ORDB: “If I go down, I’ll bring you down with me”

Okay, I’m sure it’s not really like that. I’m ashamed to admit this one bit me, though: ORDB, which 16 months ago called it quits but has still been online and more-or-less functional, decided last week to false-positive all queries (a mailing list thread on the issue can be seen here. Harsh, but fair–I do stuff-all email through this site but it still has been costing someone bandwidth to bounce my silly queries back to me. Multiply that up by all the part-time-sysadmins like me that don’t pay close-enough attention, follow old wiki articles, or get bad advice, and pretty soon you’re talking about a HEAP of bandwidth wasted to NOT provide a service any more. Shame it had to end like this though.