Misc

The long goodbye begins now

57 Comments
Update: It looks like we have been granted a reprieve for as long as The Patron Saint of Servers shows us mercy. The information below will remain as a reminder of what could have been.
It’s been a wild ride. But all good things must come to an end.

It’s been a wild ride here at TotalDrama. From breaking the news about the sad passing of Erik Lanigan, to letting our loyal readers know first that Sarah Lane had taken a job at TechCrunch, to spreading the real truth about Leo’s potty mouth during his alleged “family-friendly” New Year’s Eve broadcast, to chronicling the absolute shitty depths of Mike Elgan’s horrible reign at TNT… We here at TotalDrama have loved every minute of it.

To those who think that this blog was held together by one person in his mother’s basement, let me tell you this: We are a team—a team of coders, chatroom members, bloggers, #scoup artists, comedy writers and researchers. It oftentimes felt like family as we gathered together to plot the next takedown, the next groundbreaking post. We had a great time and it wouldn’t have been possible without the readers. Readers who stuck by us and helped us grow to unprecedented monthly views.

But the hard reality of paying for an anonymous server located in Europe with a freewheeling dedication to supporting our free speech rights has finally hit home. Spreading truth costs money. And the money to run the server just isn’t there. That doesn’t mean that the need has gone away. The need to tell the world about Leo’s untruths abides. And if somebody wants to step forward and pay for the server, then we’ll take it. We’re not too proud to accept help.

But if that doesn’t come to pass, we adore you all! And it has been our pleasure in bringing you nothing but TotalDrama for all these months.

Update: We’re baaaaaaaaack!

57 thoughts on “The long goodbye begins now”

    1. TWiT would have their San Francisco butt buddies shut that down in a New York minute. They have their minions shut down HelloWorld’s Twitter accounts within minutes at this point.

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  6. I ran a website with a lot more traffic than this one off a $10 monthly account on hostgator, + paying for the domain name (15 / year).

    It’s not really that expensive to run a low-medium traffic site.

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    1. Eat a dick. The site costs a lot because the host is explicitly free speech and anti-DMCA, hosted in Europe, and allows us to remain anonymous. There is a lot more to TotalDrama than this blog. IRC, IRC Bots, DVR, IRCD, IRC Services, and far more scripts running on the back end. It’s not just WordPress.

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  8. I’m surprised this site would cost a lot to run. Why not just make a tumblr blog or go to to serversfree.com
    You could even use WordPress.com for hosting pay $20 a year for the use of your own domain name.
    Are you able to give any numbers on how much traffic you’re getting?

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    1. I’ve answered this in other responses in this thread. Search my name. Your questions seem genuine so I have not given you eating instructions, which others go.

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  9. “A team of coders…”
    This is a pretty simple wordpress site. I don’t think you need a team of people to produce this. It could be thrown together in about an hour or two.

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    2. Eat a dick. There is a lot more to TotalDrama than this blog. IRC, IRC Bots, DVR, IRCD, IRC Services, and far more scripts running on the back end. It’s not just WordPress.

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    3. This is a Four Toilets production, and so cost many coders minutes of time. Or so they said.

      Meanwhile I am getting my id setup so i can send some bitcoins so I can continue to post and read and not get kicked. As fucking twitter just did.

      An I learnink de Englisch realt goodt.

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  10. Does the staff and dept. heads at TD still have the energy to fight evil? To protect the meek? To wage a war of truth and pure of heart? Who among us will stand with these warriors and cough up some cash? I’m in for a donation.

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  16. I’m the interests of transparency, perhaps you could outline your costs. How much bandwidth are you consuming? What is your projection for the future?

    Have you considered putting a donate button on the front page? Perhaps show a thermometer with progress and goal.

    Have you looked for alternative hosting?

    How many are the core team? And are each of them willing to commit funds to keep it running? Spread to all of them, is it still not within their means?

    Have you accepted that fact Mike Elgan will last longer than you, or will you fight to continue?

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    1. How much bandwidth are you consuming? What is your projection for the future?

      Less than 200GB outbound per month. We don’t project that to grow substantially. The host doesn’t track or charge for inbound, but I would say it’s probably about a TB due to DVR.

      Have you considered putting a donate button on the front page? Perhaps show a thermometer with progress and goal.

      There is a donate page, which no one has used. There is no need for a thermometer. No one has ever used it. The blockchain is public.

      Have you looked for alternative hosting?

      Like what? This site is far more than a blog. See prior comments on this article by me.

      How many are the core team?

      Wouldn’t that be fun to know?

      And are each of them willing to commit funds to keep it running? Spread to all of them, is it still not within their means?

      No one is willing to continue paying since nobody cares about Leo that much, which is why we are where we are today.

      Have you accepted that fact Mike Elgan will last longer than you, or will you fight to continue?

      That implies we care about Mike Elgum.

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      1. Having a donate page is fine. Being reluctant to call attention to it isn’t. It’s ok to ask.

        This site being more than a blog is not a reason to avoid looking for alternative hosting. I don’t understand that response at all. I’ll conclude no one is looking. Based on what you’ve said so far, a 10 dollar vps should all you need.

        You’re making it clear you guys don’t care that much, so I guess I won’t either.

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        1. I’ve enumerated the reasons for this hosting in other comments: non-US, anonymous, anti-DMCA, payable in BTC. We don’t use this host because we like spending more money than a $10 VPS.

          We had a $10 VPS before, but they terminated the hosting due to CPU usage. The blog is too high-traffic and has other services that cause cheap hosting using OpenVZ to be unable to cope. Therefore, Xen or KVM is required, which is more expensive, especially when you factor in the other requirements.

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          1. Ok. You’re happy with your hosting, and 40 bucks a month is fine. Put a donate button right up front, ask for help every month in a post. Encourage a subscription donation. If you want to continue, do at least that minimum.

            Amanda Palmer has a great TED Talk about the power of asking.

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  18. No, I think you should find a way to continue to devote all your time and energy to stalking, harassing, trolling and living through Leo instead of doing things that are productive or interesting.

    I think you can continue this for 30 more years.

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  21. Bottom line, how much do you need per month? If it’s less than $100/ month we may be able to work something out, maybe just myself and one other person, if it’s hundreds to thousands per month then yea that would be difficult without a lot of donations. Or, if you guys have reached the point you just don’t want to continue and don’t care anymore, that’s something else entirely.

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    1. It’s currently $40/mo on the host with meets our requirements, but we’re transitioning to a new host provided by a third party. Thank you for your offer.

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    1. It’s unfortunate that you’re too stupid to click the DVR link. The DVR is integral to TotalDrama because they cut out all the #drama, like the tweets yesterday.

      IRC is not free when you want your own community not controlled by someone else.

      PS – Eat a dick.

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