System Downtime, Maintenance 370

Posted by CmdrTaco on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:45PM from the brace-yourself-for-fun-and-excitement dept.

We're taking the system down tonight for a some system updates. We expect to go down around 9 (eastern) and hope to be back up by midnight. This is a pretty substantial upgrade, but the changes are almost entirely 'Under the Hood' type fixes: architecture stuff that shouldn't really impact much end user functionality. When the dust settles we expect there to be a few bugs cropping up, so please click that 'Bugs' link on the left hand menu and submit reports so we can squash them quickly. And sorry about the inconvenience. We know it will be hard to live without us for a few hours, but I figure some quality time with your friends and family might just be long overdue! (Also, for the curious, a brief summary of what the change is actually all about follows)

Ok, so when I wrote the original code for Slashdot, I had these "Sections" and these "Topics". You're familiar with both I'm sure... the "Sections" are like "Apple" and "BSD". They have unique color schemes, and their own homepages. The "Topics" are specific areas of subject matter... you know them because they each have a colorful little icon associated with them... like for example the rockin 'Slashdot' logo that is attached to this story.

When I originally "designed" (I use the term loosely since evolved is more accurate) the system, "Sections" were meant to be for "Data Types"... for example "Book Reviews". A book review is fundamentally different than a Slashdot "Article" because it has extra fields like the ISBN code. At the same time I essentially coded "Skins" because each "Data Type" needed custom look & feel type stuff so that the story could actually display the unique data fields.

So when we created YRO and the BSD section and later on the Apple section, I just reused the skinning part of "Sections".. it was the easiest way to do it, but it created problems later: under the old design a story could only have one "Section"... some sections defined "Data Type" and others defined "Subject Matter" (like Apple or BSD)... thats why bsd.slashdot.org can never include a book review, and apple.slashdot.org can't include an 'Ask Slashdot'. This confounded users of our search page to no ends, to say nothing of frustrating editors who couldn't include topical stories within their appropriate section.

Undoubtedly we'll see some bugs to pop up... so please be patient and submit bug reports. We'll be wacking bugs for a few days... there's always a few of them that don't pop up until you put them in front of the half a million users on the real hardware. Thanks for understanding!

System Downtime, Maintenance

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9 eastern? (Score:4, Insightful)

by lecithin ( 745575 ) * writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:46PM (#9723175)

Thanks for the advanced notice!!!!!

- Re:9 eastern? (Score:5, Funny)
  
  by oudzeeman ( 684485 ) writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:48PM (#9723189)
  
  slashdot isn't that crucial to your Friday night, is it?
  
  - Re:9 eastern? (Score:5, Funny)
    
    by maxbang ( 598632 ) writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:54PM (#9723250) Journal
    
    Are you kidding? This is worse than having all six suns setting for the first time in thousands of years. I have no choice but to watch Stargate: Atlantis and finish the other half of this pizza feast. Fatter, yes. Completely insane, also yes. Plans for Friday night, of course not.
    
  - Re:9 eastern? (Score:4, Funny)
    
    by ahknight ( 128958 ) * writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @08:01PM (#9723324)
    
    Even if, we still have Stargate Atlantis and Fark [fark.com], so we'll live.
    
    Now, take my Fark and we'll have words.
    
- Re:9 eastern? (Score:2)
  
  by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * writes:
  
  If they post a lot of stories after Midnight tonight to bump this off the home page, and all goes well... I'm guessing a majority of the /. userbase won't even notice the site went down to begin with.
  - - Re:9 eastern? (Score:5, Informative)
      
      by Pathwalker ( 103 ) * writes: <hotgrits@yourpants.net> on Saturday July 17, 2004 @01:27AM (#9723679) Homepage Journal
      
      What's more likely is that the phone reps are penalized for canceling accounts, so he made up an excuse to get you to call back on a day when he wasn't going to be working.
      
      - Re:9 eastern? (Score:5, Informative)
        
        by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * writes: on Saturday July 17, 2004 @02:43AM (#9723904)
        
        That is most likely it exactly. The only phone reps who are allowed to cancel accounts in most mega-company setups (AOL, credit card issuers, insurance firms, etc.) are people who are specially trained to try to talk you out of canceling, and statistics are kept on how well they perform. A person who calls, gets to the cancelation reps, and doesn't actually go through with it is scored as a "save", and various metrics are computed to determine the saves per time worked, number of calls taken, etc. and compared to the company averages or arbitrary metrics.
        
