Fluxen,

I appreciate your point of view, but they're in a business whether they intend to be or not, with a lot of people (1 million visitors a day) that rely on them.

If this is just a hobby and they intend to treat it that way, they ought to recognize that's gotten way too big for them.

Does the fact that I'm doing the leather stuff at virtually no profit matter to the people who buy it from me? If they get an inferior product, it won't matter a darn, and shouldn't. They have a right to demand quality.

Nobody, whether as a business or a hobby, should be providing products or services to the public, even for free, on the premise that its ok to be 2nd rate just because nobody's making any money or they're doing it as volunteers. IMO opinion, the "making no money" agrument just becomes an excuse for shoddy work, and I don't buy it.

Rick



[This message has been edited by Rick Hesel (edited October 13, 2000).]

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Sunchild:
[B]So, is Netcraft.com correct?

 

"as far as I know they don't really make anything off of it"

Granted I have no idea how much it costs to run it a month but they do have quite a few sponsors.

"Does the fact that I'm doing the leather stuff at virtually no profit matter to the people who buy it from me?"

Good comparison. Overall it's sad that it really was a good thing going there with all the people that frequented it and maybe it will come back some but each time it has a problem the posts seem to drop off so I'm sure it will be quite some time now before/if it really comes back to life.

"Do to flux in the layout of the site, we are making changes to some of the sponsorship positioning. Details of the new positioning and pricing will be available shortly."

Anxiously awaiting the updates on pricing.

-Trevor

 

Rick said:
"I appreciate your point of view, but they're in a business whether they intend to be or not, with a lot of people (1 million visitors a day) that rely on them."

Holy ****! they have 1 mm users/day?! That's hard to believe...are you sure that's not 1mm hits?

"If this is just a hobby and they intend to treat it that way, they ought to recognize that's gotten way too big for them."

That I won't argue with.

"Does the fact that I'm doing the leather stuff at virtually no profit matter to the people who buy it from me? If they get an inferior product, it won't matter a darn, and shouldn't. They have a right to demand quality."

Well, if you were giving it away, I wouldn't complain

"Nobody, whether as a business or a hobby, should be providing products or services to public, even for free, on the premise that its ok to be 2nd rate just because nobody's making any money or they're doing it as volunteers. IMO opinion, the "making no money" agrument just becomes an excuse for shoddy work, and I don't buy it."

I think the hobby argument makes it ok to not be a professional at it, that's why it's a hobby. I'm not saying that makes their site useable, desireable, etc. I'm not saying I don't get ****ed that the threads I was interested in are gone, and I'm not saying I wouldn't have looked for an alternative.

I'm just saying some of the comments seem harsh, and it would be a more diplomatic withdrawl from ha.net to say "It's unfortunate the site wasn't more dependable, I had a good time there and am sorry to have to leave it." Rather than "I can't believe how crappy those bastards were at running that site!"

This may seem like pussy-footing to some of the people reading this, and yet many of those same people (myself included) were just plain embarassed by the lack of diplomacy in the infamous Comptech Supercharger thread over there.

This whole phenomenon of the annonymity of the Internet offering people the chance to vent in a way they never would face-to-face with a person is a big problem, and I just wish people would act a little more like they would in the real world.

Obviously, just my 2...

 

realize i had 1 hour warning that the site was going to be taken down.

realize that the previous admin neglected to switch dns until AFTER the site was taken down, and ignored my requests for a redirect link.

realize that i require sleep too and that i am only one person.

i had no access to the data before oct 2, and it was not provided to me. that's why everything between then and now is missing.

please, have a little understanding. i'm only human and cannot have a site such as h-a.net up and running in 5 minutes. i think two days is actually a damn good turnaround time considering the circumstances.

and rick, i hope i was an amusing clown for your sake i tried to get all the old data sent to me, but i suppose it just got deleted from the old server. sorry man.

thanks to some of you for supporting me and h-a.net, and i'm sorry that the rest of you were disappointed.

i hope my explanation sheds a bit more light on the subject from the new adminstrator's perspective.

[This message has been edited by josh3io (edited October 13, 2000).]

 

Josh,

I don't think anyone meant to drag you down. I, for one, don't have any idea who you are or how you fit in to this whole picture. I suspect that you are taking the flack for Fazle's rotten attitude. You might save yourself a headache by explaining exactly what happened.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by fluxen:
[B]
"Does the fact that I'm doing the leather stuff at virtually no profit matter to the people who buy it from me?

 

The fact of the matter, as is obvious from all of the posts from people who work on this site, is that it has been poorly managed, free or whatever. That was obvious to me from nearly the first day I found the site, last June.

Who owns the domain? That's where the buck stops. What's the legal entity? Who's the reponsible party?

The free argument, IMO, is just nonsense. The net is full of "free" sites with as many or more posts as H-A.net, and not nearly as many problems. And with 8 or more sponsors, it's not like there's no income coming in, plus the domain name itself has real value.

S2000online is free, too, but I'll bet a set of leather accessories that this site doesn't have anything resembling the problems of H.A.net. We can rationalize this thing to death, but the facts speak for themselves: H.A.net was an unreliable site.

By the way, I gave away about 100 sets of visor labels, no questions asked, before I decided to start charging for them. I didn't think giving them away was a reason for ignoring quality or not providing adequate service to the people who wanted them.

I guess my expectations are just a bit different. I apologize I wasn't a bit more diplomatic in my comments, but there was much diplomacy evident when all previous problems occured, and nothing changed. In fact, I think it was only when the threat of a massive exodus from the site materilaized that things were changed, and in a great hurry. Why would they care at all if there was so little at stake?

Rick

[This message has been edited by Rick Hesel (edited October 13, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Rick Hesel (edited October 13, 2000).]

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Sunchild:
[B]Josh,

I don't think anyone meant to drag you down.

 

Well, in that case. Thanks for trying to salvage the site. I don't think you should take the blame for Fazle's crybaby act.