Going off of memory, so may not be completely accurate
Near the end of last week, there were some problems with the WotC boards that ended up erasing some peoples thread subscriptions. The point man (WotC_ErcB IIRC) was working on some things to fix it. The tests he ran last friday did the same thing. (Said that you didn't have permissions to view blah blah blah).
Yesterday morning, he said he thought he had found the problem as well as the solution, but wanted to do more testing before he implemented it.
I am guessing that this lack of access to the forums is a result of his fix being implemented.
Mud, that's actually one of several different (tangentially related) problems being worked on. There are also some issues with integrating the PHP coding of the forums and the ASP coding of everything else and maintaining a single session for both. There's also an issue with the archiving script which went unnoticed for several months and got progressively worse. The increased nightly downtime is a result of them trying to run through the archiving script to get it caught up (now that it has been fixed). The unexpected (July 4th, for example) downtimes seem to be a result of database issues stemming from the SSO (Single Sign On) login scripting. There has been no word on fixes for that particular issue.
Oh, and there was a hardware issue with one of the servers which required it being removed and replaced, but meant we were at half-capacity for about a week or so. I think (though I could be wrong) that this has been fixed.
There's also been issues (I believe DNS related, but I didn't get any real details on it) with both Qwest and Comcast in the last week or so. That one, at least, should have been fixed by now, but again, I haven't gotten any confirmation either way.
If I'm not mistaken, I think you'll find it customary here at ENWorld for WOTC employees to put their name and position in their signature line. I really don't want to be snide, but ENWorld really isn't some adjunct site for Wizards.com.
And put that target on my back? No thank you
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Generally speaking, I come to ENWorld to relax and get away from my "other job". I enjoy what I do, most of the time, but sometimes its nice to be able to talk to people about gaming without having the weight of a public persona and a huge corporation on my shoulders. Regardless of what I do from 9-5, I am a gamer, and sometimes its nice to just be able to talk to people as a gamer. I'm not here as an envoy from Wizards of the Coast... I don't get paid nearly well enough to be embarking on good will missions into "enemy territory". However, I do enjoy the community there and I want it to succeed so if I can speak candidly every once in a while and clear up some concerns, I have no problem doing that.
While lurking, I happened across this particular thread and figured I could perhaps add something worthwhile. Michael (and another poster, Wayne, I believe) had already pretty well explained the majority of the problem, so I figured I would just confirm what he had said. However, I was also a little bit offended at some of the insults he made concerning customer service and forum moderation... both jobs that I currently do. Considering that he had worked, at least indirectly, with the WizO team in the past I was surprised and a little bit hurt by what he had said.
I'll admit that I got a bit defensive. I have apologized for that. I realize now that those particular insults probably weren't intended for the WizOs. They just seemed to hit a little close to home (like I said, I come here to relax and leave my other job behind). It just seemed as though Michael was taking potshots at people without realizing that some of them have worked with him in the past and some of them do care enough to try to help.
He's right. The people who matter probably won't ever read this thread. However, at least one of the people he insulted did. I am not saying not to insult Wizards of the Coast as a company. As I said earlier, they make themselves a fairly easy target. I'm not trying to defend the company, but rather the employees. The individual people working there, especially the lower level guys who are just doing their jobs as best they can, are generally pretty nice people. They are gamers who make less than they probably deserve so that they can work in an industry they enjoy. They're not the ones setting policy and don't deserve to be targets of anyone's ire. Insult the policy. Insult the actions. There's no need to insult the people.
