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SI - Site Forums : Silicon Investor - Welcome New SI Members! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	6/30/2000 9:02:37 PM
From: Carolyn	Respond to of 32871

When are you going to fix it?

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	6/30/2000 9:04:52 PM
From: Souze	Respond to of 32871

SI's still got loads of problems from this 'upgrade'. It doesn't sound like you realize that. While the database upgrade is now complete.....

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	6/30/2000 9:31:01 PM
From: RoseCampion	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 32871

please feel free to contact us with your comments Thanks for the offer, John. I will. <rant on> Dear John: Great, job, John! Nicely done, how you manage to pour gas on the raging fire. Finally, late in the day after nearly everyone here has struggled with this thing, given up, and gone home, you finally post something - but something that even start to own up to the massive bugs, security breaches, and out-and-out service failures we've all seen over and over today. Instead, in true bureacratic, Old-Economy doublespeak, you use sorry, cretinous euphemisms like "some site performance issues". Did you ever read that copy of "The Cluetrain Manifesto" that somebody put on your desk last month? Or instead have you been taking lessons in public relations from Microsoft's crack legal team? Our problems are not with "performance", John. Performance relates to something that more or less works properly but more slowly than one would like. Our problem is that you've taken something that was working reasonably well, which you then... ...made major changes to... ...without prior notice (other than a vague "scheduled downtime" PM a day or so earlier)... ...in the MIDDLE of a week... ....and did it without...OOPS! adequate (or any?) testing or QA... And when those changes were found to be broken beyond hope of working, you... ...didn't think to roll back to a prior, working version... ...didn't bother to tell people about the issues (how long would a simple broadcast PM to your customers have taken?)... ...and still insist on pretending that there's nothing the matter. In other words, our problems not with the site's performance. They're with your performance. Or, more accurately, the complete lack of it. I won't even mention that you waited nearly 24 hours after the failures were clearly manifesting themselve before issuing this mamby-pamby, skirt-the-real-issues, corporate CYA feel-good-memo that actually makes the situation much worse. Instead of owning up to the problems, your missive (1) completely ignores them, and (2) pretends that everything's just hunky-dory now ("we will continue to monitor the site very closely", as if "monitoring" was all that you needed to do). There's a reason SI is massively losing members and momentum to other competitive sites like Raging Bull, both in the number of postings and the number of new members gained. And - here's a clue, John - it's not about the $10/month you charge. It's about how you treat your customers, how you corrent (and own up to) your failures, and how much you actually act like you're running a real company instead of just playing DotComsRUs. I sincerely hope that Go2Net uses this fine opportunity to re-evaluate SiliconInvestor's staffing requirements, so that you and others in management responsible for promulgating - and performing "damage control" for - this fiasco will have have lots of time off to consider their mistakes. Yours in solidarity (and the probable non-renewal of my imminently-expiring SI membership), -Rose- </rant off> Thanks. I feel much better now.

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	6/30/2000 9:31:52 PM
From: Sarkie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32871

THAT IS A BUNCH OF BULL! And I am not talking about the market!! I want to know why it it that every time you guys upgrade something or fix something, you end up screwing it up more. I am now mad. I have probably been one of SI's most loyal supporters and have stood up for you guys more than you have done for yourselves. Get this damn thing fixed and NOW!!! ~Sarkie

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	6/30/2000 9:34:22 PM
From: mr.mark	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32871

that post is the biggest load of bullshit i've ever seen particularly the second paragraph

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	6/30/2000 9:39:28 PM
From: Jack Hartmann	Respond to of 32871

Reads like a letter out a canned customer service book. * Error writing to database * Error writing to database * Error writing to database * Error writing to database * Error writing to database * Error writing to database * Error writing to database * Error writing to database * Error writing to database Thanks for all the warning on the upgrade outage. Jack

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	6/30/2000 9:56:43 PM
From: Razorbak	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32871

Q: What does the acronym, SNAFU, stand for? A: dictionary.com

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	6/30/2000 10:22:34 PM
From: SIer formerly known as Joe B.	Respond to of 32871

Do you even care?

