For future reference. Fear Itself asked this elsewhere, and I’m making a new thread about it.
Yes, I’d like an answer to that, too.
What IS the thing to do if you can’t log in?
Because there is no way to communicate that fact to a mod or anyone unless you have their private email address. How do you notify someone of your plight?
I would go to this page right now and copy all the emails.
If someone has trouble logging in they can contact TSD , there is a link to use at the bottom of the page when signing in . I reach TSD this way .
I suggest, in the following order;
Hospital emergency room.
That other board formed a self help group pretty quickly. Shelter in place there.
New York city has excellent emergency services. Very brave fire and police. Bug out for NYC.
There are some really good YouTube videos on Calculus. See what you missed the first time through.
Don’t hyperventilate.
Talk to Jim, Johnnie or Jose about it.
Hope this helps.
The Webmaster email at the bottom worked well for me. I got a courteous and pretty prompt reply and apology for the ‘severe technical difficulties’.
It’s easy enough. Go to the profile for any Mod. Here’s Collibri’s. Click on the “Contact” tab. You should see an email address.
I believe that all mods have a contact email on display.
I don’t think socking it up is the best way. Let a mod or two do it, as they did it in such a way that it was obvious. Watch the newest member flag at the bottom of page one.
You can look at the last post time stamps on the threads, and if you see no one is posting, then it’s obviously more than just you.
If you can’t access the dope at all, use a “Is it down utility”, like this http://downforeveryone.com/
But seriously, join the support group at the other place. If you don’t know where it is, PM Giraffe, I’m pretty sure he knows where it is.
Ummm… if you can’t log in, you can’t access that page, right?
ETA: Saving the addresses now is a good idea. But when we were locked out, I didn’t know at first that it was EVERYONE, and I couldn’t find any way in.
Not so much.
I do think the recent outage demonstrated an area where the Dope has not come into the modern era and it should. There is no official SD twitter, facebook, tumblr, instagram, nothing and if you weren’t already aware of the facebook group or the giraffeboards address, you had no way of knowing anything until ITD was able to get a sock through to post an update. I know for me and I suspect for many of the posters who created socks, the intent was to try to communicate where posters could look to find out what was going on and what the current status was.
Not at first, but when no new posts appeared in any forum for hours and then over a day (except for Giles, who seemed to be all alone), it was obvious there was a larger issue. But I think the moderators and administrators could have done a better job of communicating. (For example, the straightdope.com homepage has a Twitter feed from @Str8dope_com but the last posts from that account are from last year. Perhaps they could have tweeted updates as information became available.)
You could just…wait.
Yes, but waiting meant I couldn’t avoid working.
I was able to email the administrator, and got a helpful reply (it’s not you, the while board is down. No ETA.)
Also, it occurred to me to try to read the board without logging in, and i noticed there were no new posts for hours (except weirdly, Giles). So i figured out it was down before i got the reply. But if it were just you who couldn’t log in for some reason, the email should work.
There is in fact a Straight Dope Twitter. It is for the main page and linked to on there. When it was discussed before on here I seem to remember a bunch of posters talking about how much they hate Twitter. It doesn’t seem like many here are following. If you want I can pass on that future communication about similar problems can be announced there but it won’t do much good if members don’t follow.
I think there’s an element of in good faith here. If a website has a couple of social media outlets and updates them promptly to notify users of an issue, then the onus is on the users to make sure they’re aware of those outlets.
And you’re right, I vaguely remember the announcement of the twitter and the harrumphing that followed. I think a facebook page would be slightly more appropriate for the Dope demographic personally if only because I think there’s less pressure for a facebook page to be creating content regularly.
Speaking of which, I still can’t find the alleged Facebook group. When I search for Straightdope or any of its derivatives I get 1) a fan group which hasn’t had any posts since 2012 b) a fan group which hasn’t had any posts since 2013 c) a closed group which seems to be comprised of South Africans and d) a closed group where there’s a message to send a message if I want to join, but I can’t send a message because I’m not FB friends with any of the people listed as members.
You can access the page that lists the mods, but it’s not terribly useful if you aren’t logged in. The links to PM or send an e-mail aren’t there, and if you click on a mod’s profile all you get is a screen asking you to log in.
The webmaster e-mail at the bottom of every page is still there though. You can use that if you have trouble.
You don’t have to be friends with any of the members. Just send a message to the group owner.
They let me in when I did that. It took a few days.
My bold.
I tweeted to @Str8dope_com but got no reply.
I did read the board without logging in and saw Giles all alone in The Big Room.
Duh. That’s really my question: how do I communicate THAT I can’t log in. Now I’ve saved some mod emails, so I’ll be set if I can’t log in. When it’s everyone, that’s different.
Maybe I was just delusional, but I scoured every page and did not see a webmaster link. Possibly I just didn’t look hard enough.
I don’t use Twitter regularly either, but for a situation like this, it would have been really handy. I found the giraffe board through searching and eventually someone posted a link to the Facebook group.