        I think the grandparent poster just encountered somebody who was lying about being unable to process the cancelation so that they'd be given a save in order to boost the numbers. I don't think top-level management would approve of such a tactic, but it's certainly possible a mid-level manager would "look the other way" about his "star performer"...
        
- Re:9 eastern? (Score:2)
  
  by ModernGeek ( 601932 ) writes:
  
  You mean advance notice, and 10 minutes should be plenty, just hurry up and cache a bunch of stuff before it all comes crumbling down.
- LP? (Score:5, Funny)
  
  by zoloto ( 586738 ) writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:59PM (#9723300)
  
  Last Post?!?
  
- Re:9 eastern? (Score:5, Funny)
  
  by Squareball ( 523165 ) writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:59PM (#9723307)
  
  I wonder if the subscribers get the downtime before the rest of us?
  
- Re:9 eastern? (Score:5, Funny)
  
  by Pharmboy ( 216950 ) writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @08:02PM (#9723330) Journal
  
  Oh, I almost forgot, while slashdot is down, you should check out this homestarrunner [homestarrunner.com] "system is down" message.
  
  Trust me.
  
  - - - Re:Can't (Score:3, Informative)
        
        by DrSkwid ( 118965 ) writes:
        
        oh really
        
        Here I am in FreeBSD using Firefox
        
        I go here :
        
        http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/do w nl oad.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash
        
        I get this message :
        
        Macromedia Flash Player Download Center
        
        We are unable to locate a single Web player that best matches your platform and operating system.
        Please visit our table of recommended Web players. .
        
        Please go read this page
        
        http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/alt er nates/
        
        and revise your opinion on the ubiqity of Flash
        
        Re:Can't (Score:3, Insightful)
        
        by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) writes:
        
        google [google.com] turns up a few useful-looking links on the subject of flash and freebsd. Nonetheless you're running a desktop which is marginal in popularity at best as a desktop OS and you're bitching about not having a supported version of flash player? Next you'll be complaining about a lack of mozilla for the atari 800.
  - - - Re:9 eastern? (Score:3, Informative)
        
        by Tet ( 2721 ) * writes:
        
        If they didn't use flash, they couldn't do the stuff they do, active games, totally interactive menus, etc. with html
        Actually, they could do pretty much everything. Interactive menus? Not desirable in the first place, but easy enough to do with CSS if you really want to. Strongbad could be done with any movie format, and needn't be in Flash. The only part of the site that doesn't really have an option at the moment is the interactive games. Yes, there are alternatives to Flash for that (Java, SVG, etc.) b
- Re:9 eastern? (Score:4, Funny)
  
  by iabervon ( 1971 ) writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @08:15PM (#9723412) Homepage Journal
  
  The story was submitted a while ago, but you know how long it takes for the editors to get around to posting stuff...
  
- - Re:9 eastern? (Score:2)
    
    by Brightest Light ( 552357 ) writes:
    
    I don't see a subscriber * next to your name, so why should they have to answer to you?
    I understand its a common courtesy and all, but I for one am glad I got *some* kind of notice. I'm used to sites being down for a few hours, and THEN coming back up with a "hey we went down for maintenance, etc etc" message.
    - Re:9 eastern? (Score:3, Insightful)
      
      by surprise_audit ( 575743 ) writes:
      
      Might have been nice if the site could have been redirected to a static page explaining what was going on. Their ISP could probably have hosted it.
  - Exactly. (Score:5, Funny)
    
    by cgenman ( 325138 ) writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @08:10PM (#9723382) Homepage
    
    I agree. Anytime *I* have to take anything out of production for our 1500-odd users at the company I work at, they require *AT LEAST* 12 hours notice, if not more. Usually, we give 24.
    
    Do you have any idea how much of a disruption to the workflow at my company Slashdot going down is? If we don't keep the engineers distracted, they'll start interacting with the customers! The customers will be speaking to someone who knows something. Then the customer will know something. Then our business is ruined.
    
