BailsProjects.com Offline

[L Jámal Walton]

On December 11, 2025, I received an email from my hosting company because bailsprojects.com database was using 100% of the resources on the database server. On December 12, they added indexes to the database tables. That reduced the CPU load.

Indexes were added to the Name, Category, Credit, and Tenure columns of the database. Those indexes helped lower CPU load when running queries that search these columns. Since the queries are also ordered by Name, WWIndex, Credit, and Tenure, an extra index has been created for WWIndex, all indexes are in ascending order to further improve CPU usage when running the SQL queries.

As of January 28, 2026, the problem has returned. 
Because this is the second instance of the issue. The site has been taken down until updates to the database and the website's code can be optimized.

I've been providing hosting for the site since around 2010. The codebase is ASP.Net with MSSQL as the database. The code and the database were never optimized. The site was being hosted in a shared hosting environment. 

Options moving forward would be:

1) to move to a dedicated hosting environment. 

Minimum costs with my current host would be around $75/month. 

No additional programming would be needed.  

2) update the ASP codebase and optimize the database 

It could continue be hosted in the current environment. 

The site, database, and queries would need to be updated. This work that I can do, but this would likely mean that the database would be offline until the work is completed. That would be done in my spare time and would likely mean completion much later this year.

3) port the site to a new code base
It would need new hosting and programming provided by the GCD. Timeline unknown.

For Options 2 and 3, a holding page noting that BailsProjects.com is being updated could be put online until the new site is ready.

L Jámal Walton (he/him)

find me online at: ljamal.com

sign up for my monthly newsletter at:

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[Donald Dale Milne]

    Thank you for the notice and analysis, Jámal.  A couple of questions to get us thinking on the problem.

Option 1 - Can this be done as soon as we make a decision?
Option 2 - Would your programming effort on this be a volunteer situation, or paid?
General - Am I correct that the current hosting provided by you has been a donation? (I have never seen a bill.)

    As I view the continued availability of the Bails' site important for use, I would entertain a motion to, "immediately create and post a holding page online noting that BailsProjects.com is being updated and that this holding page continue until the new site is ready."
- Don Milne

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[Jochen G.]

Is this due to increased traffic / load ?
Could we put the site behind Cloudflare to reduce/prevent bot access ?

Am 28.01.26 um 15:43 schrieb L Jámal Walton:

> On December 11, 2025, I received an email from my hosting company

> because bailsprojects.com <http://bailsprojects.com> database was using

> find me online at: ljamal.com <http://ljamal.com>

> sign up for my monthly newsletter at:

> http://ljamal.com/newsletter/ <http://ljamal.com/newsletter/email>

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[L Jámal Walton]

On Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 12:36 PM Donald Dale Milne <dond...@att.net> wrote:

    Thank you for the notice and analysis, Jámal.  A couple of questions to get us thinking on the problem.

Option 1 - Can this be done as soon as we make a decision?
Option 2 - Would your programming effort on this be a volunteer situation, or paid?
General - Am I correct that the current hosting provided by you has been a donation? (I have never seen a bill.)

 

Option 1 with the dedicated server can move forward as soon as a decision is made.
It would effectively double my hosting expenses.

It would be a Windows-based server (because the site is ASP.Net with MSSQL).
I would continue to monitor and do maintenance for free.
The GCD would be responsible for the monthly server costs. 

Option 2 programming would be completely volunteer. 

On Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 4:37 PM 'Jochen G.' via gcd-board <gcd-...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Is this due to increased traffic / load ?
Could we put the site behind Cloudflare to reduce/prevent bot access ?

Some of the problem is increased load. Most of the problem is that the site was never optimized for its use. This is an issue that has been present for 15 years. The site has never received lots of traffic. Modern sites with better caching and database optimization would be able to handle 1000s of simultaneous hits without problem. Previous issues have been SQL injection issues and code exploits. Those were patched as noted, but there has never been an audit of the code or the database.

L Jámal Walton (he/him)

find me online at: ljamal.com

[Jochen G.]

