# Breakdowns in FA's Communication, part 9001



## Accountability (Feb 13, 2011)

FA Twitter said:
			
		

> FA OUTAGE NOTICE: We're expecting 3-6 hours of downtime Sunday night, Feb 13, while we do significant database updates. http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/34652052294471680



Firstly, why is Twitter the *ONLY* place this significant amount of downtime is announced? There's been no Forum post, no mainsite Admin notice, just a tweet to the 8,000+ followers on the FA Twitter, which represents a _fraction_ of the users of FA. And it's only been mentioned _once_, a week ago.

Secondly, I must point out that the dates and times in this announcement appear to  be completely inaccurate. Unless this was talking about _this morning_,  "Sunday night, Feb 13" implies that before Midnight tonight, the site  will be taken offline. Since that is during peak traffic, I highly doubt  that is the case. Since it's more likely the site will be taken offline  during what most people would call "Early Monday morning", it makes  more sense to say "We're  expecting 3-6 hours of downtime during the early AM of Feb 14". If they  DO plan on pulling the site offline during a peak time... There are no  words. Also, as FA is a global community, even the most unspecific times  should be attributed to a time zone. "Sunday night" has come and gone  for some parts of the world already...

FA has done quite a bit of announcing the new unnecessary knowledgebase this week... if only as much attention was given to making sure the community knows about _important_ site announcements like six hours of downtime. The Knowledgebase is supposedly part of FA's plan to "open up communication" with the community, *making sure the community knows about downtime is an important part of communicating with them*. And a Knowledgebase won't help you with that.


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## Deo (Feb 13, 2011)

I don't think I have ever read a post by you before. I like that you try to hold FA to higher standards of policy and interaction with it's users, however 3-6 hours without FA is not something that will ruin us all.


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## Xenke (Feb 13, 2011)

FA is having down time. It happens. Maybe they're fixing something, like you always whine about them not doing.



Deovacuus said:


> I don't think I have ever read a post by you before. I like that you try to hold FA to higher standards of policy and interaction with it's users, however 3-6 hours without FA is not something that will ruin us all.


 
They're a lot like this one, blowing things out of proportion, with unnecessary amounts of rage, or throwing baseless accusations.


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## Accountability (Feb 13, 2011)

Deovacuus said:


> 3-6 hours without FA is not something that will ruin us all.


 
Oh, I'm not going to argue with that, it's just that poorly communicated  downtime leads to people posting "Why is the site down?" threads on the  forums and posting "FA has been hacked again!" status updates on  Facebook or Twitter (I've seen it. :/), and then people run with it and  you get misinformation and false rumors all over the place.



Xenke said:


> FA is having down time. It happens. Maybe they're  fixing something, like you always whine about them not doing.


 
While they may be fixing the code, they have yet to fix their communication, which has been one of the main things I've focused on throughout my time here.


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## Monster. (Feb 13, 2011)

Accountability said:


> Oh, I'm not going to argue with that, it's just that poorly communicated  downtime leads to people posting "Why is the site down?" threads on the  forums and posting "FA has been hacked again!" status updates on  Facebook or Twitter (I've seen it. :/), and then people run with it and  you get misinformation and false rumors all over the place.


Ratte just posted a thread about it and apologized that no one posted it sooner.


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## Ratte (Feb 13, 2011)

Posted in Site Status.  That kind of blindsided some of the staff, too.


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## Fiz (Feb 13, 2011)

I guess wanting an accurate, local announcement about downtime (not on a fucking twitter account) = OMG STOP WHINING ABOUT DOWNTIME U CAN LIVE WITHOUT FAPPING 4 A FEW HOURS XD

Shut up.


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## Icky (Feb 13, 2011)

Accountability, I love your rants about how FA Staff sucks, and frequently agree with your points. But this kinda seems like you're looking for an excuse to yell at people.


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## Willow (Feb 13, 2011)

These outages happen all the time and usually a summary comes after. People ask why the site is down even when there's random little 503 messages or a white screen on an almost daily basis. Nothing new really. 

There's really no need to pick apart at every little thing the staff does.


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## Accountability (Feb 13, 2011)

Icky said:


> Accountability, I love your rants about how FA Staff  sucks, and frequently agree with your points. But this kinda seems like  you're looking for an excuse to yell at people.


