Yahoo, the Web directory powerhouse, is undergoing a major service brownout in its heavily trafficked Yahoo Clubs area, a public meeting place for members.
The result has been what amounts to a total interruption of service, with many messages taking more than a day to post.
"[Tuesday] I logged in and couldn't even see the messages I posted yesterday [Monday]," said Tim Peter, a member of a busy stock investment club on Yahoo. "Usually they take a few hours to a day, but this is the first they haven't been available by the next day."
The problem is affecting members throughout Yahoo's clubs, with the most active clubs experiencing the most severe problems.
"It's a temporary effect of our attempt to upgrade the system to deal with increased usage," said Henry Sohn, director of personalization and membership for Yahoo. "Our intent is certainly not to cause 12- to 24-hour turnaround times on posting. ... [But] some of the more active ones tend to get hit the hardest."
According to users, the problem of message delays has been building over the past month. Things came to a head on Tuesday.
"In one club, a member has commented more than once about the numbers [of members] declining," said Mark Cranford, founder of Civil Liberties, one of the clubs. "While I don't know this for certain, I wonder if this is a result of individuals' dissatisfaction with the service."
Peter said he began noticing a completely different problem on Tuesday. While logging into a club, he received onscreen messages saying that the club had been deleted. Yet a return visit to the same club several minutes later allowed him to log in.
Wired News visited one of the largest clubs at the site, The Official Hanson Club, which sports a whopping 16,570 members. We were unable to even read messages at the club, with our browser returning the message, "Sorry, we can't find the message you requested! It may have expired."
