Well that was... interesting.

[akmc_in_au]

pBase was out of action for (at least) several hours last night my time; it brought up a "pBase will be back soon" or various server error pages all the way through from the time I got home to the time I went to bed. I would have thought that there might have been an explanatory note in the News forum (what happened, whether anything was affected, whether there are any residual issues we need to be aware of), but... nothing? Silence?

[sheila]

Same old, same old, Alan The powers that be are still very reluctant to keep us informed of problems with their server or whatever the latest glitch is. At one time, there were a lot of good changes to PBase but things seem to have come to a grinding halt. While I have no interest at all in the print function (I use two other services for that), I cannot believe that Phase 2 is still not available. No new stylesheets for at least the past six years .. the list goes on

Sheila

[akmc_in_au]

Same old, same old, Alan The powers that be are still very reluctant to keep us informed of problems with their server or whatever the latest glitch is. At one time, there were a lot of good changes to PBase but things seem to have come to a grinding halt. While I have no interest at all in the print function (I use two other services for that), I cannot believe that Phase 2 is still not available. No new stylesheets for at least the past six years .. the list goes on

Sheila

Yes, I take your point. I've heard whispers of phase 2, but to be honest I've no idea what it will deliver. (Or whether it'll be more robust given the number of issues raised in this Forum, in particular in the last few days.) I was taking a look through the News forum earlier today; you're right, there have scarcely been any new developments for over a year. (Aside from support for Statcounter, Google Analytics et al and that was only because Javascript was yanked.)

I also doubt that "sell your prints" will be a rejuvenator, especially as it's going to be available to only a fraction of the total pBase membership. (US membership constitutes far and away the largest single group. However if you count the next 7 countries you already have more galleries than the US ones, and none of those members will benefit from it. Nor will it even benefit all US members. I do sincerely hope that this isn't a basket into which all eggs are being placed.)

It's been said before, and it'll be said again... it really doesn't matter what's happening behind the scenes if the people in the audience don't know about it...

[nooutlet]

The contiguous US limitation is really only a temporary limitation that's entirely caused by shipping prices being outrageous.
Currently, something I added to the printing page isn't working in IE6. Not a common browser, but it's a really noticeable problem(images are BEHIND the background div).
Also, there may be an issue with sending them images that aren't in a certain color profile.
But one thing that's difficult about working on the printing page is that we(that is another programmer and I) have started working on other things. I'm working on new forums(which by the way are a bit of a hassle because a lot of people have separate forum accounts with the same username).

Now, I don't know what caused the outage that you're reporting. What times did you get home and go to bed?

[shawnkraus]

Am I understanding this correctly? The phase ll part is not a priority and does not appear to be happening anytime soon? How is it that the other sites have found a way to make the printing and sales thing work with multiple color spaces and different browsers and ship to all over the world? It is really sad to think Pbase members may be being misled by false hopes and or promises of administration. It has been way too long for the members to have to wait for these major upgrades that don't seem to be materializing. I have not seen the overhaul of the forums you spoke of recently nooutlet. An apropriate name by the way, it seems like members have no outlet when it comes to getting things taken care of by Pbase. I ASK YOU HERE AND NOW...... When will the members of Pbase see some of the results of all the administrations efforts. How about an exact date and not empty promises. WHEN???????????? No more false hope or lies.

[kstuebin]

Nooutlet, Pbase was down yesterday until about 8am EST. I don't know when it went down or came back but I got the same page that said it would be back shortly.

And I am having intermittent IE issues with the site itself. Periodically it hangs downloading the Pbase header. Can't open photos because it never gets that far. Works in Firefox. I am using IE6.

As for the printing and selling option, I think site stability is more critical. If no one can see your photos, no one can buy them. So it's kind of a moot point, isn't it?

[shawnkraus]

Karen,
I have not had the experience of Pbase being down for an extended period of time. Yes it has it's days. For the most part it seems stable. My concerns are over the lack of communication and action on Pbase administrations part. Selling images just happens to be one of the many issues that have not been addressed. When people ask what is being done on these items they seem to get the same old response of "were working on it" or "we will look into it" or something to the effect of a false promise that never seems to materialize. I am just sick of the excuses from administration and am starting to feel disgusted with the whole thing. I may have to launch a propaganda campaign on the forums if I do not start to see results in the near future.

