Wow. This is getting ridiculous

[Wytefang]

I love the site, honestly, like we all do, but I don't think I've ever seen a site go down as much as this one.  In fairness, there's a lot going on here with the three sites but wow.  :(

Might be time for some new database software or servers or something - clearly whatever is being used isn't cutting the mustard, so to speak.

Yikes! 

[ralpher]

I agree. I withheld money two Decembers ago because of excessive downtime. Last year was stable, this year is not.

[Sequella]

So true. Its amazing how entitled people feel using services they don't pay for. BGG is unique and extraordinarily valuable, so folks should either lend a hand, lend a supporting attitude, or go build a BGG of your their with 100% up-time and at their own expense.


On Sunday, January 13, 2013 3:03:45 PM UTC-8, Ryan Metzler wrote:

Really folks?  I use BGG, I'd wager, a lot more frequently than the average...or even the heavy...user.  The downtime is hardly a problem, especially given that this site isn't exactly a "necessary" service.  So you can't check your geekmail for a few more hours, or perhaps you can't immediately resolve a rules issue or bid on a geekauction...but really, the immense service that the site provides FOR FREE far outweighs a few instability issues.

~ Ryan

[ಠ_ಠ]

1. Boo

2. Hoo

[Chooi]

He's said it. Anyone complaining amazes me. 

[hallow]

Yep-What Ryan said!

[travvller]

On Sunday, January 13, 2013 5:47:58 PM UTC-5, ralpher wrote:

I agree. I withheld money two Decembers ago because of excessive downtime. Last year was stable, this year is not.

I've seen this sentiment expressed before and it makes no sense.

The more money the site receives, the more stable the site becomes.  So you punish the site by withholding money.  Huh?

I use BGG more than any other site.  I'd be frankly ashamed if I didn't donate a small amount each year.  I simply do not understand all the sense of entitlement among some gamers.  See the same thing with Kickstarter backers who freak out if a game is a few months late.

[LaToya Johnson]

On Sunday, January 13, 2013 6:03:45 PM UTC-5, Ryan Metzler wrote:

...but really, the immense service that the site provides FOR FREE far outweighs a few instability issues.

~ Ryan

He said "few". Heh. 

Compared to what, the amount of time the site is up? Sure.

Compared to every single other damn site I've ever spent time on since friggin compuserve days? I've never seen another site] with this much financial support with even a fraction of the stability issues here. 

Is it a great site? Sure. Am I going to lose sleep over down time? Nope. 

Does that make how badly it's being managed excusable? Hardly. 

[ralpher]

It's not free because I paid.

[jobin13]

word.

[Jason Russell]

On Sunday, January 13, 2013 6:46:08 PM UTC-5, LaToya Johnson wrote:

 

So do spare me the "entitled" and "love it or leave it" and "go start your own site" mantras. I do give financially, far more than most in fact, and will continue to do so simply because I get value from the site during the hours it is up. 

I love the resource that BGG is, that doesn't mean I can't be saddened and frustrated by how poorly it's run. And it IS run poorly. There are only a half dozen other sites I pay for the privilege of participating in. 2 with mandatory fees, and 4 voluntarily, and all of them combined do not have half the downtime this one does. It's shameful really, especially given how many people DO give generously to the site. 

 

Thanks so much Latoya, you've really written an inspired diatribe.

 

Being saddened and frustrated brings out the true nature of people.

 

I believe we all know who you are now.  I hope you manage to survive this traumatic event.

 

But what would we do if we had nothing to whine about...play a game perhaps???

 

No!!!  That'd be fun, but not HALF as fun as venting one's spleen all over good people that do their best to bring joy to this world.

 

One day, they MIGHT be as perfect as you!!!!

 

Then Lord help us all.

 

[batcut]

On Monday, January 14, 2013 11:09:00 AM UTC+11, Jason Russell wrote:

Thanks so much Latoya, you've really written an inspired diatribe.

 

Being saddened and frustrated brings out the true nature of people.

 

I believe we all know who you are now.  I hope you manage to survive this traumatic event.

 

But what would we do if we had nothing to whine about...play a game perhaps???

 

No!!!  That'd be fun, but not HALF as fun as venting one's spleen all over good people that do their best to bring joy to this world.

