LearnedLeague: We Have The Technology

May 14, 2018 4:02 PM

As you may have heard, LearnedLeague suffered a catastrophic server failure on May 5. Their hosting company lost the whole site, with no backup. (Exclusive documentary video footage of LL's hosting company.) Fortunately, Thorsten is a smart fellow, and had his own local backups, and he has now rebuilt almost the whole site. Private Rundle rosters didn't survive, though. You need to re-register for the MetaFilter Private Rundle if you want in for LL77.

The Private Rundle page is here. The Rundle Name is "MetaFilter", just as it has been in the past. The registration code is the same as it has always been, but you can MeMail me if you want it or don't remember. (The LL message system also crashed.) We had 20 members registered before the crash, which is a record.

You have until Wednesday morning, May 23, to register. The season starts May 31. Good luck!! (MeFi Wiki LL page, gratuitous link.)

CORRECTION: Apparently, the video described above as "exclusive documentary video footage of the LL hosting company" is actually a clip from a Saturday Night Live sketch entitled "Toonces, the Cat Who Could Drive a Car". I was unable to tell the difference.

posted by Huffy Puffy to MetaFilter-Related at 4:02 PM (25 comments total)

What is it?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 6:48 PM on May 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the reminder to rejoin the rundle now that things are back up and running.

This will be my second season (thanks to a kind mefite for the invitation), and I had a great time last round. While it's too late to join up for the upcoming season, I'd encourage anyone on the fence to reach out for an invitation and give it a try.

Am I a bad person if my first thought upon hearing about the server failure was to worry about losing a recent unexpectedly good 1DS performance?
posted by zachlipton at 7:08 PM on May 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

What is it?

This is an excellent question, given the utter lack of context in my OP.
Here’s a link to the LL76 signup post, which has a bit more explanation of what this is all about. It’s internet trivia, 6 questions a day for a 25 day season, scored head-to-head. You get assigned to “rundles” (a 26-ish player league) and play against them. The site also supports a private rundle, which you can join to play against your friends in parallel to the main game.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:20 PM on May 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

It looks like rookie invitations are still open until tomorrow? Not sure I’d count on that, but it could be worth a shot if you’re not in and you’re interested.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:30 PM on May 14, 2018

Thanks for doing that Huffy Puffy. It's so nice to be able to get back to LL.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:39 AM on May 15, 2018

Recreating the website must have sucked. I was annoyed enough at having to spend five minutes getting a new password and recreating my flag! Looking forward to my rookie season and getting my butt kicked, maybe joining the private rundle next time. BTW existing players have flag amnesty through May 23 if you want to make a change.
posted by exogenous at 7:42 AM on May 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

I am so excited for my new flag! Thanks for making this post. LL is one of only a small handful of sites where I hang out online and having it be down was noticeable. There's also a FB group if people want another place to hang out with trivia nerds.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 8:32 AM on May 15, 2018

All the one-day playtester signups were wiped, so if you've ever wanted to test out a 1-day special and give feedback on questions, now is your chance!
posted by mogget at 8:49 AM on May 15, 2018

I have like three competing ideas for a new flag and I need to get over my choice paralysis before the amnesty ends.
posted by rewil at 11:04 AM on May 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

Very much off-topic, but the whole "hosting company had no backups" / "thank goodness Thorsten had some [partial, out-of-date] backups" thing is a bit odd. Backups are the site owner's responsibility, not the host's!

Anyway, good to hear it's returning to normal.
posted by matthewr at 11:30 AM on May 15, 2018

Backups are the site owner's responsibility, not the host's!

Ultimately, sure. But if you're a paid hosting provider and something goes wrong on your end and you say "Well, hope you guys had backups, because we sure didn't!" that's well outside of industry standard practices.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 12:38 PM on May 15, 2018 [6 favorites]

To jessamyn's point, disaster recovery (DR) is a pretty basic feature of a hosting environment. It's not necessarily an up-to-the-minute snapshot, but a failure to provide such is like no airbags. Belt and suspenders, folks.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 12:42 PM on May 15, 2018

I lost my first blog because (1) I was careless and didn't have backups, and (2) the hosting provider had kept their backup on the same physical disk as what was supposed to be backed up 🤦🏽
posted by exogenous at 12:43 PM on May 15, 2018

I just want to brag that I brought LL to Metafilter lo these many years ago and I dropped out around the time I went to grad school but I'm glad it still going on. Go LL!
posted by shothotbot at 2:36 PM on May 15, 2018 [4 favorites]

Can I take this as my opportunity to ask for an invite?
posted by hoyland at 3:41 PM on May 15, 2018

If I wasn't previously in the private rundle can I join now? I didn't know there was one.
posted by synecdoche at 6:58 PM on May 15, 2018

Yes, the more the merrier!
posted by mogget at 9:03 PM on May 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

Thanks! I upgraded to a Premier Membership to participate; I just have to wait until it is reflected on the site and then I will join.
posted by synecdoche at 7:37 AM on May 16, 2018

I would also be very interested in an invite if anyone had one to spare!
posted by mosst at 11:27 AM on May 16, 2018

(Also, from my reading of the previous thread, I should add: I understand the rules around cheating, forfeiting, etc., and I will strive to be an excellent refer-ee who respects all of that very carefully!)
posted by mosst at 11:34 AM on May 16, 2018

Thanks for this update, I'm back in the private Rundle.
posted by Space Coyote at 6:10 AM on May 17, 2018

Must have been hiding under a bush, hadn't heard of this before. Dive over to create an account......booooo...invite only.......dive straight back to Mefi to please for an invite if anyone has any going spare!!! pretty please
posted by lloyder at 6:37 AM on May 17, 2018

If you go to the MeFi Wiki page for LL, you will see that many of us are happy to accept MeMail asking for an invitiation. Without speaking for anybody else, I know that if the person looking for the invite takes the initial step of making direct contact, it makes me feel a little better about vouching for someone I might not know personally. Having one of your referrals cheat or forfeit excessively can result in having your referral privileges permanently revoked, so it's not something that should be done lightly.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:18 AM on May 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

So, as of Sunday morning we're up to 19 in the private rundle. Here's a link. If you want in, you've got almost 3 days to do so; the deadline is Wednesday morning.

Good luck!
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:51 AM on May 20, 2018

I'm feeling better after my rookie match day two today where I got three correct answers. Yesterday I only got the science question right but my opponent hit that one with the full 3 points of defense — maybe based on my college? Anyway I am having a lot of fun with this so thanks again rewil for the invite! Also our rundle has zero forfeits, yay!
posted by exogenous at 10:07 AM on June 1, 2018 [1 favorite]