[nooutlet]

Am I understanding this correctly? The phase ll part is not a priority and does not appear to be happening anytime soon? How is it that the other sites have found a way to make the printing and sales thing work with multiple color spaces and different browsers and ship to all over the world? It is really sad to think Pbase members may be being misled by false hopes and or promises of administration. It has been way too long for the members to have to wait for these major upgrades that don't seem to be materializing. I have not seen the overhaul of the forums you spoke of recently nooutlet. An apropriate name by the way, it seems like members have no outlet when it comes to getting things taken care of by Pbase. I ASK YOU HERE AND NOW...... When will the members of Pbase see some of the results of all the administrations efforts. How about an exact date and not empty promises. WHEN???????????? No more false hope or lies.

Now THAT was... interesting.

I never said phase 2 wasn't a priority. Of course it's a priority! That's why we created the printing page first.
Now, you wouldn't really know if they have made it work with multiple color spaces because they could convert it before sending to the printer which is what we're going to end up doing. Finding out about that required sending images to them in the wrong colorspace and getting back images that were faded. We asked why, they answered the images have to be in a certain colorspace so we're putting that in and then we're ordering new prints. I'm just explaining some of the delays. The new stuff will show up sometime soon. We're not TRYING to disappoint here.

Of course you haven't seen the overhaul of the forums. I said I've been working on it. I've got a working forums in a secret location where I've been testing it to see that it works the way that the current one does. Now the issue is getting all the users and posts over to the new board in a timely fashion. So I'm practicing that. It's made difficult by the fact that phpBB3 can't deal with non-unique usernames. In fact, that might be a problem after we're on the new forums too. I'm going to have to look into that now.

I can't give you an exact date on anything. The only way I could give you an exact date on something going live would be if that something were ready to go live right now. Otherwise, there are any number of unforeseen issues that could prevent me from keeping the self-imposed deadline.

I haven't intentionally lied at all in this forum. The only time I can think I may have accidentally lied was when I said the printing would be out by the end of the year and that would have been because I thought that it would be. Then a number of problems showed up, as they often do. Sorry about that, but it's the way it has gone.

[shawnkraus]

The same old same old.

It is nice that you are working on things and that is appreciated.

Working on things doesn't help us at the current moment now does it?

Maybe instead of paying Pbase for it's service I could say "I am working on it."

Do you think they would except that as payent?

Maybe when they ask for an exact date they could expect the payment, I could say "I can't give you an exact date".

Do you think they would except that as well?

This is not aimed at just you Nooutlet, but seeings how the people have no communication with the rest of the administration other than unanswered e-mails this is the only viable place for us to vent and seeings how you work with them it seems you might have a little more influence than the average Pbase user.

[nooutlet]

I don't see how this is "same old same old" seeing as how there wasn't a page for printing images until after I got here and it's only been nearly done for about 2 months. I'm telling you that this page is fine in all browsers I've tested except for IE6. In IE6, a convenience that I added in doesn't work. Specifically image thumbnails are UNDERNEATH the background color of a particular <div>.

[shawnkraus]

I am very dissapointed in Pbase administration(not You). Do Slug and Emily even exist anymore? Maybe I am just preaching to the choir here. By the phrase "same old same old" I am referring to the use of the "we're working on it" phrase that we get as a response when we ask for a feature. The printing feature is great and you should pat yourself on the back for that but my point is when was that feature requested and how long did it take Pbase (not including YOU) to finally get it right? And in the mean time how many other features have been requested??? And how long will we have to wait for these while other places on the web offer these and are venturing out into other things such as Pic Lens. Pbase really needs to get it's act together (not You). I would not want you to take this personally.

[akmc_in_au]

Hi NoOutlet,

Now, I don't know what caused the outage that you're reporting. What times did you get home and go to bed?

I got home around 7pm AEDST on Tuesday which, if my calculations serve me right, would have been around 3am Tuesday US East Coast or around midnight US West Coast. (I can't recall where pBase is run out of.) I went to bed somewhere between 10 and 11, so add 3 to 4 hours to that. Everything appeared to be normal when I checked before going to work the next morning around 5am Wednesday our time.

The contiguous US limitation is really only a temporary limitation that's entirely caused by shipping prices being outrageous.
Currently, something I added to the printing page isn't working in IE6. Not a common browser, but it's a really noticeable problem(images are BEHIND the background div).
Also, there may be an issue with sending them images that aren't in a certain color profile.
But one thing that's difficult about working on the printing page is that we(that is another programmer and I) have started working on other things. I'm working on new forums(which by the way are a bit of a hassle because a lot of people have separate forum accounts with the same username).

Huh... I didn't even know that was possible.

I wasn't really making a point about the photo sales feature as such. I was thinking more of the likely reaction from the user base if the vaunted-but-not-much-revealed "phase 2" were to turn out to be nothing more than the ability to sell prints.

