META NEGBANG: 502s and Heartbreak
There are two goddamn active things on the board and the hamsters are kicking it with Freddy P. Soft
Let the backend hate out of your hearts. Please for the love of God don't make it about 17/18 year olds (for the adult babies in the room).
January 8th, 2017 at 5:29 PM ^
is this post...
January 8th, 2017 at 5:51 PM ^
Post?
This. Is. SPARTA!!!!
January 8th, 2017 at 5:30 PM ^
I for one wish this blog could handle a Sunday with no major sport Michigan games or even NFL threads.
It would also be nice if this thing didn't look like geocities.
January 8th, 2017 at 5:39 PM ^
love the look, but the blog definitely needs more servers or some load balancing
January 8th, 2017 at 5:40 PM ^
The look is fine, it just needs to work.
January 8th, 2017 at 9:35 PM ^
Neg neg neg neg.
Negative.
Minus me.
Subtract.
January 8th, 2017 at 7:44 PM ^
...sharing servers with the most popular San Diego Padres blog.
January 8th, 2017 at 5:59 PM ^
It crashed yesterday too when Filiaga committed. Wanted to read the commit post, and even like 30min after he'd committed it still wasn't loading.
Every single newsy thing causes this site to crash. Considering that this is now Brian's source of income and he has several employees depending on that income for their own, you'd think he'd be more invested in providing something other than a trash user experience. An occasional outage is fine, but this is every fucking time lately.
And yet, I still see both Brian and Ace throwing shade at people on Twitter when people critique them or the site by boasting about how many views the site gets.
Maybe fix your own glass house before throwing stones, guys. Talking about updating the site in the annual "maybe we'll fix things" off-season post and then doing fuck all about it routine has worn thin. If you're going to act like a big time site and talk trash like a big time site, maybe bring your site out of the MySpace era.
Looooooong time visitor to the site (going on 10 years now, I think), and love the content here, but the user experience is getting bad enough that I keep hoping one of these popup sites like MGoFish or TTB, or any other one really, is able to take it to the next level. Would love to be able to replace time spent on MGoBlog on a better run site. Because this is getting bad.
If you need an example of how bad it is, just take a trip over to Eleven Warriors. Night and day difference. Like looking at a professional site compared to a high school kid's blog.
/end rant
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January 8th, 2017 at 6:08 PM ^
criticize any site or forum that I don't pay for.
If, however, you are donating regularly and not seeing the results, then I stand corrected.
January 8th, 2017 at 6:32 PM ^
Yes its free, but its also a business for Brian. Its not like this is a hobby site for him he does at night when he gets home from work. Its a top 6000 site according to Alexa (for reference, mlive and freep are both right around rank 1100, and a site like MGoFish is rank 77,000), which means it should be a good and profitable site. He makes a living from it, and is able to employ people from the traffic. So clearly things are going pretty good.
And don't get me wrong, I really like the content here. But the user experience is getting bad enough I'm ready to go elsewhere. I'm ranting because I want Brian and MGoBlog to continue to be successful, so they are here for years, and able to provide content.
A taxi/uber driver isn't going to be a very successful driver for long if their car keeps breaking down. And that goes for website owners too.
January 8th, 2017 at 6:58 PM ^
Sure, but what about my comment? If I have to wait and someone makes the comment before mine, I look silly! (/s just to be sure)
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January 8th, 2017 at 9:06 PM ^
the last time some of us criticized the blog because we cared about it we were labeled "concern trolls".
I decided to care less after that.
So I guess the problem kind of took care of itself.
January 8th, 2017 at 9:28 PM ^
When Brian was employing a guy who messaged teenagers without their parents knowing.
Oh, and then getting mad when people said a 15/16 year old looked young
January 8th, 2017 at 9:32 PM ^
LOL Good times
January 9th, 2017 at 8:02 AM ^
That was Ace, but Brian backed him up.
