Changes of 2008

[Shaun]

I'm writing this somewhat as a heads up to all of you. We've had some serious issues with Hostican, our hosting service since 2008. You've probably noticed them as warnings of CPU over-usage and the like. This is a result of a change in policy at Hostican, or rather a change in how they are enacting policy. They, essentially, are enforcing their policies more so now that they have the means to track it. That means some bad things for YWO because this whole time we had no idea we were going over CPU usage limits.

What does that mean for you? Nothing at the moment. This is simply an initial announcement that things may change in the future. The website will be the same (youngwritersonline.net). The problem is that Andy and I are not rich and therefore we cannot afford, after paying for a full year of hosting we thought was going to work, to go off and buy upgraded hosting at another facility. However, we have to move.

You may see a few ads pop up in the near future. Please understand that these ads are in no way permanent, but temporary to provide Andy and I the revenue to pay for different hosting. Likely we'll be using Google click ads. Our aStore is not driving many funds our direction, and with the size of the site we never expected that. Regardless, we're going to do what we can to get money to pay for better hosting. There may also be a fundraiser in the near future and other things to try to get us the funds we need so we can stop this site from having problems permanently and so all of you don't have to deal with pesky warnings and periods of time when the site doesn't work because too many people are online.

I just wanted you all to know what is going on. If there is anything you think you can do to help us out, send a PM to me (Andy is having some issues being online as much as usual, so it's best to get to me first as I will answer quicker).

Thanks for your patience as we work through this. We appreciate you all not up and leaving us whenever a CPU usage warning comes up or some such. Just bare with us and we'll figure it out.

[Nyx]

Is the aStore gone now?

[Zaphkiel]

I hope things turn out for the best. If theirs anything I can do to help, just let me know.

[Rafael Domination]

It's the CPU usage limit right, not the CPU space?

[Andy]

Is the aStore gone now?
No, you can still by from the aStore. Any help is appreciated.

It's the CPU usage limit right, not the CPU space?
Nope. We've used up less than 1/1000th of our space. It's number of people online at once which is an issue.

[Nyx]

No, you can still by from the aStore. Any help is appreciated.


Nope. We've used up less than 1/1000th of our space. It's number of people online at once which is an issue.

Oh I see....

[Shaun]

If you all are wanting to bring us money, please use the donate button up top there. Only buy from the Amazon store if you actually want to buy from there. If you're just trying to get us some money, it's best just to donate. Otherwise you'll buy a bunch of stuff you might not really want. We put the aStore up so that anyone that uses Amazon can earn us a little cut from Amazon...since you're already going to buy, why not earn us a share :P.

Not sure what we're going to do exactly yet, but I wanted you all to know to expect changes. We didn't want to just spring them on you randomly.

[Nyx]

I was wondering, how much cut of what we buy from the astore does YWO get?

[Shaun]

Right now I think we get 5% from the U.S. and CA and 5.25% from the U.K. (we got a lot of sales from there).
Our problem with the aStore at the moment is that for the CA and U.K. store we have to reach a very large commission total before they will disperse anything to us (the total is about $100 in USD). The U.S. store accepts a bank account so we can actually get the money when we earn $10, which we're $5.30 away from. We're about $80 away from earning from the U.K. and we haven't earned anything from CA.
We don't get a lot, hence why we sort of wanted it there as a means for people that were already going to buy stuff from Amazon to earn us money in the process. We hope we can use it for prizes and stuff in the future when the site is larger...which isn't going to happen if we don't get a better hosting option :P.

[Nyx]

Oh I see...sadly it's the only way I can help since my parents have something against a paypal account...*don't ask:P*

[Shaun]

Well any way you can help is fine :P.

[Imelda]

I wish I had a job. :(

Although I think people who donate should get a shiny badge or something to perk up their profile. :D

[Shaun]

We could surely do that!!! Badges for donation peoples!