PS3 DeViL303.com is gone due lack of donations :(

Thanks to everyone who donated, and thanks to @aldostools for starting this thread. I have just renewed the hosting for 3 months.. cost was $82 and it only lasts until 9th June.. wish it could be longer but this is all I can afford right now.

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I'll be honest, I used to have spare money for stuff like this, but my circumstances have changed a lot over the last few years. I'm not complaining as it was all great fun and the PS3 scene kept me sane through some tough times but I just don't think its sustainable any more, I must have put in about 1000euro of my own money for various hosting over the last few years.. probably had about 8 donations at this stage, maybe 120euro total.

Anyway, I'm not sure if it will get renewed again after this so if you wanted anything from the server, grab it while you can.
You have done a lot more for this scene than anyone has a right to expect and for that alone, you deserve both respect and recognition.
If you feel that the time has come for you to move on, I think many will join me to wish you all the best in your new endeavours, your contributions will be missed by users and other devs alike.

As for the rest, the situation emphasizes the need for consolidation of scene hosting so that even when a dev/team decides to retire or give up on his/her private initiatives, homebrews don't become obsolete due to hosting services shutting down. There are decent "all unlimited" hosting plans for 200 USD every 3 years, it's not exactly out of reach for a community of thousands of people.
Moreover we could "link" several domain names to just one hosting package with dedicated folders, we could provide separate FTP credentials for each of them as well as custom security rules regarding http or https access.
And optionally for 200 bucks more every 3 years we could either buy redundancy to ensure there's NEVER any down time or custom SSL to ensure browser compatibility on ALL fw versions working alongside full Cloudflare services for better performance, reliability and security.

Once or twice a year, an important scene website vanishes (and nothing else seems to emerge apart from piracy sites), the cause is often the same, a mixture of lack of funds and donations and the desire to move on triggered by life changes, at this rhythm one may wonder what services will be left in say 3 years time. As far as I can make out, we have 2 options, either we let it all go or we organise ourselves better to address the problem before it's too late..
 
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So the next question is how to organize the efforts.
i say we make it a community event. with blackjack and hookers!

but in all honesty, the idea that was thrown out there about having one consolidated place that everyone can share... its nice to be able to have multiple domains but really all we need is one. if we can manage to get a site hosted and a few TB of data storage, that would be all we need wouldnt it? that would be enough to store covers and tools and source codes and so much more. and it woulod be easier for people to see one donation link instead of 5 or 6. the way it is now it is hit or miss and then you have people picking certain devs over others (not that there is anything at all wrong with that) and that leaves certain resources hanging in the balance. if i were a millionaire i would solve all of these problems, but i am barely a hunderedaire lol
 
i say we make it a community event. with blackjack and hookers!
LOL

So the next question is how to organize the efforts.
More seriously, I have spoken of the need for the community to organise better so many times by now, I am not sure what more to add on that particular subject and tbph I don't recall seeing much in terms of suggestions or even acknowledgements of that need from community members whenever that subject was raised.
In theory, we have everything we need at our disposal, hosting packages and other services.
I could easily extend the unlimited hosting package I use for ** ** www.ps3xploit.net > Domain no Longer owned by team** (NEW URL = http://ps3toolset.com) > Domain no Longer owned by team** (NEW URL = http://ps3toolset.com to other domains if it suited everyone. Or we could use another package altogether, I would not be surprised if other people in this community had even better deals to suggest, in situations like this, the more suggestions the better obviously.

But anyway, the problem is not how to set that shit up on a technical level, it's mainly how to ensure the long term funding, unfortunately I don't have a miracle recipe to suggest for this, if I did I would already have put something in place for the ps3xploit sites.
We simply cannot count on regular small donations motivated by good will, it's sad but that's how it is therefore we will need to think outside the box and figure something else somehow... otherwise whoever takes care of making payments will continuously be chasing cash, given my own experience of the matter, I would not want the responsibility, I can tell you that much already.

We could maybe try to raise enough money for say 9 years (3 times a 3 year plan + 9 years of domain renewals all paid up front) if we make a really big thing of it, it may take a lot of effort to raise that much but that could keep services safe for some time however 9 years is not really long term either moreover it doesn't account for any extras, and that bare minimum might already prove a serious challenge when it comes to raising enough donations to cover it.

Minting a limited series of NFTs could be a potential solution that I mentioned once briefly before but we would need willing contributors to create them and we'd have to think of ways to offer added value to the NFTs beyond the obvious.
If we could mint say 250 nice looking NFTs at 0.02ETH each on average (about 60 bucks atm), it would solve the problem once and for all, especially as ETH value is very likely to go up in the future.
We could get proper dedicated hosting (not shared), custom SSL, the lot covered for quite some time without having to worry..
And if ever that worked out, we might even consider pushing the idea further and do another series to create a development fund to promote hacking and development, attract and reward new talents, provide help to hardware based research projects..

