Question on Mirror Sites

[fesworks]

what's the rules on Mirror sites?

I was kinda thinking making a mirror on say ComicGenesis or Drunk Duck or something might draw up more of an audience... and hoepfully redirect them to the main site.

I also ask because I know someone that was thinking about applying at Xepher, but kinda wanted to stay on CG to try and be apart of their Free Comic Book Day Book next year.

So I said I'd ask, since I was also kinda wondering about that.


I have absolutely no intention of leaving Xepher or focusing on anything but this host.  But I was curious.

[Xepher]

There's no hard and fast rule about it. Generally, I'd say it's a matter of what the purpose/use of the mirror is. For example, many people here also have a DA account. I don't have a problem with that, as it's sort of something different than what I provide, and it's a community in it's own right. That in mind though, I don't like to host someone's splash/portal page that merely redirects to DA for pretty much everything. Conversely, I don't want a xepher.net site to be just a "backup" or filedump for someone's main site elsewhere.

I think I'd phrase it this way maybe... Users are free to have sites elsewhere, and there are a myriad of good reasons for doing so. I just don't want users to disrespect what I'm doing here by mooching free service or bandwidth. Basically, if you're not gonna feel guilty about pointing it out on the forums here, then it's probably just fine.

Fes, your particular idea, of creating other sites to draw more people to your main site here is just fine by me. If CG wasn't such a huge thing, I'd say you should see how THEY feel about it though. The reverse situation wouldn't please me... but then again CG (or geocities and the like) aren't quite the same thing as what we're doing here.

[fesworks]

that answers my question, thanks!

[Miluette]

Hey, I never even thought about this.

I have mirrors for both my webcomics, but they're only for the pages. Backup, really. I have tooons of content on this server, which will always be my "main".

[reinder]

I moved ROCR off Xepher.net some two weeks ago. That move had been on the cards for a long time. I've always been grateful to Xepher for offering the space, and I've found him to be very supportive and approachable, especially keeping in mind that he's just one guy with a linux box who needs to sleep every once in a while, but since the move to Arclight, I've been uncomfortable with the terms on which Xepher's been offered (I want to be the sole arbiter of what goes on my site and what doesn't) and with the non-standard way things were done on the technological end (Arclight runs wonderfully most of the time, but whenever I need support for a third-party app like Wordpress or Willowcms, I have to work around the lack of FTP functionality, PHP safe mode and/or the permissions set-up). So now that I'm a little better funded, I've packed up to Lunarpages. No hard feelings, I hope - I would recommend Xepher to any artist who is in the same position I was when I joined, and I would tell them that I've been 99% happy with the service over the past couple of years.

That reduces rocr.xepher.net to a mirror. Actually, I'd be happy to cancel it at some time. All the content of the old site has been moved over except for the old Gallery installation, and it's time that died. But inevitably, a lot of the links on the new site, especially image links in the blog, still point to rocr.xepher.net. In time, I'll run some scripts on the new blog so all those URLs are changed.

But it's not up to me to decide that. Xepher, are you OK with some sort of grace period for me to fix stuff up, change all my links and tie up all the loose ends before pulling the plug?

[Xepher]

Yeah, not a problem on the grace period.

Sorry to see you go, but I know where you're coming from too. I think I've fixed some of the things you mentioned (safe mode hasn't been used since the move to the current server, and the funky permissions are no longer required either) but other stuff (like the lack of FTP) just became an essential when dealing with the security issues on a free service like this. If you'd seen the FTP logs and the number of break-in attempts there... wow, is all I can say. Most everything I do, non-standard though it may be, is to keep things running smoothly and easily for the majority of people the majority of the time. That generally means people that have comparatively little technical experience, and thus things are biased towards them and the things they usually do (or forget to do.)

I also know you probably weren't too pleased with the downtime that kept cropping up... That was the most annoying, as I know it was a real problem for people, even though it was occurring because of the datacenter's networking infrastructure, and not though mismanagement on my part. Didn't help that they scheduled most of their repair time for late night in the US, and that made it mid-day for you.

As for the terms... I assume you mean the rules about pornographic stuff, since ROCR often involved nudity. Again, I understand and don't fault you for it. I'm just in a tricky place, because I have to balance things with a U.S.-centric sense of permissibility, as well as the fact that many users and viewers here are underage. If I'm wrong, and your talking about the newsbox requirement for having a domain name... well, I won't apologize, but I do understand. Once "xepher.net" isn't even on the address bar, that's the only way left for viewers to know a site is hosted here, and hopefully attract new users.

Anyway, this got longer than I expected, but suffice to say, I wish you the best, and I'll leave the site and stuff up for at least a couple months or so here, even if I don't hear from you. If you could just do me the favor and let me know when you actually don't need it anymore though, that'd be best. And if you feel like it, lemme know what specific problems you had with the service (or me.) Don't worry about hurt feelings or anything, just be honest. I'd like to know what to work on improving for the future.

[fesworks]

*sniff* Well I'm not leaving

Well, not Jenny Everywhere or My comics

Ardra *might* be a different story, as that's Jason's call, not mine.

Moving the Beacon was a matter of increasing the audience, so hopefully that will happen on the new site.... also, Hopefully it should lighten the bandwidth burden on Xepher... maybe we were inadvertently cause downtime or something. *shrug*

Anyone, on to keeping on topic. I plan to leave the Xepher site up for a month or two. Basically to maintain some old links during the transition. I'll be putting a "we moved" mini-podcast up as the last show here as well. The Xepher site will continue to have all the Xepher links and banners

After a month or two, I'm going to change a few details to kill all outdated links. I'll put a "we moved" page up and such. I plan to keep some of the stuff in my account in a dormant directory in case the new place doesn't work out for whatever reason.

