This Forum is really irritating

[Yunaderis]

I love the forum and the info provided...

 

But the constant errors and timeouts are lame......super lame....

 

is this something temporary or this the way its going to be?

 

is the forum currently in the process of moving?

 

 

help stop the insanity and fill me in

[+Vertigo]

I couldn't agree more, lets get it together!

 

Are all the other opentopic sites this bad?

[+CacheCows]

Its been posted on other threads that both the site administrators and the support engineers from OpenTopic are working on this site to resolve a few problems. These outages appear when they are doing their work and testing.

 

Many of us have been using these forums since they opened a couple of years ago, and their up time has been excellent. Just bear with this 'work in process', it will get fixed. I'd much rather have it this way than to have them simply shut it down completely till they are finished. Lets cut them some slack...

 

_________________________________

Member:

[+CacheCows]

Its been posted on other threads that both the site administrators and the support engineers from OpenTopic are working on this site to resolve a few problems. These outages appear when they are doing their work and testing.

 

Many of us have been using these forums since they opened a couple of years ago, and their up time has been excellent. Just bear with this 'work in process', it will get fixed. I'd much rather have it this way than to have them simply shut it down completely till they are finished. Lets cut them some slack...

 

_________________________________

Member:

[Yunaderis]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Team CacheCows of Wisconsin:

Its been posted on other threads that both the site administrators and the support engineers from OpenTopic are working on this site to resolve a few problems. These outages appear when they are doing their work and testing.

 

Many of us have been using these forums since they opened a couple of years ago, and their up time has been excellent. Just bear with this 'work in process', it will get fixed. I'd much rather have it this way than to have them simply shut it down completely till they are finished. Lets cut them some slack...

 

_________________________________

Member:http://www.wi-geocaching.com

---

 

ok, cool..thanks for the heads up I appreciate you passing the info on...

 

thanks

[Yunaderis]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Team CacheCows of Wisconsin:

Its been posted on other threads that both the site administrators and the support engineers from OpenTopic are working on this site to resolve a few problems. These outages appear when they are doing their work and testing.

 

Many of us have been using these forums since they opened a couple of years ago, and their up time has been excellent. Just bear with this 'work in process', it will get fixed. I'd much rather have it this way than to have them simply shut it down completely till they are finished. Lets cut them some slack...

 

_________________________________

Member:http://www.wi-geocaching.com

---

 

ok, cool..thanks for the heads up I appreciate you passing the info on...

 

thanks

[+Bluespreacher]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pote:

Hey,there's always usenet...

---

 

There's always FIDOnet, too. No, wait! No there's not!

 

Bluespreacher

[+Macro]

Any official word on what the problem has been? or an ETA on getting it resolved?

[Jake.Hazelip]

Sorry, TeamCacheCows, I can't forgive a company for selling what appears to be poorly designed code as a commercial product.

 

This forum is broken, and they sold it that way. If this were a car, you'd be checking out your local lemon laws...

[+inceptor]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jake.Hazelip:

Sorry, TeamCacheCows, I can't forgive a company for selling what appears to be poorly designed code as a commercial product.

 

This forum is broken, and they sold it that way. If this were a car, you'd be checking out your local lemon laws...

---

 

Sorry Jake, I do not agree with you. This site has been fun for me. Do I expect perfection? NO! I don't walk on water and don't expect anyone else to. I have less problems here that other sites I visit.

 

The car analogy does not work here. A car you purchase. This site you have just chosen to support. There is a difference.

 

inceptor

the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys

[+inceptor]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jake.Hazelip:

Sorry, TeamCacheCows, I can't forgive a company for selling what appears to be poorly designed code as a commercial product.

 

This forum is broken, and they sold it that way. If this were a car, you'd be checking out your local lemon laws...

---

 

Sorry Jake, I do not agree with you. This site has been fun for me. Do I expect perfection? NO! I don't walk on water and don't expect anyone else to. I have less problems here that other sites I visit.

 

The car analogy does not work here. A car you purchase. This site you have just chosen to support. There is a difference.

 

inceptor

the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys

[+ApK]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jake.Hazelip:

Sorry, TeamCacheCows, I can't forgive a company for selling what appears to be poorly designed code as a commercial product.

