Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

That meeting sounds like a shotgun wedding between a shitshow and a clusterfuck.

They spent the last eight months firing professionals and replacing them with ideologues.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

“They all knew.”

Giving up is unforgivable.

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

You are here: Home / z-Retired Categories / Previous Site Maintenance / Site Maintenance

Site Maintenance

by | 147 Comments

This post is in: 

We are upgrading to the new WP, and doing some otrher things to fix the problem. Can those of you who have had a problem the past few days tell me if it is fixed?

And for the love of everything holy, I appreciate the emails informing Houston that there is a problem, but we are on it, I swear to Allah.

*** Update ***

We might be up and down for a few more hours as things are ironed out.

Another thing- can we please stop screaming about my hosting services? I personally think they rock. I know it is frustrating when the website does not work for a couple hours, but when you consider what we are asking this platform to do- thousands of comments every day, all able to be edited, etc., I am shocked things work this well.

Add to it that every time we get linked by major sites- Kos, Sullivan, Atrios all at the same time, and the site load is longer than normal, and I get twenty emails screaming about my shitty host. Look- this is not the NY Times. I’m already on a dedicated server, and it makes no sense to upgrade more for a small wait once every couple of days when traffic peaks.

Think of it this way. If your city spend 95% of its budget on snow removal equipment, yes, within a few hours of every snowfall, the roads would be clean. And then that equipment would sit for the next 362 days unused.

The same is true for this blog. 99.9% of the time, we are operating WELL below the server’s capacity. Only a few times every month do we have an issue where there is a confluence of events that make things load slow- multiple links from major blogs, events where we are all watching and commenting at the same time (SOTU address, where we have several thousand people smashing “REFRESH” every six seconds to see if the other several thousand people saw their pithy comment in the open thread), etc. Then we slow down a bit. It would make absolutely no sense to have this website attached to the modern equivalent of WOPR 24/7 for the few moments when things slow down.

But the rest of the time, things hum along pretty nicely, and I really appreciate the work my Hosting company does keeping this barge afloat.

And I’m not trying to be mean or attack anyone, I’m just trying to explain what is happening sometimes when the site loads slow and why.

Reader Interactions

147Comments

  2. 2.

    frankk

    I haven’t been able to see the site since Monday, but you are now coming through loud and clear. Hurray!

  3. 3.

    Seth

    Fixed for me now. Wasn’t working earlier today (the front page, that is; archives were there).

    I’m on Mac OS X (10.5.8) and Firefox 3.5.7 behind a corporate firewall.

  4. 4.

    coldie

    I couldnt read your front page for about 3 days. I could follow links to certain posts and thats it. It seems to be working now. Thanks!

  7. 7.

    Throwin Stones

    I’m finally able to get to the front page after leaving a comment on an old thread.
    Didn’t we have some sort of comment for a cookie issue like this a few months ago?

  8. 8.

    Waynski

    I had trouble accessing the homepage in the last 20 minutes or so, but was able to get in on the link from Sully.

  10. 10.

    Matthew Reid Krell

    I’ve been locked out for…two weeks? But it’s fixed now.

    One possible help for if this happens again (front page down for some users, archives available): make the banner across the top of the page a link to the home page. Links seemed to be working, just typing in the home page didn’t. But there is no link to the front page once you’re in a particular piece. Unless I just missed it.

  12. 12.

    wasabi gasp

    It works for me, but I’m on a completely different system than before. Linux now, XP before. Same version of Firefox though.

  13. 13.

    peachkfc

    Wasn’t able to get to the front page (except through my RSS feeder) for days until just a few minutes ago. Glad you’re back.

  15. 15.

    Tom

    All is fine now – I just thought you had smeared the thoughts you wrote on your hand and had nothing further to say.

  21. 21.

    namekarB

    Hooray! Its working. Windows XP and Firefox 3.5.7.

    I was going through withdrawals the last couple of days but your fix has made it all better

  26. 26.

    Tlazolteotl

    Yes! I can hear you now!

    Haven’t been able to get on here for several days, but it’s working at last!

    Mac 10.6.2, Firefox 3.5.5 (looks like I need to update!)

    :-)

  29. 29.

    cat48

    Thanks, Allah, I finally got here. Never had trouble before this morning around 10a.m. I have kept trying and all seems right. No trouble before today.

  30. 30.