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	6/30/2000 10:23:55 PM
From: SIer formerly known as Joe B.	Respond to of 32871

Do you even care? Please provide proof. Thank you

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	6/30/2000 10:34:28 PM
From: AugustWest	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32871

John, why not get off your high horse and admit you and your crack team totally screwed up. You seem to still be in denile about this whole situation. Or in your own words, *GET OVER YOURSELF* #reply-13972824 Do you think you are still in high school and daddy will come and make everything alright? Guess again. You have lost what little creditability you ever had. Secondly, you work isn't even close to being finished. Get the damn site working correctly before you come out here pronouncing that you have got it under control. IMHO, if you have any integrity, you would be preparing your resignation and quietly move on. You haven't got the slightest idea what you have put us through, yet you have the huevos to come out here and pat yourself on the back. gimme a friggin brake

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	6/30/2000 10:52:13 PM
From: Neenny	Respond to of 32871

John, cannot even get my edit to post...what I really want to say

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	6/30/2000 10:56:52 PM
From: Sr K	Respond to of 32871

For the record, I emailed you at 10:39 am EDT June 30, and still have not gotten a response to: You haven't updated the planned upgrade report and the messages list is messed up. Doesn't sort correctly, and apparently doesn't post and list messages correctly. There needs to be an update on the SI members' opening page. If you are working on it, say so. If you need a day to fix it, say so. That was before I realized the breach of security with logins and some have said, passwords. Are you working on this tonight, and over the weekend? I would advise any SI advertisers to consider pulling any ads. For now this looks like an abandoned ship.

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	7/1/2000 12:19:55 AM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 32871

You have written SI's tombstone; do you know it? I've run out of effective swear words, and now I'm just shaking my head.

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	7/1/2000 2:33:07 AM
From: bob	Respond to of 32871

Hope you have alternative plans. To: daffodil who wrote (447) From: Tastes Like Chicken Friday, June 30, 2000 9:51 PM ET Reply # of 460 Last night for about an hour, if you viewed a thread header page (the page that has the thread intro text and the list of posts on the threads) you could see the member's username instead of their alias. I contacted Admin Bob and he did whatever he did to get it fixed quickly. The fact remains that I did see some names. And I am assuming that I was not alone. To me, it's a question of ethics at this point. I think the honorable thing to do would be to simply tell the members that their usernames had been compromised and offer to fix any problems that might have arisen. That's what would have been done back before the site was bought out. But, the coding crap didn't happen back then, because Brad Dryer is a genius. This site has been totally completely butchered. It doesn't work like it used to, it is slower (not faster) and in addition to not working, the members have been compromised. And still, the membership keeps posting. It's a testament to Brad and Jeff Dryer, the guys who had the idea and created the site that has now been erased completely.

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	7/1/2000 2:35:55 AM
From: Bill on the Hill	Respond to of 32871

John, ???<p> Do you really read these replies? What was once inspired software has become second rate and not worth the time. Your crack team of programmers have probably worked themselves out of a job. You all will have lots of features and no one to care. You have forgotten to care about the users. John ----- are you there??? Hello, Hello, Hello..... is anyone left here? Last one out please turn out the lights. God, how I long for the original team. You guys are clueless.

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	7/1/2000 3:12:04 AM
From: Pink Minion	Respond to of 32871

Dear Pointy Hair, You guys are the reason I became an Ex. Complete, total incompetence. You guys are way too close to Microsoft.

