Update: July 29, 2009

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

While SportingNews.com and Strat-O-Matic Online have been under normal operation for a while now, the one remaining issue continues to be the forums. As you may know, we've moved onto better hardware across the board, but something in our new environment seems to be occasionally tripping up the forums software. We are bringing in an Oracle database specialist this week to help us track down this pesky bug, and are confident we'll be able to restore full stability to them soon.

I know that the forums are an important part of the SOM Online experience, so we regret that they have not been reliable over the past 2 weeks.

I also know that it is especially frustrating that the forums have been up and down and that I've been posting occasionally conflicting messages on their availability. You'd probably agree that it'd be better if they stayed down until we can get them back up at 100%, instead of having it be the rollercoaster ride that it's been. Personally, I agree as well. However, it is because we know how important they are that we keep starting them up, and unfortunately the only effective way to test them is with real community usage. Whatever our path to daylight is, thank you for bearing with us.

On a general note, we recognize that for some of you, your faith in us has been shaken by the events of the past 2 weeks. We deeply regret any inconvenience that we have put you through. However, I stand by our usual solid record of service, and have every reason to expect we'll exceed that record going forward. The recent issues we've had are a blight, for sure, but aside from that, our games work, and they'll continue to work. We didn't invest in all this state-of-the-art hardware for nothing. And we know that if we provide anything less than excellent service going forward, then no, you won't want to play with us.

So thank you very much for your support and understanding; we know your patience with the forums is wearing thin. But with the brand new Bullpen v2 upgrade and the new developments we're working on, we're continuing to improve the game in exciting ways, and hope you hang on for the ride.

Bernie H. SportingNews.com