UPDATE: Maintenance is now complete!  Thank you for  hanging in there!
The following was originally published on September 19, 2008:

We will be performing necessary site maintenance to the Conversations feature on Etsy this weekend.

The maintenance will take place from 7pm Sunday, September 21 to early morning on Monday, September 22 (Eastern Daylight Time). During this time, all Convos will be inaccessible. However, none of your Convos will be deleted and will reappear intact after the site maintenance.

The Conversation system is integral to a few other Etsy features, so we will also be taking these down during the maintenance:

• Alchemy
• Kiss & Make up
• Filing New Non-delivery Reports

Please use email to contact buyers regarding transactions. You can find contact info by clicking "details" on the Sold (Orders) page in Your Etsy. Get contact info for sellers by clicking on "invoice" in the Purchases page in Your Etsy.

Many members choose to use the notification setting that emails you when you have a Convo. In this case, you should have copies of these messages in your email inbox (if you are an email hoarder, like many of us).  If you have not been using the notification option and you have important Convos that you will need during this site maintenance, you should copy/paste them to your computer now. Again, none of your Convos will be deleted, but we are aware that many sellers, for instance, need info regarding custom orders and buyers' instructions in order to do time sensitive work during the site maintenance.

New folks, in case you don't know what Convos are... "Convos" or Conversations make up Etsy's internal messaging system. It's how Etsy members can message each other and how admin notices reach members. Click "contact Seller" in their shops or click "Conversations" at the top of any page. Read more about this site feature in the Convos FAQ.

The engineers are using fix.etsy.com for status updates.

We will close commenting here so we can follow all the discussion in this forum thread.

We apologize for inconveniencing our members, and thank you so much for being patient with us while we do this important maintenance!

ps
If you want to get the breaking, vital Etsy news as it happens — delivered straight to your email inbox, then sign up for Etsy News Alerts emails. Read more about it here.  Expect this as an Etsy Alert email in your inbox if you already subscribe to the list.

You can also get an RSS feed of all TechUpdates here.