Well, I am *glad* that your post is not just a "troll" expressing his/her frustrations. 
In reply to:
But in terms of the reliability that one would (or should) expect from their ISP, being down once a week might as well equate to "constantly". What do you think?
I think there is a *huge* difference, *particularly* for an "ISP" (or a web hosting service, which is a very different beast than an ISP, as that term is typically used), between being "down" *about* "once a week" and being "down constantly". In the one instance, even though there could be other connectivity issues that prevented you from "reaching your stuff" besides a DH problem, you are talking about an "inconvenient" circumstance that is infrequent and may be short lived, and in the other, you are describing a situation where it is always unreachable. These are very different things.
In reply to:
You want details?... (edit out he was having router problems so decided to use a hosting service instead of rolling his own - has a flaky and misbehaving router...hmmmm)...My first problem occurred a few weeks after I signed up.... "It appears as if a site on your server had been under a DDOS attack...A subsequent attempt by the developer to access the code from the CVS repository was successful.
Okay, I see. After a few weeks, the server you were hosted on suffered a DDOS attack. DH dealt with it (so you wouldn't have to). Such is the nature of shared hosting. This happens all the time, and no hosting service is immune to such things. 
In reply to:
The next phase took place, yes, after the 97 day refund period, or at least, very close to that cutoff point. I set up a Rails project ... I'd work on each piece once a week. Pretty much everytime I would try to begin working on the site, it would be down. Completely inaccesible. Sometimes I would contact Dreamhost...
And they couldn't find a problem with your site. That sounds very much like something more likely related to your rails development, other "site specific" issue, or your ISP (or your router) than it does the web hosting company's connectivity.
In reply to:
So I thought I would express my opinions on this board. It could be completely coincidental, but this time around, support actually seems to be trying to rectify the problem this time.
...At any rate, it happened one time too many, and you went into rant mode looking for extra attention...I got it! Communication skills do not appear to be one of your strongest assets. I've *never* had to resort to exaggerated claims of downtime in order to get tech support to research issues I may be having, but obviously YMMV.
In reply to:
At any rate, rlparker, I'm curious as to why you have a problem with someone voicing disappointment with a server that they are receiving.
Actually, dtb, I'm curious as to why you choose to characterize my posts that way. I have *no* problem whatsoever with someone expressing their "disappointment" when something is not working out for them, and I have done so myself on several occasions on these forums. That said, there is a way to express that disappointment that is equitable and fair-minded, and that is the way the professionals communicate their dissatisfaction. Characterizing your frustration with 2 instances of downtime in approximately the first 3 months as "constantly down", is neither accurate or fair minded no matter how frustrated you are; it's just so much drama. *That* kind of misleading post will often get a response from me simply because it is very often driven more by frustration than it is by facts, and I think that, particularly when one is advising others as to a course of action, *facts* are important to establish credibility (particularly for new poster to these forums).
In reply to:
Do you work for Dreamhost and simply dislike any negative feedback? Do you not believe that a paying customer should have the right to voice disappointment?
Well, there it is..that same tired old line from a new user who just can't believe anybody other than a DH employee would want him to back up his comments with a little hard information. DH employees (and I am *not*, nor have I ever been, a DH employee) are clearly indicated as such on these forums (in the rare event you see one here).
In reply to:
Or do your expectations with an ISP simply differ wildly from mine?
We certainly have different ideas as to how we deal with them if we have a problem.
I think that whether it is an ISP, a Web Hosting Provider, or my Dry-cleaner I have an expectation that they will do their best to provide the service I require...if and when they *don't*, I expect to engage them in discussion to solve the problem, and I'll do that in a professional manner. When a given problem turns out to be more difficult to solve than I would like it to be, I either decide to continue the dialog in hopes of resolving the issue, or that it is not worth my time and effort to continue to work toward fixing it, and I'll take my business elsewhere. I do that *without* going onto a public forum and posting *exaggerated* claims of "how badly I was served"..and I would never do that as a "cry for attention" if my communications skills had otherwise failed me.
We may, or may not, have similar expectations as to what reasonable service for any given price might be but we *clearly* have *wildly different* attitudes on how to best resolve problems when doing business with others.
So at the end of the day, it looks as though you are either gonna have to change hosts or hang around and deal with the tech support people after all...whatever you decide to do, I wish you the best of luck with it all.
--rlparker
