I'm increasingly starting to hate KerbalStuff.

[katateochi]

18 minutes ago, ferram4 said:

The very strange thing is that the download statistics that I've seen (checked them yesterday before it went down) make no sense.

some form of attack? or dumb bot-net probing (which are then following download urls)? I've been seeing much more bot-net activity (and those darn "free social buttons" spammers that make you think you've suddenly had a traffic spike, but it's all fake) on KerbalX than usual in the last couple weeks (Ukraine being the primary source of it). They seem to come in waves and the tide is high right now. But, I enjoy setting up redirects to the odd urls they try and probe, I've been sending them to Rick Astley's vid (yeah I'm rick rolling bot-nets, it amuses me).

[Yemo]

Options:

1. Support @SirCmpwn in his endeavour to continue his work on kerbalstuff, despite a community which only cares when something goes wrong and a dev/publisher who does not seem to care at all "enough".

2. Write a mail to [email protected] and (politely!) ask why a site is not at least financially supported, which clearly and massively improves the monetary situation of the company.

3. Rant about the non-availability of a site which is free (also free from ads), easy to use and even financially maintained by (a?) community member(s?).

Edited February 15, 2016 by Yemo

[MrChumley]

The title of this thread is sad.

It displays a lack of respect. 

Mods are a big part of what makes KSP a great game.  Kerbalstuff has been the best KSP-mod hosting site for awhile now.

I just deleted a huge wall of text, and I'm going to bite my tongue.   I kind of feel like KSP is getting "Pumped and dumped".  I'm really disappointed in squad at the moment.

[Stone Blue]

48 minutes ago, monstah said:

I'm sorry, but I take slight offense at that. I use CKAN as a tool, not a crutch. It was developed by someone who thought it would be useful for people, and it's useful for me and THOUSANDS (apparently, I wouldn't know) of people.

If you don't like it, that's perfectly fine, but just because I don't feel like checking for updates manually on 60+ mods, don't talk about me as if I'm not capable of it.

I was wondering how long it would take the hornets to appear, once I kicked the nest...

I did NOT say that EVERYONE who uses CKAN uses it as a crutch... But there ARE LOTS of people who do... If you do not believe me, go check out a couple of the KSP Reddits, and see how many people post that their mods arent working, they cant figure out why, and it turns out its a CKAN issue...
Also see how many people jump into a thread of someone asking how to fix a problem with a mod, only to answer with the golden tidbit of, "I-have-no-idea-how-to-help-you-with-your-problem, but you should use CKAN: I have no idea how, but it just does everything for you!"

So, monstah, and all others I may have offended, if you actually KNOW how to do manual installs of mods, and more-so, know how to manually MANIPULATE folders and files and such to work custom installs, but still use CKAN for whatever reasons, then YOU are not those I refer to...

I see it kind of like how some people consider MechJeb... Or the age old argument between Linux and Windows... (need I say more? )

SO my purpose of THIS post, is to clarify my "offending" statement, and to just say that I mentioned CKAN in the 1st place, as relating to KerbalStuff, only because I know CKAN scrapes KerbalStuff, for how little or how hugely, for data I dont know.... BUT, since KS has built-in functionality to support CKAN, I imagine theres a decent chunk of traffic on KS due to CKAN... And if that IS a significant amount, maybe other options as far as CKAN should be looked at or considered...

Also, if anyone wants to specifically discuss my stance on CKAN, or extol the virtues of CKAN, lets take it elsewhere so we dont derail THIS thread any worse than i already have...

 

Edited February 15, 2016 by Stone Blue

[theJesuit]

CKAN may not be the only issue people Nils277 noticed that several other non affiliated sites (with advertising and malware) linked directly to the downloads of his mod on KerbalStuff, possibly others, and often linking to older versions of the mod.  This was all done without consent and it took some time to dig it out, I think there wasn't a solution to block it.  My guess is that if bandwidth is the issue, others, not CKAN is to blame - or perhaps certain EXTREMELY popular mods get updated will cause issues when people take their weekend...

KerbalStuff is opensource, anyone could make a copy of it, then pay for their own bandwidth, donate their own time, and maintain it as they see fit.

I do think it is telling though that many mod owners choose to host with Kerbal Stuff as opposed to Curse.  Perhaps Curse give Squad a kickback on advertising revenue or there was a large one off payment in exchange for several years official hosting rights, in which case Squad, regardless of how we feel, is probably tied up contractually to Curse for some time.  We'll have to tough it out.

Peace.

[Snark]

To anyone inclined to complain about KerbalStuff's availability these days:

This is one guy who's running a server out of the goodness of his heart, unpaid, to benefit the community.  Speaking as someone who has run online services, I can say:  this is hard, guys.  And maintaining rock-solid 24/7 availability even in the case of miscellaneous Internet weather is labor-intensive, and not something that one person can do casually during spare time.