    Thanks Slashdot. Thanks a lot. I hope you like your prescious backend update. In Japan.
    
oh no... (Score:3, Funny)

by the arbiter ( 696473 ) writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:47PM (#9723181)

I'm a geek! What am I to do until Slashdot returns?

Well, I guess I'll just have to go outside, or talk to a girl, or something...

- Re:oh no... (Score:5, Funny)
  
  by FyRE666 ( 263011 ) * writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @08:00PM (#9723311) Homepage
  
  I'm a geek! What am I to do until Slashdot returns?
  
  Set up a mirror? ;-)
  
- Re:oh no... (Score:3, Funny)
  
  by Anonymous Coward writes:
  
  "or talk to a girl"
  
  A what?
  - Re:oh no... (Score:3, Funny)
    
    by ameoba ( 173803 ) writes:
    
    Girls are the consumer model of those creatures you see in your porn.
- Re:oh no... (Score:5, Funny)
  
  by PiGuy ( 531424 ) writes: <squirrelNO@SPAMwpi.edu> on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:20AM (#9723474) Homepage
  
  Wow, you guys should do this more often. During the time Slashdot was down, I found a girlfriend, got a secure, high-paying job, learned to ski, and seamlessly integrated KDE and GNOME into the Next Big Thing(tm).
  
  - Re:oh no... (Score:4, Funny)
    
    by kesuki ( 321456 ) writes: on Saturday July 17, 2004 @01:56AM (#9723776) Journal
    
    Well, i did find a girlfriend/potential future wife, but 3-4 hours wasn't long enough for me to find a job, or write the next great american novel... KEEP up the good work slashdot!
    
- Re:oh no... (Score:5, Funny)
  
  by TopShelf ( 92521 ) writes: on Saturday July 17, 2004 @08:11AM (#9724567) Homepage Journal
  
  Well, I guess I'll just have to go outside, or talk to a girl...
  
  Most readers here would need a published API for such interaction...
  
  - Re:oh no... (Score:3, Funny)
    
    by Quasar1999 ( 520073 ) writes:
    
    But why is the getLaid(void *) call just a wrapper to the kissAss(), suckUp(), and payBribe(LARGE INT) calls???
At least... (Score:5, Funny)

by example42 ( 760044 ) writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:47PM (#9723183)

At least it's night time (here) so I can go outside to play. The evil burning brightness is gone for 8 hours.

- Re:At least... (Score:4, Funny)
  
  by nahdude812 ( 88157 ) writes: on Saturday July 17, 2004 @06:40AM (#9724374) Homepage
  
  It's not my fault your world orbits a ball of fire. [penny-arcade.com]
  
Re: (Score:2, Funny)

by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) * writes:

Comment removed based on user account deletion
- There's still hope! SouthPark Marathon! (Score:2)
  
  by GillBates0 ( 664202 ) writes:
  
  starts at 9pm EST! Yay!
Uh oh.... (Score:5, Funny)

by Kymermosst ( 33885 ) writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:47PM (#9723186) Journal

20,000 nerds are going to have to find something else to do for three hours...

- Re:Uh oh.... (Score:4, Funny)
  
  by Kpt Kill ( 649374 ) writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:50PM (#9723217) Homepage
  
  Just jam on refresh until the page comes back
  
- Re:Uh oh.... (Score:3, Funny)
  
  by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) writes:
  
  " 20,000 nerds are going to have to find something else to do for three hours..."
  Isn't it usually right about now that the Autopr0n guy shows up to plug his site?
NO! (Score:5, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:48PM (#9723190)

uh oh, no /. for 3 hours! I might have to actually interact with people in meatspace! say it ain't so!!!

Downtime... (Score:5, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:48PM (#9723196)

You forgot to add, "Do not attempt sexual relations, as years of computer monitor radiation have left
your genitals withered and useless."

Question.... (Score:4, Insightful)

by Lurch Kimded ( 582588 ) writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:48PM (#9723198) Homepage

9pm eastern... Whats that in GMT? ;)

Good luck with the upgrade, I hope Sod and his law stay far... FAR away.

