EA Forums

I'm not able to connect with either the EAv2 forums or the old eunuchworld fiction area. Tried TOR (my usual browser for the areas) Firefox and Vivaldi, w/ couldn't connect on all three... TOR and Firefox say "Cannot connect to Server" and Vivaldi says the sites can't be reached w/ an "ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED" error...

Anyone else having problems, or any idea what is happening?

WheelyFixed

I can't open either. Paolo did say their billing cycle expires 12/17... maybe they decided not to renew after all?

Looks like the name servers can't be reached, so they may have chosen to not register them.

I thought we had more time to save these stories. CRY

The stories are fine. FAv3 would be live very soon

dandelion wrote: Thu Dec 19, 2024 11:54 pm The stories are fine. FAv3 would be live very soon

wait, what do you meant?

I got in touch with Paolo, who got in touch with Talula. It’s a billing issue that Talula is working on resolving. They still intend for the sites to stay open through 1/1/2025.

fusion wrote: Thu Dec 19, 2024 4:32 pm Looks like the name servers can't be reached, so they may have chosen to not register them.

It appears Dandelion knows more than I do on this one.

I do not know what happened, nor was I informed of anything ahead of time. But honestly, a few days early really doesn't impact anything, it would have been going offline one way or another be it now, or on Jan 1. There really wasn't much time.

Again, in January I'll post more about this. I'll do my best to explain things as I saw them going on over there as a moderator, a position there which was a middleman between the users and the site owners, as dispassionately as I can.

I do appreciate and thank the folks working here for offering me a position here, but I've politely declined. I'm of the mind it's time for new folks to take it on and put their stamp on the community, and efforts to further and stabilize care for folks like us. I know you guys are up to the task, and I'm happy to provide insight if asked.

I really do hope the effort succeeds!

My main thing about EAv2 closing early is
1. I want to announce the launch of the new fiction archive there
2. I haven’t had a chance to scrape the old forum yet

dandelion wrote: Fri Dec 20, 2024 3:16 am My main thing about EAv2 closing early is
1. I want to announce the launch of the new fiction archive there
2. I haven’t had a chance to scrape the old forum yet

Well hopefully it will come back online for you to do so. But I also accept if it's gone now.

FWIW, I tried to get a download of the database from the present owner, who said they could provide it. We set up the FTP to make it happen (thanks Fusion) and it never happened. I'm frustrated myself as I wanted to at least save the data so it might be recovered at some point. Sometimes life just rolls stuff at you which you cannot control.

I also contacted Paolo and he said that the EAv2 sites should be coming back online later today (as of 11:18 this morning)

WheelyFixed

Not sure what will be happening - I just got the following from Paolo

Bad news.
Did you download the zip file from Fhunter?
It seems that Kristoff cancelled the service, instead of asking for a renew.
I just got off the phone with Talula, who was assured they would renew it.
And the host lied.
The Archive is gone.
The host deleted it due to this misunderstanding.

I have sent him a reply asking for clarification about whether it is just the FA that's gone (but that thanks to Fhunter still exists) or if it is the EA forum as well?

WheelyFixed

WheelyFixed wrote: Fri Dec 20, 2024 4:11 am I also contacted Paolo and he said that the EAv2 sites should be coming back online later today (as of 11:18 this morning)

WheelyFixed

Please hurry. My crawler want to be used

Pretty sure it’s all gone now.

Latest word (as of 14:23, about 30 minutes ago) is that Talula MIGHT have a backup, but Paolo isn't sure how fresh it is - he will ask...

WheelyFixed

Maybe it’s just me, but can there be something more going on behind the scene here?

dandelion wrote: Fri Dec 20, 2024 7:13 am Maybe it’s just me, but can there be something more going on behind the scene here?

No idea - all I know is what Paolo tells me in e-mail... Initially he said it was a billing snafu where payment had been made, but not processed, and that things would be back up soon. Now he is saying that there was some more communication problems and as a result the host deleted everything...

If there is other melodrama going on behind the scenes, I'm not privy to it...

