Thetvdb.com needs your help

[Inker]

Hello users.

As you know, we make use of the interfaces at TheTVDB.com in order to retrieve TV series information. They are currently trying to get up and running with a new web hosting service while keeping their current host as their first mirror. This would provide more reliable and faster service for users. In order to do this, they are trying to raise the initial $60 fee required to start a hostmonster.com account. Any additional or future fees will be strictly used for paying for web hosting. If they get a large amount of donations, they will be used to set up additional mirrors to further improve their service. They also have Google ads on the site which should cover the monthly fees once they're up and running. Please continue to visit their site and help add content whenever possible.

If you would like to donate to them, please visit this address. Every dollar helps and is greatly appreciated by them. Thank you.

Just to be clear, they are and will stay free. They don't make any profit from this. You don't have to donate and can still use the service. But if nobody donates and the user base keeps growing the servers will get slower and less reliable.

[piranha]

What about the donation of the mirrors? There were some people (myself included) who offered mirrors. Maybe instead rising another server, just get people the way they can help already?
The problem was, it was never specified what are the requirements for the mirrors (bandwidth wide etc).

[polargeek]

Basically, until we have one mirror actually working we don't want to test mirroring on someone else. Plus we really won't know what the requirements are until we have one working mirror - ie if root access is necessary etc.

We fully intend to take people up on mirroring offers but honestly until we can make one mirror work we don't want to take a chance that a mirror causes data corruption or that people get incomplete data from a mis-configured mirror.

Paul

[THDBASED]

Would it not be better to have this site and the team to join the MP team and use the resources (donations, servers,...) of MP, this would help to make this even better for MP users and better for the site itself...

Any thoughts on this?

[piranha]

Um Paul..
I see what you are getting at, but also consider that some of us may have *available servers* that you do not have to pay for.
We just need to know what's the requirement currently, and maybe that will be better solution than getting some cheap-ass account and then worrying about some unstable host?

[polargeek]

Originally Posted by piranha

Um Paul..
I see what you are getting at, but also consider that some of us may have *available servers* that you do not have to pay for.
We just need to know what's the requirement currently, and maybe that will be better solution than getting some cheap-ass account and then worrying about some unstable host?

I'll run it by Scott he's the one writing the mirroring and dealing with money stuff.

Paul

[szsori]

We will definitely be taking people up on their offers to host mirrors. There are two issues with doing that right now:

1. The issue of developing the mirroring scripts. We do have a very basic setup for mirroring already, but it hasn't worked up to our expectations. As a result we'd like to immediately get a mirror setup that we have full access to, so we can verify the data as we go along. This will allow us to tweak everything without having to rely on someone else to change mysql, php, or perl settings. It will also give us 2 sources of data that we have complete control over where we're not dependent on anyone else.
2. More importantly, I don't trust our current server. During a restart, mysql takes 4 hours before it allows connections even though it's running. It continuously and very slowly loads data into memory until it reaches the point that it wants. It also puts a strain on my work server, which is hosting multiple presidential websites right now. By switching the main site to somewhere like hostmonster, we retain full control over the data while allowing me to use my work server as the first mirror.

The Google ads on the site are currently paying my boss about $15/month for the hosting, but they only get paid out when you hit $100. What we're aiming for is $60 in donations to get the site moved over at which time the Google ads will be switched away from my boss and into an account of our own. These will then sustain the main site indefinitely.

We still will take up people's offers on hosting mirrors, which will add even more redundancy and speed, but I want to address these other things first.

[piranha]

I'm sorry to come back again...
From what I already see, you are not up for shared hosting profile, yet the price you are quoting is strictly for shared hosting.
Did you think it through? Do you have any good experience with that hostmonster/bluehost? Did you speak to them openly what kind of material will be hosted, and what are your requirements?
Not to seem too negative, but I kinda am in hosting business, and I know how tricky webhostings AUPs and TOSes get.

[nfox]

I don't care about mirrors, I just love the service provided by theTVDB. I used it when I was running meedio, I use it now, and when there's a way of reliably running meedio/meediOS with MPTV, I will still use it. A donation is on the way.

[scythelt]

Would the new hosting permit fan-art backgrounds to be included as (optional) downloads along with banners, coverart and screenshots?