[QUOTE=SkipMagic]
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.
[/QUOTE]
That responsibilty shit, fuckin’ kills me ev-er-y-day.
The sprinklers are fubar, the A.C. took a shit.
I’f nobody gets paid when it’s pay to post, how is anybody going to give a flying rats ass when it’s free?
Time will tell, time will tell.
[QUOTE=choie]
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!
[/QUOTE]
They couldn’t possibly. Have you any idea how expensive the licenses for this software are? Things are so tight around here that…
Oh, wait. It’s only $180.00. That’s 12 subscriptions.
Seriously guys, just upgrade the damn software. If anyone should be pushing for this, it should be Jerry. A more stable environment means he can spend less time troubleshooting things here and more time on other, more important projects.
And Jerry? Let’s you and me talk, techie to techie here. I’m all for staying a version or two behind and letting some other schlub work out the bugs for you. I do it, too. But seven versions? You should be ashamed of yourself. There’s just no excuse for that.
I am now sorely regretting renewing my subscription a few months ago.
Tuba’s initial post annoyed me, even after the edit, since she didn’t even apologize for snarking at us to begin with. I know modding is a thankless job and I have no complaints with how they they run the board. But I wish the admin here would answer the reasonable questions of paying customers with reasonable answers, instead of treating us like idiots.
[QUOTE=Lord Ashtar]
They couldn’t possibly. Have you any idea how expensive the licenses for this software are? Things are so tight around here that…
Oh, wait. It’s only $180.00. That’s 12 subscriptions.
[/quote]
Not even. Unless the Chicago Reader was nuts and has only been leasing the software each year, they probably purchased an owned license, which means the cost of keeping the software up-to-date was until recently only $30 a year. (Now it’s a little more: $40 if you renew within a month or so of your renewal date, or $60 thereafter. BTW, of course, I know there are other costs involved, as in Jerry’s time and so on. I’m talking about the license part of the equation.)
Well, I wouldn’t assume it’s Jerry’s fault. I really wouldn’t be surprised if he’s pushing for the upgrade himself, but keeps getting gainsayed (or is it ‘gainsaid’?) by his overlords. They probably want to wait until the alleged new servers, or perhaps they want to put off closing the forums, or paying Jerry for the extra time/effort, whatever. It’s certainly a daunting propsoition, I can sympathize, but forums bigger than this have successfully kept up-to-date without such a ghastly lag between upgrades. They really need to get on this already, it really is freakin’ ridiculous.
I don’t care about a refund. I just want the board to stop sucking.
My snark meter must be broken; I read what Tuba posted and didn’t see anything snarky about it.
[QUOTE=Pedro]
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!
[/QUOTE]
Exactly! I mean, just because you have a 24/7 business that you can’t be bothered to fix critical problems with on the weekends, and just because when you do finally get around to fixing them, you fail to apologize even once for inconveniencing your paying customers, why that doesn’t mean you have poor customer service!
Fuck, dude. You’ve got some pretty goddamn low standards.
Even the lazy bastards who take 20 minutes to make a burger on the overnight shift at McDonalds tell me that they’re sorry for the wait. Apparently meeting the lofty customer service goals set by surly high-school dropouts who are stoned out of their minds is tougher than I thought!
:rolleyes:
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
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.
[/QUOTE]
Well, sure, it’s perfectly reasonable to assume Jerry has a life and all, but is he the only person who can fix the Board when it goes belly-up?
I can understand if it meant special-ordering new hamsters from Thailand and having to wait for them to be Fed-Exed, but sheesh - is there really NO ONE at all who can fix it when Jerry’s not around?
[QUOTE=neutron star]
Fuck, dude. You’ve got some pretty goddamn low standards.
Even the lazy bastards who take 20 minutes to make a burger on the overnight shift at McDonalds tell me that they’re sorry for the wait. Apparently meeting the lofty customer service goals set by surly high-school dropouts who are stoned out of their minds is tougher than I thought!
:rolleyes:
[/QUOTE]
Come on, save your roll eyes. We all know this place is badly run, usually I just find their incompetence amusing. I was pleasantly surprised to see a prompt subscription extension, that’s all, probably because my expectations here are that low.
[QUOTE=featherlou]
I’ll tell you one thing; I would have preferred no talk of free posting to talk of free posting that doesn’t happen.
[/QUOTE]
This.
[QUOTE=treis]
I don’t care about a refund. I just want the board to stop sucking.
[/QUOTE]
And this.
I hate the way administrative matters are handled here. But there is an amazing community here bursting with witty and intelligent posters who can answer any question I can think of and make me laugh in the bargain. I don’t want to lose that. But I’m tired of the board going down. I’m tired of things crapping out. I’m tired of the interminable wait between searches. I’m tired of every promise that eventually gets ignored. (Custom user titles, optional avatars, free posting…) I’m tired of the run-around from the ones with the info and the lack of accountability. I’m just fucking tired. If everyone jumped to one of the satellite sites I would drop my SD account like a hot potato and never come back. It’s not Cecil, it’s not Weird Earl, it’s not the site that I want; it’s the people. And if the majority of posters are going to stay here then I want here to be a nice well-kept place that runs as efficiently as possible, brings in new posters, and keeps old ones around. And since you can find this sort of thing all over the internet for free, (But not the particular flavor I desire, which is why I am still here and not those other places) I expect a place I pay $15 annually to keep up with the Joneses, as it were.
