# [Mod Move] Updating Reviews?



## willie (Apr 20, 2014)

HalfEatenPie here!  Split these posts from because it was deviating away from the initial discussion! 

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Do we really need these monthly updates of every one of your vps's in the review threads?  How about if we have a separate thread or section for status reports like this?  Then the review threads won't keep jumping to the top when there's no actual new info or comments in them.


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## texteditor (May 11, 2014)

willie said:


> Do we really need these monthly updates of every one of your vps's in the review threads?  How about if we have a separate thread or section for status reports like this?  Then the review threads won't keep jumping to the top when there's no actual new info or comments in them.


accurate uptime reports rank pretty damn high on (most) people's lists when looking for service


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## peterw (May 12, 2014)

willie said:


> Do we really need these monthly updates of every one of your vps's in the review threads?  How about if we have a separate thread or section for status reports like this?  Then the review threads won't keep jumping to the top when there's no actual new info or comments in them.


Yes! I don't want to know that a host was good one year ago. I want to know how it performs over time and how it handles problems!


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## willie (May 12, 2014)

peterw said:


> Yes! I don't want to know that a host was good one year ago. I want to know how it performs over time and how it handles problems!


In this case how about putting all the updates in one post, editing it from time to time?


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## peterw (May 12, 2014)

willie said:


> In this case how about putting all the updates in one post, editing it from time to time?


How should I get the notifications of the update? Should one write "update available" posts?


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## HalfEatenPie (May 12, 2014)

Howdy!  This was split up from  because this has nothing to do with BuyVM's services and VPSes!

I hope making this its own thread didn't rustle any feathers!  If you have any questions please feel free to ask!


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## DomainBop (May 12, 2014)

texteditor said:


> accurate uptime reports rank pretty damn high on (most) people's lists when looking for service


BULL! LOTS OF RAM AND IPs ARE ALL THAT MATTERS! 4GB/4 IPs < $7 FTW!


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## WebSearchingPro (May 12, 2014)

DomainBop said:


> BULL! LOTS OF RAM AND IPs ARE ALL THAT MATTERS! 4GB/4 IPs < $7 FTW!


+1


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## willie (May 12, 2014)

peterw said:


> How should I get the notifications of the update? Should one write "update available" posts?


Well, my idea was to avoid getting notifications unless someone had something new to say the thread.  Otherwise if you just wanted to check the status, you'd look in the thread.  Do you really need to be notified every month that something is working uneventfully the way it's supposed to?  I can see a rationale for notifying in the event of a significant change or outage, but that's the unusual case.


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## HalfEatenPie (May 12, 2014)

willie said:


> Well, my idea was to avoid getting notifications unless someone had something new to say the thread.  Otherwise if you just wanted to check the status, you'd look in the thread.  Do you really need to be notified every month that something is working uneventfully the way it's supposed to?  I can see a rationale for notifying in the event of a significant change or outage, but that's the unusual case.


Personally I don't see it as a major issue.  But hey my browsing habits are probably much more different than yours.  Honestly I think the way it's currently done now (as an update to the actual thread) is a good way to do it (it adds to the conversation currently present in that thread because it updates on the server's consistency). 

The past uptime is important because it shows multiple factors:


How a provider acts during a crisis (how is it resolved and is it resolved in a timely manner?)
How stable the location is
Yeah the uptime (monitoring) doesn't 100% correlate to what it'd be in the future, but it paints a pretty good picture.


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## willie (May 13, 2014)

I understand that the info is useful and that it should be posted someplace.  I understand that I might want to refer to it if I were considering signing up with a host.  It's very worthwhile to maintain it someplace that it can be easily found.  What I don't see as useful is notifying all readers of the board (that's what happens when you click "view new content") every time a status report comes in saying that a VPS is working normally.  If the host is one that I'm not especially interested in, then the updates are just noise, though easy to ignore.  If it's one that I'm interested in, then I say "oh, new post on the xyzhost thread, I like those guys, let's see what's happening".  I click the link and instead of seeing new discussion (this is a discussion forum, remember) it's just another boilerplate post saying that the VPS is still working.  Sort of like the old SNL routine "In other news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead".  The joke being that such an announcement is not really news.  It's only news if he changes status (living to dead or vice versa).  For VPS's, an outage report is worth posting, as is a recovery report if the outage lasted a while.  VPS is still up?  Yawn.  Post that annually, not monthly.

I think as the number of VPS's under long term testing increases, more and more of the board updates will be these bot-like notifications.  That's why I'm proposing that we figure out some other way to post the info, so people can find it if they are looking for it, but they don't get the regular posting flow interrupted if they're not looking for it.


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