Forum Outages

[Omnirizon]

"dammit Jim, I'm a systems administrator, not a time-efficiency/public relations expert!"

[Coldshard]

I demand cake!

[Gandalf Parker]

Omnirizon said:
"dammit Jim, I'm a systems administrator, not a time-efficiency/public relations expert!"

Heehee. That sounds way too familiar. A board room with the CEO of the company who just wants an answer, the Customer Support people who just want something to tell the customers, and the System Techs saying "your guess is as good as ours at this point". Im trying to mediate the whole thing. Once I pulled out some DnD dice and rolled them across the table then declared it would take 10 hours.

[HoneyBadger]

Gandalf is 110% correct, and that so called "colorful story" is precisely what I go through every day in my line of work, except that everything should be repeated atleast 3 times until the customer wakes up, plugs in their brain, turns up their phone and/or hearing aide, and rediscovers their knowledge of basic English.

And it's not only better not to give them a time estimate, it's actually much better to conceal all guesses, thoughts, and suppositions, because if you give the customer anything on which to base a thought-process, except cold hard facts (and those hold their own danger), they will inevitably come to the most deceitful, vile conclusion possible.

It's war, basically. An American war in which the enemy usually ends up better off than they started, just as soon as they stop being stubborn and start losing, getting out of our way, and letting us do our job.

[NTJedi]

I know the amount of time to fix the forums can be totally unknown, but then this should be expressed on the message to its customers. Saying "SHORT TIME" and "CHECK BACK SOON" is downright lying.

IF the amount of time to fix the forums is unknown then tell the customers "UKNOWN AMOUNT OF TIME".

How would you like dropping your vehicle at the mechanic and he told you "Short amount of Time" and "Check back soon"... yet it wasn't fixed until the next day!
Naturally a vehicle is more important, but understand my point how ShrapnelGames should be HONEST.

[MaxWilson]

The thing is, NTJedi, I don't think it was dishonest. Perhaps ShrapnelGames planned for the outage to be even shorter than it was, but it wasn't very long.

-Max

[HoneyBadger]

NT Jedi, a day is an extremely short time, geologically speaking.

[Endoperez]

I was away from these forums for a short time. Five days, to be exact (3rd through 7th). I didn't notice any problems, so I'd have to say their estimate was correct.

[Gandalf Parker]

Being hopeful is not dishonest. You make it sound as if they knew that it would take all day. They were probably told that it would take very little time, and they certainly didnt foresee any possible problems or they wouldnt have tried it at all.

However the event has given us all a fine measuring stick for how addicted we are.

[NTJedi]

MaxWilson said:
The thing is, NTJedi, I don't think it was dishonest. Perhaps ShrapnelGames planned for the outage to be even shorter than it was, but it wasn't very long.

-Max

and

Gandalf Parker said:
Being hopeful is not dishonest. You make it sound as if they knew that it would take all day. They were probably told that it would take very little time, and they certainly didnt foresee any possible problems or they wouldnt have tried it at all.

Well I actually work with enormous enterprise customers and have experienced small tasks suddenly taking much much longer. From my experiences when a small task develops into a serious problem which requires rebooting, verifying permissions and running repairs it reaches a point where the time for fixing the issue is "Unknown".

At this point the message should be updated, the same as you'd expect a mechanic to call you if he reached a point where the time to fix your vehicle became "Unknown".