Steam Downtime Announcements

[GTFO. Avenger]

To all of our members who are suprised and/or flumoxed when steam suddenly decides to go offline for a while; here is a partial solution to the problem.

Steam Downtime Announcements Page:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=784745

Although there are quite a few times when steam hiccup's unexpectedly, most of the downtime will be posted in that topic. They try to give about a day's notice usually, so hopefully next time steam goes down, you should be in the kitchen making a cuppa, because you knew it wouldn't be available

As another informative attempt, I and any other admins willing to join in, will also try to remember to send out a GTFO Steam Community message about the upcoming downtime (interesting oxymoron), so you can all be ready!

[GTFO. Luckyg]

As another informative attempt, I and any other admins willing to join in, will also try to remember to send out a GTFO Steam Community message about the upcoming downtime (interesting oxymoron), so you can all be ready!

kinda un-needed I think, seeing as:

a) usually valve spring downtime on us
b) people won't be able to access the steam page to see the news if steam is already down
c) i don't want announcements spamming to me all day

[Rockford]

OMG Lucky...why the negative tone? Avenger was actually trying to be helpful and proactive! If you don't like it, maybe take it to admin page? or take it up with Avenger direct..then it could be edited/removed....

Avenger thanks for trying to be helpful! Steam usually does spring these on us, but if you do know ahead, a simple "Downtime" message on Steam will get the message out there quick!

[GTFO. Luckyg]

i didn't mean it as negatively as it came off, it was just an observation that I wanted to make. Its a good idea, just wanted to make a few pointers about the steam stuff

EDIT: as an FYI you can also follow steam support on twitter and they annouce downtime/any changes aswell,

http://twitter.com/#!/steam_support

[GTFO. Loser]

i didn't mean it as negatively as it came off, it was just an observation that I wanted to make. Its a good idea, just wanted to make a few pointers about the steam stuff

Negative git

I really like the idea and will Send out notifications (Just because Lucky will hate it!)

[Rockford]

My apologies then Lucky.... x

[Russian Guyovich]

The GTFO Steam group should only be used for announcing GTFO-related news. I've left groups because the admins are keen on spamming announcements way too often, so it probably annoys other people too.

[GTFO. vito]

Avenger - Useful info mate, thanks

[GTFO. Avenger]

Right, lets clear a few things up

Thanks for the constructive critisism lucky and russ, let me explain exactly what I meant.
The downtime announcements that I was thinking of posting, were the major ones that are planned about a day before and will leave the system down for a reasonable amount of time, say 20-40 minutes. I wasn't thinking of posting the 5-10 minute downtime ones, as they do come up often as you mentioned, sometimes 2-3 in one day. If however its going to affect game downloads and updates (when they usually don't), or the whole system for say 10 minutes, and I see it, then it may be worth posting, but I won't be actively seeking to post those (although if you feel like annoying LuckyG, Loser, feel free )

I too hate groups spamming messages but the fact that its not going to be spammed (recently some posts have been 2 days apart), and that its helpful information outweighs the negative factors imo. It may not be specific GTFO related news, but i'm sure people will be thankful for the info, its not like 1 popup every 2 days is gonna make you mad xD

Thanks for the link lucky, Twitter can definitely be a useful tool, although 2 downsides come to mind:
A. not everyone will have it, whereas they must have steam and.....
B. not everyone who has twitter will have it open all the time. I am one such person, as I generally forget to open the page and log-in when I open up my browser. However now that I know steam support tweets, Its given me the idea of making a folder that loads up my most used bookmarks

P.S. Thanks Rocky

[GTFO. kk20]

do they have an RSS feed? That could be put on the site possibly?

[GTFO. Loser]

do they have an RSS feed? That could be put on the site possibly?

Unfortunately its only a forum update :S They really should implement an RSS feed for it

[Rockford]

do they have an RSS feed? That could be put on the site possibly?

Unfortunately its only a forum update :S They really should implement an RSS feed for it

An RSS feed would have been brill....

[Russian Guyovich]

Avenger, I knew what you meant. My point still stands. It's Valve's responsibility to publish the outage advisories, and as many people saw last night in TF2, there was an announcement that loadout was going to be unavailable for some time. If that's the way they are wanting to do it along with Twitter updates, then fair enough. It's not our concern.

"GTFOgaming has posted a new announcement: TF2 loadouts are down for 2 hours"

Group member: "no shit"

*leaves group*

I would.

[GTFO. NachoDuck]

The forums do have an RSS feed but you can only specify per forum like so http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/e ... orumids=14

However what you can do is subscribe to the thread on their forum and have it email you every time there is a reply to the thread

Click on thread tools, then subscribe to this thread


Set the notifications type to "Instant notification by email" and click add subscription

[GTFO. Sly Raccoon]

Smart ass

[DataStorm]

Avenger, I knew what you meant. My point still stands. It's Valve's responsibility to publish the outage advisories, and as many people saw last night in TF2, there was an announcement that loadout was going to be unavailable for some time. If that's the way they are wanting to do it along with Twitter updates, then fair enough. It's not our concern.

"GTFOgaming has posted a new announcement: TF2 loadouts are down for 2 hours"

Group member: "no shit"

*leaves group*

I would.

I've left groups too for spamming announcements. Is also the reason why I keep the number of groups to a minimum.

[GTFO. Coxy]

I've left groups too for spamming announcements. Is also the reason why I keep the number of groups to a minimum.

Must have been bad if you felt spammed

[GTFO. Sammo]

Hahahaha Coxy, sarcasm.. love it

[GTFO. Avenger]

OK Russ if thats how you feel, as you say its not our concern, but if we can help in other ways, i'm sure most would appreciate it. If you and Data call spamming, posting every 2 days, then there are plenty of people who are spamming on the forum, including me (Yes I do realise its not a great comparison seeing as the forum won't pop up posts to you)

Cheers Nacho, forgot about that, will do that myself