Review of Zoomcities *bad review*

[ZoomCities]

He's just another Post-2-Host operating at a loss. It's called the Entrepreneurial model instead of the Dividends model. By one narrow definition, *any* forum ever created becomes a "community". But calling Non-Cash companies "Communities" is one of the new top-10 marketing tricks. If people think they're each other's friends, they feel good and thus post more. Then when the "Mayor" "retires", his "community" has better prospects for the endgame.

He may also be trying to avoid certain liabilities such as copyright harbors by ducking the mantle of Company. Australia has been doing some weird things lately.

:biggrin2: what an author!! youre good in making up stories and stating your assumptions.. ZoomCities has always been a community from the beginning! Get your facts right before opening your mouth, it wont do you good.. Check archive.org http://web.archive.org/web/20050209032003/http://www.zoomcities.com/ that will show you that ZoomCities has always been a community,because that is always been the aim and goal.

 

[TaoPhoenix]

Community = ?

Sure, your message is consistent. You get credit for that, and I hope no one took my notes to imply you were erratic.

What we're responding to is your use of a descriptive term which is at best multi-hued and often leads to Shakespeare's "Rose by another name" effect. Your Wayback page includes only four lines, one of which is your thematic phrase, and the other is "Request your FREE Hosting now on Zoom Forum".

What do you think a Community is? Friends?
It turns out you have one of the stricter TOS sets around. Let's look at a couple.

-----
"13. Website/Account Activity: You must produced a valid content on your site 24-72 hours after registration. You must also login to your hosting account at least every 30 days. Failure to do so will result in account termination!

14. Advertisements: Advertisements on ZoomCities hosted websites are welcome, as long as they don’t advertise something offensive, other hosting services but you are NOT allowed to place Google Adsense or similar schemes.

15. ZC Mini Banner: You must place this on your website, it must be done within 48 hours once your hosting account is created. Those who receive a free domain name from ZoomCities are also required to put the ZC button on their website. If you own a TLD and will be hosted at ZoomCities, the ZC Mini Banner is also required to be displayed on your site."
-----

Doesn't sound friendly to me. I'm trying to avoid the harsher words for "social gatherings that impose strict membership requirements". Since you provide services that you retain the unilateral authority to revoke, I went with Company.

 

[anhedonia]

Well, this escalated very quickly into a heated debate. Anyway...

I doubt very much you dont make money out of this host or atleast break even, stop playing the victim and listen to what people think of your host.
or not, who gives a ---- your the one that will lose out when everyone leaves.

You say you "dont have time" but you seem to have alot of time to agrue about this, if you didnt have time, logic says its 100 times easier to just say
"we have all been real busy, sorry about the delays but we are planning to reshape the host bla bla bla"
the end, but noooo someone with no time is setting here wasting time pissing people off.
oh ok.

To be fair, spending a couple of minutes replying to a forum thread where he is being publically "shamed", as such, does not take anywhere near the amount of time it would take to answer most customer tickets. Take into consideration the time to investigate the ticket, troubleshoot, fix the problem, and get back to the free host user - it's going to be a lot longer than the 2 minutes spent posting here. I don't really think that's a particularly fair comparison.

BUT ITS STILL A HOST, no matter which way you look at it, its a host!!!
It offers hosting sevices to its members which makes its members clients.

You can sit here and try and agrue that its unimportant all you want, your only doing that because you cant win.

Also lol, I am really just proving my points, you have spent over 10 mins here fighting on if your host is a host or a it community, yet you cant reply to a ticket in under 10 days??? you seem to be replying to this quickly...

Same point as above.

u mad? :wave:

This is just blatant trolling, and a pretty ridiculous post to make.

If what Zoom says is true, then the uptime overall and previous service has been very good, as the OP agreed with. Taking a look at the support thread over at ZoomCities, my suggestions would be that if support "staff" are going to reply to a help request, they could save a fair bit of time by reading the ticket properly.

10 days is a long time to wait for help, while your site hangs in limbo. That said, it is a free service, and from all reports, that service has previously been very solid.

If these guys - who by my understanding, are largely volunteers - are doing this in their free time, as a community service, then you need to take that into consideration before making complaints. They can do what they're doing now - that is, continue to provide free hosting with limited/delayed support, or they can decide it's not worth the trouble and not offer free hosting at all.

I think everyone - Zoom included - should take a small break from this thread and calm down a bit. It doesn't make ANY of us look any good if we are all on here raging at each other.