 

This forum is broken, and they sold it that way. If this were a car, you'd be checking out your local lemon laws...

---

 

All non-trivial software is imperfect. You can stop using it, learn to program and do it better yourself or deal with the reality of it.

 

As for degrees of imperfection, there's a reason that forum software costs a few $100 dollars and nuclear power plant control software costs hundreds of THOUSANDS.....

[Jake.Hazelip]

I have very little in the way of disagreements with the arguments against my car analogy...except to say you're wrong.

 

Anyway, I think there is something about which we can all agree when it comes to the forums. The old forums worked much, much more smoothly.

[Jake.Hazelip]

I have very little in the way of disagreements with the arguments against my car analogy...except to say you're wrong.

 

Anyway, I think there is something about which we can all agree when it comes to the forums. The old forums worked much, much more smoothly.

[+Jamie Z]

Jake,

 

While I can agree that the old forums worked more smoothly, these forums work much better with the site as a whole. I like being able to jump back to the site from the forums. I like being able to click on a persons profile and looking at the caches they've hidden or found.

 

I think these forums are better.

 

Jamie

[jfitzpat]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jake.Hazelip:

I have very little in the way of disagreements with the arguments against my car analogy...except to say you're wrong.

---

 

I would have to agree that the forum is operating very erratically, but I think it is a bit of a leap to bag on the company that developed the forum software without knowing more.

 

Most of the time, this sort of software is deployed as source (PHP scripts, etc.), and there is a huge burden on the folks deploying the individual installation. IE, it may very well be Groundspeak specific enhancements that are causing the problems - modifications for unexpected platform, tighter integration to rest of site, whatever.

 

To use your car analogy, if the new owner bangs on the windshield with a rock to create a pleasing pattern of spiderweb type lines, is it the manufacturer's fault when the wind finally blows a pile of safety glass pellets into the front seat?

 

Also, a car is a turnkey product. Forum software is an add on for someone elses already complicated products. The script engine, HTTP server, or database could all be at fault. There are lots of possible configurations for all three. Certainly, some of the problems I see look like database and content caching issues (server, not page, related).

 

Again, to use your car analogy, if you buy a kit car and the owner provided tires and engine don't match the spec and/or don't perform to spec, is it the kit's fault that the vehicle does not run to spec?

 

Keep in mind that this is the same company that provided the previous forum scripts. And, per Jeremy, there was also a database migration and server upgrade at the same time.

 

Complain all you want, but I'm sure Jeremy is doing the best he can, and I am sure that the vendors (generally small outfits as well) are trying to support him. Finger pointing, without facts, fixes nothing.

 

-jjf

[jfitzpat]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jake.Hazelip:

I have very little in the way of disagreements with the arguments against my car analogy...except to say you're wrong.

---

 

I would have to agree that the forum is operating very erratically, but I think it is a bit of a leap to bag on the company that developed the forum software without knowing more.

 

Most of the time, this sort of software is deployed as source (PHP scripts, etc.), and there is a huge burden on the folks deploying the individual installation. IE, it may very well be Groundspeak specific enhancements that are causing the problems - modifications for unexpected platform, tighter integration to rest of site, whatever.

 

To use your car analogy, if the new owner bangs on the windshield with a rock to create a pleasing pattern of spiderweb type lines, is it the manufacturer's fault when the wind finally blows a pile of safety glass pellets into the front seat?

 

Also, a car is a turnkey product. Forum software is an add on for someone elses already complicated products. The script engine, HTTP server, or database could all be at fault. There are lots of possible configurations for all three. Certainly, some of the problems I see look like database and content caching issues (server, not page, related).

 

Again, to use your car analogy, if you buy a kit car and the owner provided tires and engine don't match the spec and/or don't perform to spec, is it the kit's fault that the vehicle does not run to spec?

 

Keep in mind that this is the same company that provided the previous forum scripts. And, per Jeremy, there was also a database migration and server upgrade at the same time.

 

Complain all you want, but I'm sure Jeremy is doing the best he can, and I am sure that the vendors (generally small outfits as well) are trying to support him. Finger pointing, without facts, fixes nothing.

 

-jjf

[Jake.Hazelip]

Finger pointing? Lighten up. I'm only pointing to the errors that are plaguing us. Check out the GC.com forum, one person alone got 45 white screens! That's not just buggy code, it's bad code.

