Usertools IRC closure
May I enquire as to the reasoning behind the closure ?
Cheers Linn
When you put it like that then, yes albeit
that it has to come to an end, it does seem a viable move forward
When you put it like that then, yes albeit
that it has to come to an end, it does seem a viable move forward
Aka, we've found another server to power off and save a few quid.
That was quick 
Quote from: Linn The Usertools website is moving to a new network location where IRC access is unfortunately against our security policies.
The Usertools IRC server is used by a very small number of customers (less than 20) and whilst we're sorry it has to be closed, it doesn't make much sense for us to continue maintaining it.
What security policies and what pray is supposedly insecure about it?
If I'd discovered it's benefits a while ago, there would certainly be much more use made of it and I would certainly have been encouraging some of the others to use it.
I think this yet again a case of things not being provided or taken away which make life more difficult for people like some of the bright sparks, mods and a few other users. It's a sad shame no one bothered to ask us before making a decision
And what maintenance - very little needed I would imagine. What maintenance has it had in the last x years?
What little it might need, or may have had would certainly have not impacted on anything else.
Quote from: avatastic Aka, we've found another server to power off and save a few quid.
The server it's hosted on is staying powered up
It's used to run myriad other things such as the Usertools/Usergroup sites and the Service Status subscription service and RSS feed.
Quote from: Anotherone
Quote from: Linn The Usertools website is moving to a new network location where IRC access is unfortunately against our security policies.
The Usertools IRC server is used by a very small number of customers (less than 20) and whilst we're sorry it has to be closed, it doesn't make much sense for us to continue maintaining it.
What security policies and what pray is supposedly insecure about it?
Nothing is insecure at present, however we have legitimate concerns about continuing to run an IRC daemon from the location we're moving the Usertools server to.
Quote from: Anotherone If I'd discovered it's benefits a while ago, there would certainly be much more use made of it and I would certainly have been encouraging some of the others to use it.
The public IRC server/channel in dvorak's sig will probably work just as well, although admittedly there's no web-based front end.
Quote from: Anotherone I think this yet again a case of things not being provided or taken away which make life more difficult for people like some of the bright sparks, mods and a few other users. It's a sad shame no one bothered to ask us before making a decision
I did ask the mods, and the Usergroup. No, we didn't ask people publicly but to be brutally honest, I didn't see there being any possible justification to keep a server running for ~0.003% of our customer base. It has never been an official avenue of support, has never been an advertised service and has had plenty of time in the wild to have gained traction if its use was ever going to increase significantly.
Quote from: Anotherone And what maintenance - very little needed I would imagine. What maintenance has it had in the last x years?
What little it might need, or may have had would certainly have not impacted on anything else.
There has been plenty of maintenance affecting the Usertools server over the years. The more services you have accessible to the Internet, the wider the safety net you have to draw around it all from a security perspective.
As mentioned, there are alternatives.
Quote from: Mark_ I think if we had a web applet somewhere then a lot more users would use it (for ease of accessing it)
There has always been a web applet.