 

One day, they MIGHT be as perfect as you!!!!

 

Then Lord help us all.

 

Where's that thumb. Good on you Big Jay. 

Hey, I'm unemployed and I wish I had enough time to whine about BGG being down (let alone the inclination). 

Am I missing anything life changing or threatening? No. 

Peace, love and happiness people. Enjoy life.

[Jason Russell]

But you're allowed to attack.  I guess it serves you well enough.

 

And...calling management incompetent doesn't qualify as personal?

 

Thanks buddy, you've reminded me why I should never enter these inane 'conversations';

 

Hopefully the sites back up and we can all get along again.

 

I apologize for my personal attacks.  Vent over,  :)

 

Jay

 

On Sunday, January 13, 2013 7:17:46 PM UTC-5, Sperber wrote:

@Jason Russel

Getting personal serves no one.

You don't agree with Latoya? Fine. But don't attack on a personal level.


That being said it is frustrating when something you have been looking for all day does not happen. Whether it is going to the movies with a friend and suddenly he zakes a raincheck or sitting in oyur office and looking forward to check the new entries on bgg. I understand if people want to express their frustration. I donÄt care if they have a right to do so or not. Better they complain here and get it out of their system than entering a school and start shooting children.

Yes, that's right. I made this connection.

 

[Bruce Murphy]

On Monday, 14 January 2013 10:38:33 UTC+11, Sequella wrote:

So true. Its amazing how entitled people feel using services they don't pay for. BGG is unique and extraordinarily valuable, so folks should either lend a hand, lend a supporting attitude, or go build a BGG of your their with 100% up-time and at their own expense.

BGG is valuable because _the users_ have contributed vast amount of content. BGG makes a great deal of money because a highly focussed audience of users look at a lot of ads on the site. Given that users built it, pay for it with attention or in many cases, pay for it directly, why exactly do you claim that they aren't entitled to it being even moderately reliable?

B>

[orangemoose]

 It's about time I learned how to play Clash of Cultures anyway.

[Sperber]

I don't see that I attacked someone. But just in case I'd like to apologize too if anyone was offended by my comment.

[RideTheory]

On Sunday, January 13, 2013 3:46:47 PM UTC-8, travvller wrote:

The more money the site receives, the more stable the site becomes. 

This is demonstrably not true. 

[casperthegoth]

As a user, I agree Ryan, this is totally a life thing that people should be equipped to handle.

As an IT person I am shocked that this month has been so bumpy. We are off of three record breaking fund raisers and we still don't have a fail over backup? Virtualization has changed the price point for offsite backup hosting. DNS failover is dirt cheap. There is no excuse for a DB to not be replicated and served for emergencies. Facebook isn't a necessary service - I sign in for free. I have never seen it down. It was custom coded from the ground up.

Again, as a gamer, this is all fine. We just went through a hiring phase, and I can tell you that I wouldn't hire any IT guys/gals with BGG on the resume. 

Programmers I would hire in a second. Truly top notch. Maybe even the best out there. And maybe the case is that there are people so good at programming, they think they are good at infrastructure... maybe ego is getting in the way? Who knows.

I donate far more than the patron amount, and I will continue to give monthly as I have for years now. Downtime is an issue for all, but there are solutions. So my response is basically curiosity and shock about the lack of solution management and the continuation of all the unannounced downtime.

[leroy43]

The uptime is more than 99%. 

[bippi]

I have to say, considering the downtime of most sites I surf is close to zero, or maybe 2-3 hours a year...  this is a bit nuts.

Love the site, still gonna send it money, but... frustrated.

[kinwolf]

You work in IT and you think you can simply swap a DB with another? WOW!  Tell your boss to keep you away from all the servers using a DB right now! 

[RideTheory]

On Sunday, January 13, 2013 6:26:06 PM UTC-8, leroy43 wrote:

The uptime is more than 99%. 

Is Ivory soap 99.9% pure or 0.1% impure? 

