HOSTING @ beyond-sanity.ORG

Welcome to the hosting section of the site. Below, you fill find information about how to go about getting me to host your site if you are interested. If this site is up, then it means that hosting is open, although my response time varies heavily depending on my current school schedule and workload.

b-s.ORG was the third of my domains. My first domain, moonshadow-garden.NET (which is now closed), was intented to host sites having to do with art, poetry, literature, and fantasy. A few months later, I bought pyreflies.NU for all sites having to do with animanga, video games, and Japanese culture. I realized I needed a third domain to house social blogs, forums, sites to do with pop culture, and any other miscellaneous sites that did not fall within the scopes of the other two domains. Now that ms-g.NET is closed, b-s.ORG has taken over its role of housing all sites that do not have to do with Asian culture. If your site falls within this scope, you are in the right place. If not, you should seek hosting at p.NU.

Because I no longer have the time to really indulge in web design much anymore, I feel that it is unfair for me to set higher standards for my hostees than I am able to maintain myself, so I am not nearly as picky as I used to be. Basically, all sites that are hosted here are expected to adhere to the following rules and requirements:

You should be at least 13 years old. I know that age and maturity don't necessarily always go hand in hand, but I have to draw the line somewhere.
No mp3s, movies, porn, hentai, downloads (unless you check with me), and anything else that could get me in trouble with my host. When in doubt, just check with me before you upload something that could be questionable.
Along with the above, I AM NOT YOUR STORAGE SPACE. I am giving you space to host a website, not a place to dump files you want to link your friends to. A few files I don't mind, as long as the vast majority of the webspace I am allocating you isn't taken up by stuff that isn't part of your actual website content. It's not an issue of webspace or bandwidth, because I have plenty of both, but I feel like it's an abuse of our agreement if you're really only using the space I am giving you to dump files in so that you can direct-link to them elsewhere.
Along the same lines, if you run a fanlisting or clique, tell your members not to direct-link to the codes, because that leads to unnecessary bandwidth consumption, and it's just generally a common courtesy not to do so.
How often I expect you to update depends largely on the type of site you're hosting with me. If you're hosting some type of blog, I expect it to be updated at least once a month or so. If you're hosting some sort of fiction or portfolio site or a collective, I understand if you don't have reason to update it that frequently. If you're running something like a forum, I expect it to be fairly active, or it's not worth the webspace.
I know not everyone is an English major, but try to use proper grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. Sorry, but this is just a pet peeve of mine. I will NOT host any sites that use web abbreviations, like "2" for "to" or "too", "u" for "you", etc. Most blogging software these days has spellcheck functions, so there is no excuse for bad spelling. StIcKy CaPs and long bodies of text in all caps are also undesirable.
You should always make your own layouts. If you get textures, patterns, or brushes from other places, I'm okay with that, but the overall layout should be your own creation. Exceptions will only be made if you contact me about it first. If you do not have design skills and would like to use a premade WordPress template, for example, let me know and we'll talk about it.
Your designs do not have to be overly fancy, but they should be tasteful. I tend to prefer designs that are clean and simple to the point of minimalism, rather than ones that are heavily photoshopped to the point of garishness. I know that not everyone feels the same way, which is why my only rule is: be tasteful.
Your layout should function well in all kinds of screen resolutions. I do not expect you to design for anything smaller than 1024x768, but your layout should look decent in anything larger.
I don't want to be super-picky about browser cross-compatibility, since I myself complain about CSS all the time, and as long as your layout works well in Mozilla, I'm content. However, your site should at least be navigable and your content readable in IE and Safari, even if not everything looks 100% correct in those browsers.
I don't really care if you have your own domain or other webspace where you could be hosting your site. I understand that sometimes, for one reason or another, we want to host our sites with someone else. HOWEVER, if I decide to host your site and then a month later you decide to move it to your own domain, that's kind of a waste of time for both of us. So, if you ask to get hosted here, I do expect you to stick around at least for a little while.
This is probably my most important rule: I expect you to be responsible for any and all scripts you use on your site. In the past, I had a lot of hostees use very old versions of phpFanbase, b2/WordPress, and GreyMatter, which had become very, very vulnerable to hacking and/or comment spam, and so a lot of those sites were hacked and/or exploited. One of them had even been exploited so badly that it seemed like my domain was generating spam e-mails. I do not want such a thing to happen ever again, but I do not have time to maintain the security of all my hostees' sites, which is why I am now expecting everyone to be responsible for it themselves. This primarily includes installing updated versions of scripts as they come out; WordPress, for example, comes out with a new stable release about once a month, and keeping up with these updates is VERY important. If your site does happen to get hacked, I can help you repair the damage, but you should be the one keeping the holes patched. I understand that not everyone is equally tech-savvy, but if you cannot maintain at least a minimum standard of security, this is not the place for you.

Also, I previously used to require all my hostees to keep in touch with me and participate in some sort of community activity such as a hostee blog or a forum. While I still think that the idea of building a community is a nice ideal, I no longer have time for this myself, so I'm not going to require it of anyone else. I would like to get to know my hostees, and if you feel the same way about me, probably the best thing to do would be to friend me on LJ (if you have an LJ) and occasionally IM me on AIM or MSN. That's about all I have time for.

Now that you've suffered through that rather detailed list above, you should get to hear the benefits, right? Right.

beyond-sanity.org/you
As much space as you need, within reason¹
A private FTP account (note: you will need your own FTP software)
As much bandwidth as you need, within reason²
A you@beyond-sanity.org e-mail forwarder or POP3 e-mail account
Server support for PHP, Apache, CGI, Perl, SSI, XML... pretty much everything
A MySQL database and phpMyAdmin installation, if needed
Assistance with first-time script installations³
As long as you follow the rules, hosting for life, if needed

¹ I will initially put a quota on your FTP account based on how much space I think you'll ever need, and if you max out the quota, just come and talk to me and I'll increase the limit.
² There is no way for me to put a cap on this for each individual account, but I do periodically check the domain's bandwidth usage logs, and it does tell me exactly which sites and files are eating up a lot of bandwidth, so I can and will find out if you're abusing it.
³ As explained in the rules section above, after the initial installation, I expect you to maintain their security and handle updates on your own.

If you actually read through all my lengthy diatribes above and still want to be hosted (not that I'm trying to scare anyone away, of course), please fill out the form below as completely as possible.

Name or preferred nickname:
E-mail address:
Website URL:
Is this the site you'll be hosting here?	Yes No
Other examples of your work (links):
Type of site you'll be hosting:
Describe your site. If you haven't made it yet, what do you have in mind?
beyond-sanity.org/you ; you = ? Limit 10 characters, a-z and 0-9 only.
How would you like your mail? If you don't know the difference, pick 'forwarder'.	Forwarder POP3
Script(s) you'll be running, if any:
Do you need help with the installation?	Yes No
Do you need a MySQL database?	Yes No
Why do you want to be hosted here?
How long have you been web designing?
Anything else I need to know:
Would you like a rejection letter? If you choose no, I won't e-mail you back.	Yes No

Since my free time these days is fairly limited, if you requested a response, you can expect me to take at least a week to get back to you. If I do not respond to you within 1-2 weeks, feel free to send me a short e-mail asking me if I've read your application yet, but please do not continually harrass me.

Use the information below to contact me if you have questions that are not addressed above or individual concerns.

E-mail:	eponine @ beyond-sanity . org
AIM:	lunar eclipse148
MSN:	lilpenguinhugs @ hotmail . com

Again, continual harrassment will not be tolerated.