By Ethan Schultz
On 23 August at 5:50pm, Darlene Rowlands, an editor for the Observer, noticed that the website was down. “My initial reaction was ya know, we get bug errors from time to time … I thought it was something we could troubleshoot,” she reflected.
“As the scope of the issue presented itself…I realised we were in deep sh*t.”
The current Observer team understands that the website may not have been updated in the five years since it first went live, while it was still funded by the students who established it. Today, Observer is the proud recipient of 1 percent of the SSAF pool, and is powered by the ANU student body. However, the website, and home, of Observer at anuobserver.org remained dependent on a number of out-of-date plugins for functionality until its demise last week.
Theories have circulated in the 1/25 Childers Street office as to how it happened. Such theories include that one of the plugins either updated itself, or a reporter accidentally updated it trying to publish an article.
Despite initial disbelief that an accidental update could cause the whole website to fail, technologically savvy members of the Observer visual team have attested it’s possible with a system five years out of date.
“It was kind of a ticking time bomb…it was going to happen eventually,” Rowlands added.
A number of accusations were thrown as to who the potential culprit could be. “From what I’ve heard, it was the actions of one ill-informed reporter, who had accidentally updated the whole system”, remarked Ryan Bourke, a reporter for Observer. “Perhaps ignorantly, perhaps maliciously…I’ll leave it at that”.
Mackenzie Watkins, another reporter, contributed her thoughts on the current affair. “It was not me. It wasn’t me. I would be really embarrassed, but I’m not embarrassed, so it wasn’t me…I pinky promise.”
Watkins may have been the last reporter to publish an article before the extinction. She later remarked, “I lie pretty often. You can get it on record that I lie.”
When the Web Executive, Nick Ang, was first alerted to the error message, he sprung to action and began assembling a team to get the website operational once again. “I’m not going to lie, to this day, I still don’t know why the website crashed. However, it has always been riddled with bugs and issues”, Ang said.
“The website was old and rickety, and a misclick somewhere could have brought the whole thing down. It appears that the email address linked to the site required a two-factor authentication to a mobile number that is no longer in use,” explained Observer editor, Alex Ellwood.
Ellwood continued, “Unfortunately this is what happens with clubs and societies at ANU. There is a very fast turnaround of exec members, which does lead to an issue in handovers and institutional memory.”
Ang remarked on the saga that he felt he was ill-equipped to handle the issue.
An interim website was quickly put together on Sunday to host Observer content while a new website is in development. Members of the visual team considered the new website a significant downgrade from the last one.
Will Novak, the graphic designer, remarked, “It looks like it was designed by a three year old. It makes me want to never design anything again.” He proceeded to laugh, “some of the pages are just missing…it’s a disgrace to the Observer brand and all the people under it.”
Ellwood provided a comment about the new website, “I am not sure I want to nit-pick on it, it is our saving grace. This website is saving our ass right now, I don’t want to be too harsh.”
Watkins again shared her thoughts, “it looks fugly.”
Bourke had further pointed remarks toward his suspected culprit. “There has been a narrative pushed by those seeking to justify their, again, perhaps ignorant, perhaps malicious, updating of the website.”
Bourke denied further requests to explain what he meant by this statement.
The Observer archive dating back to 2017, which included the portfolios of all current and previous Observer reporters, is currently inaccessible. Reporter Brianna Elliott expressed disappointment about the loss. “As someone who is inquiring about doing journalism in the future, it will affect how they approach my resume”, she said.
Ellwood assured future strategies are in motion. “We have a plan moving forward. We will be reuploading all the old articles.”
“It will be a long and tiring process.”
“There were times here, as an editor, where I was afraid for our future, like during lockdown last year. But we are in a very stable place. We are very much in a position to move forwards,” Ellwood continued.
Rowlands reflected that the nature of student organisations means there inherently isn’t adequate pay to go around. “[Observer] runs on enough people caring anyway.” She acknowledged that this issue is experienced by all student organisations.
“The pool of reporters that we have, we are very lucky with them. They all give a sh*t… and they are going to inherit Observer from us at some point and we have very bright prospects for the future,” Rowlands continued.
“I don’t think there are any more ticking time bombs…”
Disclaimer: This reporter is a current employee at the ANU Observer, and therefore a suspect in the case of the dead website. He continues to plead his innocence.
Know something we don’t know? Email [email protected], or hang onto it until our interim website gets an anonymous tipline again!
If you have an issue with this article, or a correction to make, or you would like to send your condolences for our loss, you can again contact us at [email protected]. You can also submit a formal dispute to [email protected].
Want to get involved? You can write articles, photograph, livestream or help us bring our web home back to life. Email [email protected] for that. However, do NOT visit anuobserver.org the website!
