Putting up a warning notice/banner for maintenance

[autisticalice]

 I think there should be a banner or something saying if maintenance will be at a certain time and to prepare for it. I came up with this idea because of the recent maintenance where it was rather unpredictable and I had no idea it was coming. As a disabled person, I need to have predictability in order to plan my activities wisely so that nothing bad is triggered.

 

Otherwise, unpredictability might trigger a big meltdown. I'm sure there are other users that don't have twitter or ways of knowing when maintenance will happen since they might not check the dw_maintenance constantly to check. What would be effecient is having an estimate of the time for maintenance before it starts, how long it will be and whatever.

 

As I said before, I'm the type of person that needs predictability and proper structure so that a meltdown/outburst isn't triggered by a surprise maintenance closure, especially when I don't know how long that will last, it can cause a lot of distress for me.

 

I don't think there would be any drawbacks, except maybe it might bother some people but it is more beneficial to be aware of what is going to happen. it will give people time to plan what they want to say wisely and possibly know that they have to make an entry before the maintenance starts... or whatever.

(I'm not sure if this is allowed but it is a real problem for me)

Comments

[foxfirefey]

Hrm. Okay, what browser do you use? And what pages do you usually go to?

[autisticalice]

Chrome and I'm on Facebook and sitemodel most of the time with my friends... so I don't always pay attention to dreamwidth much. >_< I'm also on LJ too.

[foxfirefey]

I meant, what pages on DW do you usually go to? That is, what pages would be most useful to have a banner on?

[autisticalice]

Oh! I'm usually refreshing my profile page.

[foxfirefey]

Okay, since you use Chrome, I think I found an extension that might help?

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pnjaodmkngahhkoihejjehlcdlnohgmp

You can use the RSS feed of dw_maintenance and set that extension to notify you when there is a new post in it. Because DW tries to warn a couple days ahead of time, it should notify you in time to know how to plan. That way, you don't even have to visit the site or check email, the notification thingie would happen no matter what site you were on.

[jeshyr]

Some more options:

Set up email alerts like foxfirefey said, but tell that service to update to your *Facebook* address so they show up as Facebook messages.

Also, our maintenance is almost always less than an hour long, usually much shorter. I'm not sure if this would help to know, but it's something.