Personally (and I emphasise that this is merely a personal view), I'm not sure that it's a feature which will serve much purpose, though of course I haven't seen how it might work. Admittedly I can't conceive of anyone wanting to buy any of mine (and that's probably true for the vast majority of users, practically speaking) so it's a feature that I'm automatically uninterested in. HOWEVER even if someone WERE interested in doing so... I can't conceive of why they'd want the print to be sourced from the images that I've loaded onto pBase. (That is, reduced to 72dpi and mooshed down to generally no more than 1/3rd of the original pixel count or less, rather than from the MUCH higher quality originals which obviously don't get loaded here. Unless the feature offers some form of parallel loading where a print-optimised version is uploaded but not seen by the user, and THAT one is sent to the printer...) I'm not saying that the feature is a waste of time; just that I don't think that a large (or even numerically significant) proportion of the user base will be affected by its presence or absence.

As has been opined elsewhere in this thread, stability is the number 1 priority. It's a worry that there was an outage that even the admins didn't know about, which suggests that maybe the site hosts aren't being as forthcoming to the site owners as they might be.

As Sheila mentioned, the fact that there haven't been any new style sheets for years, or (in my view) the fact that the profile page can't be customised all that much; features like that are more likely to be of interest to more users. That's just a personal view, of course.

But as Shawn was alluding to, the bigger issue is that no-one (and like him, I emphasise that this isn't a go at YOU since you're one of the most (and, to a large extent, ONLY) communicative Admins that pBase has got) is giving any sort of timelines for new or improved or fixed features.

pBase's big competitive edge is that it displays photos better and more flexibly than any other site. But it can't rely on that forever; the other sites will clue into that eventually. (Except of course for Flickr, which couldn't find a clue like that with both hands and a flashlight.)

JMHOs.

[nooutlet]

I got home around 7pm AEDST on Tuesday which, if my calculations serve me right, would have been around 3am Tuesday US East Coast or around midnight US West Coast. (I can't recall where pBase is run out of.) I went to bed somewhere between 10 and 11, so add 3 to 4 hours to that. Everything appeared to be normal when I checked before going to work the next morning around 5am Wednesday our time.
...
It's a worry that there was an outage that even the admins didn't know about, which suggests that maybe the site hosts aren't being as forthcoming to the site owners as they might be

I'm a programmer for PBase. My main concern is actually my own version of the site on my development server. It would seem likely that Slug knows about the downtime and that he was the one to fix it. Furthermore, the times you specified(if your math was correct) were between 3AM and 7AM our time. I would have been sleeping through the downtime. Lastly, I've actually been sick lately and haven't spoken to Slug since Friday.

I'm working on new forums(which by the way are a bit of a hassle because a lot of people have separate forum accounts with the same username).

Huh... I didn't even know that was possible.

Traditionally, it's not possible, but the way the forums have been modded so that you get registered and logged in automatically as long as your logged into the PBase site allowed for it to happen. I shouldn't go into detail about it though.

Utility of printing images through PBase?

Having a private high-quality photo that will be used for printing is part of the plan, I believe. Right now, it's about printing your own images to test the interest in general.

Style sheets and custom profile page

We've discussed allowing users to make stylesheets available to others which would be a nice alternative to the present situation. As for the profile page, they'll be getting an overhaul with the new header. Now, one thing Slug is very sensitive to is that people resent change in certain things, so we're going to try to update the profile page in the smoothest way possible.

Timelines, deadlines and time tables, oh my!

These are just scary. It's so difficult to predict what problems will come up and how long those problems will take to resolve. Even vague guesstimations can be way off and then you guys quote us and complain.

[akmc_in_au]

I got home around 7pm AEDST on Tuesday which, if my calculations serve me right, would have been around 3am Tuesday US East Coast or around midnight US West Coast. (I can't recall where pBase is run out of.) I went to bed somewhere between 10 and 11, so add 3 to 4 hours to that. Everything appeared to be normal when I checked before going to work the next morning around 5am Wednesday our time.
...
It's a worry that there was an outage that even the admins didn't know about, which suggests that maybe the site hosts aren't being as forthcoming to the site owners as they might be

I'm a programmer for PBase. My main concern is actually my own version of the site on my development server. It would seem likely that Slug knows about the downtime and that he was the one to fix it. Furthermore, the times you specified(if your math was correct) were between 3AM and 7AM our time. I would have been sleeping through the downtime. Lastly, I've actually been sick lately and haven't spoken to Slug since Friday.

You and probably most if not all of the rest of the pBase admins, but that's not the "worry" that I'm referring to.

If this was a glitch at the hosting site and they didn't tell you (as in the pBase Admins / owners) about it, that's a worry. One of the things that occurred to me was that maybe nothing was mentioned because it happened in the wee small hours in the US and it was thought that no-one would notice, but a LOT of pBase's members aren't in the US.

