Forum Outages

[lch]

Yadda yadda yah, you guys have way too much free time on hand to post on the forums that much. I have read the first page and only skim-read the rest because I think that everything that can be communicated is already in there.

I think that the criticism voiced by the users modulo form/notation should be just be acknowledged and accepted without getting emotional. Just write "forums should be back within XX hours" next time, because whatever you do with them, you'll probably stop working on them when you get to bed. If you give a very cautious, long ETA, there's no problem if you don't take as long as you estimated before. But if you say "in a short time" and then it actually takes a lot of time, then of course people can object to that. I was under the impression that the users didn't criticize the actual downtime at all, just the insecurity when they should come back and look again. If they do it every couple of minutes and are being stopped at barred doors repeatedly, they could get angry.

Another thing which will curb the criticism: Give a notice of the Server downtime in advance, if possible. And at best, work on a copy of the site on another machine at all times for all developmental/testing purposes and only apply the changes that you have done on the real, live site when you're done experimenting.

So in short: I can sympathize a bit with the disapproval that has been voiced, at least consider it and don't get worked up on posts of individuals who offend you.

Ahhh, I need more tea...