Is everything okay with the site? It seems to be crashing quite a lot lately.

Seems almost weekly. Weekend rush, maybe?

I couldn't reach dumpshock all weekend.

It seems to crash whenever there is good news posted up for CGL. I think the crashes might be because Dumpshock is being attacked.

What 'good news' for CGL was posted this weekend? Have I missed something?

Spells and Chrome Anthology available in E-pub

I believe May 15th was also the due date for Topps to renew CGL's license to Shadowrun (or not). When I realized DSF was down, a tiny part of me worried Topps had decided not to renew - and the new company handling it had decided to shut down all uses of the Shadowrun ip until they could decide their next steps.

they can't shut down dumpshock itself.
they would have to force a lawsuit to get the IP and forbid the people caring for this board the use of anything shadowrun related.
but the board wouold simply move, some words would get changed and not much else i hope.

Conspiracy theories abound.

Yes, well . . this IS dumpshock after all . .

I love the guys here, but I don't think they have much of a legal staff on hand here. If Topps sent an official letter saying "shut down your site or you will be held personally liable", they will probably shut down until things can be sorted out.

Well, technically that's bullying them into shutting down themselves . . but of course, practically you are pretty much spot on . .

What are you on about?

The only thing that MIGHT be questionable is the name of the site (assuming "dumpshock" is actually copyrighted at all; not all game terms are), and that's ridiculous in and of itself. There's little to nothing here that requires permission.

We're a small time operation people... we don't have clustered fail-over servers, or a dedicated 24-7 server staff. I know for a fact that one of the guys with server side access is having all sorts of internet problems himself.

So needless to say, we only spilled a margarita on the server and had to dry it out before we rebooted it, then promtly left it unpluged so we could further drink in peace. You are forwarned the offical DS admins BBQ & grill out is coming... we'll try amd keep the lushies away from the server

I dig. More power to the Admins! ^^

Are you confident saying that, across how many millions of posts, there is no copyrighted material, direct rules quotes, use of the word "Shadowrun" (which is copyrighted), etc.? Because I'm pretty sure there is. And even accepting that it wouldn't lead to a conviction, if someone wanted to be nasty, they would have enough to take DSF to court.

However, the margarita story is much more comforting (if less in line with my regular paranoid dreams).

The word Shadowrun is unlikely to be copyrighted, given that it's too short to be a creative work in and of itself. Its status as a trademark is covered by that disclaimer at the bottom of the page.

~J

I'm not sure what it's like in the US, but I believe in Canada any civil lawsuit could sue only for the profits from the use of copyrighted material. If the DS owners make no money, they couldn't be sued for anything.

So, if it becomes an issue, check it out and maybe come to Canada!

Yes.

In the US, the number is for damages - and damages is generally defined by the offended party. That's why Mitnick was accused of causing something like $10M in damages by reading copies of Bell's SBU technical manuals. There's no way he made $10M in free phone calls.

A corporation can file a lawsuit against DSF just by filing out some forms and paying the $20 filing fee. Once that's in, they can request a judge shut down the forums, on the grounds that they are actively harming business. The judge can agree or not, but it depends a lot on the locality and the money involved. The corporation can then make a formal request for discovery, requiring DSF turn over all information that may possibly be infringing (whether it's infringing or not is up to the courts to decide). The corporation then runs text searches on the database archives for any rules quotes (of which there are many. I know, because I've written some of them myself.) Every part of the Shadowrun books are copyrighted, and can only be used with permission of the copyright owner, and that permission can be retracted at any time.

Since DSF isn't a business, they really have no case for turning the servers back on prior to their day in court. They can put up a nice message, but that assumes they have time to do that while dodging lawyers. In the end, DSF would almost certainly win, if they spent cash on a lawyer and fought it the whole way, but they don't have cash, and in the interim, it's a huge hassle that would drive most hobbyists to call it quits.

Not saying it's likely, but with corps like Microsoft and Hasbro around, I don't think it's outside of the realms of possibility.

I, personally, wasn't looking for any conspiracy theories. I was just curious if it was a problem that was identified and, ideally, if it was being worked on. Or whether we should expect to see more unexpected downtime in the near future.

You weren't looking for any what???? Are you new to DS ?

I don't forsee anymore downtime, but note, that if we do go down, expect delays in restarting the server (though we do work to make sure its not too long)

The only forseeable downtime is planned maintenance for upgrades or something . .
Everything else happens by chance alone.

Just as an FYI, there will be some forthcoming database maintenance coming. I will try to give warning before hand, but will take the opportunity when the time presents itself.

Is that why there was an error page last night, or was it just another example of Dumpshock going down about as often as Netcat does on Slamm-o?

I did take the site offline this morning and performed some database maintenance. I'm hoping this will resolve the recent spat of database issues.

-RJ