New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
Comments
I think LET already has that problem irrespective of FOSSVPS unfortunately
The selection criteria is
Be an active member of LET or LES and have
Quality (not spammy) posts
Thanks for your posts
Been a member for at least 3 months
yea there are a lot of users with both NS and LET accounts. This new rule won't stop all abuses 100% of the time but it should help in some way.
I figure it might go better if it's worded positively, i.e. "We only take users from LES and LET now" rather than "We no longer take users from NS". But that's just my own $0.02.
Two brief observations, offered respectfully:
A first-principles failure
The goal is simple: give limited resources to rule-following users. That demands asking what exactly is abuse, and how do we isolate it? Skipping that step and instead attributing the problem to a broad identity label isn't analysis — it's avoidance. The real challenge was never a demographic; it was decomposing "abuse" into specific, addressable behaviours.
A concern for developers who place blind trust here
What worries me more is the signal this sends to developers looking for a reliable home for their projects. A team that substitutes collective judgement for precise reasoning, and treats sweeping blocks as a first resort rather than a last, may not be the dependable foundation they assume. Trusting work to such a team carries risks that go far beyond a single IP ban.
I hope you'll reconsider not just this block, but the thinking that produced it.
Fair comment - I wanted to 'remind' any NS users on LET that they will lose their VPS on the 29th although I have emailed everyone registered from NS. Also posted the details on here.
@kevi_ Comments sound very passive aggressive.
I would hope that my comments have made it clear that developers are strongly supported, the rules are clear and abuse is not tolerated.
I have been verbally abused because people cannot understand that this is free so FOSSVPS MUST be getting something e.g. selling details, spying, no trust blah blah.
It's a great project. Gotta defend it from abusers to keep it going. There's some pros and cons but a good decision imho.
I thought LET users who also had NS accounts were fine if they are in good standing here and didn't register directly from NS.
Again - fair point. I have no way of knowing who is LET / NS other than when they register. If a banned NS user tells me their LET or LES account I would happily reconsider (based in their forum status etc).
Thankyou - I agree there are cons and I am genuinely sorry for the action, but as you correctly say a (clear) decision has to be made to protect the majority.
From a security perspective, you're doing the right thing. Don't mind the noise. You know where the abuse is. You take action.
Unlike banning the entire region/forum, you leave the option open for people who are legit
Needs addition time and attention, which doesn't come free to you.
I applaude you.
@Saragoldfarb
I am just off to bed - not sure why I am telling you, but us veterans have to stick together.
That's what makes me happy. Making exceptions for people who are legit is what prevents it from being bigotry and turns it into a thought out and fair restriction (albeit made due to unfortunate circumstances).
hello dear
I don't know why you blocked North Korea.Do you think General Kim would use your services?
I am not interested in politics / race just providing a Free VPS to those that match our criteria and trying to filter out problem areas at registration.
The point is abusers are not welcome wherever they are from. If I had a magic recipe to tell who is an abuser, I would use it immediately. Do you have a magic wand or a secret spell ?
Money deposit(crypto). Let's say $50 equivalent at the registration. Refundable when exiting (no abuse)
Thanks for the suggestion
I feel that getting into 'money' creates many other issues and demands. It also means it becomes much more like a business rather than effectively a 'charity'.
Charity is still a business. You still have the obligation to the donors and the community. And it's in your best interest to prevent any sort of backlash from reaching to the donors.
So, I think it's better to add monetary requirement if it would significantly reduce abuse.
My proposed mechanism:
@rpqu - thank you once again for your feedback
I agree a charity can / should be run like a business but it is still a charity.
Money causes issues - we only have to look at the number of dispute threads on LET.
Our nodes do have automatic abuse detection and will shut the CPUs down to 10%. They also send an automated email stating the problem and action. If 'money' was involved then handling a dispute and or chargeback would be too much admin. Being a 'charity' means everything is voluntary and there would be no real reward for the amount of work required (not that we are looking for any reward).
While I agree we could go down a pay to use solution, I feel it defeats the whole ethos of a Free Open Source VPS and what our very generous donors have subscribed to.
Please keep comments coming as I am always 'open' and can change directions.
People who abused it may have hurt your good intentions. I hope you stay strong. I don’t really know the users on NodeSeek, but I do know LowEndTalk. I hope things go even better for you here.
@urtrs Thank you.
I hope the good intentions are still there and I will not say that NS users will always be banned. Once I get the referral system working, referred NS clients can rebuild their reputations or of course they may confirm my actions......
Time will tell.
29th of May 2026
NodeSeek VPS clients have had their VMs stopped as per the announcement and emails.
If you are affected by this, I can restore your VPS if you are a respected member of this forum or alternatively a respected member can vouch for you (send PM). Respected means long standing, non spammy with thanks.
If there is no response, your VPS and all data will be destroyed on 5th of June 2026
Mike
Hey there! I was wondering if I could pay to use your services? I'm pretty new to coding and I'm super into this stuff right now. All I can do right now is fork simple projects from GitHub with the help of AI. If it's okay, I'd love to pay to use your gear so I can learn more useful stuff. Thanks a bunch!
Hi @AdamWilliam thank you for the offer but money is a problem. My advice would be to go with someone like @backtogeek / tierhive.com as you can pay very small hourly charges and learn about building and admin.
Also stay here and if you do decide to build an Open Source project we are here and happy to help as long as you meet our criteria.
Thanks a lot,I will try
I'd recommend tierhive if you want to learn basic stuff. For active dev, I'd recommend shellbox.dev. It's $0.02/h but if it's "turned off", it's only $0.5/month. Explanation here https://shellbox.dev/index.html#post-race-to-the-bottom
@rpqu - shellbox sounds interesting (I was unaware of it).
I would of course say FOSSVPS is better (because we are free) but I can see the advantage of being able to ramp up to much more powerful VPSs and then shutting them down.
If ever a client needs more resources (for a limited time) I would happily oblige where possible.
With our current monitoring system it would be possible to dynamically increase resources in the same way it decreases if abuse. So all I would really need would be a 'flag' saying the client has requested a limited boost period..... hmm sounds like my next project. Could be interesting but so far no client has ever requested a boost - they have tended to just go quiet