- Re:Question.... (Score:2)
  
  by mackstann ( 586043 ) writes:
  
  eastern is GMT-5 I believe.
  - Re:Question.... (Score:3, Insightful)
    
    by Siva ( 6132 ) writes:
    
    well, yes, but where in Daylight Savings right now...so GMT-4
    - Re:Question.... (Score:2)
      
      by Siva ( 6132 ) writes:
      
      argh...
      s/where/we're
      
      that's what i get for not using Preview.
    - Re:Question.... (Score:2)
      
      by mackstann ( 586043 ) writes:
      
      Ah, I actually never paid attention to how daylight savings effected gmt offsets (and was somewhat confused about it, but not enough to go look it up), so thanks for telling me. I'm in central so I'm gmt-6, and gmt-5 during daylight savings. /me commits to memory
- Re:Question.... (Score:2)
  
  by scum-e-bag ( 211846 ) writes:
  
  1am Saturday morning... I think... so this means you have about 10 mins. I could be wrong, daylight savings always gets me.
  - - Re:Question.... (Score:3, Informative)
      
      by epsalon ( 518482 ) * writes:
      
      Because the UK is in daylight savings time...
      UK TIME != GMT.
- Re:Question.... (Score:2)
  
  by NoMercy ( 105420 ) writes:
  
  9pm is 2am, in the UK... eeep that's now!
- Time::timelocal() says... (Score:5, Funny)
  
  by gkwok ( 773963 ) writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @08:14PM (#9723408) Homepage
  
  The downtime will be between 1090026000 and 1090036800.
  
Be sure to do a backup (Score:5, Funny)

by Neil Blender ( 555885 ) writes: <neilblender@gmail.com> on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:49PM (#9723201)

Just kidding.

Bad timing (Score:5, Funny)

by GuyMannDude ( 574364 ) writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:49PM (#9723202) Journal

We expect to go down around 9 (eastern) and hope to be back up by midnight.

Oh that's just great. Now what the hell am I supposed to do with myself on a Friday night? Go downtown and watch all the cool people on their dates?

Couldn't you guys have scheduled this downtime for sometime during my work hours so I could actually get something done at the office for a change?

GMD

never thought i'd get to say it... (Score:4, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:49PM (#9723206)

last comment

- Re:never thought i'd get to say it... (Score:5, Funny)
  
  by daeley ( 126313 ) * writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @08:11PM (#9723393) Homepage
  
  Don't get too excited, this story will have a dupe by Sunday. ;)
  
Real Life Test (Score:5, Funny)

by Duct Tape Pro ( 318982 ) writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:49PM (#9723207) Homepage

This is really a test to see if real life's servers can handle all the slashdot users trying to interact with it at once.

So, what are the changes? (Score:5, Insightful)

by Star_Gazer ( 25473 ) * writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:49PM (#9723210)

Taco, all you do is describe what the current design (step of evolution) is, but what are the changes?. Obviously, you will have removed those restrictions, but you don't say so. :)

- Re:So, what are the changes? (Score:5, Insightful)
  
  by Pharmboy ( 216950 ) writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:58PM (#9723290) Journal
  
  I think it means we are the beta testers, and the goal is to make it LOOK and feel the same, just different mechanically.
  
  Believe me, anytime something isn't working right, you can just grep through the comments and find all the complains and debugging information you can stand.
  
How about upgrading to valid html? (Score:5, Insightful)

by kevin_conaway ( 585204 ) writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:51PM (#9723223) Homepage

And re-doing the layout in proper css?

- Re:How about upgrading to valid html? (Score:5, Interesting)
  
  by Anonymous Coward writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:59PM (#9723298)
  
  It's already been done [alistapart.com], but no one wants to actually update Slashcode.
  
  - Re:How about upgrading to valid html? (Score:5, Informative)
    
    by jamie ( 78724 ) writes: <jamie@slashdot.org> on Friday July 16, 2004 @11:38PM (#9723447) Journal
    
    A pair of coders who use Slash are being generous with their time and effort, and working on migrating Slash to XML... we hope to work with them soon to get their work into the main Slash distribution.
    Migrating a whole site to XHTML is much, much harder than doing a mockup of one page.
    
