Google is trying only to teach me how to CHMOD. That's not helpful.
I'm wondering if PHP's function CHOWN has anything to do with this. Nothing on the server seems to allow file uploads or even writing a new TXT file with PHP unless the containing folder is 777. Could that be because PHP's user is different than the folder's owner?
I've used many different servers and often come up against things not working unless I CHMOD to 777, but if I can CHOWN a folder to use PHP's user as it's owner, maybe I can leave a folder's permissions to 644 and still be able to write and upload to those folders. Any ideas?