    Shade Tail

    I haven’t been having any problems before today. About an hour ago, the connection kept refusing to go through, and that was the first trouble I had at all. I’m guessing that was you guys doing the upgrade, though. Whatever it was, the site is definitely working OK right now.

  32. 32.

    Punchy

    You fixed it on my gahddahm Palm Centro! For the first time in 2 years, this POS loads in less than 90 secs. I feel like I just had a blogasm.

    You. Are. A. GAHD.

  33. 33.

    The Other Steve

    I’ve not had any problems.

    But then again I don’t have a Mac… so it’s common for things to just work.

  36. 36.

    Brendan

    Whew! What a relief. I hadn’t been able to log on in several days. Just got a blank page. Just now was able to log on again.
    Thanks

  37. 37.

    Shade Tail

    OK, addendum to my post @ #30. I just tried to edit it to include my platform and browser (for the record, Mac OS and Safari), and I was told I didn’t have permission to edit my own post. I suspect the reason is that, when I tried to edit it, it was post #26, and now it has magically become post #30. *shrug*

    Consider that a bug report.

  39. 39.

    che

    I’m just a lurker, and will remain so after this post. I had trouble getting on this site on both Firefox and IE. I deleted all history, cookies, etc in both browsers. Don’t know if that’s what helped.

  41. 41.

    Osprey

    “I swear to Allah”

    From FOXnews:

    A liberal blogger, John Cole, was arrested today and sent to an undisclosed location in regards to a blog post he made where he ‘swore allegiance to Allah’.

  42. 42.

    Dork

    SOTU address, where we have several thousand people smashing “REFRESH” every six seconds to see if the other several thousand people saw their pithy comment in the open thread

    /looks sheepishly in mirror, blushes

  43. 43.

    chicago dyke

    let’s face it John, this site supports a lot of junkies and when it’s down, they’re going to act like junkies act when they’re cut off. it’s the same at every popular blog. heh. you should be more like Duncan, and just let your contempt and hatred of your commenters show clearly and often. you could switch to JSKit commenting, that would really show us. :-)

  44. 44.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV.

    I just assumed Tunch had eaten you. Glad everything is all right.

    And I’m not trying to be mean or attack anyone, I’m just trying to explain what is happening sometimes when the site loads slow and why.

    Please forgive us for being crazed minions.

  45. 45.

    KDP

    Intermittent issues receiving a ‘connection to balloon-juice.com has timed out’ over the last week or so. Could not connect for almost an hour this morning.

    Almost sent an email, but decided that you were probably well aware of the problem and that they would be resolved.

    Good job, but really missed my early morning fix.

  46. 46.

    Cris

    I’m already on a dedicated server

    Which is a minimum of 140 bucks a month. This would be a good place to remind us of the “Donate Via PayPal” link on the left sidebar.

  48. 48.

    Gene

    Dude. Enough with the excuses. Your hosting site sucks. Your blog is the only one that I read that is constantly going down. None of the others do. Dump the bitch and make the switch.

  51. 51.

    cat48

    Update

    Your hosting company is great. I have never nor will I ever, complain about it–promise. I just keep trying if it doesn’t work the first time.

  53. 53.

    DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio

    Probably nobody bitches about this thing more than I do.

    So, taking the opportunity to say, how you guys put up with the hassles and keep this thing online day after day is beyond me. You all deserve medals.

  54. 54.

    Hob

    John: I figure what you really need at this point is a series of patronizing comments telling you how to communicate with your readers. For instance, you should acknowledge that there’s a problem, and then tell people that you’re working on it. Then (and this is the part most people forget to do!) just fix the problem. Then communicate about it by writing a blog post or making a comment.

    I hope you appreciated this lesson in communication skills. If you follow my example, soon everyone will like you just as much as you like me!

  55. 55.

    Michael

    Sweet Baby Jesus and the Troops, but she’s gone from unhinged to completely falling from the frame.

    minnesotaindependent.com/55061/bachmann-america-cursed-by-god-if-we-reject-israel

    At a Republican Jewish Coalition event in Los Angeles last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann offered a candid view of her positions on Israel: Support for Israel is handed down by God and if the United States pulls back its support, America will cease to exist.

