Just saw this on another message board:

Only a government would have closing hours for an ONLINE resource!! 

http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/c6a602ece72a3026d1f4288dfed035d2/wcframe?name=accessCompanyInfo

Cheers!

I don't really see hours that the system is offline as a WTF. There are things such as server maintenance that could contribute to this.

 

If anything, I think The Real WTF is that it's offline for so long each time it's down (7hrs m-sa & all of sunday!). 

Maybe they take the system down to perform database backups or maybe rely on other datasources that are down for database backups.  Just the first two possibilities that popped into my head.

I know!  When you do a search, the support staff has to be there to receive the request, run over to the files, look up the information and type it back to you... really, really quickly.

AisA:

Just saw this on another message board:

Only a government would have closing hours for an ONLINE resource!! 

http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/c6a602ece72a3026d1f4288dfed035d2/wcframe?name=accessCompanyInfo

Cheers!

At my university it's common practice to halt servers on which you hand in your assignments; reason: The grading robot needs to sleep from midnight to 6 am.

Maybe they just want to get us used to annoying situations...
 

A number of companies do things like that because the web system drives a manual process.  There is a car dealership here that advertises $1000 if they don't get back to you for your online query within 30 minutes.  But only within business hours, and it's only a kick on buying a car from them.

Carnildo:

It might be a WTF for a government, but, for example, the B&H camera store has a very good reason for turning off their online order form from half an hour before sunset on Friday to half an hour after sunset on Saturday.

 

Well, what is it?

xeraa:

The grading robot needs to sleep from midnight to 6 am.

 I think "grading robot" == "grad student" in that case.
 

Observation of the jewish tradition of not working on the sabbath.

My university had an online system that, among other things, let students schedule their courses and manage their payments online. It was offline every night at like 8 p.m., and it came back online at like 7 a.m. This was fine for those of us from the country, but when the university boasts a huge international student body, many hailing from China and India whose time is roughly the opposite of here, it meant that those poor guys had to stay up all night to register for classes.

This university also had the greatest "business hours" of all time: 9:00-11:30, 1:30-4:30, weekdays only. Basically you had to skip class if you want any sort of administrative help.

Carnildo:

AisA:

Just saw this on another message board:

Only a government would have closing hours for an ONLINE resource!! 

http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/c6a602ece72a3026d1f4288dfed035d2/wcframe?name=accessCompanyInfo

Cheers!

It might be a WTF for a government, but, for example, the B&H camera store has a very good reason for turning off their online order form from half an hour before sunset on Friday to half an hour after sunset on Saturday.

Only in New York :D

cconroy:

I know!  When you do a search, the support staff has to be there to receive the request, run over to the files, look up the information and type it back to you... really, really quickly.

The poor mans database; Interns!

 
I actually worked at a place five years ago that did just that. The IT-"manager" (read: the CEO's nephew) felt that connecting our database so the web server could get data from it was too expensive so he hired a few students. If you wanted to know a price for a item you had to submit your e-mail address so the "database" could email you the result.

Carnildo:

AisA:

Just saw this on another message board:

Only a government would have closing hours for an ONLINE resource!!

http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/c6a602ece72a3026d1f4288dfed035d2/wcframe?name=accessCompanyInfo

Cheers!

It might be a WTF for a government, but, for example, the B&H camera store has a very good reason for turning off their online order form from half an hour before sunset on Friday to half an hour after sunset on Saturday.

(The following was heavily edited for maximum ironic impact.  And, as an aside, I applaud them for their observances.  I simply found humor here.)

B&H Holiday Schedule 2007

Purim
Passover
Shavuos
Tisha B`Av
Rosh Hashana
Yom Kippur Eve
Succos
Christmas 

I know of a bank who's *completely* offline 12 a.m. to 6 a.m. Not only the web-banking, mind you - I said COMPLETELY. It's great when you want to use your ATM card to buy drinks. OR, when you are in a far-away time zone, and try to buy lunch.

Welbog:

My university had an online system that, among other things, let students schedule their courses and manage their payments online. It was offline every night at like 8 p.m., and it came back online at like 7 a.m. This was fine for those of us from the country, but when the university boasts a huge international student body, many hailing from China and India whose time is roughly the opposite of here, it meant that those poor guys had to stay up all night to register for classes.

This university also had the greatest "business hours" of all time: 9:00-11:30, 1:30-4:30, weekdays only.

