Anybody notice Saturday nights are always down?

[chriskre Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close chriskre]

So maybe I am paranoid or maybe they just like to take their systems down on the busiest weekend day on the web or maybe my hunch is right and RCI conveniently takes their system down every Saturday night so they can auction the inventory on skyauction. Has anybody else noticed this? If this has been addressed somewhere else I am sorry to ask again but I can't find it. It's just that I know that my auctions that end on Saturday and Sunday in my ebay store do best on the weekends and I'm kind of suspicious that it's the same for RCI. So it kind of defeats the benefit of membership with first crack at the last calls. Any input or links are appreciated.

[Keitht Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Keitht]

System maintenance has to be done sometime and Saturday night is the obvious time from a business viewpoint. If problems are experienced during maintenance they have a longer timeframe to resolve them without directly impacting the business. That means that there is greater probability that an issue can be addressed and resolved, rather than having to back out any change. Backing out only means they have to repeat the work at a later date.
Of course it's frustrating when we can't access RCI on-line, but what's the alternative?

[alanmj Banned Find all posts View Profile Close alanmj]

System maintenance has to be done sometime and Saturday night is the obvious time from a business viewpoint.

This is pre-internet age thinking when we all had to call in to make an exchange. I'm sure that if the system were not down Saturday night it would be the busiest night of the week. The issue is not wanting to have "Guides" working Saturday evening as they would be paid overtime rates.

Changing sys maintenance to the slowest night (let's pick e.g. Monday as a random early-week night) makes far more sense, and is customer-responsive. But RCI hasn't shown itself in the past to be particularly customer-responsive.... in fact quite the opposite, it often acts in a customer-hostile manner - but that's with the big assumption that "we" exchangers are the customers they most care about... another fallacy.

Just have to live with having Saturday nights off from frustration associated with searches returning nothing... perhaps not a bad thing.

[alanmj Banned Find all posts View Profile Close alanmj]

[duplicate post deleted]

[Keitht Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Keitht]

This is pre-internet age thinking when we all had to call in to make an exchange.

Only pre-internet thinking if RCI have systems dedicated purely for internet use, and I suspect that's not the case given the pattern of unavailability. It's probable that there is only a single live version of the availability database and there will be requirement for that to be available during core working hours. Duplication and mirroring is obviously possible to do, but given RCI's apparent lack of interest in true customer service as demonstrated over the years, it's probably not a cost they are interested in bearing.
The simple truth is that there is no best time to take a system down when you have a global user base. Members in Europe, for example, will be accessing the system at very different times to those in the western US. If the systems were crashing all the time because of a lack of regular system maintenance I'm sure people would be complaining just as loudly.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

When was this first discussed . . . 1997?

[Jya-Ning Silver Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close Jya-Ning]

Given the rate they are slowly adopt the change, it will be years before you saw they have duplicate database, fall over server, than at that time, it maybe 24/7 operation.

On the other hand, every maintain give RCI people a chance to mess up the trading system to their view of justis, so be still very afraid.

Jya-Ning

[alanmj Banned Find all posts View Profile Close alanmj]

Only pre-internet thinking if RCI have systems dedicated purely for internet use, and I suspect that's not the case given the pattern of unavailability. It's probable that there is only a single live version of the availability database and there will be requirement for that to be available during core working hours. Duplication and mirroring is obviously possible to do, but given RCI's apparent lack of interest in true customer service as demonstrated over the years, it's probably not a cost they are interested in bearing.
The simple truth is that there is no best time to take a system down when you have a global user base. Members in Europe, for example, will be accessing the system at very different times to those in the western US. If the systems were crashing all the time because of a lack of regular system maintenance I'm sure people would be complaining just as loudly.

Keitht, perhaps you read my message too quickly, or didn't read it at all, or are just being your usual contrary self.

As I said, pre-internet thinking that Saturday night is the "obvious time" (your words) to take a database down. Whilst there is not a good time to do it, there certainly is a most worst time, and I contend that the vast majority of RCI (a) access their accounts using the internet, and (b) would much prefer to have maintenance on a night other than Saturday. Do you disagree with either of these propositions?

The time-zone business is moot, as we're talking about which night, not which time. Keep the same hours, just move the night. And no-one is suggesting not to do system maintenance - although I have far more complex systems in my place of work and our maintenance downtime is far, far less and for far shorter durations.

As to JLB's tired interjection, yes it's true, but it's also true that the number of RCI members accessing through the internet has increased substantially since 1997, yet RCI is still using a pre-internet business model that does not satisfy its customers' needs.

And just don't get me started about banks and their dumb hours of so-called "service"...

[chriskre Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close chriskre]

Wow, I'm glad to see this is such a heated topic. I agree with the fact that they should choose another day to do this and they could also do this from 1am to 6am instead of 8:45 to 3:00 as they currently do. Especially since most of their members are from North America. The west coast gets hammered even worse being 3 hours earlier than the east so they are really targeting the whole continent with their 8:45 to 3:00. I don't think this has anything to do with maintenance only, it's just a convenient excuse to continue to do what they want with the inventory which is to try to make the most dollars they can with our weeks. As an avid ebay seller I can assure you that it is because auctions do best on Saturday night. Hence their very active skyauction site.
Thanks for the input.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

As to JLB's tired interjection, .