 
I will admit that the second part could be seen as "yelling", the first point still stands.



Willow said:


> These outages happen all the time and usually a summary comes after. People ask why the site is down even when there's random little 503 messages or a white screen on an almost daily basis. Nothing new really.


 
And the community deserves better than that. It's not like it's _hard_ to post on the forums or post a news article on the front page or post a admin notice. I'm just asking the staff to preform _simple actions_ so important things like downtime are communicated effectively. Also, an outage is way different than *planned downtime*. Key word planned. This is like road construction. If the road buckles (i.e. the server goes down), then they close it instantly and fix it. If they plan on working on it in advance, the media covers it and people who live along the road are sent letters and invited to information meetings. They don't just show up one day and shut the road down and go "Hey! We're going to work on this now!"


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## Kihari (Feb 13, 2011)

At face value, this is something pretty small to make a whole damn thread about, but...



Ratte said:


> That kind of blindsided some of the staff, too.


 
I'll assume ^this is more the kind of thing that OP is concerned with, and perhaps is something that shouldn't so quickly be brushed aside as WELL, THAT'S OUR FURAFFINITY!


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## CerbrusNL (Feb 13, 2011)

Acc, there is no need at all to make threads like this over every single staff action.
Geez, some unplanned maintainance, big deal!

It's not like big companies never have unplanned downtime. Ratte even apologised for the late notice (Wich is still a warning -before- the site goes)
What do you want of us? Do you want the staff to plan all maintainance a week ahead?

Also, I hope you know that the mainsite and forum staff are mostly 2 seperate teams? It's not like we all know exactly what's going on on both sites.


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## Accountability (Feb 13, 2011)

CerbrusNL said:


> Acc, there is no need at all to make threads like this over every single staff action.
> Geez, some unplanned maintainance, big deal!
> 
> It's not like big companies never have unplanned downtime. Ratte even apologised for the late notice (Wich is still a warning -before- the site goes)
> What do you want of us? Do you want the staff to plan all maintainance a week ahead?


 
Unplanned downtime is not announced a week in advanced, and I completely understand the trouble it causes. But again, the problem here is this announcement was announced using the incorrect medium _a week ago_ and apparently not even the staff knew about it. All I want is to see news like this posted to the mainsite, since that's where 100% of the people affected go. Not everyone reads the FA Twitter, not everyone reads the FA Forums, not everyone reads Dragoneer's journals. Those are all unacceptable places to post the only announcement about something like six hours of planned downtime.



> Also, I hope you know that the mainsite and forum astaff are mostly 2  seperate teams? It's not like we all know what's going on on both sites.


That's why this was posted in "Site Discussion" and not "Forum Discussion".


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## Fiz (Feb 13, 2011)

CerbrusNL said:


> Acc, there is no need at all to make threads like this over every single staff action.
> Geez, some unplanned maintainance, big deal!
> 
> It's not like big companies never have unplanned downtime. Ratte even apologised for the late notice (Wich is still a warning -before- the site goes)
> What do you want of us? Do you want the staff to plan all maintainance a week ahead?


 
...um.

This isn't unplanned. It's been planned for a week. 

Unless you actually think it was unplanned (which would go perfectly with Ratte's statement that it "blindsided" some of the staff), then this a problem itself.


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## Ratte (Feb 13, 2011)

I'd like to know why it's so hard to post a fucking thread in advance on FAF.  Twitter is not how we're supposed to communicate with our users and it never has been.

There's a huge problem in itself if the other staff didn't even know about it, let alone the remainder of FA that doesn't use Twitter.  It's evident this wasn't unplanned.  What the fuck.


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## CerbrusNL (Feb 13, 2011)

Right. That was a misunderstanding from my side then.
Forum announcement / mainsite header notice next time, please!


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## Ratte (Feb 13, 2011)

I'd like to know why not even the staff knew about this.  This lack of communication is getting out of hand.


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## Xenke (Feb 13, 2011)

Ratte said:


> I'd like to know why not even the staff knew about this.  This lack of communication is getting out of hand.


 
They were too busy working on TT policy, obviously.


