A serious suggestion.

I would seem to me that there are ongoing upgrades all over your servers where ever we look right? Apart from the stickies its a day to day thing from what I can see with periods of calm in-between. Theplanet must have known about this sometime in advance... So I would expect if they actually talk to you! You should have too? The only reason you are getting negative responses is your silence and unwillingness to come into your forum and tell people how you will let them know about downtimes. Frankly an information list is only as good as the people who supply information, if indeed it is there to give.

As far as I can tell no-one is really unhappy about hostgator or even the downtimes. It's the knowledge of them so we can, and again mirroring what has been said countless times. So we can blog our way out of trouble...
If you think al of these messages saying about the same thing are just a passing phase, please think again. This is not the only place people post to, it is jut the tip of an iceberg.

Here is my suggestion. Scrap the Forum. It serves no use what so ever. Create a read only list with members hidden and deal with the stuff i.e. problems on a one to one basis. People are very erudite and can make choices themselves without the sway on conversation.
Not a popular suggestion I know. But you really DO need to do something soon.
Chipfryer