WheelyFixed

dandelion wrote: Fri Dec 20, 2024 3:16 am My main thing about EAv2 closing early is
1. I want to announce the launch of the new fiction archive there
2. I haven’t had a chance to scrape the old forum yet

I have text-only copy of the forum. Need to check contents, but it lost some formatting. Will check and share.

WheelyFixed wrote: Fri Dec 20, 2024 5:26 am Not sure what will be happening - I just got the following from Paolo

Bad news.
Did you download the zip file from Fhunter?
It seems that Kristoff cancelled the service, instead of asking for a renew.
I just got off the phone with Talula, who was assured they would renew it.
And the host lied.
The Archive is gone.
The host deleted it due to this misunderstanding.

I have sent him a reply asking for clarification about whether it is just the FA that's gone (but that thanks to Fhunter still exists) or if it is the EA forum as well?

WheelyFixed

As far as I understood Paolo - all is dead. Both forum and story archive. Not sure about forum backups.

I just got an email from Paolo - to summarize, EAv2 and the old fiction archive are GONE and will not be back!

This was caused by a communication screwup at the hosting company that led to the hosting company deleting everything.
One guy thought the payment from Kristoff for the site had ended on the 17th, and the other guy that had gotten the extension payment from Talula didn't communicate that well to the first guy who wiped everything out because he thought the payment was expired.

Paolo and LT have tried to recover the site and have not been able to.

NONE of the existing EA staff had anything to do with the site going down, and they did NOT want it to go down ahead of schedule. Please don't blame them or attack them for what was not their fault.

There is a few day old image of the forum. It and the FA will be going to Kinsey.

Fhunter has a text only scrape of the forum (see that topic) and there is some hope, but not any promises, that it may be possible to recover some of the old content and repost it here.

WheelyFixed

I dont know which laws/regulations that bind the hosting services are applying her, but should not there be a fail safe for cases like?
I mean how often do payment services fuck something up? More than i can count, but then deleting everything without a notice and a deadline of 14 Days or so is just extremly bad and ruthless IT craftsmanship.

Hosting services that work like this deserve to go bankrupt

I agree. But then it takes two parties to form a dispute. The site was going to retire on 1/1/2025 anyways so it makes sense that the old team did not want to bother with fighting.

I'm a bit underwhelmed by the hosting company's actions as well - I could see pulling the plug on the connection to the Internet, but wiping the system so promptly seems a bit excessive... Once that happened though it wasn't a question of "fighting" it became a case of "recovery not possible" - according to my phone conversations with them, Talula and Paolo put a great deal of effort into attempting a recovery and it just was not possible...

WheelyFixed

Don't want to say anything bad about the older EAv2, but working in the IT industry I will say that who ever the old hosting service was should never have been used.

The company I work with back things up hourly so if something as bad as a take down and delete happens they have a recovery area that is not that old.

EAv2 reached its End of Life and now we need to start making this place our new home.

Gosh, Jan 1 will get here none to soon for me, at which point I'll feel more free to talk about what was going on over there over the years behind the scenes. While the site vaporized early, I'll keep my commitment to not saying anything until their deadline has passed, if nothing else to maintain my own personal integrity on the matter.

At this point all the handwringing I'm seeing in here doesn't matter. While I commend the folks here for stepping up and doing what they've done here so far, there was also an opportunity for others, for the better part of a decade, to have stepped in and taken over the old system.

Nobody did.

Again, I'm grateful to Fusion and the others who have stepped up here. If you want this place to grow, I'd suggest evangelizing it in places where people who may be interested, congregate. To help, I'l start with a list you can consider:

Recon.com Though there is no real place to post broad messages other than on a profile and individually writing others with the interest.
Fetlife.com There are many discussion groups there which speak about these subjects.
Bluesky A lot like *cringe* Twitter/X *cringe* in that you can create a profile and evangelize using tags like #eunuch, etc.
Twitter/X Like the above.
Several Discord Discussions servers

That's a list to start. I'm sure there are others, but those are the ones I know of. I'd be sure to state if this new version is mobile browser friendly (IE Phones and tablets). I'm convinced the reason many younger folks didn't go to EA2 was that it wasn't mobile friendly, and let's be honest, that's how most people consume the Internet these days.