Democratic Underground will be updated to DU4 next week

[EarlG]

The update is currently planned to take place on Wednesday October 18.

FIRST THINGS TO KNOW

• You will not lose anything in the transition to DU4. Your posts, Journal, Bookmarks, Inbox, Subscriptions, Ignore List, Star Membership, etc. etc. etc. will be untouched.


• If you are logged into DU when the update begins, you should remain logged in afterwards. However, we still recommend that you know know your password just in case you need to log in again.


• This update contains no changes to the site rules or to the way the Jury system works.

WHAT TO EXPECT IF THINGS GO PERFECTLY...

On Wednesday October 18 at around 1PM ET, we will take Democratic Underground offline and update the software. This will take at least a couple of hours. If all goes well, once the update is complete we will re-open the site for all visitors.


...AND WHAT TO EXPECT IF THINGS DON'T GO PERFECTLY

It's safe to say that there are a number of things that could go wrong during the update and during the post-update phase. Possible consequences could include, but are not limited to: extended downtime beyond a couple of hours; re-opening the site and then having to close it again; a staggered re-opening (in this situation we would allow entry to Star Members first, then registered members, then unregistered visitors); downgrading the site back to DU3.

While the update is in progress, visiting any DU page will take you to an error page which contains information about the status of the update -- if there are issues, we will communicate them here.


BUT EVEN IF THINGS DO GO PERFECTLY...

Please remember that this has been a huge project and despite the lengthy development time and beta testing, there are still going to be glitches and errors which we will need to fix. We appreciate your patience while we get through the post-update phase. If you see something that looks broken, it might not be because we made some weird design choice that you don't like -- it might be because something is actually broken. Just ask if we can fix it -- there's a good chance we can.

That's all for now... if you've got any questions about the DU4 update, please feel free to ask!