Metafilter taken offline

December 20, 2000 7:51 PM

Metafilter taken offline for two and a half days by a Bay Area network outage, along with Blog*Spot, Evhead, and Megnut. Fortunately, everything appears to be back to normal. Good, because I think the DTs were starting to kick in.
posted by waxpancake (33 comments total)

Wonder if the network outage caused a dip in online holiday sales around the world...
posted by argus at 7:56 PM on December 20, 2000

Actually, I think most of the blame is on our moronic ISP. After we heard "backbone problems" we heard about router problems, and they've given us spotty service in the past.
posted by mathowie at 8:12 PM on December 20, 2000

whee!

some years ago the coffee shop I frequented had a fire in the building. they had to close for weeks to clean up.

every morning, dozens of us would walk over, see that the staff was still cleaning inside, walk around the corner to get a coffee elsewhere, and then go back to the first one to sit on the bench and drink it. it was pathetic.

I still remember the night we walked over even though we knew it was closed and they had re-opened. they were giving away drinks to celebrate.

in my life, cast and locations change, but the scenarios play over and over and over. :)

rcb
posted by rebeccablood at 8:21 PM on December 20, 2000

free links and comments for all!
posted by mathowie at 8:27 PM on December 20, 2000

dear god. i was stuck at work for 2 whole days, and i had to do, like...work! Viva la metafilter.
posted by Hankins at 8:59 PM on December 20, 2000

I was starting to run out of interesting websites to visit. I'm glad Metafilter is back up, your ISP should be ashamed of itself, depriving me of my only joy for two whole days.
posted by Zool at 9:03 PM on December 20, 2000

Yeah, sure, Matt. We all believe that "our ISP went down" line. I think we all know what really went down: you figured out a way to -- rather dramatically -- cut down on the volume of main page postings.
posted by bradlands at 9:15 PM on December 20, 2000

Hey! Glad things are back up now.

"Backbone" problems probably = they cheaped out on their own local loop to their provider, or crappy routers. the "internet weather" sites aren't great, but if it were a real "backbone" problem it surely would have appeared at least in shadowy form elsewhere in California.
posted by mikel at 9:22 PM on December 20, 2000

Conspiracy theory my arse. Plain and simple, this has been an evil and cunning plan. Unfortunately, the 'more addictive than crack' tagline gave it all away.

Matt has been supplying us with our daily 'crack', then suddenly it is withdrawn for two days. We all go into convulsions, go to previously unheard of websites in our desperate search of the 'crack'. Classic drug dealer trick, give the user free drugs at the beginning and then charge them later.
posted by jay at 9:36 PM on December 20, 2000

Damn, but metafilter was missed! Thank goodness you're back up. I was beginning to think another of my fave sites went dark...
posted by Lynsey at 9:50 PM on December 20, 2000

that was only 2 and a half days? it felt like a week. i almost started smoking again.
posted by sudama at 9:51 PM on December 20, 2000

So we're going to have to start paying through the nose, and soon, huh jay? Well, I'm ready. I'll be peddling my flesh on the street, sex-worker style, just so I can score a few precious daily moments to curl up and enjoy the needle-sharp commentary before nodding out in bliss with my beloved MeFi linkage ...
posted by allaboutgeorge at 9:53 PM on December 20, 2000

Either that or perhaps we will have to buy 'mefi patches' which will wean us off slowly. Really evil and cunning.

I never realised how dependent I was on mefi before now. Thanks for the great site Matt.
posted by jay at 10:05 PM on December 20, 2000

Well, I hope y'all don't mind, but I saved up three different things I wanted to post and they're all going up now.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:08 PM on December 20, 2000

I kept going back to Solistrato's Metafilter parody just to have the pleasant blue glow hitting me while I did other things. Which reminds me, never redesign this site, there is something pert darn perfect about the way it is.
I really feel so much better now.
What does it cost to run this site? There are so many of us now, micropayments probably would work. Even on the honor system.
posted by thirteen at 10:09 PM on December 20, 2000

I'm so glad my third place is back in business.
posted by harmful at 10:22 PM on December 20, 2000

I just figured it was Y2K finally catching up with us -- you know: Armageddon, better late than never.
posted by leo at 10:48 PM on December 20, 2000

Aliens. Aliens did it, I say.
posted by dhartung at 11:02 PM on December 20, 2000

Whew! I'm going to have engage in some serious MF-oriented slacking over the next two days to make up for all that damn work I've been forced to do this week (out of sheer boredom). I'd demand that everyone start posting links for my reading pleasure, but it seems y'all have already gotten on that... Excellent.
posted by jess at 11:27 PM on December 20, 2000

Until I read Matt's site I thought my boss has found out how much time I spend, er, 'actively researching the B2B possibilities on the web' here and blocked it. Phew!
More addictive than craic indeed.
posted by Markb at 12:33 AM on December 21, 2000

Down again, up again. *sigh* Not blaming Haughey, of course.
posted by harmful at 11:19 AM on December 21, 2000

Wohoo!

It seems that although the site has been back over for some time over in the US, the site has only just started appearing as "up" from the UK. Probably a propagation issue.

Normal service resumes... ace!
posted by williamtry at 11:51 AM on December 21, 2000

I blame society, myself.
posted by dogwelder at 11:51 AM on December 21, 2000

I blame Electric Utility Deregulation, myself. I think the ISP couldn't pay its exhorbitant power bill and got cut off...
(But then, I live in the City of L.A., where the city-owned utility has been isolated and insulated from most of the madness. Socialism, yay!!!)
posted by wendell at 12:04 PM on December 21, 2000

I wonder how many companies have experienced a surge in productivity over the past 3 days or so.

"FLASH: MeFi Down!"
"Tech stocks skyrocket as site after site are rolled out"
"FLASH: MeFi Up!"
"Tech stocks plummet, 'We just can't get anything out the door' cries distraught CEO."
posted by cCranium at 12:25 PM on December 21, 2000

What Hankins said.
"ohthankgod," she whispered as MeFi loaded, "you're back."
posted by mimi at 1:21 PM on December 21, 2000

i knew it was down forever, but last night i was setting up a linux web server at home out of a $25 thrift store computer and finally when everything was finished setting up i jacked into my hub, fired up a browser and typed in the url for metafilter. lo and behold, it came (cue miracle type music). i credited the linux. i'll use just this computer from now on. oh yeah, and the one at work.
posted by cheesebot at 1:52 PM on December 21, 2000

Jesus Christ, I'm glad to see it back. What was supposed to do at work all day?
posted by Mocata at 5:29 AM on December 22, 2000

It's back! Metafilter's back!
God Bless Us, Everyone!
posted by metrocake at 8:38 AM on December 22, 2000

The connection to the world still seems to be a bit unstable; there appear to be occasional periods when MeFi is again inaccessible.
posted by harmful at 9:28 AM on December 22, 2000

I guess given all of all the MeFi praise above, the only thing left to say is..."Thank you, Matt!"
posted by jaz at 10:22 AM on December 22, 2000

This is the first time I've been able to access the MoFo in four days.

Ahhh... and now as per my agreement, exhale.
posted by holloway at 10:51 AM on December 22, 2000

Did you turn blue?
posted by baylink at 11:24 AM on December 22, 2000