Slashdot Mirror
System Downtime, Maintenance
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!
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...
Boycott everything - they're all trying to fuck you one way or another
At least it's night time (here) so I can go outside to play. The evil burning brightness is gone for 8 hours.
20,000 nerds are going to have to find something else to do for three hours...
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
slashdot isn't that crucial to your Friday night, is it?
uh oh, no /. for 3 hours! I might have to actually interact with people in meatspace! say it ain't so!!!
You forgot to add, "Do not attempt sexual relations, as years of computer monitor radiation have left
your genitals withered and useless."
Just kidding.
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
watch this
last comment
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.
i hotdog.
I was about to launch my DOS attack on /. at that time!
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.
I also reply below your current threshold.
"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!
Last Post?!?
I wonder if the subscribers get the downtime before the rest of us?
Even if, we still have Stargate Atlantis and Fark, so we'll live.
Now, take my Fark and we'll have words.
Oh, I almost forgot, while slashdot is down, you should check out this homestarrunner "system is down" message.
Trust me.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
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.
The ______ Agenda
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.
The downtime will be between 1090026000 and 1090036800.
The story was submitted a while ago, but you know how long it takes for the editors to get around to posting stuff...
I've actually had to work for the past few hours.
[shudder]
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
I didn't know what had happened. I was starting to wonder if slashdot had referenced itself and somehow experienced the slashdot effect
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!
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!
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
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."
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
I'm so glad that Slashdot finally made the switch from Windows 98 to Windows98 Second Edition. I expect that this will make thing run much more smoothly.