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Like a phoenix from the ashes...

We will rise again!

First off, I want to apologize because many of you were hoping for new LEB offers and instead received this post. This post is a call to action for our regular users and our ever returning guests.

In light of the recent events I have put a lot of thought into how the community handled it as well as the staff. Joel and Mark handled it like champs, I on the other hand didn’t react but took the time to reflect. The community handled it more different than I had hoped, but there was a lot of promise among the chaos. At first there was anger and outrage all over, which was understandable, but then their was a calmness where things began to settle down and displayed a glimpse of fellowship. Unfortunately to my dismay things started returning back to normal which, while familiar was not in the direction I had desired for. I was hoping that in such a negative event that we as a community would band together and become more united, stronger even as a result of what occurred. I was originally saving these thoughts for a thread on LET that would eventually find it’s way, with few replies, into the archives; but with the lack of updates on LEB I wanted to take this opportunity to show people that we are not dead, far from it. It’s just a case of horrible timing.

Prior to the events, Joel had already made plans on taking a much needed vacation, not from LEB/LET, but from his real life where he works hundreds of Australian hours a day (which converts to 14 hours US I think). Unfortunately, during the events he had very little time to move the websites over and one casualty of the lack of time was e-mail. As it stands I believe only Joel is getting e-mail thus in his absence we are not receiving the offers normally and thus why Mark has not been posting new content. Once he returns we will be going full steam ahead to ensure the sites cannot be disrupted like this in the future because we know how much these websites mean to some of you.

As for the call to action I spoke about, it’s more a request if anything. Let’s make an attempt as making LEB and LET a more positive place on the web. I’m not going to say that the negativity is what caused the recent events but I am fairly certain they didn’t help any. I’ve seen a lot of providers banding together and users helping out and being supportive, so I know it’s possible to turn things around. I am not trying to get these sites to be all sunshine and rainbows but I would like to see people making an effort to add meaningful content and leaving out personal attacks (of which I have been guilty of in the past). After all, we are all here with a common interest so making an attempt to get along with others will only benefit you and the community.

It’s been said many times, you cannot please everyone all the time so please bear with us if we do or say something you don’t like. Instead of turning your disagreement into an attack or rant, turn it into a discussion which we are all more than willing to listen to and participate in. I personally have a dozen ideas I will be proposing to Joel when he returns (one of which will be an “ideas” page where people can post ideas and the community votes on them similar to MyBB’s Ideas page: http://ideas.mybb.com/) and I implore that you all do the same regardless how crazy, off the wall, or bad you think it might be. The 3 of us are here to provide a foundation to build upon but all of you are the pillars that keep it standing so please let us know what you’re thinking (in a mature way if possible).

I do expect some backlash for this post, mainly because I am treating LEB/LET as a community rather than a place for providers to advertise, which may seem strange coming from one of those providers but I feel that the collective knowledge and experience we have in this community rivals that of even the biggest forums out there. People come here for various reasons and hopefully we will be able to provide more reasons for people to keep coming back. We can achieve a lot if we work together as a community and we can show to the world that you can accomplish big things for under $7/month!

-KuJoe

55 Comments

  1. First! Well, probably not.

    Thanks for the post, I was bored of the same screen LOL

    I posted sth in LET. I think isn’t a bad idea, I mean, some time ago, I sent one or two offers to LEA and he published them.

    March 13, 2012 @ 2:15 pm | Reply
  2. John:

    @KuJoe You yourself is the cause of anger, didn’t you know that?
    Don’t blame others and just look at yourself, take people’s money because they’re not polite to you?
    If you don’t understand what I’m talking about, I pity you.

    March 13, 2012 @ 2:37 pm | Reply
    • I feel your anger towards me is counter productive to this post.

      March 13, 2012 @ 8:00 pm | Reply
      • Don’t feed the troll.
        This John has been an asshat in ALL (yes, ALL) his comments here. I guess he likes to suffer in a community where everything is bad for him… poor kid.