TL;DR version:

- Calm down!
- Remember that all services have hitches, and not everything is a quick fix.
- If you don't have anything worthwhile to contribution to this conversation, there's no point exacerbating it with trolling comments like noted above. This thread is already spiralling pretty hard, no need to make it worse for everyone...

 

[ZoomCities]

Sure, your message is consistent. You get credit for that, and I hope no one took my notes to imply you were erratic.

What we're responding to is your use of a descriptive term which is at best multi-hued and often leads to Shakespeare's "Rose by another name" effect. Your Wayback page includes only four lines, one of which is your thematic phrase, and the other is "Request your FREE Hosting now on Zoom Forum".

What do you think a Community is? Friends?
It turns out you have one of the stricter TOS sets around. Let's look at a couple.

-----
"13. Website/Account Activity: You must produced a valid content on your site 24-72 hours after registration. You must also login to your hosting account at least every 30 days. Failure to do so will result in account termination!

14. Advertisements: Advertisements on ZoomCities hosted websites are welcome, as long as they don’t advertise something offensive, other hosting services but you are NOT allowed to place Google Adsense or similar schemes.

15. ZC Mini Banner: You must place this on your website, it must be done within 48 hours once your hosting account is created. Those who receive a free domain name from ZoomCities are also required to put the ZC button on their website. If you own a TLD and will be hosted at ZoomCities, the ZC Mini Banner is also required to be displayed on your site."
-----

Doesn't sound friendly to me. I'm trying to avoid the harsher words for "social gatherings that impose strict membership requirements". Since you provide services that you retain the unilateral authority to revoke, I went with Company.

That is just a guideline for all hosted members to follow, to try to control things and find out which members are hosting a legit website and which ones are not. Its a simple way to control spam accounts to protect our other hosted members and our servers. Guess what? Not everyone follows it especially the mini banner, about 50% did and 50% didnt.. SainCai, the thread OP, didn't for 3 years, and did I care if he's got the banner or not? No, because I know that he is a legit hosted member, I let him keep his account and enjoy the free hosting because thats the main purpose of it anyway, to find out which one is genuine or not, to help us do our volunteer job easier and make the community better. You will know that when you run a community and you want to do things right and fair!

ZoomCities is a Community not a Company. Again, I spent 100 times more than what I have earned from those ads. I am giving away free hosting to help people, as a good will not to earn from it. I've got better source of income that this, a real job. ZoomCities is a hobby

 

[TaoPhoenix]

That's a decent post Anhedonia.
I'm sure the prior uptime was solid, I'm not unduly worried about delays. What I tapped into was something I think affects the entire industry. Generally, it's a small-dollar industry, and tons of hosts are run at a loss on the founder's resources. What gets tricky is when EVERY host decides to call themselves a "community" in order to get "members". I personally think true web "communities" are very difficult to create.

Maybe a big issue is what happens to the community if the founder retires. I was thinking for most of my posts like "community = town", which I don't think he is. But I could live with "exclusive resort", where everyone has to wear the branded polo shirt on campus. On a larger level, Web 2.0 (Web 2.1? We're past the initial stage now) is now chock full of these little pockets of people. And the first waves are closing down.

Coming from my business training, my chief concern is the potential for a business to sneak under the "community" umbrella to its own gain that occurs Off Radar.

 

[ZoomCities]

That's a decent post Anhedonia.
I'm sure the prior uptime was solid, I'm not unduly worried about delays. What I tapped into was something I think affects the entire industry. Generally, it's a small-dollar industry, and tons of hosts are run at a loss on the founder's resources. What gets tricky is when EVERY host decides to call themselves a "community" in order to get "members". I personally think true web "communities" are very difficult to create.

Maybe a big issue is what happens to the community if the founder retires. I was thinking for most of my posts like "community = town", which I don't think he is. But I could live with "exclusive resort", where everyone has to wear the branded polo shirt on campus. On a larger level, Web 2.0 (Web 2.1? We're past the initial stage now) is now chock full of these little pockets of people. And the first waves are closing down.

Coming from my business training, my chief concern is the potential for a business to sneak under the "community" umbrella to its own gain that occurs Off Radar.

You should look outside the square, not all entity acts the way that you understand and think about "community". ZoomCities started as a community, then starts providing free hosting to members, not the other way around (providing free hosting to members then became a community). Do your further research next time before joining the conversation

 

[anhedonia]

It's a fair concern, TaoPhoenix. Similarly, one of my concerns is that any genuine community is doubted and branded with the same taint. Aren't we just letting the bad guys win if we all become cynics? :classic2:

Coming from my business training, my chief concern is the potential for a business to sneak under the "community" umbrella to its own gain that occurs Off Radar.