[Jennifer Schlickbernd]

We know the site is self coded. This means that they don't have access to the resources that other sites use. Most sites are built on Drupal or Joomla or Wordpress. This site is built on Scott Alden & Co. Which means only Aldie and his people can really figure out what's going on and how to fix it. Because of them doing the site themselves, we get a lot of things that a Drupal built site couldn't offer. On the other hand, maybe it is time for them to really think about going with a commercial site instead of trying to keep this together. I will continue to donate because I use the site a ton, and it saves me much more in money than what I donate.

[Pigeon34]

Get your act together please! :)

Thank you! :)

[Aldaron]

FTW.

It really is time for a rethink of how the site is managed. One doesn't have to be "entitled" to see that there's something amiss here. Database-backed websites are an off-the self commodity that can easily be customized to just about any structure. Reliable hosting is cheap and widely available. Yet, this site feels like it was cobbled together like some kind of high school coding project. None of this is a big deal, or even a major inconvenience. And I'm happy to continue supporting the site for what it does well, when it does it — but let's admit: it's goofily and unprofessionally designed and managed.

On Sunday, January 13, 2013 6:46:08 PM UTC-5, LaToya Johnson wrote:

You know what? None of that changes the fact that with the amount of downtime THIS site has, it's simply being managed poorly and poor choices are being made by someone. 

[casperthegoth]

Well, I don't know what DB backend BGG uses. Oracle its no problem.

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/features/availability/maa-wp-10gr2-switchoverfailoverbest-128455.pdf

Computer outage? Failover switching time: 30 seconds. And it works well, we have done this in several government networks.

SQL has similar options not at my fingertips.

[casperthegoth]

99% uptime is cake. That's 3.65 DAYS of downtime per year.

99.9% is a more common metric, but real demanding clients are up to 99.99%.

Regardless, as I said above, I am not dismayed or upset, just somewhat shocked that there isn't a better emergency plan. That's all.

[kinwolf]

When a database is corrupt, it's replica is also corrupt genius.  A failover is only useful when the actual server hosting the DB goes down.  

[ThatSteveGuy]

Don't you think the failover issue is more likely to be one of hardware?  I don't think the geek is sitting on extra servers to run a failover database.

From what I know of Aldie, if he could make this site available with no downtime he would.  I'm sure no one who invests as much time in a website as he does enjoys having a bunch of armchair quarterbacks jump on this message board every time there's an issue to explain just how easily it could be fixed if they were in charge.

[Ryballs]

Yes there are a lot of backseat drivers here aren't there? ;p

[kinwolf]

The problem right now is with the content of the database, not a hardware failure(a bgg admin posted what the problem is in another thread.)  That's why it's stupid for people to say failover DB would be the solution.  When there is bad data in a DB, it gets replicated  just like good data, so your replica is just as useless as the main DB. 

[daveroswell]

Im just waiting for a BGGDown thread to get locked.

[Julia Ziobro]

Agreed. I'm surprised at the vitriol. It seems out of line. Clearly, it's coming from people who weren't at the Con...

:J::A::Z:

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"Ati sarvatra varja aeth... anything excessive is bad"

[Anglotiger]

Oh my.  BGG goes down and the whining begins.  Out come the people who always think that they know better than everyone else,
no matter what the topic.  :)

Pray tell how you think you know this could be run better.

I didn't think so, and that's even excluding this comment you made... 

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=the%20proof%20is%20in%20the%20pudding



On Sunday, January 13, 2013 5:46:08 PM UTC-6, LaToya Johnson wrote:

And before all the apologists chime in with what we've heard ad nauseum…

Yes, we know the site is custom coded.

Yes, we know the site is run on it's own self funded servers.

Yes, we know that you think we should just be grateful for such a great resource and if we don't like the downtime we should go find someplace else.

Yes, we know that even with donations that rival THOUSANDS of sites which cater to many times the amount of traffic and members this is run by just a few people who are dedicated to it full time and depend on it for their livelihood.

Yada yada yada

You know what? None of that changes the fact that with the amount of downtime THIS site has, it's simply being managed poorly and poor choices are being made by someone. 

There are massive communities that are managed entirely by nothing but a volunteer army and with a budget far smaller that run infinitely smoother and with far less unscheduled downtime. (and yes, that includes those custom coded from the ground up) 

If that can be done by folks in their spare time away from their "real" jobs, sorry I'm not going to give extra kudos to those who make a full time living at this (whether it's meager or not) that can't manage to provide uptime comparable to massive communities run by mere hobbyists.

