For when the site is undergoing maintenance and is read-only. Various site functionality may not be available, such as: answering; commenting; editing; voting. What exact site functionality is read-only depends upon the specific maintenance being carried out.
The site becomes read-only when changes, bug fixes, or updates are being made to site code or with changes or problems with network, hardware, or other systems and functionality.
When the site is read-only, certain site functionality may be unavailable. The specific site functionality which becomes read-only depends entirely upon what work is being carried out.
The site is infrequently in read-only mode, and when it is the period is usually quite short (for example: 5 minutes, or generally much less).
Information for planned site maintenance and outages, including updates when the site is in read-only mode, can be obtained from:
- Stack Exchange Network Status site
- StackStatus Twitter page
