# Excuses, excuses.



## FlamingMongoose (Jul 30, 2008)

It's plain to see that the guys sorting out FA atm have no idea what they're doing, and all they're doing is making excuse after excuse because they can't be bothered to hire someone who DOES know what they're doing.

I quote:
"It seems that HP's server can only support HP made hard drives due to what they have called a "carrier", which probably is some kind of metal or plastic thing that all other drives don't have"

Metal or plastic thing? For fuck's sake...

Seriously, I'm not going to leave FA like some of the whiners will just because the site's had an outage. But I already don't trust the owners and this is going to lessen my trust even further because they're too incompetent.


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## Suntiger (Jul 30, 2008)

Yeah, because it's not like they have actual jobs beside running FA. 
We all know they're actually fully qualified computer hardware and software technicians and tropubleshooters who do this for a living, not computer enthusiasts who might or might not work with computers in their real job as well...

That's called sarcasm btw.

The snags they've hit now are pretty normal when setting up a new system, be it computers, mechanical systems or implementing new routines/doctrine for human personnel.
Anyone who really is a professional will know that this is pretty much standard fare.
It happens to a greater or lesser degree, but you _always_ hit some kind of snag.
That's the whole point of testing things. To find the snags _before_ you put all up for general access.
And technician/troubleshooter pros are generally not as generous of putting up sitreps of how things are coming along. For a reason.


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## Dragoneer (Jul 30, 2008)

FlamingMongoose said:


> "It seems that HP's server can only support HP made hard drives due to what they have called a "carrier", which probably is some kind of metal or plastic thing that all other drives don't have"


Yes, that's correct. The mountable hot swap drive sleds that HP users for their newer ProLiant servers are proprietary. You can ONLY use HP's sleds to mount the drives. HP does not sell them separately, and you can only get the sleds with new HDs. Some places sell them independently, usually refurbs or used, but we could not find any compatible with current ProLiant machines.

The problem is I asked if this would be an issue on the phone with HP's sales reps and was told *NO*. But that was not accurate information in the slightest.

But we wanted to go with 1TB drives, and the cost of going with HP drives -vs- the HDs purchased on our own:

*1TB HP Hard Drive - $764.99*
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1465753

*Seagate Barracuda ES2* - $239.99*
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148278

But guess what? The HP drive doesn't use HP branded drives. It uses Seagate and Western Digital drives. You're paying $525.00 extra for what amounts to a hard drive sled and slightly better warranty. And keep in mind the hard drives already come with their own 5 year warranty, so all HP is offering extra is a 24 hour turn around.

* For the record we went with WD Caviar Blacks. If a drive fails we have spares on hand to just drive over, swap out a drive and fix the issue. Oh, and we also have two spare 74GB WD Raptors for the DB server, just in case. Call us "incompetent" for planning ahead.


FlamingMongoose said:


> Seriously, I'm not going to leave FA like some of the whiners will just because the site's had an outage. But I already don't trust the owners and this is going to lessen my trust even further because they're too incompetent.


The only true failure on our part is that we believed HP to be honest about their own products... and they weren't. Call me incompetent all you want, but at least we were honest and up front about the issues at hand. I'll continue to be honest and open, too. We could just as easily obfuscated the facts to save face, blaming it on a "part on backorder" like other places do. We could have hidden the blunder and have ensured the entire community never knew about it. But we didn't. We wouldn't. We prefer truth over saving face. If you like me less for that then get in line, dude.

Things don't always go right, and I admit my ignorance that I didn't know HP would refuse to provide sleds to mount and force you to by exceptionally overpriced hardware with a markup second to only Apple.


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## Suntiger (Jul 30, 2008)

Could actually be a genuine mistake on HP's part. 
Given how often the standards seem to change even within one company, sales and marketing push some products while the engineers and developers gets told to work on a new system/feature/functions/whatever take your pick. And the managers are clueless because everyone lies to them and they don't have the skills to check themselves.

Still, when things like this _do_ happen, they should come clean and give you a refund or similar compensation.


Like I said, stuff like this is the reason for techs, troubleshooters and testing on the spot, not just in the labs.

That sled thing sounds like a very stupid move though. 
Ease of use and compatibility are usually much better if you want to attract customers.
Doing stuff like that HD-sled thing is limiting yourself and a good way to loose customers.


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## jayhusky (Jul 30, 2008)

Look here, Dragoneer and all the other staff bust a bloody gut to help you guys have your FA. but waht thanks do they get none because alot of the time its some little whine about being incompetent, well I have been register for nearly a year and seen a fair few outages which get annoying after a while but i stick by them. i previously visited as a guest since 2006. I trust them in what they are doing and they do this for us so let back and give them thanks because they do a terrific job.