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	7/1/2000 6:12:22 AM
From: Bill Ulrich	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 32871

John, as a fellow web developer it is exceptionally rare that I would critize another's work. "We" know what the behind-the-scenes issues are like. Much like you, I myself have some very happy clients and I also have very unhappy clients. We both wish we could make everybody happy, and we both know that sometimes there are situations which are beyond control. Whilst having a client who is quite unhappy is regrettable, it unfortunately does happen, sometimes by our own "botching the job", yet sometimes by unreasonable client expectations and their own organization. Some days you're the dog, some days you're the hydrant. Having said that, as many mistakes as a person might reasonably make by accident, the most basic tenets of development and, more importantly, what SI is "about" have been heinously violated. The violation of these tenets—revealing of usernames—editing others' posts, and even POSTing at all ("error writing to database"), along with the curious "unmarking" of bookmarks—demonstrate an absolute disregard of any Testing/QA principles. Being on West Coast time, as you are, I followed not only this update in "real time", but also the one a few days before that in "real time", as well. You finished both of them early. I know, because I was there from "offline" to "online". "Early", in many cases is commendable, but I noticed some particular problems after the first one (the "unbookmark" situation when one clicks on the most recent message number".) It got fixed within an hour, so I figured you guys knew, and were tweaking a bit, so it wasn't worth reporting. Yet, "finishing early" should have meant, "Oh goodie, extra time for Testing/QA so we can make sure this actually works, and doesn't break (or reveal usernames, inadvertantly unbookmark subjects, etc...!" This bit about revealing usernames is exceptionally out of bounds. In your post to which I'm responding, you gloss over it. I gave up on SI many months ago, when it was apparent your many many "non-Dryer-esque" changes weren't reflective of membership's desires. I came back only very recently, on the whimsical thought that you might have become more sensitive and appreciative of your user base. Now this... with a Dilberarian-Corporate-Gloss-Over... One is slightly reminded of Han Solo in the Death Star Jail Control Room, during Princess Leia's rescue, with all the shooting going on. "Uh, everything is under control here. We just had a slight weapons malfunction. No need to send anybody down here..."

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	7/1/2000 8:19:17 AM
From: Mr. BSL	Respond to of 32871

John, What's the status of fixing the bugs?

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	7/1/2000 8:38:59 AM
From: el paradisio	Respond to of 32871

Dear John, the problem is not fixed yet.Try MDD thread. Since yesterday, I am getting the message..."There is no subject here"...Here is the link: Subject 24052 Could you specify,when this site will be available... el

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	7/1/2000 9:32:11 AM
From: CatLady	Respond to of 32871

John, you wrote, "While the database upgrade is now complete, we will continue to monitor the site very closely to help ensure that our upgraded system continues to improve the performance of the site. " NO IT ISN'T COMPLETE! You can't possibly call it complete until the site interfaces correctly to that database. And it doesn't. Basic site finctions DO NOT work correctly. These bugs have been documented in detail here, on the think tank thread, on David's Bug report thread, and on SI Bob's thread, at least. In short, the subject mark page doesn't work right, the link to new posts doesn't work right, posting a message intermitantly fails, certain threads are inaccessible, read 10 at a time doesn't work right and who knows what else. NO ONE who actually uses this site could make the statement that the "upgrade is complete". P.S. the spellchecker is off-line too.

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	7/1/2000 10:01:59 AM
From: Michelino	Respond to of 32871

When you wrote: The SI team...is dedicated to ensuring that SI provides the level of performance and reliability that you expect and deserve. Were you trying to tell us that what we have now is what we deserve? Certainly, despite the poor reputation that SI has earned of late, no one expected the following: SI displaying and compromising members' account information A Backdoor that allowed any one to edit other members' messages Random additions to personal ignore lists Edited messages that post as new and additional messages Holes in thread counts that confuse the Next and Next 10 links Next 10 links that cycle back through the thread or go to another random thread Unread messages links that immediately clear themselves or unbookmark the thread. Broken search functions Database errors that prevent posting Various other serious glitches depending on whether one uses the classic interface or not. At the very least, someone at Silicon Investor should offer a sincere apology for the security breach and explain to all that new accounts names are now needed. Will that someone be you? Regards, Michael PS Congratulations to the "team" for your long-time series of meaningless "test threads". I believe that you have now broken the record for public displays of incompetence.

