Ironic I suppose, just lost my long post on the subject... Please have no doubt that I share in everyone of your frustrations. I'll try to capture it all again:
Humble apologies to all for the issues of the past week. We all know that, unfortunately, we have these issues from time to time. Aside from the technical explanations given above, most of which is relatively accurate, the issues are not insurmountable, but really boil down to trying to run an increasingly active site on a budget. Please forgive my silence, I have had my head down trying to patch the issues, whilst simultaneously researching hosting alternatives that will seek to bring stability and a platform on which we can build for the future. Something should be agreed and up and running in the week that will solve the underlying problems. AFKA and I, and all of those that pitch in to do their bit, gratefully ask your continued patience.
The site takes an inordinate amount of time and effort to run and we are all extremely proud of the result, as far as I am aware. There are a number of people who help make the site what it is, from those that try to keep it up and stable, to those that moderate and approve new members, to those that read and contribute on a regular basis and make the site worth visiting. AFKA deserves particular respect as the "face" of the site, particularly as, in that role, he bares the brunt of people's frustrations when things don't go to plan in a manner that I don't. I personally am grateful to you all because, in the main, I am extremely proud of what we've all come together to create. As the site has grown it has taken on an insatiable appetite for technical resources and has eaten all server upgrades (tweaks and optimisations) we've been able to throw at it. The next level is a leap of faith we'll have to take. It's a question of managing growth.
Until now we absorbed all costs and resisted any offers of financial help, largely because we have not been in a position (mainly a time and organisational thing) to guarantee that people get the level of service that they pay for. First, the costs are recurring and donations are often one-offs. Donations also incur further administrative costs, as members will rightfully seek to ensure financial transparency. This is something we'd have to further plan and organise. Lastly, I am somewhat uncomfortable with leveraging the "community" for money, particularly after stating time and time again that the site is not a commercial project and after the tremendous donations people have made in the site's name to charity and other worthy causes. But we are now operating at a level that requires quite a substantial financial outlay for one person. The site was never meant to be a "business" of any kind, nor a place looking for handouts. We ask nothing of you but your time and your input in the form of joining and contributing to our CAFC community. The reality is it's a catch 22. We need more resources to keep things progressing, but we want it to be a refuge from the more negative aspects of football as business. It's Charlton for Charlton and all that that entails. The challenge is to navigate these waters as carefully as is possible. We have yet to fully discuss this, but it's likely we will first seek relevant advertising partners to offset the increasing costs of pushing things forward (there are some cool new site features underway and almost ready to see the light of day).
If the site is accessible in the morning, I hope that the above goes someway towards clearing up any misunderstandings caused by my "poor" showing.
Leroy fella wot can i say ? if the flip flops fit wear em son !
mate the whole seems to revolve round the It mafia these days , that is life. However i object and they do get f**king told to be addressed by people that looklike they just stepped off the beach in Newquay.
The Global IT Mission Statement "turn it off and turn it on again"
Do u tho Sound As ? do you ? how do you know? Im not having a dig at Leroy at all, but IT peps try to speak so us poor bastards in the "other World" dont undertand. We can all do this if we wanted. Me i could tell peeps that the reason there is a problem within their building was two fold. issues with the L8 buildings regs which cant be addressed by the ACOP compounded by the fact there are also issues under CDM and the churn migration will have to be delayed. GOT IT !!!!!
GH - don't give it that. Building engineers everywhere I've worked have done exactly the same thing - talked what would appear to be bollocks because I don't understand it.
You say you're not having a dig, but you ARE having a dig - you and everyone else who takes the p*** when you say we just 'turn it off and on again'. I guarantee you that if I did that in my job, I wouldn't last a week - the problem is that you see 'IT Support' people and equate everyone who works in IT with that level of skill. The vast majority of people you come into contact with as a regular 'user' in the IT world (i.e. IT Support) don't know anything more about IT than the average seventeen year old pillock with glue in his hair working at PC World. IT is, in reality, far more complicated than anything you would see as a regular user. For instance, I manage somewhere in the region of seventy servers - most of which are virtualised on VMWare ESX with storage on a SAN. I have something like thirty different sites to run all the networking (LAN/WAN routing, LAN switching, firewalls etc) for. I have five production databases to look after, running on both SQL Server and Oracle, with ten-odd web servers dishing up our products to tens of thousands of users a day. On top of that, I manage Active Directory for 400 users, run the anti-virus and security systems, the mail and blackberry servers and software distribution. Do you have any idea what happens to an Exchange server is you just 'turn it off and on again' when it goes wrong?
