The two following remarks were forwarded to other lists I'm
on...
CW
****
Enough of the TRIPOD mail, please.
I work for Tripod. I sit next to Geoff (Customer Service Head) and
Derek(Head of Engineering).
Tripod had a bug in a software program called the "Extirpator" which
automates removal of abusive accounts. (You know the kind that spam
100,000 people for Porno.).
It disabled about 30,000 accounts by mistake starting Thursday evening.
ALL ACCOUNTS ARE BEING RESTORED -- NO ONE LOST ANY INFORMATION.
And an apology letter to those accounts that were disabled is being
sent. Everyone at Tripod is really upset that so many folks were
inconvenienced.
Thanks,
- Don
Managing Director, Lycos Communities
****
Fannish network sources in the form of a contact with a Senior Programmer
at Tripod, have informed us that, in fact, sweeper bug at Tripod went
insane this weekend, and deleted fully half their websites. There
was no purge. There was no selective fannish bashing. It's apparently hugely
embarassing to them, and they're working as fast as they can to get
the sites restored.
Inside scoop from Derek Bruneau, director of engineering and personal
publishing at Tripod:
"What's happened is that a technical glitch caused a bunch of sites to be
removed accidentally. They're being restored today. Believe me, it wasn't
targeted at anyone's site in particular. Lots of different sites [were
swept] --including many of our favorites. It was just a really bad bug.
Small bug, big effect. we're working as quickly as we can to get
everyone's site back online. We know how terrible this is for members, so
we apologize profusely. It's the last thing anyone needed right now."
Just thought I'd let you know.
Kirayoshi
"God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffiblegame
of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective ofall
the other players(ie., everybody), to being involved in an obscure and
complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for
infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules and who smiles
all the
time."
--Neil Gaiman and Terry
Pratchett
"Good Omens" |