We’re Working On It!
Hey guys, I just wanted to apologize for the slowdown and system errors the past week or so. I'm on WordPress.com constantly and the problems have been incredibly annoying.
We've been quiet for a few weeks because all development effort has been heads down on preparing for this new transition, think of it like WordPress.com 1.1.
We're creating a perfect mirror of our entire infrastructure in a new datacenter in Dallas to replicate what we currently have going in San Diego. Basically what we're going for is redundancy at a very high level. The problem is no matter how much money you spend on hardware, switches, and all the hundreds of other things that keep everything running you can really only be certain of one thing — that it'll fail at some point, most likely when you least expect it.
We had originally planned for this new hardware to come online more than a month ago, which would have prevented the errors we've all been experiencing, but it has taken longer than expected. This is my fault and I'm sorry for not getting things moving sooner.
By creating this first mirror in Dallas, we're trying to eliminate as many things that could fail as possible, so in theory if California fell into the ocean we could still keep the site running without any problems and slowdowns. (Besides the fact that Barry, Ryan, Toni, and I are in California! But even we're geographically distributed — Andy, Podz, and Donncha would be okay.)
We're in the very final stages of bringing the new systems online, just waiting the last few bits of configuration to come online. As we're more than doubling the servers we're using, it should address all performance issues and help us prevent any for a long time to come. This means we can get back to doing things we love, like adding cool new features and themes for you. Thanks for your patience, we'll have things back to normal as soon as possible.
- May 2, 2006
- Scaling
WordPress.com News 
Matt,
Thats excellent.
Keep up the good work
cheers to all at wordpress.com
http://www.irin.co.uk
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No worries!
U’re doing a great job.
Looking forward for all these new features to come soon then 😉
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We support you guys! Thank you for being so caring.
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Keep up the good work, Guys.
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no problem guys! You guys are doing a great job! Keep it up!
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good work and good luck!!!! I love wordpress!!!! (kiss kiss hug hug)
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You guys are doing a great job.
x3 wordpress.
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Thanks for the update (and the honesty). I hope California doesn’t fall into the ocean. I have a lot of friends there.
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Thanks, and I appreciate the hard work!
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All good. Thanks for the post.
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Wow, that’s a lot of sweat for a free service. You guys are awesome.
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You guys’re doing great.
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That’s great. Keep it going and we are looking forward for some great features to be added 🙂
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A million thanks…. WP rocks!
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Everyone really appreciates it – and don’t forget to take some time out for a muffin, we wouldn’t want you burning out before middle age!
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No problem at all. Thanks for this post.
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Thanx for clearing it up.
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you guys are doing great. even if it does go down once in a while, i dont mind. gotta overlook a few quirks when its such a great service.
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I am extremely happy here at WordPress. I love the forums, and I have always had answers to my questions that have helped me and my blogging experience. Thanks for all your hard work people.
V
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No worries!
Looking forward for all the new features to come!
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I appreciate your timely responses and hard work…problems are inevitable.
/erik
http://www.IrishCalvinist.com
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Your efforts for continuous improvement and evolution of WordPress.com is what makes it the best. Kudos to you guys!
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Thanks Guys – really appreciate all your hard work – especially over the Easter weekend when everyone else was eating chocolate.
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Add oil, add oil! (a.k.a. keep up the good work)
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You guys are providing a great service for everybody. Thx for the update.
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Hi Matt, I just want to let you know that I appreciate your updates. It’s rare when a tech company will explain a problem let alone admit to having one.
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I am also surprised by the openess (hum… the word exists in english?) of the wordpress staff. It´s a very rare position in the it world and I am very well impress by it. I´ve moved from a movable type provider, and after to blogpot and I am now at wordpress and even after that “weekend” crash I´m very impressed by the quality of the platform and by your attitude.
Thanks!
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keep up the good work.Hope to get new wordpress soon.Anyways, i will be offline coz exams have arrive again will come in JUNE. Till then happy blogging to all wordpress bloggers.
http://pranjal.wordpress.com
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Thanks for the info Matt – and good luck for all your future plans. You guys are doin a GREAT job out there, keep on!!!
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Yeah, the slowdowns and stuff are being a real pain in the ass, lately. I was beggining to be afraid, because no one talked about it, but now that I heard from you, I’m all happy again. Keep up the good work!
Not just “good”, but awesome!