        March 14, 2012 @ 5:11 am | Reply
    • I politely disagree. KuJoe himself has nothing to with the positive or negative vibes the community gives out; that’s up to the community itself. He did not singlehandedly cause anything. It takes two to make an argument.

      March 14, 2012 @ 12:27 am | Reply
  3. Thanks for sticking with the site and for updating us on the status. Good luck!
    ~Max

    March 13, 2012 @ 2:50 pm | Reply
  4. Johnny:

    I absolutely agree, this site can become extremely and unnecessarily angry. While I absolutely don’t condone the occasional fraudster, we’re all here looking for a bargain and sometimes the goods are more shoddy than we would like but that’s the risk we take. Let’s help each other find the quality and do it with good grace. Thanks for picking up the gauntlet.

    March 13, 2012 @ 4:14 pm | Reply
    • Originally I was one of the biggest proponents of trying to weed out fraud and sub-par providers but unless we can eliminate it completely it’s pointless to even attempt so I agree that we should help each other find the quality among the sea of providers out there. One proposition I had a long time ago was creating a “ranking” of whether a host is more likely to be a deadpool candidate using a point-based system which we could apply to each host fairly, utilizing something like that in tandem with the detective work of the community would probably be more effective and beneficial to the sites as a whole.

      March 13, 2012 @ 8:09 pm | Reply
  5. Glass:

    Please add a redirect from http://lowendbox.com (without a www) to the site.
    Thanks.

    March 13, 2012 @ 6:52 pm | Reply
  6. Maik Pleep:

    so whats the issue here? You are only talking about the event and stuff.
    If it’s just that the last offer on this site is from feb 29, well, whats the deal? LEB is a clean and free site, offering a really valuable service, so no one should complain if you decide/dont have time to update it. I like LEB, LEB has finished my search for new VPS so many times that I have started to come here only if I search for a new box. But I reckon since this service is free, I have not to have demands on it. So I dont get why there should be any complaints.

    March 13, 2012 @ 7:18 pm | Reply
    • Spirit:

      @Maik Pleep no demands, no expectations… that’s valid in your case as you only use site occasionally (it’s nothing wrong with that of course) but don’t contribute to site. Expressing opinion, ether positive either negative, is also part of participating to community. LEB without people means nothing.

      March 13, 2012 @ 7:29 pm | Reply
    • Spirit hit the nail on the head. As it stands, LEB is seen by most people the way you see it. I’m hoping to elevate the perception of LEB as a more community-driven site and as a move evolving site than we have seen in the past.

      March 13, 2012 @ 8:03 pm | Reply
  7. JUNTOS AL FIN!

    March 13, 2012 @ 7:26 pm | Reply
  8. Good to hear things are going to start moving again soon.

    Although after that post title I found the post very hard to read as I had “like a G6 , like a G6” stuck in my head.

    March 13, 2012 @ 7:45 pm | Reply
  9. Go:

    You was doing great actualy, in the previous period where you started and even though it was short, but I was able to get one offer :)

    March 13, 2012 @ 8:00 pm | Reply
  10. Jason:

    Why does it need emails to get offers posted? Why not do what LEA did and go grab some from WHT? Seems bone idle to me.

    March 13, 2012 @ 8:11 pm | Reply
    • Very true. I personally would like to see them grabbed from LET’s offer section myself.

      March 13, 2012 @ 8:25 pm | Reply
    • Enough email based offers come in to flood the site with 2 – 3 new posts a day. At the start I was writing 2 – 3 articles a day but it was making it hard for people to keep up.

      March 13, 2012 @ 9:08 pm | Reply
  11. Well said

    March 13, 2012 @ 8:17 pm | Reply
  12. I would like to see a submissions form rather than an email :)

    March 13, 2012 @ 8:33 pm | Reply
    • Also a great idea. Would make it a lot more streamlined if we have the required fields setup instead of the one-liner “please post my website: http://joevps.com” e-mails (almost registered that domain just now, LoL).