 

[theraptor]

Any "community" with a leader that treats a member of three years this way, when to start they have not said anything directly insulting you, and have only pointed out valid problems, doesn't seem like a very good "community" to me.

And for people that defend Zoom here: there is absolutely no excuse for a person that provides hosting to come onto a third party hosting forum and treat someone this way. ZoomCities's responses to this thread have hurt its image far more than the OP's original post

 

[ZoomCities]

1) It seems to me that Tao started this conversation

2) Any "community" with a leader that treats a member of three years this way, when to start they have not said anything directly insulting you, and have only pointed out valid problems, doesn't seem like a very good "community" to me.

Here we go, here's another one..

1. Tao didn't start this conversation, did you even read the whole thread before replying?

2. You are entitled to your own opinion, but I was being fair to SainCai and treated him well in 3 years he is hosted with us, he wont last 3 years if he wasn't treated well. The only reason why he is having problems is because of the billing issue in our Datacenter which have caused the main problem. Did you even read the whole thread?

 

[ZoomCities]

And for people that defend Zoom here: there is absolutely no excuse for a person that provides hosting to come onto a third party hosting forum and treat someone this way. ZoomCities's responses to this thread have hurt its image far more than the OP's original post

Since you have edited your post I will reply to your edited bits..

My responses to this thread is purely to defend ZoomCities from people who have strong imaginations of things that they go beyond their imagination. If you read the whole thread, I only have 2 points..

1. SainCai should not be ranting like this in public
2. ZoomCities is a community not a company

I have explained everything to those who keep making comments without reading the whole thread and understanding the whole situation, and yes that includes yourself. I dont see any of my response hurt our image or what so ever, it was all facts.

 

[theraptor]

no, what you have done here is insult SainCai. He posted a valid two valid points:

1) he could not get his .co.cc to work with your service.
2) there was no support for a week

nowhere has he "ranted" on about anything. If you are just a "community" as you say and not a business, you wouldnt care about this, because a community is just a collection of people, and if one person doesnt like it there, they leave. The fact that you are taking this so personally seems to say that you are something other than a community.

 

[ZoomCities]

no, what you have done here is insult SainCai. He posted a valid two valid points:

1) he could not get his .co.cc to work with your service.
2) there was no support for a week

nowhere has he "ranted" on about anything. If you are just a "community" as you say and not a business, you wouldnt care about this, because a community is just a collection of people, and if one person doesnt like it there, they leave. The fact that you are taking this so personally seems to say that you are something other than a community.

Huh? Where is the insult there? If there is someone here who got insulted, its ZoomCities.

1. We don't support .co.cc domain, he's got a zoomcities subdomain, his site is working, his visitors are seeing his website, even search engines.
2. We tried to support our free hosted members as best as we can voluntarily, sometimes its instant sometimes it takes more than a week depending on the availability of the volunteers.

I care about this because its a community I built and been running for more than 5 years, I have spent a lot of time, effort and money in building this community to help people, now that it is being attacked due to some unreasonable comment/post execution like this, I have to do my bit and act and explain our side. Thats just how things work, you have to hear both sides of the story, you can't be 1 sided, thats how justice works, welcome to the real world.

 

[theraptor]

1. We don't support .co.cc domain, he's got a zoomcities subdomain, his site is working, his visitors are seeing his website, even search engines.
2. We tried to support our free hosted members as best as we can voluntarily, sometimes its instant sometimes it takes more than a week depending on the availability of the volunteers.

what a nice responce. If you had just replied like this originally everything would be great now. Instead you have blamed the customer, and made up a bunch of excuses about how you are not a company, etc. etc.

 

[anhedonia]

Keep in mind that there were other people in this thread, as you put it, "ranting". Not all responses here have been directed to the OP.

I don't think anyone is coming off very well in this thread, and perhaps the entire matter should have been dealt with privately, but as I said, is there any point in now exacerbating it? I do think that Zoom is correct when he says that people are not reading the entire thread.

I'm not condoning or condemning either party here. As with all stories, there are three sides to this - the OP's, Zoom's, and then of course, the truth. :classic2:

 

[ZoomCities]

what a nice responce. If you had just replied like this originally everything would be great now. Instead you have blamed the customer, and made up a bunch of excuses about how you are not a company, etc. etc.

