Nickb missing?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=775507

by miles • 17 years ago

63 41 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Prakash and I help moderate nickb's NewMogul.com, which has been down for a day or so. We haven't heard from him for over 40 days, and cannot reach him by phone or email. Does anyone have any information on his whereabouts? (For those who are new to Hacker News, nickb is one of its oldest members: http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=nickb )

berrow• 17 years ago

I hope it can be resolved soon. I am really missing New Mogul

kirubakaran• 17 years ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=173683 :-)

miles• 17 years ago

Thanks, kirubakaran! In that post, folks were worried after missing him for a week (which shows how valuable his presence is!) - he hasn't been seen here or at his own NewMogul.com for over 40 days now.

DanielBMarkham• 17 years ago

wow. seems like just a few months ago.

sant0sk1• 17 years ago

nickb == _why?

staunch• 17 years ago

He's already pg, so he can't be _why.

andreyf• 17 years ago

Surely, he can be both!

kyro• 17 years ago

They outed him, too, and discovered his real name to be Nicholas B-something.

unalone• 17 years ago

I thought nickb was a pseudonym as well. There was a conversation wherein one of the HN biggies hinted he was a well-known tech person who didn't want his name getting in the way of conversation. I could be misremembering, though.

gaius• 17 years ago

I am Spartacus.

notaddicted2• 17 years ago

I am really missing my NewMogul :S.

If I were to guess he is probably just too busy to go through email, and doesn't know NewMogul is down. If anyone knows him personally please call him and let him know.

bsaunder• 17 years ago

He hasn't commented on HN in 48 days.

prakash4• 17 years ago

More than NM, we want to make sure if everything is ok with NickB.

notaddicted2• 17 years ago

It is back up :D

mcxx• 17 years ago

There has to be a great party somewhere. I guess nickb and _why are attending.

shard• 17 years ago

Those people party hard. Lance Davis was there and didn't want to leave either.

adrianwaj6• 17 years ago

From NM's whois, he's based in Ottawa, Canada (there's an exact address in fact). Someone who lives nearby can check in with Prakash or Miles and then do some knocking or doorbelling.

prakash4• 17 years ago

Left a VM. called a couple of numbers. Not sure if that is his current address.

ojbyrne3• 17 years ago

I've met him (in Ottawa). He hasn't responded to emails since early July. That address is a multi-unit building.

I don't see that it's really appropriate for me to go knock on his door though. There is a thing called privacy and he does have family.

prakash4• 17 years ago

Thanks for that info, Owen.

adrianwaj6• 17 years ago

Would you set a deadline on it though, say 5 months if nothing happens, more, or never?

morbidkk• 17 years ago

who's next? bad one but It reminded me of Atlas Shrugged

atourino• 17 years ago

Who is John Galt?

BrentRitterbeck• 17 years ago

I believe he did say at one point that he was working for a startup. Maybe they hit crunch time.

jasonlbaptiste• 17 years ago

Demo Day was yesterday, so I doubt PG had time to manage two accounts.

racerrick• 17 years ago

New Mogul is great. Hope this gets resolved.

It's hosted at Godaddy. The domain is current. And it's not that he didn't pay a hosting bill - when that happens at Godaddy they make the site forward to a godaddy page.

That means that someone manually took the site down.

rcoder• 17 years ago

  > That means that someone manually took the site down.

Since the News.YC code (which NewMogul also uses) runs in a single Scheme process, it could have shut down for any number of reasons: it might have crashed, failed to start after a server reboot, been killed by the OS or hosting provider due to a memory leak, etc.

I don't know what kind of monitoring nickb might have set up, but if he's not responding to personal email or phone calls, it seems reasonable that he simply doesn't/can't know that the site is down.

adrianwaj6• 17 years ago

Something's happened to Nickb, but he'll bounce back eventually.

brandon272• 17 years ago

Hopefully he's okay.

utx00• 17 years ago

unsubscribe

anigbrowl• 17 years ago

I was wondering what had happened to NM as well. Another vote for doorbelling, and good wishes.

byrneseyeview• 17 years ago

Newmogul is back up, but:

http://www.newmogul.com/submitted?id=nickb

http://www.newmogul.com/threads?id=nickb

peterwwillis• 17 years ago

People tend to relate their whereabouts to people they know IRL more often than those they communicate with online. If you don't know where someone is, you ask their friend, their parents, their wife, co-workers, etc as the amount of socially-relevant information (such as location) will be much greater and with a larger history of previous knowledge in those person IRL than those met online. After all, why does Markus in Timbuktu need to know you vacation in the hamptons every 6 months when you've got your Crackberry on you for the duration? Markus' co-workers, family members, and friends will be much more aware of such information.

And sometimes people need a break from the internet.

Nickb missing?

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