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Let’s not pretend like Twitter has never had downtime, they literally popularized the “Fail Whale” meme way before Elon was around: - https://www.theatlantic.c

Let’s not pretend like Twitter has never had downtime, they literally popularized the “Fail Whale” meme way before Elon was around: - https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/01/the-story-behind-twitters-fail-whale/384313/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/01/the-s...

jjeaff 4y ago
Yes, but my recollection is that the whale fail was usually due to huge growth or unprecedented traffic peaks. I don't think Twitter is growing at a fast rate any longer.
- sneak 4y ago
  Musk claims often that Twitter engagement numbers are at record highs. I don't believe these are lies.
  - O__________O 4y ago
    At the very least per tweet it’s possible to see really view patterns, which to my knowledge what’s possible before.
    - chimeracoder 4y ago
      > At the very least per tweet it’s possible to see really view patterns, which to my knowledge what’s possible before. Those numbers have been proven to be incorrect, by people who are posting from locked accounts with 0 followers racking up large nonzero view counts within a few minutes.
      - O__________O 4y ago
        Source?
        medler 4y ago
        Many users have reported weird view counts on locked accounts with few or zero followers: https://twitter.com/search?q=Locked%20followers%20views&src=typed_query&f=top https://twitter.com/search?q=Locked%20followers%20views&src=...
      - egypturnash 4y ago
        Some part of my brain immediately replied to this with the theory "what if those view counts are real and Twitter's just kind of ignoring whether an account is locked now" and damn that is a hell of a possibility to ponder.
        iudqnolq 4y ago
        There's another plausible theory that the just implemented it by counting database reads. So of course a locked test account will have more reads every time you look.
        chimeracoder 4y ago
        > There's another plausible theory that the just implemented it by counting database reads. So of course a locked test account will have more reads every time you look. It'll have one, maybe two more reads every time you look. Not dozens. One person posted an example that had literally over a hundred alleged "views" within a minute, despite not refreshing their timeline after posting the tweet.
  - chimeracoder 4y ago
    > Musk claims often that Twitter engagement numbers are at record highs. I don't believe these are lies. You're talking about a man who has more than once been fined by the SEC for making false statements about public securities. What makes you think that he'd be a more reliable narrator for a private company for which he has no external accountability and a large personal financial interest?
  - ryanbrunner 4y ago
    "Record high" in an established business like Twitter isn't quite the same thing as a traffic spike in the growth phase of a startup (i.e. Twitter in 2011). Record engagement these days is most likely measured in single digit percentage points over average engagement (at most maybe 10-20%), where when you're early and your traffic is spiking, it can be an order of magnitude more traffic than what you're used to seeing. The absolute numbers are larger yes, but from the perspective of "what can my infrastructure / architecture handle", relative changes are far more relevant.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- random314 4y ago
  It also comes from it's history as a Ruby on rails site and disappeared once the the servers moved to scala on the JVM.
  - siva7 4y ago
    Rails was never meant to be run on such a massive load. It was the perfect framework to get twitter take over the market but once that goal was reached a rewrite was unavoidable with a tech stack that can sustain such a load.
- yakubin 4y ago
  > my recollection is that the whale fail was usually due to huge growth or unprecedented traffic peaks My recollection is that around ~2011 a day without a fail whale was the odd one out.
  - camjohnson26 4y ago
    12 years ago
- omgomgomgomg 4y ago
  Maybe now there are issues because of decreasing traffic?
pavlov 4y ago
Since the 2010 nadir of fail whales, Twitter invested a lot into improving their engineering quality. There's a great 2015 essay by Peter Seibel who was tech lead on their Engineering Effectiveness team: https://gigamonkeys.com/flowers https://gigamonkeys.com/flowers I'd guess almost nobody from that era remains at Musk-Twitter.
- O__________O 4y ago
  As reminder, from 2011 to 2014, Twitter also 10x their headcount: https://www.statista.com/statistics/272140/employees-of-twitter/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/272140/employees-of-twit...
riffraff 4y ago
The fail whale was very common during a time of sustained growth when Twitter did not have the infrastructure it has today, but it all but disappeared in recent time. The fact that things start to fail after that infrastructure has been put on place and running find for a while is noteworthy.
- oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
  The fail whale was also a very specific case - I have no idea what was going on in the backend, but from a user perspective it was all "twitter's not available". Now we have inconsistent behaviour and countless small bugs that detract from the overall experience.
aaroninsf 4y ago
It's telling that it all but requires a visit to the Wayback Machine to find reporting on that era.
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
That was many years ago when Twitter had fewer employees.
cameronh90 4y ago
I feel like I'm living in an alternate reality. People seem to be acting as if Twitter was good prior to 2022 until Musk ruined it, but my experience has always been that Twitter is awful, both from an engineering and content viewpoint. Maybe it's because I use an Android, but I've always found the experience terrible. I get notifications, but when I click them and they don't take me anywhere; the back button is completely broken; mentions randomly don't produce any alerts; it resets me to the algorithmic timeline every few days; replies often fail to load; the spam problem is completely out of control and most adverts are irrelevant crypto-spam; search never finds what I wanted; it's constantly putting tweets on my timeline from people I don't follow; and the whole app seems optimised to produce as much hatred and outrage as possible. Nowhere on the planet is as toxic as a Twitter thread, and yet the media and political sphere collectively decided that reporting on and catering to Twitter spats is the most important aspect of their career. Frankly, if Musk destroys Twitter, it might be the best thing he could do for society. I may be misremembering, but I thought that prior to Musk buying Twitter, everyone was decrying it as toxic and lots of people were suggesting the government should step in to reduce its influence. Now it seems to be imploding by itself, yet everyone's upset.
w0m 4y ago
twitter had 5 'major' outages in 2022. Twitter had 5 'major' outages in March 2023. (citations needed)

jjeaff 4y ago

Yes, but my recollection is that the whale fail was usually due to huge growth or unprecedented traffic peaks. I don't think Twitter is growing at a fast rate any longer.

