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posted by janrinok on Wednesday December 07 2022, @10:05AM   Printer-friendly

We are aware of several bugs in the system at the moment, including the lack of a journal index on the front page, and the failure to update modpoints daily. Thank you to all of those bringing them to our attention. Please continue to do so as you may be the first person to see something going wrong.

Unfortunately, NCommander is currently unavailable to fix these immediately but he is aware of them. He is occupied with real world issues and currently has a very limited internet connection. He will fix them as soon as is possible and we ask that you be patient. It is less than ideal but unfortunately we have no other option.

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by pTamok on Wednesday December 07 2022, @12:17PM (5 children)

    by pTamok (3042) on Wednesday December 07 2022, @12:17PM (#1281523)

    If NCommander is the only person who can address SoylentNews technical problems, then the site has a huge problem. There could be many reasons for him not being able to continue - he is a Single Point of Failure, which is a bad idea.

    Quite apart from the editorial/policy administration problems, the site needs enough technical resource to keep it going, without relying on a single person. It needs 'techies' to keep stuff running while everyone else argues over editorial/site policy. I'm not in a position to help, much as I would love to, but the site needs more trusted techies to keep things going.

    I think there is huge value in having a site that doesn't track people, and which eschews javascript. It is evidence of how things can be done without being beholden to huge amounts of external code, over which one has limited control. I hope that some other people think it i s valuable enough to contribute their time and expertise. I'm really sorry I cannot.

    Get a few cloned copies of NCommander, stat!

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 07 2022, @01:17PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 07 2022, @01:17PM (#1281529) Journal

    Maybe this will help to put things in perspective?

    TheMightyBuzzard was the only coder dude on staff for a long while. When he left, there were zero people left to fix bugs and stuff. Ncommander working on problems is better than the past couple years. True, he remains a single point of failure, but he's doing something.

    We might fault him for working on the production machine, rather than the development machine. But, he's working, where no one has been working.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Wednesday December 07 2022, @01:34PM

    by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 07 2022, @01:34PM (#1281533) Journal

    We know!

    While the server is being rebuilt then only NCommander can work on it. Likewise, Juggs is still doing work on IRC.

    Now, we have been asking for over a year for volunteers to help us, and we have 3 people currently waiting to be trained. But until we have our development server operational (and NCommander is still working on the production server) then we cannot train anybody. The problems are currently with the Perl/MySql interface. The database is being reconfigured so that we can simplify our hardware and significantly reduce our running costs. If you are volunteering to be a Perl maintainer then we will welcome you with open arms. Currently we have only have NCommander who is able to do the task. When the production server is complete and containerised (docker) then it should be a lot easier to duplicate it on the development server, but we are not there yet.

    We all feel the same frustration. I don't know if you realise that the reduction in the community has been matched by a similar reduction in the size of the team supporting the site. Most roles are currently unfilled and many are down to one person. Sys-ops has been down to one person for several months. I have been the only Admin working on our site for much of the last 6 months, with others helping out occasionally when they can. Our community contains many 'techies' but, for perfectly good personal reasons, they are not offering to assist with the running of the site.

  • (Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Wednesday December 07 2022, @03:09PM (1 child)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 07 2022, @03:09PM (#1281546) Journal

    If NCommander is the only person who can address SoylentNews technical problems, then the site has a huge problem. There could be many reasons for him not being able to continue - he is a Single Point of Failure, which is a bad idea.

    A single point of failure was better than the zero points of failure that preceded this situation.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2022, @07:11PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2022, @07:11PM (#1281587)

      Heh heh, reminds me of my last job. Now instead of being "the problem" they have "no problem" in the same way North Korea has no covid.

  • (Score: 2) by liar on Wednesday December 07 2022, @06:00PM

    by liar (17039) on Wednesday December 07 2022, @06:00PM (#1281571)

    Oh no! The clone comment got this playing in my head! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baRCq3twqww [youtube.com] "A preteen Boba is portrayed by Daniel Logan in the prequel film Attack of the Clones (2002), which reveals the character's origins as the genetic clone and adoptive son of Jango Fett, also a famous bounty hunter. The animated series The Bad Batch further reveals Boba to have been born Alpha, and to have a biological twin sister, Omega." (wikipedia)

    --
    Noli nothis permittere te terere.