I'm not tired. You tired? Anyone tired?

Try to get some more sleep.

As to my comment, I've been on RCI.com since 1997, and I can't recall that weekly maintenance was ever any time other than Sat nite. Might have been, but I don't recall.

It's never been an issue. Just knew you couldn't search Sat nite, which I never did/do. Is it a serious problem?

I hear the fish calling. Bye

[Keitht Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Keitht]

Keitht, perhaps you read my message too quickly, or didn't read it at all, or are just being your usual contrary self.

I did read your post and not trying to be in the least contrary (this time) I take on board everything you say about it not being the most convenient time for the customer, and actually said that RCI never do seem to have put the customer first.
Maybe I should have said "From an IT support perspective" rather than "business", for the reasons stated. With 35 years in IT support I stand by my comment that the weekend is the best time to take systems down. IT support will get far more grief from senior management if the systems are available 1/2 hour late in the morning on a working day, than they will if on-line access isn't available to customers for 24 hours over the weekend. Major works can also take more time than is available on a weekday night. Available hours in the week can be severely restricted by such things as backups and overnight processing thereby forcing other work to what the business deems less intrusive timeslots.
The nature of the beast is such that it's inevitable that somebody is going to be inconvenienced at some stage, and generally senior management make darn sure it isn't them.

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

I did read your post and not trying to be in the least contrary (this time) I take on board everything you say about it not being the most convenient time for the customer, and actually said that RCI never do seem to have put the customer first.
Maybe I should have said "From an IT support perspective" rather than "business", for the reasons stated. With 35 years in IT support I stand by my comment that the weekend is the best time to take systems down. IT support will get far more grief from senior management if the systems are available 1/2 hour late in the morning on a working day, than they will if on-line access isn't available to customers for 24 hours over the weekend. Major works can also take more time than is available on a weekday night. Available hours in the week can be severely restricted by such things as backups and overnight processing thereby forcing other work to what the business deems less intrusive timeslots.
The nature of the beast is such that it's inevitable that somebody is going to be inconvenienced at some stage, and generally senior management make darn sure it isn't them.

Agreed. My cutovers were invariably scheduled for anytime after working hours on Friday. We are talking major call centers here. Of course traffic was invariably routed to the centers not being effected.

The underlying thing about RCI is they couldn't give a rat's ass about what the consumer wants at any given time. There is no reason for a hard downtime every single Saturday but it is what it is and has been as Jim mentions since 1997.

I really doubt they are up to nefarious things as the OP thinks. I mean look at the wonderful new resort pictures and RCI TV and Disney stuff!

[alanmj Banned Find all posts View Profile Close alanmj]

I'm not tired. You tired? Anyone tired?

Try to get some more sleep.

As to my comment, I've been on RCI.com since 1997, and I can't recall that weekly maintenance was ever any time other than Sat nite. Might have been, but I don't recall.

It's never been an issue. Just knew you couldn't search Sat nite, which I never did/do. Is it a serious problem?

I hear the fish calling. Bye

"tired" as in the same old tired refrain... even though events/situations/processes change...

Just because things have always been that way doesn't mean they shouldn't change, especially in the face of huge technological change. But old folks hate new innovations and want to return to living in caves and starting fires by rubbing sticks together...

perhaps you should listen to the fish more often JLB... they obviously speak your language...

[alanmj Banned Find all posts View Profile Close alanmj]

I did read your post and not trying to be in the least contrary (this time) I take on board everything you say about it not being the most convenient time for the customer, and actually said that RCI never do seem to have put the customer first.
Maybe I should have said "From an IT support perspective" rather than "business", for the reasons stated. With 35 years in IT support I stand by my comment that the weekend is the best time to take systems down. IT support will get far more grief from senior management if the systems are available 1/2 hour late in the morning on a working day, than they will if on-line access isn't available to customers for 24 hours over the weekend. Major works can also take more time than is available on a weekday night. Available hours in the week can be severely restricted by such things as backups and overnight processing thereby forcing other work to what the business deems less intrusive timeslots.
The nature of the beast is such that it's inevitable that somebody is going to be inconvenienced at some stage, and generally senior management make darn sure it isn't them.

Entirely correct if your "customers" are 9-5 Mon-Fri office types, but what if your main customers "worked" mainly on the weekends, and worked the least on one of the weekday nights? Wouldn't you logically change your operation to suit?

But lawren2 is correct regarding RCI caring at a level of the posteriors of rats...

Didn't we once have a TUG RCI IT liaison group - a group of Tuggers who were supposed to provide RCI IT with ideas? Guess it died a death when Madge left the forum...

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

Didn't we once have a TUG RCI IT liaison group - a group of Tuggers who were supposed to provide RCI IT with ideas? Guess it died a death when Madge left the forum...

I was actually a participant on some of the upgrade feedback sessions. I made some good friends down at RCI's Parsippany location that I maintain to this day, not on a business level.


Actions on our feedback was negligible with a few small exceptions. Most all the folks running the beta did not own timeshares and had no idea what gyrations we go through to make an exchange.

A smart business practice that quite a few companies will throw in as a bone. They have no motivation to do anything with beta tester feedback, because the process is nearly 100% in place, but you are to feel important because you are included in the testing.