Well, I guess I made my point pretty clear already: Subtract the time the one took to register from his already gathered hosting credits. If someone accumulates 400 in a month, afterwards he would still have 340 (30 for hosting, 30 for the month). I would consider this guy a valuable active member because he posts a lot (hopefully good), so why would he be charged more than the valuable active member who accumulates 30 credits, applies, and then accumulates 370 credits in a month?
This is not fair and it is not too difficult to change it. I agree, that this problem only applies to unexperienced new members who accidentally jumped over this rule while reading, but where's the point in punishing them?
Btw. if the migration is complete, I'd like to complain now... ^^ My website cannot access my database, it says "panda.unixbsd.info" is not allowed to access, even though I added this and even a wildcard ("%") to my access hosts.

Personally Ruben, i do not believe it is humanely possible to accumulate 370 credits in one month if you've already got hosted in Astahost unless you spam. Even the "geniust" of all geniuses take time to think about how they are going to make their "tutorials" first before they put it down in the forums. So my opinion on this is: Let the maximum credits that an unhosted member have be 30-40. That way, even if you do not want hosting you stay at the same level. Besides, if you really truly do not need free hosting but just decide to play your part in this community, why do you need to bother about the credits? If you're a strong contributor to Astahost, which also makes you pretty smart in the computer sciences, why not develop a website and show it off to others and bring your contribution to the world!! (Exaggeration noted..)

Conclusion: If you're smart - BE smart.

techocian: Good point possibly setting up the credit system to cap unhosted members at 30-40 credits would be a good thing but...at that point I would think that the credit system might have to be revamped, but since I haven't a clue as to the code opaque has written to do this I can't say for sure.

Although I must say that the system we have now works so why revamp it...

The simple fact is that this is how the credit system works, all of us who are currently hosted have delt with it, and there are a few threads that have been put up and the subject discussed in it. I've just gott'n back to a "real" job and don't have the time to post like I used to so now I'm going to designate a couple of hours on the weekend to do posting if I can or I'm gonna stick with the great community, and the Xisto family and go to their paid service with Computing Host.

Oh and to those that say claim "unfair" that word in its self explains life in general. I hate to sound chided and jaded but systems need to be in place to keep honest people honest and weed out the ones that are there to take advantage.

One of mines is still not up now ; I still have errors when querying this database :

So, I will probably have to drop and recreate my forum, loosing the previous posts, which is slightly unfriendly.

Nope - you don't need to drop your forum. Keep the database intact,but just wipe out the php files and start out with a fresh copy. After you've finished installing, it'll be back to it's old state. All forum softwares recognize tables from old installations and take that data up first.

In adding my 2 cents as a newly hosted member I would like to say that I did the right thing unknowingly. Accumulated 34 credits, got hosted, panicked a little because I had thought I would still have 3 or 4 credits, participated in the discussions a little, and now I have a 23 days cushion pillow. All within 12 days of signing up here. Or was it 14 days? Anyway, a neglectable period of time considering what you get.

curare

hmm .. to be frank, i really didnt know that the credits get lowered to 3 or 4 after getting hosted. I gave up my previous hosting (cyph3r .. hehe kill me m^e ) because i couldent keep up to the credits, i come and go once in a while because of college now. SO thought would start over, and accumulate credits ( how much ever i can ) and then apply for a hosting package. But if my credits go up to 80+ and i apply for the hosting, i assume it will drop down to 3 again ?

Well in that case, i'd rather apply for hosting and just keep it. Because time is the only constrain i dont have right now. I, once in a while check the site and give my inputs and the credits keep rolling. Even though, if someone like me bothers about a post and not credits, I feel its still a little unfair to drop it down to 3, maybe 15 would do or so. I am not questioning the Admins rules, but just giving my point of view on this.

If there were credits on a shoutbox , i bet i would have got more than 100 by now , its all about fun, and sharing knowledge. This credit thing isnt bothering me so much , i guess it shouldent bother anyone else who just wants a little time, gobbling on technology info

Regards
Dhanesh

Hey m^e since you made it a point to state how to get back your files after the migration can you explain EXACTLY how you just erase the php files and keep the database? Am i supposed to download another copy of SMF(assuming I'm using the Simple machines forum) and delete the old files, then replace them with the new ones but leave the mysql databases alone? 'coz that would be great for my old forum that has been corrupted by parse errors too. Thanks!

ya that should work fine, after all, your posts and everything that your forums have on it is pretty much stored in your database, the only think you need to worry about is clearing your custom pages

say if you installed hacks you should keep those pages maybe if you edited some pages to ad something you really like or found an error in the code and fixed it yourself i dont know... but the posts and threads and all that is stored in the databases

as fo the topic i also think its pretty unfair that its brought down to 3, maybe not so steep (10-15) i gained 5 extra days of credit today alone and i have a nice 35 day inactivity time and i think that insted of completly depleting the credits when you get hosted you should just implement the losing 1 credit per day thing, that would be a much better solution then losing all your credits

Just from my personal experiance, with SMF, when reinstalling the Forum software, you have to start from the ground up. Personally I always put my forum software in its own directory for such occasions. As for the hacks, they have to be deleted and reinstalled one by one to the new forum, a bit teadious but I haven't been able to find a way to keep them intact when doing a reinstall.