Re: Users Matter: Please Make SourceForge Usable

["T. V. Raman" <raman@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Here is an example of what I mean.

Go to:

http://sf.net/projects/emacspeak
pick the LiveDog release (releasing last week's ActiveDog got
screwed up with a 0 size file due to your ftp server hanging)
Selecting download for LiveDog takes you here:
http://sf.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=2238&package_id=188721&release_id=414449

That page has a ton of superfluous links which means that someone
who cannot see will take a long time to find the download link. 

I searched for the string "download" on the page and even that
took three searches before skipping over the site nav cruft.

Finally you get to the part of the page that tells you that you
can read the release notes etc, and you land on the link with
text "LiveDog". That is the link that I believe gives you the
download; it's also the one that has the "#" as the value of the
href attribute.


>>>>> "David" == David Burley <burley@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
    David> Greetings, While the new download page design is
    David> radically different than the prior download process, I
    David> believe that the changes likely will actually make it
    David> easier for visually impaired users to use the download
    David> system than it was prior.
    David> 
    David> The process now looks like the following:
    David> 
    David> 1. Find the project to download 2. Go to the project's
    David> summary page 3. Select the 'Download PROJECT NAME'
    David> link 4. Select the link with the filename that you
    David> wish to download, or the link named Mirror if you wish
    David> to select an alternate mirror to download from.
    David> 
    David> This process has many fewer steps than the prior
    David> process, and is less trouble-prone than the prior
    David> download mechanism.
    David> 
    David> If you have some specific examples of why this new
    David> system is harder to use for you and your users, we
    David> certainly would like to hear them. We worked hard to
    David> make sure this replacement system would be easier to
    David> use.
    David> 
    David> Thank you,
    David> 
    David> David Burley Quality of Service Analyst,
    David> SourceForge.net
    David> 
    David> 
    David> T. V. Raman wrote:
    >> David,
    >> 
    >> I must once again express my frustration with sourceforge.
    >> 
    >> I just relesed version 25 of emacspeak, but because of
    >> your recent redesign of your download area, it's now going
    >> to be impossible for the average emacspeak user to
    >> download the release.
    >> 
    >> I think this is the last straw --- I'm finally going to
    >> wash my hands off of Sourceforge altogether.
    >> 
    >>>>>>> "David" == David Burley <burley@xxxxxxxxxxx>
    >>>>>>> writes:
    David> Greetings, The plan is to revert this change on
    David> Monday.
    David> 
    David> Thank you,
    David> 
    David> David Burley Quality of Service Analyst,
    David> SourceForge.net
    David> 
    David> 
    David> On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 21:05 -0700, T. V. Raman wrote:
    >> >> 
    >> >> David,
    >> >> 
    >> >> Please consider reversing this >>
    >> http://digg.com/software/SourceForge_makes_getting_files_even_more_difficult
    >> >> a high priority.
    >> >> 
    >> >> Sourceforge is already very difficult to use for users
    >> who >> cannot see, and the above might be the last straw
    >> with >> respect to users like myself continuing to use and
    >> support >> sourceforge.
    >> >> 
    >> >> I consider the aove sufficiently bad that I will
    >> probably >> have to start looking for alternative sites to
    >> host the >> emacspeak project.
    >> >> 
    >> >> SF has been a wonderful free service, but it might be
    >> >> becoming too *costly* in other ways.
    David> 
    >> >> 
>>>>>>> "David" == David Burley <burley@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
    David> Greetings, So you are fully appraised of the issue,
    David> here's the text from the site status page
    David> (https://www.sf.net/docs/A04):
    David> 
    David> ( 2006-04-14 11:18:04 - Project CVS Service ) As of
    David> 2006-04-14 we have an estimate on when the replacement
    David> CVS hardware for the new infrastructure will
    David> arrive. As soon as we get in into our hands, we'll
    David> actively work on it, with a goal of having it online
    David> by the end of the month of April. This is a best
    David> guess, and may not get hit due to the aggressive
    David> timeline we have placed on this project. However, be
    David> assured that recovery of this service in full is our
    David> highest priority. The sync process between developer
    David> and anonymous CVS (ViewCVS, etc.) is disabled now
    David> until the new infrastructure is in place, to ensure we