    - - Re:How about upgrading to valid html? (Score:3, Insightful)
        
        by Nurgled ( 63197 ) writes:
        
        I have a feeling my grandparent poster wanted a machine-readable interface to the whole site, including comments, journals etc.
        
        While that's great in theory, I know from experience that it just ends up inviting even more badly-written bots which mess up caches and hammer the site for ten minutes at a time because their authors are too incompetant to implement their own caching and stagger their requests.
    - - Re:How about upgrading to valid html? (Score:4, Informative)
        
        by jamie ( 78724 ) writes: <jamie@slashdot.org> on Saturday July 17, 2004 @01:57PM (#9726009) Journal
        
        The two guys who are doing the conversion don't work for VA Software / OSDN, they are doing it for their own reasons. One actually started on HTML 4.01 and then they decided to join forces and work on the same project, and chose XHTML instead of 4.01. So you'd have to ask them as to why. Stop by #slash on irc.slashnet.org if you want...
        
What Will I Do?!?! (Score:2)

by Senjutsu ( 614542 ) writes:

You monsters, you're forcing me to find something else to waste my time doing!!!
Isn't tonight Stargate Atlantis? (Score:3, Informative)

by antdude ( 79039 ) writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:52PM (#9723230) Homepage Journal

Watch that during the downtime if you can. Of course for me, I don't have cable/satellite TV. So feh! :(

- Re:Isn't tonight Stargate Atlantis? (Score:2)
  
  by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * writes:
  
  For those with digital cable or satellite tonight... MLB Extra Innings is running free preview games to promote the chance to subscribe now to the rest of the season at a reduced rate. So, there's a few channels most of you don't normally get to see on tonight. :)
- Re:Isn't tonight Stargate Atlantis? (Score:2)
  
  by Fiz Ocelot ( 642698 ) writes:
  
  Yes it starts at 9pm here, can't wait :)
Aw come on :( (Score:5, Funny)

by happyhippy ( 526970 ) writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:53PM (#9723247)

I was about to launch my DOS attack on /. at that time!

hmm.. stargate? (Score:2)

by LWolenczak ( 10527 ) writes:

Atleast we will have stargate to keep us from crying without slashdot. mmm slashdotty goodness....
yea but (Score:2)

by Pharmboy ( 216950 ) writes:

What about the people who don't log on until 9:05? Is this story going to help them ? ;)
- Re:yea but (Score:3, Funny)
  
  by shawn(at)fsu ( 447153 ) writes:
  
  No it didn't help me.
  
  I was wondering if perhaps /. got /.'ed which made me laugh a little on the outside, inside I cried.
Double Posting (Score:2)

by wideBlueSkies ( 618979 ) * writes:

I wonder if this story will be double posted.

More interestingly, I wonder if ie is posted again, will they take the servers down for another upgrade.....

wbs.
Forums? (Score:2)

by gumpish ( 682245 ) writes:

How about adding some plain old forums, eh?
Evolved... (Score:2)

by Prof.Phreak ( 584152 ) writes:

When I originally "designed" (I use the term loosely since evolved is more accurate)

Heh. I've just been outside reading ``Emergence'' by Steven Johnson, and there is a part about Slashdot.org, and how it ``evolved''. Kind of an interesting time coincidence :-)
7 minutes to go *sob* (Score:2)

by GillBates0 ( 664202 ) writes:

*sniff*
I guess I better go and get some beer. I'm going to miss you /.
I love you, please come back soon :(
- Re:7 minutes to go *sob* (Score:3, Funny)
  
  by wideBlueSkies ( 618979 ) * writes:
  
  Are you talking about Jennicam or /. ?
  
  wbs.
Crossing my fingers (Score:5, Funny)

by MooseByte ( 751829 ) writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:56PM (#9723275)

"We're taking the system down tonight for a some system updates. We expect to go down around 9 (eastern) and hope to be back up by midnight.".
If I had stock options for every time I'd tried that and ended up having to scurry in a panic through the weekend... Oh wait, I'd still be broke. Nevermind.

Best of luck guys!

