ERRORZ! Compo: RPS Needs Your 503

Rock, Paper, Shotgun is currently working on making some hefty server-side improvements to ensure that the site is as stable as possible. The great news is that any wobbles we've experienced lately have been because there are more people reading the site than ever before, pushing our tech to limits it hadn't previously faced. So we're in the process of upgrading everything that can be upgraded, and wrapping rolls of parcel tape around everything that can't. And none of this, not a plip, would be possible without the extraordinary work of Positive Internet. They never, ever ask us to plug them on the site, despite constantly going beyond the call of duty for us. But plug them we will. Using any other company for hosting is just silly.

With this in mind, we've decided it would be a good idea to have a competition to design our new error page. Create us our 503 page, and the prize will be to hopefully never get to see it on the site. Read on for more details.

Currently, on the odd occasion when RPS falls off the internet, you get to see this. We'd like something far better. The most excellent, entertaining, and most in-keeping with RPS's attitude will be picked to replace it, and then hopefully never, ever be seen by anyone. Of course it will be - there will be times when RPS sneezes. And more so, during the obscure early morning hours when we perform ("we" - haha - I of course mean the extraordinary Mr Tinsley and his colleagues at Positive) major server upgrades.

If you'd like to design us something amazing, then send it to this address, with the subject, "503 all up in this place", under 1MB, before the end of Friday 11th March.

There's a couple of important rules for this one, so please make sure to read this before entering, AND to read the below.

Because you'll be submitting original work, I want to super-double-stress that sending it to us means that you surrender full rights for it to us. That makes us sound like monsters, and that's because we are monsters. It's also because we don't want to find ourselves embroiled in legal wranglings, as we have deep-set fears of obviously fake wigs. And you must, and by "must" we mean "MUST", not use any copyrighted images or content that is not of your own creation in the entries. Just imagine the trouble we'd all be in.

So get to work! If we get enough entries, I'll produce a gallery of the finest, along with the official winner. Love you!