'What happened to AT EASE?' I've had that question a lot in the past couple of months and I've been ignoring most of your questions. My apologies for that, but here goes...
I've started this little website some 21 years ago. If you feel old right now, imagine how I feel ;). Started out as a little project to see if I can make a website. Well, that worked. Sorta. It actually turned into something really big. And fun. Delivering news on Radiohead on a daily basis, maintaining a message board and all that stuff was a great way to spend my free time. All that traffic costed money too. When tens of thousands of people (sometimes it was over a 100.000) per day check out your site, you'll have to move to a dedicated server. Just to give you an idea: usually a small business shares a server with dozens of other websites. I needed three dedicated servers. That just costs almost 300 dollars every single month.
When there's a lot of traffic you can have Google Ads cover those costs, when there isn't, you'll be losing some cash and just wait till Radiohead releases another album or go on another tour. Well, there weren't that many albums in recent years and on top of that I got caught up in a job, which required full dedication. And that made it harder to pick things up on everything Radiohead. However, those monthly bills kept coming in. I don't want to think about how much money this site has cost me. But at some point, at the end of 2017, I realised all of my saving had evaporated. So I had to cancel those dedicated servers and look for a cheaper option.
I gave my server hosters a heads up I was going to cancel soon. Didn't give them a final date just yet, cause I had to organise alternatives and was still busy with work. But before I knew it, the host had cut the cord. Which means that everything I worked on, everything you guys posted on that message board, all the archives, etc etc was... er... GONE. I'm pretty devastated about that. So I put my head in the sand for a while. I've learned the hard way with that tactic; it doesn't really work.
In the meantime, I quit my job. Returned to freelancing for now, started my own little label and management business and Radiohead are touring again. I've been posting on this temp site for a couple of days now and geared up the social media and remember how much fun it is again.
So I guess I'd like to try to get things up and running again. Although I'd have to do it without a backup of those 21 years. Maybe get that board back too (if I can do that without spending too much). If you all want it back of course. So please let me know. Would love to hear what you think.
And also, Radiohead in New York this week. Looking forward. It's been a while. Hooray!
Thx,
Adriaan
thanks Adriaan for giving us the background we've been wondering about - the fact it happened right when this tour was announced was totally unexpected - good luck with what you're trying to do - i miss so many people who posted there and all that material now in cyberspace - and yes, let this week be a glorious one as it always is here in NYC :)
ReplyDeleteFirstly, thank you Adriaan for creating a wonderful online space for us Radiohead fans to gather and be silly and serious with one another. To say the message board was a special community would be a understatement. Atease members developed close friendships, fell in love with each other, and mourned the deaths of their fellow members on your site. I was a regular visitor, though not a frequent poster and have greatly missed it since the servers were cut. It's heartening to hear that it was entirely your intention to pull the plug without warning. I sincerely hope you're willing and able to bring it back in some form. I look forward to having it once again be the browser tab I never close.
ReplyDeleteBest wishes,
PackofSandwiches
I miss it more than I should or can express here. Still bookmarked. ��
ReplyDeleteProbably best just redirecting the traffic to THE ANNEX. Thom already posts on there!
ReplyDeleteHe was briefly banned for talking about Danes and Austrians in a very rude way.
DeleteHe's Albus Dumbledore on the annex
DeleteDamn I didn't realize what a huge undertaking that was for you and to say that I appreciate your efforts would be an understatement. While I haven't visited the site or forum recently I do check it fairly often when the boys are touring in North America. It's certainly been a great community and resource throughout the years.
ReplyDeletePeople should join a dedicated Radiohead club on The Annex instead: http://board.theannextm.com/forum/clubs/
ReplyDeleteI'd love the board back. Miss it like crazy (dbe14)
ReplyDeleteAtEase was what enabled me to become the Radiohead fanatic I am today and led to countless lifelong friendships. I would absolutely love to see the board come back (and am eternally grateful for everything you put in to keeping AtEase going for so many years). I'm sure I'm not alone in that I'd be all to happy to support a Patreon or any similar thing to help with costs
ReplyDeleteI’d love to write for at ease if for nothing else other than to get involved with the community, bring it back.
ReplyDeletehttp://board.theannextm.com/forum/ has wonderfully filled the void, with many many Ateasers making it their new home. I'd recommend it to all who are missing Atease, you never know, half your old board friends might already be on there! God bless you all, and take care.
ReplyDeleteWhen Atease went down, The Annex absolutely filled my need to talk about and share music with others. And along the way I discovered that it is not only a fun community for music, yes, but so much more. You all should come check it out for sure. Come say hi!
