Suggestions for competitive additions to PonyHost

davide · August 5

I'm looking forward to add a large number of providers to ponyhost and host2go now that Not_Oles granted me freedom from the LET constraints that I used to impose on myself to play nice and cool.

I'm finally banned from LowEndTalk for "using the word shit". It's true! The ban comes from Not_Oles, the neutral and impartial moderator who gets money bags from Crunchbits to iron out specific issues with the forum, issues to which Crunchbits may be particularly sensitive... like competition. They're hiring content creators all over the web, affiliates, promoters of all kind, and they have a moderator on payroll over LET. That might sound like a fundamental conflict of interest but noooo it isn't, trust the overlords. I currently promote 46 providers and their VPS services, all patrons of LET so far, thru ponyhost and until yesterday thru the LowEndTalk forum, but Crunchbits is not one of them... I never received a hiring offer from them or any proposal to cooperate; sh97 got an offer instead, but they may have regarded me either as too expensive or too motivated considering the success of ponyhost, so the alternative solution to cooperation was to flush me like shit (opsss I used the word shit again! Hope Not_Oles doesn't see!!). I understood the strategy only a few weeks ago and this slippage by Crunchbits solidified the intuition. By not having received any invitation to cooperate I was expecting to eventually get banned thru Not_Oles. And the ridiculous reason was that I claimed that sh97 collects shit offers! Ops I said it again!!

Regardless of the mafia games at play and of the greed concealed under all that strategic kindness, I want to know:

which LES providers you think deserve some better publicity than what they currently manage to get on LES;
which LES providers are doing so-so but still deserve better recognition;
and which LES providers literally don't deserve anything at all! I can already think of one at least!!

There is a toggle button on ponyhost to show or hide the so-so providers that have okay-ish services but occasionally crap out on downtimes. Despite their problems I included some of these because their prices are so low that it may compensate. Fire up some ideas and I'll evaluate!

perryoo11 · August 5

zgato · August 5

you literally have a quote from @sh97 as your LET signature, whilst constantly trashing his lowend deals page (even if he's not even participating in that discussion). You deserved to be banned a while ago for several things, and I'm not the only one that thinks that.

He does it for passion & to help people whilst still being able to pay some bills. You do it as a business without caring for any provider. You don't have a single URL in your page without an affiliate link.

treesmokah · August 5

Your spam with unrelated offerings, under requests threads has been pissing me off.
Shilling reflinks is one thing, but at least shill them properly. Your recent attack at HostSlick despite begging him to work as affiliate, only left unpleasant taste.

@sh97 has done more to this community than you ever could. Its shameless to attack a well respected member like that, while you bring absolutely nothing to the table.

davide · August 5

@zgato:

It's a quote as you say. A quote! He said those words himself, because IT'S A QUOTE!
And those words are something like: "I promote a lot of affiliated summer hosts, buyers shall do their due diligence". Jesus it cannot be misread.

zgato · August 5

@davide said:

@zgato:

It's a quote as you say. A quote! He said those words himself, because IT'S A QUOTE!
And those words are something like: "I promote a lot of affiliated summer hosts, buyers shall do their due diligence". Jesus it cannot be misread.

I don't care about the quote, you're an annoying fan.

Jab · August 5

Is this that guy that created monthly yearly payment in his post?
I wish that ban was longer than a week then

davide · August 5

@Jab said:
Is this that guy that created monthly yearly payment in his post?
I wish that ban was longer than a week then

That's the guy, @jab. The format "$10 / month (yearly)" is a technical limitation of having all prices annualized and normalized monthly. Some providers only offer monthly prices, some only quarterly, some yearly. For simplicity, all prices are normalized during parsing. Reworking this limitation would increase the parsing time from 8 hours to a day and a half, as a lot more data would need to be crawled. I don't have the means to work this out as of now.

treesmokah · August 5

create a shit thread
get criticized
act defensive and attack people

this is gonna end well for you

crunchbits · August 5

@sh97 is a team member because of a huge amount of volunteer contributions both publicly and behind the scenes for over a year. His works with FreeVPS or all the way back to some of my first giveaways where things got a bit too out of control and he stepped up with a script to help pick randomized winners who met the criteria out of 50+ pages of comments.