All of the Xepher promos and such within older episodes will remain intact on the new site (no way am I re-recording the breaks for 30+ shows!)

Down the line I'll be doing a Xepher.net Community Showcase, as we aren't restricted on our content

[Xepher]

Fes: I'm not worried about your podcast moving... For that matter, I'm not worried about ANYONE moving. I provide free hosting, which is a very niche market. Once people get established and have a real audience, it's not a surprise that they want to move on to something more targeted or individualistic. I cater to people starting out, or unsure of their potential. When they hit the big time, of course they're not gonna want to stick around here with my specific restrictions. :-)

Have fun! Do what ya'll need to! Make the internet a better place for everyone! That's the goal here.

[reinder]

I also know you probably weren't too pleased with the downtime that kept cropping up... That was the most annoying, as I know it was a real problem for people, even though it was occurring because of the datacenter's networking infrastructure, and not though mismanagement on my part. Didn't help that they scheduled most of their repair time for late night in the US, and that made it mid-day for you.

Nobody likes downtime. But I also accept that it happens and your responsiveness to queries has been pretty good, especially for a one-man operation. The recent incidents merely spurred me into action on a plan I'd had for almost a year.

As for the terms... I assume you mean the rules about pornographic stuff, since ROCR often involved nudity. Again, I understand and don't fault you for it. I'm just in a tricky place, because I have to balance things with a U.S.-centric sense of permissibility, as well as the fact that many users and viewers here are underage. If I'm wrong, and your talking about the newsbox requirement for having a domain name... well, I won't apologize, but I do understand. Once "xepher.net" isn't even on the address bar, that's the only way left for viewers to know a site is hosted here, and hopefully attract new users.

It was both those things and more. The advertising policy was beginning to feel restrictive. You've been dilligent about reacting to requests to allow new ad providers, but I no longer wanted to have to ask. I want to monetise the site more and to be able to respond more quickly to new developments. I missed out on ADSDAQ when it was new, for example. I might implement it on the site, or I might not, but I missed that crucial momentum when it was the talk of the webcomics world.

Of course, now  that I'm paying for the site, I'll have to monetise it more just to get that investment back. But at current dollar to Euro exchange rates, I'm not exactly hurting.

I don't have perfect freedom now, of course. Lunarpages has its own set of limitations, like the lack of shell access unless I pay more. It just so happens that where I'm at now, this specific set of limitations affects me less than the ones at Xepher. And while I thought Arclight was a big step ahead in stability and performance, this new server does outperform it

I'm glad we're on the same page about who Xepher can serve best, from your answer to Fes.


Anyway, this got longer than I expected, but suffice to say, I wish you the best, and I'll leave the site and stuff up for at least a couple months or so here, even if I don't hear from you. If you could just do me the favor and let me know when you actually don't need it anymore though, that'd be best. And if you feel like it, lemme know what specific problems you had with the service (or me.) Don't worry about hurt feelings or anything, just be honest. I'd like to know what to work on improving for the future.
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[Xepher]

You know... it didn't even occur to me that the restrictive advertising policies would be the issue! It's so ingrained in me to dislike advertising, I forget that other people are actually trying to make money from websites, rather than just spend money on one like I do. :-)

Yeah, that makes perfect sense now... While I know the newsbox and basic censorship requirements can be kind of a pain, I always thought I was pretty reasonable there. But you have a comic with enough of an audience you can try and really work it from a commercial angle, and that's the point where I always expected people would move on to their own thing. It's also the restriction I put in place specifically to make sure sites here don't get too large, or just take advantage of charity when they're actually turning a profit. Not that you were/are... I get that you're not there yet, but want the freedom to make a real push for it.

Anyway, best of luck! And if you think about it, check back and let us know how your doing in a year or two once you're rich and famous. :-P

[fesworks]

Profit? What's that?

[sagebrush]

That's funny to see someone moving to Lunarpages.

I'm moving here FROM Lunarpages.   

[Xepher]

Reinder is pretty technically minded though, more so than almost any other users I've had, so he's not gonna have to rely on their (lack of) support hopefully. :-)

[Databits]

The restrictions that Xepher has in place aren't all that bad.

Granted, banner ad restrictions are kinda pointless (within reason). But pornographic stuff is something that even a lot of paid hosts disallow, and with good reason. Hosting ANY adult-oriented sites can actually end up hurting a hosting service. Some companies that decide to allow that sort of thing will do so under a different name using different servers to prevent it from being linked back to their normal services and users. Primarily because there are a lot of people who frown on that sort of thing, and will refuse to use the host for no good reason at all (many people don't seem to distinguish the difference between the host and the site owner, mainly because many people are rather stupid IMO).

The FTP thing also makes a lot of sense. FTP is a pain to keep secure, it's generally a horrible big gaping hole that says "come on in" to things like botnets. Which then in turn end up hurting every single user on the entire system as well. Besides, SCP and SFTP are perfectly good substitutes for that. I do get that some comic script systems are retarded and require FTP for stupid shit like setting file permissions (despite there's quite a few other ways you could do it). But outside that, it's not that big of a hurdle to jump for the extra security it provides.

The newsbox is also not that bad of a restriction be it a free service, since it's only when using your own domain (noted that it says optional for *.xepher.net domains), and it's a hell of a lot better than having auto-inserted banner and popup ads all over everything under the sun or some framed banner at the top. Since you can stylize it to make it belong to the design more. I'm not sure if Xepher would allow it, but you could even (through some extra work and scripting) make a banner rotation system which just includes the Xepher one in it.

When's the last time you used ANY of the open source software that many people here use to display/manage their comics and it not have some required blurb and link to the software's own site? 

[sagebrush]

I thought the banner was dorky at first, but I've been getting a lot of traffic from it that I wasn't expecting, so now I like it.