hey, these things happen.

Thanks for the heads-up; it'd have felt very strange absent your explanation. And thanks to you and others for taking on these challenges. I have said before and I will now that the four-hour Top-Ten makes sense to me; a twelve-hour paradigm bars too many from seeing what's new and well-liked.

Thanks. r.

Thank you Emily..
HUGGGGGGGGGGG

Much appreciate the update, Emily. Some of us were drifting toward doomsday scenarios - not me, of course, but it was getting tiresome fighting them off.

That's is ok I think - especially for us overseas folks - we get some time to catch up , and not lose anyone. I like to read every post that goes up on Cover. This would also give people time to work on their posts, take some more time to read each other and get their material together. Thanks Emily, we are with you.

Problems? What problems?
I haven't noticed any problems.

Thank you, Emily for the update. I was wondering what was going on.
While I was posting a tv piece early this morning, the site was behaving like a tantrum-prone toddler.
Thank you for undertaking all this.

Best



Best

We shall compose ourselves in patience. We love the site and miss how it used to be...and look forward to some improvement.

Thanks. I hear (OWL!) that the word' Patience' means - literally ...
...
Suffer longer.

We're use to that.

I am reminded of a job.
I was a job candidate.
I was later informed`
`
My boss killed people.
We swig champagne.
We love suffering.
Why we drink?
Between buttons?
Folk get slop faced?
We get back rubs?
We sing solo too.
So low Ya no hear.
We sing in jail cell.
Yodel in commode.

Much appreciated, your reassurance - but six weeks in the dark proved too long for some of your best writers.

The misspellings, mis-titling and misplaced apostrophes on the cover almost proved too much for me until it was explained "editor" means something different in the US than Europe or Australia, where I come from. I understand. I guess you don't have spellcheck either. Still it's a great site - thank you.

( Cranky come back ! It's going to be OK ! Stella ! ... Stella ... ? ... )

thanks for the feedback . . . we were all getting a bit worried!

Good to know!

Thank you for letting us know, Emily. Being in the dark is no fun, neither is what has been going on. Wishing a fast resolution of all the issues. ♥R

"Mission Accomplished!"

I look forward to seeing results.

I'll believe it when and IF I see it.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Never got an "ep" because I'm not one of the "favorites" here.
And, my true story should have gotten one.

I prefer ZOOMERS!!

If you people cash your paychecks, you are STEALING.

I do hope that soon this place will load in good time and we can all start posting here again Emily. Thanks for this update.
I can hope to post here on my favorite site in the cyber sphere....if and when........

I wish you knew Emily how much it means to us that you do these posts, show concern. It's like when in Pulp Fiction Marcellus Wallace tells Jules by phone "I'm on the motherfucker."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMbAANfUJhI

Thanks Emily! Open Salon remains something I look forward to everyday.

Give me an EP and let it stay up a week, and I will forgive you, but not Kerry. He didn't even send me a Get Well card!

Wow! Thanks so much for responding. I really appreciate knowing that there is a change coming!

Darn, wish my article was something juicier--oh, I guess it is juicy--or more personal if it's gonna be on the cover for a while. It's all about Lance when it should be about me, me, ME. Oh well, at least the little wet kitty is there...makes me smile every time.

Thanks for the update.

But I get so much done during the forty minutes I wait for the site to load.

Thanks for letting us know, Emily! Good luck and godspeed to the tech team!

Thanks for telling us, it helps to be patient when there is a light at the end of the tunnel

Does this mean that Activity Feed, New Posts, Top Rated sections will not update regularly too? Or just the Cover Stories will stay up for a few days?

Btw, Ty 4 letting us know that OS is addressing the issue.

Btw 2, Tink loves you. (He paid me to say that)

Thanks, Emily. I sure hope the changes come sooner rather than later. OS is a tough habit to break, but... Would you mind keeping us posted periodically?

Lezlie

Thank you for addressing this, Emily.

It is regrettable that so many of these technical issues fall upon you. It must make your job exceedingly difficult.