In the same way you're not 'having a dig at IT' I'm not 'having a dig at building engineers' when I say that the last moron who came to service our air conditioners left one of them in such a **** state that it was ****ing water all over our server room two weeks ago on a Monday morning. Ordinarily I would just assume that the building maintenance company sent out their equivalent of IT Support and ring them up to get someone who knows a bit more than how to change a filter. Or maybe I should just 'turn it off and on again' eh?
Lookie - Keep up the good work. This is (sometimes) the only place for intelligent Charlton-related conversation. As Curb_it said you are a victim of your own success.
AFKA - Know I've said it to you before, but would be more than happy to do something to raise funds to keep the site going.
Lookie - Keep up the good work. This is (sometimes) the only place for intelligent Charlton-related conversation. As Curb_it said you are a victim of your own success.
AFKA - Know I've said it to you before, but would be more than happy to do something to raise funds to keep the site going.
"Leroy did u try tho ? i mean turning it off and turning it on ?" No - because then I'd be no better than the countless clueless berks who find something wrong with their PCs, try to fix it themselves, nause it up even worse then blame the 'useless IT department' for it. That winds me up more than anything - why do people think they should be able to fix something that is extremely complicated when they know nothing more than the absolute basics? I know how to drive my car, but if the carburettor explodes I can't bloody well fix it. I know that if I nick something and get caught, I'll get done - but I can't defend myself in court because I'm not familiar enough with the law. I know how to brush my teeth to stop tooth decay, but couldn't give myself a root canal if I needed it.
"as i said we can all play the game of techno babble cant we." Its NOT techno-babble, its your job. Just because I dont understand building codes and regulations, I wouldn't take the **** out of you if you told me that the reason I was standing outside in the freezing cold was because some regulation or other had been breached and the building needed inspecting before I could enter it again - I don't expect you to take the piss out of me if I tell you the reason that you can't access a particular database is because the VM it resides on is down
"Be honest tho flip flops to the IT World are complusory aint they ." Never worn a pair in my life
"PS Building Managers report to me (smily thingy)" Good luck with that. IT Support people report to me.
GH, while the site is clearly kicking and screaming at the doors of the knackers yard, it would be beneficial if you could keep your unique style of wit under wraps for a bit squire.
I say sack Lookie and Adam and put Goonerhater and Leroy in charge.
In all sober seriousness I understood what Leroy was getting at even if I don't understand IT. I thought it was a useful contribution to the debate.
Maybe if Lookie and AFKA would rather not take our dosh they could take our expertise. Leroy isn't the only IT expert on here so maybe they could be a support group/team. In the same way perhaps the legal and financial people could help with auditing any income from donations etc. if CL went down that route.
North London Addick could provide some free soft drinks and NSS could do the CL badges (eventually!!!!!!!!)
I'll stick to writing articles and doing music top fives. I can just about manage that.
That's because I've been away for a few days ;-) - first at the match :-), then on an emergency trip to our flooded house at the Mull of Kintyre :-(
Seriously, I am not going to criticise him all the time there are promising signs like there were on Saturday. I'd be delighted if he can get us into the top six and prove me and others wrong. Would rather go up with him as manager this season than any other outcome.
And back on topic, v pleased site is back running acceptably again - I was having to do too much work...
A wee suggestion - I know the archive is very precious and an important part of the site, but maybe there is a way to take some older stuff offline eg anything not Charlton related that hasn't been accessed for more than 12 months?
not too sure if taking old stuff away would have much impact to be honest.
As an update, the problem appears currently two-fold. There is clearly a problem with the forum set up that is causing it to slow down so frequently. Unfortunately, because it slows down, it doesn't register as a problem with the hosting company unless it crashes.
Secondly, we have simply got too busy, which is amazing considering it was only 7 months ago we upgraded to larger servers. Despite the level of posters appearing to only rise gradually, as an example we are now recording in traffic in 2 months what we used to get in 9-10 months.
Me and Lookout had a long, productive meeting on the phone late last night discussing options, and he's currently talking things over with our hosting company.
Don't know where to begin in terms of updates. I'm like a dog chasing my tail. Everytime I get a lead and think we have a way forward, the next morning everything explodes. We have the hosts (the owner of the hosting) and a third party sysadmin team looking into it.
I found spammers have infiltrated our blog and inserted links into articles and pages. Not nice. I've stripped them all out and we've run scans to make sure there are no virus's, trojans etc. I'll be patching up the blog software tonight.