January 8th, 2017 at 6:50 PM ^
Do you pay to use CNN.com or ESPN.com or Twitter.com? I don't and I still get mad when they don't work for me. Brian is making money off of the ads that you see, the same as those sites. Not caring more about the performance of his site is akin to you neglecting a very important aspect of your job.
January 8th, 2017 at 7:02 PM ^
Those sites don't crash when there's news to report or when too many people visit. They crash in major, rare incidents.
And those sites invest in teams of people to analyze what they're readership wants in a website from content to user experience. We can give Brian that feedback for free.
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January 8th, 2017 at 7:42 PM ^
I would never presume to tell Brian how to operate his business, but I do run a business of my own in Ann Arbor that grosses $2M annually and employs 20 FTE's. Yes, I went there, I humble bragged, and I have no shame. But at some point you have to upgrade your facilities to prevent yourself from losing business. I am worried that is probably happening at this point.
EDIT downvoted myself for nauseating arrogance.
January 8th, 2017 at 7:54 PM ^
I always though you were a Michigan grad, but if that were the case revenue should be much higher.
January 8th, 2017 at 8:03 PM ^
Good. Let the hate flow through you.
January 8th, 2017 at 8:13 PM ^
You both are spot on. I am tired of the old stupid "it's free so what do you care" argument. That argument makes no sense on the internet and hasn't for quite some time. As others have said, most other sites are free that you go to but if they were constantly crashing every time something important happened, you would go elsewhere. I have seen it on here quite a few times that to fix the issue it would cost an additional $80 per month. Ok, got it. So let me get this straight. For an additional business investment (that which has been offered multiple times on here by the users) of $960 a year you won't upgrade the vehicle by which your living is made. Business 101 type shit right there but whatever.
January 8th, 2017 at 8:37 PM ^
Upvoted for humble bragging.
Unfortunately evenyoubrutus is not sharing his expenses are $2,000,001 a year. Suck it baby!
January 9th, 2017 at 9:35 AM ^
the "EDIT" / self-flaggelation, fer chrissakes.
Establish your credentials, then frickin' own them.
Same with your advice (you "would never presume to..." ? You just did.)
Having established your credentials, it's clear the advice comes from a pretty credible source.
And is general enough to apply.
Harumph.
January 9th, 2017 at 6:02 AM ^
Some of us actually do send contributions and I wonder how people who live on here 24/7 or close don't send something.
Having said that, my meager gift won't happen this year. The site has become so unreliable that when things happen, it takes a very long time to be able to access the info. I don't get the rationale to keep this site this way.
As much as I hate to say it, 11 Warriors or a similar design is where we should be in terms of what this site should look like.
Sorry Brian, I like your content, but this site needs to be updated and soon.
January 9th, 2017 at 8:02 AM ^
Honestly, it's the forum and comments sections that draw me here anymore. The good, the bad, the snarky, and the informative.
January 9th, 2017 at 9:33 AM ^
but the user engagement is drawn by high quality content... and will continue to do so presuming it's easily accessible, including at key moments.
January 8th, 2017 at 6:12 PM ^
Your version of this on the Najee thread actually negbang inspired me.
Cosign on all of it (except with like 6 years, I just didn't comment for a loooong time). Love the content but if there was anything similar I'd spend my time there.
It has to be a turnoff to more casual fans and visitors, too. You can debate their value to, say, the board, but that equates to lost ad dollars.
January 8th, 2017 at 6:32 PM ^
It's actually incredible that this place hasn't seen a total collapse of ad revenue. What sane marketer would place ads on a site that inevitably fails with even moderate traffic?
No point in griping about it though. It's been happening for years, and the only reasonable conclusion is that there's no will to fix it.
January 8th, 2017 at 6:49 PM ^
This site has more than "moderate" traffic.
Over a million unique views per month.
When shit goes down most go at the same time. That's not "moderate."