So lighten the heck up.  If you love the content of KerbalStuff, you should thank your lucky stars that you have it at all.  You haven't paid anything for it.  It's ad-free, so you haven't even paid for it indirectly by sending eyeballs and mouseclicks to advertisers.  So if there are any problems whatsoever with it, you have exactly zero right to complain, unless you're ponying up your own time and/or money to keep it up.  The effort spent raging about it is not only mean-spirited, it's counterproductive.  Obviously I can't speak for SirCmpwn, but I gotta say... if I were the one running a website for free, it's exactly that sort of kvetching that would make me want to wash my hands of the whole thankless affair.

And if anybody should be raging about KS being down, I oughta be at the front of the line, because it's where I host all of my mods.  And you don't see me complaining.

So for anyone inclined to complain:  how about taking that energy, and instead spend it in figuring out how to make it worth SirCmpwn's while to continue supporting this community?

 

Edited February 15, 2016 by Snark

[Guest]

I'd like to see if @SirCmpwn has any data on the types of traffic being received.  I'm thinking it might be best to shut it down for about an hour to clear all traffic, then bring it back up.  Of course, the flow of traffic once it goes back up would be astronomical.  I just pinged it, and it's perfectly fine with that, but I can't get to it on the site...

[Red Iron Crown]

44 minutes ago, MrChumley said:

I'm really disappointed in squad at the moment.

How the heck is it Squad's fault that Kerbalstuff is down?

[BloodDusk]

Well, that would require some sort of pressure from mod makers 

1 minute ago, Red Iron Crown said:

How the heck is it Squad's fault that Kerbalstuff is down?

Not supporting it and advocating a service the users don't like to use instead? I guess that goes without saying.

Edited February 15, 2016 by BloodDusk

[Guest]

If SirCmpwn has some sort of analytics, we might be able to figure this thing out.  I think it's gotten to successful for its own good.

1 minute ago, BloodDusk said:

Well, that would require some sort of pressure from mod makers 

Not supporting it and advocating a service the users don't like to use instead? I guess that goes without saying.

As said in previous posts, it's very likely that Squad is stuck legally with Curse.  Also, KStuff, as seen right now, has less infrastructure, which is less reliable for Squad.  I'd rather have something I like less, but that works than something I like more that doesn't.

[Red Iron Crown]

2 minutes ago, BloodDusk said:

Not supporting it and advocating a service the users don't like to use instead? I guess that goes without saying.

When Squad made their deal with Curse, KerbalStuff didn't exist.

[BloodDusk]

3 minutes ago, CliftonM said:

If SirCmpwn has some sort of analytics, we might be able to figure this thing out.  I think it's gotten to successful for its own good.

As said in previous posts, it's very likely that Squad is stuck legally with Curse.  Also, KStuff, as seen right now, has less infrastructure, which is less reliable for Squad.  I'd rather have something I like less, but that works than something I like more that doesn't.

Probably. Probably not. Probably money. Who knows? It's a shame that such an essential resource for mods goes without any attention from the people making the game.

[Snark]

11 minutes ago, CliftonM said:

I'm thinking it might be best to shut it down for about an hour to clear all traffic, then bring it back up.

Speaking as someone who has done professional web traffic management for a major corporation:  this doesn't work.  If you've got an online service, and you are having traffic problems, then absolutely the worst thing you can do is to take the website down.  It just generates a lot of pent-up demand that causes a tremendous surge when you do bring it back up.

If the fundamental problem is that you've got too much "bad" traffic (e.g. robot traffic that's eating up your bandwidth), then what you need is to find some way to filter out and block the "bad" traffic while allowing the "good" traffic.

And that's a really difficult, labor-intensive, high-stress thing to do. 

There's no magic indicator that says "this is a bad request, please block me."  There are some types of bad traffic that aren't too hard to block, once you have diagnosed them-- for example, if there's some popular download client that has an innocent bug in it.  If you can figure out the signature, you block that signature and then you're good.  It's not difficult... but it's labor intensive, because you need specialized tools to winnow through the vast reams of traffic data to identify the signature of the offending traffic, and you need a traffic management tool that's sufficiently flexible to be able to pinpoint a particular signature to block.

And that doesn't help you at all if the traffic isn't an innocent bug, but some third-party site that's deliberately scraping your content-- if you try to block it, they'll just figure out what you're doing and change their signature to work around it.  It's an arms race you can't win.

6 minutes ago, CliftonM said:

If SirCmpwn has some sort of analytics, we might be able to figure this thing out.

There really is no magic bullet.  There's no "why don't they just..." solution, here, no out-of-the-box "some sort of analytics" that will just solve the problem.

