Member Groups & Personal Messages

Members who have 5000 posts and more (Gods) now have the capacity to host 5 times more personal messages. They can now hold 500 messages. All other member groups can only hold up to 100 messages, except for Donators who can have unlimited messages in their inbox/outbox.

Member Group & Custom Titles

Members who have over 2000 posts can now edit their own Custom Title. 

Internal Server Errors

10:30AM EST: RAFians, I have contacted our host again, (30 minutes ago) asking what's up with the internal server errors. I'll post back when I have more information.

11:40AM EST: I received a reply from a supervisor:

As I'm sure you have noticed we have been having quite some problems with this server which are finally to end. Our administrators had to change few Web server options as well as to recompile the Web server itself which caused this error to appear. Please note that this can happen few more times today.

11:45AM EST: A announcment was issued:

To the attention of all customers. With regard to the laboured performance your server has been showing lately due to overload and other difficulties, we are glad to inform you that final resolution the problem has been found and your websites will be working flawlessly again after we take the necessary measures.

The procedure will consist of addition of new Hard Disk Drives to the server and re-organization of the customers' web hosting accounts, so as to better consume the server resources from this time ahead.

The maintenance will be carried out in the next two days. Several very short downtimes might be experienced during the hard disk addition, however we would like to reassure you that those will be worth your patience bearing in mind the final positive result.

Thank you very much for your understanding in this matter. We firmly hope that after this maintenance procedure the server will no longer experience problems of that kind.

RAF TV Problems

I am aware of the invalid download links for the Animorphs TV show (RAF TV). File Crunch must have eaten the files. If you are in desperate need of the Animorphs TV series, feel free to download our torrent containing all episodes. (torrent file)

Insight into RAF's Uptime

This weekend for RAF has not been good as it relates to the website's uptime. According to statistics, RAF: The Animorphs Forum since last year April has been online 99.227% of the time. Sounds like a lot? It is. 

But as of June, and we are two weeks in, our uptime has fallen to 97.305%, while for this month we've been offline 2.695% of the time. That's a statistic I'm not proud of.  Granted, for May 2008 / last month, our downtime percentage was mearly 0.067%. There was only once instance of RAF being down. We have been offline 11 times this month.

You can keep up-to-date with our uptime, and percentages, by following this link.

RAF's Continued Problems

Not to worry, our host is still experiencing problems at this time. The below screenshot details that there is something wrong. But rest assured, it's just our host acting up again. "Technical Problems" They call it.

RAF Blog Moved!

Our host is experiencing problems, and as a result I have decided to move the blog to http://blog.animorphsforum.com. This move will give me the option to inform you guys when RAF is down.

Some Questions Regarding Move

I've been asked a number of questions ever since RAF Classic went offline on May 30. Here are a few common questions regarding the move and the new RAF.

1. Why move?

- We have been with Conforums (the host) for 5 years. Their forum system has not changed much in that time. In addition, being hosted by them, restricts us to abide by their Terms of Service. SMF, the new board system, does not have rules, we abide by the rules we want. Moving from Conforums gives us autonomy, and with that comes full control over matters. Further more, the Conforums board system lacks modern forum features which we now enjoy over at the new RAF.

2. How do we transfer threads/members?

-Because of how Conforums works, there is no easy way of transfer any data from the back-end. You the user have the task of re-registering, and re-creating the threads on the new RAF so as to continue discussing the book we love the most: Animorphs.

3. I don't want to loose my post count, can I get it back?

-Sure. After registering to the new RAF, feel free to post in a thread I've created on that matter.

4. How long will RAF Classic (the old RAF)  be online?

- I have no intentions of removing RAF Classic. It will be online as long as Conforums is, and serve as a reminder of our achievements and discussions for anyone who wishes to view them.

5. Is the Animorphs Audiobook & E-Book Project still active?

- It is. Our Animorphs eBook project has been online for anyone who wishes to read Animorphs online. See RAF eBooks for book downloads. Please see the new RAF for information on the Audiobook project and if you find errors in the ebooks, feel free to post in their respective boards.

RAF is Moving

RAF: The Animorphs Forum has finally moved from Conforums to SMF after 5 years with them. The old RAF has been renamed RAF Classic, and is viewable to anyone who wishes to. Posting though has been restricted to push members to the new forum, simply called RAF.

This board system is fully hosted by RAF, allowing The Animorphs Forum to wholly host the entire website. 

News Relating to RAF being Down

I surmised that RAF / Conforums is hosted on a service provider called The Planet. Here is news regarding their problem:

Faulty transformer blamed

A fire at The Planet's H1 data center in Houston, Texas on Saturday has taken out thousands of websites.

In messages posted on the web hosting firm's forum, the company blamed a faulty transformer for the fire. No servers or networking equipment were damaged, but the data centre remains without power, after The Planet shut down all generators "as instructed by the fire department.

About 9,000 servers and 7,500 customers are affected by the outage. B3ta.com, a popular British comedy site, is a high profile casualty.

The Planet is posting hourly updates on its forum. It has five other data centers, which remain up and running.

Source: The Register