It's just a shame that such a wonderful resource loved by so many people is obviously being mismanaged.

I can live with not having access to a hobby related forum for a few hours, days, or even weeks but that doesn't change the fact that whoever is making the executive decisions here needs to invite some others to lend a hand that know how to manage the site better than they do. 

The proof is in the pudding, and no amount of apologism is going to change the fact that the uptime here is pitiful compared to virtually every other independently run community of equal or greater size I've come across in the last 10 years online. 

Aldie would rather be watching the NFL? Boo hoo. So long as BGG is paying his cable bill, if he's having to give up the game, whose fault is that? This amount of downtime goes way beyond "sh!t happens", because for some magical reason THIS MUCH sh!t just doesn't seem to happen to any other site I know anywhere else on teh intertubes. 

So do spare me the "entitled" and "love it or leave it" and "go start your own site" mantras. I do give financially, far more than most in fact, and will continue to do so simply because I get value from the site during the hours it is up. 

I love the resource that BGG is, that doesn't mean I can't be saddened and frustrated by how poorly it's run. And it IS run poorly. There are only a half dozen other sites I pay for the privilege of participating in. 2 with mandatory fees, and 4 voluntarily, and all of them combined do not have half the downtime this one does. It's shameful really, especially given how many people DO give generously to the site. 

[J.L. Robert]

It's always entertaining to see who's the fastest at circling the wagons. Heaven forbid anyone critiques the sacred cow!

[casperthegoth]

Of course you also know that this isn't always true, right? Depends on the corruption itself. If it is bad data that is stored well, but dangerous to the database, then of course. Naturally the best way to prevent this is in the testing phases (which is not always easy or possible to predict - and as a person who is forced into coding sometimes I absolutely refuse to comment on releasing untested code... lol). If it is physical corruption, it can be prevented from replicating, in fact it wouldn't even be possible to replicate in MS SQL as a physically corrupt database is marked down pretty quick. As for Oracle I haven't really seen it corrupt in that way. I am sure it does, I just haven't seen it..

I am kinda shocked by all the negative tone about armchairing (and the constant spite from kinwolf - what with sarcastically calling me a genius). Sorry, but IT is as much a puzzle / game as anything in BGG. There is no armchairing here, just talking strategy to better optimize the play of the game. I made it pretty clear I support and continue to support BGG even with down time

I mean you have to talk about the bad things to make something good happen. People who click the "Addicts click here" button then claim to say the downtime doesn't affect them are fooling themselves.

[casperthegoth]

Sorry, but this statement just shows everything that is going on here... if people contribute ideas to running something better they are doing their part. If no one is listening, then you know who to blame.

[Anglotiger]

It's not about criticism (at least not for me), it's about people who attempt to speak on matters in an intellectual manner and end up revealing
how little they actually know, but don't want to give away that they just like to whine about things. 

I should point out that I'm not referring to you here.  :)

[Anglotiger]

There was no idea contributed.  Just a long uninformed whine.

[Iidhaegn]

I am contributing to the general chaos and ridiculousness of this thread.

[Anglotiger]

Oh wait - that was your point...  I criticize others and don't always read properly myself...  :)

[JohnnyDollar]

Al Swearengen has a message for all y'all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2Q7YRDL90E

[aramis]

Don't like it? Go elsewhere. Most likely, no one will notice your
absence.

I'm admin on a VBulletin board. And downtime is less on BGG. I'm a
user of 5 other VBulletin boards. All of them but SJG have as much
downtime as BGG... but unlike BGG, most schedule it at the same time
every week. Catholic Answers, for example, is down for 3 hours a week,
for example.

You want more uptime? Buy them an additional server.

But quit the whining, because it's unseemly, ungrateful, and annoying.