    David> have maximum coverage for the small number of data
    David> corruption issues that have been detected. We
    David> understand this is sub-optimal, but strongly believe
    David> that the protection of the data is paramount.
    David> 
    David> ( 2006-04-06 13:04:54 - Project CVS Service ) As
    David> result of the 2006-03-30 CVS outage, and previous CVS
    David> outages, some CVS repositories do not exist on the
    David> anonymous/ViewCVS CVS hosts. This will result in proxy
    David> errors and other various unusual results when trying
    David> to access those hosts. Once we get the CVS services
    David> into better order, we'll start the synchronization
    David> processes again and these problems will go away. Our
    David> primary concern right now is for the security and
    David> reliability of developer CVS access, after which we'll
    David> restore anonymous access.
    David> 
    David> ( 2006-04-06 13:02:34 - Project CVS Service ) During
    David> the post-CVS outage system assessment from the March
    David> 30, 2006 CVS outage, we have noted a few cases of
    David> filesystem corruption on the developer CVS server.  We
    David> expect that a small number of repositories are
    David> affected (likely 50 or less) by the data
    David> corruption. Accordingly, we'd like all projects to
    David> audit their CVS repository for corruption and raise
    David> any issues to us via a Confidential Support Request
    David> immediately. In order to ensure your own data
    David> integrity, we also ask that you make a backup of your
    David> working copy, and do a full checkout of your
    David> repository along-side your existing working copy, so
    David> it can remain a valid source of data for your project,
    David> should a file be found corrupt (it very well may be
    David> the most recent, applicable data, even though we have
    David> multiple other sources for the same file). In some
    David> cases, we have detected the corruption and will be
    David> contacting those projects directly via email as we
    David> move forward. While we continue to work on ensuring
    David> the data viability on the developer CVS host, we are
    David> also continuing our progress with the replacement
    David> infrastructure for CVS. The new hardware order has
    David> been placed and we are concurrently preparing the
    David> technology and software components needed to make the
    David> transition to the new infrastructure. Again, we thank
    David> you for your patience and cooperation while we do
    David> everything we can to safegaurd your data.
    David> 
    David> ( 2006-04-04 15:09:16 - Project CVS Service ) On
    David> 2006-04-04 at 14:15 Pacific developer CVS services
    David> were re-enabled after replacement of the failed
    David> hardware, successful completion of a full host backup,
    David> and a cursory data validity check on the host. As a
    David> precaution, we have not re-enabled the sync between
    David> anonymous pserver/ViewCVS and the developer CVS
    David> host. We anticipate that the sync's along with tarball
    David> generation will be re-enabled on Friday. Any issues
    David> found with CVS services over the following 7 days
    David> should be reported to the Confidential Support Queue.
    David> 
    David> ( 2006-04-03 14:04:56 - Project CVS Service ) As an
    David> update to the 2006-03-30 CVS outage, our current
    David> estimate is that CVS services will be back online
    David> (developer access) late Tuesday or early Wednesday
    David> (Pacific Timezone).
    David> 
    David> ( 2006-04-03 05:55:21 - Project CVS Service ) On
    David> 2006-03-30 the developer CVS server had a substantial
    David> system failure. Due to the implementation of the CVS
    David> service, there is a single point of failure with
    David> multiple points of recovery (there is more than one
    David> data source we could potentially recover from if there
    David> is any data loss as a result of the failure). This
    David> outage currently affects developer CVS access
    David> directly, but we have disabled tarball updates and
    David> data syncs from the developer CVS server to the
    David> anonymous pserver/ViewCVS hosts as an additional level
    David> of precaution. Our main focus since the outage was
    David> detected has been to safegaurd all data on the
    David> developer CVS server as well as possible. We are
    David> currently attempting to backup the data on the host,
    David> which is taking longer than we initially anticipated
    David> it would, but is a necessary step to fully safegaurd
    David> the host's data. Next, we are going to perform some
    David> data validation to ensure the data set appears
    David> valid. Pending successful completion of those steps,
    David> we'll reenable developer CVS access. A few days after,
    David> we'll reenable CVS tarballs and syncs to anonymous
    David> CVS. In the mean time, we're currently advancing plans
