Now that the dust has (mostly) settled - thoughts on the Dooyoo outage

Gosh, all the fora have been busy lately. Dooyoo was, as we all know, largely down last night and for part of this morning. These things happen (famously recently with google mail), and it's enormously annoying and frustrating for the website's users when it does. Someone (The splendidly named Robert X Cringly, apparently) said, "If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside."), especially with computers.

I have found the general reaction (and especially - and I truly mean no offense - the reaction on 'the other forum)) puzzling though.

Yes, I agree absolutely that Dooyoo should have been more forthcoming with information - if, because one of the main community staffers is on holiday, or had gone home, it could (and should) have been done through the guides and the guide forum, as we could have passed the information on through fora like these. That goes utterly without saying, and I don't know why they didn't (though my guess is the outage started after office hours in Germany).

Having said that...I've found some of the theories floating around interesting.
That Dooyoo had gone bust
That they were trying to avoid paying people
That the site was permanently down
That the miles were permanently lost...
...and so on, ad infinitum.

I'm wondering if that all wasn't a tad...dramatic (and I'm not singling anyone on either forum in particular out, and I don't even have the thread open in front of me any more to work out who said what)? I realise that the site still isn't as healthy as it might be (new reviews and such), it nevertheless was more or less working within around 12 hours (if I read the threads correctly; I was out last night, so missed most of the outage entirely).

I agree that some communication, especially on the guides' forum (so that we could disseminate said information) would have been most welcome - the fact that they're on German time should have meant that they could have reacted early this morning. However...given that the site was down, a note on the community page would have been kind of pointless!

As I say, I agree entirely Dooyoo Towers dropped the communications ball. But was the reaction (both here and elsewhere - I originally posted this on the other forum) warranted?

Is everyone that worried about Dooyoo's health and ethics that they think that they'd forsake us like that?


Please, please let me reiterate this is not meant as a criticism of anyone in particular - just general observations, and I'd love to know your thoughts - and if you have any comments you'd like me to pass onto Dooyoo Towers, let me know - but keep it clean and polite

Cheers

I pressumed they couldnt tell us much as the site was bust so, like you say, no way to tell us. I wasnt too worried as its happened a lot before. I suppose when they have something to tell the guides they would tell them. I suspect most people were not as worried as some people.

I didn't think there was that much reaction / over reaction here? A few of us were slightly concerned but I didn't think we were ranting about not being kept informed.

Personally I was not worried about dooyoo going bust or avoiding payment etc. If dooyoo were in financial trouble they would have seen it coming and would have made some adjustments to the payment rules, they wouldn't just wait to go bust.

I was worried that it was a technical problem and hoped they would have the data backed up to restore everyone's miles, but there was a bit of me that was worried they would not.

it was unfortunate and pretty exceptional for them to be down, and just an unexpected coincidence that no one was actually in the office to tell the guides

On Ciao it is a more regular occurrence...!

Quote :

Personally I was not worried about dooyoo going bust or avoiding payment etc. If dooyoo were in financial trouble they would have seen it coming and would have made some adjustments to the payment rules, they wouldn't just wait to go bust.

That's exactly what I thought too.

The idea our miles and reviews would be lost was rather silly.

I found it slightly frustrating - but I wasn't concerned. These things happen!