So, Slashdot will be down. (Score:2, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward writes:

I think I may just head over to the JBoss forums to spend my weekend. JBoss offers proven open source solutions that are a step above anything available today. Face it, the competition is crap and JBoss is the only Company to offer a viable solution. I do not work for JBoss.
How many page views / unique IDs per hour? (Score:2)

by dgmartin98 ( 576409 ) writes:

Hey CmdrTaco,

How many page views & unique users does Slashdot get in a typical day or hour, anyways? I've always wondered that but never knew.

Dave
The Cries (Score:2)

by phreak03 ( 621876 ) writes:

And suddenly it was as though the screams of millions of Nerds went sillent....
Freedom (Score:2)

by CHaN_316 ( 696929 ) writes:

At last! We can break the tyranny of CowboyNeal! We can finally unplug from slashdot and be fr.... what's that? It's back up? Okay nevermind... back to the powerplant people, nothing to see here!
While you're at it... (Score:2, Interesting)

by Anonymous Coward writes:

... you might as well fix the bug where comments become are skipped in paged mode when a thread has more than the maximum number of visible comments per page. The next page then repeats the supersized thread, instead of showing the following threads. The page after that continues with threads further down, not the thread directly following the supersized thread.
Google cache... (Score:3, Funny)

by DarkBlackFox ( 643814 ) writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @08:03PM (#9723340)

Wow, never thought I'd have to use a Google cache [216.239.39.104] for Slashdot!!

Shashdot will be slashdotted! (Score:2, Funny)

by noidentity ( 188756 ) writes:

This time, Slashdot will get a taste of its own medicine as it's Slashdotted at midnight when it comes back up from the upgrade (and then goes back down). The fact that it's a Friday night will have little effect, given the audience.
It will be interesting to see what happens (Score:5, Funny)

by SteamyMobile ( 783822 ) writes: <support@steamymobile.com> on Friday July 16, 2004 @08:11PM (#9723386) Homepage

Slashdot switching from mod_perl to a JSP/Servlet backend is going to be a very interesting change. It will finally put an end to all this "Java is not scalable enough" and "Java is slow" type of talk we see here.
If it doesn't work, then I'm guessing that Slashdot will move to the ultimate in stable, secure and scalable web architectures: ASP.net.

Last Post (Score:2)

by ka9dgx ( 72702 ) * writes:

I call last post!!!
--Mike--
Slashdot down for 3 hours (Score:2)

by phalse phace ( 454635 ) writes:

No!!!
[ hits F5 for next 3 hours ]
It's a conspiracy! (Score:2)

by pyrrhonist ( 701154 ) writes:

It's all a conspiracy to force us Slashdot readers to do something constructive for three hours.
Well, I found a loophole in that plan.
*main screen turn on*
First Bug? (Score:2, Informative)

by big_a ( 112626 ) writes:

Well, all the links seem to be going to "example.com"... (i.e. read more takes you to example.com)
I know what one of the changes was! (Score:4, Informative)

by JoeShmoe ( 90109 ) writes: <askjoeshmoe@hotmail.com> on Friday July 16, 2004 @11:34PM (#9723443)

Someone apparently forgot to remove an "example.com" placeholder! It's good to see that slashdot hires people so well versed in RFC 2606 [rfc-editor.org]!

( Read More... [example.com] | science.example.com )

( Read More... [example.com] | 91 comments | yro.example.com )

And so on...

- JoeShmoe
.

WOW, Slashdot is teh sucks! (Score:3, Funny)

by cmacb ( 547347 ) writes: on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:15AM (#9723459) Homepage Journal

I didn't know what to do, so I tried going outside!

It's DARK out there!

I'm just going to wait here and watch my screensaver while I wait for /. to come back.

Oh, wait, NM.

Thank god it's back up! (Score:5, Funny)

by bergeron76 ( 176351 ) * writes: on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:22AM (#9723480) Homepage

I've actually had to work for the past few hours.

[shudder]

Slashdotting (Score:5, Funny)

by MaverickUW ( 177871 ) writes: on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:28AM (#9723494)

I didn't know what had happened. I was starting to wonder if slashdot had referenced itself and somehow experienced the slashdot effect

Bug found... (Score:3, Funny)

by atomic-penguin ( 100835 ) writes: <wolfe21@marshall. e d u> on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:51AM (#9723560) Homepage Journal

No "Bugs" link to my left!

