Indeed, why can't we? At least two of us tried. And and at least two server outages were the results. The original "fix" was done by a pair.com employee when there was no static copy. When theorbtwo created the static copy, he didn't realize that he had access to affect the configuration change made by pair.com. I tried to make the obvious change but didn't get it right and soon had to stuggle for quite a while to undo my changes because the server became nearly unresponsive. That took all of the time I had available at that moment so I mentioned that other admins could try but beware of making that same mistake.

theorbtwo then tried but my warning wasn't nearly clear enough so the server went down again and theorbtwo wasn't able to revert the change fast enough so eventually pair.com rebooted the server (I had returned and managed to jump in just after it came up and restored the previous configuration before traffic took it down again).

I clarified that future attempts need to test using a different node until a working configuration is achieved, but I didn't have sufficient additional spare time that day, and it appears no other admins did or felt up to the challenge. You wouldn't think mod_rewrite would be a horribly difficult thing to use, but it isn't something I have had reason to use before so I wasn't able to get it right on the first few tries and with the ensuing outage, ran out of time.

You are due a full refund of the salaries paid for administering PerlMonks.

If it were censorship, then theorbtwo wouldn't have gone to some effort to make a periodically updated "static" copy.

You are due a full refund of the salaries paid for administering PerlMonks. If it were censorship, then theorbtwo wouldn't have gone to some effort to make a periodically updated "static" copy.

Hey tye, your explanation is very helpful. Thank you for posting it.

I would bear in mind that myself and two others did ask for more information on the outage in a frontpaged thread before Anonymous Monk came to a conclusion about what he thought was going on. His followup, make of it what you will, came after four days of silence in response to the questions.

I'm not saying anyone was "owed" a response, or even that AnonyMonk's ultimate conclusion about censorship was fully nailed down (it wasn't my conclusion), just that I can conceive how he came to his conclusion after his question met with silence for so long.

++++tye and everyone else who tried to fix the server issue, ++ those who brought up an issue I was wondering about myself, somewhere near the back of my head.

UPDATE: Removed a username, which was only in here because I misread what the Anonymous Monk wrote and thought he was saying he was the person who started *this* thread, not the "Perl is dying" thread.

I would bear in mind that zentara did ask for more information on the outage in a frontpaged node before he came to a conclusion about what he thought was going on. His followup, make of it what you will, came after four days of silence in response to his question.

Um, zentara got a response after 5 minutes. And zentara seemed rather satisfied (from my reading) with the explanations provided. Are you now outing the complaining Anonymous Monk as zentara?

- tye        

A controversial article disappears suddenly without any reason given, a cryptic "Forbidden" message (not even a proper "503: Service Unavailable" page) is left in its place, and you're surprised that I and others thought it was censorship?

I have nothing against you, tye, and I'll take your word for it that you couldn't get a redirect working properly, but the better part of a month has passed since I posted that piece. It isn't getting 'Dug' or 'Redded' any more. How much longer is my piece going to remain "Forbiden"?