TOSed off News Posted by Ian Symes on 23rd June 2022, 20:59 GOOD NEWS! TOS is back online! BAD NEWS! After 20 years, the weekly updates are being fucked off. Folks, today is a day for both sadness and joy. But mostly sadness. After nearly four months of worry, speculation and endless, endless memes, TOS miraculously returned from its extended hiatus on Wednesday this week. This was done on the quiet, with no social media fanfare or new updates, but we were keeping our fingers crossed that this would be rectified at the regular time of Friday morning at 11:30am. The news has come a little earlier than that, and I’m afraid it’s not good. While we’re relieved and reassured that the vast archive is staying online, with additional promises that the currently missing features (particularly Geek Chase) will be restored in due course, we’re mightily sad to learn that after two decades of weekly updates, the regular Friday articles will be no more. We’re promised that the site will be updated again on an ad hoc basis if and when there’s big news to break, but the come-rain-or-shine announcements, titbits, round-ups and features are a thing of the past. To say it’s the end of an era would be an understatement. It was on the 20th November 2000 that Andrew Ellard posted the first of his news updates and features, following which only Christmas and New Year would stop the weekly schedule until the downtime announcement on 25th February 2022. Andrew presided over the site for over a decade, before handing the reins to our own Seb Patrick. And aside from the huge historical value of these thousands of site updates, one personal reason for us being so grateful for the archive staying online is that Seb’s work being available helps to keep his memory alive. Our sympathies tonight go out to Curtis Threadgold, who did a marvellous job as TOS’s custodian in the most difficult of circumstances, not only having to step into the breach following the death of a friend, but presiding over the most turbulent and difficult time for Red Dwarf in the site’s history. A huge shout-out too to Andy Neale, the loyal web monkey for all these years, and presumably the one who had to sort out the monumental headache of migrating and converting the site to its new archival status. Looking at the positives, we really are very happy that this huge archive is back online, and thankful that GNP realise its worth and importance. But this is a sad day overall, and a further indication that the nails in Red Dwarf‘s coffin are already bloody there. Of course it was impossible to maintain the status quo when the company funding the website are embroiled in what can now only be described as a protracted legal battle. One thing’s for sure, we’re not going to be holding our breath for TOS to spring back into life with big and exciting news. Au revoir, mes amis. A bienTOS.
I was wondering why they would bring the site back online when it still has so many dead links, if they didn’t have any actual news, but then the update said fixing everything would take “weeks or months” and… yeah, fair enough. Just whack it up there. I was going to note how weird it was to have a months-long period where Chris Barrie’s personal website updated more frequently than the official Red Dwarf website, but it looks like that’s just going to be how it is from now on…. But that’s no reason to feel down! Anyway, looks like it’s time to stop making memes about how TOS is offline and go back to making memes about Red Dwarf being dead. Hopefully we’ll at least get a 35th anniversary update!
Truly bittersweet. I’m glad that the site will remain online even if only as an archive, but I also hope that someone with more techincal nous than me is going to make a backup copy somewhere, just in case.
Truly bittersweet. I’m glad that the site will remain online even if only as an archive, but I also hope that someone with more techincal nous than me is going to make a backup copy somewhere, just in case. Already got the full waybackmachine archive backed up and once TOS has its links sorted I’ll do the same for the live site, too.
I also hope that someone with more techincal nous than me is going to make a backup copy somewhere, just in case. Wayback machine, with all the outlinks saved? Edit: haha, it took me that long to see if saving was possible, Cappsy posted long before I got back here. Still, good to know there definitely is a backup.
I was going to note how weird it was to have a months-long period where Chris Barrie’s personal website updated more frequently than the official Red Dwarf website, but it looks like that’s just going to be how it is from now on….
Sad. But there are only so many Web Dwarfs can be pulled together. And we’ve got ourselves an archive at least. And we’ve got G&T, eh? Can’t get rid of these fuckers.
Sad. But there are only so many Web Dwarfs can be pulled together. And we’ve got ourselves an archive at least. And we’ve got G&T, eh? Can’t get rid of these fuckers. Yeah, I guess it’s more about what the lack of updates represents than the updates themselves. If they kept it up through 9 years of hiatus, them giving it up just 2 years after the most recent episode isn’t super encouraging. I guess they did have more DVD releases, possible movie news, and general yet-to-be covered ground regarding the first 8 series back then, but still! And hey, yeah, no pressure, G&T! At least we still have TORDFC (tordfc) as well. Hopefully me saying that isn’t tempting fate.
Well, this does sadden me, but honestly I’m surprised they managed to keep it up this long, especially in those long breaks where the show is off the air and not in production.
I’m sure once the blockage in Rob’s buttski is cleared then we can look forward to a free flowing outpour of online updates!
That’s really sad and pretty poor from GNP. I understand there’s not much news around, so totally get that weekly updates get increasingly harder to conjure up but to not commit to anything but “major” news which, let’s be honest, seems increasingly unlikely to come, well, at least the archive is back up. A monthly round up? Or even quarterly, with that being a Web Dwarf here and there to keep the site alive, it’s better than “going into stasis”. Personally I’ll really miss the Web Dwarf ones too, it reminded me of people sending pictures to Take Hart or Smart. Social media can suck my balls, having a proper website is miles better, just have the tweet to point people in the direction of content. Doesn’t help that the Red Dwarf twitter account isn’t terribly active/reactive either. G&T you’re our only hope now, just low effort tweets and retweets from official sources now it seems.
Sad. But there are only so many Web Dwarfs can be pulled together. And we’ve got ourselves an archive at least. And we’ve got G&T, eh? Can’t get rid of these fuckers. This is an image hosting site!
