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Does anyone else have trouble accessing the members.Woot.com pages?

Sep 15, 2012 7:28 PM

Does anyone else have trouble accessing the members.Woot.com pages?

@Gatzby
A few minutes ago I was checking Woot member names and profiles at http://members.woot.com/ and I got a "Not Found" and a 404 error, depending on which URL I used, which suggests a DNS problem or a server issue?

We used to check a user profile via a URL like http://members.woot.com/tpscan
Thinking there might be a URL change, I also checked http://member.woot.com/tpscan. Both generate an error. One of them (members/) used to work and is specified in official Woot posts.

Is this a temporary issue? Does anyone else have trouble reaching their public profile?

I found this error while testing to see if certain user IDs were in use in response to @ThunderThighs question Youve-just-been-hired-by-woot-whats-your-new-username.

I couldn't use the suggested syntax. Can you?

tpscan tpscan

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vote-for3vote-against

You would think that Woot would be clever enough to at least redirect you to a cool page, not just some error screen.

iggz iggz
vote-for1vote-against

It's apparently a problem for everyone now. :(

jsimsace jsimsace
vote-for5vote-against

@xarous: Let me explain again why that workaround is problematic in my specific instance.

When using Google search, adding the restriction "Site:x.y.TLD" restricts searches to that domain. That will certainly reveal who has posted messages on Woot with that user ID. However, lots of Wooters have never posted a message; they would not show up in search results. You can also use the Woot search box to effectively get the same results.

In my case, I was testing to see if there was anyone using a specific Woot user ID to determine if it was available. While a Google search for postings would get a hit on many Wooters, it does not cover the whole namespace. The only way to test for an ID is to try and create it. Tedious when trying several possibles.

I realize that would be a rarely needed function, but I miss the method I had grown used to. ;-)

tpscan tpscan
vote-for3vote-against

I noticed the loss soon after the site redesign. I assumed it was somehow connected to the increased security that makes us sign in again every time we want to look at our own accounts.

gionot gionot
vote-for5vote-against

@tpscan: I used

site:http://www.woot.com ") tpscan"

to check all of woot for posts from a user, seems to be the only way. @Holymythos gets all the credit for posting that. All you have to do is type exactly what is there to find yourself and change the username for someone else. Then surf through the results, good luck.

xarous xarous
vote-for8vote-against

@thunderthighs: Thanks for the quick answer.
Yeah, I never noticed any mention of it being discontinued. I can understand that the search and threading could get difficult. Plus there is some possibility of scraping the info for undesirable reason.

Still, my suggestion to the PTB would be that any request to members.woot.com should redirect to a page explaining the feature is no longer supported. That way you don't have folks using the Woot supplied blog posts that direct them to use that URL wondering what went wrong. At least that would be one customer friendly way of handling the change in functionality.

tpscan tpscan
vote-for7vote-against

@meh3884: I never heard the reason. I know it never worked great for me. It seemed hit or miss for displaying posts.

thunderthighs thunderthighs
vote-for5vote-against

@thunderthighs: What was the reason behind the decision if you don't mind sharing?

meh3884 meh3884
vote-for16vote-against

We no longer allow access to member pages. Sorry.

thunderthighs thunderthighs
vote-for6vote-against

@meh3884:
Great! Thank you for checking. It's good to know it is not just me.

For those wanting to know which syntax is correct, you'll the suggested form is members.woot.
See one of the Woot posts listing that syntax at http://www.woot.com/blog/post/wootership-has-its-privileges-new-member-profile-pages-facebook-openid-and-yo

@Gatzby
@ThunderThighs

tpscan tpscan
vote-for6vote-against

Getting the 404 too. I think I remember getting that for quite a while...maybe even since the site redesign.

meh3884 meh3884

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