About the Downtime, Thanks, and a Few Updates
Posted by drew on January 31st, 2009 | Visited 5062 times, 1 so far today
You may have noticed or at least heard about the 10-day downtime that we suffered a few weeks ago, right? Until now I haven’t provided details on what caused it. Let me explain it a little.
DS is hosted on a dedicated server. That means our site runs on one exclusive computer. We have our own hard disk, processor, RAM, DVD-RW drive (lol) and USB slots (lol more). One fateful day, our hard disk broke down. The crew at the webhost tried to restart it, but the computer refused to detect the disk. Uh oh.
They emailed me the bad news. They suggested, albeit matter-of-factly, that the disk had to be replaced. Normally, I would freak out. But fortunately for them, I was numb as a horse in a drug-induced coma. It was until I asked if they did backups that I lost it. To cut the story short, they didn’t. The last backup I have is a year old. I was worried as hell about what I’m gonna tell you guys. I mean, seriously, I was thinking of all the strategies, comments and forum posts that could have been lost. But after the surprisingly positive response that I got from you at DS.net, I figured how enormously lucky I am to have such a supportive community. Wow, you guys are the best!
I was talking to a few people I know who have had experience in handling large communities. They said that they have gone through the same thing as I have and all of them have risen from the ashes only to be stronger and better. So I emailed the webhost to have the data recovered from the damaged disk. They say it’ll cost me. I said fine, just as long as I can get our precious data back. After two days, the news was positive. Turns out that the disk itself was fine. The electrical parts weren’t. A simple electrical repair work and it was all over.
I’m afraid I’m going to sound like a broken record by saying THANKS to YOU for keeping me sane during the downtime. I would like to thank the webhost for putting up with me despite the horrendous things I’ve said LOL. From now on, I’m making sure that we’re getting daily backups. The webhost also gave DS a year’s worth of free offsite backups. How cool is that!?
In addition, I’m working on solving a few bugs and adding features:
- The edit profile section improved and easier to use.
- User posts search navigation works properly.
- Bug found in watching or unwatching topics solved.
- Comments in Strategy and Hero areas are paginated for easier browsing and faster loads
Todo list:
- Apply comment pagination to the rest of the site.
- Close the Graphics Center and move all graphics (avatars, sigs) requests to another site that I’m working on.
- Improve on moderation features.
- More contests!
Got stuff on your mind? Don’t hesitate to leave a comment below.
Thanks~
January 31st, 2009 at 5:59 pm
glad your back…
January 31st, 2009 at 6:08 pm
That free backup’s for an year rocks! But even if the hard disk was safe, we didnt know it and yet I think the community was mature enough to not blame you
Cant wait for that new site of yours, but remember the fate of DS.net whenever DS.com is running: Its a hype at the initial moments but interest fades with time! Maybe you can incorporate features in that new site which compel members to visit it atleast once a week so that they can then explore the site elements and hence get interested enough to be active? Like the sigs and avatar business but a lot more grander now!
February 1st, 2009 at 9:04 am
Wharg, i’d have paniced
We at DS are so lucky c:
February 1st, 2009 at 8:11 pm
DS members r understanding
February 1st, 2009 at 11:17 pm
paginating comments = genius.
No, thank you Drew! Cheers!
February 7th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
very good work there (may I suggest that you copy all accounts from ds.com to the page you are making for sigs and stuff? because its really annoying to always create a new account
)
ys TalkToFrank
February 10th, 2009 at 5:30 am
@ Drew: I have a contest idea: How about a story writing contest?
February 11th, 2009 at 7:42 am
Drew, I would have raped some faces and een arrested if that was me, you’re a better man than I. It’s a shame drug induced comas can only go on for so llong isn’t it? I.V. drip FTW!
February 15th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Just an interesting comment about the pagination!!!
I actually don’t like it because the way I usually use DotaStrategy.com is I’m in a DotA Game on my desktop. I play ar, sd, or sometimes rd, and i get a hero that I’m not very familiar with. I quickly pull up dota strategy on my laptop, open the hero, and then I like to quickly scroll the page and look at the overall comments for items. With it paginated it is harder to scan the entire set of comments while trying to get your hero moving in the lane on the other computer. I can usually only look at the first two or three pages before I’m immersed in last hitting and denying. So often time I will only get the most recent one or two sets of item lists on the comments which are also skewed 50% of the time towards that particular player’s tastes rather than an overall good item for the hero. Just a though.
-Spike (DotaFox, DotaMage, OffroadSpike)
March 6th, 2009 at 1:16 am
Hey there, this is not the right place to make this post, but i can`t create an account.
I did it with 2 email adresses, but still didn`t get any confirmation mail or something, can u try an help me with this matter?
Thank you!
March 20th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Hi, I tried to register using this email and account name but never received an email. Can you look into turning on my account? thanks you
March 24th, 2009 at 2:11 am
Hi, activated your account.
April 11th, 2009 at 8:04 am
Hi.. i also have this problem witht he missing acitivation mail..
i think u got a problem there, and its a problem for the user too to find an admin…
isn’t there a dota strategy irc channel or something like this?
mfg Trunti
September 30th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Im adik in dota