How much CPU / memory resources are needed ? We could consider a Windows
VM on one of our servers, one of them doesn't have much load ?

Putting it behind Cloudflare might resolve the current issues. A lot of
sites suffer from AI bot load, we wouldn't be online if not for
Cloudflare. It might give us / you the time to update and optimize the
setup. I have to check if we can have a second site with our paid
account, but even a separate free one might already be all it is needed ?

Even if we would go with option 1, such an update would be needed I gather ?

I am reluctant to spend $75/month for a low traffic site.

Jochen

Am 29.01.26 um 15:26 schrieb L Jámal Walton:

> On Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 12:36 PM Donald Dale Milne <dond...@att.net

> <mailto:dond...@att.net>> wrote:
>
> __

> find me online at: ljamal.com <http://ljamal.com>

> sign up for my monthly newsletter at:

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[L Jámal Walton]

On Fri, Jan 30, 2026 at 2:58 AM 'Jochen G.' via gcd-board <gcd-...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

How much CPU / memory resources are needed ? We could consider a Windows
VM on one of our servers, one of them doesn't have much load ?

MSSQL would require
CPU: x64 processor at least 1.4 GHz,
RAM: 1 GB
HD: 6 GB  

It could be run on the same VM as the web server, but I wouldn't recommend it.

ASP.Net Framework that the site requires needs
CPU: x86 or x64 architecture.
RAM: at least 1 GB  
HD: Up to 3 GB of free space may be needed. 

The database and its log files are less than 100MB.

The website and its files are 160MB.

Most of that space is scans (158MB).

 Even if we would go with option 1, such an update would be needed I gather ?

 With option 1, the site could continue to function as it is indefinitely. 

The best long-term solution would be to optimize the database and update Who's Who to use the same architecture as the main site.
The next best solution is to update the site to be less resource-intensive.
The site and its database aren't complex.
The site has 4 active pages
1) bio: displays information for the requested creator
2) showscan: show the requested scan
3)viewscan: resize the scan
   This should be removed and replaced with already resized scans. There are 3 scan sizes. Storing them would increase the space used by scans by less than 100MB.
4) whoswho: this is the search. 

All pages but the search could be static HTML files. The data isn't changing, and neither is the site's design.
That would reduce the DB load somewhat, but not much, as most of the load is generated by the search.

If I had free time,  the entire Who's Who could be updated in a 40-hour work week.

I don't recommend placing Who's Who on a dedicated server. 
It requires attention after 20 years of running as is.
There is no database-driven website that's been running as is for 20 years without updates.

L Jámal Walton (he/him)

find me online at: ljamal.com

sign up for my monthly newsletter at:

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[Andres Jimenez]

Dear all,

We can host that virtual server on our own hardware almost for free.

I do not know about the Windows server and MSSQL licenses' costs.

Cheers,

Andres Jimenez

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/gcd-board/CACbdt2ctixkH%3Dh-PFMv_cXiEDvPLgqy8URL3qyqUd3zmnZQv3A%40mail.gmail.com.

[L Jámal Walton]

As a temporary measure to get the site up and running, traffic from China will be blocked.
Chinese traffic accounts for over 50% of the website's traffic, and based on its patterns, it's bot traffic.
Other malicious traffic will be blocked as well. 

This does not alleviate the need to update the codebase, but it does restore the site and its functionality as this discussion continues.

L Jámal Walton (he/him)

find me online at: ljamal.com

sign up for my monthly newsletter at:

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[Jochen G.]

Does the search use relations between fields ? Or would an ElasticSearch
setup do the job ?

I agree that for future maintenance it would be good to use the same

architecture as the main site.