      March 13, 2012 @ 8:53 pm | Reply
    • I think this would lead to even more drive by’s since it’d get the idea of ‘fill form, print money’.

      Most posts I’ve written and submitted had a good half dozen+ emails back/forth with the host as I question them and all around dig through for more information about their offers. There’s countless offers that we get sent that literally are just ‘Hi I open vps bizness, plz post us *sketchyhost.co*’

      March 13, 2012 @ 9:05 pm | Reply
    • Well the thing is with an email you cant control the floods of jovps.com emails I am sure they get.

      With a form you can have required fields such as domain reg date company reg date, and all the details that are actually required, it would not be to hard to have the form dump the info in to a file and have a script/cron job automate allot of the validation checks and then only email the ones on to the staff that actually qualify, and the others can either be rejected outright or passed to a queue for further validation.

      March 13, 2012 @ 10:57 pm | Reply
  13. Dano:

    Glad to see LEB alive again – it’s also nice to see a call to action, one that is positive. I also feel that there are many positive and powerful things that can come from nodes that are under 7 bucks, and it’s awesome to that their are others like me out there that see that ;)

    March 13, 2012 @ 10:17 pm | Reply
  14. Good to see some action on the site.

    March 13, 2012 @ 11:22 pm | Reply
  15. Glad to see LEB back again :)

    March 14, 2012 @ 1:09 am | Reply
  16. Welcome back LEB, and great work!

    I was getting bored with LEB offline.

    March 14, 2012 @ 1:49 am | Reply
  17. Welcome back!!

    and I did not knew KuJoe was part of the team. Where’s the whole team intro post that Chief promised weeks ago? Please!!!!!!!!1

    March 14, 2012 @ 7:41 am | Reply
    • tommy:

      yeah, me too :) I just know he’s part of new team.

      March 14, 2012 @ 6:23 pm | Reply
  18. Thanks KuJoe, I appreciate your good spirit.

    And welcome back!

    March 14, 2012 @ 8:16 am | Reply
  19. Glad to see LEB back online.

    Welcome back everyone.

    March 14, 2012 @ 9:50 am | Reply
  20. I think there is just to much drama, to much hate, and to much bullshit going on here, I have been a lurker and semi-commenter for along time and this is the worst shit I have seen. I think the offers need to start coming. What make LEB unique is the different offers and some bad providers. We are here, if you can’t post all offers even from new companies entering the market then this is problem with hos LEB is run, People are going to loose money thats without a doubt because of the market we are in and how we choose to run our host.

    I was a long time customer of HostRail, luckly I jumpped ship before they went under. But honestly KuJoe I dont know you or anyone else who took over LEB but I know the offers should be posted and if you cant do that then you need to step down and let people that can take it over and do it right.

    March 14, 2012 @ 2:29 pm | Reply
    • I’ll be glad to post offers as long as it doesn’t cause to many issues. :)

      March 14, 2012 @ 5:01 pm | Reply
  21. KLIKLI:

    So, is “Chief” actually “KuJoe”?

    March 14, 2012 @ 2:58 pm | Reply
    • No, I am KuJoe. I’ve never used any other name except for my legal name (Joe). Chief is the actual owner of LEB/LET, I am just a volunteer to help out with some projects and backend stuff.

      March 14, 2012 @ 5:01 pm | Reply
  22. Pats:

    and i hate when i was middle of something that LEB had to go down…

    can’t the attackers start this sometime later.. :D Actually fault of Joel, he should have offered those guys their much needed vacation.. :P

    after some frustration, good to see everything same.. you, we.. everyone :)

    March 14, 2012 @ 4:39 pm | Reply
  23. Laughing:

    i think your post isn’t productive to what this website WAS. i use the term WAS because it has definitely changed. your emo post about “needing a break” and “community this/that” and your excuses about “why the site was down” are completely not the content i wanna read when i come here. shit or get off the pot. rookies.

    March 14, 2012 @ 5:43 pm | Reply
    • I already apologized in the first line of my post for those who only come here looking for offers. LEB/LET is evolving and we understand it will be hard for some people to accept. I wasn’t trying to go emo/hippy with this post but I had something I wanted to say that I hoped would impact the community and I said it.

