FUBAR.

^ That would best describe Apollo's behind-the-scene situation for the last several months as all of us, staff and users alike, awaited patiently for our lead sysop/developer A to return. Given the site was coasting along just fine prior to the recent, egregious downtime we now face (a product of A's inability to 1) turn the server back on, and 2) hand over the keys to the kingdom so we could do it ourselves), staff have been keen to avoid unnecessary drama, instead hoping and praying like the rest of you that A would make his return sooner rather than later.

Dumb. That was dumb, and we apologize for not acting on our basic instincts sooner. A big lesson with a high cost.

Obviously, given recent events, we have now been forcefully tasked with a monumental decision none of us were ready or willing to make:

1) Migrate to a new host/server/etc and hope that we can rekindle the flame before it is too late
2) Cut our losses and bid farewell to our community that we have grown to seriously admire and respect and love

It was unanimous. We are still here to stay, and to (hopefully) flourish. We feel there is much we can offer with Apollo - opportunities that are currently not and have never been possible via our predecessors and our contemporaries alike. The real estate for bittorrent communities focusing on music is vast and there is much ground to share with fellow sites RED, NWCD, and Waffles. We hope to continue working with them behind the scenes so that each community may thrive for as long as possible. We love, appreciate and respect all of them for their hard work!

So what next? Where do we go from here? FINALLY, we have these answers and thankfully we can stop teasing the age old quip of "coming soon".

First thing of note: we are thrilled (and somewhat relieved) that a flawless backup of the entire Apollo database has been made, thanks to some hard work by the unflappable duo of itismadness and O. For the uninitiated, this means nothing was lost: comments, collages, links, etc - all are there as they were before. Along with the help of a new team member, Coeus, we have made remarkable headway on prepping for a brand new domain (TBA), server setup and an upgrade to the security of all our backend systems. And for all of those wondering, yes, Cloudflare will be gone posthaste. And yes, the "Apollo" name will remain.

What's more? All of those long awaited updates we have been teasing for months will finally be pushed to the new site, as we now have full control. A brand new logchecker, bonus points system, ease of use bugfixes, and a myriad of other small features are planned implementations to be introduced immediately. Our staff have always been immensely passionate about Apollo, and now that we have unrestricted access it is time to put all this pent up energy to work. Essentially, we will be better than ever before!

...except we know that this cannot possibly be true or expected without THE crucial ingredient - you.

We recognize the many hoops we endured have been shared by our users as well. Asking for you to once again place your trust in us when communication has been little and downtime has been frequent is not only arrogant but out of touch. We are soon to be back and have a solid game plan, but it is all for naught without users continuing to bring fresh content and ideas to our site. If your answer is no, we certainly understand your reasoning and wish you well. If your answer is yes, rest assured that your continued involvement will be cherished and rewarded. Empty promises are a thing of the past and your forgiveness will go a long way in cementing that fact.

For now, thank you for hearing us out and for those of you that have been idling in #apollo, thank you as well. For those that continue to defend us, even when all seems lost, thank you too. We love you all and have much in store for our future, which is finally looking bright as we near the end of this unfortunate tunnel.

More to come very, very soon. Please stay tuned!

-APL Staff-