Here's an update on the status of the IRTC site:

The site is once again operational after a few days of being down.  The 
problem was that I was trying to install a new version of the software 
for the site but a recent upgrade of the operating system left some 
critical Unix commands not working.  I couldn't proceed with the upgrade 
until that was repaired.

I haven't yet opened the current round for voting.  I need to submit 
several entries that didn't make it in time because of server problems 
on the last night of the round.  I also want to do some more testing of 
the voting process to make sure it's ready.

The last round exposed a serious bug in the voting process.  As many of 
you noticed, comments were clipped after the first line. I had put in 
measures to make sure that the votes were all recorded along with the 
comments.  A combination of problems conspired to lose the original 
comments.  All I had left was the first line of each comment. I 
sincerely apologize for this problem.  It was a combination of CR/LF 
translations on different operating systems along with a reboot of the 
server and a third bug in the way the votes were loaded back into the 
system that caused the problem.  These problems have been fixed in the 
current version of the software.

I now have a dilemma.  The comments for the last round are frequently 
useless and deceiving when only the first line is displayed.  I have 
several options:

	1) Leave the comments as they are
	2) Delete the comments completely for that round
	3) Add software to allow users go back and edit or re-enter the 
comments for that round.

Your opinions on the above options would be appreciated.

All this is coming at a time when I've become super busy with real life. 
  I'll be talking to Chris Cason to come up with a game plan for keeping 
the site going smoothly even if I don't have time to work on it. For a 
while, I had a second volunteer who was looking into problems, but he's 
become busy as well.  When we have a plan, we'll let you know.

For now, please give me a few more days before opening the round for 
voting.  I want to make sure it's working properly and that we won't 
have a repeat of any of the previous problems.

Thanks and my apologies for the problems with the site.

David Buck

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