He works on internal systems to help us better organize logistics and try to catch up on workflow as well as regular helpdesk tickets—I could care less about this weird feud you’ve invented over your parasitic behavior. He’s allowed to aff things the same way any staff here can as an all-around perk.

I wouldn’t and didn’t offer you anything because your spam suggestions are often inaccurate and I don’t want to be included in that. They do more damage than good.

Additionally throwing @Not_Oles under the bus further reinforces why it was the right call to ignore you. @Not_Oles is a volunteer who spends a ton of his unpaid time to try and clean things up and make things operate smoothly. I definitely don’t always agree with his approach and I have 0 say in it, but you can’t deny the passion and effort for this community.

As for the “slippage” joke I’ll chalk it up to you maybe not speaking English as a first language and sarcasm/humor may be difficult to understand. You should should dig deeper though because I’ve made the same joke to Relja before.

Normally I’d just laugh, maybe even stoke the flames a bit but since you’re directly attacking 2 individuals who are both constantly attempting to do things (for free) for this already small community I want to make sure they’re not needlessly smeared because of me.

davide · August 5

@crunchbits said:
Additionally throwing @Not_Oles under the bus further reinforces why it was the right call to ignore you.

So you do keep a list after all, of whom to approach and whom to ignore, on the forums and outside. That ought to be time consuming and time isn't gratis; as you said, the team has to pick up the slack and not even emperors had teams working for free. Now I don't know if Not_Oles really received no benefits for being a sales representative of Crunchbits, but nonetheless having a moderator in the team is a loot that no other provider was able to afford.

Now, I understand that you're here spending some further of your scarce time solely to preserve the company image, and any manipulative discourse may be thrown to achieve the goal. Falsity, deceit, bullshit, whatever works. Falsity is the expertise of professional media, I expect no less from a million dollar CEO. A big, time-consuming post solely aimed at manipulating the perception of the company and its affiliates. Or are we just having a chit-chat with your abundant free time? There is no purpose in listening to your false words when all the facts are out in the open and speak for themselves. sh97 is not of much significance to you and I believe he may well work for the glory alone, for the recognition of having a tag. But the moderator. The moderator... who wouldn't want a moderator on team. I was an inconvenience to you and all oh-so-casually your moderator had me removed.

Not_Oles · August 5

@crunchbits said: @sh97 is a team member because of a huge amount of volunteer contributions both publicly and behind the scenes for over a year. His works with FreeVPS or all the way back to some of my first giveaways where things got a bit too out of control and he stepped up with a script to help pick randomized winners who met the criteria out of 50+ pages of comments.

This. Notably @sh97 is a FreeVPS stalwart! @sh97 also has his nifty and very helpful speedtest script that many people use in addition to Mason's yabs. @sh97 has helped me many, many times. He can see different perspective! He's honest enough to disagree with me straight out, but politely. We have a couple of extended debates where he rips my position apart and kindly gives me opportunities to rethink everything from top to bottom. @sh97 is really super dependable! I will say that again: He's super dependable! Everything he touches gets fully taken care of without muss, fuss, or bother. @sh97 is awesome! @sh97 has to be one of the best guys we have on LES!

@crunchbits said: I want to make sure they’re not needlessly smeared because of me.

No worries! It's all good! Thanks for your kind words about me and about @sh97. You are greatly appreciated! Thanks again!

sh97 · August 5

Hey all,

Just to clear up some things - I originally started the lowend-deals website as I saw many requests on LE*, mainly around the $15 and $25 range. I had no intention of making it an affiliate money machine, but for the few providers I had an active account with, I thought of it as a way to help pay for the existing services. I also do not do any kind of URL obfuscation or JS magic or URL shortener to force a user to use my aff link - anyone is free to remove the aff ID. I also did not create any alt accounts to shill my links.

Davide was the one who approached me multiple times - the first time he tried to sell me his script collection to help "enhance" my site. He also admitted to using bots to auto-reply to any thread made in the request section of LET - which is very clearly not allowed in the rules. I declined the offer respectfully and even appreciated his work. I even went the extra mile - was not a dick to him, and did not report it to the mods or make any drama out of this.

Few weeks later:

Oh, and don't think I did not realize you are changing your profile picture to "assassinate" my picture while sending these messages, lol.

