State of the OD Operations 2012 * *

In which our Hero finally fails to avoid talking about the OD operational situation and realizes that he’s just so tired of the topic and if he didn’t love you, Gentle Reader, he’d almost relieved for the site to fold and put itself out of his misery

Surprised anybody cares what I think on it, but in response to some notes, my answers to some questions asked and unasked.

About the blackout and the DM/Admin message.

I believe the acronym SNAFU covers the outage: Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.

The site was down for over a day. With no communication. Again.None of the people who have access to the Facebook or Twitter accounts had the time or opportunity to both notice and update either.

Response?

The Diarymaster screwed that one up. The admins are a backup system, but free help is always best efforts help, so the buck stops where the buck stopped.

I’m disappointed that nobody was in a position to both detect the outage and update the notification.

The DM occasionally points to the monitoring service that pings the OD servers to check if they’re up, which is the first thing I also check when a system is down. But while a failure is a failure, a successful ping does not indicate that the service is up and running. In fact for most of the outages we’ve had, that stupid indicator has cheerfully celebrated our uninterrupted up-time.

Internet services work in layers. Ping is a low layer. Ping is like checking your map to see if there’s a road to your friend’s house. But just because there’s a way to get there doesn’t mean your friend is home.

To find out if your friend is home, and free to talk, you call them.

To find out if your web service is serving, you consume content.

Here’s how.

Step 1A: Easy Peasy Chicken Squeezy

Simple version? Create a diary, lock it down, and then use curl or wget and pull a page from that diary.

If you get the same result as last time, the diary is up for readers.

Step 1B: De Luxe

How I’d do it? Create that same diary, make it private, and use a headless browser to log in, write an entry, write a note, read that entry, and then delete the entry.

Step 2: Spilled Beans

Run your checker every 3 hours. If the result is what you expected, post “Automated status check Ok” on your twitter feed.

If the result is not what you expected, post “Automated status check failed. OD may be experiencing issues.”

Why this way is better? It checks things from the user’s perspective. And it reports, up or down, like clockwork

And it doesn’t get busy with other jobs, or life. It doesn’t forget to send an update. And people know the current status. No questions “Is it up for you?” No “Is it back yet?”

Need more help, let me know.

About the LinkedIn thing

The problem with these online sites is that everybody uses them in different ways. So here’s a thought about LinkedIn.

You put your online working history out for the public to see. It’s a story. And the amount of detail you share will change over time. You may want to keep a moonlighting gig private.

The point is that it’s personal marketing. And the closer you get to the present, the more carefully manicured the story.

So as with a diary, a LinkedIn profile is not necessarily a lie, but neither is it a complete or accurate truth. It can sometimes illuminate possibilities, but it’s always a story.

(On the other hand, I was clapping my hands with glee that someone thought to check there. Clever use of social media!)

*Edit*

Some folks missed the LinkedIn thing, so for context, some enterprising folks tracked down the DM’s LinkedIn page which says that he was running OD from 1998 to 2011, which seemed to suggest that he’d left the OD some time ago.

I thought it was interesting detective work, but my experience, personally and with colleagues, is that we manipulate our resumes for the circumstances. And I just want to point out that behaviour pattern because I think it’s relevant

About OD being in trouble, going down

The Diarymaster has said that he can’t make a living off the site anymore. Honestly, I’m much more surprised by the possibility that this was his full time job, because I can’t see why I’d have done that in his shoes.

But making a living off the site means making many tens of thousands of dollars of profit on the site operations. Running the site means breaking even on the operating costs.

The fact that the DM is working does not mean that the site is in trouble. It really doesn’t.

On the other hand, the fact that the DM still doesn’t seem to get customer service, that’s a problem.

About taking over the OD.

The last time we were abandoned, I tracked down a contact number and left a message that I was prepared to make an offer on the business. It was not a joke, I had a price range in mind, based on my evaluation of the business at the time.

Of course I got no response. And that’s not an of course because the DM was being uncommunicative, but because it’s a viable profitable business. Maybe not where he wanted to get to, he’s no Zuckerberg, but I wouldn’t have sold either without exceptional circumstance.

Now, I’d consider it, but my valuation is lower. I don’t have the sitewide credibility to inspire confidence, and the community and reputation are damaged each time we have an incident that’s mishandled. And the platform is aging and pricey for what it delivers.

So I’m not especially interested in owning Opendiary.com anymore. But if the management would like my help, I’m here and willing.

About creating a new community

I was one of many dreaming of creating a new site and saving the community here. But the community is this big mass, and without drawing everyone at once, it just isn’t going to happen.

Basically, it’s not worth the effort unless I can persuade you and you and you and you to come with me, Gentle Reader. And it’s hard to persuade people without building the platform.

(And yet the idea of trying it excites me. How sad is that)

About how to find me if OD goes down.

I’ve just created a tumblr account for jackserin. So feel free to bookmark that, and if OD goes down, that will be the back up contact point until I have a better idea.

The diarist Kate also has set up a lifeboat mailing list. Check out her entry and consider signing up. And if you’re at all concerned about sharing an email address, I can highly recommend spamgourmet.com for your disposable email needs.

A closing remark

The OD has been a force for strength and change in my life. I have met great friends, and remarkable people who have made me see the world and myself so much more profoundly than I ever would have achieved on my own. It is not a small gift.

So thank you, Diarymaster.

*EDIT 2* 23 Feb 2012

…just communicating that the site is downand somebody is looking into it isn’t helpful – as long as you understand [the site isn’t going down – The Diarymaster

You make me cringe, sir. You’ve just missed the whole point. Communicating that the site is down and you’re working on it is *HOW* you convince people the site isn’t going down.

You set up two communication channels to notify of status during an outage. And then the site went down and you didn’t use them. It’s not the fact that we couldn’t see the diary for a day, it’s that we didn’t see evidence of you or your admin team in that time.