Latest Update - 11/08/12

Hi, everyone.

I'm happy to report that after the office was without power all last week due to the hurricane, the whole team is back in the office as of yesterday! Monday's commute was impossible for some since we only had limited trains into and out of the city, election day was Tuesday, but by Wednesday we were reunited (despite the fact that some people are still dealing with flooded homes or power outages).

As of Tuesday, I'm in a daily meeting with the President of iVillage and the CTO regarding the status of our message board fixes. Every day, we discuss what the priority list is, what progress is being made, what's holding us back, and what resources are needed to cross items off the list.

Right now, the #1 priority (for all of iVillage, not just for the message boards project) is fixing the error pages we're seeing again on the boards. I expect many of these to clear up tomorrow, if not later today. 

They have also released the fix for Viewing Replies. I've been told that many people can now see replies on the site, and on their ipads and phones. If you can't, please PM me or email us, so we can continue troubleshooting! If you could let me know the URL where you can't see replies, what device you're using, and what browser you're in, that would be very helpful.

After the error messages are resolved, the next item on the priority list is fixing the ability to reply. Obviously some of you can reply, but some of you can't...we just need to figure out why that is. 

In the meantime, there are other message board fixes that are being worked on:

>> Fixing the "this email is already in use" error you get when trying to edit your preferences. This has now turned into a mini-project. We believe that if you're getting this error, you probably have a duplicate account in your history with iVillage (same email / various usernames attached to it). Essentially, when you try to change your account settings, our system doesn't know which of your usernames you are trying to affect. I'm waiting on a list of accounts that our system says, "this is a duplicate." 

>> Getting the private team boards (boards only used by CLs and Mods) back online. Also a mini-project, but it looks like we're close!

>> Removing the character limit from the signature field. This impacts more than just the signature field, apparently. I've let the team know that I definitely want the character limit raised, and now I'm just waiting on them to confirm that it's a safe change to make to our system.

>> We got the final version of Lithium's iVillage data, and are (still...) currently importing it into our database. It's so gigantic, it takes a few days! Once it's in, we can begin the process of restoring missing threads, missing boards, your images, etc.

Of course, there are more items on my post-launch, fix-this-immediately list based on your feedback. But this week, the above items have been the focus, and will continue to be until they're fixed and we can move on to the next batch.

I know everyone's tired of hearing "thanks for your patience" and "we're working on it"...I guess I'm running out of different ways to say it, too! But the truth is, we're all still working very hard at debugging these problems, creating fixes for them, testing the fixes, and pushing them live.

Of equal importance is the fact our boards are the top priority for iVillage right now. Work is not slowing down, we're just in a position where we need to give the tech team the time they need. Believe me, I'd like to move my computer back to the tech cave so I can hang on every word they say...but that would be annoying, I guess. :)

As soon as I have something else to report, I will. Thanks for your patience (I really mean that!),

Jess