When facebook goes down, I find out from Twitter, when Twitter is down...

[CreekDog]

I find out from FB.

When DU went down I found out from Twitter and FB. Of course none of those sources had info on how to get to DU, that info was on DU.

The important lesson is that when It's down or not working properly, most people are going to need to find out *somewhere else* what's going on and what to do, provided such info is available somewhere else.

If not, they probably won't.

[eleny]

1. I think there's a Yahoo group - or used to be

I'm searching for it

[tridim]

4. DU Panic Room link..

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dupanicroom

[eleny]

5. thanks!

[liberal N proud]

7. Need to mark that for future reference

When I lost DU yesterday, I was in the middle of some PC problems and thought that maybe I had done something.

[mod mom]

16. Thanks, now have that bookmarked.

After contacting several DUers who were having similar problems emailed admins who were prompt & helpful in their reply!

[CreekDog]

6. Seriously?

A yahoo group. LMAO.

:rofl:

[SoCalDem]

23. Hey.. we used to have a big ole group on AIM, too...until

a bunch of "music" people kind if took over & we all bailed on it:)

[Iris]

33. but couldn't your answer be to tweet the link to the DU Panic room group?

I mean, yeah, it's funny, but it worked for those who knew about it.

[tridim]

2. I found the fix on the old fashioned DU panic room (Yahoo groups)

Really the only thing I found on Twitter was a link to a lie on FR about DU being taken out by Anonymous.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. I was lucky...I had continuous access to both facebook and DU.

I have posted several links on facebook to show what worked for some people...

:shrug:

[CreekDog]

9. DU should have a sanctioned twitter feed/page and FB page

2011 is here and in this instnace it would have been really handy.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

11. Absolutely right.

[EFerrari]

24. Or, we could just use the tag #DU and post the info ourselves.

I was thinking about it but didn't understand the problem well enough until this morning. :(

[CreekDog]

27. and so could Free Republic members --and they did just that

i'm talking about an official source.

we're going in circles here.

ever play the telephone game? do you get me?

[EFerrari]

32. So, freeps impersonated someone?

Hmmm. I know the twitter accounts of a bunch of DUers. There's no way I'd mistake a freeper for one of them.

Egypt just had a whole revolution using unofficial tags. I think we can work this out without sweating bullets over it.

[CreekDog]

34. i'm deleting that

[City of Mills]

8. DU never went down

The outage wasn't DU, it was DU's name resolution in random parts of the country. Some were completely unaffected. Others still are. It's awfully strange that people are still having issues this far out...

But there should be some 'official alternate' channel to communicate information if (when) something like this happens in the future.

[CreekDog]

10. Well we are having access issues

And rather than relying on third party info about what is going on an alternative that is sanctioned would be useful.

[City of Mills]

12. You're absolutely right

I didn't mean to take away from your main point, there needs to be some way to get info out to the people who were, and still are, locked out. :hi:

[Starry Messenger]

13. Facebook? Twiiter? What are these strange things you say stranger?

Are you internetin' outside these walls?

[pinboy3niner]

14. WOO-HOO! JUST GOT ACCESS W/O PROXY!

Give it a try--DNS problem may be fixed for you, too! :thumbsup:

I was on with proxy, and just did one of my periodic checks.

[Kali]

15. you seem to be pushing this why don't you set it up?

not sure why skinner et al need to be wasting time on fb/twitter/whatever when they have this place to deal with

I checked with someone I knew on fb, but the old standby yahoo DU panic room got me the furthest. so really, the info IS out there if you have the slightest ability to look.

[CreekDog]

17. so I can set up a DU Twitter?

that would be official and all?

[CC]

18. Ask Skinner first

and explain why. I found out what was going on from a place that shall not be named that copied Skinners post. Had to take a shower but at least I knew what happened.

[CreekDog]

19. Well at least those who know about Old Hickory Tree, Flea Republic, Crow Magnin Cave,etc.

were able to figure out how to get onto DU when it was down.

of course those that don't look at non-DU sites for info about DU...they were left in the dark.

okaaaayyy.

[CC]

20. I got a Google cache of the front

page and saw the beginning of Skinner's post. I googled the first sentence and came up with the post copied there. I couldn't get to the one on DU until I had the proxy. Whatever works. At least I thought it was me after seeing the cached page and saw other people were able to get here. It was good to find so I knew it wasn't me or my connection. I don't know for sure which sites are not to be mentioned so don't mention any of them.:shrug: Never cared enough about them to ask what they were.

[Kali]

21. why not? not sure what "official" means - same as "natural"?

does that mean admins have to create and maintain the thing? I don't know who owns or created the yahoo list but saw a post by Elad so they know about it, anyway...(it seemed to be moderated by somebody named jeezygirl2001)

[CrownPrinceBandar]

22. I think its Duer BeHereNow......

who is the mastermind behind the DU PanicRoom.

[CreekDog]

29. it's 2011...a website of this size generally has a FB or Twitter page or both

and nevermind the demographics here are trending older (not a bad thing), however, if they're trending older because the usual ways of picking up new members are not supported by DU, well, then that doesn't bode well for making sure that we are continually adding new posters of all age groups to our discussions.

[EFerrari]

25. Does it have to be official?

We don't even need a feed really, if this is only for emergencies. We just need people to look for a particular tag, right?

[CreekDog]

26. the issue was that people were relying on unofficial third party sites for info about DU

i think it's fair to say that Skinner hates that.

and nevermind that they are unreliable anyway.

and a twitter feed/account for DU just makes sense and in this case would've been really useful.

or a FB page or something.

but if i set it up, then it's the same old stuff about not being reliable source of info about DU so not to trust it.

[Kali]

30. I guess I just see it as a distraction - if they are having some kind of problem

why should they be having to worry about posting things on a bunch of other sites? I mean we all pretty much found our solutions as part of the "internet community" in whatever form we were comfortable with so it "worked" without the admins having to do extra crap - it's up to them of course, but I can see why they may not want to.

[EFerrari]

31. If trusted posters from DU posted to twitter with #DU in an emergency,

I don't really see a problem. Whatever you or I or any of us post is just as good as we know or think it is at the moment and most of us would add a caveat to that effect, imo.

But maybe ask Skinner what he thinks about an official deal in ATA? Good idea to make arrangements before the Next Thing. :)

[CreekDog]

35. people have asked Skinner about FB

suffice it to say, there's little point in me asking.

[EFerrari]

36. I seem to be only adding to your frustration and apologize for that.

If something like this happens again, I'm posting to twitter under #DUe. My twitter acct is 48thave. It's not a perfect solution but what I can do without inconveniencing the admins and as I can in the event.

It might not hurt for more of us to trade twitter account names.

[CreekDog]

37. i deleted what i wrote because i could see later that it wasn't intentional

sorry. :hi:

[EFerrari]

38. I do apologize. Off day, I guess.

:(

[CreekDog]

39. not your fault

i misunderstood.

:pals:

[NYCGirl]

28. I learned about the outage and the alternate URL from Twitter.

Search for posting with the hashtag #demund for Democratic Underground matters.

BTW, the alternate URL was: http://216.158.54.197/discuss/

That got me able to read, but not post.

[Lisa0825]

40. I posted the info about proxies, etc on the DU (unofficial) FB group.

I updated every time I found new info.

https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2426871461&ref=ts