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## Ratte (Feb 13, 2011)

Xenke said:


> They were too busy working on TT policy, obviously.


 
Those only concern certain staffmembers.  There is absolutely no excuse for this bullshit.


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## Monster. (Feb 13, 2011)

Ratte said:


> Those only concern certain staffmembers.  There is absolutely no excuse for this bullshit.


Hell hath no fury like Ratte on the job!

Seriously, mods, there needs to be a meeting or a mass email sent out to _the entire staff_ when shit like this happens to avoid further threads or complaints.


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## Fay V (Feb 13, 2011)

These threads always give the impression that the FA staff are like children in a fort. No real organization behind their "authority" and important messages are sent out on a whim. 
Not to insult some of the wonderful staff that are doing their work and remarking how it's bullshit that some are getting special treatment, or that important messages are being sent over twitter.


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## Freehaven (Feb 13, 2011)

Wow. Is it any wonder that the mods who are actually working to help make the site better feel shortchanged?


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## Witchiebunny (Feb 13, 2011)

And I wonder where are the upper Admins who are supposed to be giving this type of information? Why is site staff unaware of the downtime? This isn't like it's the first time this lack of communication has happened, this has been a persistent problem, ESPECIALLY recently. It really didn't occur to anyone to make a mainsite administration announcement? It takes all of 10 seconds to do from the ACP for goodness' sake! Why is it so difficult to communicate with your users whom you claim to value so highly?


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## Aden (Feb 13, 2011)

Sigh. Just _what_ is so hard about putting up one of those little announcement boxes at the top of FA? They did it for the god damn link of the day, they can do it for this.


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## ArielMT (Feb 13, 2011)

I haven't even heard back about whether the planned downtime will still happen or not, given how the last report is six days old and said it's on.  Memories are short, and reminders are good.


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## Alstor (Feb 13, 2011)

I can't believe the upper admins would keep their users in the dark, only to come in during the freakout and say that it was "unnecessary drama." That is so unacceptable for any business, more or less FA.


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## Deo (Feb 13, 2011)

Goddamn. It's like they don't value the other mods at all. If they respected them they'd have informed them and treated them to a heads up like the sentient equals they are. This is a dick move moreso against the mods who weren't told than the general user base who I don't have much sympathy for.


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## Fay V (Feb 13, 2011)

"Hey guys, we want you to work for free to make sure our site works. No complaining when we treat you like a 2$ whore because you don't happen to go to the same cons, live in the same area, or are our bestest buddies either. It's a privilege to slave away here and information is for those that earn it with blow jobs"


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## Monster. (Feb 13, 2011)

Like it's not bad enough that some of the admins were threatened already. Now you guys are being bumped out of the loop? That's fucked up.


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## Ben (Feb 13, 2011)

I think what's even more amusing about this whole debacle is that there's a whole group of regular mods who keep repeatedly showing up to embarass and trash-talk the rest of the FA staff, despite it being part of the staff conduct not to embarrass other staff in public. Now, I don't think you guys are wrong to do that, as it's been made plainly evident that nothing but that can possibly be effective at this point. However, if it even has to get to that point, and it's upsetting you, you guys really might as well just resign, and find more meaningful things to do with your lives than trying to maintain a rickety Volkswagen that never ran right to begin with. Really, it's just not worth it.


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## Deo (Feb 13, 2011)

Trp, Witchie, Ariel, and Ratte you guys are my favorite mods and this blatant disregard of you makes me mad. (even more than the usual level of mad)
*(â•¬ à² ç›Šà² )*


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## Ratte (Feb 13, 2011)

Ben said:


> I think what's even more amusing about this whole debacle is that there's a whole group of regular mods who keep repeatedly showing up to embarass and trash-talk the rest of the FA staff, despite it being part of the staff conduct not to embarrass other staff in public. Now, I don't think you guys are wrong to do that, as it's been made plainly evident that nothing but that can possibly be effective at this point. However, if it even has to get to that point, and it's upsetting you, you guys really might as well just resign, and find more meaningful things to do with your lives than trying to maintain a rickety Volkswagen that never ran right to begin with. Really, it's just not worth it.