Mate i have always found when dealing with engineering faults that when you get something that is a total pain and is a persistant pain its best to return to the most basic possible solution and start again there. Sods law if you dont do this through frustration you tend to get in a spiral of complication. Things get more complex and the "solutions" more involved etc.
Yes i know IT is differant but the unwritten law of fault solution (should be) "basic , first last and always".
One thing it cant be is use by volume Its taking so long to get on, turn pages, register that alot of people givve up and come back later.
Comments
Humble apologies to all for the issues of the past week. We all know that, unfortunately, we have these issues from time to time. Aside from the technical explanations given above, most of which is relatively accurate, the issues are not insurmountable, but really boil down to trying to run an increasingly active site on a budget. Please forgive my silence, I have had my head down trying to patch the issues, whilst simultaneously researching hosting alternatives that will seek to bring stability and a platform on which we can build for the future. Something should be agreed and up and running in the week that will solve the underlying problems. AFKA and I, and all of those that pitch in to do their bit, gratefully ask your continued patience.
The site takes an inordinate amount of time and effort to run and we are all extremely proud of the result, as far as I am aware. There are a number of people who help make the site what it is, from those that try to keep it up and stable, to those that moderate and approve new members, to those that read and contribute on a regular basis and make the site worth visiting. AFKA deserves particular respect as the "face" of the site, particularly as, in that role, he bares the brunt of people's frustrations when things don't go to plan in a manner that I don't. I personally am grateful to you all because, in the main, I am extremely proud of what we've all come together to create. As the site has grown it has taken on an insatiable appetite for technical resources and has eaten all server upgrades (tweaks and optimisations) we've been able to throw at it. The next level is a leap of faith we'll have to take. It's a question of managing growth.
Until now we absorbed all costs and resisted any offers of financial help, largely because we have not been in a position (mainly a time and organisational thing) to guarantee that people get the level of service that they pay for. First, the costs are recurring and donations are often one-offs. Donations also incur further administrative costs, as members will rightfully seek to ensure financial transparency. This is something we'd have to further plan and organise. Lastly, I am somewhat uncomfortable with leveraging the "community" for money, particularly after stating time and time again that the site is not a commercial project and after the tremendous donations people have made in the site's name to charity and other worthy causes. But we are now operating at a level that requires quite a substantial financial outlay for one person. The site was never meant to be a "business" of any kind, nor a place looking for handouts. We ask nothing of you but your time and your input in the form of joining and contributing to our CAFC community. The reality is it's a catch 22. We need more resources to keep things progressing, but we want it to be a refuge from the more negative aspects of football as business. It's Charlton for Charlton and all that that entails. The challenge is to navigate these waters as carefully as is possible. We have yet to fully discuss this, but it's likely we will first seek relevant advertising partners to offset the increasing costs of pushing things forward (there are some cool new site features underway and almost ready to see the light of day).
If the site is accessible in the morning, I hope that the above goes someway towards clearing up any misunderstandings caused by my "poor" showing.
Humble apologies,
Adam
mate the whole seems to revolve round the It mafia these days , that is life. However i object and they do get f**king told to be addressed by people that looklike they just stepped off the beach in Newquay.
The Global IT Mission Statement
"turn it off and turn it on again"
We can all do this if we wanted. Me i could tell peeps that the reason there is a problem within their building was two fold. issues with the L8 buildings regs which cant be addressed by the ACOP compounded by the fact there are also issues under CDM and the churn migration will have to be delayed. GOT IT !!!!!
You say you're not having a dig, but you ARE having a dig - you and everyone else who takes the p*** when you say we just 'turn it off and on again'. I guarantee you that if I did that in my job, I wouldn't last a week - the problem is that you see 'IT Support' people and equate everyone who works in IT with that level of skill. The vast majority of people you come into contact with as a regular 'user' in the IT world (i.e. IT Support) don't know anything more about IT than the average seventeen year old pillock with glue in his hair working at PC World. IT is, in reality, far more complicated than anything you would see as a regular user. For instance, I manage somewhere in the region of seventy servers - most of which are virtualised on VMWare ESX with storage on a SAN. I have something like thirty different sites to run all the networking (LAN/WAN routing, LAN switching, firewalls etc) for. I have five production databases to look after, running on both SQL Server and Oracle, with ten-odd web servers dishing up our products to tens of thousands of users a day. On top of that, I manage Active Directory for 400 users, run the anti-virus and security systems, the mail and blackberry servers and software distribution. Do you have any idea what happens to an Exchange server is you just 'turn it off and on again' when it goes wrong?