Just kidding, made you look!

I knew Karma would pay off... (Score:3, Funny)

by gwoodrow ( 753388 ) writes: on Saturday July 17, 2004 @01:47AM (#9723747)

Thanks to my good slashdot karma, the only time I was busy today was from 9-midnight and entirely missed the blackout. I knew it'd pay off eventually!

yay Taco (Score:4, Informative)

by Geno Z Heinlein ( 659438 ) writes: on Saturday July 17, 2004 @02:28AM (#9723874)

Thanks for upgrading the rss code. Now I don't have to load the RSS for all the subsections separately, because the main rss has all the stories.

15 Minutes Warning (Score:4, Funny)

by rfc1394 ( 155777 ) writes: <Paul@paul-robinson.us> on Saturday July 17, 2004 @02:49AM (#9723916) Homepage Journal

Those dirty rotten #*($#*%( only gave us 15 $#*(@ minutes warning before shutting the #*$% place down. I thought the place had been slashdotted or something, I wasn't able to get through. May they roast in hell for a thousand years with no Internet access!

Next time... (Score:3, Insightful)

by HanB ( 774214 ) writes: on Saturday July 17, 2004 @06:35AM (#9724364)

Please put up one page that explains that you're down and how long it will last. Little effort, great pleasure.
-- With a Henry Rollins song now in my head.

Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) writes: on Saturday July 17, 2004 @08:03AM (#9724547)

Comment removed based on user account deletion

curse you, 12-hour clock..... (Score:3, Funny)

by hta ( 7593 ) writes: on Saturday July 17, 2004 @09:29AM (#9724837) Homepage Journal

9 AM or 9 PM?

will my daily fix disappear in 10 hours 30 minutes, or 12 hours sooner, which is..... wait, that's obvious, isn't it?

Forget that I asked, please....

- Re:Edit? (Score:5, Insightful)
  
  by Star_Gazer ( 25473 ) * writes: on Friday July 16, 2004 @07:54PM (#9723253)
  
  Editing posts is evil! It may seem like a good idea for fixing that stupid typo or the wrong link, but it usually ends in deleted/edited posts where people just don't stand up to their words and nobody can follow what the reason for the discussion/flamewar was.
  
  I see it all the time on other discussion forums, it's no fun!
  
  - Re:Edit? (Score:3, Interesting)
    
    by hattig ( 47930 ) writes:
    
    I wouldn't mind an "Add a footnote to post" option though. Just append a small note to the bottom. like "Doh! Misspelt 'gerbil'! I always do that!"
  - Re:Edit? (Score:2)
    
    by athakur999 ( 44340 ) writes:
    
    That's why all posts should have a CVS like system to view changes, much like Wikipedia has for their entries. Because Slashdot just doesn't require enough resources to run as it is.
  - Re:Edit? (Score:5, Insightful)
    
    by Alsee ( 515537 ) writes: on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:34AM (#9723512) Homepage
    
    A lot of the time you just want to fix a typo or broken tag moments after posting (even when you *did* use preview).
    
    So how about only allowing edits so long as the post has not been modded and no one has replied yet? As far as I can see that avoids every objection to editing posts.
    
    -
    
    - Re:Edit? (Score:5, Funny)
      
      by mooingyak ( 720677 ) writes: on Saturday July 17, 2004 @05:50AM (#9724280)
      
      You'd also need something in place to check if a post you're replying to has been edited since you clicked on the 'Reply' button (or the 'moderate' button) so that you don't get this sequence:
      
      Poster: "I like dogs!"
      
      Another poster clicks reply, and starts to type.
      
      OP clicks edit, and changes to: "I like sex with dogs!"
      
      The 2nd poster now clicks on submit with "It's good to find someone with the same interests as me."
      