On Jan 13, 2:50 pm, LaToya Johnson <mzlatoyajohnson1...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Sunday, January 13, 2013 6:03:45 PM UTC-5, Ryan Metzler wrote:
>
> > ...but really, the immense service that the site provides FOR FREE far
> > outweighs a few instability issues.
>
> > ~ Ryan
>

> He said "few". Heh.
>
> Compared to what, the amount of time the site is up? Sure.
>
> Compared to every single other damn site I've ever spent time on since
> friggin compuserve days? I've never seen another site] with this much
> financial support with even a fraction of the stability issues here.
>
> Is it a great site? Sure. Am I going to lose sleep over down time? Nope.
>
> Does that make how badly it's being managed excusable? Hardly.

[J.L. Robert]

THIS mindset is the absolute worst.  Is this hobby so large that elitism and snobbery will improve it?

 

Chase out people willing to speak out about what they see wrong, then the site will never improve.

 

I doubt there's anyone here who never has a complaint about anything.  Let those who want to vent vent.

[Pigeon34]

It's funny to see people whine about the whiners. Long live the internet!

[raygun gothic]

  I'm shocked that there are people here that can't seem to allow a member to vent a little frustration.   Do they really need to be called whiners or told to go somewhere else or the like?  Can't you just let them get it off their chests.  I think anyone who is a member of this site has the right to say they are discouraged about something.  Criticism doesn't hurt anything.  Cut a little slack jeez.  Most of nastiness isn't even from the people who are expressing their frustration, it's the other side. 

 

Of course defenders have their right to speak also but do it nicely please.  One can defend BGG and all it does without attacking or being rude to anyone.

 

   One of the best things of BGG are it's users and some of the people here are not making a good example.  Just my 2 cents.  OK carry on... I must leave you and go deal with Wu-Feng.  Happy gaming!

[Wytefang]

I just laugh it off as coming from uninformed White Knight defenders riding to the rescue of something not really in need of rescuing.  No, it had to be said and I'm glad I said it. 

Also, no one is stating that it's not a great free service - of course it is, but it doesn't matter how free anything is - if something's not working, people are going to be frustrated and rightfully so.  Most hotels offer "complimentary" wi-fi but when the quality of that wi-fi isn't up to snuff, hotel guests are going to complain and again, they have a right to do so.  And any high-quality hotel worth its salt will take that complaint very seriously.

I've done my share of building up the site (via reviews, posts, donations, etc...) so I don't feel any guilt or griping about the surprisingly large amount of downtime at BGG.  But hey, we're off to a great 2013, eh?  LOL

[livemy...@gmail.com]

What I find most amusing is that…

- There is more outright nastiness on the part of those blindly and unconditionally defending BGG than those raising entirely valid concerns and complaints. 

- This is still happening 8 hours into a site outage. It's been 3 years since I've seen a site this well supported and funded go down for this long. Is it the end of the world? Of course it's not, but it sure as heck points to serious problems at the admin level. 

Most encouraging thing I've seen here (on the Google Group most definitely not this thread) is that the owner is finally seriously looking at solutions not built from his own code. It's an enormous feat that one guys work has taken this site so far, but it's also quite clear that this is no longer sustainable or what is best for the community as a whole. 

I think it's a shame that so many are unwilling to acknowledge that there even IS a problem, or see commentary on it as a simple statement of fact rather than an "attack". This kind of blind groupthink positivity actually hurts more than it helps, because if folks didn't always get shouted down for suggesting that there's a real issue, perhaps these alternatives would have been explored by the owner far earlier.

On Monday, January 14, 2013 12:59:46 AM UTC-5, raygun gothic wrote:

[Game Over]

I'm gonna set up my own site.. Boardgamenerd.com!

Just as soon as Frontpage and Access 97 have finished installing....

[TheDacker]

I like games.

[Jason Russell]

Well, you've all made a convert out of me.

 

The BGG site is run SOOOOO poorly, I mean, 8 HOURS down?!?!?!?!?  (And counting!!!!!). I could've finished a game of Twilight Imperium by now!!!!! C'mon!!!!

 

I contribute LOADS and pay WAY MORE than most, and am MUCH more informed than you groupthinking zombie pleebs...so I have a much more legit right to complain. Defending these money grabbing freeloaders, what a joke. 

 

It's my GOD GIVEN right to vent, and in doing so, the site wll be improved.