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	7/1/2000 5:31:36 PM
From: Ellen	Respond to of 32871

While the database upgrade is now complete, we will continue to monitor the site very closely to help ensure that our upgraded system continues to improve the performance of the site. Continues to improve perfomance? I'd take just plain performance. Because the site is NOT performing. Get it performing, THEN you can work on improvements. What a concept. We will also be taking steps to ensure that performance issues similar to those associated with the database rollout do not occur again during any future upgrades. I would certainly hope so. Did your programmers even TRY this new database prior to 'rolling it out?' Somehow I have to doubt that. Don't just doubt it, but HAVE to doubt it. If they had they would have quickly seen that it didn't work and was not ready.

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	7/2/2000 2:27:45 AM
From: Kid Rock	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32871

John, It is ironic that last night I tried to ask you to what database platform SI migrated to and all I could get was "Error wrting to database" What database is SI now using? I was told you were previously using Microsoft SQLserver.

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	7/3/2000 12:54:37 PM
From: Cheeky Kid	Respond to of 32871

Silicon Investor Service Pack 69 released! Is this a rumour?

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	7/4/2000 10:54:53 AM
From: broken_cookie	Respond to of 32871

Dear John, (lol) I have only one question. How long is the Dryer's non-compete clause? TIA Error writing to database - of course. I'll try unchecking preview.

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	7/4/2000 10:05:29 PM
From: Cheeky Kid	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 32871

A must read: securityportal.com openbsd.org Three years without a remote hole in the default install! Two years without a localhost hole in the default install! Who uses OpenBSD: openbsd.org A lot of large firms who are serious about security use openBSD. It's inexpensive too and rock solid secure. Although I don't think displaying our user names would be solved by that software, it does make me wonder about other security issues at Go2net, since you have been showing our user names for well over and hour, and this is now, the forth time, that we know of.

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	7/5/2000 12:52:46 AM
From: chojiro	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32871

You really pulled the carpet out from under us, again.

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	7/5/2000 1:01:33 AM
From: Green Receipt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32871

Hi JOhn, The html tag in the message is back. if i put a turn off bold or italics as the last bit of text in the message, it get's displayed... typical message I get quite often now: Message not found

To: John Busby who wrote (12367)	7/5/2000 3:07:41 AM
From: Jorj X Mckie	Read Replies (6) \| Respond to of 32871

On Thursday, June 29th at 10:30 PM EST, Silicon Investor rolled out the final phase of a database upgrade designed to greatly increase the performance, scalability and reliability of the Silicon Investor site. This has been a major project and has been underway for some time.<p> Glad to see that SI is using the word "reliability", now you need to start doing something about it. Also add the words "quality", "privacy" "customers"<p> The SI team views any interruption in full service as unacceptable and is dedicated to ensuring that SI provides the level of performance and reliability that you expect and deserve. <p> Just saying this, doesn't mean it is true. If you took this stuff seriously, you wouldn't be rolling this upgrade out on your live system without doing a little bit of QA first.<p> First you have to build a reliable system, but you can't stop there. You have to manage it in a reliable way. <p> Don't you guys get it that we are not only SI's customers, we are the content of your site? Don't you think we deserve enough respect that you wouldn't publish our userID which happens in many cases to be our real names? The first time could be seen as an honest mistake, the second....forgivable, but at last count it was 5 freaking times!!!! You are driving your customers/content providers away.....From a business perspective, I just don't understand why you would want to do this. Maybe my views on how an internet business model should work are screwed up.<p> And if this is what you think we deserve, I for one am very offended. At the very least, I would like to request the ability to change my login/userID so that my real name is not published for everyone to see. Because of the publishing of my real name on 5 occassions, my SI participation has become a very real liability for both the personal and professional aspects of my life.<p> You as the product manager should start taking this seriously.<br> JXM