January 8th, 2017 at 7:03 PM ^
Obviously it's not modeate relative to the rest of the internet. I'm talking about traffic relative to the Blog's peak. Lately, we're seeing consistent errors in the abscene of any significant news.
January 8th, 2017 at 6:50 PM ^
Yeah, I don't get it. Like being an ice cream shop owner whose freezer die every time it gets above 90.
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January 8th, 2017 at 8:56 PM ^
They should sell ads on their 502 and 503 pages.
January 9th, 2017 at 9:39 AM ^
here we are.
It's content vs. crashing on this site.
Fortunately (thus far) quality content has compensated for the capacity shortcomings.
Not sure what the issue is -- it's easy to armchair-quarterback -- but I thought they'd attempted a fix.
Maybe a full fix would be at such a level they'd have to trim/eliminate some salaries?
A loan might be in order. Should be easy enough to get.
January 8th, 2017 at 7:33 PM ^
According to Worth of Web, this site is valued at $1,463,000 (for reference, eleven warriors is valued at $705,000).
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January 8th, 2017 at 8:18 PM ^
If that is the true value of it, I suspect it is because of what it could monetize hypothetically. That means it is even more offensive that it wouldn't be upgraded to handle the traffic because someone either doesn't know how or won't monetize what is needed to make it so. That or they don't give a fuck which should be unacceptable to users who are partly responsible for creating that value.
January 8th, 2017 at 11:45 PM ^
Not a fair comparison. Eleven warriors and it's subject matter sucks.
January 8th, 2017 at 7:34 PM ^
Glad to hear Ace still has his Twitter up and running and is still posting shitty takes. Fortunately for me, I was blocked in a show of solidarity with BiSB post-election. I hope they've emerged from their respective safe spaces and are still able to function.
January 9th, 2017 at 4:48 PM ^
The type of guy that thinks if you don't agree with him on an issue that = you are an idiot. And doesn't bother to actually make a point, just brings the snark. I like his work here, felt really bad for him during this health scare, and am a fan of his work, but he's not one you want to have a debate of any kind with over a beer.
January 11th, 2017 at 4:11 PM ^
My way or the highway! I've heard Ace on the podcasts and he's...not good. I think I'll survive this Twitter exile.
January 8th, 2017 at 7:34 PM ^
Yeah, honestly I bet if Brian started a Kickstarter or Indiegogo or just did an annual fundraising drive to cover server costs, he could get enough support from members here to pay for it without even cutting into his ad revenue.
I know there's already the Beveled Guilt button for people that want to make a general contribution to the site, but if there was some way for people to make a contribution that was guaranteed to go to fixing the site, I bet it would get a lot of support.
January 8th, 2017 at 8:00 PM ^
For real! The audience would subsidize it directly, which is a luxury other sites don't have.
January 8th, 2017 at 8:40 PM ^
We say this BS every year on countless threads.
About a year ago there was a front page post about upgrades "coming". Nothing.
January 8th, 2017 at 11:50 PM ^
What does throwing shade mean?
January 9th, 2017 at 8:07 AM ^
Insulting people or shitting on their thoughts and ideas.
January 8th, 2017 at 8:12 PM ^
I don't care about the look; the functionality needs to be better. But this has been brought up dozens of times, and unless someone will do more than that I don't see another thread changing anything.
January 8th, 2017 at 8:27 PM ^
you might have expected Iowa fans to throw up in the oughts. But I think that the founders wear that as a badge of pride, and I sort of get it. Hip, though. . . not.
January 8th, 2017 at 5:30 PM ^
neg deez nuts, assholes.
January 8th, 2017 at 5:30 PM ^
wuuut
January 8th, 2017 at 5:30 PM ^
Agree, I completely embrace the current commits, the fellas that WANT to be here.
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January 8th, 2017 at 5:32 PM ^
They are the shit and Najee is the shit, too.
Anyone upset about that should take a long look in the mirror.