...

[JKnightandKARR]

I been getting the one error screen.

Same, but it used to away after an hour or so. Now it's been days...

I know.

[granz]

For quite a while now, I have been getting used to ZappBots being up, and running. But, just now, I tried logging back in - no go! It appears that those 'bots are trashing his bandwidth again. This is really sad - I had so many posts on ZappBots, but it's not really viable with the 'bots causing the site to be unavailable so much.

ZappMan, is it just a matter of price to do the things that Chris suggested? Maybe we could donate a few bucks, if that would keep your site up. Chris, could there be a free alternative to your suggestions (I have to admit that I don't remember your suggestions, nor what they cost.)

[zappman]

I just logged into the ZappBots forums, everything was working.

The worst day on the forums was "Most users ever online was 785 on Sat Jun 22, 2024 3:48 am"

If I remember correctly? I created the ZappBots forums over ten years ago, as an alternative the Savage///Circuits Forms, back when Chris was going through many things in life and decided to / had to close his website and forums. Chris allowed me to copy a lot of posts from his forum onto my forum. But, there quite a few things he did not want re-posted. I was also going through some issues in may life, and creating the ZappBots forums keep me occupied / busy. I created my forums on a free host and for many many years there were no issues on the forums. Back when I created my forums I didn't use the pre-built forum template the free host provided which displayed adds in the forum posts. I did a custom install, and customized the of the forums with things like custom Icons.

The thing is my forums never really had more then 6 to 10 active users. The four most active users, are all here now on Savage///Chats.

The spam-bots started hitting my forum when I submitted my URL to several search engines trying to promote the growth of my forums.

At this time, I have gotten over ten years older and don't want to put in a large effort into my forums.

Recently, Chris has spent a lot of his time to create Savage///Chats, but has found it almost impossible, to get people to be active here on Savage///Chats.

Please feel free to backup, anything on the ZappBots Forums to your own computer.

Or, please feel free to create your own Forums and copy anything on my forums to your Forums.

I would rather you use my forums bandwidth than the spam-bots.   

[granz]

Please feel free to backup, anything on the ZappBots Forums to your own computer.

Or, please feel free to create your own Forums and copy anything on my forums to your Forums.

I would rather you use my forums bandwidth than the spam-bots.   

Thanks for the offer, it's always sad when things change like that (or more accurately are changed for you.)

[JKnightandKARR]

Please feel free to backup, anything on the ZappBots Forums to your own computer.

Or, please feel free to create your own Forums and copy anything on my forums to your Forums.

I would rather you use my forums bandwidth than the spam-bots.   

Thanks for the offer, it's always sad when things change like that (or more accurately are changed for you.)

Just a thought, but if stuff keeps going the way it did before, I got 2 Altervista sites, I'd be willing to host Zappbots on one of mine, as a backup/archive of sorts.

[Chris Savage]

For quite a while now, I have been getting used to ZappBots being up, and running. But, just now, I tried logging back in - no go! It appears that those 'bots are trashing his bandwidth again. This is really sad - I had so many posts on ZappBots, but it's not really viable with the 'bots causing the site to be unavailable so much.

I tried to get on earlier from work and got the SQL error. I didn't try again today.

ZappMan, is it just a matter of price to do the things that Chris suggested? Maybe we could donate a few bucks, if that would keep your site up. Chris, could there be a free alternative to your suggestions (I have to admit that I don't remember your suggestions, nor what they cost.)

Unfortunately, I never used free hosting, so I don't know of any alternatives. This has always been a hobby for me, so I was willing to pay a reasonable amount for it. Back when I was running vBulletin, the bots were crashing my site, but they did add some cost to my hosting at the time since there wasn't unlimited bandwidth. These days it's not so much of an issue.

[Chris Savage]

If I remember correctly? I created the ZappBots forums over ten years ago, as an alternative the Savage///Circuits Forms, back when Chris was going through many things in life and decided to / had to close his website and forums. Chris allowed me to copy a lot of posts from his forum onto my forum. But, there quite a few things he did not want re-posted. I was also going through some issues in may life, and creating the ZappBots forums keep me occupied / busy.

IIRC, I preferred linking to copying, because I had hoped that maybe someday I could get things working and I didn't want there to be two different versions of the posts. Believe when I say that I have a lot of regret from those days, not just about the posts, but about how I reacted to everything that was going on at the time. My hormones were all out of whack, and with Wendy's cancer, I was really struggling to hold everything together. It didn't help when Parallax later laid me off after 12 years. I honestly thought my life was over, and it nearly was.

The thing is my forums never really had more then 6 to 10 active users. The four most active users, are all here now on Savage///Chats.

I started Savage///Chats in response to the forum problems you were having. When it got to be that the forums were down more than they were up, I started panicking, because I didn't want to lose the connection we had. I feel like once my site went down and people gave up, that's the last I heard from them. Even the VIPs from Savage///Circuits are mostly gone! The most dedicated people just never came back! A few logged in once! Just once!

I honestly didn't want to run a forums again. It was a drain on me the last time and took away from my time posting content, because I spent so much time having to redo things when there were updates to the software. This time around I put up a vanilla forums. No custom icons. No template modifications. No custom smileys. This has resulted in much less stress.

I have no plans of customizing or doing anything more to this software. I added an anti-spam plug-in and with a few exceptions, it has performed very well. I have had ZERO SPAM posts and only a couple of SPAM registrations, which weren't allowed to post and were later removed.

The spam-bots started hitting my forum when I submitted my URL to several search engines trying to promote the growth of my forums. At this time, I have gotten over ten years older and don't want to put in a large effort into my forums. Recently, Chris has spent a lot of his time to create Savage///Chats, but has found it almost impossible, to get people to be active here on Savage///Chats.

