As you may know, the Young Writers Society will soon be receiving a dramatic upgrade. The target date for this upgrade is February 28, 2009, but it could very well come much sooner than that. As the process moves forward, I'll be able to give a more precise date, but suffice to say that February 28 is at the far end of when I actually expect to be finished.
First of all, there will really be no phasing in of the new YWS. It's going to be an abrupt change, and it's very likely that a number of people will not like it at first. This happened the last time YWS received a major upgrade back in January 2005, and people got used to it within a couple weeks.
That said, though, the new YWS will go through a beta phase during which the current YWS will still be the default YWS. Beta testers will be chosen in waves beginning with the Junior Moderators (members of Big Brother already have full access). After the JMs, the Instructors will be given access followed by Greeters and registered members. Select registered members will be given access at the same time as Instructors.
The beta phase will begin in mid-January most likely. If no major bugs are found, then it should proceed very rapidly and be done within a few days. However, even if that is the case, the beta will be kept open for a minimum of two weeks just to give people the chance to get used to how the new YWS operates.
Finally, when it's time to complete the transition, YWS will go fully offline for one week (the backup YWS at http://yws.nathancaldwell.com will be running). This needs to be done to transfer the database over.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.
Beta phase=Test drive, basically.
Gender:
Points: 11417
Reviews: 425