Alright, I’ve kept quiet in the past but the constant server & database issues over the past couple of weeks is really wearing thin. Access to the board has been down more than it has been up. With all the brain power around here you would think solutions would be flying around like monkeys on the Wizard of Oz.
Is there a 386 being used for a server or WTF is going on?
That makes two of us. They can’t keep deflecting this forever.
It’s entirely possible that they’re trying to chase us away. That’s about the only possible explanation for this, because people who want your money don’t generally treat their customers like garbage and keep them in the dark.
Howbout people who’ve already got your money?
Just a thought…that’s all…just a thought.
That doesn’t really fly cause they are rapidly approaching annual renewal time for a vast majority of the subscribers. One would think the would have the clean & sparkly version of the board running to keep renewals & income constant.
I know the board’s been having a rough time of it lately, but I didn’t realize just how bad it was until I noticed that the Admins are having to recycle old stickies. :eek:
Well, that’s just fucking ducky. I shell out fifteen bucks a year for two reasons–being able to search and being able to edit posts. I consider the ads a non-starter because I know how to use ad block software. So basically I now have a fifty percent reduction in features with no corresponding reduction in fees. WTF are they running this thing on, anyway, a goddamned Commodore Pet? Is the hard drive hand etched by Ecuadorian cowboys on discs of armadillo leather? What, precisely, is the reason for A) the shitty ass performance of this board and B) the continuation of P2P? What, precisely, will be the justification (read “rationalization”) come April 17th for the continued shitty performance despite the rescinding of search functions? When exactly is the date the Charter Members have to pony up to renew? April sometime, isn’t it? Would I just be cynical if I were to assume that the renewal date falls before the 17th?
I’m getting really fucking sick of this retarded jibber-jabber and “ees no me, mang, ees heem!” two way fingerpointing. There have been multiple offers from board members who have WAY more expertise than the incumbent staff in databases and the maintenance thereof as well as programmers and other IT professionals to donate their time to make this fucking board run in something remotely approaching a reasonable manner and they’ve been turned down every time–usually with snotty and condescending comments to make it all a little more tasty.
So how 'bout it there, CL? Where’s my fucking refund? Or, at the very least a fucking apology from somebody other than the usual suspects that none of us believe any more?
I noticed this as well. I’m a new member, but goddamit, if I have to actually PAY for an internet message board for the “quality of discourse” then gosh-darnit, it just needs to work. It’s been down a LOT lately, and frankly as an admin on an active free Bengals board, we out-perform this one by a longshot in terms of downtime. And a pay board with ad banners, AND it doesn’t work?
Please.
Buy some more bandwidth or something. We pay for it.
It’s my own personal belief that a lot of the recent board outages and trouble are due to the behind the scenes working on the “new board” that they’re set to unveil…sometime in the near future. If they’re testing new features and checking availability of the software when these things are ghost running then it’s understandable why we’ve had such a rash of trouble again. Clearly there’s only so much bandwidth that’s dedicated to the board and new features and what not will smoke some of that, so it’s a careful balancing act as to what they can do feasibly and since there’s no beta board they have to tinker with the live thing.
I know that I’ll be reupping my subscription because it’s exciting to be here in times of potential board history being made. Plus I don’t know what else to do with my free time. 
Oh, goodie, I get to be the first one to weigh in with the superb irony of this eaten-by-the-database Pit thread. " Pitting the database, take 0." Left Hand of Dorkness.
Is it possible the database is actually…sentient? Like HAL? And it can self-edit criticisms?
Here is a topic in ATMB about the search being disabled. Ed assures us the new owners will be getting a new server. I’m hoping he will listen and also pass on the idea of updating the VBulletin software as well.
Look a little farther down the page–there was a similar thread started by Shodan this morning that preceded a very long outage. I’d search for it, but well WE CAN’T FUCKING DO THAT ANY MORE.
I’ll say this: I’m also a member of the TalkBass forum (a forum as you might imagine for bass players) and it uses the exact same vBulletin template or whatever the technical term for it as this forum does. I’ve been on TalkBass for about 3 years and I can’t remember it EVER going dead the way the Dope does again and again.
I actually have timeouts probably every day on the Dope. I don’t know anything about the technical aspects of this so maybe I’m wrong or something, but almost every day, there will be a time when I click on the Dope bookmark in Firefox, and it just won’t load, and give me a “Page Unavailable” error and I won’t be able to access it for like 15 minutes. Why does this always happen?
And then there’s the problems like the one we just had. Why? Why is this always happening here?
Search being disabled sucks donkey balls. As if the search didn’t suck donkey balls anyway. I just re-upped my subscription last week. If you had disabled the search last week, you can be effin’ sure you wouldn’t have gotten my 15 bucks. I would have settled for lurking for awhile and not posting till you guys got your shit back together.
What. The. Fuck?
Seriously, I’ve rarely raised my voice in protest over the dope issues. $15 isn’t huge money, I can afford it once a year and the value I get from this place is worth it (to me). If I can’t access the dope, it’s usually back up by the time I come back from work or wake up the next morning.
But we’re not only getting a sub-standard board that we have to pay AND have google ads for AND have banner ads if we’re not logged in, but now you’ve disabled search? Fuck you very much, seriously.
Other forums, with larger DBs than this manage to have search. For ALL users, not just people who pay.
Fuck you again.
(bolding mine)
Thanks for at least being honest about it. Unfortunately, my cynical side views this as a fragrant crock of shit. Not only do TPTB not know when this compufuck will become unclustered, they aren’t willing to offer one whit of proactive customer service.
Were I the Grand Poobah of Upper Buttcrack, this would be my announcement:
Dear SDMB Members,
I apologize for the frustrations suffered by many of you in recent months owing to the poor and frequent non-performance of this board. Your concerns regarding the upcoming membership renewal are well founded. As such, all paid memberships will be extended until our technical issues have been resolved, and disabled features have been restored. A 30 day evaluation period will follow to verify that our service objectives have been met, after which renewals will be announced. Thank you for your patience while we strive to earn your continued support.
GPoUB
Hope the folks in the front office write that down, because they can’t search for it, later. I’m giving you pearls, here.
needs to be said again.
Oh, good, so it’s not just my imagination.
Like **flickster ** (and others), I’ve been quiet in the past about performance issues. As someone who doesn’t frequent other MB’s (and therefore has no frame of reference in terms of performance), who doesn’t know anything about how they’re operated, and who’s not knowledgeable about this stuff like several of of you seem to be, I’ve always figured “WTF do I know? Maybe this shit happens from time to time,” and I just hope for the problem to be resolved quickly. But, really, at this point, even my ignorant ass knows that this shit can’t be normal.
I mean, come on, guys: either you want our money, or you want us to go fuck ourselves. Please choose only one.
By the way, this:
and this:
cracked me the fuck up! Thanks for the (inadvertent) laughs, you two!
And I nominate **danceswithcats ** for GPoUB.
I hope they’re going to consider something like this. Ed’s sticky clearly states we should be subscribing in order to be able to search the massive SDMB message database.
The bad news is that the search function has been disabled. The good news is that the database is being deleted so there won’t be anything left to search for.
See here for the server they’re presently using. Mark me down as someone who won’t be reupping (for this, and other issues).