I’m astonished. To me, it seems team 1444’s FIRST topsite has vanished. What happened?
I was just about to say the same thing! It’s gone off of our website and off of Chief Delphi as well. Maybe a server crash, or maybe it was taken down?!? Oh well… I didn’t pay much attention to it… Just saw the broken picture link on the bottom of our website and didn’t know what was going on.
Hi, I got an email from my web host today about this, saying they shutdown the site. Currently it is on a shared server and was devouring all the resources of the box. Below is the email I recieved from them.
Hello,
I’m writing to inform you that we had to disable your firsttopsite.com
domain because it was running a topsite button script and the traffic to
it was using up all of the available connection slots on your web
service. Since you are on a shared hosting service and it is affecting
other customers’ sites, this is not something that we can allow to
happen. If you would like to continue hosting this type of script you
will have to upgrade to our vps service:
This will set you up on your own virtual server where you will not affect
other customers’ sites. If you do not wish to go with a VPS plan, you
will need to remove the topsite button script before we can allow you to
continue hosting your site on the shared hosting platform. Unfortunately,
because of the strain these types of sites put on our servers, these are
your only two options. Please let us know how you’d like to proceed and
we’ll be happy to assist you further.
Thanks!
I cannot afford to move this to a VPS system, so its looking like the topsite will be no more…unless something miraculous happens. 
If someone wants to move it to their server to keep it alive I’d be more than happy to help you do so.
FYI: The FIRST Topsite was a joint venture between myself (an Alumnus of Team486 and an Alumnus of 1444)
Phil
So you can go with Plan A: Remove the button they are complaining about and reduce the traffic they are complaining about, and maybe they will rehost you.
Plan B (always have a plan B): Find 11 friends that are willing to give you $15. Thats the lowest monthly charge and your site should fit into 150 Mb of memory. (Let me know when you get the 11, I’ll sign up to be the 12th and you’ll have your year. 
What’s the exact resource that it’s hogging? If you don’t find a good option within a week, this server at my job should be reformatted soon, and I’ll have my own space on it, along with a dedicated IP address.
I can also check with my videogame community leader, and see if we have the resources on our new dedicated box to host the script.
Those are just worst-case scenario, though.
The site was taking up all the connection slots on the server. In doing so people that have accounts on the same server were not able to access their websites. I have plenty of bandwidth in my current plan so that is not an issue.
This message was posted on FIRST Topsite:
Help Save FIRST Topsite!! The topsite has been shutdown by the webhost due to the volume of traffic to the site, which was effecting the performance of other websites on the shared server.
…
In order to get the topsite going again we will need donations to get space on a virtual private server where resources are dedicated to us.
There is a donation meter trying to raise $5,000 in donations to help FIRST Topsite. I think FIRST Topsite is an awesome site, but I think we can keep it up without buying a virtual private server. The Blue Alliance would be very willing to host FIRST Topsite on our server, and I suspect Chief Delphi probably has some spare CPU cycles kicking around too.
Who is in charge of FIRST Topsite so that I can contact them about keeping the site running without spending lots of money on a virtual private server? I can’t find contact information on their page.
Thanks!
There is a post with some more info about the situation here:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=69724&highlight=topsite
Although people have offered it above… 
I have a dedicated server that I am doing nothing with at the present. Your welcome to it. I’m just wasting money right now keeping it up. Its a LAMP server so if that fits your needs, just send me a PM and I’ll be happy to help you save TOPSITE.
Sooo… what’s the deal with the situation? You seem to have plenty of offers for help, but still the meter appears to stand empty on your site. This is a very valuable resource for webmasters, not to mention it’s fun to see other team’s sites. Searching through the sub-forum here is a pain.
If you could please update us on the status, I would be very grateful, as I’m sure others would, too.
I agree with Greg, I think a business class hosting account for $200 a year should handle the bandwidth. How do we get in contact with the admins of FIRST Topsite ?
Babyhueyhnx: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sendmessage.php?do=mailmember&u=10399
I also just sent him a message urging him to think about the options offered.