OK, you gots the money

[iamme99]

So what's the plan for some much needed performance enhancements? SDMB is still slow and not reliable. Email notification on threads that I am participating in sometimes shows up, other times it doesn't. So please, tell us something positive is going to happen soon...

[gum]

Got to agree on the slowness. Unbelievable.

btw: My "Go to first unread post" doesn't work. Is there something positive happening soon?

Cheerio, pip pip.

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

It's been plumb atrocious today.

[iamme99]

It's been plumb atrocious today.
That's for sure! I make sure that that I copy anything I'm going to post to my clipboard program before posting because you never know when it is going to get eaten.

[Smeghead]

Nobody ever said the money was going to go to increasing board performance.

[iamme99]

Nobody ever said the money was going to go to increasing board performance.
And nobody said it wouldn't either.

I've haunted a lot of web boards and while SDMB is one of the best places for open discussion, reliable and consistent performance of the board is near the bottom of the list. When something is free, people will put up with a lot. But when they have to pay for something, I believe people are a lot less patient. If reliability and performance of SDMB are not addressed, I think you will see an erosion of membership over time as people get more and more annoyed and search out alternative venues.

[Smeghead]

Well, if so, that should speed things up eventually.

[Earthling]

And nobody said it wouldn't either.
Um, hate to disappoint you, but that's not true.

TubaDiva said (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=4797087&postcount=5):
At no time was it mentioned (except by hopeful Dopers), that any revenue derived from subscriptions would go towards a new server.
And Ed Zotti, in his original announcement (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=4657204&postcount=1), said:
It seems certain that the number of current users will decline after we switch to subscriptions, and that board response will improve as a result.
So the strategy actually seems to be "faster with fewer." I'm not saying that I like or even agree with it, but it appears to be the way things are going.

[Earthling]

Oops, I need to follow up. iamme99, while your assertion that nobody ever said the money wouldn't go to improved hardware is technically correct, the quoted statements indicate to me that it's a pretty low priority. On the other hand, Tuba did say "[w]hether that's a possibility at this time, I couldn't say, but I'll ask about that as well." So if the complaints get loud enough, something might just happen. But I don't run the show here, so what do I know.

[iamme99]

Guess we'll have to wait and see. But I don't think they can count on a recurring revenue stream if these problems are not addressed. Maybe SDMB will wind up with 1000 users which will put a limit on diversity of opinion.

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

Guess we'll have to wait and see. But I don't think they can count on a recurring revenue stream if these problems are not addressed. Maybe SDMB will wind up with 1000 users which will put a limit on diversity of opinion.

Oh sure they'll be able to count on a recurring revenue stream. Too many of us are hooked. :D

[Amp]

Are we accessing the same MB? The SDMB that I read is both speedy and reliable. I usually access from 8 AM to 5 PM Eastern time.

[Gaudere]

It's been crazy fast for me. I remember when you could hardly get into a thread some days.

[iamme99]

It's been crazy fast for me. I remember when you could hardly get into a thread some days.
It's been better today but was awful yesterday. Do you guys review and analyse your logs? Do you do performance reviews?

[kniz]

It's been better today but was awful yesterday. Do you guys review and analyse your logs? Do you do performance reviews?
:rolleyes: Hamsters doing performance reviews? I think not.

[Ruby]

There must have been a fold in the space-time continuum of the SDMB yesterday. It was so tooty-fruity that I finally gave up.

I hope that the revenue may be used to improve the performance of the board. I'll likely remain a member even if the Reader decides to invest the money in junk bonds but it would be a nice gesture to improve the service for those of us who have stuck it out through the good, the bad, and the ugly.

[alterego]

Um, hate to disappoint you, but that's not true.

TubaDiva said (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=4797087&postcount=5):

And Ed Zotti, in his original announcement (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=4657204&postcount=1), said:

So the strategy actually seems to be "faster with fewer." I'm not saying that I like or even agree with it, but it appears to be the way things are going.

I think it has certainly been at least insinuated. If the board wasn't so slow right now I would search for more examples than this one:

A brand spanking new server was put in place around the middle of November. Since then usage has increased 53% to the point where the new server is once again overwhelmed at times. While I'm not the final decision maker in these regards I'd speculate there will be no new servers for a good 2 to 3 years unless this place starts to generate some substantial revenue.

I can put in ever more powerful servers and upgrade the bandwidth for the rest of my life and usage would still increase to the point of sucky performance. Every time I've done this (3 times now) it's only been a matter of a few months before we're maxxed out once again. The basic problem is that the SDMB is free and therefore there is no reason for people not to continuously overutilize it until the point that performance will once again at times suck. When performance starts to suck people stop using it and we reach an uneasy equilibrium point of just how much time people are willing to waste in order to get something for free. Make everyone pay and I can guarantee you there will be no performance problems because a majority of the users will simply leave. Don't make everybody pay and we'll have to deal with complaints from now paying members about performance problems they are incurring due to the usage of non-paying members. Don't ever make anybody pay and at some point the plug simply gets pulled. None of those options look too great...