    Her exact quote:

    I am convinced in my heart and in my mind that if the United States fails to stand with Israel, that is the end of the United States . . . [W]e have to show that we are inextricably entwined, that as a nation we have been blessed because of our relationship with Israel, and if we reject Israel, then there is a curse that comes into play. And my husband and I are both Christians, and we believe very strongly the verse from Genesis [Genesis 12:3], we believe very strongly that nations also receive blessings as they bless Israel. It is a strong and beautiful principle
    ….
    I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations. If I were an atheist of the other sect, who believe or pretend to believe that all is ordered by chance, I should believe that chance had ordered the Jews to preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization.
    ….
    So that is a very long way to answer your question, but I believe that an explicit statement from us about our support for Israel as tied to American security, we would do well to do that.

  56. 56.

    Eljai

    I’ve had no problems at home (Windows Vista, god help me); but I couldn’t get it at work (Windows XP) unless I did a google search and clicked a link. Thank goodness it’s working now; I need this more than caffeine.

  57. 57.

    Mojotron

    For the last 3 days I was able to access BJ from my home PC running XP and Firefox, but got bubkus on the iPhone. Just checked and it is working.

  59. 59.

    flukebucket

    I still have to come in the back door and comment in order to get to the front page but I don’t give a fuck. I don’t care how I have to get in as long as I can get in.

  60. 60.

    FormerSwingVoter

    Shorter John Cole:

    “Upset with site performance? Well, when you think about it, it’s basically all your fault. Jerks.”

  61. 61.

    KCinDC

    If your city spend 95% of its budget on snow removal equipment, yes, within a few hours of every snowfall, the roads would be clean. And then that equipment would sit for the next 362 days unused. The same is true for this blog.

    Does this mean Chris Matthews will be trashing John Cole for his inept management of the Balloon Juice traffic crisis?

  63. 63.

    Ash Can

    The site seems fine now, which is a sure sign it’s all going to go back to shit in 5…4…3…

  64. 64.

    Louis

    Stealing back time from the man while here at work, I can again get in. Thanks. Sorry for the lack of snark. I’m overwhelmed by seriousness.

  65. 65.

    licensed to kill time

    @Michael:

    Shorter Michelle “Batshit Crazy” Bachmann: “I’ve got nothing against Jews. Some of my best friends are Jews. And I know I will meet them in Israel right before the Second Coming, when Jesus arrives to sweep them all away and clean the place up for us Real Christians. I look forward to that day.”

  66. 66.

    Cathie from Canada

    Works fine now, in Internet Explorer.
    By the way, usually when I call up your site in Internet Explorer, I get a message that Internet Explorer has to read it in “compatability view” — it works fine but yours is the only website that ever shows this error. You might pass this along to your hosting people, maybe there is a code glitch somewhere.

  67. 67.

    Rob_in_Hawaii

    It’s working now. I had a completely white screen for the past few days but assumed it was a picture of Lily & Tunch playing in the snow outside. (Alas, I couldn’t find either of them.)

    Lucky I live Hawaii!

  70. 70.

    You Don't Say

    Hey John, I’ve been unable to access most of last few days and can now, obviously. I use Firefox on Vista.

  71. 71.

    flukebucket

    @Cathie from Canada:

    By the way, usually when I call up your site in Internet Explorer, I get a message that Internet Explorer has to read it in “compatability view”

    Same thing here. I had never had it do that until I upgraded to IE 8.0 or whatever it is now.

  72. 72.

    bemused

    Sure it was site maintenance. I get it. Hush, hush on the sabotage attempt.
    Oh wait. This isn’t another post on the latest wingnut conspiracy theory?

  73. 73.

    Maude

    Around 9 a.m. there was a fatal error WP_error widget bit and then just now fine. Before that, no problem. K-Meleon, Win Xp Pro.

  76. 76.

    2busy

    Like so many others . . . nothing but a blank screen since Monday, on Chrome, Firefox and IE. Now it’s working great – hooray, because this site is one of my favorites.

  77. 77.

    Betty

    Sorry for being one of the e-mailers, but by the second day, I couldn’t find an explanation and I really did miss you. That’s kind of nice to know, isn’t it?

  78. 78.

    Warren Terra

    Here I yhought the traffic problems were caused by transmitting those immense Tunch pics. I’d thought that their absence for the past week or so was an attempt to deal with the problem.

  80. 80.