Jochen

Am 30.01.26 um 18:19 schrieb L Jámal Walton:

> The best long-term solution would be to optimize the database and update
> Who's Who to use the same architecture as the main site.
> The next best solution is to update the site to be less resource-intensive.
> The site and its database aren't complex.
> The site has 4 active pages
> 1) bio: displays information for the requested creator
> 2) showscan: show the requested scan
> 3)viewscan: resize the scan
>    This should be removed and replaced with already resized scans.
> There are 3 scan sizes. Storing them would increase the space used by
> scans by less than 100MB.
> 4) whoswho: this is the search.
>
> All pages but the search could be static HTML files. The data isn't
> changing, and neither is the site's design.
> That would reduce the DB load somewhat, but not much, as most of the
> load is generated by the search.
>
> If I had free time,  the entire Who's Who could be updated in a 40-hour
> work week.
>
> I don't recommend placing Who's Who on a dedicated server.
> It requires attention after 20 years of running as is.
> There is no database-driven website that's been running as is for 20
> years without updates.
>
> L Jámal Walton (he/him)

> find me online at: ljamal.com <http://ljamal.com>
> sign up for my monthly newsletter at:
> http://ljamal.com/newsletter/ <http://ljamal.com/newsletter/email>
>
>

> On Fri, Jan 30, 2026 at 2:58 AM 'Jochen G.' via gcd-board <gcd-
> bo...@googlegroups.com <mailto:gcd-...@googlegroups.com>> wrote:
>
> How much CPU / memory resources are needed ? We could consider a
> Windows
> VM on one of our servers, one of them doesn't have much load ?
>
> Putting it behind Cloudflare might resolve the current issues. A lot of
> sites suffer from AI bot load, we wouldn't be online if not for
> Cloudflare. It might give us / you the time to update and optimize the
> setup. I have to check if we can have a second site with our paid
> account, but even a separate free one might already be all it is
> needed ?
>
> Even if we would go with option 1, such an update would be needed I
> gather ?
>
> I am reluctant to spend $75/month for a low traffic site.
>
> Jochen
>
> Am 29.01.26 um 15:26 schrieb L Jámal Walton:
> > On Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 12:36 PM Donald Dale Milne
> <dond...@att.net <mailto:dond...@att.net>

> > <mailto:dond...@att.net <mailto:dond...@att.net>>> wrote:
> >
> >     __
> >          Thank you for the notice and analysis, Jámal.  A couple of
> >     questions to get us thinking on the problem.
> >
> >     Option 1 - Can this be done as soon as we make a decision?
> >     Option 2 - Would your programming effort on this be a volunteer
> >     situation, or paid?
> >     General - Am I correct that the current hosting provided by
> you has
> >     been a donation? (I have never seen a bill.)
> >
> > Option 1 with the dedicated server can move forward as soon as a
> > decision is made.
> > It would effectively double my hosting expenses.
> > It would be a Windows-based server (because the site is ASP.Net
> with MSSQL).
> > I would continue to monitor and do maintenance for free.
> > The GCD would be responsible for the monthly server costs.
> >
> > Option 2 programming would be completely volunteer.
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 4:37 PM 'Jochen G.' via gcd-board <gcd-

> > bo...@googlegroups.com <mailto:bo...@googlegroups.com>
> <mailto:gcd-...@googlegroups.com <mailto:gcd-

> bo...@googlegroups.com>>> wrote:
> >
> >     Is this due to increased traffic / load ?
> >     Could we put the site behind Cloudflare to reduce/prevent bot
> access ?
> >
> >
> > Some of the problem is increased load. Most of the problem is
> that the
> > site was never optimized for its use. This is an issue that has been
> > present for 15 years. The site has never received lots of traffic.
> > Modern sites with better caching and database optimization would
> be able
> > to handle 1000s of simultaneous hits without problem. Previous
> issues
> > have been SQL injection issues and code exploits. Those were
> patched as
> > noted, but there has never been an audit of the code or the database.
> >
> >
> > L Jámal Walton (he/him)

> > find me online at: ljamal.com <http://ljamal.com> <http://

> ljamal.com <http://ljamal.com>>
> > sign up for my monthly newsletter at:
> > http://ljamal.com/newsletter/ <http://ljamal.com/newsletter/>

> <http://ljamal.com/newsletter/email <http://ljamal.com/newsletter/
> email>>
> >
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[L Jámal Walton]

Elasticsearch is a solution, but it's not needed if the search database queries are updated (see 5 below for the long explanation).

