VOD Subscription eMail ???????????

[CHUNDER]

I only posted my thoughts and I would be sad to see VOD forum die
as like many others I have found mutch useful info and had a great deal of fun in VOD

[Tony]

Its true, we wouldn't be where we are now without VOD.

[nigelb]

I agree..the demise of the VOD is a great shame and should be supported by all those who have used it for the wealth of diverse knowledge contained within. I shall continue to use the site and make my continued financial contribution once the whole situation has calmed down.

Paddy has handled the situation very poorly and on reflection I'm sure he'll agree. The subscription email and the threat contained within is wrong and Paddy should have consulted his moderators. However, there maybe should have been a subscription years ago to access the forum.

I'm not sure that the comments about the" bitchiness" of the forum is too much of an issue so long as it does not get too personal. Opinions are just that....so long as they are backed up with passion and a few facts I think it adds colour and vibrancy. Sometimes it takes a strong character to highlight certain things to stop people, ultimately, making a complete ass of themselves.

The only thing I don't get involved with are the conspiracy theorists and political diatribe that gets posted over there.

Objections have also been noted as to the number of folks using certain sections as a guide to their motoring problems. Again, is it too much of an issue so long as it's posted in the right place?

[Rotary-Motion]

i thought the site closed down when it reached its bandwidth or it used to so no extra spending, 50% shut down and subscription emails are deliberate actions. i guess if you own your site you can do what you like... then we all have a choice well you do, i made mine.

[Jmg]

Objections have also been noted as to the number of folks using certain sections as a guide to their motoring problems. Again, is it too much of an issue so long as it's posted in the right place?

I agree, the collective knowledge of everyone on vod amounts to a lot more than just veg. The site has become a community of like minded folk willing to help out in more ways than just the latest in bio (Pete's mad dash around the country comes to mind) If all that was on there was just veg/bio we'd have very little to talk about after a while.

Plus with the average age of the cars we run there's more likely to be trouble with them than our actual fuel

[K.H]

I see that "donated to the forum" is appearing in some sigs, i hope it has been put there by the members concerned otherwise to me it is a kind of blackmail, shaming people into donating, the kind of thing guaranteed to stop me doing it

[thewormman]

I think it has been handled badly by Paddy but I think the reaction is a bit out of proportion as well. The donation is tiny compared to the return, I pay more than that to park for 2 hours in town.

In my work if I had to pay for the amount of Knowledge I have gained from that forum in the last few months it would be thousands, Paddy has provided a place we can learn and share and save LOTS and I for one was happy to pay £2 to use it.

I would suggest though that Paddy use some of the money to go on a course to learn how not to pi$$ people off like he has or everyone will vote with their feet. 

On the bandwidth thing on my main business website last year there was a search engine spider from china that was crawling EVERY PAGE of my site every 10 minutes and using TWENTY times the amount of bandwidth of all of my visitors combined, we had to ban a range of IPs to stop it, if thats happened to VOD I quite understand the problem. 

[Jmg]

I see that "donated to the forum" is appearing in some sigs, i hope it has been put there by the members concerned otherwise to me it is a kind of blackmail, shaming people into donating, the kind of thing guaranteed to stop me doing it

Seems to be there by admin's doing, I've donated a few quid during a few of the past bandwidth crisis, even though I haven't put anything in just now I've got one of the 'donated' signs above me now.

[Julian]

I've donated in the past and I don't have one ... feeling very left out and picked on.

[Glycer-rides]

I've donated in the past and I don't have one ...

Me too, and much more than 2 quid...

[greasemonkey]

Has the VOD gone down? Just comes up with a screen saying server error.

[Tony]

I've donated in the past and I don't have one ...

Me too, and much more than 2 quid...

Same here.  Maybe because it was too long ago?

Has the VOD gone down? Just comes up with a screen saying server error.

Suspect it's being updated as we speak!  At least VOD is getting some TLC now

[petep900]

VOD will be on and off OUTSIDE OF STATED HOURS until end of month.
This needs to be so things can be tried live and 'offline' outside of current stated hours of use.

Paddy and Mods are working behind the databases trying to make it more secure and streamlined.

Membership database was heavily bloated with non  posters and non log-ins for over 5 years.
Membership database has been more than cut in half following some work.

It is almost there and should be OK when done.

Sign -up restrictions have been put in place to hopefully minimise 'Spider' and 'Bot' interference and bandwidth leeching.

[petep900]

UPDATE

Paddy has installed a spider catcher thingy.
ZB Block

It has to do it's thing. It is seeing and catching things

VOD might be down a while while it pokes around and listens to traffic trying to get in.

[Julian]

UPDATE

Paddy has installed a spider catcher thingy.
ZB Block

It has to do it's thing. It is seeing and catching things

VOD might be down a while while it pokes around and listens to traffic trying to get in.

Good news, thanks for keeping us up to speed, Pete.

Lets hope it improves the situation, but I can't help thinking stable door and horse ... I remember similar things being suggested months if not years ago.