    Ron

    It was all very bizarre. going to http://www.balloon-juice.com failed on my home computer from Chrome, but worked fine from Firefox. I tried using the /index.htm link but it showed me the front page from a day earlier. But then I saw in a particular entry comments that said that if people posted a comment then it worked. So I posted a comment there while using Chrome and sure enough the website worked normally for me afterwords.

  81. 81.

    ellaesther

    I love you John Cole.

    That is all.

    (Oh and I’m back from Disney World and several days of Life Itself hitting me upside the head and am sure to have a pithy comment about something soon. But for now: I love you).

  83. 83.

    Bad Horse's Filly

    Site works on Chrome and Firefox now. Won’t be able to check IE until I get home.

    I don’t know John, for a site that offers me hours of free entertainment daily, links to my blog and allows me to connect with people who are as crazy as I am, well I believe ur doing it rite.

  84. 84.

    Donald G

    Problem appears to be fixed. I closed the browser and came back and didn’t get the dreaded white screen.

  85. 85.

    Evolutionary

    The site has been working perfectly for me for months and no problems recently at all. (fwiw I am using Google Chrome and couldn’t stop the stupid hoppin’ gator but at least I got to read Balloon-juice any time I wanted to.)

  89. 89.

    PTirebiter

    …smashing “REFRESH” every six seconds to see if the other several thousand people saw their pithy comment

    Glad to see you keep you’re sense of humor when you’re pissed. I think it’s essential for living as a Democrat.

  90. 90.

    Patty Krebs

    You were gone for three days and I tried making do with TPM, Duncan Black and Huffington Post but it just wasn’t the same!
    Welcome back!

  91. 91.

    eastriver

    I thought it was working, but I don’t see any phurry photos, so the site must still be phucked.

  92. 92.

    de stijl

    John Cole,

    If you’re ever offered an IT gig where the job duties include end-user communication, I strongly suggest you decline the job.

    It is not a core competency for you.

  94. 94.

    Jeff

    Only been able to get to the site through Google the last few days. Now I get Error 404 – Page not found where the articles would go, I do get the headers and sidebars though.

  97. 97.

    Quiddity

    As the software/administrator for a number of websites, I can tell you that Balloon Juice is decently hosted and well managed (by John, et al). Cole should be proud of what he’s accomplished here.

  98. 98.

    Epistole Antifon

    I had about three days of not being able to see the front page but being able to see sub-pages of the site. That appears to have been fixed.

  99. 99.

    scav

    @de stijl:

    John Cole,
    If you’re ever offered an IT gig where the job duties include end-user communication, I strongly suggest you decline the job.

    It is not a core competency for you.

    & I’ll cancel your vote: I think more end users need to hear things like this. “User, meet reality. Reality, meet user. User, pay attention. Next time Reality, feel free to kick user.”

    Reality shouldn’t be unarmed.

  103. 103.

    Kate in AZ

    Had problems getting in..all solved now. Long time lurker, but love this site. Keep up the good work!

  104. 104.

    Woodbuster

    I can see the site just fine, but I am still unhappy. Could you please do something about that? Kthanxbai.

  105. 105.

    twiffer

    @Michael: holy batshit crazy!

    also, she apparently doesn’t know what an atheist is:

    If I were an atheist of the other sect, who believe or pretend to believe that all is ordered by chance, I should believe that chance had ordered the Jews to preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization.

    um, no. if you were an atheist, you wouldn’t believe an “almighty sovereign of the universe” was the bestest thing ever and the root of all good and happiness and puppies and thusly making israel the hub of awesomeness. because you wouldn’t believe said universal sovereign (aka GOD!!! aka jesus aka jehovah aka yaweh) existed and you would think that believing in non-existent supernatural beings who control the world and demand fealty of us was a bad thing.

    i don’t begrudge people their faith. i don’t share it, and think most religions are designed to keep power with those who have it and keep the rest in their place. but hey, if it give you comfort, fine. enjoy yourself. however, when you start trying to influence education to adhere to your religion, or think basing foreign policy on what is clearly millenia old propaganda…then i have issues.

  106. 106.

    GeneralB

    Just in time. I’ve been going through massive balloon withdrawals.

    I can now see the site on my home and work computers.

    Thank you.

    P.S. In 94/95 Phish took improv jamming to heights no other band has ever come close to.

  107. 107.