Keep on, Emily.

I, for one, would be lost without OS. Thanks for the heads-up. Glad you're with us.

Yeah, I paid Trudge a nickel to say that!! He expensive!!!

Teeheehee!!

Though, I'm starting to a new relationship in this crazy world, Asdfgh hgfdsa and I have been talking!! TEARS!! It's not you, it's me!! ~MORE TEARS~

~wanders off into the thorn bushes~

((thanks for the update --- tell Kerry I'm still holding my breath for the rainbows and unicorns but I have a feeling there won't be and this is just a calmer to us, in the next few weeks, you'll sell the site to the Chinese Spammers who have muddied our doors for so long now we count them as friends!!!!! And you and Kerry and the three techs you have left will run off to Guam or something. Be warn, Kerry snores! :D))

I though it had something to do with the Rapture. Good to see you (and OS) didn't "make the cut". :)

That's good news Emily. Since the demise of the Kitchen Challenge, and with the increasing difficulties posting/rating, etc..I've been losing track of some of my favorites on this site. Still hanging in, with hope. :)
Thanks.

I love Leepin'!

Thanks for the update Emily. I am sure if there is anything we all can do to help, just ask and we'll be happy to.

@ XJS and me:
Wow, you are extremely insolent.
If you are so unhappy here, I'm sure Emily would be glad to close your account.

I know we all appreciate the updates... it makes it feel like there's a hand on the wheel someplace.

OMG!!! Word from on high!

OK...... now tell us what's REALLY going down.....

(*‿*)
.

I have worked in offices running websites for about 7 years over the past 11 years, and I have run my own poetry website using PHP and MySQL, which are the code and database they use to run Open Salon, so I can appreciate the difficulty they are having. It appears in her comment, that they have a small team of web programmers working now on updating Open Salon. They have to work on servers, databases and database design, and page interface code. I feel confident their work will improve the site.

Thanks for all your work and good luck on the upgrades!

Thanks for all your understanding.

@Trudge -- This applies strictly to cover stories. The feeds for Most Recent, Top Rated, etc operate automatically and should continue to do so.

Emily, thanks for the update. Yes, it's getting quite frustrating.

I joined only recently, so it's nice to know that the slow speed is seen as a problem and not business as usual. I'm very patient with problems. Thanks for the update.

Every time I post, the site goes down. I was beginning to think it was me. Thanks for the update

OK Keep on keeping on... Thanks for the news and more.

Praise be to god, hallelujah.

I'm glad the problem is being addressed. I sometimes am unable to access OS at all. Luckily, I love Open Salon too much to give up on it, but I hope the damage hasn't been done and new readers (or even some faithful ones) aren't abandoning it. Patience and attendance spans are short in this new digital age, as you are well aware.

I thought it was only me.

Thanks so much Emily. Knowing that there is an end in site to the struggles is a wonderful thing.
I'd say more, but I am off to write the best post EVER written about corn flakes...and well....all I can say is "It's GRRREEEEAAATTT!!!"

If I could get that stupid tiger to stop editing over my shoulder....

Thank you for letting us know. We really appreciate the communication.

Good luck with the transition, Emily. We're pulling for you!

Emily,

I am retired, so it's not a great hardship for me to sit and wait while the site loads. I just keep a couple of Russian novels close by. However, it has been going on long enough so that I will have to get a chair with a wider seat.

Good luck fixing the problem.

It's a good sign that we're all anxious to see things operate smoothly here. Can't wait to get on...read and write. Good students!

it's good to hear about these things from staff.

thanks

Great to hear this, Emily. Could you give us periodic quicky updates so we can keep the faith?

Thanks for all the encouragement -- I'll keep you guys posted with further updates as they come along. Rest assured, the tech team is working hard to handle these issues in the mean time.

Works fine for me today

Search function also doesn't work. Posted an entry on social media (and tagged it that), then searched on "social media" and it returned no results.

One word (to the tech staff): Wordpress. Please...

