Astahost A Place To Play, Nothing Else Serious hosting needs, go elsewhere

[rodneylay 0]

When I discovered Xisto I thought I had found a very unique place for my hosting needs. Not only was the concept a cool one, but the prices for paid hosting was low. That was when I first discovered the site. The old saying that "if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is", definately holds true here.

 

On Saturday, August 13 (yesterday), my credits were suddenly reduced from 31 to 13 for no apparent reason. I also lost use of my domain for most of the afternoon and early evening as well as my FTP access. This is the second time in the one week period I have used Xisto that I have lost access to the site. So, my planned upgrade was suddenly gone and I wanted to know what had happened to make me loose these credits. The only explanation I have been able to get from anyone, including the Admin department is that possibly some of my posts were deleted because they were probably spam. So, I checked it out and all of my posts are still here. I wrote the admin and asked them to show me what posts were deleted, or otherwise explain the loss of credits and I received a message saying that Xisto does not have any automation to track the posts (which is contrary to the help topics) and that humans spend their free time making this site work and I should just accept it and move on. In other words, when you loose credits it could be human error and that is good enough of an explanation. Funny thing about this message is that they just do not want to give me an explanation as to the loss of credits, or they cannot give me one, and they just don't give a crap whether it irritates me or not.

 

So, I get a nice little re-inforcement of how true that statement above is. If it is too good to be true .......

 

The only problem with that is that Xisto promoted this site a certain way and claim to be the best, and they do not back it up. They don't even make excuses or lie about it. Their answer is simply "too f%$$ing bad. CASE CLOSED!

 

I give you Xisto's own promotion of their service ......

 

While there are many other companies that offer free web hosting services, most of them have lot of hidden terms or limitations which are not disclosed openly. .....

Xisto does not fall in all such things and provides you genuine free web hosting without overselling. So you can be assured that your free web hosting account is safe and won't face any problems due to server flooding or any other reasons because we do not oversell at all. .....

The reason is, these companies purposely create limitations even though they can provide, so that their consumers eventually transfer to more high valued account gradually. Since our main income is not from Paid hosting, we don't care about it and we offer every hosting service absolutely Free. .....

 

Since Xisto does not provide any explanation of why credits vanish into thin air, and get irritated if you dare to ask for an explanation, there is no way a person can use the hosting here and count on anything. Maybe the upgrade is what they are trying to avoid. There is a better way to represent this site on your home page. That would be, "use the hosting services here at your own risk".

 

Now, we'll see if this post is actually deleted. And, if I loose my credits for this post, well at least I will know why!

 

Rodney Lay

[moonwitch1405241479 0]

Well, the reason I closed your previous topic was to prevent a flame war by Dark Aphalite. I have checked into all moderation and admin action on your account, and can't find any that indicate posts have been deleted or credits have been adjusted. I do know the server was changed, so that's the downtime for the record. Your credits, I don't know how that happened, the amount you've lost, (31-13) 18, is not enough for an upgrade or for any other change in your hosting, so that's not the cause.I can't check the credits script, since I am only a forum admin and don't have that amount of access, only OpaQue can I believe (possibly Nils or microscopic^earthling may be able to as well). I can only report this and hope OpaQue finds the issue, I am sorry I can't do more.

[OpaQue 15]

So Mr. rodneylay, Its like you have been thinking of all the thousands of members who registered here, Xisto is behind reducing your credits.

 

Let me tell you something.

 

1. We are doing a service here. You can say FAVOR for others. So, before you actually ask someone, something! Think! That these people are not getting paid to do your stuff.

 

2.LEARN to be Patient. If you have posted a REPORT, there are mods which will look over it. but, We get soo many reports, We are already busy with those things, rather than looking at a useless problem which you are facing.

 

LOOK AT JCGUY, Poor Guy waited for a week to get his !!BUSY!! site un-suspended. You know, that is called a REAL ISSUE. Unlike, crying for "Why I have lost credits!". Well, I explained to him my situation and I did solve his issue. I agree, It was a bit late from my part, but I had to work on some issues with Xisto Corporation, Setting up new server at Xisto - Web Hosting, Transfering Paid Clients on it, Handling thousands of those members who were shifted since their sites had minor problems, Working with scripts at Trap for invalid members, Developing Transfer system, Fixing Errors with Cpanel on New server etc... This LIST IS REALLY VERY LONG! MORE THAN THAT YOU CAN IMAGINE. And you expect, someone to come up and look up with your issue within 2-3 days and give you an answer on a golden platter! is it ?? And using our forums to flame others..