Of course, it's just an idea I am throwing though. Yet I think it may be worth considering, given the stakes I know I would buy a community NFT without hesitation if that were a thing.

Another alternative might have been to use blockchain technology to make the community completely autonomous, running its own file storage capabilities on the community's own personal devices, PCs or other, with some kind of reward for those storing community data. The community should be big enough to sustain something like that in theory but we would have to put that system together and we would still need to find a way to fund the reward system.

And then there's also the problem of management and that's potentially another conundrum made more complicated whenever there's money in custody.
Who will take care of this long term consolidation?
Who will administer the hosting?
Who will set up the storage space and deliver FTP creds to scene devs (not just to those who are members of this forum)?
Should several people administer/manage? Most likely.
Whose name(s) will the contracts and payments be made under? Using what payment method?
etc...
We would need people willing to take on the responsibilities and who have our complete trust, this kind of people might be in very short supply, keeping in mind also that people would unavoidably come and go on the long term.
 
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Wow amazing ideas! :hypnotysed::love struck:

Just to add, regarding the idea you guys mentioned, about having of a longterm hosting package, at one domain, for having all the devs' projects in one place... maybe there could also be a Kickstarter campaign (with perks for different tiers of pledges) to raise enough money for the ideal 9 years of domain / webhosting.

Even if the Goal needed to be large, i'm sure we could reach it with the community and a focus driven campaign, i'm sure alot of members would want this and would be happy to contribute.

Perks could help inspire people to pledge more towards the Goal. (Just some ideas) Like... Pledge $10 or more, the user gets a special banner on their profile. Pledge $20 or more, the user gets their name on the new website (on a special thanks page). Pledge $50 or more, the user gets a special PSX-Place T-Shirt. Pledge $100 or more, the user gets a unique PSX Place NFT, etc, etc.
 
I think that this topic is very important, the outcome of this conversation (not this thread obviously, I mean the global conversation about laying more durable foundations) may play a role in strengthening the community in a way that's never been attempted before to my knowledge.
The lack of long term ambitions has been one of our weaknesses so far imho, clipping our wings in many ways.

So please don't hesitate to throw in your opinions, suggestions and ideas, everyone has a stake in this, in one way or another, the conversation on the future of the community cannot be limited to psx-place either, it has to be a community thing and include everyone, even those who don't use or like our forum.
 
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i suuport the idea of everything being under ps3xploits domain. to me, the is probably one of the most recognized links in the ps3 scene currently. and if others want to setup websites under this domain, then you can set them up on a different or specific port or something. for instance, my home assistant os has many different utilities all under thew same domain and each is accessed by querying the domain and a specific port for that service.

we could give major donors access to beta stuff or like was already mentioned, give them a banner and special access to a sub forum that we could create or something. the possibilities are endless tbh and i think keeping it all under one domain would be the way to go. then we could easily make a page explaining it.

we just have to come up with some incentives for people to donate (as if simply being able to jailbreak your device isnt enough pfft lol) but i know yall see what i am saying. grant special accesses, give them banners, have monthly raffles for people who donate, maybe hand out hard copies of some games or even 3 games of their choice (if we have people donating aggresively every month, we could use some of that money to buy 1 or 2 games of the donators choice. or maybe some other kind of prizes, like personal special access to certain parts of the domain, or maybe a special themed bgtoolset with special functions or something? im just trying to throw out some ideas here.

dont let this discussion die here though. lets open a public thread and ask the community what would be some incentives that THEY would like to have.... that would keep them donating and coming back to visit. this could also be used to help maintain and preserve the psx-place domain im sure games and special access and specila banners and special subforums etc would be at the top of the list but we dont know until we ask. were all a community after all and i feel a lot of people would donate if they felt liek they would be able to win something etc
 
I agree that we should make a dedicated pinned public thread to discuss these things and not let the convo die here.

The domain name isn't an issue, it's not exactly the most expensive part, we could consider using several domain names or simply rely on sub domains with a more appropriate TLD that covers all PlayStation systems.
 
or we could make customized themes for xmb for monthly rafle winners too, we could give them special custom themes that they will collaborate with the dev to make. or even custom boot images/sounds or something you know. the possibilities are endless
 
Random suggestion. Why not do a Patreon? I find people donate more when its much easier to do. Especially monthly with something like Patreon being a set it and forget it. Maybe get in touch with Mario on YT and tell him the situation going on because he's the guy that people tell to watch for Tutorials on ps3 hacking. He might be able to give you guys a small portion in the video. IDK just a thought.