My last pass at optimization was years ago. The things that I wanted to do (in no order) were:

1) stop resizing the images programmatically.
When a sample image is viewed at a size other than 100%, the image is loaded by the script and resized on the fly every time. 
With less than 500 images, there is no reason not resize them and store them on the server.
I completed creating the 3 different sizes of the images, but never updated the display code. 

2) use unique URLs for the creator bios
The bio page receives the name as a query string and then does a look-up to display the correct info.
This would change
https://bailsprojects.com/bio.aspx?Name=HUGHES%2c+RICHARD
to 
https://bailsprojects.com/bio/hughes-richard.html
The previous URL would redirect to the new URL.

3) create static HTML pages for the creators
This information is not being updated, so there is no reason that an HTML file couldn't be saved to the filesystem when a creator link is clicked. 
There would be a single hit to the active page to generate the HTML page, and all subsequent hits would serve that static page.

4) create static HTML pages for the scan pages.
Same as 3

5) update the search to use modern collection paging

The database is one table with columns for name, category, credit, wwindex, and tenure.
The search is a basic wildcard search in 4 columns (name, category, credit, and tenure). 

A query looks like this:
Select w.ID  from WhosWho w  where 1=1 and (w.Name like '%NGUYEN, HOANG%' or w.Category like '%NGUYEN, HOANG%'  or w.Credit like '%NGUYEN, HOANG%' or w.Tenure like '%NGUYEN, HOANG%')

However, the result creates and uses temporary tables to determine the display, so the above query becomes:
set nocount on    

declare @Results table(ID int)    
declare @Within table(ID int)    
declare @Paging table(ID int, Seq int identity)    
insert  @Results(ID)  Select w.ID  from WhosWho w  where    1=1      
   and (w.Name like '%NGUYEN, HOANG%'

      or w.Category like '%NGUYEN, HOANG%'
      or w.Credit like '%NGUYEN, HOANG%'
      or w.Tenure like '%NGUYEN, HOANG%')      
declare @RecCount int  
select @RecCount=(select count(distinct ID) from @results)  
select @RecCount    
if @Reccount>100  
begin  
insert @Paging(ID)  
select w.ID   from WhosWho w
   inner join (select distinct ID from @results ) r
   on w.ID=r.ID  
order by Name, WWIndex, Credit, Tenure  
select Name, Category, WWIndex, Credit, Tenure, UpdateType, Updated
   from WhosWho w
   inner join @Paging p
   on w.ID=p.ID  
  where p.Seq>=1
      and p.Seq<=100  
   order by p.Seq  
end  
else  begin  
select Name, Category, WWIndex, Credit, Tenure, UpdateType, Updated  
   from WhosWho w
   inner join (select distinct ID from @results ) r
   on w.ID=r.ID  
   order by Name, WWIndex, Credit, Tenure 

That is the most basic query. 
It's building a temp table to store results so that it can limit the result to the results to be shown.
That's a colossal drain with every search. Especially when data collections have built-in record paging.
That, however, is the base of the site, so stripping it out and replacing it is time-consuming. 

The base query should be:
select Name, Category, WWIndex, Credit, Tenure, UpdateType, Updated 
   from WhosWho w  
   where 1=1
   and (w.Name like '%NGUYEN, HOANG%' or w.Category like '%NGUYEN, HOANG%'  or w.Credit like '%NGUYEN, HOANG%' or w.Tenure like '%NGUYEN, HOANG%')
   order by Name, WWIndex, Credit, Tenure 
with paging handled within the collection

L Jámal Walton (he/him)

find me online at: ljamal.com

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[Donald Dale Milne]

    Thank you, Jámal.

- Don Milne

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[Jochen G.]

Thanks for the explanation.

Cached image resizing or pagination would nowadays be part of web
frameworks, but I guess not at that time.

This is ASP.Net, so an update / move to ASP.Net Core would assumingly be
needed ?

I wonder a bit how much work it would be to re-implement it in Django,
so that we can more easily host it on our servers and use one web
framework, vs. updating the existing code ?