 
I'm here to make this place better and to make sure it doesn't fall apart.  If the rest of them don't want to be embarrassed or "trash-talked" then they can get off their asses and do what they're supposed to do.  Don't tell me what is and isn't worth it, Ben.


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## Witchiebunny (Feb 13, 2011)

I think as members of this team that is trying to run the various parts of FA, we need to hold each other to a particular standard and stand up and ask for answers when stuff like this happens. Doing so privately is what has been done for years and it hasn't yielded any type of positive response. If asking these hard questions in public is the way we've gotta go, then that's the way we do it. Our responsibility is to the community of FA/FAF, and as long as we are here for that community and are trying to make it better for them, it's worth it for us. 

Resigning is a last resort, when one can't take what's happening anymore or when it's become clear that no amount of questioning, public or otherwise, will produce results. Or both. 

And for the record, the line is different for each of us, and it's up to the individual to decide when they've crossed it. NOT anyone else.


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## Arshes Nei (Feb 13, 2011)

I have to say I'm extremely irritated by the lack of communication and continuing this pattern. I don't watch twitter, I don't WANT to. It's more crap to spam up my day. What, so hundreds of tweets of useless junk about cats or something I'll find something useful?

Not consulted about software decisions, or  ignoring staff morale. Now, not mentioning downtime since people will ask the staff members "hey why is FA down" 

I know it seems like a sinking ship, but I gotta stick for those moderators still around doing the hard work.


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## Kihari (Feb 13, 2011)

So in the name of niceties and keeping BFFs close, we've long arrived at  the point  where several of the users and a handful of overworked, fed-up  staff froth  at the mouth every time some new example of administrative  fumbling or stupidity gets brought out into the open,



Ben said:


> it being part of the staff conduct not to embarrass other staff in public


 
and apparently there's this idea that staff members (including the lazy and ineffective ones) should be coddled and kept safe from public airings-out by each other? Fucking gag me.


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## TakeWalker (Feb 13, 2011)

Still kind of feels like this is being blown out of proportion. Current atmosphere of legit admin-hating and all that.

Keeping track of the Twitter account is not hard. I don't even have a Twitter and I do it. Things get posted there, this is not news, try keeping up.


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## Aden (Feb 13, 2011)

TakeWalker said:


> Still kind of feels like this is being blown out of proportion. Current atmosphere of legit admin-hating and all that.
> 
> Keeping track of the Twitter account is not hard. I don't even have a Twitter and I do it. Things get posted there, this is not news, try keeping up.


 
I'm just at a loss as to why _twitter, of all things,_ seems to be the announcement method of choice. Not angry, not indignant, just confused.


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## Eaglebird (Feb 13, 2011)

TakeWalker said:


> Keeping track of the Twitter account is not hard. I don't even have a Twitter and I do it. Things get posted there, this is not news, try keeping up.



The point is we shouldn't have to. Riding on another site's back for critical information is not right and, as mentioned before, does not disseminate information very well. I don't follow the FA twitter, I don't want to, and I don't have to. If not for Ben pointing out this thread, I would've been left scratching my head when the site went down, as would many others. I'm also more than certain there are users out there that still aren't aware of anything about this.

tl;dr just because something "is not hard" does not mean everyone should do it, has to be doing it, or cares to do it.


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## Witchiebunny (Feb 13, 2011)

The point is, the first and foremost location for news pertaining to the site SHOULD be the site itself. You do not post information to a third party site, like Twitter, that you haven't posted to your own site. Information about downtime shouldn't be coming from someplace that may or may not be checked by those affected by it. If you want to announce something, you announce it on the site, or place a link to it such as what happened with the official statement following the December Hacking. 

The ease of following Twitter isn't the issue. The issue is that the notification priorities are backwards-FA/FAF first, Twitter/LJ/etc. second.

EDIT: Compounding this is that not even site staff, people who SHOULD have been made aware of downtime, were informed. One tweet was made a week ago regarding the downtime, and *nothing else since*? Really? And this breakdown of communication between the Administrative heads and the site staff/the rest of the site isn't really a big deal? Really??

It's pretty exemplary of a much larger issue concerning communication between those in charge and everyone else, including those lower on the rung of the Admin team.


