The first few months back in 2006 I was even lucky enough to get some email replies but that quickly came to an end. They even took their “User Forum” down because pretty much all messages were complaints asking if anyone was there. It only got worse from there as you can imagine and that was 2 years ago.

And that insanely annoying login problem isn’t new either (you login with the correct credentials but it sends you back to the login page), happens on-and-off randomly and has been doing so for years. It’s quite baffling, I’ve never seen that in any web app let alone a Rails app. I even offered to look at their code and fix it for them, but of course did not get a reply. The same goes for the dozens of other emails I’ve sent them over the last 18-24 months, eventually I just stopped trying.

So now, just like you said, I along with thousands of others are stranded in the cold. Luckily I saw this coming years ago and make frequent backups. I’ve thought about switching many times but the funny thing is I really like the application itself, if *ONLY IT WORKED*. Unfortunately I didn’t cancel my account before this “Switch to a new datacenter”. Hopefully when they come back online, if ever, I will definitely cancel then.

I initially signed up with them because I saw many other reputable web apps using them for their help docs, especially Thomas Fuchs at Scriptaculous. I’ve recently emailed him and he had the smae complaints as I, lucky for them he has a new system about to roll out so he can ditch Stikipad. We’er definitely in the process of following suite, either moving to the new JotSpot (Google Sites, Free) or building our help in house to something similar to 37Signals.

If there is another group out there who can duplicate Stikipad, put it up on reliable hardware/infrastructure and can provide good transparent support then there is definitely an opportunity for them here.

Nice, thanks for sharing. Fortunately, the content my friend and I had on there was minimal. We’ve already moved on to wetpaint. The usability isn’t as nice but the in-page editing can’t be beat.

We also didn’t put any money into stikipad, so I gather we’re among the fortunate ones. Good luck tracking him down, and thanks for the update!

I did a little googling on the founders (that about us page still works)

Info found so far:

George, a 23-year-old who lives in Wichita, and DeWaal, a 23-year-old who lives in the Canadian city of Chatham,Ontario,

Jonathan George
jgeorge@stikipad.com

http://jdg.net/
Jonathan@jdg.net

http://www.flickr.com/people/jdg83/

Matthew DeWaal
matt@stikipad.com
http://www.flickr.com/people/wootam/

I’ll post more as I find it

HTH
Ant