Service down - unable to register our sites

Hi laskos,

I'm afraid we don't know when the technical error that prevents site suggestions will be fixed. The same error also makes it impossible for editors to edit, so you can be very sure that nobody is more anxious for it to be fixed than we are

There is an announcement about the problem at the top of the forum. When things are working again, this announcement will be updated. Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later but as yet we just don't know when it will be.

Thank you for your patience.

Hi,
I have been trying to register our company's web sites but keep getting the message 'Service temporarily available'. This has been happening for over a week. Does anyone know when the service will be back up and running?

Regards,
Gareth

Actually, it's been more than a month. Follow our Announcements forum for whatever news we have.

It is rather unlikely that we'll know ahead of time when anything will happen. We'll announce things when they happen, though.

Any idea when submit URL is going to be back online? It's been over a month now. Don't make me get out my wrench

Please read the post immediately prior to yours.

Service down - cloak of secrecy?

I don't get it - it seems like there's a cloak of secrecy shrouding this service interruption – is there another forum where more light is being shed on this situation? – what’s the problem, who’s addressing it, why no target date for resolution? – DMOZ is the most important directory on the internet, and, given it’s name, one would expect more openness – why does the flow of information seem so closed?

I have also been waiting to register my new site, thing's don't normally take this long to fix??

Is there something more we don't know?

Is there something more we don't know?

Click to expand...

We don't know .

AOL's technicians, who run our servers, are repairing the system. I can't tell you any more than that without guessing.

Byron said:

I don't get it - it seems like there's a cloak of secrecy shrouding this service interruption – is there another forum where more light is being shed on this situation?

Click to expand...

No, not even in the DMOZ internal editor forum.

> what’s the problem,
It went boom, a big boom
> who’s addressing it,
AOL technicians
> why no target date for resolution?
Because we don't know the date
> why does the flow of information seem so closed?
We provide all the information we as editors have.
And that information is "we dont know"

The communication on this has run just like any software development project I've ever worked on: I'm sure the people who are working on the problems know the status, and I'm sure their managers know, and pretty much nobody else does.

In this case, editors are mostly in the "people not working on the problem" category, and therefore have no more information than you do -- and for that matter, no more need for it. Granted, we editors have much greater motives for curiosity. But "curiosity" is in no way related to "has a practical use for that information."

pvgool is correct, we honestly don't know ourselves, we're just waiting patiently, as that's all we can do, .

We've put a big chunk of our lives into this, so, it's very important to us, also, but the reason there is such secrecy is because there is just no information to share with you.

Doesn't it seem reasonable to ask for and expect more information from the AOL/Netscape engineers working on the DMOZ issues? I mean, what's that big secret? DMOZ listing submissions and reviews drive most/all the big internet directories, and a lot of us depend on those directories to find/be found. A six week shut down for a keystone internet service is huge deal. Is the technical problem really that thorny or is there more going on behind the curtain?

We have told you everything we know.

And as far as we know, yes, the technical problem is very thorny indeed. (As we have also repeatedly said )

>Doesn't it seem reasonable to ask for and expect more information from the AOL/Netscape engineers working on the DMOZ issues?

It absolutely is not reasonable. What could you do with that information that would help the project? Nothing, obviously.

And what stake do you hold?

>I mean, what's that big secret?

There is not, so far as I know, any big secret in that, any more than there was any big secret in the WWW Optimizing Compiler for XXX project, or the YYY Allocation algorithm for ZZZ. But I very seldom (all right, never) told strangers what I was doing, what problems I faced, or how long I expected to be working on them. Never. So what conceivable reason could a a reasonable person have, for expecting the AOL technicians to act any differently?

>DMOZ listing submissions and reviews drive most/all the big internet directories, and a lot of us depend on those directories to find/be found.

That is not a service that the ODP has offered, does offer, or will offer.

>A six week shut down for a keystone internet service is huge deal.

The only services that the ODP has ever offered, are all functioning. The directory is open for all users, and the RDF is published for all licensees, and those have been available almost continuously, even while directory development was shut down.

>Is the technical problem really that thorny or is there more going on behind the curtain?

At a prior job, I was in a programming group that supported a 4gl used by several application groups. And in one of those application groups there was a woman that my manager really disliked, because she brought so many problems to us.

She didn't cause problems -- what she did was solve all the problems that could be solved with the tools we gave them. Any problem left over was going to involve major changes in our software! So when she called me saying sweetly, "I've got a little problem", I knew we were about to be b'ar wrestling, no holds barred.

That was demonstrated competence. I have the same kind of faith, with the same good reason, in the people working on this problem. If they say they have a little problem, 19 of the next 20 "real programmers" would have no hope of finding a solution.

jimnoble said:

AOL's technicians, who run our servers, are repairing the system. I can't tell you any more than that without guessing.

Click to expand...

Since they are AOL technicians, they probably can't tell you more without guessing either There's a reason why AOL is free now :icon_idea DMOZ is probably headed in the direction of the internet toilet if they don't get this fixed quickly :icon_excl

I'm not questioning anyone's competence, I'd just like to hear from someone who knows what's going regarding fix for the "Suggest URL" service ... that service is current unavailable, and I assume that's what this thread has been about ... if in fact somebody is working on the problem, then **somebody** knows what's going on...... if it is "long term" outage, then it would help me in doing my job to know that ... I think there are plenty of reasonable people who think that is a reasonable thing to ask ... I also think there are plenty of good engineers who are happy to discuss things like that... I was hoping one of those (AOL/Netscape?) engineers might chime in....

I was hoping one of those (AOL/Netscape?) engineers might chime in....

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I'm hoping that they think that fixing the problem is more important .

Nothing happening here could impact your job in any way. If you wish, make a list of sites to suggest, and categories to suggest them to: you can quickly drop them all in, when/whenever the suggestion system comes back.

Almost surely, editors will get access some time before site suggestions are possible again. (Being reasonable here: the other way 'round just wouldn't make sense!)

For the record, this forum is a place where the AOL engineers have never talked shop before; I would expect that to not change now.

>I'd just like to hear from someone who knows what's going regarding fix for the "Suggest URL" service ...
As we have said many times. The technicians are working on solving the problem and neither they nor we (the editors) know when the problems will be solved. Asking the same question again and again won't change anything.

> then it would help me in doing my job to know that ...
As DMOZ and your job can have no relation with each other at all I can't see how our problems can influence your job. If your job is to promote sites you are doing a bad job as DMOZ is not about promting sites (something professionals who know what they are doing know).

> I think there are plenty of reasonable people who think that is a reasonable thing to ask ...
Maybe we are not reasonabvlke in your eyes. But in our eyes it is not reasonable for you to ask this question.

> I was hoping one of those (AOL/Netscape?) engineers might chime in....
They won't.