I also wanted to thank
Since a lot of people are doing "the decade in review" things, here's a retrospective of Yuletide challenges (pun intended): We begin with 300+ participants! Yuletide was huge in 2003! Too bad the software couldn’t handle smart quotes. .txt only to be sure it was right, no takebacks! In 2004, with over 500 participants, the site was hacked due to the host's failure, despite
2007, with [edit with info from
2008, another year of growth [edited: 1599 signups]: Pre-Dec. 25: Various small but nervewracking bugs, heavy server loads, representative database crashes, including one when astolat herself had crashed, leading to database nervous breakdown, and up and down again (note that these aren’t even all the instances, just a representative sample: something needed to change). Post-Dec. 25, server load still heavy, links still wonky due to size of database, server load so heavy that the quicksearch links couldn’t even be fully generated. Slowness due to heavy server load continues through the author reveal.
From what I observed from the outside, this year there were the kinds of bugs one expects on new software with a new posting interface, but what I didn't see--characteristic of past years--was a database overloaded and broken down merely by attempted uploads as the deadline approached. The server's definitely been hammered today with people reading, just as the former server was last year, but at least there are greater resources available now. I’m exhausted just thinking about the huge amount of work, under extraordinary time pressure, the switch to the AO3 represents. I’m really glad there are more wonderful coders around now to share some of the load.
