Site News & Announcements

Important Announcement!

BIG NEWS... WE'RE MOVING!
During the afternoon of Wednesday November 17th 2021, Writing.Com will be making our final move to a new hosting facility and data center. The site will be unaccessible to members and visited for a scheduled downtime of approximately 3 to 6 hours. Planning for this move has been an ongoing backend process, beginning at the start of 2021, slowly and carefully duplicating and updating servers from our old, outdated original host to our brand new and technologically current host. This is a very exciting point for us at Writing.Com, for staff, our members, and your precious data! Read on below for more details...

         Scheduled Maintenance Window:
                   11/17/2021 - 3pm to 9pm WDC time


WHAT WILL HAPPEN DURING THE MOVE ON NOVEMBER 17TH?
During the move, Writing.Com will go down into maintenance mode for approximately 3 to 6 hours and will be unaccessible at our current web host. This means you will not have access to your email, portfolio, items, etc while we carefully make this move. Rest assured that we will be doing everything we possibly can to make this move smooth and bump-free! (Imagine ALL THE BUBBLE WRAP IN THE WORLD for your precious glass data while we move it! We love your valuables as much as you do, if not more!)

If things don't go as expected at the new host, the StoryMaster will use the scheduled maintenance window to get it corrected at our new location. If he is not completely comfortable with issues that could arise, he will take Writing.Com down again and bring it back up at our current host until the problems are found and fixed. In other words, we'll reschedule the move for a later date.

Once we know Writing.Com is safe and sound at our new host, we will point the domain to our new web host! That will take some time to propagate, but as networks pick up on the change, our members will be able to log on to our new live site at our brand new host.


WHY IS WRITING.COM MOVING?
We've been in the same web hosting facility for our entire 21 years of existence and, unfortunately, our web host is still offering the exact same services they were offering over 15 years ago. Very little has changed and the technology offered to us has not improved. The support staff has also gone downhill with many of the old "regulars" moving on to other companies. The hosting company has been bought and sold a handful of times and now it's just a mess of legacy systems that do not offer what we want for the future of Writing.Com. We want Writing.Com to continue to grow and thrive and this web host is holding us back.

Moving a site that's been in the same place for over two decades is no small feat. The StoryMaster began his search to find a new home for Writing.Com in January 2021. After many months of researching, reading, seeking out recommendations, reading reviews, comparing offerings, researching more, speaking with company reps and then testing, testing and more testing... he finally settled upon a new host in early summer 2021.


WHAT BENEFITS DOES THE MOVE BRING?
Our new host is cutting edge, top of the line and a fan favorite amongst web developers, like StoryMaster. While we won't name the company at this time, they are the largest privately owned cloud hosting company in the United States and have a dozen data centers across the world. Of those data centers, we've chosen to use the data center in Atlanta, GA as it recently underwent a revamp and now has their most sophisticated hardware and networking infrastructure. They offer all the bells/whistles we need and want for Writing.Com... with an amazing client dashboard that helps him keep on top of everything we've got running (and we have a LOT running!)


WHAT BENEFITS DOES THE MOVE BRING?
We are beyond excited for this monumental move, but we need your patience and support during this time. Our newly formulated server infrastructure is already setup and running as it should with our data fully mirrored at the new location and servers humming along. This is a HUGE MOVE and your support means so much to us during this stressfully exciting time! Join us in excitement and bite your nails right along with us - we will celebrate with a house warming party when this is all done! LOL


DO MEMBERS NEED TO DO ANYTHING?
Nope! Just send us some good vibes and have a little patience with us during this move. Once the site becomes accessible again, members and visitors will still access Writing.Com the same way as before! Please remember that even if you can access the site during the maintenance window, it may become inaccessible again and/or if we were to revert to our old host, changes made during the maintenance would NOT follow us back to the old host. There will be a clear visual indicate in the left column that the maintenance window is open.


SCHEDULED MAINTANENCE WINDOW:
And one more time, just to make sure it doesn't get lost in the details:
         Wednesday, 11/17/2021 - 3pm to 9pm WDC time


Thank you for your support, Writing.Com! We love this community and we can't wait to give you a bigger, better home in which to grow!

The StoryMaster & StoryMistress