[QUOTE=featherlou]
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*.
[/QUOTE]
Tuba has a history of snark but in this case I really can’t see anything wrong with her words or tone.
Yep, it’s like we’re supposed to be grateful to pay for shitty service.
[QUOTE=BiblioCat]
Well, sure, it’s perfectly reasonable to assume Jerry has a life and all, but is he the only person who can fix the Board when it goes belly-up?
I can understand if it meant special-ordering new hamsters from Thailand and having to wait for them to be Fed-Exed, but sheesh - is there really NO ONE at all who can fix it when Jerry’s not around?
[/QUOTE]
From what I understand, yes, Jerry IS the only person who can fix certain board problems. I might be wrong, but I’ve certainly had the impression that nobody else has the access to certain permissions.
The rude part of what Tuba said was when she was a bit cutting about people posting in the Pit, after a moderator had previously said it was okay. However, after it was clarified to her that someone had said it was okay to do so, she erased that part.
(She could have looked, admittedly.)
That said… board goes up, board goes down. Such is life. I am a bit concerned about this End of Life thing.
[QUOTE=Lynn Bodoni]
From what I understand, yes, Jerry IS the only person who can fix certain board problems. I might be wrong, but I’ve certainly had the impression that nobody else has the access to certain permissions.
[/QUOTE]
The first rule of IT is always have a backup. The second rule of IT is always have a backup.
[QUOTE=Lord Ashtar]
The first rule of IT is always have a backup. The second rule of IT is always have a backup.
[/QUOTE]
True enough. I fully agree. But have found in real life it isn’t always practical. Budgets often prevent one from hiring the talent to provide backups. On my team now I have only one guy who can do the web stuff. I know I should have more, but no one wants to give me the money to do so.
So when he isn’t available, stuff waits until he is.
Look, I just don’t get it. First of all I have no interest in the mod-politics and the feuds of this site. I like all the moderators, I have nothing against any of them. I’m also sure that Jerry, Ed Zotti, and all these other higher-up guys who are supposedly in control of this forum have the best of intentions. Actually I’m not so sure, but I’m trying to be diplomatic here. Anyway, the bottom line is, there are other message boards - FREE ones - that use VBulletin and never crash, and don’t make you wait 20 years between searches, and also don’t have bizarre time-outs all the time for no apparent reason. For God’s sake, do what needs to be done to update the programs so that they work efficiently and properly.
If free forums can do it, the SDMB can do it.
**DO IT ALREADY. **
Sometimes I think of this message board as an old, tired yak, struggling up the side of a mountain. Its hair, no longer lustrous and thick, is now stringy and matted with perspiration, and it snorts and grunts with every creaky step it takes. Its handlers continue loading it down with pack after heavy pack, hoping to Buddha that it can make it, spinning their prayer wheels and waving their prayer flags and burning incense and slapping the yak’s testicles with a leather whip - anything to make that goddamn yak move up the mountainside just a little bit faster. But to no avail. The tired god-forsaken creature simply cannot take any more of it, and its four legs collapse underneath it and its hairy, stinking body slides down the mountain trail, crushing its handlers to death.
Do you get the picture?
[QUOTE=Lynn Bodoni]
From what I understand, yes, Jerry IS the only person who can fix certain board problems. I might be wrong, but I’ve certainly had the impression that nobody else has the access to certain permissions.
[/QUOTE]
So, should the man shuffle off to his eternal reward, without scribbling some things down on a cocktail napkin first, y’all would do what, exactly?
[QUOTE=danceswithcats]
So, should the man shuffle off to his eternal reward, without scribbling some things down on a cocktail napkin first, y’all would do what, exactly?
[/QUOTE]
Offer us a six week extension on our memberships, probably.
[QUOTE=danceswithcats]
So, should the man shuffle off to his eternal reward, without scribbling some things down on a cocktail napkin first, y’all would do what, exactly?
[/QUOTE]
None of them work for the SDMB in IT. I think it is fair to assume that there is someone capable of backing Jerry up in a pinch should he quit or something bad happen to him. I don’t think the Reader had an IT department of one. It is likely that Jerry’s emergency backup has no knowledge of how the SDMB software works and will struggle to get up to speed on how to run it.
Jerry is an actual employee of the Reader (and the Reader’s new owners). His job is not dedicated to the Dope website and the SDMB. Sometimes I think posters forget these simple facts. The Mods and Admins are unpaid in all but one case and in a non-technical position. I am reasonably sure the IT manager (whoever that is) would absolutely go ballistic if some unknown, unpaid message board moderators had access to one of his servers and databases. That would be a major breech in network security.
Jim
[QUOTE=What Exit?]
That would be a major breech in network security.
[/QUOTE]
Unless you’re suggesting that the Reader’s network security is pants, I think you mean breach. 