[NewPacifica] Re: update on "blueboard" problems



It's back online, working OK as of early this morning:
http://www.listenerforums.net/cgi-bin/issues_config.pl

(Gill still needs support)

--Frank  


--- In NewPacifica@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Frank LeFever" <fflefever@...> wrote:
>
> --- In HelpFixWBAI@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Frank LeFever"
> <wbaiFM-activist@> wrote:
> >
> > Gil Gilmore tells me he's working hard on fixing the glitch at
> > http://listenerforums.net and not getting much cooperation from
> > techies at the server.  More jobs farmed out overseas (to Phillipines,
> > in this case).  May have to obtain and install new software.
> > 
> > Knowing his personal circumstances (relocating to care for an aged
> > father, etc.) and the tremendous work & expense of maintaining WBAI's
> > most important and active online forum, I'm sure he'd appreciate
> > whatever support people can send him.
> > 
> > --Frank LeFever
> >
> 
> 
> 
> By "whatever support", I mean financial support, of course.
> 
> Further update:
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Radio Listeners' Forum - WBAI Issues
> Status of the Blueboard
> Posted By: April 15 update 
> Date: Tuesday, 15 April 2008, at 10:01 a.m.
> 
>     Blueboard Update as of Monday evening, Apr 14
> 
> This last week has been a lousy experience as the list administrator
> of the Issues and Peoples forums. Loosing both sites without being
> able to jump-start them back into internet-life has done little for my
> stress levels. I sincerely apologize for the extended outtage. I hope
> we'll be back online soon. I thought I'd present a brief update as to
> where things stand relative to both forums.
> 
> The problems for both forums apparently began on Wed afternoon, Apr
> 9th, when some scripts took a nosedive rendering it impossible to post
> new messages. Unfortunately, I didn't realize the extent of the
> problem till Wed night as I was still able to post through my
> moderators' interface.
> 
> Mea culpa big time.
> 
> Thus, I didn't contact my web-host provider til midnight Thurs morn.
> The support staff I spoke to insisted (quite erroneously it now seems)
> that the problem was to be found in my cgi script. A subsequent
> diagnosis and analysis of my scripts revealed nothing. I contacted
> Frank F (the sainted founder of these forums)who generously devoted
> his expertise to correcting my bumblings while confirming my
> conclusions. The blueboard scripts were not-guilty.
> 
> I subsequently spent all of the Thurs nite into Fri morning convincing
> the web technicians that there site was at fault. This was made doubly
>   difficult by the fact that my hosting company, Powweb, has now
> outsourced their first-level tech support jobs to the Philippines. The
> problem is that the Philippino tech staff are apparently have neither
> the knowledge or authorization to perform any hands-on tech support.
> That function was reserved for the "level 2" support staff, located in
> various Canadian locales, insulated from pesky customers by the
> Philippinos.
> 
> Nevertheless, I invoked the indomitable spirit of Monroe and spent all
>   Thurs nite and the Fri morning making hourly calls to Manila trying
> to the gain a pass to talk to an actual web engineer. My efforts were
> rewarded with little more than canned assurances that my messages were
> being conveyed to the technicians and my problem would be solved in
> the "next couple hours".
> 
> Finally, Friday, I was promised a call from a level-2 tech as my case
> had been escalated and I was deemed worthy of a "level 2" worthy
> intervention.
> 
> My ship had come in.
> 
> Here I made my second mistake. During one of my hourly calls, I added
> an additional problem to my ticket that Frank had discovered. It was a
> minor problem with my host's FTP protocols. I assumed this problem
> would be disposed of along with the main problem. This particular
> problem was fixed in two hours from my complaint.
> 
> Unfortunately, someone then then closed my ticket, having done nothing
> to fix the original problem.
> 
> I didn't discover this until the fact that my ticket had been closed
> until midnight Fri when I happened to look up my ticket to see if
> there was any additional info not mentioned by the phone techs.
> 
> So I reopened my ticket during my next hourly phone call which was,
> this time, shunted off to St Edwards Island, Canada. At least the
> dialect was more familiar.
> 
> Nevertheless, despite the dialect, the techie's promises for imminent
>   resolution of my problem proved just as worthless as her Philippino
>   predecessors.
> 
> So finally , serendipitously, I succeeded in getting thru to a level-2
>   tech on Saturday noon. I again explained my problem to him (for the
>   umpteenth thousand time, and got a promise that he'd get an
> engineer on the case and get things sorted out. I received his
> assurances that I'd be back online by Sat night.
> 
> Of course Sat night came and went and the forums were still DOA. Ditto
>   Sunday and now Monday.
> 
> I'm still calling hourly and receiving the same contemptibly scripted
>   assurances. My last call - Tues, 1 am promised me a resurrected
> blue-board by TUesday morning.
> 
> I'm not holding my breath.
> 
> In the meantime Nalini has offered her site for updates and discussion
> ==>    http://www.kpfkChat.org
> 
> An interim email list has been established on Yahoogroups. Its   
> called, fittingly enough, Blueboardbridge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Surf over
> to and search/subscribe for Blueboardbridge.
> 
> Comments, condolences, complaints as always can be sent to
> 
> Again, I'm sorry for the downtime. Keep hope alive cuz we'll be back.
> 
>     Gil Gilmore
>     List-Mom 
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>




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