sneak 4y ago
Musk claims often that Twitter engagement numbers are at record highs. I don't believe these are lies.
- O__________O 4y ago
  At the very least per tweet it’s possible to see really view patterns, which to my knowledge what’s possible before.
  - chimeracoder 4y ago
    > At the very least per tweet it’s possible to see really view patterns, which to my knowledge what’s possible before. Those numbers have been proven to be incorrect, by people who are posting from locked accounts with 0 followers racking up large nonzero view counts within a few minutes.
    - O__________O 4y ago
      Source?
      - medler 4y ago
        Many users have reported weird view counts on locked accounts with few or zero followers: https://twitter.com/search?q=Locked%20followers%20views&src=typed_query&f=top https://twitter.com/search?q=Locked%20followers%20views&src=...
    - egypturnash 4y ago
      Some part of my brain immediately replied to this with the theory "what if those view counts are real and Twitter's just kind of ignoring whether an account is locked now" and damn that is a hell of a possibility to ponder.
      - iudqnolq 4y ago
        There's another plausible theory that the just implemented it by counting database reads. So of course a locked test account will have more reads every time you look.
        chimeracoder 4y ago
        > There's another plausible theory that the just implemented it by counting database reads. So of course a locked test account will have more reads every time you look. It'll have one, maybe two more reads every time you look. Not dozens. One person posted an example that had literally over a hundred alleged "views" within a minute, despite not refreshing their timeline after posting the tweet.
- chimeracoder 4y ago
  > Musk claims often that Twitter engagement numbers are at record highs. I don't believe these are lies. You're talking about a man who has more than once been fined by the SEC for making false statements about public securities. What makes you think that he'd be a more reliable narrator for a private company for which he has no external accountability and a large personal financial interest?
- ryanbrunner 4y ago
  "Record high" in an established business like Twitter isn't quite the same thing as a traffic spike in the growth phase of a startup (i.e. Twitter in 2011). Record engagement these days is most likely measured in single digit percentage points over average engagement (at most maybe 10-20%), where when you're early and your traffic is spiking, it can be an order of magnitude more traffic than what you're used to seeing. The absolute numbers are larger yes, but from the perspective of "what can my infrastructure / architecture handle", relative changes are far more relevant.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
random314 4y ago
It also comes from it's history as a Ruby on rails site and disappeared once the the servers moved to scala on the JVM.
- siva7 4y ago
  Rails was never meant to be run on such a massive load. It was the perfect framework to get twitter take over the market but once that goal was reached a rewrite was unavoidable with a tech stack that can sustain such a load.
yakubin 4y ago
> my recollection is that the whale fail was usually due to huge growth or unprecedented traffic peaks My recollection is that around ~2011 a day without a fail whale was the odd one out.
- camjohnson26 4y ago
  12 years ago
omgomgomgomg 4y ago
Maybe now there are issues because of decreasing traffic?

pavlov 4y ago

Since the 2010 nadir of fail whales, Twitter invested a lot into improving their engineering quality. There's a great 2015 essay by Peter Seibel who was tech lead on their Engineering Effectiveness team: https://gigamonkeys.com/flowers https://gigamonkeys.com/flowers I'd guess almost nobody from that era remains at Musk-Twitter.

O__________O 4y ago
As reminder, from 2011 to 2014, Twitter also 10x their headcount: https://www.statista.com/statistics/272140/employees-of-twitter/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/272140/employees-of-twit...

riffraff 4y ago

The fail whale was very common during a time of sustained growth when Twitter did not have the infrastructure it has today, but it all but disappeared in recent time. The fact that things start to fail after that infrastructure has been put on place and running find for a while is noteworthy.

oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
The fail whale was also a very specific case - I have no idea what was going on in the backend, but from a user perspective it was all "twitter's not available". Now we have inconsistent behaviour and countless small bugs that detract from the overall experience.

aaroninsf 4y ago

It's telling that it all but requires a visit to the Wayback Machine to find reporting on that era.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

That was many years ago when Twitter had fewer employees.

cameronh90 4y ago

I feel like I'm living in an alternate reality. People seem to be acting as if Twitter was good prior to 2022 until Musk ruined it, but my experience has always been that Twitter is awful, both from an engineering and content viewpoint. Maybe it's because I use an Android, but I've always found the experience terrible. I get notifications, but when I click them and they don't take me anywhere; the back button is completely broken; mentions randomly don't produce any alerts; it resets me to the algorithmic timeline every few days; replies often fail to load; the spam problem is completely out of control and most adverts are irrelevant crypto-spam; search never finds what I wanted; it's constantly putting tweets on my timeline from people I don't follow; and the whole app seems optimised to produce as much hatred and outrage as possible. Nowhere on the planet is as toxic as a Twitter thread, and yet the media and political sphere collectively decided that reporting on and catering to Twitter spats is the most important aspect of their career. Frankly, if Musk destroys Twitter, it might be the best thing he could do for society. I may be misremembering, but I thought that prior to Musk buying Twitter, everyone was decrying it as toxic and lots of people were suggesting the government should step in to reduce its influence. Now it seems to be imploding by itself, yet everyone's upset.

w0m 4y ago

twitter had 5 'major' outages in 2022. Twitter had 5 'major' outages in March 2023. (citations needed)