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## Arshes Nei (Feb 13, 2011)

TakeWalker said:


> Still kind of feels like this is being blown out of proportion. Current atmosphere of legit admin-hating and all that.
> 
> Keeping track of the Twitter account is not hard. I don't even have a Twitter and I do it. Things get posted there, this is not news, try keeping up.


 
No. As a staff member he should be using better outlets than a single twitter. I'm not getting an account so I can see spam of some fucking lolcats and other junk then "oh wait here's an FA announcement" .


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## Monster. (Feb 13, 2011)

TakeWalker said:


> Still kind of feels like this is being blown out of proportion. Current atmosphere of legit admin-hating and all that.
> 
> Keeping track of the Twitter account is not hard. I don't even have a Twitter and I do it. Things get posted there, this is not news, try keeping up.


Why should the _moderators and administrators_ have to follow some stupid twitter account to be informed of any site status changes? They should be told before anyone else, and a week prior, rather than be told hours before when a thread like this has already been made. That isn't fair.


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## Ben (Feb 13, 2011)

Ratte said:


> I'm here to make this place better and to make sure it doesn't fall apart.  If the rest of them don't want to be embarrassed or "trash-talked" then they can get off their asses and do what they're supposed to do.  Don't tell me what is and isn't worth it, Ben.



I'm not saying they don't deserve it, I'm just saying that you're better than this forum, and would likely be better off doing other things. Really, if hardly anything has changed over the course of several years, it's likely going to stay that way. I understand you feel an attachment to this place, but I sincerely think you deserve better.

(I don't know how to respond to Witchie and Arshes posts, assuming they were directed at me in some fashion, so yeah.)


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## Aden (Feb 13, 2011)

Ben said:


> I'm not saying they don't deserve it, I'm just saying that you're better than this forum, and would likely be better off doing other things. Really, if hardly anything has changed over the course of several years, it's likely going to stay that way. I understand you feel an attachment to this place, but I sincerely think you deserve better.


 
Well that's just, like, your opinion, man


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## Kihari (Feb 13, 2011)

Gaz said:


> Why should the _moderators and administrators_ have to follow some stupid twitter account to be informed of any site status changes? They should be told before anyone else, and a week prior, rather than be told hours before when a thread like this has already been made. That isn't fair.


 
Hell, this should have gone up in the admin notice bar on the mainsite well in advance for _everyone_ to be made aware of, rather than be greeted by an error page and BRB WORKIN ON SOMETHING.


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## ArielMT (Feb 14, 2011)

The site's still up, so I guess (keyword) it's not happening after all.  A follow-up scrubbing the planned downtime would've spared all of this confusion.


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## Ratte (Feb 14, 2011)

Ben said:


> I'm not saying they don't deserve it, I'm just saying that you're better than this forum, and would likely be better off doing other things. Really, if hardly anything has changed over the course of several years, it's likely going to stay that way. I understand you feel an attachment to this place, but I sincerely think you deserve better.


 
That won't stop me from trying.  I also have my own forum for "other things" as well as the occasional commission.


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## Grimfang (Feb 14, 2011)

edit: Eh, I'll just keep my opinion out of this. That's what I said I'd do, and I'm sure things will get worked out, however that happens.


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## ArielMT (Feb 14, 2011)

I got word in admin chat that it couldn't happen on time, so it's no longer a guess.


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## TakeWalker (Feb 14, 2011)

Wow, such aversion to _doing_ things. I'll repeat:

It's not like you all don't know things get posted on Twitter.

It's not hard to follow. _You don't need an account_, just an RSS feed reader. Comes standard with Gmail!

I do agree that announcements shouldn't just be on Twitter, which is definitely the problem in this case, but come on, people, stop crying over this!


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## Armaetus (Feb 14, 2011)

Unacceptable. First the inactive admins bullshit now this?


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## Fay V (Feb 14, 2011)

TakeWalker said:


> Wow, such aversion to _doing_ things. I'll repeat:
> 
> It's not like you all don't know things get posted on Twitter.
> 
> ...


 
stop crying that there is a case which literally shows how they are being disregarded as staff and how the structure and communication of this site is so pathetic that the important messages are sent via a medium people use to post the most pointless shit in their lives. 
It's not impossible to follow twitter accounts so staff should just get over it. I bet business owners send twitters about important staff info all the time.


