This may sound stupid, but what exactly takes place during these ‘maintenance’ breaks on the boards.
I know of other sites that do it, but here it seems there’s no change in the look of the board after it happens.
Curious.
Well, hamsters don’t live forever, y’know!
Last time I remember it happening was when they had to delete an entire thread. This affected the post counts of those Dopers who had participated in the thread being deleted, so I guess they had to temporarily discontinue service to allow those post counts to be updated. I may be WAGging here, but I don’t think so.
Yep, you’re wagging. Actually, Eve is closer. Threads can be deleted without shutting down the board. The routine maintenance is just that, routine maintenance. Threads are being re-indexed, the server occasionally throws a fit and needs time to catch up, etc. And if you’ve ever belonged to a private pool, such as the YMCA, you’ve seen the rest periods where they make everybody get out. It’s similar to that. Well, that and the staff (lifeguards) gets to cavort nakedly in the Mail Bag forum.
I just love wagging my tale.
Ahh. I thought it was something simple.
BTW, when we were told to get out of the water at the ‘Y’, it was because someone pee’d or done some other nastiness in the water.
We’d scatter, exit the pool, and proceed to berate the person to a pulp.
I have an sinking feeling that happens here too…
Then…then…fluffy DID die! And you just HAD to tell me didn’t you!!
Why didn’t you show the YMCA lifeguards your Straight Dope book?
As Cecil Adams says in this column, “Why are men supposed to wash their hands after urination? Plus: urine therapy! (12-Jan-1996)”, «Urine itself is actually fairly sterile. Cecil has read reports of it being used during wartime in poor countries as–I’m not making this up–a sort of battlefield Bactine.»
One of the reasons I love this place–the segues are breathtaking.