 

3.We know our CREDITS SYSTEM! We made it, by hand. So, We have not hired any third person to do this thing. So, when you say, the credits are lost for no reason, All we do is simply laugh on you. Because, which world are you in man! I mean, come on, Credits just don't fly away. There is always a reason for everything.

 

4.Before you throw dirt on someone, We would request you to check yourself. You wanted reasons right, Did you check your posts throughly! I say.."NO!" you did not.

 

Moonwitch Told me to look over your situation because of the cheap thing that you were doing. I don't even understand why I am wasting my time on your issue, but still to prove my moderating team and our system correct, I will.

 

On Aug 13 2005, 04:23 PM, You made this POST!

http://forums.xisto.com/topic/6877-topic/?findpost=48244

 

RIGHT AFTER 38 Minutes, that is on Aug 13 2005, 04:41 PM

http://forums.xisto.com/topic/6845-topic/?findpost=48251

 

I made the above post saying that your post has been copied from other sources.

 

Now, First of all, I must teminate your account, since you breached our TOS. However, If you want further explanation regarding your copied posts. Here are the list of sources.

 

SOURCE 1 : (Cached location on Google)

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

 

SOURCE 2 :

http://www.help2go.com/Tutorials/Windows/Creating_an_Updated__XP_SP2_Recovery_CD.html

 

THE LANGUAGE, STYLE of the Article and the post is 1:1 match. Its no use removing PARTS of someone else's work and pasting it at a forum saying it your own. In my words, I call that STEALING. So, don't take this further. I am warning you.

[rodneylay 0]

Goodbye, and now you can delete the posts for real .................

[herenvardo 0]

The best place to start

I've been moving through a lot of different hosting services for the last few years, so I can make a review based on comparations.

Anyhow, everything I might say here is only a point of view. Maybe I'm mistaken, even I don't feel so. There is my opinion:

- Hidden fees: Many 'free' services hide fees or otherwise try to get moeny directly from you. The most obvious case was a host that allowed me to apply for the service by putting their banner in top on my home page. After exactly one month of applying, I got an e-mail telling that the free service was being suspended due to 'bussines reasons', and giving me an 'offer' for the paid service (50 megs of storage, 250megs/month bandwidth at 17$/month, plus keeping the banner, no way server side scripting allowed). I replied that I was NOT interested, and in few than 24h I got a new e-mail asking for my credit card details... I had to threaten them, explaining that those e-mails, still stored on the server, were a proof of spam, to get them stop asking for my money. I visited their homepage and was able to create a new free account ( wasn't that service suspended??). I put a 'site under construction' index.html file to make it reallistic, and waited... Once again, after 30 days, I got the e-mail telling me that the free service was being suspended and so on (note: the offer was different: it was 20mb storage and 500mb bandwidth for the same pricing). I finnished it off by telling them that legal actions had been started... I've never got notice from them again. This is a clear example of what are hidden fees. Actually, this is the more blatant one I've known. There are too many services that use tricks and cheating like that to get your money. Until the moment, I've seen NO indices of such cheating on Xisto, and it doesn't seem I'm gonna see them.

Overselling: That's a known practice to sell more than the server can provide. The host sells packages of 500mb, for example, and then, knowing that the clients will use an average of 200mb or so, they sell so much packages that they can only provide 250-300mb per client. I still can remember a case of this: I was granted a 50mb account; I had only used about 4-5mb and, trying to upload a new file (it was a small gif to be usset as list-bullet, smaller than 1kb) I got a strange error message telling that there was no space enough on the hard drive... Here at Xisto, I had an issue some days ago: cPanel reported that I was using 58/20mb of storage, and I even got a 'Criticall notice' from the system warning that; but even so I was able to keep on uploading my files. Now the issue is fixed, and I'm sure I'll be able to use my 20mb if I require them.