Thanks Dragoneer and all the other staff here on Fur Affinity


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## TheGreatCrusader (Jul 30, 2008)

I just don't see the big deal of FA being down. onoes fa is down better press f5 for 30 days and then join the forum complaining that it still isnt back lol >_>

Why can't you people be patient? Or, at least stop complaining. You life hasn't changed dramatically since the servers went down. Get over it.


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## Hollud (Jul 30, 2008)

FlamingMongoose said:


> But I already don't trust the owners and this is going to lessen my trust even further because they're too incompetent.



Oh, ye fiery Herpestidae of little faith...
You have issues. And you're on fire.


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## Firehazard (Jul 30, 2008)

TheGreatCrusader said:


> I just don't see the big deal of FA being down. onoes fa is down better press f5 for 30 days and then join the forum complaining that it still isnt back lol >_>
> 
> Why can't you people be patient? Or, at least stop complaining. You life hasn't changed dramatically since the servers went down. Get over it.



The problem, here, is that apparently many people's lives _have_.  But that's their own fault for not having a life outside of the Internet.


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## Keita Haruka (Jul 30, 2008)

If this was a paid site, or a corporate site...then MAAAAAYBE it would be alright to complain, but you know, this is a FREE site that you don't have to PAY to view run by regular people, furry fans like you, WITHOUT being paid for their trouble. Running such a huge site is not easy. Its not even easy to run a small forum. If you can do so much better, BurningMongoose or whatever, be my guest. "Let the person who is without fault throw the first stone."


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## Uberlurker (Jul 30, 2008)

*Erects a sign post in this thread that reads: "DO NOT FEED THE TROLL" in big bold letters.*


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## Wolf_Fox_Guy (Jul 30, 2008)

Suntiger said:


> Could actually be a genuine mistake on HP's part.
> Given how often the standards seem to change even within one company, sales and marketing push some products while the engineers and developers gets told to work on a new system/feature/functions/whatever take your pick.



I dont think so. servers cost big bucks. its possible teh higher ups just told teh peons t say yes to anything to sell them. I mean those brackets are there for a reason, its not because HPs hard drives or whatever it was are teh best or are teh best for that server. Its cause HP wants you buying more.


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## Rossyfox (Jul 30, 2008)

FlamingMongoose said:


> It's plain to see that the guys sorting out FA atm have no idea what they're doing, and all they're doing is making excuse after excuse because they can't be bothered to hire someone who DOES know what they're doing.
> 
> I quote:
> "It seems that HP's server can only support HP made hard drives due to what they have called a "carrier", which probably is some kind of metal or plastic thing that all other drives don't have"
> ...



See Dragoneer's reply up there? You got owned. It's quite common for some manufacturers to shape a part strangely for no other reason than to make it incompatible with generic versions - hence the obviously tongue in cheek reference to "some kind of metal or plastic thing" in the original post. Shows how much you know.

Let's not give your good readers a false impression here; it's not as if you trusted the leadership before this. In your first thread here you call for someone to be banned, then just because you get no instant reply you assume it's the leadership's fault, even though you did not follow the suggested procedure highlighted in the forum's stickies (mentioning the name of the violator).

It appears to me right now that your mistrust of the leadership stems not from any of their failings but from your own impatience and unwarranted self-importance. You see, if you actually took the time to read the site status thread you'd see that the staff have explained EVERYTHING they are doing as they have gone along. The ONLY thing that put them so behind schedule was problems with the suppliers. Originally going with HP was a mistake but switching to Dell actually reduced expected delivery time.

Most of the posts in the site discussion forum right now are asking questions that are answered by the site status forum. From dumb conspiracy theories to allegations of incompetence, they could all be avoided if you people would just SHUT THE FUCK UP AND READ THE FUCKING STATUS FORUM. I guess you idiots need it spelled out for you though.


NUMBAR ONE
After receiving so many donations, the decision was made to order multiple servers and divide the running of FA between them.

NUMBAR TWO
Supply problems cause some of the servers to be late in arriving. The team gets to work as soon as enough arrive to implement FA's new structure.

NUMBAR THREE
FA is running on a new server. However, all the data must be transferred from the old one. It was at this point that the page changed to FA's standard offline page.

NUMBAR FOUR
The servers need to be configured and FA's programming needs to be tweaked, because running FA across multiple servers is different from running it on one server. That's what's happening now.


