December 1, 2009
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O Xanga, Xanga! Wherefore Art Thou?
When Xanga was down last week, there wasn't any updates from TheXangaTeam or John. I wish there was a comment. I'm not looking for an apology - just an explanation. I get my Xanga for free so I'm not expecting much in return - certainly not 5 9's. I just want to know what happened. I work in IT. I know what the pressures are like in delivering a high level of service with a tight budget.
It's disappointing. They've always been pretty good about providing a heads up on routine maintenance. That's fine with me - I'm not glued to my laptop (well, sometimes I am). While I was pounding my desk last week in frustration. I thought about moving to another platform. I always had an account on this other platform to comment on someone's entries. But he's no longer around. So I started to play around with the themes and put a test entry. It wasn't easy or intuitive - maybe I'm just so used to everything here. I don't know what I'm going to do with that account yet. Maybe it'll be my lifeboat if something happens here. Or maybe I'll just write my dark entries there. Oh who knows...
I just wished there was a bit more transparency on what is happening behind the scenes. Maybe they can leverage the talent and passion of this incredible community of bloggers. Yeah, we can be a pain sometimes. But I'm sure we can help make this a better place for all of us.
Comments (27)
Oh, I did hit a snatch last week, but not noticing it was down! Yes, I agree they should at least post a comment!
I didnt notice it was down..maybe i was asleep or at school...
I know what you mean. It probably wasn't a schedule thing. I do wish they would communicate with us more. I was reading some of thexangateam old blogs and they used to be super active with the community.
@Roadlesstaken - I know what you mean, I remember those too. I used to interact with the Xanga Team a lot back in the old days. Now they all seem to be isolated behind a wall or something; and no longer communicate with the user base. This is a very bad move; especially since Xanga is going down the tubes lately.
I didn't notice anything wrong with Xanga... it has been working fine with me.
you sound genuinely concerned, matt. good on ya. you also sound pro at all the technical stuff, i haven't a clue what a platform is.
i didn't notice any downtime with xanga. i guess i just missed the period when it was down.
i didn't notice that xanga was down either, but i usually only check it once a day in the mornings.
i think that xanga, like any business, is doing whatever it can to make money to support itself. so the needs of its users, unfortunately, come somewhat secondary to that... which is why no business can ever really be truly transparent to its customers.
That's true. Agreed.
Well, safe to say that the people commenting here are doing their utmost to keep Xanga a vibrant place.
Maybe this place will go the way of Asian Avenue (if anyone remembers what that was). People outside Xanga (they do exist) ask me why I still use Xanga and don't use that platform that every super popular .com blogger uses. Guess I like the community here and if we get more out of service here and ppl leave, i'd leave too.
I agree with elusive, it'd be better if they told us what went wrong but maybe they were DOS'ed.
Akin to Jason Mraz -- he separates his music. He only puts out the happy stuff
Someone's eventually going to point this out, so I might as well be the jerk to do it. "Wherefore" means why.
When Xanga was down I was down too. I sent an e-mail to all my e-mail friends. In the e-mail I said, "I am bored to death. Xanga has broken."
I missed the outage. I guess all social networks have them at times. I think xanga was created and then a bunch of features were added. Those features were adding when xanga had more server space and more workers. So now that xanga has less workers and sold off some of their servers, some of the current programs don't work very well. I think that is the cause of the glitches but I think it is hard for xanga to swallow their pride and give that straightforward of an answer. So they tend to say things like "servers were being moved around" and this or that. People will stop accepting those answers after time. I do get the feeling that everyone on the xanga team is working a ton of hours. Someone who just left the xanga team said he was working 12 hour days 6 to 7 days a week. You can only do that for so long before you start to feel unappreciated.
I too wish they would communicate more with us on what is going on...
Another platform, you say? Do tell!
@CurryPuffy - it was one of those times when I really needed to blog.
@Roadlesstaken - I agree! I just read The Theologian's Cafe's comments further down and understand a bit better why.
@chow@ireallylikefood - I hope it doesn't go down. It's been really good to me.
@Dezinerdreams - yeah, it probably wasn't down long enough to be noticed by a significant amount of people.
@stepaside_loser - I guess it depends on the time zone. I'm not that technical - just like to throw around different words.
@kunhuo42 - I hope it doesn't fold, Xanga has helped me broaden my horizons a lot.
@yang1815 -
thanks.
@christao408 - I agree - and you're one of them.
@rice_eric - oh wow... I do remember that site! I guess it's just a skeleton crew trying to do what they can to keep everything up.
@upandoutward - hmm... nah, I think I'll write some dark stuff here to balance out the syrupy stuff that I sometimes write.
@lorent2factor - You're right! I should have paid attention during classes.
@choyshinglin - I wasn't bored, I just wanted to write and it was very frustrating.
@TheTheologiansCafe - well, maybe the underlying code needs to be rewritten to reduce the amount of ongoing maintenance and to reduce the future costs of changes. But that will a fair bit of time and money. Those are brutal hours - burn out city! I know you chide, cajole and generally try to persuade Xanga to do more improvements. I hope they listen.
@firetyger - yes, it's kinda frustrating even though I don't pay a cent for the service. Thanks for dropping by.
@ABSOLUTmichael - no blogs, just id's.
I don't blog enough to notice the Xanga-outs. But I'm glad you're back!
@ElusiveWords - Honestly, Xanga was down again this morning. Twice when I was writing an entry within the last two weeks. It's quite frustrating actually.
Yeah I wish they would have some thing to let us know how long we would have to wait. Mine was down from about 7 PM till atleast 11 PM and then I just went to bed. Was so happy to see it working the next morning.
I was a bit dismayed myself. In the past I've been able to get them on the phone and get the problem solved, though I know they frown on that:
http://careygly.xanga.com/572132415/gromit--oreo/
been out for weeks so i really don't know what happened but thank goodness that you, my friend, is still around
i never knew you have an account at another blog website. hhmmm.... how long have you been cheating on us??
@rudyhou - it was set up to comment only. I haven't written anything.
@Renatojr3 - I hope you're doing well.
@CareyGLY - I guess with all the downsizing, they can't do that anymore.
@ZSA_MD - I saw the update on TheXangaTeam about the outage. At least they posted an explanation.
@yang1815 - yeah, they did post an update on TheXangaTeam. Sigh...
@apocatim - hmm... maybe I'm on Xanga just a bit too much. hahahaha
@ElusiveWords - Hmmm maybe I should subscribe to it haha.
@ElusiveWords - You did? I didn't see that. I should go look for it now.
I would be interested in reading the "dark" posts as well.
I have a seperate blog her on xanga that I post my secrets
as well as my dark side... (well, if i have one)
peace
*~matthew~*
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