Pricing: Nonetheless it is stated in the site, there is nothing free, and this applies to hosting. The fact is that here, at Xisto, we are provided an alternative payment method: we apport our knowledge and experience to these forums, and we are given hosting in exchange. Somebody may find it cheap, others will find it expensive, but it is a truth that there is no money involved in the deal. For those who aren't able to pay with moeny, Xisto means an alternative way to get hosting. Don't forget that you can also put the banner to avoid the need of keeping active, so you have two different options for financing your hosting without spending your money. Other services I've tried ask you to put a banner and, in somecases, the code they force you to use for the banner does weird things, from opening annoying pop-ups to infecting your visitors with spyware. When this is done, your page shows a lot more ads, so you are paying a higher price (even not in money, it's a price and it has a real value) than agreed with the company for your hosting. I've not tried the banner, because I'm glad to contribute in a comunity like this, but it doesn't seem to do strange things.

 

So, in conclusion, I can say that Xisto is the best and most professional free web hosting service I've ever tried. I'm very glad of the service and attention provided, and cannot understand how people make posts like rodneylay's one. Going further, such a post is an unjustified attack, and here at Spain legal actions could be applicable in response for such an attack. He has not only bypassed the TOS, but he has said, summarizing, that Xisto doesn't comply with and agreement. This is a proof-less accusation for fraud. A proof-less accusation is known in my country as 'difamation' and it is considered a crime by our laws. I don't pretend to impulse you to start legal actions, nor anything like that, but I want rodneylay know how grave is his action.

 

Hoping be useful,

Herenvardö

[OpaQue 15]

Hi Herenvardö, Thanks for that information. However, We really are not going to do those legal things for the obvious reasons, we dont have time. Nor we are interested in doing all this.This is just a free service. We are doing this, so that we can market our paid hosting company for free and ofcourse also benefit from advertising. The thing that really hurt me was, he was complaining about the moderation practices and the dedicated effort that we put run this site. None of our mods get paid for what they are doing. Nor, do they get any extra privalages with respect to hosting. Besides, the thing what he was trying to do was kinda cheap. He was demanding stuff from asta. Even I, never demand things from my own staff. I have never ever said.. Do this, do that. This communities foundation is based on trust, respect and Discipline. I had seen his posts, I knew they were copied. However, I kept quiet. I had a second thought of giving him another chance. But, after the repeated attempts of spamming, I reduced his credits. The next thing which really disturbed me was, he was expecting the mods to look over his posts and tell him his mistake. He expected us to search and tell him which post did he lose credits for. When he realised this, he should had checked himself. But even before investigating on his part, he started posting BS.Anyway, since he has left, I have terminated his account. Atleast some other person, who really respects our service can use it

[solankyno1 0]

Goodbye, and now you can delete the posts for real .................

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

By reading these kind of lines it seems that it is good for Xisto community that we have lost such a member.

After a very long post of Opaque in which he has given explanaiton to rodneylay about why his credits have been reduced, he (rodneyley) should be feel sorry and make a post about this that he will not do this in the future. But rather he has made a post with such a rude lines.

In this situation I would recommend his termination but it is better that he has left.

Goodbye rodneylay.

[Nybb 0]

One of the things rodneylay mentioned but everyone was trying to avoid and look past was:

Funny thing about this message is that they just do not want to give me an explanation as to the loss of credits, or they cannot give me one, and they just don't give a crap whether it irritates me or not.
So, I get a nice little re-inforcement of how true that statement above is. If it is too good to be true .......

The only problem with that is that Xisto promoted this site a certain way and claim to be the best, and they do not back it up. They don't even make excuses or lie about it. Their answer is simply "too f%$$ing bad. CASE CLOSED!

In my opinion, this is a justified and legitimate view. It doesn't just apply to Xisto only, I see this kind of crap everywhere, even in really big companies like ezboard dot com. Here's what some people had to say about ezboard:

Did you see them?
p103.ezboard.com/fezboard...=542.topic


Quote:
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Topic: Community Chest Update - 08/15/05

ezCkerr
Registered User
ezSupporter
Posts: 7631
Posted: 8/15/05 18:14

New Post Community Chest Update - 08/15/05

We wanted to take this opportunity to update you on the final stages of work around restoring Community Chest, and the remaining issues resulting from the attack. Hereâs where we are:

1. At this time all Community Chests have been restored, and all communities who had problems with Chest balances have had their tickets addressed by the Customer Service staff.

