If you tried to access Consumerism Commentary today but couldn’t get through, I apologize. This site — and many of my websites sites hosted at DreamHost — are having server problems. Part of the problem is being bombarded with spam comments, in some cases a thousand per hour. While they don’t get published, they get evaluated like all other comments, and that takes processing power.
I’m looking for other solutions. Bear with me!
Update: DreamHost is upgrading the server that hosts this and many other websites — from a Pentium III 850 MHz with 1 GB RAM to a Dual Xeon 2.8 GHz with 2 GB RAM — since I’ve been “such a wonderful long-time customer.”
Mad props to DreamHost, who will make the transition within the hour. Now let’s see if this helps solve the problems.
Published or updated June 1, 2006. If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the RSS feed or receive daily emails. Follow @flexo on Twitter and visit our Facebook page for more updates.
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Luke Landes founded Consumerism Commentary in 2003 and has been building online communities since 1990. Luke, also known as Flexo, has contributed to PC World Magazine, US News, Forbes, and other publications. 
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I hear you Flexo. I also host on Dreamhost and get ridiculous amounts of spam. I have added Spam Karma and it has pretty much taken care of the problem, but I think it’s causing me DB issues. (The sheer amount of spam and the processing of each and storage of the logs).
Dreamhost also moved me and I’ve changed a few of the configs on Spam Karma and so far so good. All in all I’m happy with Dreamhost. They did take a while to respond after they took my site down, which aggravated me, but it’s all okay now.
We seem to be flying, but for some reason parts of the site keep recerting back to the default WordPress theme. Always something…