My university would have similar "business hours", except that they would only open either the morning OR the afternoon, on alternate days.
 

 

 

xeraa:

At my university it's common practice to halt servers on which you hand in your assignments; reason: The grading robot needs to sleep from midnight to 6 am.

Maybe they just want to get us used to annoying situations...
 

 

Reminds me of my Distributed Systems Lab. The grading robot "slept" from midnight to 6am. After students complained to the lab supervisor, they shortened its sleep to 2am to 6am. Didn't affect its ability to grade the assignments.

And of course, "in order to discourage students using the grading robot for debugging", you have to wait thirty minutes before submitting again after failing one (out of around 20) test case.

 Oh, and the lab assignments only accounted for 30% of the grade, the other 70% depended on two (closed-book) lab tests, where you had to program on paper.

That Distributed Systems Lab was a WTF in itself...
 

cconroy:

I know!  When you do a search, the support staff has to be there to receive the request, run over to the files, look up the information and type it back to you... really, really quickly.

 

ROFL

Everett:

Observation of the jewish tradition of not working on the sabbath.

That's a bit of a WTF in itself.  I read a Wired article about companies whose entire business is helping people get around that.  First of all, they have some pretty strange definitions of working, such as having your website up, and cooking meals.  Apparently turning on the stove is the only part that's a problem though, so it's ok to leave it on all weekend.  Even ignoring that, if you think God's going to be pissed if you work, is it really wise to try and sneak one past him on a technicality?

cconroy:

I know!  When you do a search, the support staff has to be there to receive the request, run over to the files, look up the information and type it back to you... really, really quickly.

That was my first thought. But not exactly, since mine involved a wooden table.

There are no known instances of any UK government IT project resulting in sanity.

No, there's no good reason why Companies House is offline for 7 hours each day. It just is. This is not supposed to make sense. It's one of those arbitrary bureaucracy rules that cannot be explained. To this day, there are still places in the UK civil service where the office toilets have opening hours, and those hours are not the same as the office working hours (not for cleaning or anything, one of the janitorial staff just locks the door because the rules say the door must be locked at that time).

mdk:

xeraa:

At my university it's common practice to halt servers on which you hand in your assignments; reason: The grading robot needs to sleep from midnight to 6 am.

Maybe they just want to get us used to annoying situations...
 

 

Reminds me of my Distributed Systems Lab. The grading robot "slept" from midnight to 6am. After students complained to the lab supervisor, they shortened its sleep to 2am to 6am. Didn't affect its ability to grade the assignments.

And of course, "in order to discourage students using the grading robot for debugging", you have to wait thirty minutes before submitting again after failing one (out of around 20) test case.

 Oh, and the lab assignments only accounted for 30% of the grade, the other 70% depended on two (closed-book) lab tests, where you had to program on paper.

That Distributed Systems Lab was a WTF in itself...
 

 

That's exactly the course I referred to ;-). DSLab was definitely a WTF overall...

AisA:

Just saw this on another message board:

Only a government would have closing hours for an ONLINE resource!! 

http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/c6a602ece72a3026d1f4288dfed035d2/wcframe?name=accessCompanyInfo

Cheers!

Rutgers is notorious for this as well, especially the registrar. "Sorry, it's after 5PM. You can't check your class schedule here. Feel free to use the other resources to do this that you don't know about!"

Everett:

Observation of the jewish tradition of not working on the sabbath.

Why not just have web requests forwarded to an e-mail address, database, file, or other similar location rather than outright DISABLING THE FORM during those hours?  Surely that's an inconvenience to all of the shop's non-Jewish users out there.

Saladin:

Everett:

Observation of the jewish tradition of not working on the sabbath.

Why not just have web requests forwarded to an e-mail address, database, file, or other similar location rather than outright DISABLING THE FORM during those hours?  Surely that's an inconvenience to all of the shop's non-Jewish users out there.

Cap'n Steve:

Everett:

Observation of the jewish tradition of not working on the sabbath.

That's a bit of a WTF in itself.  I read a Wired article about companies whose entire business is helping people get around that.  First of all, they have some pretty strange definitions of working, such as having your website up, and cooking meals.  Apparently turning on the stove is the only part that's a problem though, so it's ok to leave it on all weekend.  Even ignoring that, if you think God's going to be pissed if you work, is it really wise to try and sneak one past him on a technicality?