It seems to be a reasonably well-defined and straightforward project
without dependence to our codebase. In contrast to our experience with
hiring people for the creators part, this could maybe work to outsource ?

Jochen

Am 03.02.26 um 23:47 schrieb L Jámal Walton:

> Elasticsearch is a solution, but it's not needed if the search database
> queries are updated (see 5 below for the long explanation).
>
> My last pass at optimization was years ago. The things that I wanted to
> do (in no order) were:
> 1) stop resizing the images programmatically.
> When a sample image is viewed at a size other than 100%, the image is
> loaded by the script and resized on the fly every time.
> With less than 500 images, there is no reason not resize them and store
> them on the server.
> I completed creating the 3 different sizes of the images, but never
> updated the display code.
>
> 2) use unique URLs for the creator bios
> The bio page receives the name as a query string and then does a look-up
> to display the correct info.
> This would change

> https://bailsprojects.com/bio.aspx?Name=HUGHES%2c+RICHARD <https://
> bailsprojects.com/bio.aspx?Name=HUGHES%2c+RICHARD>
> to
> https://bailsprojects.com/bio/hughes-richard.html <https://
> bailsprojects.com/bio/hughes-richard.html>

> find me online at: ljamal.com <http://ljamal.com>
> sign up for my monthly newsletter at:
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> > find me online at: ljamal.com <http://ljamal.com> <http://
> ljamal.com <http://ljamal.com>>
> > sign up for my monthly newsletter at:
> > http://ljamal.com/newsletter/ <http://ljamal.com/newsletter/>
> <http://ljamal.com/newsletter/email <http://ljamal.com/newsletter/
> email>>
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> >

> > On Fri, Jan 30, 2026 at 2:58 AM 'Jochen G.' via gcd-board <gcd-

> <mailto:bo...@googlegroups.com <mailto:bo...@googlegroups.com>>
> >     <mailto:gcd-...@googlegroups.com <mailto:gcd-
> bo...@googlegroups.com> <mailto:gcd- <mailto:gcd->

> > bo...@googlegroups.com <mailto:bo...@googlegroups.com>>>> wrote:
> >      >
> >      >     Is this due to increased traffic / load ?
> >      >     Could we put the site behind Cloudflare to reduce/
> prevent bot
> >     access ?
> >      >
> >      >
> >      > Some of the problem is increased load. Most of the problem is
> >     that the
> >      > site was never optimized for its use. This is an issue
> that has been
> >      > present for 15 years. The site has never received lots of
> traffic.
> >      > Modern sites with better caching and database optimization
> would
> >     be able
> >      > to handle 1000s of simultaneous hits without problem. Previous
> >     issues
> >      > have been SQL injection issues and code exploits. Those were
> >     patched as
> >      > noted, but there has never been an audit of the code or
> the database.
> >      >
> >      >
> >      > L Jámal Walton (he/him)
> >      > find me online at: ljamal.com <http://ljamal.com> <http://

> ljamal.com <http://ljamal.com>> <http://

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> newsletter/email> <http://ljamal.com/newsletter/ <http://ljamal.com/
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> utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[L Jámal Walton]

In all honesty, rebuilding the site in any modern framework should take less than 80 hours for any contractor.
This is a project that a Django contractor should be able to complete easily.

L Jámal Walton (he/him)

find me online at: ljamal.com

sign up for my monthly newsletter at:

http://ljamal.com/newsletter/

[Jochen G.]

Hmm, I wonder if it is worth an experiment with Claude Code, or some
other one. Migration of existing code from a language/framework to
another, well defined usages, existing website to compare against, all
these tick a box where these tools seem to work ?

Haven't used these agentic tools so far, but this might be a case where
one can try it out, if the GCD pays the 200$ for a month or two.