2. All Gold communities have been given six additional weeks of service credit.

3. We have addressed a large number of the emails that came through the appeals process, and expect to have responded at least once to every email by the end of this week.

4. We are in the final steps of correcting subscription dates and credits for boards whose subscriptions expired or were purchased in the first weeks after the attack. Our plan is to complete this work within the week as well.

After a long process, Iâm proud and happy to say that we are fully back in business. We deeply appreciate your patience and support through what has been a very difficult time for all of us. The company remains strong, the site vibrant and active, and we look forward to serving you better in the future. For those of you who have been holding back on renewals, you can now renew with confidence.

In closing, we want to be your community platform, now and in the future. We are glad to discuss your future with us, and assist in any way we can.

Thanks again for your patience and support.

Rob Labatt
CEO


Edited by: ezCkerr at: 8/15/05 18:14
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and...

p103.ezboard.com/fezboard...=543.topic


Quote:
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ezCkerr
Registered User
ezSupporter
Posts: 7632
Posted: 8/16/05 13:59

New Post

Schedule Maintenance Alert Schedule Maintenance Alert: Wednesday 8/17/05 10:00 PM - Thursday 4:00 AM (-8GMT)

We will be upgrading existing networking equipment and replacing some broken servers during this scheduled maintenance window.

Edited by: ezCkerr at: 8/16/05 14:06
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Ok...first of all, I guess this means they finally figured out how to USE GLOBAL UPDATES again at last. Secondly...they obviously are going to do that Maintenance thing that they "announced" earlier in the updates that nobody really knew about.

BUT MORE THAN THAT, OMG LABBY IS A COMEDIAN!!!


Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After a long process, Iâm proud and happy to say that we are fully back in business. We deeply appreciate your patience and support through what has been a very difficult time for all of us. The company remains strong, the site vibrant and active, and we look forward to serving you better in the future. For those of you who have been holding back on renewals, you can now renew with confidence.
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Fully back in business? Oh, you mean like when you had all services available within hours of the "attack" kind of back in business, right?

Long process? Oh, you mean the two+ months of hell you and your mods in the hopeless forums put users through. You deeply appreciate our patience and support? Sure didn't sound like it when you threw the TOU in our face.

The company is strong? Right...to me this is an OBVIOUS smokescreen to try and obfuscate the losses you've had...and the last sentence comes across as an obvious PLEA for members to renew. Renew with "confidence"? How would people do so when the help forums still have vanishing posts, virus/trojan issues, payment problems, and still no worthwhile backup system in place?

What a joke, ezboard. What a joke.

Oh, and in case anyone's memory has dimished as to what ezboard really thinks of you:

money first

And not only that, an ezboard Moderator once refused restoral upon Survivor Sucks because of what someone said.

Xisto is not so bad, compared to what I've seen...

http://www.yuku.com/

[abhiram 0]

Hi nybb,

I agree that it's right on his part to demand an explanation, but he should have atleast given some time for the mods to explain themselves. The minute he saw that his credits have been reduced, he didn't even try to see if there was something wrong with his own posts.... he thought they were perfectly legit. That's when he started shouting that this place is trying to 'cheat' him. This is the 3rd topic that he started in one day because none of the admins were answering him. He should have atleast known that the mods aren't here all the time at our beck and call. As Opaque has said,

We are doing a service here. You can say FAVOR for others. So, before you actually ask someone, something! Think! That these people are not getting paid to do your stuff.

the mods have their regular work to do in addition to what they do at Xisto... and IMO they are doing an excellent job. And also, when Opaque took the time to explain (in extreme detail) what was actually wrong with his posts, he had the nerve to just snub him without trying to justify himself.

To sum everything up in a nutshell, I would say that he was right in demanding an explanation... but the way he went about it was not proper at all.

[Nybb 0]

I wasn't mentioning about his credits, my point was that Xisto isn't that bad compared to other people. When Rodneylay mentioned the answer, "too f%$$ing bad. CASE CLOSED!" I found that strangely similar to the appalling things I've heard in ezboard.Ezboard had given the answer of "too f%$$ing bad. CASE CLOSED!" to their members and brought everyone into the idea of "them and us."You won't find that here in Xisto...