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## nrr (Feb 14, 2011)

Fay V said:


> It's not impossible to follow twitter accounts so staff should just get over it. I bet business owners send twitters about important staff info all the time.


 
This is a good summary.


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## LizardKing (Feb 14, 2011)

Fay V said:


> I bet business owners send twitters about important staff info all the time.


Like this?

Or like this?



> It's never a bad time for tacos.
> 9:18 AM Feb 10th via web



Yeah. Righto.


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## Eevee (Feb 14, 2011)

TakeWalker said:


> Wow, such aversion to _doing_ things.


This could equally well be directed towards the upper echelon of FA staff, who could disseminate information much more efficiently with little effort.

Yes, many of the issues with FA and its practices can be worked around.  That's not an excuse for the issues to remain indefinitely or a free pass to escape criticism.

So the question is: is it the responsibility of management to keep staff informed, or the responsibility of staff to constantly hunt for information?



TakeWalker said:


> I do agree that announcements shouldn't just be on Twitter, which is definitely the problem in this case, but come on, people, stop crying over this!


Hey, there's little "crying" here.  This has been a fairly polite thread.

It's a problem, so it deserves mention.  And it's a symptom of a much larger problem, so even moreso.  You're free to ignore the thread if you want; I'm more concerned that there's been no response from the handful of people with the power to change this situation.


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## Eaglebird (Feb 14, 2011)

TakeWalker said:


> Wow, such aversion to _doing_ things. I'll repeat:
> 
> It's not like you all don't know things get posted on Twitter.
> 
> ...


 
no


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## Corto (Feb 14, 2011)

Wait wait wait wait

There's a site attached to these forums now? Why didn't anyone tell me?


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## ArielMT (Feb 14, 2011)

Witchiebunny said:


> The ease of following Twitter isn't the issue. The issue is that the notification priorities are backwards-FA/FAF first, Twitter/LJ/etc. second.



This.  The ball was dropped, and I got the impression none of us know how or why.  News must first reach our staff so that we're ready to field user questions and concerns, then news must reach our users through the most official means, and only then, when we have official news users can instantly recognize as ours, should we spread that news through official community channels such as Twitter and LJ.



Witchiebunny said:


> EDIT: Compounding this is that not even site staff, people who SHOULD have been made aware of downtime, were informed. One tweet was made a week ago regarding the downtime, and *nothing else since*? Really? And this breakdown of communication between the Administrative heads and the site staff/the rest of the site isn't really a big deal? Really??
> 
> It's pretty exemplary of a much larger issue concerning communication between those in charge and everyone else, including those lower on the rung of the Admin *team.*



Keyword bolded for emphasis.  We can't be expected to know everything everyone else on the team is doing, but it shouldn't be this hard to discover or this surprising a revelation when a few users know better what's scheduled to happen than most of the staff.  It should be news to us first, not last.

Also, disclosure on my part: I saw the tweet shortly after it was posted last Monday, but I thought nothing of it because I expected that news to be posted through more official means, and like the tweet itself, the news later slipped my mind as more urgent matters on both sides of the screen took my attention.



Arshes Nei said:


> No. As a staff member he should be using better outlets than a single twitter. I'm not getting an account so I can see spam of some fucking lolcats and other junk then "oh wait here's an FA announcement" .



We can has downtiemz nao? :V

Regarding this particular incident, I've taken it upon myself to make sure our users aren't as surprised next weekend as we were this past weekend.  I don't know if this is insubordinate of me, but I'd rather risk earning that label to keep the whole team running smoothly than idle and watch as I become associated with a PR disaster worse than this thread.


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## nrr (Feb 14, 2011)

ArielMT said:


> We can has downtiemz nao? :V


 
Miss, are you classified as feline?


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## Arshes Nei (Feb 14, 2011)

ArielMT said:


> Regarding this particular incident, I've taken it upon myself to make sure our users aren't as surprised next weekend as we were this past weekend.  I don't know if this is insubordinate of me, but I'd rather risk earning that label to keep the whole team running smoothly than idle and watch as I become associated with a PR disaster worse than this thread.


 
I have no problems with you doing that. It's just sad it's become this way.


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