In the same way you're not 'having a dig at IT' I'm not 'having a dig at building engineers' when I say that the last moron who came to service our air conditioners left one of them in such a **** state that it was ****ing water all over our server room two weeks ago on a Monday morning. Ordinarily I would just assume that the building maintenance company sent out their equivalent of IT Support and ring them up to get someone who knows a bit more than how to change a filter. Or maybe I should just 'turn it off and on again' eh?
as i said we can all play the game of techno babble cant we.
Be honest tho flip flops to the IT World are complusory aint they .
PS Building Managers report to me (smily thingy)
Sorry if i came across harsher than i did - am sure it will get better soon.
Keep up the good work i think you have become a victim to your own massive success.
AFKA - Know I've said it to you before, but would be more than happy to do something to raise funds to keep the site going.
AFKA - Know I've said it to you before, but would be more than happy to do something to raise funds to keep the site going.
"Leroy did u try tho ? i mean turning it off and turning it on ?"
No - because then I'd be no better than the countless clueless berks who find something wrong with their PCs, try to fix it themselves, nause it up even worse then blame the 'useless IT department' for it. That winds me up more than anything - why do people think they should be able to fix something that is extremely complicated when they know nothing more than the absolute basics? I know how to drive my car, but if the carburettor explodes I can't bloody well fix it. I know that if I nick something and get caught, I'll get done - but I can't defend myself in court because I'm not familiar enough with the law. I know how to brush my teeth to stop tooth decay, but couldn't give myself a root canal if I needed it.
"as i said we can all play the game of techno babble cant we."
Its NOT techno-babble, its your job. Just because I dont understand building codes and regulations, I wouldn't take the **** out of you if you told me that the reason I was standing outside in the freezing cold was because some regulation or other had been breached and the building needed inspecting before I could enter it again - I don't expect you to take the piss out of me if I tell you the reason that you can't access a particular database is because the VM it resides on is down
"Be honest tho flip flops to the IT World are complusory aint they ."
Never worn a pair in my life
"PS Building Managers report to me (smily thingy)"
Good luck with that. IT Support people report to me.
We hope to have some news in the next day or two, and we'll let everyone know when we have any form of update.
keep up the good work, i was getting withdrawal symptons!!
I say sack Lookie and Adam and put Goonerhater and Leroy in charge.
In all sober seriousness I understood what Leroy was getting at even if I don't understand IT. I thought it was a useful contribution to the debate.
Maybe if Lookie and AFKA would rather not take our dosh they could take our expertise. Leroy isn't the only IT expert on here so maybe they could be a support group/team. In the same way perhaps the legal and financial people could help with auditing any income from donations etc. if CL went down that route.
North London Addick could provide some free soft drinks and NSS could do the CL badges (eventually!!!!!!!!)
I'll stick to writing articles and doing music top fives. I can just about manage that.
Things must be getting really bad ....... ;o)
Has the max posts displayed per page been reduced from 50 to 40 Lookie? Maybe that could go lower if needs be?
Things must be getting really bad ....... ;o)"
That's because I've been away for a few days ;-) - first at the match :-), then on an emergency trip to our flooded house at the Mull of Kintyre :-(
Seriously, I am not going to criticise him all the time there are promising signs like there were on Saturday. I'd be delighted if he can get us into the top six and prove me and others wrong. Would rather go up with him as manager this season than any other outcome.
And back on topic, v pleased site is back running acceptably again - I was having to do too much work...
A wee suggestion - I know the archive is very precious and an important part of the site, but maybe there is a way to take some older stuff offline eg anything not Charlton related that hasn't been accessed for more than 12 months?
As an update, the problem appears currently two-fold. There is clearly a problem with the forum set up that is causing it to slow down so frequently. Unfortunately, because it slows down, it doesn't register as a problem with the hosting company unless it crashes.
Secondly, we have simply got too busy, which is amazing considering it was only 7 months ago we upgraded to larger servers. Despite the level of posters appearing to only rise gradually, as an example we are now recording in traffic in 2 months what we used to get in 9-10 months.
Me and Lookout had a long, productive meeting on the phone late last night discussing options, and he's currently talking things over with our hosting company.
I found spammers have infiltrated our blog and inserted links into articles and pages. Not nice. I've stripped them all out and we've run scans to make sure there are no virus's, trojans etc. I'll be patching up the blog software tonight.
Hell goes on.
Appreciate everyone's patience.
xx
Yes i know IT is differant but the unwritten law of fault solution (should be) "basic , first last and always".
One thing it cant be is use by volume Its taking so long to get on, turn pages, register that alot of people givve up and come back later.
good luck.