Originally Posted by JulesR I don't have an "argument" here at all, and I fail to see where people are getting this from. I wrote an article explaining what overselling is, why it is generally speaking a very bad thing, and how it can affect people. The responses from others appear to be "overselling is fine, it's what everyone does, it's not a bad thing" - completely neglecting to take into consideration most of the points I raise.

You do have an argument, used in the sense of portraying a statement, reason or fact for or against a point. My use of the term was precisely that; not in the sense of some form of conflict or oral disagreement.

Originally Posted by JulesR Yes, hosts can oversell happily providing (as you say) their clients use "far less resources than advertised". And that's exactly the point. If I pay for a package, I expect to be able to use it. If somebody purchases hosting expecting to be able to use massively high traffic and bandwidth, they deserve to know that in the vast majority of cases they can't. Just because they say you can, doesn't mean you actually can - and therein was the purpose of the article.

Then your point should be not to believe what you see. Just because a host that does not oversell promises x, y, z doesn't mean you can actually have x, y, z. Right? I don't believe overselling is the monster you make it out to be (for want of a better phrase) in this topic. There are amazing hosts who oversell, amazing ones who don't. Crappy ones who oversell and crappy ones who don't. I could equally put up a topic explaining why hosts who have and support Ruby on Rails on their servers are to be avoided, giving mathematical formulae and citing published sources. Perhaps a silly example, but just as much so as targeting overselling.

Originally Posted by JulesR Overselling *is* a bad thing, and you practically admit that and then contradict yourself by backtracking and saying that it's not a bad thing if the host choose the higher path and move you to another server. Make your mind up here, you can't have it both ways.

I don't see overselling as a bad thing, even with all of your effort in trying to persuade me/us otherwise. Merely emphasising that "fact" over and over isn't going to impress much sway in my own understanding of the subject. Maybe my post was worded badly but I certainly didn't intend to "practically admit" that overselling is bad. I don't believe that for a second.

Originally Posted by JulesR Again, no argument here, merely education. If you couldn't see using basic mathematics how overselling is bad, then I cannot help you

I clearly understand the mathematics involved, yet you've not done a good job of explaining (or maybe I really am too ignorant to listen ) your point. We're all clear about what overselling is, your points as to why some hosts who oversell might not be the best to choose, etc. but to brand all overselling hosts (ie, the act of overselling itself) as bad... I can't fathom that at the moment.

Originally Posted by JulesR Well that's no surprise considering Google retrieves different results depending on your country of origin. Don't expect them all to match Even thinking you can make the comparison between "dreamhost sucks" and "google sucks" is completely illogical. They're vastly different.

I'm well aware of Google offering different results based on varying factors, and that comparing apples to oranges never really adds up. That was my point, and one which I think we both agreed on even if it wasn't explicitly stated. That was merely an aside, an observation is all.