Hydrogenaudio offline for a while...

[The Belgain]

In case you guys haven't checked HA recently, it seems to be down for a while - spiralling hosting costs and a change of direction in the forum seem to be to blame.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org

[tiki4]

I felt like posting that here, too. I'd be interested if someone knows something more. I registered just recently and taking the whole thing down seemed to come over night. Well, it is the good right of the owner and moderating team to do so, but removing so much information from the net without a warning (at least none came to my eyes/ears) seems a little bit harsh to me.

Regards,

tiki4

[gantz]

I agree. I didn't contribute much to HA, but I did contribute. How should folks feel that poored their heart and soul into it only to have it pulled? I don't see why the new direction couldn't be considered while the forum was still running.

[tiki4]

Gantz,

I didn't mean to criticise anyone at HA. This forum is great and I support anything the mods think is necessary to maintain the quality. However I was wondering why this step came without any further notification. I consider this a little bit rude. However I'm not into IRC, so I don't have the chance to communicate with anyone from HA directly. I just thought some people with deeper insight than me could clarify a little bit.

tiki4

[gantz]

I agree completely. I'm also in the dark. Slashdot (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/22/0437244&mode=thread&tid=126&tid=141&tid=188) has a worthless thread going about HA. Best to stay out of that mess. Probably be seeing more HA people around here for a while.

[tiki4]

That thread you linked to is really crap. Why do people state their opinion about the best MP3 audio player? Didn't we have too many of those flame wars ('foobar is better than Winamp') on HA already in the last weeks?

tiki4

[gantz]

I didn't notice any recent wars. Foobar2k suits the needs of a lot of people, myself included.

I've mirrored the site in case it gets slashdotted.

http://as220.org/mobius/dear.john.letter/

The problem with slashdot is that the readership is too big. There are a lot of loud mouth idiots there that don't bother reading up on shit before they open their yappers. And their moderation system doesn't work. There should be another catagory even worse than troll: idiotic.

[goweropolis]

I miss HA already! :(

I've been a longtime member of HA. I found it is (has been?) an excellent place for audio discussion. Unfortunately, it's increasing popularity attracts people who aren't capable of having reasonable discussions.

I did see the recent thread/flamewar on software audio players. It appears to be the same old story; misunderstanding and poor communication. I don't really wanna take sides on it.

It's kinda cool reading developers going at each other though. It's nice to hear differing opinions, and the conversations can be very stimulating.

Tiki4: From the wording on the site, it sounds like HA will return. Given the amount of work put into the site by founder/moderators, I'd be surprised if it disappeared forever. Imagine Doom disppearing! :eek:

[tiki4]

@goweropolis:

Why didn't they switch HA just read-only (dunno if the forum software allows for that). Just now a discussion about a new Lame 3.94 alpha had started which seemed to indicate that development continues somehow. I wonder why there is nearly no response on the shutdown around here or everwicked or even other places?

Guess the guys hang all around on IRC where I won't go.

tiki4

[ChristianHJW]

The biggest problem, as i see it, is that Dibrom, the founder and main admin, has to finance the complete hosting out of his own pocket, quite similar to what Doom9 is doing here.

The big difference between the two is that Doom9 is still 100% behind what he's doing here, while Dibrom in the recent past had more and more problems about whats going on at HA.org :

- the foobar2000 zealots making any kind of player discussion impossible, as their player is the best and all others suck

- Vorbis and AAC zealots jumping on the MPC users at every possible and impossible situation, telling them their preferred format is a dead end because it will never get hardware support and the like

- Newbies appearing more and more ( thats typical for a well known site ), asking stupid questions without reading through the existing threads before

Its only my personal opinion, but i feel Dibrom was more and more asking himself why on earth he should spend his own money for a board he cant identify with anymore .....

[tiki4]

Hi Christian,

thanks for joining. I read the HA forums for over a year now but just registered to join some HE-AAC discussions as I am very interested in that format (from a movie point of view). I saw these issues the last time as well and I think I understand how problematic the situation has become. But as I already mentioned I'd preferred a controlled shutdown. To me it came without any warning and I really don't hope that all the knowledge about audio(-compression) will just be lost.

tiki4

[JohnV]

Hey guys.

First, don't worry. HA will definitely be back in couple of days. The reason we took it offline (you can actually blame me for the idea), was because we have few issues which need to be addressed and thought carefully (starting from the hosting cost coverage which is a pretty essential thing), and some of the recent threads and discussions there took away our time needed to handle this and other issues the best way possible.
Further more, few days vacation is not actually hurting me and Dibrom..

I can assure you that the situation is not very serious, and HA will be back shortly.

[Doom9]

@christian: your post was actually a good explanation why we have our forum rules.

[tiki4]

Originally posted by JohnV


I can assure you that the situation is not very serious, and HA will be back shortly.

Good news, JohnV.

tiki4

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by Doom9 @christian: your post was actually a good explanation why we have our forum rules.
Doom9, being admin on a typical Newbie board now since more than one year ( Vdub support forum ), i can understand the necessity of your rules better and better, believe me ;) ....

[JohnV]

Originally posted by Doom9
@christian: your post was actually a good explanation why we have our forum rules. Well, Christian's post was pure speculation, and not true regarding the first 2 points, at least what becomes to our thoughts..

[DKDIB]

John V. wrote
> First, don't worry. HA will definitely be back in couple
> of days. [...]

Great! :D
Thanks a lot for the explanation! ^__^

[JohnV]

HydrogenAudio is back online. :)

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by JohnV
HydrogenAudio is back online. :) ... is it ?? To me it keeps coming back saying 'connection refused' :( ??

[ChristianHJW]

Update :

When i reconnect, so i get another IP, and use hydrogenaudio.org instaed of my bookmarked URLs, i can connect to the main page. However, if i click on 'more' in the 'portals' page i get kicked again :(

I am using mozilla, so what could be the problem ?