Sometime vs. some time

Usage of the adverb sometime is similar to that of someday. Use the one-word sometime to mean a vague, unspecified time—for example:

Thousands of dollars were allegedly stolen from the bank’s ATM vault sometime between Friday and Sunday, according to the MCSO. [Ukiah Daily Journal]

Michael Ruppert tacitly believes that five billion people will be wiped off the face of the earth sometime in the next few decades. [Wyatt Investment Research]

The session is due to start sometime next month though a date has yet to be finalized. [Wall Street Journal]

The two-word some time usually means quite a while—for example:

It had been some time since Rebecca and her husband, Scott, had attended a church. [Utica Observer Dispatch]

(Sorry, but I have been home sick - not homesick - and grumpy for some time now.)

Thanks for the Editor's Pick. I assume it will show up on the cover at some point. In the meantime, I appreciate the vote of confidence.

I really appreciate the update. I am so glad. I love this site. Never mind that I couldn't read my favorites, I was so afraid that it was becoming paralyzed and impossible for my adoring public to view my work (few have patience for a glacial website).

Thanks again.

Emily as you know I've been canvassing people here and I do not get the sense that most are patient. Also rumors are rampant that Salon and OS are going down. I don't cotten to rumors but this slowness and the clickiness is almost unbearable as I've told you. A few weeks? Seems far longer than that. I know you are not to blame but someone is fucking up big time.

I'm sure this has become a wonderfully joyous experience for you...

Best of luck, and thanks for your diligence.

O this is great news. I've tried to ignore the little glitches, because OS to too hard to resist logging onto however long it takes. Good luck with the fixes and thanks for the update!

Thanks for the update. The EP situation remains as a great mystery for many writers. After looking at many of the comments and concerns about that, one might wonder if alcohol is involved, or some sort of favoritism.

Change can be bad or it can be good. At the very least it is like shedding a skin, or metamorphosing to something better and more attractive. Good luck with the changes.

I hope the "temporary" changes end soon. I think not having fresh content on the home page ("cover") hurts repeat visitation to Open Salon and also hhinders exposure of fresh content. Just my too sents. With the recent technical gliches and the more dragged out cover schedule, I think it's making OS less of a must-see destination. The last few years, for example, I would check in on OS multiple times a day and always manage to find great new stuff. Now, the great stuff is still there, but it's more of a chore to find it and I'm ending up only visiting OS once a day when I post my own blog updates and then quickly browse to see what's new. Traffic (measured by comments and new posts by my favorite OS writers) definitely seems down. Hopefully, we can get things back up to speed soon. The best model for OS is an open and vibrant partnership between the editors and the OS community.

I honestly have no problems loading the site. I can load it, write a blog, post it, edit it and repost it *grin* -- all within just a few minutes. And for the person who commented on the not being a fav and not getting an EP? I am hardly a "fav" here, and I got one, so I believe that to be a bogus argument.

OS is doing a great job and I am enjoying myself here, tyvm.

Thanks for explaining. I thought I was invisible. Have been treading water in the OPEN WATERS waiting for someone to help me. Is welcoming new comers selective? Or does everyone get a shot.

In full agreement with Nick. This site has been slowly driven into the ground for the last year or more and its very frustrating, considering it was a home to so many great writers that have slowly but surely left.

Yes, great writers remain but what the heck? It's still impossibly slow and the cover doesn't carry nearly the cache it used to - too many personal pieces with photos of relatives and pets and stuff. The cover should contain sharp images with hot news.

And Emily, I know its not your fault, obviously. There are a lot of factors at play - but this site was popular and relevant. It's like moving a successful Broadway show into an old garage in upstate New York...okay, crappy analogy but you get my point.

It's sad. Like Nick, I used to check in all the time, now I rarely do. I miss my old OS!

I am no longer able to get email notifications ie if I get a comment on my post or a PM etc. I have tried to reset and save a few times but it does not work. Did a glitch happen to lose my email address?