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Yo agradezco a ustedes sus esfuerzos por brindarnos a nosotros este excelente trabajo llamado wordpress.com
Los enaltece como personas el hecho de esforzarse en ello y preocuparse por darnos explicaciones por los inconvenientes encontrados al ofrecer un producto de excelencia e innegable primer nivel.
Gracias, muy sinceras gracias, a usted Matt y todo el equipo de wordpress.com
Un cordial saludo y reconocimiento a su labor.
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Thanks for letting us know what`s going on.
I really appreciate your work! WordPress is great,
Good luck!
A totally happy customer 🙂
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No problem at all. Good luck & Good job!
http://www.technologymadness.com
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Thabks for the update and all the great work you’re doing behind the scenes! Keep it up!
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I appreciate all of the hard work. Kudos to the entire team for such a wonderful service. (Note to self: layoff the feedback stuff til the new servers are online 🙂 )
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awesome, wordpress still rocks
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All those problems must be a bigger pain for you guys than us, so thank you! I appreciate your efforts. Keep up the great job. 🙂
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Your work is soooo greatly apprieciated. The WP team is wonderful! Thank you! 🙂
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Great news! I can’t wait to see more themes and plugins.
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I have to agree, I was getting worried as well. But keeping us informed is what helps and you do that great as well (next to all the other things we mere mortals do not know of or understand).
Eagerly awaiting the new service and in the meantime, keep a cool head and don’t let yourselves be bullied by the nags.
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No worries
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Can I just say:
Explaining the problem AND taking responsibility? Kudos to you! All too rare in this world. I think this means we can trust you.
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it’s clear we all appreciate what the wordpress team is doing from the amount of comments here and even those who don’t. =)
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kudos!! 🙂
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Thanks for caring about reliability. This was the reason I left Blogsome to come here. I definitely appreciate your efforts!
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KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK, GUYS!
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To complete the half century of regards and thank you notes, Keep up the good work guys! Yes, it does get annoying at times, but when it’s back to normal, you just forget the whole problem :-D!
Btw, being curious, for a free service, you guys are investing a lotta money, time and effort! What are you guys getting outta it? Yes, FAME for sure! WordPress.com is _the_ best blog host now. Much better than ANY one of the plethora out there!
I hope ya guys continue with this adfree, crap free hosting service. Danke! Zanke ze! Thanks a ton :-)!
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I appreciate all the effort that goes into offering us this free service. This is not to mention the stress and frustration you go through in your pursuit of excellence. Thumbs up for you Matt, Barry, Ryan, Toni, Podz and Donncha 🙂 – you rock!
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Thank you for caring; keep up the work!
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Go wordpress go 😀
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Everything is well appreciated. Great work, guys!
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great, that way we’re sure to have a back up ^^
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That is good to hear – I was wondering whether it was my Mac or my connection which was going haywire …. 😉
At any rate, thanks for a really good service!
Cheers, Kasper
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We know you guys are working on it and we are perfectly sure you will give us good stuff like themes soon as this gets over
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KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK, GUYS!
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Good effort guys! Really looking forward to better service!
BTW, is there any way non-techies like me could support you in any way?
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No problem. I didn’t feel a thing. Keep up the excellent job.
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Thanks for all the effort. I am in the process of moving servers and it’s a complete f***around so I understand…
If you’re thinking of new ways to improve wordpress.com, i’d say one of the most sought after options would be to be able to edit your template or customise the look & feel even more. For a designer like myself, it can sometimes be embarrasing handing out a URL for a blog I didn’t design.
I was thinking about it some more and maybe for blogs that are established enough, have good content and provide a good reason could have the ability to edit their templates. — I’m really not sure how you want to do it but I’m just throwing some ideas out there.
Also… the ability to include AdSense or some kind of ads of some kind would be fantastic and all that would require is a widget. I would understand if you couldn’t go ahead with something like that due to many reasons but the option would be nice. In saying that you’d have to watch the splogs and make sure they didnt proliferate.
Anyway just thought I’d throw that out there and thanks for all the good work and don’t stress too much!
Cheers
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I’m not saying anything new here, but for what it’s worth, you folks are doing a great job (new themes, new widgets, multiple accounts). Thanks for this post too. Nice to know what’s happening.
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You guys are wonderful. Thanks for all the hard work, the unlimited patience, the fast answers, the cool features, and for keeping us informed.
WordPress rocks!
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on that day i had just convinced my poet friend to open his first blog in wordpress. everything went well, put a couple of poems and informed friends and all. boom the whole thing is down.
but its okay, i’ve fought with him, asking him not to change the service. not just me, there are many more loyal users out there.
keep up the good job. cant thank you guys enough…
– siddharth
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Ha; I thought it was my connection as well!
