The WS site is working again.

Woohoo! The addiction resumes!

The discussion - or thread - vanished like smoke in the wind.

As did the 9/11 thread.

Does this mean we get some $$$ off the bill?

WE Online subscribers were offered a one month extention to their subscriptions in a subsequently deleted thread. All evidence of that offer has been wiped from cyberspace, however....

PH

Outage? What Outage? Move Along. There's nothing to see here....

quote:

Originally posted by PurpleHaze:
WE Online subscribers were offered a one month extention to their subscriptions in a subsequently deleted thread. All evidence of that offer has been wiped from cyberspace, however....

PH

Robert Taylor, what is up with that?

And what did happen to the site, down for more than 2 days... WOW????

Oh yes there is Vino.

quote:

Originally posted by wine+art:

quote:

Originally posted by PurpleHaze:
WE Online subscribers were offered a one month extention to their subscriptions in a subsequently deleted thread. All evidence of that offer has been wiped from cyberspace, however....

PH

Robert Taylor, what is up with that?

They are sending you an 8 X 10 glossy of Marvin with Mario Batali instead.

quote:

Originally posted by PurpleHaze:
WE Online subscribers were offered a one month extention to their subscriptions in a subsequently deleted thread. All evidence of that offer has been wiped from cyberspace, however....

PH

Squires never would have handled it this way.

So, what's it going to be Marv?

With the evidence of your offer having been deleted, are you still going to be extending the subscriptions? Or only extending the subscriptions for those who notice and complain loud enough?

Or are we all going to have to return your graffiti cards from the magazine for new subscriptions, and decide not to honor OUR commitments after receiving a few free (back?) issues?

Moo

quote:

Originally posted by sydthesquid:

quote:

Originally posted by wine+art:

quote:

Originally posted by PurpleHaze:
WE Online subscribers were offered a one month extention to their subscriptions in a subsequently deleted thread. All evidence of that offer has been wiped from cyberspace, however....

PH

Robert Taylor, what is up with that?

They are sending you an 8 X 10 glossy of Marvin with Mario Batali instead.

With ads on the back, don't forget!

But in all honesty, before the days of Robert Taylor, I kept saying how WS doesn't care much about brand image. As much as I dislike Squires, his board is an asset to eBob in terms of people ITB that populate it (some regularly, some not).

This is another example of Marvin alienating customers in the name of current revenues. With an online site that has shown a huge desire for improvement over the past two years, something like this is quite pathetic.

In disclosure, I'm not a subscriber. I dropped both my online and print subscription this year. The print due to not feeling like I was getting my moneys worth, and the online because of cash constraints.

Marvin, I would love to hear the reasoning for taking back this offer. What is an extra month in the grand scheme of things? You stand to alienate more people who will not renew their online subscription (and some that will probably drop both) by this than the additional 'cost' would have been. Even the goodwill gesture of the free month might have caused some people to renew their subscription that would have dropped.

I, myself, had seriously considered reinitiating mine, but will not now.

I posted this on the "Deadly Silence" but thought I would do it here again...

I looked at my account on Customer care and this is what it says.

quote:

Issue Information:
Your online membership will expire Aug 31, 2008.


Order Information:
Your current order for a 1 year membership was received on Jul 31, 2007.

Is that not a 13 month subscription? July 31 has been my anniversary date.

Mine renewal was dated May 29th, 2007.

To their credit, my end date was extended to May 31, 2008.

quote:

Originally posted by sydthesquid:
Mine renewal was dated May 29th, 2007.

To their credit, my end date was extended to May 31, 2008.

Am I missing something? That's two days, not a month...

quote:

Originally posted by Eric White:

quote:

Originally posted by sydthesquid:
Mine renewal was dated May 29th, 2007.

To their credit, my end date was extended to May 31, 2008.

Am I missing something? That's two days, not a month...

Really?

Site down again, at least from this end.
This is what I get:


Index of /Wine/Home
Name Last modified Size Description
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Parent Directory 12-Sep-2007 16:33 -
0,,,00.html 21-Sep-2007 00:12 36k
0,,1,00.html 19-Sep-2007 18:50 37k
0,,2,00.html 19-Sep-2007 18:24 37k
JS/ 08-Nov-2005 10:34 -
css/ 04-May-2006 11:37 -
home_content.html 27-Jun-2002 12:59 1k


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Apache/1.3.34 Server at web2.winespectator.com Port 80

PH

It's back up. Weird.

PH

Like I said, their technical issues are not totally solved from what I've experienced.

I've hit the Parent Directory page about 3 times in the last two days and that is normally not accessible to the public. I think it means there is ongoing fixin' going on, y'all.

I'm trying to do a Wine Ratings search. I get:

"Home > Help > Page Not Available

Unfortunately, our server can't find the page you're looking for.

Often this is simply the result of a glitch in Internet traffic between our servers and your computer. Please click the "Back" button and try again to reload your page. In most cases, the page you seek will appear immediately.

If you are a new subscriber and have reached this page by clicking on your Personal Wine List, Save an Article, or other personalization tools, PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SIGN IN OUT, then sign in again. This will correct the problem.



If you have a consistent problem with a particular page on our site, please use our Contact Us page to let us know which page causes the error, and we will take steps to rectify the problem.