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## dsand101 (Jul 30, 2008)

You folks have not heard a peep from me since the outage, why?  Because I'm being patient and waiting for the site to return.  Since the outage, I've had other things to contend with and even though on IRC I may bluster about the site being down, I'm joking for the most part.  Come on folks, it's only a site, it is not like without it you folks will wither and die.  Eh?


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## yak (Jul 30, 2008)

As long as I don't see your name on my pay check I have no need to even think of coming up with excuses as I don't consider myself doing something that would warrant them.

Your manner of speech seems to imply we're owing you something, and before you proceed any further first get that nonsense out of your head.


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## blade (Jul 30, 2008)

Rossyfox said:


> Snip-snippity snip



Just wanted to say, well said Rossy, most definitely for reiterating what the 'neer said.

Things'll be up when they're up.


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## Rhainor (Jul 30, 2008)

Indeed.  Well said, Rossy (although the f-bombs were a mite uncalled for).

One minor error in your statements, specifically "NUMBAR FOUR": FA has been running on two servers (Tiamat and Bahamut) for a while now.  The programming tweaks are partly to optimize the performance of the site (less strain, faster processing) and partly to change it from a two-server setup to a three-server (Tiamat, Trogdor, Novastorm) setup.


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## jayhusky (Jul 30, 2008)

Uberlurker said:


> *Erects a sign post in this thread that reads: "DO NOT FEED THE TROLL" in big bold letters.*



You mean this sign post.


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## Chevallier LaChance (Jul 30, 2008)

You do know that the web masters do have lives that dont just have them keeping track of the site.  Just give'em some slack, dont try to rile them up and get flamed for your troubles...


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## jayhusky (Jul 30, 2008)

Yer i know that..

I have to keep track of subfurvient and Furtube (yes they are not as big as FA) but Yes i kno that feeling.


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## Arshes Nei (Jul 30, 2008)

Inflamed Iron, is there a reason for duplicate accounts? Please stick with one, thanks.


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## DigitalMan (Jul 30, 2008)

*points* See? Look! Someone even less knowledgeable than me! Cripes, I didn't even know what shape the servers where, and I was still well aware what a "carrier" is.

Seriously now. Unless you can perhaps offer them a free CRC machine with which to make sleds and mounting brackets (I could use one of those myself), don't complain. _Especially_ not about that.


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## Ebon Lupus (Jul 30, 2008)

Just my unwelcome two cents...

It would have been better to have just hired a host and leased a dedicated server. There would be techs (ones that really do have a clue) monitoring it 24/7 and all the issues of having to deal with FA and take care of those "other jobs" would have been simplified.

You took in enough donations to pay for dedicated hosting for nearly 8 years... up time 99.9% 24/7, and the site would have been back up a three weeks ago. Oh, and any hardware issues would be dealt with immediately by the host at no additional cost. But I guess egos supersede getting the job done.


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## Dragoneer (Jul 30, 2008)

Ebon Lupus said:


> You took in enough donations to pay for dedicated hosting for nearly 8 years... up time 99.9% 24/7, and the site would have been back up a three weeks ago. Oh, and any hardware issues would be dealt with immediately by the host at no additional cost. But I guess egos supersede getting the job done.


On a 50Mbit non-metered line with multiple servers for proper DB and data storage? Please show me where.

There are huge disadvantages to leasing/renting space that doesn't belong to you, too. Especially given how many places dis-approve of the content we carry.


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## Ebon Lupus (Jul 30, 2008)

Dragoneer said:


> There are huge disadvantages to leasing/renting space that doesn't belong to you, too. Especially given how many places dis-approve of the content we carry.


Okay, here you have me. Hosts tend to charge about three times for "adult" hosting. But I still think if you had looked around you could have found a better solution. Your only real income to offset costs seems to be your advertisers, and they probably aren't too happy with the track record, thus far.


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## Eevee (Jul 30, 2008)

FlamingMongoose said:


> It's plain to see that the guys sorting out FA atm have no idea what they're doing, and all they're doing is making excuse after excuse because they can't be bothered to hire someone who DOES know what they're doing.
> ...
> But I already don't trust the owners and this is going to lessen my trust even further because they're too incompetent.





Ebon Lupus said:


> But I guess egos supersede getting the job done.


So to summarize:
1. Call entire staff incompetent or stupid or egotistical or whatever.
2. Back this up with either a naive plan that would never work or criticism of something that has long since been explained as being out of the relevant hands.
3. Vanish as soon as you are revealed to be even more clueless than you're accusing us of being _and_ a dick besides.

This seems to be a recurring pattern and I am not sure exactly what the motivation is.  Are you hopeful that you will be catapulted into furry fame by being The Guy Who Told FA What's What?


