October 22, 2008
Joelfan user,
I'm sorry to report that due to financial issues, Joelfan.com had to be shut down.
On Monday, October 20th, I received an email from my host provider stating that Joelfan.com was becoming too active to remain in a shared-hosting environment. Basically, our site was utilizing too many resources on the server where it resides (see graph below). To protect other customers who have websites running on the same server as Joelfan.com, my host provider was requiring me to move the site to dedicated server. In that type of environment, Joelfan.com would “live” on it's own computer, and could use all the resources it needs without affecting other customers.
However, dedicated hosting is not cheap, and frankly, Joelfan.com just doesn't earn enough revenue to justify the upgrade. I'm sorry if this is the first time you're learning of this problem, but my hands were tied; my host provider only gave me 48 hours to remedy the situation, or to shut down.
Trying to comply with my host's requirements, I completed stripped Joelfan.com, leaving only the forum alive. But unfortunately, that wasn't enough. The forum was just getting too popular.
During the two days since the announcement, the forum became very active discussing the upcoming demise of the site. I apologize if you were unable to participate, but just I was unable to continue running Joelfan.com after the 22nd.
Many suggestions were offered, but ultimately, I decided to shut down. I am just not able to spend the hundreds-of-dollars per month to continue to keep this site running on a dedicated server.
I did make an entire back-up of the forum's database, and it is sitting in a MySQL file on my hard drive. Perhaps someday, it will again thrive. As for the domain, I will continue to retain ownership. I will not let it expire and fall into the hands of another organization.
Joelfan.com started in 1997 as a college project. I never imagined it would become as popular as it did, but was happy to see it grow and get used by so many fans. Joelfan users are resilient, and I'm sure before long there will be another site that will fill the void left by this site's departure.
Again, I am sorry. I'll see you on the 'net...
James Orlowski,
Administrator, www.JoelFan.com
