3rd "The Sites are down" topic!

Jackhass · Post by **Jackhass** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 1:14 pm

It's the biggest issue going on with the community at the moment. Shutting down any discussion on it is stupid and isn't going to stop anyone from being upset. Besides, there needs to be a place to get updates from the admins, so discuss what you will.

Post by **Mercury Hat** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 1:23 pm

Admins can respond to locked topics just fine or can make their own if need be.

It's fine in this case to create a new, calmer thread since it would appear things have bucked again, but this is not going to turn into another shouting match. I am so dead serious about this. If the bickering starts up again, I can lock this thread too.

I get that people are frustrated, but I'm getting a lot more annoyed at people's behavior here than anything the server is doing at the moment.

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 1:31 pm

*sigh*

So what's it lookin like?

Post by **Mercury Hat** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 1:36 pm

What I know as far as things getting fixed: Kisai is apparently moving at the moment so her internet connectivity is spotty, I haven't seen Kelly online today as he's likely been at work, a new server is due to arrive somewhere around the 23rd.

Gloria · Post by **Gloria** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 1:44 pm

Having been hosted on Keenspace/Comicgen since 2001, I am not terribly concerned about recent outages. This too shall pass, as it always has. I for one have actually been really happy with the service for the last few years, the instability is nowhere NEAR what it used to be. These recent hiccups are mildly annoying, but we just have to wait it out.

Now, I do realise that downtime = lost $$$ for artists who are relying on their comic for income. I think those people should probably consider having a backup plan (like a blog or something) where they can conduct their business during these periods of instability.

Personally, since I'm not making any money off of my comic and I'm not concerned at all with how many readers I have (I actually take pains to
AVOID promoting my comic, for reasons of my own), I'm content to wait, as I always have.

I am looking forward to when things are back to normal, but you'll hear no complaints from me!

Jackhass · Post by **Jackhass** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 1:53 pm

Mercury Hat wrote:It's fine in this case to create a new, calmer thread since it would appear things have bucked again, but this is not going to turn into another shouting match. I am so dead serious about this. If the bickering starts up again, I can lock this thread too.

I get that people are frustrated, but I'm getting a lot more annoyed at people's behavior here than anything the server is doing at the moment.

*Shrug*...hey, I didn't start the thread for the purposes of more fighting. But I'm sure about half the people on the boards right now are people who tried to load thier site, found it didn't work, and then tracked down the boards to see what's going on, so there needs to be a thread of some sort.

Oh, and was the behavior in the old threads really that bad by Internet messageboard standards?

VIIStar · Post by **VIIStar** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 1:57 pm

Maybe there should be an announcement thread on the help center only for admins to post and let people know what's going on?

Jackhass · Post by **Jackhass** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 2:03 pm

VIIStar wrote:Maybe there should be an announcement thread on the help center only for admins to post and let people know what's going on?

Yeah...seems sticky worthy to me. But whatever, if they're too busy actually fixing stuff to bother then so be it.

[geoduck] · Post by **[geoduck]** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 2:24 pm

Jackhass wrote:
VIIStar wrote:Maybe there should be an announcement thread on the help center only for admins to post and let people know what's going on?
Yeah...seems sticky worthy to me. But whatever, if they're too busy actually fixing stuff to bother then so be it.

Ditto. A prominent and designated place where official repair/upgrade info, and only official info, gets posted would be a great help, both for the CG folks and us artists.

Spqrblues · Post by **Spqrblues** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 2:40 pm

I am a sad, saaaaaad camper because, after crawling back from a hiatus, I just got what might be the biggest plug for my comic I will ever have, so I hope people googling for the comic will thinking of clicking the third URL that shows up (the archives on another site) when the first two (CG) don't work, instead of giving up on it. So what I need is a thread where I can figuratively drink myself under a virtual table and weep into my tequila while others pat me on the back and get legless too and join me on the sticky barroom floor getting the impressions of discarded beer bottle caps smushed into our faces.

Maybe not this thread, though?

VIIStar · Post by **VIIStar** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 2:50 pm

to SPQRBlues:

On googling your comic title, you have enough working links that i don't think it will be much of a problem...

Spqrblues · Post by **Spqrblues** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 2:55 pm

VIIStar wrote:On googling your comic title, you have enough working links that i don't think it will be much of a problem...

Yah... a bunch of those are for a billion-year-old different web project under the same name (that inspired the comic), but that other thing does link to the comic itself. I guess I'm just all paranoid about people who are only mildly intrigued trying to click once and then going away, which probably isn't a realistic worry. I'd still like some tequila, though.

Brigid · Post by **Brigid** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 2:58 pm

So that's what's going on. I was wondering why there have been so many outages in the last few days. It's kinda annoying because they seem to coincide with the days my comic is supposed to update.

Really, I'm not so much upset about the outages (to ere is human, to really mess things up you need a computer). It's how blasted hard it's been finding out what the heck is wrong.

I definitely think a 'problem status' thread would be a great idea.

VIIStar · Post by **VIIStar** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:03 pm

To SPQRBlues:

The only thing I could suggest that would make you worry less is to have a really dependable mirror that you post links to as much as the cg site (maybe pick up the domain spqrblues.com). I mirror on space I pay for, so I know it'll be up and carry the weight when CG goes down. For about 3 weeks, I’ve had 1850 referrers from CG to my main site, so if people really want to see, they'll find the mirror site....