      As for needing a break, that was only 1/3 of our team that “needed” it which wouldn’t have been a big deal if not for recent events.

      I view this site and LET as a community, I’m sure many others will agree.

      Communication is key, we’d much rather provide our reasons than have our guests in the dark as to why the site was down and why it has been inactive.

      I fail to see how we are “rookies” at something we are still working to build that hasn’t been done before. If anything we are pioneers. ;)

      March 14, 2012 @ 5:57 pm | Reply
      • Laughing:

        less talk more rock.

        March 14, 2012 @ 11:15 pm | Reply
      • John:

        Would you please do not involve here? Who asked you to voluteer?
        You’re going to post your own offer, and then take away their vps without paying them.
        That’s how you make money, aren’t you? So Butt off.!!

        March 14, 2012 @ 11:45 pm | Reply
        • Yes I was asked to volunteer here. As I said you will never see any offers on LEB for SD while I am a staff member (my choice, not Joel’s). How we make money is the hundreds of happy clients who don’t violate our TOS. ;)

          March 14, 2012 @ 11:52 pm | Reply
  24. Adam:

    @KuJoe: While I do appreciate the post, I believe this post would have been better on LET.

    In all honesty, I don’t see LEB as a “community”. If people wish to be apart of the family, then they join LET and get to know everyone.
    The majority of people who visit LEB in my opinion are “Leechers”. They don’t comment, they don’t care whether the host has undergone scrutinize detective work, all they want is cheap offers posted.

    In regards to new features:
    – Voting system –> NO
    – Form submit vs email –> YES

    With a voting system, if I was a fraud host, that’s the first thing I would rig. It just becomes more of a hassle to administrate.
    80% of the users here know whats ‘too good to be true’, and the comments reflect that stance anyway.

    Hosts submitting via an inbuilt form sounds better as that way you can implement a standard format. With this you could easily create some backend magic to do the following:
    – Check domain age
    – Check whois
    – Validate WHMCS
    – Validate offer/promo (and price)
    – Force company email only

    You could effectively alleviate the initial detective work with 1 form.

    March 15, 2012 @ 2:23 am | Reply
  25. Nice to see everything back online, I agree with you KuJoe, hope everything continues to thrive.

    March 15, 2012 @ 4:20 am | Reply
  26. I have a question.

    Why does it have to evolve, why can’t it just stay as it is. it doesnt have to be a community it doesn’t have to be a fellowship. LEB is only here for one thing and one thing only, good solid offers.

    March 15, 2012 @ 2:09 pm | Reply
  27. pubcrawler:

    From posting here I now know the following:

    1. There are ample idiots, juveniles and those who haven’t matured into adulthood on here and LET. Way too male-centric, sexist, juvenile, etc. (worse on LET). It’s umm, unappealing.

    2. Vendors posting offers often aren’t screened well enough.

    3. Screening vendors creates an inferred liability for LEB/LET. If you guys are vetting these companies then it means that’s your value add and thumbs up of approval when an offer goes public. So when a pile of people get stiffed, it should be assumed that LEB/LET should bare some of the responsibility. Right?

    My solution, stop vetting these companies and poking at them and just post their offers. Heck, even charge them to post ads. That should deter most fly-by-night, scam-by-day operations.

    4. Posting on here as a buyer of service is akin to shooting oneself in the foot. If some assh@t child or child-acting person here doesn’t like your comments, review, etc. you have a great likelihood of being a victim of DDoS or similar annoying attack. I know because for the first time in oh, umm let’s say 12+ years of operating my sites, got DDoS’ed. It didn’t do much other than waste bandwidth (have tons of that) and temporarily overload an app server or two (but we have many and it auto-fails over). Big game of wack-a-mole :)

    See that’s what implementing a plan is about, ahead of time?

    Laughed and loved as every open proxy on the internet started pumping in hordes of requests at the same time. Futility for whoever it was.

