(no subject)

[heidi]

I've given a lot of thought as to how to phrase this email, and nothing I say sounds right - so just read to the end and if you have questions, please ask!

Some time on Monday, October 21, 2002 AND/OR Tuesday, October 22, 2002, FictionAlley is going to move to new servers.

One of the reasons for the move is cost - we'll be moving to a new host where our monthly expenses will be closer to $250/month than the $500/month we've been paying since early Summer.

One of the other reasons is efficiency - we'll be better able to accomodate more users on the site at any given time, because our server will be better configured for our needs.

HOWEVER, this means that (a) FA will have to close our message boards, ArtisticAlley and review boards for a little while, so we can save them and move them to the new server (b) our DNS (domain name server) will have to be changed by our domain name registration hosting company, and (c) we will have to close to fanfic submissions for possibly up to 48 hours, while we recreate our email system that forwards your fics from our submission page to the coders.

The fanfics themselves should be available throughout this transition, although if your ISP takes longer to accept the DNS change, they might be unavailable to you for a little while longer - it shouldn't be more than two days at most, and they actually shouldn't be down at all.

To compensate for FA's board downtime, we're going to open a chatroom for as much of the downtime as possible. While the boards are closed, there will be an url that you can follow to get to the room.

We'll keep people posted via FAWA and the fiction_alley livejournal at http://www/livejournal.com/~fiction_alley as much as we can, and we'll try and keep this as short and painless as possible.

Any questions?

Heidi
for FA Mods

Comments

[smilie117.livejournal.com]

eMentor related question - just popped into my head:
--Will new members still be able to join up during the down time? Will the owls still work for eMentors to do their welcome messages? *I know you didn't mention it as being down, but I was curious to ask :)* and I thought I had more but nothing comes to mind so that was probably it.

None-eMentor related:
--Yay for lower costs and more efficiency! *cheers* I think I'll be able to live with the downtime :) have got LJs and Y!M to keep me company :D as well as other Y!Groups.

Take care and take it easy,
~Sabs

[owlman.livejournal.com]

If the boards are down then no board related features will be available for use (be they joining, owling or posting messages). At this time we are not really sure how long it will take to move things, but hopefully we can keep the downtime to a minimum.

[smilie117.livejournal.com]

Okay. Thanks Simon. I just wanted to be sure so then I can inform the eMentor group about it - however long it takes - well worth the wait *because costs are down and there's more efficiency too :D* Will keep a look out for information to keep the eMentors up-to-date.
~Sabs

[mars-daydream.livejournal.com]

I'm a web type person by profession and I've often wondered how much it costs to keep FictionAlley running without ads. A huge thanks to everyone who has been contributing to the site -- this sounds like the right move, downtime or no! Half the cost: Good.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Sounds good to me. Shout if there's anything I can do to help out.

*rubs noses*

[benjj.livejournal.com]

Um... Do you mean 2002? Or is this serious advance warning?
Definitely a sound move, anyhow.

[owlman.livejournal.com]

She does mean 2002. Heidili has got confused, since she is currently thinking of 2003 things (baby and conferencee) and remembering that we are still in 2002 seems to be beyond her.

[heinous_bitca.livejournal.com]

Can I ask what host you're moving FA to? Just out of curiosity's sake, as I am still thinking of getting a new webhost late this year/early next year.

And will this affect any of your posting rules?

[owlman.livejournal.com]

Need to check on the first one (brain needs an upgrade, or at least some rest!), so will leave Heidili to answer later.

Nope. No change to posting rules. We are happy with where FA is currently positioned within the HP fandom (i.e. in terms of what it offers to the HP fandom) and have no desire to change.

[moonlight69]

I just had to say I'm amused that your personal LJ entry has 9 comments on this, but the posting to the fiction_alley community has zero.

That is all. =)