Those responses have always been our stance ever since, we always try our best to inform our free hosted members about that and I never blame the OP nor made up some excuses (where are you getting this from??), I was just defending ZoomCities from the useless side comments made by others and showing the OP that what he did is unreasonable (public rant). And again I am just stating facts about the situation. Nothing to hide here..

 

[Kwek]

what a nice responce. If you had just replied like this originally everything would be great now. Instead you have blamed the customer, and made up a bunch of excuses about how you are not a company, etc. etc.

To be fair, it wasn't very nice of the OP to say this either:

What was once a very reliable webhost, has turned into a joke lately.

Calling it a joke didn't exactly help things, did it? We must bear in the mind that the OP is receiving a free service. Thus, the manner that his comment takes after will incontrovertibly affect the response evoked from the host. If he hadn't been so blunt and blatant in putting down the host, Zac might not have responded with such an acerbic tone either. The responses from the other members have not been particularly polite either.

I'd say that no party is at fault here. ZoomCities has provided a solid and reliable service for years, and one doesn't have to use it if he or she doesn't like it. The fact remains that Zac focuses more on building up the community than the hosting service. Whether you agree with his definition of a community is not going to change his perspective, and I'm sure you already know that.

Therefore, it is pointless to argue on. In all honesty, it was a large assumption on your part to comment as follow:

The fact that you are taking this so personally seems to say that you are something other than a community

Don't you think that you are presuming too much of his behaviour to dictate the right response that he should adopt?

While I don't want to add fuel to the fire, I felt a need to defend what is just. On that, I'd just like to add that I don't think any party is at fault. Such incidents (possibly of miscommunication) are common occurrences in real life.

 

[anhedonia]

Thanks Kwek, this is also what I've been hinting at. :classic2:

 

[hamster]

Kwek has very nicely summarized the whole argument on Zac's side and it is extremely clear that Zac has been, at no point in time, offensive towards the OP.

Having been into free hosting before, I must say that it is inevitable that a minority of the free hostees would be extremely difficult to satisfy and come up with petty complaints of downtime and lack of support even when they are getting the service free-of-charge.

Now, for a bit of moderator perspective. Since Zac has cleared up on his end, would you like to have this thread closed and resume your negotiations/discussions via PM or email?

 

[Schmarvin]

*** Hey Hammy, sorry I put this in after you. Just want to show the faults with all the arguments against Zac. You may delete this if you want.

Those responses have always been our stance ever since, we always try our best to inform our free hosted members about that and I never blame the OP nor made up some excuses (where are you getting this from??), I was just defending ZoomCities from the useless side comments made by others and showing the OP that what he did is unreasonable (public rant). And again I am just stating facts about the situation. Nothing to hide here..

I've never seen you blame a hosted member. So I'm on your side, you provide a free service people take for granted.

no, what you have done here is insult SainCai. He posted a valid two valid points:

1) he could not get his .co.cc to work with your service.
2) there was no support for a week

nowhere has he "ranted" on about anything. If you are just a "community" as you say and not a business, you wouldnt care about this, because a community is just a collection of people, and if one person doesnt like it there, they leave. The fact that you are taking this so personally seems to say that you are something other than a community.

You just like to take things into your own hands. I've always seen you ask for a lot and just keep coming back for more. Free doesn't mean its guaranteed, he doesn't HAVE to do anything. He is offering his time, money, and experience to keep ZoomCities going. If you have a problem with it, buy hosting, start your own server, or just find another way to deal with it.

what a nice responce. If you had just replied like this originally everything would be great now. Instead you have blamed the customer, and made up a bunch of excuses about how you are not a company, etc. etc.

No offense, you came into this discussion being rude. Your attitude is completely unacceptable. You have made no points of your own and twist another person's words to make them sound bad when they aren't. Zac has made no excuses and has only stated the facts that were there. He did not tell any lies.

Everyone who is against Zac has said that he runs ZoomCities as a company/business. It's not one! It's just a forum that offers free services, and one of those services is providing free hosting to its members.

Zac is a great guy, his forum/community has been around for years, and I have yet to see him turn it into a business setting. I run my own company, mostly for local clients, and I know a business setting. Things get hectic when customers aren't patient. Since ZoomCities isn't a business, its members' volunteer their time to help out. That's why you see admins and support members on the forum.

To those who want to continue to argue against this, get on with your life. You can find a new host, go buy hosting so you can't complain anymore.

 

[ZoomCities]

Thanks guys, you can actually tell who are the smart people here and the unfortunate ones. Hamster yes please close this thread before these cowboys come back for more nonsense.

Zac