You're right. I have put some time into the forums. But nowhere near what I used to do on the vBulletin site. Before it bothered me when participation dwindled. So many people were only there for the giveaways and the parts box. I don't get upset anymore if there are no posts for days or even weeks. The forums was a convenience and a backup for the possible failure of ZappBots. It will either get used, or it won't. Those of us who benefit from it will continue to do so as long as I draw breath.

I can guarantee you that, if these forums (and my website) go down again, it's because I am down. I gave up a lot to try again, despite swearing I would never do it again. But now that I am, I am not going to sweat the little things. My original goal was to try and get more people to start using ZappBots, and to that end I reached out to many people and asked them to join. I didn't realize it until later, but doggiedoc created an account, but had already had one. I think he just forgot. But yeah, I would have been just fine with letting someone else deal with the forums, so I could focus on content.

Had I planned things better, I would have set up the forums and gotten someone else to "run" it. I would have continued to host it free on my paid host. I do believe I made such an offer on ZappBots once. But I think there was a question of how to migrate things. Now I'm rambling...time for bed.

[zappman]

..... You're right. I have put some time into the forums. But nowhere near what I used to do on the vBulletin site. Before it bothered me when participation dwindled. So many people were only there for the giveaways and the parts box. I don't get upset anymore if there are no posts for days or even weeks. The forums was a convenience and a backup for the possible failure of ZappBots. It will either get used, or it won't. Those of us who benefit from it will continue to do so as long as I draw breath.

I can guarantee you that, if these forums (and my website) go down again, it's because I am down. I gave up a lot to try again, despite swearing I would never do it again. But now that I am, I am not going to sweat the little things. My original goal was to try and get more people to start using ZappBots, and to that end I reached out to many people and asked them to join. I didn't realize it until later, but doggiedoc created an account, but had already had one. I think he just forgot. But yeah, I would have been just fine with letting someone else deal with the forums, so I could focus on content.

Had I planned things better, I would have set up the forums and gotten someone else to "run" it. I would have continued to host it free on my paid host. I do believe I made such an offer on ZappBots once. But I think there was a question of how to migrate things. Now I'm rambling...time for bed......

I am cool that you created Savage///Chats.

The ZappBots Discussion Forums are what they are.

I have no intention of taking them down.

But, as said before, I have no intention of putting a lot of time and effort into them at this point of time.

And, yes I remember the good old days when Savage///Circuits had a lot participation, and meeting with EOD Punk in person to pass off the Traveling Junk Box (if that was what it was called) in person.

Oh Yes, the good old days.

(I  only created my previous post the one you replied to, to try to explain to Granz, some of this history the ZappBots Discusion Forums, and the fact I don't plan to make many or significant changes to the Forms or to move them to another host.)

[JKnightandKARR]

(I  only created my previous post the one you replied to, to try to explain to Granz, some of this history the ZappBots Discusion Forums, and the fact I don't plan to make many or significant changes to the Forms or to move them to another host.)

Respected, was just a thought only for back up/archive purposes.  kinda like the internet archive.

[zappman]

Please feel free to backup, anything on the ZappBots Forums to your own computer.

Or, please feel free to create your own Forums and copy anything on my forums to your Forums.

I would rather you use my forums bandwidth than the spam-bots. 

Thanks for the offer, it's always sad when things change like that (or more accurately are changed for you.)

Just a thought, but if stuff keeps going the way it did before, I got 2 Altervista sites, I'd be willing to host Zappbots on one of mine, as a backup/archive of sorts.

You can copy anything you like from my forums to one of your sites. Go for it. I don't know how you can accomplish it, but go ahead and do it if you want. I just don't want to spend my time figuring it out and doing it.

[Chris Savage]

The ZappBots Discussion Forums are what they are. I have no intention of taking them down. But, as said before, I have no intention of putting a lot of time and effort into them at this point of time.

Well, I hope you're going to stay active on either site. So many people that used to be on both my original site AND the Parallax forums are gone. Just gone! The Parallax forums are a shadow of what they once were. The whole company, for that matter. I rarely go there since I'm not allowed to sell anything or promote my own site. Every once in a while someone lets me know if there's someone who needs help with a product I designed. But I rarely ever sign in.

And, yes I remember the good old days when Savage///Circuits had a lot participation, and meeting with EOD Punk in person to pass off the Traveling Junk Box (if that was what it was called) in person. Oh Yes, the good old days.

Yeah, those were great times. I remember looking back and thinking that the first sign things were changing was when OBC seemed to disappear. He was the one originally running the parts box thing. After that there was just a series of unfortunate events for many people. Losing my wife was the hardest thing I ever went through. My career was all I had left. It was the thing that kept me going. But when they laid me off, and Ken subsequently black-listed me, I just lost all interest in anything. I literally felt like I had nothing to live for.

(I  only created my previous post the one you replied to, to try to explain to Granz, some of this history the ZappBots Discusion Forums, and the fact I don't plan to make many or significant changes to the Forms or to move them to another host.)

It's all good. I also wanted you to understand my motivation. It seems like we seldom get a second chance at some things. I had a project site for years before working at Parallax. That, and my participation in their original Yahoo Group was what got their attention to me. If I didn't feel like an outcast on the Parallax forums, I might have been inclined to just share things there again (as well as ZappBots). But for so long all my posts were being sunk by Von Smartass, so I stopped posting new threads. Well, again, I hope you're planning on sticking around. There are so very few of us left, it seems.