Delete"pee pee....and also poo poo ;)" -radiohead
ReplyDeleteHello Adriaan,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the update, i was so surpised when i realised that AtEase had dissapeared.
A big thank you for this forum that i knew for years and where i always get the fresh news first.
It is also where i was starting to get used to follow the shows with the ateasers.
And it is mostly thanks to ateasers that Radiohead in Praha video was possible : i had and shared the idea there, prepared it with people there, meet some of the people who shared their videos and the team who did the editing there too.
So if you do something new that could revive all that, i'd be happy to check how it goes :0)
You're a piece of shit, man. Leaving me out to dry like that. I will get my revenge.
ReplyDelete-Beachbum
I was so stressed when ateaseweb suddenly disappeared that my goatee fell off. Hope you bring it back soon, and reinstate my admin powers.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your work over the years. Nowhere else could I not just pick over Radiohead minutiae with like-minded Headers, but also start a ridiculous thread called Films Where People Splash Water On Their Faces and actually get serious responses. I'll miss it. Best wishes.
ReplyDeleteSJF
Patreon? I'd contribute!
ReplyDeleteI still have my ateaseweb.com t-shirt :fun: thanks for the great work, adriaan. bummed to see the message board go, but I hope the news make a comeback for good.
ReplyDeleteNo worries Adriaan. I made sure all of the LP9 memes were not lost in the void. I'm sure fabri has them as well.
ReplyDeleteBut really, there's no place like atease in the months leading up to an album drop. And I owe much of my music taste to the recommendations of the lovely people on the music forum. I hate The Annex's interface, so I'm hoping atease makes a return in some form someday.
- hysterical.useless
Ah, I seen The Annex has cleaned up their interface. May give it a shot.
DeleteBut still: there's no replacing atease.
I know the website is gone, but is the board's history gone too?
ReplyDeleteI thought we shared something special in Toronto. You never called me back. How could you do this to me?
ReplyDelete-Beachbum
Part of my life for 20 years! My Internet home. Please bring it back. The Annex is shit.
ReplyDeletedude, let it die
ReplyDeletethis. thanks for all the efforts over the past, but this.
DeleteIf you do start over please consider Paterson as a source of revenu. I don’t know if you had reached out to your community when it was costing you money but maybe if you do this time it can sustain the site and yourself... you are after all a legend in your own way and I’m sure people would support you.
ReplyDeleteI meant Patreon (crowd funding)
DeleteThanks for the update! Much appreciated. Long time fan who is super excited to see them this month after seeing them only a year and a half ago!
ReplyDelete:| Barry!
ReplyDeleteAll those posts will be lost in time, like tears, in rain.
ReplyDeleteThe head in the sand thing, that's very Radiohead :)
ReplyDeleteWho remembers Planet Telex, 'returning soon'? :D
Thanks for the efforts through the years. It was a great place to express how brilliant you think RH is. Also, I will never forget how the community decoded the smiley face alphabet secret RH message right before In Rainbows was released.
ReplyDeleteI sure miss the message board. There isn't another decent Radiohead one around. But thanks for the info and best of luck!
ReplyDeleteHey man,
ReplyDeletesorry to hear that you lost your site.
You might probably be aware that archive has made snapshots of it and the last working one seems to be here: https://web.archive.org/web/20180220172330/http://www.ateaseweb.com:80/
So if you're planning to launch a new site then you can revive the old content by fetching the data from archive.org and import it to your new homepage - You will have lost the user-accounts probably unless you made a backup of the subscriber data. But with a bit of work most of this can be relaunched at least in a read-only format ...
Also the costs you mentioned seemed outrageous tbh ... I suspect that this can be done much cheaper using a minimalist design approach and more static content (the more you send down the pipe to the user-browser the longer you have them hogging your bandwidth and the more data costs you incur ...). You should probably also have some kind of link to Patreon which might help to at least break even.
If this is all Greek to you, let me know and I'd be happy to help you with some scripting. I've been an engineer since the late 90ies and was at the forefront of the web. I worked as a CTO in SaaS businesses that handle millions of users every day so I know a thing or 2 about this. Not interested in getting paid (just a big fan of radiohead and happy to throw some time at this if you need help :)). If you'd want to go really radical you could probably create some decentralized tech (over ipfs, with a chat integration using matrix (e.g. like riot.im) or similar stuff ... something that is a statement in itself and pays homage in terms of creativity to the most creative band on earth ...)
PhlippedBit@protonmail.com
ciao,
~PB
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ReplyDelete