Keep it up.
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You guys are wonderful. Thanks for all the hard work, the patience, the fast answers, the cool features, and for keeping us informed.
WordPress rocks!
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Thank you for the explanation, and for your tremendous attitude. I’m fairly new to blogging, this is the only place I’ve been, and I love it. I don’t understand, though, how it is free. How do you make money?
Blessings to all of you.
Shirley
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Ah, the “Arizona Bay Contingency Plan”. Good work, grand pressers of words.
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so nice to hear from you guys again. i actually thought you left us already 🙂
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No problem, and thanks for creating a terrific way to blog!
Aneil
http://www.totaltrust.wordpress.com
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Good luck updating the servers. WP.com is a great service and I’m looking forward to the new features.
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Podz has always been great in handling my stupid computer illiterate questions.You guys are much more user friendly than blogger so you all do what you need to do.
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cool!
thanks for the hard work guys.
=D
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You guys are pretty straight shooters in your operation and the honesty and integrity when problems arise is so pleasing to behold! It makes a very pleasant change from the norm! Keep it going in this way please!
Good luck with the new equipment/setup… 🙂
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A post I was working on just went POOF. Nothing appeared to be wrong with it, but it just went into the ether instead of being posted. Any word on what could have caused that?
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hey matt and the team,
before saying anything yet, as usual, you guys rawk, no doubt in maintaining wordpress and the forums, but hey, there’s always ups and downs in everything we do, especially when we want to make it big, there’ll be hiccup every here and there. I guess that comes with the price to pay for fame 😛
v^_^v greetings and all the best for you guys. Rock on!
Salutes,
ManMeng
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Hey Matt and the rest, no worries, rock’on kay (the previous post i left here went wrong and gone)
There’s up and downs, but that’s the ‘boss stage’ you go like in RPG games. One you’re over that, you’re the winner on bonus stage.
Salutes,
ManMeng
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your efforts are highly appreciated, thank you!!!
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I’m new here. From the sound of the posts listed I think I will love wordpress. You must be doing a lot of things right. Keep it up.
Arthur
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i’m relieved to know the problem wasn’t my fault. i really appreciate your candor and straightforwardness. If only our current administration occupying the white house would be so honest and accountable, we would live in a better world. kudos!
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Hello all!
You all have a great service here and as a new person on WordPress I want to say thank you!
Not that I am rushing it at all because you know you can not rush greatness… Is there any time frame on when the errors will be fixed?
Thanks
Gemini
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Sigh, my blog has been down for many hours today. Frustrating. Sorry, I’m just venting. I do appreciate that I can come here and get honest updates, though. I’m getting a 408 Request Timeout.
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Thanks for the posting – keep up the superb wordpress workz!
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You’ve been doing great and yet you feel terribly sorry for a temporal failure? It means that you really care. And we cannot love you more for that.
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We Love you!
Kudos to the service and great application.
Keep it up WordPress.
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No Problem – wordpress.com is my way of life. Keep up the good work and thanks for keeping us informed!
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Thank You!
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Just want to say you guys are awesome. I made the switch from another site to wordpress and I am hooked. It’s simple and easy to use for an IT-idiot like me and aesthetically pleasing enough for the bimbo in me. So who cares about a few minor glitches.
Keep up the great work. =)
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Great customer service. What more can I ask for?
Oh wait I know. Paid upgrades like more space, photo control. When that happens count me in.
Thanks bunches
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Nice going.
My regular blog is on a wordpress platform this is my first blog thru wordpress I like it.
If we could at least edit pictures into out templates and change colors that would be awesome too.
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No worries as long as you are keeping us updated!
I am new to wordpress and I am enjoying it so far despite the problems. One thing though, will colour texts while putting up a post be included in the changes?
Keep up the good work!
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The best blogservice!
Thanks a lot!
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You folks rock. And I mean, rock. Thank you all.
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Excelent work, yes we have some problems but is free and is nice, and you have a excelente team
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You guys are doing great! The small outages and stuff are fine … blogger has more of a problem thats why they never say “99% uptime” beacuse the way there system works is blogger.com will always be up even if the blogs arent …. which is why all my friends… famliy and co-workers have closed up there blogger blogs and came to wordpress.com and so far we’re all happy (Espically me! 😉
Keep up the great work!
-Mark
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