Weekend Update 8/2/20

[wazzou]

that's a really ANCIENT web site!  It still has links for the N-Scale web ring.   It appears to be a snapshot of the original J-N-J website with the words "the new"  added to it.    Also, it was "new" in 1999....

Yeah, I don’t know man.  Just trying to help a brother out.
It seems odd that someone would pay $ to keep an inactive business’s website active all these years.  🤷🏻‍♂️

[nkalanaga]

It may not be so much that someone's paying for it as someone has never gotten around to deleting it.  I know there are still ancient websites, on all-but-forgotten servers, in the back rooms, that haven't been changed in years.  They don't take up enough disk space, or enough bandwidth, to worry about.

Eventually, the server fails, or someone asks "what's this thing supposed to be running", and it finally disappears, possibly without anyone missing it, including the host.

[pedro]

I actually contacted the person behind that JnJ site a few years ago (2017)  to see if they actually had one of the special run cars they were (and still are) showing. They didn’t. But I did get a response! I also ordered one of the etched sets they still had.

[peteski]

It may not be so much that someone's paying for it as someone has never gotten around to deleting it.  I know there are still ancient websites, on all-but-forgotten servers, in the back rooms, that haven't been changed in years.  They don't take up enough disk space, or enough bandwidth, to worry about.

Eventually, the server fails, or someone asks "what's this thing supposed to be running", and it finally disappears, possibly without anyone missing it, including the host.

That is true to an extent.  Web hosting and domain name registration are a fee-based services.  It is not like once a website is created, it will persist forever out there on the Interwebs.  Someone is paying for renewing both domain name, and web server space (because I don't think anybody would have prepaid for that many years of registration and hosting).  While the website might be left running forgotten on some server in a back room, the domain name would have expired, making the website unreachable (unless you knew its IP address).

[nkalanaga]

Peteski:  True, on the expiration of domain names.  On the other hand, quite a few small sites, including businesses, are directed to a shared server.  That can result in "forgotten" renewals for at least two reasons.

1:  It's actually a subsite on the main server, such as servername.com/user1.  User1 might be out of business, but as long as the main domain is registered, all of the associated users will still work, as long as the files are still on the server.

2:  The company running the server(s) has so many associated domain names that they don't regularly check their invoices.  Thus, a no longer needed domain name can be renewed for years, before someone finally notices that they're still paying for it.

Another possibility, although not a "forgotten" site, is that the domain owner thinks the name will be handy in the future, so keeps it registered, but doesn't actively maintain the site.  The site will sit there and slowly grow less useful, until finally everyone except the owner forgets about it.  Then, when some explorer stumbles across it, they'll marvel at the ancient design and content, wondering why it was abandoned.

Here's an example of such an abandoned page (it's harmless!):
http://www.thekeep.org/situation.html

I think the entire site is now abandoned.  As far as I could tell, it was actually a self-publishing site, for use by fiction writers and others, with most of the content not indexed on the main page.  Those not registered could find individual writer's sites by search engine.  All of the ones I knew of are now gone, or haven't been updated in years.

[peteski]

Peteski:  True, on the expiration of domain names.  On the other hand, quite a few small sites, including businesses, are directed to a shared server.  That can result in "forgotten" renewals for at least two reasons.

1:  It's actually a subsite on the main server, such as servername.com/user1.  User1 might be out of business, but as long as the main domain is registered, all of the associated users will still work, as long as the files are still on the server.

True, in case of JnJ, the website exists as a tenant on a main hosting server (dwx.com).

There is a contact info on that website (inculding a phone number). Has anybody trier to contact them that way?

[wazzou]

True, in case of JnJ, the website exists as a tenant on a main hosting server (dwx.com).

There is a contact info on that website (inculding a phone number). Has anybody trier to contact them that way?

I read elsewhere that he has an inventory of many parts and responds to requests to send a PDF of those available
and will still ship if stocked.