 

If it weren't for our constructive, useful criticisms, the BGG Admin would never fix ANYTHING. SO DON'T TREAD ON ME AND MINE, WE'RE SAVING THIS TRAINWRECK OF A SO-CALLED 'WEBSITE'.  pffffft!

 

And I KNOW all you nasty anti venting whiners actually BELIEVE the lies about a brand new website nearing completion...

 

Well, you are WELCOME (well, if the lies are true, but they aren't). It's ONLY due to our vigilant, instant and constant but VERY earned and reasonable venting (NOT WHINING!!!) that ANYTHING gets improved. The creators of BGG have NO interest in improving our site!!!!

 

Also, I have to say this; if it weren't for this space to vent (to improve our site to get back to paying more than the rest of you and contributing VITAL...stufff) ...well, who knows what rage induced killing spree any number of us could resort to. Yes, it had to be said. Let's face reality folks!!!!  This is a completely likely scenario!!!!

 

So stop being so nasty and let us vent (to save our site/contribute/pay more $$$/not kill people). You simply have no right to waste time whining about our very important venting, because we are more informed, and let's face it, much better looking.  And hey, some of us paid 15 whole dollars!!!!  Three+ days down? We want our 15 cents back!!!

 

So for the love of Jebuz, just let us do our jobs.  We will save you from yourselves, and watch the (incompetent) watchers.

 

Trust us, we're the smarter ones.

[LaToya Johnson]

And we all know that ridiculing anyone that has a point of view different than your own is a sure sign of maturity and enlightenment. Oh, and as for this minor detail here...

On Monday, January 14, 2013 3:06:34 AM UTC-5, Jason Russell wrote:

And I KNOW all you nasty anti venting whiners actually BELIEVE the lies about a brand new website nearing completion...

Clearly you haven't read the overhaul post. That brand new site nearing completion? It's been completely abandoned. 

There is no time frame whatsoever for the site overhaul now since the site owner is (thankfully) looking into entirely third party solutions now rather than continuing to single-handedly code the entire site himself.

[Jason Russell]

Point, set, match.  The crowd goes wild!!!!!

 

I'm way over my head I guess.  Like i said, you guys are the smarter ones.

 

Enjoy being miserable with your friends honey!

 

And thanks for saving us LaToya et al.  Don't know what we'd do without you  ;)

 

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

 

 

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[NoTaste Left]

By that logic, free board games given to people should never receive
negative feedback either.

On Jan 13, 6:03 pm, Ryan Metzler <rpmetz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Really folks?  I use BGG, I'd wager, a lot more frequently than the
> average...or even the heavy...user.  The downtime is hardly a problem,
> especially given that this site isn't exactly a "necessary" service.  So
> you can't check your geekmail for a few more hours, or perhaps you can't
> immediately resolve a rules issue or bid on a geekauction...but really, the

[ralpher]

You are way over your head.  

[Joseph Propati]

 

No, I think they were hit with a virus!  My box just got hit with a trojan when I was opening my messages in BGG.

 

Make sure you virus scan your boxes!!!

[mattco...@yahoo.com]

I think even the people who wish nobody would say anything bad about BGG are wishing you weren't on their side right about now.

[slowcorner]

Throwing my voice in with the "whiners".  No, this doesn't upend my life, or, honestly, inconvenience me in any way.   Well, except for a few nights ago when we went to download a ruleset.  Or last week when we went to access some mp3 files for a game.  The point is that this is a site run by full-time staff, that takes on tons of donations, and, lately, it goes down All The Time.  I can't think of any other site that I regularly visit that has even gone down even once in recent memory.  

I'm sayin' that it's starting to look bad, is what I'm sayin'.  Perception counts for a lot.  Performance counts for a lot.  Getting into the business of calling critics "whiners" or "entitled" counts for nothing, except making you look like a star-eyed groupie.  Telling me about how this commercial site is "free", with its user-generated content, fund drives (to which I've contributed for eight years), and advertisements, in order to make me stop complaining reveals a startling gullibility on your part.  

Look, there's a lot to love about BGG, and it's still my favorite place on the internet.  But don't let that emotion cloud your reasoning skills to the point where you attack your fellow BGGers for voicing their opinions.

[xpired soda pop]

+ 1. 

[ಠ_ಠ]

Comedy gold.