COMM Test of the EAS? All things considered…paging Night Driver!

Kris Gandillon

Kris Gandillon

The Other Curmudgeon
_______________
Hey, Dennis (and Chuck hehe, inside joke sort of)!

You know, we just did that forum software upgrade…

I think it would be a good idea to test the alert system and make sure it is still working after the upgrade and the tweaks that tconn did.

I know it has sort of been debunked due to the source but I think the TEST should be scheduled for September 24, 2022.

I am feeling deja vu all over again!
 
Blacknarwhal

Blacknarwhal

Let's Go Brandon!
phloydius said:
Yes, please!
I vote in favor of a test!
(No opinion on what day the test should be done).
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Kris Gandillon

Kris Gandillon

The Other Curmudgeon
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For anyone who was not a member here back in 2001, here is the backstory / inside joke with Night Driver (Chuck) who was one of my right hand resources at the time;

We were getting the same sort of clear as mud signals for weeks before 9-11-2001 as many of us are feeling these days.

A group of us on TB2K cobbled together an Early Alert System (EAS) and put together a regional team around the world but primarily in the US at the request of our forum members. Any of the forum leadership or our highly vetted regional volunteers could pull the trigger and send an alert to the forum membership if we got word of some major event happening.

Back then texting was not much of a thing but pagers still were, and telephone and e-mail. So our somewhat manual system would notify the regional leads and they would send out an email with details of the alert to their email list and their pager list and then manually call the ones who desired a telephone call. Some folks signed up for all three. There were a few hundred folks signed up and divided up by time zones.

We did some successful limited regional tests in late August 2001. “This is only a test. If this were a real alert we would provide you the information we currently have so you can take actions as you feel are appropriate for your situation and circumstances.”

We scheduled a full-on global TEST for….

9-11-2001.

The rest is history.

The test turned into the real thing. It was a bit of a disaster itself simply because the Internet was totally bogged down, the board bogged down and some of the email alerts which were the predominant method took hours to get delivered. But for some people this WAS the way they first heard about what was going on.

We have changed the underlying EAS software and process a couple of times over the last 20 years so that initial mostly manual system is long since retired and replaced by the more automated system we have today which we paid to have written a few years ago.

AND SHOULD be tested after the recent underlying forum software upgrade which should NOT affect the EAS module but then our consultant, tconn did some other tweaks I think so, yea, a test of the system would be good.
 
N

night driver

ESFP adrift in INTJ sea
LOLOLOL!!!
What, you swear off Tuesdays!!??

If ya want to be closer to a highly more predictable and expected date, Fri 16th actually feels more like what we would want to hit. You know, closer to midnight when we find out whether the boys n girls are playing or playing-for-keepsies.
(Marbles rules).


Just sayin'..
 
Babs

Babs

Veteran Member
night driver said:
LOLOLOL!!!
What, you swear off Tuesdays!!??

If ya want to be closer to a highly more predictable and expected date, Fri 16th actually feels more like what we would want to hit. You know, closer to midnight when we find out whether the boys n girls are playing or playing-for-keepsies.
(Marbles rules).


Just sayin'..
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I second that!
 
jward

jward

passin' thru
I think the date suggested was most likely more o' the usual spun up :hof:

..still, you've changed the software, and mercury is retrograde till first week of Oct., so if there are bugs to iron out, they will indeed pop up during this time frame, so, still a mighty fine idear...imho.
 
J

JCnKC

Contributing Member
Green Co. said:
Folks, it's been talked about in many places, some as recent as today. When you want to be added or edited, PLEASE include all information asked for.

1. Name. first only will work
2. state of residence
3. cell phone number, up to three
4. service provider for the cell phones
5. email, up to three

Out of a dozen requests I receive, at least nine do not have these requirements. Then I have to message back, sometimes get a partial, then another message. What can be done in 10 minutes ends up taking an hour.
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Dennis Olson

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
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We absolutely MUST HAVE your cell service provider if you want a text message. Why? Because each service provider has an “equivalent” email address to which text messages can be sent. For example, let’s say I’m on the “fuzzypuppy” phone service. Fuzzypuppy’s equivalent email might me:

5125551212@fuzzylink.com

Sending an email to that address generates an SMS message on your phone.

Why can’t we just transmit directly to the number?

Because 1) computers aren’t cell phones, and 2) the applications that provide that connectivity charge PER MESSAGE SENT. So sending 3000 SMS messages would be expensive. The email option is free.

We have a table of service providers and their associated email domain names. The EAS software takes the cell phone number and mashes it together with the email domain from the table, then sends the message.

For those of you not getting SMS messages, it’s because:

- your phone number is no longer current in the EAS database

- your service provider changed

- your service auto-filters SPAM and considers the TB message to be spam

For the first two, reach out to Green Co. For the last, you’ll have to work that out with your cell phone company. We don’t have the staff or expertise to hand-hold thousands of members over this issue. You’ll have to take the initiative yourselves.

IT IS INCUMBENT ON YOU TO KEEP YOUR INFORMATION CURRENT. WE CANNOT AND WILL NOT DO IT FOR YOU.
 
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