Due to the heavy volume of email we receive, please allow us 1-2 business days to get back in touch."

I get the feeling that the guys handling the site are strictly 9-5 M-F only.

The more I see these things, the more I wonder if WS was seriously hacked and they just do not want to disclose that for a number of good reasons until they find out where the attack came from.

Just a thought...

They could have just been rebuilding the database and run into unexpected problems, but I've got one observation that may or may not be a red herring.

On the same day that the WS site went down, the Yahoo message boards were having problems. Access was sporadic. That continued for at least 24 hours.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Goldman:
Does this mean we get some $$$ off the bill?

Intead of $$, how about an extra Advance and Insider?

I didn't get an email about it, but I notice my 2 year subscription has been extended by about 6 weeks.
More than fair, I think.

What good is the extra six weeks when the site is down again?

quote:

Originally posted by sprnplr:
What good is the extra six weeks when the site is down again?

It is only my supposition but likely. The trouble experienced a couple of weeks ago will not be revealed but WS managed a temporary fix that now requires a few hours of down time to address more completely. Technology has not yet achieved the level of zero problems or total security from hackers. It is a battle all face from the Federal Government to the small business owner.

It's not up now, had to go around to get here!

Maybe I should amend the title of the thread to read NOT working again. As far as I can tell, it has been down all day.

I can appreciate needing to upgrade the site assuming it was in response to last month's outage. BUT, being down for what seemed like 24 hrs. is totally unacceptable in this day and age. This isn't Joe Blow's homepage. Do it right people. Build it out in parallel, test it, cut it over. It really is that straight forward. If you need a new consulting company give me a shout. Geez.

quote:

Originally posted by snipes:
I can appreciate needing to upgrade the site assuming it was in response to last month's outage. BUT, being down for what seemed like 24 hrs. is totally unacceptable in this day and age. This isn't Joe Blow's homepage. Do it right people. Build it out in parallel, test it, cut it over. It really is that straight forward. If you need a new consulting company give me a shout. Geez.

This is my first time on today and the site is working now.
I am not pretending to know what the h*ll is going on with WS but I work a great deal with websites and know that problems can be tough to deal with sometimes. That being said, I do think that WS should have the resources to contract with a service that can provide better service than we have seen over the past 6 months. There have been too many "outages" to believe they are working with a really top company. I recently moved my company's website because I got tired of down time. It cost me a lot more but it is worth it if downtime is critical.

I think, considering that WS is a subscription service they would be very interested in not allowing these disturbances in service to their paying customers. By now, in this age of technology, WS can find a way to never be down through redundant servers. I know it can be done.

The site is up, but try searching for more than one tasting note/rating per user session- not working. Two "issues" in less than a month???

quote:

Originally posted by EagleGrafix:

quote:

Originally posted by snipes:
I can appreciate needing to upgrade the site assuming it was in response to last month's outage. BUT, being down for what seemed like 24 hrs. is totally unacceptable in this day and age. This isn't Joe Blow's homepage. Do it right people. Build it out in parallel, test it, cut it over. It really is that straight forward. If you need a new consulting company give me a shout. Geez.

This is my first time on today and the site is working now.
I am not pretending to know what the h*ll is going on with WS but I work a great deal with websites and know that problems can be tough to deal with sometimes. That being said, I do think that WS should have the resources to contract with a service that can provide better service than we have seen over the past 6 months. There have been too many "outages" to believe they are working with a really top company. I recently moved my company's website because I got tired of down time. It cost me a lot more but it is worth it if downtime is critical.

I think, considering that WS is a subscription service they would be very interested in not allowing these disturbances in service to their paying customers. By now, in this age of technology, WS can find a way to never be down through redundant servers. I know it can be done.

The part that chapped me this time around was the splash page that was up while the site was down indicated maintenance/upgrades were taking place. This to me indicates planned downtime. Who schedules a 12 hour maintenance window on a Saturday afternoon for a 24x7 operation? NOBODY SHOULD BE. That was the basis of my rant about lack of planning. Outages are one thing, but that's not my interpretation this time around.

quote:

Originally posted by snipes:

The part that chapped me this time around was the splash page that was up while the site was down indicated maintenance/upgrades were taking place. This to me indicates planned downtime. Who schedules a 12 hour maintenance window on a Saturday afternoon for a 24x7 operation? NOBODY SHOULD BE. That was the basis of my rant about lack of planning. Outages are one thing, but that's not my interpretation this time around.

You have no argument from me. I generally try to give the benefit of the doubt but the frequency of problems points more to a serious operations problem to me. I agree that planned maintenance more than 5 hours not done in the middle of the night AND without any pre-announcement, as is the normal practice, is extraordinary and to me indicates that strategic planning is not on track with WS Online.

I have no idea, but I have a gut feeling someone's relative is trying to host and maintain the WS site on minimum expense.

The site was up, but now I'm having problems again.
Anybody else?

I am getting the main page and the fora - but I cannot get a rating search.

I can get to the site, and navigate around the site, but after I do one rating search I get a "site not found" message until I restart the browser. This happens with both Firefox and IE.

The site is not working. You can't get to most of the content. I can't get to any of the online ratings.

Can someone in the IT group open up a help ticket ???