Tim Starling wrote:

Ah, well in that case, I can tell you exactly what happened. The hero of the day was Zsinj, a canny newbie who had his eye on the relevant monitoring graphs, and alerted us to the problem immediately, using very specific terms, allowing us to track down and fix it rapidly.

I've got the "pretty graph" bug as described by Rob Church that he states Mark and Domas also have. What can I say? I figure every little bit helps and when all of the other IRC channels start filling up with people wondering what's going on. I enjoy using my knowledge, although limited, to help in any way possible.

It just so happened I was at the right place at the right time. While there were other people noticing slowness and trickling into #wikimedia-tech, I imagine it would have been longer delay in resolving the issue had someone like me not been there. *shrug*

FYI: I'm EDT -4

William Bumgarner aka Zsinj