The only solution is to either scale up the service's capacity to the point where it can handle everything the internet throws at it (which is expensive, and potentially a losing battle if the demand just leaps upward to meet supply), or to have actual humans who spend serious amounts of time and expertise monitoring and controlling traffic flow, and/or tuning automated systems.

It's hard.

So seriously, cut SirCmpwn some slack, here.

Edited February 15, 2016 by Snark

[BloodDusk]

1 minute ago, Red Iron Crown said:

When Squad made their deal with Curse, KerbalStuff didn't exist.

But now it does exist. And people use it more than the former because it's better, even in spite of not being reliable recently. Should SQUAD still advocate Curse when people don't use it as much unless they have no other choice?

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Snark said:

Speaking as someone who has done professional web traffic management for a major corporation:  this doesn't work.  If you've got an online service, and you are having traffic problems, then absolutely the worst thing you can do is to take the website down.  It just generates a lot of pent-up demand that causes a tremendous surge when you do bring it back up.

If the fundamental problem is that you've got too much "bad" traffic (e.g. robot traffic that's eating up your bandwidth), then what you need is to find some way to filter out and block the "bad" traffic while allowing the "good" traffic.

Very good point.

1 minute ago, Snark said:

So seriously, cut SirCmpwn some slack, here.

I totally agree.  Many people forget how much work he put into it.

1 minute ago, BloodDusk said:

But now it does exist. And people use it more than the former because it's better, even in spite of not being reliable recently. Should SQUAD still advocate Curse when people don't use it as much unless they have no other choice?

As said before, it's likely that there's a contract involved, which binds them to using curse.

[AlamoVampire]

3 hours ago, Clockwork13 said:

Sorry but unless they are getting DDOSed or something, it makes sense to blame them for their own network issues.

You DO know how the internet works right? That sitting between you and a website is at least one DNS server taking you TO said site and a DIFFERENT one carrying said info from them to you. It could be even more depending where ON Earth you live and WHERE that site is PHYSICALLY housed. 

There is SO much that has to go right for it to work, its shocking that it doesn't fail more. The amount of raw data traveling the planet each and every nanosecond is staggering. Saying that it is a websites fault for not working is laughable at best.

 

[Red Iron Crown]

2 minutes ago, BloodDusk said:

But now it does exist. And people use it more than the former because it's better, even in spite of not being reliable recently. Should SQUAD still advocate Curse when people don't use it as much unless they have no other choice?

Curse costs Squad nothing and is reliably up. To bring Kerbalstuff to the same level of reliability would cost money. Why would they either a) increase hosting costs or b) reduce reliability?

[MrChumley]

4 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

How the heck is it Squad's fault that Kerbalstuff is down?

 

3 minutes ago, BloodDusk said:

Not supporting it and advocating a service the users don't like to use instead? I guess that goes without saying.

Well since you asked.. I think it has to do with opinions/decisions that effect _the bottom line_.  My bottom line is that I love KSP and our community.  I can't speak for squad.

[regex]

I love how this turned into a Squad/Curse hate-athon thread.  Well played, OP, well played.

Edited February 15, 2016 by regex

[Guest]

1 minute ago, regex said:

I love how this turned into a Squad/Curse hate-athon thread.  Well played, OP, well played.

Out of likes for the day...

[Clockwork13]

1 minute ago, regex said:

I love how this turned into a Squad/Curse hate-athon thread.  Well played, OP, well played.

Yeah, lol. Not sure how that happened.

[Stone Blue]

11 minutes ago, CliftonM said:

As said before, it's likely that there's a contract involved, which binds them to using curse.

And more than likely, not only binds them to using Curse exclusively, but specifically PRECLUDES them from using, or advocating any other hosting site...
 

[BloodDusk]

2 minutes ago, regex said:

I love how this turned into a Curse hate-athon thread.  Well played, OP, well played.

Because hating (disliking being a more correct word) of Curse has to be justified, otherwise it becomes a trolling thread instead? 

[Yemo]

The deal between squad and curse is not really relevant to the problem that the efforts from @SirCmpwn seem to be not appreciated by squad.

They could just hire/pay him as a special mod community advisor, given his essential role/contribution to the community, and what he does with his free time/money is not affected by a deal between squad and curse.

It is not a first best option, but it is perfectly doable and you can not expect first best options, if you make mistakes like doing flawed (edit: from the perspective of many in the community) partnerships/contracts. It is simply a matter of whether squad believes such an solution to be worth the effort/money, as it is their game and ultimately their choice to make.

Edited February 15, 2016 by Yemo

[regex]

1 minute ago, BloodDusk said:

Because hating (disliking being a more correct word) of Curse has to be justified, otherwise it becomes a trolling thread instead? 

I just find it hilarious.  Please, continue.