Alternatively if Slug knew about it but didn't mention it to you, IMHO that's also a worry. I run a system myself. If the system goes down overnight, one thing that I ensure is that I tell my assistants about it when they get in. What happened, when it happened and why. Either I tell them in person or I drop them an e-mail; either way they get told. The outage may affect their work, or it may not. It may have happened at a time when no users were affected, though with pBase's global reach that can never happen in pBase's case. But my assistants still need to know about it in case (a) they do get queries from users or (b) it may, potentially, have an impact on what they're working on. It's a policy of communication and if (and I do emphasise that it's an if) Slug knew about it and didn't even tell his Admins, much less the users... I'd rate that as a worry. I'm not trying to bag out on Slug because without him there's be no pBase and the photography world would be poorer for that, but as I once posted before, it's his site, and he sets the tone on things such as communication policies.

Utility of printing images through PBase?

Having a private high-quality photo that will be used for printing is part of the plan, I believe. Right now, it's about printing your own images to test the interest in general.

That makes sense.

Style sheets and custom profile page

We've discussed allowing users to make stylesheets available to others which would be a nice alternative to the present situation. As for the profile page, they'll be getting an overhaul with the new header. Now, one thing Slug is very sensitive to is that people resent change in certain things, so we're going to try to update the profile page in the smoothest way possible.

That's both true and prescient, but again I think that communication smooths the way. As in, a post in the News forum saying "Here's how we're planning to change the Profile Pages, they'll have this feature, that feature, the other feature, and will be customisable x, y and z ways. Some mock-up screen shots can be seen below. We welcome feedback but please appreciate that we can't necessarily incorporate every suggestion, yada yada yada". I'll wager that it would break down 95% or more of potential resentment on the spot.

Timelines, deadlines and time tables, oh my!

These are just scary. It's so difficult to predict what problems will come up and how long those problems will take to resolve. Even vague guesstimations can be way off and then you guys quote us and complain.

I understand your concerns on that point. I too am painfully aware that all three of Murphy's laws ("Nothing is as easy as it looks, everything takes longer than expected, and if anything can go wrong...) apply in spades to systems development. But that's really all just part of project management. (The good bits, not the time-wasting, anal-retentive bits that "professional" project managers who supposedly know how to "manage" but don't know how to "do" seem to latch on to.) Part of it is building in a buffer for "things that go crash in the night". But without some form of a plan, complete with projected completion dates, things (and I speak from personal experience) tend to drift. They hit barriers, and while projects get "worked on" they sometimes get set aside and never actually "done". (If I understand Shawn correctly, this is his big issue, and I doubt he's alone in it. In fact I'm sure of that.) This is how the notorious Exif issue has dragged on for way over a year.

Unless the project plans were completely unrealistic to start with, pBase would have to hit SOME of the timeline targets; and for the ones that DO need to get pushed back, I think that users will be more understanding as long as they're told WHY they've been pushed back, and what the revised completion dates are. At least that way the users have SOME idea of what the roadmap is.

Part of the problem may be in something that you posted earlier; a quote from Slug about how he didn't see pBase members as customers but as fellow photographers. While it's great that he aspires to make pBase something more than a mere money-making exercise, the reality is that a site can be either a hobby site, or a commercial site. Try to walk down the middle of that road, and the result will be the same as trying to walk down the middle of a highway. ({Splat.}) If it's a hobby site, then a certain "lack of structure" is to be expected. As soon as someone starts forking over cash, though, then regardless of how Slug sees them they see THEMSELVES as customers and start to think in terms of service standards. Knowing when (at least in general terms) they can expect things to get fixed/improved is part of that.

Get better soon!

[nooutlet]

I don't find it worrying that I wasn't told about the outage from 3AM to 7AM. It wasn't related to me in any way. I don't have the power to do anything more than you do on PBase.com(except delete posts in the forum). I only have true power on my own mirror of the site, you see? So whatever happens to the main site doesn't affect me or my server tangibly. Perhaps I would find it noteworthy because it's related to some code I'll be working on and if so, Slug would mention it to me. But if it's just a random error that broke the database for a short time, it's not going to be interesting to me.
I'll be sorry that you folks were unable to access PBase when you wanted to, but it has no bearing on how I'll do my work. Because my day to day tasks involve getting programs to output the HTML I expect them to and not much more than that.

Perhaps your situation is a bit different with the system you run.

Anyway, I don't think the fact that it's hobby site takes away from the commitment that Slug has to PBase. Perhaps the exact opposite in fact...