Ever since the above conversation, dude has been trying to shit on me. Most of the time, I ignore it, maybe even give a light-hearted reply. But recently, bro started tagging me on every other random offer thread, asking to add this shit to my shit list. This morning, the first thing I saw was this, and I just flagged the post - asking it to be looked at since this was not the first time, and it happened multiple times to the point that it was getting annoying.

I wouldn't have shared these screenshots - but I think he went too far with it this time, making wild accusations which is why I put the screenies now.

bikegremlin · August 5

TL/DR:
LET-like drama.
I think I should close this thread.

@crunchbits - as all the other LES providers - knows our regular staff rates, it's always been all public:
https://lowendspirit.com/index.php?p=/discussion/3994/new-proposed-les-faq/p1

Chievo · August 5

@bikegremlin said:
TL/DR:
LET-like drama.
I think I should close this thread.

@crunchbits - as all the other LES providers - knows our regular staff rates, it's always been all public:
https://lowendspirit.com/index.php?p=/discussion/3994/new-proposed-les-faq/p1

Kidney donated vía patreon.

davide · August 5

@sh97: you keep posting this private conversation as if it is some sort of secret plot to assassinate Caesar.

Back in March I offered you to buy a script to automate the upkeep of your website, and later on I offered you to join PonyHost and merge my and your website together as two administrators, each keeping separate indexes shared on the same website. I don't know what was triggered in your mind, but thanks for going the extra mile to not being a dick, I guess. I explained to you twice in private and twice in public (... and that's not enough?) that I don't have auto-responder scripts for the forum, I can't access my account now but I remember that conversation clearly, it's ridiculous that you keep insisting over and over on this point; and I "admitted to it" even? In March the old version of the script used a language model to collect offers and requests data from the forum, not to auto-respond. The newer version ignores the forum altogether; the offers were collected to be indexed in the catalog, and the requests were collected to have request data already formatted and ready to be searched against the index. But I told you this already.

davide · August 5

@bikegremlin: if you want to close the thread, can you instead just delete the replies and edit out my OP, removing the part where I mention the ban? The primary argument intended to be about LES offers, but the ban was so contagious.

dev_vps · August 5

include a section for provider with vps stable enough for windows OS
or may be an extra filter

zgato · August 5

@davide said:
@bikegremlin: if you want to close the thread, can you instead just delete the replies and edit out my OP, removing the part where I mention the ban? The primary argument intended to be about LES offers, but the ban was so contagious.

So now you're interested in all of this getting deleted? just crazy...

davide · August 5

@dev_vps said:
include a section for provider with vps stable enough for windows OS
or may be an extra filter

Windows is coming! Not too soon though, it's going to happen but I still have to clarify how the web interface is going to adapt to accomodate that. Indexing the data per se is the easy part, but the presentation of the search form needs to be designed properly and be intuitive enough. For example, some providers offer a Windows license included in the price of the VPS, others offer free trials that need a separate activation key, and others simply "permit" the installation of Windows via a custom ISO, but don't actually offer the ISO or the license. There are also providers that permit the installation of a custom ISO but specifically forbid Windows. These kinds of occurrences should be properly presented to the web interface. I have to think about it, but the easiest solution would be to just have a separate section of the website dedicated to Windows.

davide · August 5

@zgato said:
So now you're interested in all of this getting deleted? just crazy...

I was specifically asked to not create drama this morning. And that promise slipped out the window. If there is any part of the thread that you are amused by, index it on archive.org and flex on it on demand whenever you like.

crunchbits · August 5

@davide said:

@crunchbits said:
Additionally throwing @Not_Oles under the bus further reinforces why it was the right call to ignore you.

So you do keep a list after all, of whom to approach and whom to ignore, on the forums and outside. That ought to be time consuming and time isn't gratis; as you said, the team has to pick up the slack and not even emperors had teams working for free. Now I don't know if Not_Oles really received no benefits for being a sales representative of Crunchbits, but nonetheless having a moderator in the team is a loot that no other provider was able to afford.

Now, I understand that you're here spending some further of your scarce time solely to preserve the company image, and any manipulative discourse may be thrown to achieve the goal. Falsity, deceit, bullshit, whatever works. Falsity is the expertise of professional media, I expect no less from a million dollar CEO. A big, time-consuming post solely aimed at manipulating the perception of the company and its affiliates. Or are we just having a chit-chat with your abundant free time? There is no purpose in listening to your false words when all the facts are out in the open and speak for themselves. sh97 is not of much significance to you and I believe he may well work for the glory alone, for the recognition of having a tag. But the moderator. The moderator... who wouldn't want a moderator on team. I was an inconvenience to you and all oh-so-casually your moderator had me removed.