    Platosearwax

    Working finally for me on the Vista laptop with Firefox 3.5.7. Hasn’t worked for days but for some reason has worked as normal on the Ubuntu box using all different kinds of browsers.

  108. 108.

    Ruckus

    Works great on Opera

    On FF 3.5.7 I get all the ads and 404 for contents
    I can get the individual posts on FF through RSS

    On Safari works but is relatively slow to load

  109. 109.

    scav

    @twiffer: umm, yeah, the sect of atheists hearing the voice of chance ordering all things (including, presumably, elitist mustard on their hot dogs) would be one of the other ones. Those little splinter sects of atheism are just so hard to keep track of.

  110. 110.

    Violet

    Has been working just fine until this morning. Then nothing worked except very occasionally the front page would load. Any page with comments wouldn’t load.

    All of a sudden it started working just fine. Seems to be loading very quickly now.

    I’m on Firefox 3.5.7 and Vista.

  111. 111.

    Comrade Luke

    Sorry, I thought I was the only one who hits refresh to see if people read my pithy comments.

    :)

    btw, the site seems to load faster for me: FF 3.5 on OS X

  112. 112.

    de stijl

    & I’ll cancel your vote: I think more end users need to hear things like this. “User, meet reality. Reality, meet user. User, pay attention. Next time Reality, feel free to kick user.”

    To which the user would likely and rightfully reply: That’s not my problem. It’s your goddamned problem, so fix the fucking problem or at least tell me that you’re trying the fix the problem.

    I used to have a job whose duties included managing end-user communication. If someone sent a message that implicitly blamed the user for a connectivity problem I would very quickly and forcefully inform the person who sent the message why it was counterproductive and unacceptable. And if they did again, I would fire them.

  113. 113.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Michael: Michael. May I call you Michael? I like you. You are a fine person who contributes greatly to this blog. That said, I am begging you to please please PLEASE warn me before posting anything from the battiest, shittiest, craziest member of congress from my fair state. Otherwise, my the throbbing vein in my temple may explode, and wouldn’t that just make you feel awful?

    @2th&nayle: You know me all too well. She makes my teeth hurt. Not only is she crazy, she’s so fucking stupid.

    Cole, I haven’t had any problems with the site, knock wood, other than it being down once and slow loading. I have always been able to see the front page. Chrome for PC.

  114. 114.

    asiangrrlMN

    @scav: I’m with you. I mean, I would rather hear, “This is the deal. This is what can be done. This is what cannot/will not be done” than, “Oh, I’ll get back to you” or, “Oh, we’re working on it.” As for Cole’s gruffness, it’s part of him. I would worry if he became all sugary-sweet.

    I have no complaints about the site (except for the low-quality trolls), but then again, I’m a Tunch-bot.

  117. 117.

    johnk

    Your site stopped working on Monday — a blank page with a status of “Done” at the bottom. Everything seems fine now; no response time complaints — you’re worth a wait, any way.

  118. 118.

    WaterGirl

    @de stijl: Then you should also know that timing is everything. When you have an end-user who has just lost all their files, that is not the moment to tell them they should have done a backup. So to all those who have chosen this moment to tell John he’s doing it wrong, well, you’re doing it wrong!

    Personally, I thought John’s comments about 500 email messages and constant refreshing were very John-like. They showed a bit of his frustration with the situation, but overall I found them to be good-natured and humorous.

    /lecture over

  119. 119.

    scav

    @de stijl: Oddly enough, you were paid for whatever it was you did. And the customer apparently paid whoever paid you to tell you whatever the hell inane “customer management” pablum you fed them. And, as a customer that has been fed too much of that pablum for a long time, I’m personally tired of it. Furthermore, this is John’s hobby. We of the peanut gallery get to chime in, but it’s a privilege, not a right. He nowhere told us it was our fault, he told us he knew about it and they were working on in it and there some of us were getting in the way with all the e-mails. What was the old saw? 10 dollars for the job, 15$ if you stand around watching and 20$ if you offer advice.

  120. 120.

    twiffer

    @de stijl: in much the same boat (incident mgmt), but my role is to manage full app outages. so, the end users i have to communicate to tend to be director/vp level. they fire you if you say it’s their fault.

    thank the uncaring void i don’t have to deal with single user issues anymore. cause most of those involved just trying not to tell people they were idiots.

  122. 122.