    David> for a CVS architecture change based upon the knowledge
    David> we gained during Subversion deployment to eliminate
    David> the single point of failure that developer CVS
    David> currently has, add horizontal scalability and overall
    David> service resiliance. However, we still do not have an
    David> estimate on when developer CVS services will be
    David> restored, but we have been, and currently are actively
    David> working to restore access to CVS. We appreciate your
    David> patience with us while we work to properly resolve
    David> this major outage.
    David> 
    David> ( 2006-03-31 07:00:01 - Project CVS Service ) On
    David> 2006-03-30 the developer CVS server had a hardware
    David> issue that required us to take the service offline. We
    David> are actively working on this problem and hope to have
    David> it back up soon. There is not a current estimate for
    David> the duration of this outage, but when we get one, it
    David> will be posted on the site status page (this page). We
    David> currently expect this outage to last 48 hours, at
    David> minimum.
    David> 
    David> 
    David> 
    David> The basic gist of it is, that anonymous CVS will be
    David> down until we get the new infrastructure up. We
    David> believe the hosts will be delivered to us next week,
    David> and we have already started the development of the
    David> software pieces needed to implement it. The current
    David> hope is to have it done by the end of this week, but
    David> as we don't have the hardware yet, it may take until
    David> the first week of may to resolve.
    David> 
    David> That said, as the tracker is not usable to you, do not
    David> hesitate to contact me directly via this manner. While
    David> I don't like the general populous to do this, as that
    David> would certainly inundate me with email traffic, I
    David> definitely don't mine hearing from you directly on any
    David> matters. The site is not optimized for the blind, but
    David> I and we support your efforts to make software easier
    David> to use for the blind. Hopefully we can change that as
    David> we move forward, but stability and service
    David> availability are the top concerns at the moment.
    David> 
    David> So, please do not hesitate to contact me directly with
    David> your concerns.
    David> 
    David> Thank you,
    David> 
    David> David Burley Quality of Service Analyst,
    David> SourceForge.net
    David> 
    David> 
    David> On Sat, 2006-04-22 at 08:24 -0700, T. V. Raman wrote:
    >> >> >> David, Could you look into this for us?  It appears
    >> >> that >> anon cvs has not been getting updated for a
    >> while >> --- >> looks like it has not been receiving
    >> updates after >> the cvs >> meltdown at Sourceforge a
    >> couple of weeks ago.  >> i >> apologize for not using SF's
    >> Web interface to report >> the >> problem, but as I've
    >> mentioned in the past, that >> setup is >> well-nigh
    >> impossible to use if you cannot see.
    >> >> >> 
    >> >> >> Thanks for your help.  email message attachment, >>
    >> >> "forwarded message" On Sat, 2006-04-22 at 08:24 -0700,
    >> >> >> T. V. Raman wrote: > Hi Raman,
    >> >> >> > 
    >> >> >> > I stil cannot see the changes to >>
    >> emacspeak-m-player.el >> or any other > changes in the >>
    >> anonymous CVS. I believe >> this goes beyond a normal > >>
    >> delay. The anonymous CVs >> appears to be locked at a >>
    >> state from maybe 2 > weeks ago.
    >> >> >> > 
    >> >> >> > Best regards, Lukas
    David> -- David Burley Quality of Service Analyst,
    David> SourceForge.net burley@xxxxxxxxxxx
    David> 
    David> 
    David> 
    David> 
    David> **************************************************************************
    David> This email may contain confidential and privileged
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    David> Any review or distribution by others is strictly
    David> prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient,
    David> please contact the sender and delete all copies.
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    >> >> 
    >> >> Thanks, --Raman
    >> >> 
    David> -- David Burley Quality of Service Analyst,
    David> SourceForge.net burley@xxxxxxxxxxx
    David> 
    David> 
    David> 
    David> 
    David> **************************************************************************
    David> This email may contain confidential and privileged
    David> material for the sole use of the intended recipient.
    David> Any review or distribution by others is strictly
    David> prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient,
    David> please contact the sender and delete all copies.
    David> ***************************************************************************
    >>

-- 
Best Regards,
--raman

      
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