    ————-

    So here’s my piece as I begin to part ways with this and the big wig site we all bantered on when LET/LEB was down:

    LET is the community. That site needs more structure to be a community. It’s just a one level deep single forum as-is. Not a fan of the software, but that’s not a huge deal. Get the posts about offers off that site, they go on LEB.

    LEB is for all the crash and burn offers non stop. Daily offers should be on LEB or what’s the purpose? Regulating reoccurring ads from same companies needs to be done. Should be a ratio of X new company offers to Y reoccurring company offers. Something like a 7-10 to 1 ratio.

    Spend less time fact checking LEB offer posts. Charge companies to post ads, even if small fee equivalent to 1 month of their offer price, just to cover the emails, edits later, etc. It deters the outright fraudsters somewhat.

    Should consider unifying log-in for LEB/LET, but keep them separate otherwise. Host them in different locations with different providers. Integrating off-topic but semi-relative posts on LEB to threads on LET would be a good approach to keep things flowing and build conduit between sites.

    So now I look at LEB as a litmus test for providers. If I am interested in a company (found elsewhere) I come here to find out if they post offers. If they do, I am severely discouraged from taking them up on their offer, regardless of their price.

    You ask why? Because LEB ads attract tons of troubled folks. Resource abusers, DDoS script runners, people with little to no knowledge about how to manage a server but who are perpetually angered by their own disability, blah blah blah. (that’s in addition to attracting hosts that are fraudsters themselves).

    I’ve seen several hosts I bought services from prior to them posting a sale offer here, go from wonderful service to completely and utterly unusable. Once the LEB buy effect and the folks it attracts wears off (i.e. they probably mostly are booted from the service) things become stable again.

    Overall, these sites are just a notch above a hacker forum community. The notch part is that some vendors here are actually legitimate and trustworthy. (Hey I am not naming names to protect folks from slinging more monkey dung my way).

    Appreciate the new leadership’s energy. Should stick with the proven recipe though and turn on the cash printing machine.

    March 16, 2012 @ 3:09 am | Reply
    • Laughing:

      yeah YEAH…

      March 17, 2012 @ 4:04 am | Reply
      • Laughing:

        “deals” are same old same old… site is ded… carry on folks… someone managed to ruin something that was so simple…

        March 19, 2012 @ 3:22 am | Reply
  28. Glad to have read this post. I still love this site and it proves to be an excellent resource for finding well priced VPS deals. My issue is the reputation of many of the VPS providers that go out of business so often and pretty much “steal” money from buyers. I’m not sure how you guys will screen offers but I think you should definitely continue screening and even perhaps more stringently.

    As for negative comments, I still think its important to have negative feedback, it doesn’t have to be mean – instead it should be factual and therefore credible to help others make their decision. There is a subtle difference between the two and unfortunately and quite frankly, a lot of people commenting are ridiculously impolite (and perhaps because they have already been pushed to their limit of patience due to a provider not providing adequate service or accurate information). There’s really not much anyone can really do about this without reading everything single comment on this website and moderating it?

    As for the events that occurred, I still think that it was fairly extreme (according to the other forums I’ve read) but there is one thing I have learnt from seeing this play out from the outside angle – when operating a website, its important to listen to concerns and even threats raised. I’ve also learnt that the threat of cyber warfare/attacks continues to dominate freedom of information on the internet which greatly concerns me.

    All in all, I’m glad that everything seems well and LEB is back up and running! Keep up the good work!

    March 16, 2012 @ 5:32 pm | Reply
  29. Duke E. Love:

    Thanx for having the site. I have a kick ass VPS for less than the electric would cost for running a box at home. So much so I got a second for R&D.

    Rock on with our bad ass self!

    March 19, 2012 @ 4:59 am | Reply
  30. So should I re send the email I sent around a month ago. I’d figured you didn’t want to feature us, and didn’t want to be seen to be pestering you to list us.

    March 23, 2012 @ 6:39 pm | Reply

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