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## Ty Vulpine (Jul 30, 2008)

Eevee said:


> So to summarize:
> 1. Call entire staff incompetent or stupid or egotistical or whatever.
> 2. Back this up with either a fucking moronic plan that would never work or criticism of something that has long since been explained as being out of the relevant hands.
> 3. Vanish as soon as you are revealed to be even more clueless than you're accusing us of being _and_ a colossal fuckwad besides.
> ...



No, just another Furry being deprived of his FAP material, and has nothing better to do than whine.


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## Ebon Lupus (Jul 30, 2008)

Actually I just stated a simple opinion, be it wrong or right. I guess I opened the door for the trolls. Communication is apparently impossible. Time to go.


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## Dragoneer (Jul 30, 2008)

Ebon Lupus said:


> Your only real income to offset costs seems to be your advertisers, and they probably aren't too happy with the track record, thus far.


And thankfully the advertisers are very understanding. Some of our advertisers are real companies, and understand that things don't go right all the time.

And the tracker record half gotten better over time. Solid hardware platform in place, it will only go up from there.


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## Ty Vulpine (Jul 30, 2008)

Ebon Lupus said:


> Actually I just stated a simple opinion, be it wrong or right. I guess I opened the door for the trolls. Communication is apparently impossible. Time to go.



Sorry, that wasn't meant at you.


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## Eevee (Jul 30, 2008)

Ebon Lupus said:


> Actually I just stated a simple opinion, be it wrong or right.


Accusing people of not doing what you want because of _ego_ is not a "simple opinion".



Ebon Lupus said:


> I guess I opened the door for the trolls.


So you can bash people all you want, but when someone points this out, it's trolling?  :V  Can we stop pretending "troll" means "people who don't agree with me"?



Ebon Lupus said:


> Communication is apparently impossible.


?!


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## dmfalk (Jul 30, 2008)

I can't believe there's so much incompetence around here......

Not from the admins & staff, mind you- They're working miracles, given they're doing all this AND HAVE PAYING DAY JOBS that eat up all the time they could be dedicating towards FA... But hey, it pays the bills, gets food on the table... Doesn't matter, right? As long as FA is the #1 priority, right?

Give them a break, OK? They're doing the absolute best they can under the circumstances, and should be applauded.

And 'Neer's correct about the skiddishness of site-hosting companies, given the content FA hosts- Not merely the adult content, but that some of it, inn particular, is of a very controversial nature, particularly the cub art. There are very few who recognise the legality of fictional cub art versus real child pornography. Just be happy that FA owns its own servers and have an understanding colocation facility.

I lay no blame on the FA administration and staff. Only those who have no clue just what's involved in obtaining and setting up servers (ESPECIALLY to keep the warranty intact!).

d.m.f.


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## Ty Vulpine (Jul 30, 2008)

dmfalk said:


> I can't believe there's so much incompetence around here......
> 
> Not from the admins & staff, mind you- They're working miracles, given they're doing all this AND HAVE PAYING DAY JOBS that eat up all the time they could be dedicating towards FA... But hey, it pays the bills, gets food on the table... Doesn't matter, right? As long as FA is the #1 priority, right?
> 
> ...



So true.


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## Rhainor (Jul 30, 2008)

Hear, hear!


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## cesarin (Jul 30, 2008)

eevee: sadly like I said before, ebon as a reputation, even a page on encyclopediadramatica ( even when its for the luls.....it contains mostly real stuff )
so bleah.

he's just a double sided person.


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## ponyguy (Jul 30, 2008)

DigitalMan said:


> Unless you can perhaps offer them a free CRC machine with which to make sleds and mounting brackets....



COMPLETELY irrelevant, but... You probably meant CNC.  Yes, it's true, if somebody gave them a small Mazak 4-axis, they could trade it in on a dozen Sun servers and thirty years of hosting, so they wouldn't even NEED to make sleds.

Of course, all the sleds I've seen were injection molded, not machined.  And HP has enough clout to actually modify the hard drives, so don't even count on being able to fab something.  Clariion used to have IBM OEM their drives with a special low-level format that was incompatible with everybody else, to keep anybody from using off-the-shelf (and 1/4 the price) hard drives with their NAS systems.  The world of enterprise-class networking is a fun place!


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## AlexInsane (Jul 30, 2008)

I have a question.

Why hasn't this been locked yet? 

And a further question: Why are you all beating a dead horse with broken sticks?


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## SDWolf (Jul 30, 2008)

AlexInsane said:


> I have a question.
> 
> Why hasn't this been locked yet?
> (snip)


 
Seconded, this thread really should have been locked 2 pages ago.


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## Rhainor (Jul 31, 2008)

Duly locked.


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