Site Update #3

Still having the underlying problem but a workaround solution has been deployed, pending fixing the underlying issue.

I have been made aware of a temporary problem with file uploads done subsequent to our hosting change, but am out of town for the weekend. I have temporarily unpublished the most recent updates and will resolve them as soon as I return.

In the interim, the remainder of the archive should function as expected. Please let me know otherwise in the comments.

Site Update #2

Enormous thanks to fanatics Chris M and Penguin P, who together contributed enough to fully fund the transition to our new hosting account.

We are locked in for the next three years and things are looking great.

Site Update

The Problem (Pt 1)

The future caught up with us sooner than I anticipated.

First things first, everything's OK for now and will hopefully continue that way, but awhile back I alluded to the size of our hosting account in the Feedback Request: Iggy Shows post and how I expected that to eventually become unsustainable.

In a case of cosmic coincidence our hosting provider emailed me less than a month later to announce that our grandfathered "unlimited," hosting plan is going to be terminated. And they're not picking on us; it's being eliminated across the entire company's product lines.

Turns out our web host was, at some point, acquired by a larger company with a less-than-stellar reputation in the hosting community. I'm not qualified to speak on that subject but we're now subject to the whims of The New Management.

Being the magnanimous capitalists that they are, we have a special offer to upgrade to a higher tier of hosting that still has "unlimited," storage for a discount price that will stabilize our situation for the next three years.

Solution(s) In The Near Term

As we finished our once-every-three-years fundraiser less than a year ago, I'm prepared to float this additional cost myself because I think it will only be about $250 US, but if you're feeling generous our old fundraising page is still up at https://throne.com/rollins-archivehttps://throne.com/rollins-archive and any contributions will go to direct costs, no skimming overhead.

Solution(s) In The Long Term

Who knows what the future holds, but this upgrade will buy us three years and we will only know the true cost of longer term hosting at that time. I am committed to continuing the site as it is, provided the cost stays reasonable for the community. It may be necessary at some future point to dump older files into an archive.org repository or something similar, although I don't relish losing control over the fundamental reason this site exists.

Nevertheless, we will persist.