      - Re:Edit? (Score:3, Insightful)
        
        by Gherald ( 682277 ) writes:
        
        "Sorry, you are not allowed to edit this comment. Either someone has replied, or it has been moderated."
- Re:Edit? (Score:5, Insightful)
  
  by Yorrike ( 322502 ) writes: on Saturday July 17, 2004 @12:39AM (#9723530) Journal
  
  Or get rid of the circa 1997 layout.
  I mean, tables? C'mon!
  For a site that's constantly running stories on how people should switch to Mozilla and the like, they've decided to keep compatibility to Netscape 3.0.
  No geek runs a browser so old that they have to rely on tables for layout. Get with the program, /.

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9 eastern? (Score:4, Insightful)

Re:9 eastern? (Score:5, Funny)

Re:9 eastern? (Score:5, Funny)

Re:9 eastern? (Score:4, Funny)

Re:9 eastern? (Score:2)

Re:9 eastern? (Score:5, Informative)

Re:9 eastern? (Score:5, Informative)

Re:9 eastern? (Score:2)

LP? (Score:5, Funny)

Re:9 eastern? (Score:5, Funny)

Re:9 eastern? (Score:5, Funny)

Re:Can't (Score:3, Informative)

Re:Can't (Score:3, Insightful)

Re:9 eastern? (Score:3, Informative)

Re:9 eastern? (Score:4, Funny)

Re:9 eastern? (Score:2)

Re:9 eastern? (Score:3, Insightful)

Exactly. (Score:5, Funny)

oh no... (Score:3, Funny)

Re:oh no... (Score:5, Funny)

Re:oh no... (Score:3, Funny)

Re:oh no... (Score:3, Funny)

Re:oh no... (Score:5, Funny)

Re:oh no... (Score:4, Funny)

Re:oh no... (Score:5, Funny)

Re:oh no... (Score:3, Funny)

At least... (Score:5, Funny)

Re:At least... (Score:4, Funny)

Re: (Score:2, Funny)

There's still hope! SouthPark Marathon! (Score:2)

Uh oh.... (Score:5, Funny)

Re:Uh oh.... (Score:4, Funny)

Re:Uh oh.... (Score:3, Funny)

NO! (Score:5, Funny)

Downtime... (Score:5, Funny)

Question.... (Score:4, Insightful)

Re:Question.... (Score:2)

Re:Question.... (Score:3, Insightful)

Re:Question.... (Score:2)

Re:Question.... (Score:2)

Re:Question.... (Score:2)

Re:Question.... (Score:3, Informative)

Re:Question.... (Score:2)

Time::timelocal() says... (Score:5, Funny)

Be sure to do a backup (Score:5, Funny)

Bad timing (Score:5, Funny)

never thought i'd get to say it... (Score:4, Funny)

Re:never thought i'd get to say it... (Score:5, Funny)

Real Life Test (Score:5, Funny)

So, what are the changes? (Score:5, Insightful)

Re:So, what are the changes? (Score:5, Insightful)

How about upgrading to valid html? (Score:5, Insightful)

Re:How about upgrading to valid html? (Score:5, Interesting)

Re:How about upgrading to valid html? (Score:5, Informative)

Re:How about upgrading to valid html? (Score:3, Insightful)

Re:How about upgrading to valid html? (Score:4, Informative)

What Will I Do?!?! (Score:2)

Isn't tonight Stargate Atlantis? (Score:3, Informative)

Re:Isn't tonight Stargate Atlantis? (Score:2)

Re:Isn't tonight Stargate Atlantis? (Score:2)

Aw come on :( (Score:5, Funny)

hmm.. stargate? (Score:2)

yea but (Score:2)

Re:yea but (Score:3, Funny)

Double Posting (Score:2)

Forums? (Score:2)

Evolved... (Score:2)

7 minutes to go *sob* (Score:2)

Re:7 minutes to go *sob* (Score:3, Funny)

Crossing my fingers (Score:5, Funny)

So, Slashdot will be down. (Score:2, Funny)

How many page views / unique IDs per hour? (Score:2)

The Cries (Score:2)

Freedom (Score:2)

While you're at it... (Score:2, Interesting)

Google cache... (Score:3, Funny)

Shashdot will be slashdotted! (Score:2, Funny)

It will be interesting to see what happens (Score:5, Funny)

Last Post (Score:2)

Slashdot down for 3 hours (Score:2)

7 minutes to go sob (Score:2)

Re:7 minutes to go sob (Score:3, Funny)