Also should have included this. IDK if you guys know but you can become a BAT creator with Brave. Then people can donate BAT to you. Look into it. TLDR its a crypto earned from using Brave browser that can then be donated to creators. If you add your website to the BAT program people can use the BAT they earn to donate. That could be another area of donations.

Or talk to the PlayStation Homebrew discord mods. They might be able to do something. In the VGPC discord they raised over 1.7k for vita game preservations.
 
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Have you guys looked into asking Reddit for donations? I dunno which sub is best suited for that, but given that it's ps3exploit and an important part of PS3 hacking, some donations could come from there. It's the kind of platform where you can get awarded golds and silvers for saying some stuff, after all.

A Patreon or some other alternative like ko-fi sounds nice too. Set it, forget it, donate monthly.
 
i could host his files on my drop box premium for him but its up to @DeViL303 to make that choice
Thanks for the offer, but there are a few issues with that, There are thousands of small files, and due to the way Dropbox works all the URLs would be random. So it would be a lot of work to manually replace every URL in the XMLs..

Then there is the fact Dropbox premium accounts are really only for personal use, so once you have a few thousand people hitting the same account they will start blocking files like what happened with my own account.
 
Thanks for the offer, but there are a few issues with that, There are thousands of small files, and due to the way Dropbox works all the URLs would be random. So it would be a lot of work to manually replace every URL in the XMLs..

Then there is the fact Dropbox premium accounts are really only for personal use, so once you have a few thousand people hitting the same account they will start blocking files like what happened with my own account.
well that kinda sucks ive experiemented on the ps3 with archive,org downloads and they works great on directly downloading pkg files, is that a possible option or no?
 
i could host his files on my drop box premium for him but its up to @DeViL303 to make that choice
It was a nice thing to propose but it wouldn't solve the issue globally.
It's not just devil's files that would need a long term hosting solution, it's all scene files and online projects at the end of the day.

We need to think outside the box here, work something together that will last and if possible pay for itself.
 
It was a nice thing to propose but it wouldn't solve the issue globally.
It's not just devil's files that would need a long term hosting solution, it's all scene files and online projects at the end of the day.

We need to think outside the box here, work something together that will last and if possible pay for itself.

@bguerville why not host all on github?

I have hosted all scene pkgs, firmwares, game updates xmls and etc etc on my github just fine, we just can't host files larger than 2gb, the rest is fine.
 
@bguerville why not host all on github?

I have hosted all scene pkgs, firmwares, game updates xmls and etc etc on my github just fine, we just can't host files larger than 2gb, the rest is fine.
Personally I do not believe that GitHub can be the answer to the consolidated long term hosting needs.

However it's not up to me to decide anything, I merely tried to get the community to consider organising, that is why I mentioned the hosting issue several times in several threads over the past months. The community would need to have a serious and constructive discussion about all this and make plans/decisions for the future, and if ever it cannot be bothered, failure to decide is also a decision in its own right.
Now I am not a gambling man but if I had to bet, I would put money on the latter ie no wide discussion, no wide interest, no plans, no changes because there's only the same handful of individuals to help with this kind of things and I don't think it's enough or even fair to count on them sorting shit out for that matter. I hope I am wrong...
 
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It was a nice thing to propose but it wouldn't solve the issue globally.
It's not just devil's files that would need a long term hosting solution, it's all scene files and online projects at the end of the day.

We need to think outside the box here, work something together that will last and if possible pay for itself.

My suggestion/idea.

How about all you devs come together and set up a 'go fund me' type system where any new HFW, HEN, CFW and other homebrew app features/updates are released upon reaching a certain funding target.

Theory=Seems a lot of people are desperate for these new releases/updates (e.g. so they can get back online etc), and as a consequence would likely be more willing to contribute collectively to a 'go fund me' style fundraising system where the progress of the funds raised can be seen.
 
My suggestion/idea.

How about all you devs come together and set up a 'go fund me' type system where any new HFW, HEN, CFW and other homebrew app features/updates are released upon reaching a certain funding target.

Theory=Seems a lot of people are desperate for these new releases/updates (e.g. so they can get back online etc), and as a consequence would likely be more willing to contribute collectively to a 'go fund me' style fundraising system where the progress of the funds raised can be seen.
I have talked several times about the possibility to set up a community development fund to finance hosting, help devs with costs, finance research projects etc.. I never felt that there was much interest in this proposal so I stopped talking about it.

As to a "fund me" system on a per project basis, it could be an option as long as that system is entirely managed/handled by the community and not by the devs themselves.
 
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