    Jeremy

    Fived on Mac & PC, both running Firefox. Thank you!

    I get infinitely more from this site than I contribute – thank you again…

  123. 123.

    gnomedad

    SOTU address, where we have several thousand people smashing “REFRESH” every six seconds to see if the other several thousand people saw their pithy comment in the open thread

    Can a server be set to time out on individual IP addresses under these conditions? Just wondering. I’ll be back in six seconds for your replies.

  124. 124.

    currants

    YAY! Haven’t been able to get on since Monday–glad glad glad to have you back.
    Firefox 3.5.7 and Mac OS 10.5.8.
    Before this moment I could get in sideways, by searching a topic and getting into that particular topic and then clicking forward, but couldn’t get to the home page no way no how.

  127. 127.

    Hob

    @de stijl: I’m half convinced you’re just trolling, because I’d like to believe no one is really that obtuse, but in case you’re serious:

    John did not “blame” anyone. He pointed out the obvious fact that a system that normally does OK can sometimes break down under heavy load, and that that’s not a reason to say that the host sucks. He also asked people to hold off on emailing him about the problems because he’d already been alerted to those problems by hundreds of people. And regardless of how many times you claim that he didn’t post anything to acknowledge the problem, you’re just wrong– he did, repeatedly. But I’m not surprised that you missed those posts, since you seem to have spent most of your time here just bitching about John and his communication style, rather than reading or talking about anything else.

    Why you think that (a) John or anyone here can benefit from your advice on communication when you so badly misread everything above, (b) the proprietor of a free blog owes you some basic level of customer service, or (c) it’s not incredibly rude to give someone career advice based on how they run a free blog while recovering from orthopedic surgery… is a not very interesting mystery. Please go away or find something else to talk about.

  132. 132.

    John Cole

    To which the user would likely and rightfully reply: That’s not my problem. It’s your goddamned problem, so fix the fucking problem or at least tell me that you’re trying the fix the problem.

    I used to have a job whose duties included managing end-user communication. If someone sent a message that implicitly blamed the user for a connectivity problem I would very quickly and forcefully inform the person who sent the message why it was counterproductive and unacceptable. And if they did again, I would fire them.

    WTF are you even talking about? I never blamed the user, and I repeatedly told people I was aware there was a problem and I was working on it. I wrote open threads discussing it, we chatted about it in the comments section of other threads, I tweeted about it multiple times, and I answered the bulk of the emails I got.

    I did everything but send up smoke signals.

    And me joking about 500 emails is just me being me.

  133. 133.

    Annie

    @John Cole:

    You are awesome. Just think of the 500+ screaming emails as our way of expressing our love for you and the site….It truly is to your credit — and Doug, Tim, Anne Laurie — that we consider BJ as our home away from home. Ok, maybe at times a little less “love” on our side would be welcomed, but we can’t help it. We are needy.

    Kisses to Lily and Tunch. They, in their own way, have helped create such an incredible community.

    PS. Not to complain, but I was looking for the smoke signal

  135. 135.

    de stijl

    And me joking about 500 emails is just me being me.

    I understand the joke, but also understand that it can be misinterpreted. As in “Don’t send me another e-mail, your connectivity issue doesn’t interest me.”

  136. 136.

    Luzeelu

    I got here via a link from Atrios (I think) but haven’t been able to go directly to the home page for a couple of days. I just get a blank screen. Will try again now.

    I’m using Safari and did empty the cache, but that didn’t help.

  137. 137.

    Hob

    @de stijl:

    I understand the joke, but also understand that it can be misinterpreted

    Jesus Hanggliding Christ, you just don’t stop, do you? Have you noticed that you’re the only person on the whole damn blog who thinks John wasn’t concerned with the problem? Or, excuse me, who thinks someone might have thought that John wasn’t concerned with the problem. Why should anyone care what you think we might think, as opposed to what we actually think? He was dealing with it, he told us he was dealing with it, he dealt with it.

    Are you here for any other purpose than to be a pompous scold? From what I’ve seen here, you’re the second-to-last person that anyone should take advice on communication from. (The last person would be me, but I’m not claiming to be good at it and you are.)

  139. 139.

    Hob

    @de stijl: OK, I get it, you’re just trolling. You got a reaction, now you can claim your prize and leave – the prize is just through that small exit door over there marked “laundry chute”. (For the record, the reaction wasn’t “mad” so much as “what the fuck is this strange person’s problem.”)