You're reading way too deeply into this. I don't keep a "list". I see how you act and that you bring nothing to the table and immediately put you into the "ignore" mental category when it was brought to my attention long ago. I'm only here because you're trying to use my company as a bludgeon to attack two other people that do not deserve it.

At this point you're now just making baseless accusations and refusing to listen to what I directly say or anyone else says which only further proves my decision to throw you into the mental garbage bin as the correct course of action. @sh97 is of significance to me, as a friend before he worked here (and even when he goes onto bigger and better things will remain so). The same goes for @Not_Oles and many other members (and mods) of both LE forums. I don't know why you think so highly of yourself to assume I even knew/cared about what you were doing, but here is a wake-up call: I didn't and still don't.

You should try just talking to people and being nice. You'll get a lot further than your underhanded mafioso-tier threats over your "business" which is below drop-shipping tier of parasitic. I've never asked @Not_Oles for a "favor" how you insinuate and that is just insulting to him. I legitimately do not believe he even would be bribed in such a manner. I wouldn't put him in that position, either. Maybe you missed the part where I had a pissed off MJJ spamming 4+ threads, my wall, threatening my family etc over a chargeback on OGF which stayed up for quite awhile despite my supposed mods-in-pocket. Curious how selective your memory appears to be.

I'll continue to rant for a minute here since I've already spared some of my multi-million-dollars time™ to reply and say your actions are a perfect example of one of the reasons why good hosts trying to run honest businesses avoid LE-stuff like the plague and are content for a slower drip of reasonable customers. The drama-burden-per-dollar is just far too high. Ask anyone who's been on the other side of it--you do a fun event, giveaway, crazy special, etc and are flooded with abusers and complete nonsense which unfortunately outweighs the fun in giving someone a great deal that can really use it. Imagine having to come here and defend your friends over completely ridiculous statements from some salty dingleberry because he can't spam forums with useless "recommendations" and steal a higher percentage of more transactions.

Jab · August 5

@crunchbits when LE* promo storage for cheap bastards like me? 512GB-1TB spinning rust VPS? :-D

crunchbits · August 5

@Jab said:
@crunchbits when LE* promo storage for cheap bastards like me? 512GB-1TB spinning rust VPS? :-D

There actually was a really long hardware-crafting call specifically to target ~250G/500G/1TB storage solutions (separate from standard VPSes). Uncertain if we go pure SSD or hybrid with less drives, though.

Jab · August 5

@crunchbits said:

@Jab said:
@crunchbits when LE* promo storage for cheap bastards like me? 512GB-1TB spinning rust VPS? :-D

There actually was a really long hardware-crafting call specifically to target ~250G/500G/1TB storage solutions (separate from standard VPSes). Uncertain if we go pure SSD or hybrid with less drives, though.

I just asked when, don't need full life-story! ;')
I guess nothing ready for now and no ETA rather than "soon"

dosai · August 5

You are way worse that I've thought.

TheDP · August 5

Lucky it was @Not_Oles

@davide said: The ban comes from Not_Oles, the neutral and impartial moderator who gets money bags from Crunchbits to iron out specific issues with the forum, issues to which Crunchbits may be particularly sensitive... like competition. They're hiring content creators all over the web, affiliates, promoters of all kind, and they have a moderator on payroll over LET.

DataRecovery · August 6

Brace yourselves, guys.
It's Mercury retrograde.

Started today, will last till Aug, 28th.
The drama isn't over. August is going to be a heck of a month.

beanman109 · August 6

Bro's a professional speedrunner for the LE* forums any% ban category

Otus9051 · August 6

i think i should make a book named "The Whiny Bitches of LE*"

well of course the first page would be mine.

root · August 6

I don't care about the allegiances made between people, work in helping one another, or affiliate links. This should not be a reason for business drama. Instead there should be more and more pages of advertising offers, more and more providers with offers, each with more inventive ways of attracting and driving consumers, while respecting other businesses for their hard work. This is how humanity evolves, science evolves, innovation evolves. Together we stand with love, divided we fall with hate.

Suggestions for competitive additions to PonyHost

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