Have fun with the pitting, but the only response you will get that is even vaguely meaningful is to Email or PM **Ed Zotti ** himself. The rest of the Admins and Mods know little more than we do about the timing of any changes.
I bugged Mr. Zotti a few months ago and I got a polite reply that sadly contained no information. We all just have to wait and see, members and staff.
Maybe, just maybe, if more people Email Mr. Zotti, he will post an update in ATMB, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one either.
As to the database going bad, it hasn’t happened in a while, but I keep wondering if their is any sort of checks that can be done during the week to see if the DB is getting critical and avoid the board glitching over the weekend.
My bosses would not actually be at all happy with repeat problems this board has and I would be hearing about. However, for the SDMB that would depend on how seriously the new owners took the SDMB. I think we all know we were the Red-Headed step-child of the old owners.
I just for the life of me do not understand why this message board is always fucking up like this. I’m registered on THR (gun forum) and Talkbass (Bass player’s forum) which uses the very same exact format as the Straight Dope. Both of them are free. Neither of them are ever down. Ever. And you don’t have to wait 2 years in between searches.
I wish they’d get on the free posting already. My boyfriend is already addicted to the boards as a lurker, but he’s waiting until the board goes free to join.
Part of it may be that they’re probably not using a version of the software that’s so out of date, it’s no longer actively updated or supported by the company that produces it. vb 3.0.x reached its “end of life” back in May. Hell, the SDMB is still multiple versions out of date even for the 3.0.x series – we’re at 3.0.7, but there were at least ten more updates / security releases, the last one being 3.0.18 back in 2006. (It’s possible Jerry’s applied the patches without updating the version number, but I’m not sure all of the security changes allowed mere patches rather than required upgrades.)
In the interim, there’ve been numerous updates to the database structure of vBulletin (the most recent is 3.7.2), and the newer versions are way more stable. The post-3.5.x releases of the software are much more configurable for the admins/mods. There’s a subscription feature, ad module, and infraction/banning system all built in these days. All the extra doodads we don’t use (avatars, reputations, social networking, customizable profiles) can easily be turned off.
It’s a real shame that TPTB don’t appear to be enabling Jerry et al. to take the time to make a backup, duplicate the database on a test site, and upgrade the software on the test site. Once the customizations are reimplemented, the process can be safely duplicated on the live site (or the test site can turn into the live site – that’s how I make my upgrades).
The boards would probably be down for a couple of days, but … hell, at least we’d have a much more stable software to play with once things are over!
Now that I was coming in here ready to bitch about a subscription extension the admins had to one up me and spoil that by actually caring about customer service for once. Fucking assholes!
I’m not too bent out of shape about it, but Tuba’s message that basically said, “The board’s down, the tech guy’s out for the weekend, so you losers need to just go outside for a change” wasn’t exactly what I’d expect from a paid subscription that has any interest in customer service*. The limbo we are in here between a paid service that could logically be expected to attempt to achieve some level of customer service and a free service with no expectations of good service is uncomfortable at times.
*It was exactly what I’ve come to expect from this place. I’m not new.
What, did the string between your tin cans break? Dude, we have Private Messaging. If you absolutely, positively had to communicate via the boards, why not use PM’s?
Coming from someone else, I probably wouldn’t have gotten the snotty vibe from it, but Tuba does have a way with words when dealing with this board. Perhaps I inferred unreasonably; it could happen.
You’ve got to be kidding me. She’s talking about how Jerry is probably off doing something fun instead of waiting around to see whether the board might go down. She wasn’t talking about the posters here.
I read it as her saying that Jerry is off out doing stuff on the weekend, which it is perfectly understandable for him to do and that him being ankle-deep in serverland isn’t something that should be expected of him on a weekend. That it’s also a bit of an insult to posters is certainly something I can see, but I don’t think it can necessarily be assumed.
Indeed. And no, I don’t think Tuba meant it as such, either. I was responding to Skippy’s incorrect assertion that such an insult could not reasonably be inferred; clearly, it can.