  140. 140.

    Shade Tail

    @de stijl: Has anyone ever told you that, when you find yourself at the bottom of a hole, you need to stop digging? Unless, of course, you want to convince everyone here that you are just a pompous blowhard.

    Seriously. Stop digging. Just put that shovel down and walk away.

  141. 141.

    de stijl

    Hob, I have no desire to troll you or anyone. You think I’m a troll and I have no idea why.

    My entire and total problem with John Cole’s response to the connectivity issue was that he should have done slightly more communicating a la “We understand many of you are having difficulties connecting to Balloon Juice. Please realize that we are doing everything possible to resolve this situation as quickly as we can.”

    I sincerely believe that this simple message would have prevented many of the follow-on problems.

    This is the extent of my complaint with John Cole.

    I will state this again carefully and slowly – Balloon Juice had a connectivity issue. The “owner” of Balloon Juice would have been well served by posting “We understand many of you are having difficulties connecting to Balloon Juice. Please realize that we are doing everything possible to resolve this situation as quickly as we can.”

    That and only that is the extent of my problem with Balloon Juice.

    You probably won’t believe this but I have no problem with Balloon Juice or John Cole. It’s John’s thing and he can do whatever he wants to do. We read and comment at his pleasure and his pleasure alone.

    My intention was to offer constructive advice about how to deliver end-user communication without pissing off the end-users.

    Obviously, I failed miserably.

  142. 142.

    Hob

    @de stijl: OK, I’ll buy that. You mean well. But when you’re not paying attention, your “constructive advice” is just ridiculous and people will find it annoying. When I say you’re not paying attention, what I mean is that (please read this next part more carefully than you read it the last 3 times) JOHN ALREADY DID EXACTLY WHAT YOU SAID HE SHOULD HAVE DONE, before you started with the “constructive advice.”

    That is, John Cole posted several times on Balloon Juice, where we all saw it (unless we couldn’t see anything, due to connectivity problems), that he understood many of us were having difficulties connecting, and that he was working on it. He posted updates. He posted suggestions for people to try alternate URLs. It’s possible that he didn’t use the magic customer service words you prefer, but it doesn’t matter because it really seems like you just weren’t reading anything he wrote anyway.

    And then when you offer “advice” about how you think his tone might have come across to some theoretical people, and no one but you seems to feel this way, then you sound like… well basically you sound like a guy who walks into a busy bar full of regulars who have never seen you before, with a famously cranky bartender who’s pouring 500 drinks with a broken arm while trying to kick the jukebox back into life, and the bartender makes a joke and everyone except you laughs, and then you start holding forth about how his jokes aren’t as well thought out as they could be and his bartending style is sloppy, because you are someone who understands these things. If regulars then started saying “WTF is your problem,” someone who’s not actually trying to start shit would probably say something other than “Gee, looks like I made that guy mad.” When people act like that on the Internet, 99.999% of the time they are just trying to start shit. But some of them mean well, I guess.

    That’s all.

  144. 144.

    de stijl

    Hob,

    I think you don’t know the full background – connectivity issues hit BJ on 2/7.

    John’s first post was on the issue was ~11 PM 2/8

    balloon-juice.com/2010/02/08/site-issue/#comments

    The next site issue post was 2/11 ~1 PM

    balloon-juice.com/2010/02/11/site-maintenance-5/

    John and others probably commented in the interim . I didn’t scan for comments. Please update me with the missed comments that apply to the outage.

    This is not a today thing. Starting 2/7 or 2/8 the message should have been what I’ve been advocating. Reread the 2/8 thread and pay attention to comment #87 and thereafter.

  145. 145.

    de stijl

    Starting 2/7 or 2/8 the message should have been what I’ve been advocating.

    Rereading my shit, I realized I turned into an asshole. Sorry.

    I still advocate that John Cole handled the Balloon Juice connectivity issue poorly, but that’s no excuse for me being an asshole. What’s worse is that I was a pissy asshole.

  146. 146.

    Jacquelyn

    It works! It works! This is the first time all week I’ve been able to get here via the home page! Thanks, John.

  147. 147.

    Tim I

    Why does the site always freeze up and crash at the very moment I am posting a really, truly brilliant comment, that everyone here should not only read, but memorize.

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