Heh, for drinking, who needs a reason? I'll take diSaronno in a shot glass.

Datachasers · Post by **Datachasers** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:40 pm

as i said earlyer ( in the now locked thread )
i work in tech support - i know how annoying and frustrating server issues can be - ( trust me spending upwards of 3 to 8 hours isnt that uncommon )
and sometimes it can take days to hammer out the bugs -

ive worked with win95 to NT servers - i dont know what kind of server they have but even when they put the new one up its going to result in more down time, thats just the way it goes -

i can understand the effort to prevent shouting matches ( thats silly IMHO ) i think whats causing most of the screaming and fits is the "comics as a income" talk...

i personally am happy and thankful the admins are working on the problem and willing to devote there time to this - and when they can get it kicked back to life great - in a month readership will be back up and all will be better or back to normal -

i spoke with someone that reads a *lot* of webcomics and pretty much he said that if a "group" of comics are down then they are not going to leave permanetly but they will check back , this downtime didnt affect just one person or one comic , it affected EVERYone .. and thats plainly obvious -
so relax - as she(?) said this will be fixed , dont make rash decisions and get yourself into a very frustrating position -

hopefully the new server build will go smoothly - there are a "lot" of things that can go wrong - if i were you i would back up your pages and html files ( although i think CG does that anyway )

i like the updates from the admins thats going on - \
again thank you for all you do!

Swikan · Post by **Swikan** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 4:23 pm

The admins should have news/status threads going to keep us informed everytime something goes wrong.

Of course, we are going to talk and commiserate and bitch and moan among ourselves We whine and fuss to each other because it is natural, it feels good to vent with other people who are feeling the same things and these forums are the place to do it, and to compare notes on how we are handling it with our respective situations.

But what is MOST frustrating is that there has been no official status thread or news item (DO we even use the news section on the ComicGenesis.com page for anything?) to keep us and our readers informed as to what is going on. While it is the 3rd user-started topic on the subject of the current down time. There hasn't been ONE official thread. I do understand the admins are working on the problem, but it *feels* on this side of the situation as if ComicGenesis is saying "tough darts" to us, or worse, is just indifferent to our need to know what is going on.

Brigid · Post by **Brigid** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 5:56 pm

Took the words right out of my mouth, Swikan.

Of course, one *hopes* that the reason there isn't a news thread about this is because the admins are scurrying about like mad trying to fix the situation, but it would be nice to *know*.

Kirb · Post by **Kirb** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 7:07 pm

The site's back up, but it seems like the queue has been clogged up since then. I tried to update at 3PMish when the server came back up, but the number in the queue grows ever larger, never getting smaller.

399 and counting. Just letting folks know.

Turnsky · Post by **Turnsky** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 9:00 pm

Swikan wrote:The admins should have news/status threads going to keep us informed everytime something goes wrong.

Of course, we are going to talk and commiserate and bitch and moan among ourselves We whine and fuss to each other because it is natural, it feels good to vent with other people who are feeling the same things and these forums are the place to do it, and to compare notes on how we are handling it with our respective situations.

But what is MOST frustrating is that there has been no official status thread or news item (DO we even use the news section on the ComicGenesis.com page for anything?) to keep us and our readers informed as to what is going on. While it is the 3rd user-started topic on the subject of the current down time. There hasn't been ONE official thread. I do understand the admins are working on the problem, but it *feels* on this side of the situation as if ComicGenesis is saying "tough darts" to us, or worse, is just indifferent to our need to know what is going on.

this is true, mind you, the admins are prolly too busy doing RL stuff (like work) and fixing the problem to actually say they're fixing the problem.

it can be a bit of unknown. I'm more curious as to what's the direct cause of the problems, though..
Hopefully after the 23rd, these problems will just go away for a fair while.

Swiftbow · Post by **Swiftbow** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 10:20 pm

Turnsky wrote: this is true, mind you, the admins are prolly too busy doing RL stuff (like work) and fixing the problem to actually say they're fixing the problem.
it can be a bit of unknown. I'm more curious as to what's the direct cause of the problems, though..
Hopefully after the 23rd, these problems will just go away for a fair while.

Considering the amount of time it takes to create a stickied forum post consisting of the sentence: "we have a problem, and we're fixing it," I find that excuse a little lame. Sorry.

That isn't to say I haven't appreciated comicgenesis for what it's been, a great free site for a few years. But keep in mind, it isn't completely "free." We all run the ads. This site isn't done out of the goodness of their hearts. As such, people using the service do have the right to at least know what's going on. My frustration at server downtime has mostly built from the fact that this is the first outage wherein I've even been able to find a forum post on the subject, not to mention find a message from an admin. That sort of thing makes me automatically wonder if they're even aware that there's a problem. I suppose it's unlikely that they wouldn't, but how's a lowly author to know for sure?

Now this may sound a little ungrateful, so I'll just make sure to append that I do support comicgenesis and would definitely (and have) recommended it to new comic authors. But as self-employed businessman myself, I'm just inserting my own opinions on improving it. Take it as you will.

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3rd "The Sites are down" topic!

3rd "The Sites are down" topic!

bleh