 

For what it's worth, I've dinked around with some coding here and there. While I understand that there can be problems, I also understand that those problems are discovered during a closed testing period prior to public release... I'm a forum user and participant, I am NOT a beta tester.

[+Dakota Ladybug]

I was surprised when I read this thread yesterday. I hadn't encounter any problems when going from forum to forum. Now tonight I have only encountered one error page. Why are some getting alot of errors and some of us very very few? Just wondering......

[MajBach]

I'm using Explorer 5.5 and never have experienced a problem with the exception that I cannot autologin.

 

MajBach

You can't have everything.

where would you put it?

[King Pellinore]

you don't fight destiny, no sir! and you don't eat crackers in the bed of your future or you get all.....scratchy

 

King Pellinore

[Jeremy]

Sorry, I haven't been able to follow up on this. We're on their beta server, so although we get access to many new features in their software, we occasionally have to deal with outages.

 

When I agreed to move to the new forums I didn't expect this number of outages, but I'm sure it is only a temporary issue. If it does continue, I'll look to move it off the beta machine.

 

Jeremy

 

Jeremy Irish

Groundspeak Lackey and Geopuppet

[+mrcpu]

I checked out vbulletin from another company. It ROCKS. There is private messaging, popup messaging, chat, and lots of cool stuff and hacks. The whole thing costs like $200 bucks!

 

Featurewise, it is much richer and fuller featured then this one we are using now. Wierd thing is they are SO similar in appearance that it's not funny.

 

Jelsoft, makers of vBulletin

 

Rob

Mobile Cache Command

[jfitzpat]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jake.Hazelip:

Finger pointing? Lighten up. I'm only pointing to the errors that are plaguing us. Check out the GC.com forum, one person alone got 45 white screens! That's not just buggy code, it's bad code.

 

For what it's worth, I've dinked around with some coding here and there. While I understand that there can be problems, I also understand that those problems are discovered during a closed testing period prior to public release... I'm a forum user and participant, I am NOT a beta tester.

---

 

I think you missed the point entirely. You can't point at the "code", "bad" or otherwise, because you are dealing with a complex system. The forum scripts themselves are just one part.

 

I'm glad you get the concept of beta testing. Like it or not, you are a beta tester. Read Jeremy's post. He has elected to participate in a beta program, making this a beta site.

 

I can assure you, from far too many years of personal experience, that there is a big difference between 'dabbling', and bringing a commercial grade product to market. I've yet to meet a relatively inexperienced programmer who was not left stunned and dazed the first time he/she passed something on to a good QA department. Then they have to listen to my stock lectures on quality...

 

The first 90% is easy, the last 10% is hard, really hard. If it wasn't, there wouldn't be so many crappy programs out there.

 

-jjf

[jfitzpat]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jake.Hazelip:

Finger pointing? Lighten up. I'm only pointing to the errors that are plaguing us. Check out the GC.com forum, one person alone got 45 white screens! That's not just buggy code, it's bad code.

 

For what it's worth, I've dinked around with some coding here and there. While I understand that there can be problems, I also understand that those problems are discovered during a closed testing period prior to public release... I'm a forum user and participant, I am NOT a beta tester.

---

 

I think you missed the point entirely. You can't point at the "code", "bad" or otherwise, because you are dealing with a complex system. The forum scripts themselves are just one part.

 

I'm glad you get the concept of beta testing. Like it or not, you are a beta tester. Read Jeremy's post. He has elected to participate in a beta program, making this a beta site.

 

I can assure you, from far too many years of personal experience, that there is a big difference between 'dabbling', and bringing a commercial grade product to market. I've yet to meet a relatively inexperienced programmer who was not left stunned and dazed the first time he/she passed something on to a good QA department. Then they have to listen to my stock lectures on quality...

 

The first 90% is easy, the last 10% is hard, really hard. If it wasn't, there wouldn't be so many crappy programs out there.

 

-jjf

[+parkrrrr]

quote:

---

Originally posted by jfitzpat:

The first 90% is easy, the last 10% is hard, really hard. If it wasn't, there wouldn't be so many crappy programs out there.

---

Exactly. That's why people who know say "The first 90% takes the first 90% of the time; the last 10% takes the other 90% of the time."