[2026 update] Scheduled maintenance and what will be unavailable

Posting this under the heading it deserves: Scheduled maintenance and what will be unavailable Everything below is what sits behind that.

Process question about how this site works.

I have read the guidelines and the trust-level page and I still have a question about the mechanism rather than the rule. Specifically, I would like to understand the reasoning behind it, because I suspect the reasoning is better than the rule sounds.

Not a complaint. If the answer is "because of a failure mode you have not seen yet", I would like to hear about the failure mode.

Scheduled maintenance: if the site is going offline for maintenance, advance notice will be posted here with the duration and scope.

Coming back to post #13, because the follow-up matters more than the original answer.

Practical note that does not fit anywhere else. Whatever you conclude from this topic, write down what you did and when. The single most useful thing in your own records is not any individual result; it is that they are dated and consecutive.

Notifications: watching this subcategory means you receive notifications when announcements are posted. Useful if you want to stay current.

This follows post #18 rather than contradicting it.

For anyone arriving from a search: the marked solution above is the direct answer, and the replies underneath it add the caveats that make it safe to use.