Quoted from Inkochnito:
I've had some contact with Jay a few weeks ago (july 7th).
I told him that people are hoping that the ipdb will be up and running once again.
People want to upload more game info and are willing to help if needed.
Jay likes to know how many people are missing the updates and how they think they can help.
I know there are a lot of people missing the updates, but I dare not give a number on that.
I used to check the ipdb every day to look for updates.
Looking for instruction card images, a new schematic or manual for the collection.
I would love to upload some new images and files.
Now I have to keep those files on my computer and hope to remember to upload them someday.
I fear that I will forget about them....
Maybe someone can add a poll or something like that....
1. People that are missing the ipdb.
2. People who are willing to help in some way.
3. People who are willing to donate to keep the servers running.
4. People who don't care about the ipdb.
5. People who want to take over the ipdb.
Just a thought....
Peter
A nice man emailed me yesterday asking what help did we need with our server hardware. I told him I had no idea we needed such help and asked him how he came to think this. He directed me to the above post.
Peter, I am perplexed as to why you wrote the above post. It reads as if I had asked you to find out some information from pinside users. I have not asked you to do this. I have not asked you to do anything on my behalf, just so everyone understands. I have noted from your emails to me that you have been unusually interested in pursuing for more information than I was able to provide, and in that July email with you I had asked you to NOT post on pinside anything from our brief discussion. In our discussion, I certainly did not seek what you seek in your five numbered poll topics. You have suggested here that the IPDB lacks money to keep the servers running such that I am now being contacted about it. I've never said that to you or anyone. Most distressing to me is that you have suggested that we are seeking others to take over the IPDB. That is not true. Why would you say that? Why would you go there? I have said no such thing to you or to anyone, ever. That is one rumor no one needs to see started. I am gobsmacked here. A complete surprise. I know you are trying to be helpful but please pull back and relax. Your involvement here is misleading people if I don't step in and say something.
In that July conversation, you stated to me, "I just want to let you know that people are missing the ipdb updates."
It sounded like a possibility that you knew something that I didn't already know. Often, a person is really only speaking of him/herself when making those kind of statements but will express it as if it's a whole bunch of people. It's human, we all do that, I understand that. Intuitively, I'd say you're accurate. But, I wanted to know if you were actually referring to, for instance, a thread or discussion somewhere that I have not seen or read so that I could go read it to apprise myself of what people are saying. You replied to repeat your personal certainty to the effect that you spoke for many but you gave me as your basis only this short pinside thread you are now reading, adding that it was hard for you to say how many. Well, what you call "many" in this thread is what I call "not many" when compared to overall numbers of hobbyists. Yet, my answer was in learning that you had no other thread or discussion driving you, for me to read. That's what I had wanted to know. I figured that was the end of it and I closed the discussion by stating "I was just trying to get a sense if what you said was driven by specifics or is what you and I both have come to know about the helpfulness of the pinball community." Some of both, I concluded.
I thought you understood that I was asking you, and only you, what you meant by what you wrote in that email. I was not asking you to go ask pinside, and in my name, and promulgating things that would misrepresent! Ouch!
A nice man, dmacy, had yesterday innocently started a Poll based upon your post, titled "IPDB Needs Support" and where he gave the choice of "I'd like to take over the IPDB" which was taken from what you wrote. As that choice, under that declarative thread title, could have the effect of confirming in people's minds that this came from the IPDB, I contacted him yesterday asking to remove that choice from the Poll, figuring the rest of the Poll might be interesting and might show you, Peter, some actual data as to where the levels of interest are. As it turns out, a Poll choice cannot be individually removed, so the entire Poll was canceled at my request. (I reassured dmacy that I understood he was operating under the information he saw posted by you and that I did and do appreciate his willingness to help.)
So, in view of Peter's numbered topics, let me gently clarify for those folks reading this. In emailing with Peter in July, I did not opine about people not caring about the IPDB. I did not ask to quantify anything on pinside. I did not ask for money. The servers are fine. In fact, they are owned and maintained by Pair Networks, a highly regarded company, and we are operating fully on their servers as I had indicated earlier in this thread. Most importantly, the IPDB is not seeking to change hands. Let's kill that rumor before it starts. Please, don't anyone approach me at Expo asking about that or I will refer you to Peter. These are Peter's ideas, not mine, and I don't know from where he got them. I am here to undo the effect they are having on me.
It should be obvious, to those who noticed, that we are having an unprecedented delay in getting the site's Submission Tool back up and running but I suppose there is value in seeing me type it here after all of this time, at least for Peter. I say "to those who noticed" because, as I see it, there is no need to go out of our way to make our problem known to the majority of our users whom I believe do not even notice the Submission Tool is down or that the site is not being updated, to unnecessarily alarm them. The site itself is fine and has been fine since a year ago but just cannot be updated until some testing has completed and the delay is in that. This delay is nothing that our users can help resolve, therefore help from our users has not been sought. I'm sorry if anyone has been worried about the IPDB but everyone who has been worried enough to email me has seen a fast email response from me, each and every time. Those who have emailed me asking how to submit items without the Submission Tool were told what to do. The motivated people contact me. I cannot see how scaring all of the unaware people and indifferent people has value. In addition, I still want people to notify me of great pictures they see on ebay and Craigslist so I can add them to the site once the Tool is back up and so I don't want to sabotage that by promulgating anything that might make them stop doing it.
Also, please know I do not hang out on pinside so for those in this thread who had posted questions of me that have gone unanswered or who had bumped the thread, I was not here to see that and was not ignoring you.
A sincere thank you to everyone who has recently donated to our site. We have always operated on donations and Wolf has never been one to proactively seek them, preferring instead to quietly show a link in the lower left corner of our webpages for those who would notice. Wolf is humble and would not want me to say that we are in the hole as far as donations versus overall costs taken in the aggregate but I think that's pretty much always been the case across the seventeen years and is not tied to the Submission Tool delay. Again, thank you for your kind donations. I also thank those who have expressed their appreciation for the IPDB on pinside, on RGP, and in your emails to me.
Roanoke, VA
Alkmaar
London
Saskatoon, SK
I also had no idea that IPDB accepts donations. IPDB is my first stop whenever I am curious about a playfield layout or if I need a manual. Thanks for the good work you do and thanks for keeping IPDB free of popups and other web-junk!
Sorry..... 
