[Hidden-tech] My experience in the Gaiahost to Be Cooperative transition, and my endorsement of Gaiahost, and Charles: Re: Information on Gaia Host

[Lisa Hoag]

Hello to Joanne, and All,
I've just read through a lot of the posts here about Gaiahost. I
wanted to share my experience. I found out after October, about
Gaiahost ending the company, and I read that I could send an email
request to support at gaiahost.coop to join the queue to be transferred
to Be Cooperative. I was patient, and waited for confirmation. It took
a week or so, and I was a bit nervous, but I received an email from Be
Cooperative requesting that I complete my profile for an account with
them, which I have done. I now have received confirmation from Be
Cooperative that I am in Be Cooperative's transfer queue, and my
account at Gaiahost continues to operate without trouble while I wait.
Gaiahost has maintained my domains for many years. Since 2016 I have
hosting from Siteground, because I like having access to a cPanel, but
left my domain registration, and email with Gaiahost, and my domain is
pointed to my Siteground site. I preferred to have my email and my
domains registered with a trusted friend. This has served me well for
many years, and I believe in using services in the local community as
much as possible. He provides a tech support phone number but
requested that people don't use it unless their service is down. He is
in the midst of processing 800 customers. I haven't communicated
directly with Charles about the transfer. I am simply conveying my
experience, and what I've learned from statements on the website here:
https://gaiahost.coop/help#status

I have known Charles Strader for years, and he is a wonderful person,
and someone who I have always known to go out of his way to provide
good service, and be extra helpful. Though I don't know the details of
the decision to end Gaiahost, I have read his statement about ending
the company. I also have witnessed (I have been a web designer for
many years, and have helped a few of Gaiahost's clients) that he seems
to have bent over backwards to provide backwards compatibility for
websites that are long overdue for updates to current code. It seems
to me that for multiple reasons, Gaiahost's business model has
experienced adversity due to the frequent disruption which we often
experience in our web design world. It also seems to me that here in
Western Mass we are a community, and we care about community. All of
us are human beings after all, and sometimes run into adversity.
Charles has always been helpful and understanding, at times when I had
my own business challenges. Communities that are good to live in take
care of each other, and help each other in hard times. I would suggest
that knowing Charles, I am sure he is doing his best, and working as
hard as he can to set all to rights, and is working though the
transitions.

For anyone with time sensitive needs, I would suggest sending an email
to support at gaiahost.coop, explaining the time sensitive necessity.
Here is a link on Be Cooperative's site for a transfer from Gaiahost
to Be Cooperative: http://be.coop/account/cart.php. Here is a support
email address for be.cooperative: support at be.coop

In my own experience, I have only ever sought legal action through
small claims court twice in my life. The only times I have done it
were when I knew I was dealing with someone who I couldn't trust.
Charles is one of the most trustworthy people I have ever met. I will
also say that small claims court, although I was successful, took so
much time that I could have worked at McDonalds, and earned the money
quicker than it took to get it back through court.

I have at least one client who has successfully transferred away
through Gaiahost's process, and I was able to assist, post-transfer,
with display issues at the new hosting, which did not offer backwards
compatibility for the site which had outdated code.

Feel free to ask any questions you might have. I can do my best to help.

Warm Best to All,

~Lisa

Lisa Hoag
PO Box 983
Wendell, MA 01379
www.lisahoag.com

On Fri, Nov 15, 2019 at 2:21 PM joanna campe via Hidden-discuss
<hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net> wrote:
>
> Dear Community,
>
> I have just joined this list serve to see if I can get more information on Gaia Host. We are not able to change the plan of our website or migrate it without an authorization code and we have not been able to get the domains transferred either.
>
> I have been advised by my hosting service that in order to be able to transfer the domain successfully, I need to take them to court. Has anyone in the community done that so far and with what success?
>
> I have been told that I have two choices: take Gaia Host to court (small claims court?) or to create a new domain and clone the website until the issue can be resolved. Both of these are time consuming and meanwhile I have put off my fundraising campaign until the performance of the website can be improved by migrating it to a new plan.
>
> I appreciate advice on this.
>
> My best,
> Joanna
>
>
> Joanna Campe
> Executive Director
> Remineralize the Earth
> 152 South Street
> Northampton, MA 01060 USA
>
> Tel: 413-563-9938
> Skype: reminearth
> Email: jcampe at remineralize.org
> http://www.remineralize.org
>
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--
Lisa Hoag Designs
PO Box 983
Wendell, MA 01379
http://www.lisahoagdesigns.com