What to do when your favorite site crashes

If you’re active in the digital scrapbooking community, then you more than likely noticed that DigiShopTalk was offline for a solid 2 days. Though it came back online yesterday afternoon, the gallery has been temporarily closed. I’d like to do two things with this post: present a couple of alternatives to ‘hanging out’ at DST as well as invite Simple Scrapper readers to comment on the outage.

During the DST downtime, I found myself a little lost. DST is more of my home than any other site, simply because I enjoy the fast-paced conversations. However, I quickly found several options that seemed to appease my hunger.

My Scrapbook Art – When DST goes offline, MSA seems to get a good chunk of the traffic. As a major non-shop affiliated site, it is growing with leaps and bounds. The gallery moves very quickly these days, though the forums are still a touch slow compared with DST. One downside is that CT Calls are limited to MSA sponsors. Most importantly though, the group is genuine – leaving great comments and sharing stories in the forum.

Digiscrap Addicts – This new site, launched by some of the designers from Scrap Orchard, seems very promising. I think the DST outage generated some buzz for the site as an alternative hangout. Their grand opening is set for April 1 and its clear there are some kinks to work out. Simple Scrapper is hoping the leadership puts some deep thought into a sustainable server solution.

Your favorite shop forum – When your favorite non-shop-related hub has crashed, its a no-brainer to spread the love in one of your favorite shops. While relationships may be a little closer in these forums, sometimes they can feel cliquish and feel a little slow-moving. Perhaps this a great time to investigate some of those challenges you’ve been eyeing – those parts of shop forums are high traffic.

Twitter – It is surprising how much can be said in 140 characters. You can ask for help, share links and spread good news. With the #digiscrap hash tag, you can even make sure the community sees your message. While it doesn’t provide the same sense of niche community (or offer a gallery), Twitter can certainly foster some fantastic discussions.

So where did you go during the DST crash? How do you feel about the ongoing server problems?

Important Note – I want to be clear – this post is not about bashing DST or its management. (Full disclosure – I write for DST Insider.) I think they really care and are doing everything they can. However, the repeated outages are certainly disruptive to the community. Discuss away, but let’s all keep our politically correct hats on here and support our friends. We’re all in this together!