[Logan Deathbringer 0]

Ok here is My Opinion on this subjec.First off: When you notice something like a loss of credits, check your posts see if they have been moded for some reason, then if you still don't find anything wrong (in your own opinion) PM a mod or OpaQue. Keep it private, this is for your own personal privacy as well as the mods or admin. Lets keep our own personal embarrasment to ourselves.Second: DON'T FLAME THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU! If your in the wrong admit it and move on. The community here is very understanding but if you Continuously step outta line then the "leash" will, and should be, snapped. If it wasn't for the order and rules we would have chaos and a Awsome service such as is offered here can't exist.Without structure, support, and more then anything else RESPECT then nothing will work. Discussing what we see is onething but totally disrespecting those that are giving of their own free time, and at the end of the day their own Finances so that we may have a full blown Webhost with some very expensive extras, they might decide that it isn't worth their time and shut it down. For me that would be very bad concidering that I can't afford to pay for this kind of service, and I don't think that I'm mistaken that other here can't.But as with most of my posts this is just my opinion. Thank you for your time.To all the Mods, Admins, and OpaQue...Thanks for your time, work, and support.Logan Deathbringer

[Nybb 0]

Discussing what we see is onething but totally disrespecting those that are giving of their own free time, and at the end of the day their own Finances so that we may have a full blown Webhost with some very expensive extras, they might decide that it isn't worth their time and shut it down. For me that would be very bad concidering that I can't afford to pay for this kind of service, and I don't think that I'm mistaken that other here can't.

That's my point exactly. The staff are really nice people from what I've seen by just offering their services. And they aren't the people who tell you "too f&$$ing bad, CASE CLOSED," if you want to know people who actually do so, check out ezboard.
When customers from companies cause trouble, then they deserve to be cut from the system. You will rarely come across such customers deserving of such extent. Honestly, I don't think Rodney Lay deserved a banning but a warning perhaps. But Rodney definitely deserved to have his credits fined and so, Rodney received such punishment.

However, when that happened, Rodney sounded like he received treatment as though he was from ezboard. Sure, there are a bunch of angry customers who complained and criticized the ezboard staff but all of them were justified in their intent. Every single person. But still, ezboard closed the door from them in the Help forums.

So far, I haven't seen an answer like that from Xisto.

[clagnol1405241508 0]

For the record, I'm glad that Moonwitch and Opaque responded maturely, rather than deleting the topic altogether. I've known many moderators/administrators who would have deleted the topic upon first instance of criticism.Free speech is always good. Even when it's jerks speaking.

[Nybb 0]

Free speech is always good. Even when it's jerks speaking.

Yes, in Xisto, you will find Moderators and Administrators warning and banning upon criticism, even when they deserve it. I'm glad that the staff members here are unbiased, or at the very least, can control themselves when feeling the need to be biased.
Speaking of free speech, the First Amendment, where I live (i.e. USA), has been chopped off to it's knees. Here, you can hate the gays, muslims, asians, and in the case of the French, encouraged. But you can get sued if you hate black people. What kind of values do we have here anyway. If you want to know racism, look at the leaders you allowed to lead you.

I'm glad it's different and better here, comparing Countries upon Communities.

[Logan Deathbringer 0]

OK just a quick comment on the freedom of speech from me...the peanut gallery.Free speech is taken for granted yet not fully understood by the public at large. If your gonna comment on it please study it and then make an informed statement. Freedom of speech DOES NOT give you the right to publicly insult someone or question their heritage, what it does do is give you the right to make informed statements regarding relevant issues without the fear of reprisal from the government. That is what I understand Free Speech to be, and it only extends to public publications, where as this is a service offered to us Free Speech only extends as far as the people that run it are willing to let it go. Seeing as how it is free and we did agree to the TOS then we really have no option but to let the powers that be here at Xisto, Xisto, Xisto, etc... decide what we can or cannot post.Although there are limitations to even their power over their own services. All of these must be balanced and I've seen that here at Xisto that balancing act is well maintained by the Excelent Staff, as well as the community in general.