Too many users, not enough ways to reword it.

One of the downfalls of your site being linked to by a popular site like Fark.com, is you can use up a lot of bandwidth.  I recently clicked on a link on Fark, and received HTTP 403.9 – Access Forbidden: Too many users are connected.  If you’re not familiar with this error the first line says “The page cannot be displayed”.  The second line says “There are too many people accessing the Web site at this time.”  Most people probably get the idea by the second line. Microsoft wasn’t so sure so they decided to make it a little more obvious.  There’s a section at the bottom that says:

Technical Information (for support personnel)

    * Background:
      This error can occur if the Web server is busy and cannot process your request due to heavy traffic.

    * More information:
      Microsoft Support

Apparently Microsoft doesn’t believe that support personnel are capable of understanding plain English.  I figured out what they meant on the second line.  Midway down the page they also state, “Access Forbidden: Too many users are connected.”  That confirmed my suspicion they were trying to tell me that there are too many people, users, spiders, dogs, fish, llamas, or something, trying to go to that web site at that time.  I’ve lived in the L.A. area so I’m familiar with the concept of a traffic jam. Maybe people in Redmond aren’t as familiar with the concept.