Am 05.02.26 um 03:08 schrieb L Jámal Walton:

> In all honesty, rebuilding the site in any modern framework should take
> less than 80 hours for any contractor.
> This is a project that a Django contractor should be able to complete
> easily.
>
> L Jámal Walton (he/him)

> find me online at: ljamal.com <http://ljamal.com>

> sign up for my monthly newsletter at:

> http://ljamal.com/newsletter/ <http://ljamal.com/newsletter/email>

>
>
> On Wed, Feb 4, 2026 at 3:25 PM 'Jochen G.' via gcd-board <gcd-
> bo...@googlegroups.com <mailto:gcd-...@googlegroups.com>> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the explanation.
>
> Cached image resizing or pagination would nowadays be part of web
> frameworks, but I guess not at that time.
>
> This is ASP.Net, so an update / move to ASP.Net Core would
> assumingly be
> needed ?
>
> I wonder a bit how much work it would be to re-implement it in Django,
> so that we can more easily host it on our servers and use one web
> framework, vs. updating the existing code ?
>
> It seems to be a reasonably well-defined and straightforward project
> without dependence to our codebase. In contrast to our experience with
> hiring people for the creators part, this could maybe work to
> outsource ?
>
> Jochen
>

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[Alexandros Diamantidis]

Hi all,

First of all, let me say that I'm sorry for my absense - as I said to Don
privately some months ago I've been under some pressure from life in
general leaving me no energy for participation in the GCD.

But as a reply to Jochen, these AI agents can definitely do the job now,
especially if used by someone who knows their way around coding and can
evaluate and guide the agent. We got access to Google Gemini through
work for free for one year, and using gemini-cli I was able to do in
a couple of hours a refactor and functionality additions to an internal
app that I knew exactly how to do but was putting off since it would
have taken me days of tedious work and testing.

By the way, we could also put BailsProjects.com behind Cloudflare as we
did with the GCD sites and limit bot abuse that way.

Alexandros

* 'Jochen G.' via gcd-board [2026-02-05 21:06]:

[Donald Dale Milne]

    Did you already make this change to get the site back up?  I see the site is now up.

    Would putting it behind Cloudflare be another way to run the site and have a similar effect to banning all Chinese access?

    If you have time to do the updates described in Option 2, I see no reason why the GCD could not pay the hosting.  We did volunteer to take over the site, after all.

    Since you mention you had an update plan and had worked on it some in the past, did you quit because there was no urgency, you did not have the time to volunteer, or you did not have the interest to volunteer?

- Don Milne

On 2/3/2026 8:55 AM, L Jámal Walton wrote:

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/gcd-board/CACbdt2f4SpThFJ%3Dv5s4uka7eg-PdZ6eW2-noYEM%2BnM7R%3DYZErQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[L Jámal Walton]

On Sat, Feb 7, 2026 at 5:47 PM Donald Dale Milne <dond...@att.net> wrote:

    Did you already make this change to get the site back up?  I see the site is now up.

Yes, traffic from China is being blocked. That's why the site is back up.  

The additional cost was negligible, so it's done.
 

    Would putting it behind Cloudflare be another way to run the site and have a similar effect to banning all Chinese access?

It's redundant. 
 

    If you have time to do the updates described in Option 2, I see no reason why the GCD could not pay the hosting.  We did volunteer to take over the site, after all.

Based on my current schedule, such an update wouldn't be completed until later this year. 
If the GCD is going to host, it would be better to port the site over to the current GCD stack. That's not something that I would have time to learn and implement. 

    Since you mention you had an update plan and had worked on it some in the past, did you quit because there was no urgency, you did not have the time to volunteer, or you did not have the interest to volunteer?

The lack of urgency and lack of time have always been the primary drivers.
The site is functional, but not optimal for a shared hosting environment.
It's easier to find the time for a 2-hour fix than to dedicate time to outlining how to port the site.

I've been hosting the site since 2010. It was intended as a short-term solution to support mid- to long-term planning.
I have no problem continuing to host the site, but now that it has been stabilized, we should begin mid- to long-term planning for it.
I think that begins with a plan to port it to the current GCD stack.

[Donald Dale Milne]

    Thanks.  If we decide to port it over, we might have a couple of other people working on it too.  I notice we suddenly have a couple of new people working on site changes.  Alternately, we could pay an outside contractor.

- Don Milne

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