Giant in the Playground forums down for an indeterminate timeframe

[Aotrscommander]

(I think this would be the appropriate place to post this...)

Just a head's up for anyone who uses GitP's forums, they are having server issues. The server's been getting worse over the past few months, getting notciably worse in the last few weeks, but now has basically hit critical mass, seemingly.

Information has been sparse, but we have some from Rich's twitter today.

Apparently, it's just become too big for the current hosting, so they can't even safely turn it back on now. The forums will be down, then, until they get a new server, which is an indeterminate timeframe (but Rich said zero chance before Monday).

(Several people on twitter have suggested he maybe look at go fund me or something if the expense is an issue. I for one would chip in if he does, I usually permenantly have 2-3 tabs open all day every day and it's killing me to have it down, since I have no-one to rant at!)

[captain yesterday]

You can rant here, go ahead give me your best shot!

[J. A.]

It's been nearly a week and no additional news, so GitP will probably be down for a long while.

I never had a good sense of just how many people were regulars in the Playground, but I'm guessing there were several thousand at least. I presume some fraction of them will migrate to other forums and will only filter back slowly, if at all, whenever the Playground is finally back up.

[Aotrscommander]

J. A. wrote:

It's been nearly a week and no additional news, so GitP will probably be down for a long while.

I never had a good sense of just how many people were regulars in the Playground, but I'm guessing there were several thousand at least. I presume some fraction of them will migrate to other forums and will only filter back slowly, if at all, whenever the Playground is finally back up.

Not entirely true - Rich's Twitter has some information as of today. He set up a Patreon early last week (as more than a few people suggested that if that was required to keep the forums running, especially since the ad revenue vanished), and the latest as I was looking just now is that they have located a new host and the forums will begin to be moved "tonight-ish." No timeframe yet (myself I would hazard a week or so, mayhaps), but things are moving.

[J. A.]

Interesting, thanks. I don't look at Twitter, so I was going by what's on the News page.

I'd be surprised if it's all done within a week, but at least there's activity in that direction.

[Nagog, Shard of Fate]

Could you drop a link or PM me to the twitter/patreon? I'd love to chip in, but I don't know where to look to help out. :)

[Aotrscommander]

Check the News page on the Giant in the playground site (only the forums are down, the comic and main site are up), there's a pateron link there in the most recent news post.

[J. A.]

Any further news? There don't seem to be any updates on the main site, and if there's anything on the Patreon page I can't find it.

It looks like Rich has passed 1500 supporters, which is nice in itself, but not sure what that means in terms of actual progress.

[Aotrscommander]

Data has been moved, and they are currently performing software updates and general sorting out, so progress is being made.

[J. A.]

Aha, thank you. That sounds extremely promising.

[J. A.]

The latest seems to be that they've hit some "technical wrinkles," I believe was the phrase, so it's sounding like it may be a few more days at least.

[J. A.]

...and now it's been another week, with no updates on the GiantITP or Patreon pages.

The forums have been down for at least three weeks now. Any word from other sources on what's going on? That's a lot of technical wrinkling.

[PFRPGrognard]

Hopefully they get a solution worked out.

[Aotrscommander]

Forums are back up as of today.