Forum Outages

[Renojustin]

I've just noticed a heck of a lot of server downtime lately, for the last several days in a row. How long is this going to continue and can we expect uber awesomeness on the forums after whatever maintenence or upgrading is finished?

[NTJedi]

I hate the outage message being displayed... reporting a "SHORT" downtime which is a downright lie when it's down for almost all of July4th.

The message should provide an estimated timeline such as:
down for about 1 hour (shortest)
down for 4 hours (moderate)
down for 8 hours (long)
down for 15 hours (longest)

[Gandalf Parker]

LOL we want that crystal ball on some of the Dom3 units so we can predict good or bad events and get an appropriate message the very next turn.

I think that "short" in this case was the technician version.

B: "When will it be back?"
T: "In a short time."

B: "Its been an hour. When will it be back?"
T: "In a short time."
B: "Thats what you said an hour ago."
T: "And an hour ago I meant it, but it didnt go the way we planned."
B: "Do you know what went wrong?"
T: "Not yet."
B: "When will you know?"
T: "In a short time."
B: "And when will it be back up?"
T: "A short time after I figure out what went wrong, unless of course it doesnt."

Its not that they are lying to us. They really dont know. Any upgrade is going to only take a short time, unless of course it doesnt. And in that case, it will always be a short time longer. Asking for a more reasonable time estimate would just be wasting more of the techs time.

Gandalf Parker
-- System Administrator of Internet Systems for as long as Internet has been Internet.

[Gandalf Parker]

Actually if what is going on, is what I think is going on, then I feel vindicated.

[Ironhawk]

Your colorful story aside, Gandalf, it remains unchanged that they were in fact being misleading in thier message to us the users. Of course I very much appreciate this service which Shrapnel offers us for free (moronic ads aside for the moment), but they could simply have said "We are taking the forums down for much needed maintainence. Please bear with us as we work through this upgrade process."

[Gandalf Parker]

It is usually better not to give any time estimate.
Im not sure if the message we saw was Shrapnels or part of the UBB software. I should know, but I dont remember the exact message in the software.

Knock on virtual wood, but personally Im pleased that it comes back after each incident with the entire forum database and user database intact. Ive been asked to update forums like this, or migrate them, and Ive usually chickened out.

[MaxWilson]

I agree, no time estimate is probably the best. On the other hand, a day is a short time to non-forum-junkies. I suppose they could have gone the other way and said, "The forums will be down for a non-zero but finite duration."

-Max

[Lingchih]

This is normal tech-speak for "we don't know when we will be done with upgrade". I commend them for doing it over the fourth of july holiday, when most of us were doing the vacation thing.

[NTJedi]

I'm just saying the forums out of service message needs to be more accurate in providing a ballpark time estimate. In my opinion it's rude and unprofessional to tell your customers to "check back soon" and remain unavailable for most of the day!

ShrapnelGames has been in business for awhile and thus shouldn't behave as if this is their first year running the website.

[Ballbarian]

I commend them for doing it over the fourth of july holiday, when most of us were doing the vacation thing.

I second that.
My hat is off to the Shrapnel gang for spending what should have been vacation and family time tuning the forums (instead of bumming around like I was).