We're working on some type of solution but it's not happening very quickly.

Jerry (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=3110307&postcount=7)

I believe that Jerry is calling a lot of the shots. I may be wrong.

[UncleBeer]

I believe that Jerry is calling a lot of the shots. I may be wrong.
From the Technical/IT standpoint, yes. But there are others at the Chicago Reader who control the purse strings.

[iamme99]

So how many signed up as paying members? And how are they stopping "guests" from trying to stay free forever?

[Lynn Bodoni]

We have lots and lots of subscribers. I'm not going to check the admin CP, but last I heard (at the end of the charter member subscription period) it was over 3500. The software automatically keeps track of how long a guest has been registered, and once the trial posting period is up, the guest can't post any longer. Some have registered with a new name, but I've caught a lot of them. Generally, I remove any posts that a returning guest makes, same as I do with any posts a troll makes.

[Mister Rik]

I've heard in mentioned a few times that searching is a big part of the speed problem. I wonder if it would be possible to set up two servers, with one dedicated to handling searches and one simply handling normal posting. That way searches wouldn't bog down the primary server.

Of course, I don't know if this is technically feasible or not. But I picture the "search server" holding a mirror of the board, perhaps one day behind the primary server (I suspect most searches are not conducted for material posted the same day, as the current day's discussions are going to be located on the front page of each forum). So clicking the "Search" link could automatically transfer the searcher over to the second server.

It's an idea, anyway.

[TubaDiva]

I vaguely recall this being discussed before, but I do not remember the outcome. Just a guess on my part, but I would suspect the vB software made this difficult or impossible to even contemplate.

I'll inquire and see if I can get some information from a more knowledgeable source.

your humble TubaDiva
Administrator

[Chronos]

I think that what happens then, is that the mirroring process is even more of a pain in the gluteus than the searches were in the first place. Then again, it's conceivable that this could somehow be worked into the daily backup...

[rowrrbazzle]

My understanding was that people would have to pay or the SDMB would go away.

Here's what Ed said:What does a subscription get me?

Posting privileges for one year.
The title under your name says "charter member."
Post count (i.e., number of messages you've posted to date appears with your username)
Ability to search the massive SDMB message database
Ability to view member profiles
Biographical info included with each post (optional)
Other cool stuff that we throw in later, possibly including private messaging, SDMB calendar, custom signatures, and "who's online" feature. (This list edited by EZ 3/19/04.) ...
Do subscriptions mean the board will run faster?

We make no promises, but we're hopeful. The board ran reasonably well after our server upgrade in November 2002, when we had 3,500 current members - that is, people who had posted within the last 30 days. Shortly before switching to subscriptions we had 7,000 current members and the board ran slowly - OK, it crawled - during peak times. The practical capacity of the board, i.e., the largest number to whom we can provide decent service, is somewhere between those two figures. Our initial subscription drive attracted 3,800 users, more than we expected, and traffic hasn't declined noticeably. No guarantee of improved performance.

<aside>In the post, there's also this: "Little Ed gets paid, believe it or not." Why would Ed author a post and then refer to himself in the third person? Could Ed really be Cecil? (And don't bother editing the post. I have screen captures and I saved the page. :D ) </aside>

[iamme99]

Well, performance has been pretty good the last few days! I hope this keeps up. I'd also like the 1 hour daily maintenance outage at 3:30am Central time get reduced and or eliminated.

[Chronos]

I'd also like the 1 hour daily maintenance outage at 3:30am Central time get reduced and or eliminated.Trust me, you wouldn't like for that to be eliminated. Mostly, that time is used for the daily backup, and every so often, things happen. Without that backup, a single glitch could spell the end of the board. With that backup, generally the worst that can happen is that we lose one day's worth of posts.

[iamme99]

Trust me, you wouldn't like for that to be eliminated. Mostly, that time is used for the daily backup, and every so often, things happen. Without that backup, a single glitch could spell the end of the board. With that backup, generally the worst that can happen is that we lose one day's worth of posts.
But can't the backup time be reduced? Or why can't you do the backup live? On my WinXP system I do backups live using the Shadow Copy service which allows an open file to be backed up.

[TubaDiva]

You cannot compare a home user system with Windows XP to a server running a message board for thousands of users, that's apples and oranges!

Here's what Jerry the Tech God says on the situation and mirroring search:

[[ I'm sure it's technically feasible but it's not something I'm capable of devoting resources to at this time. Increasing search performance by mirroring the MySQL databases and/or adding additional search servers would only exacerbate the bandwidth problems we are already having.

While I'm sure people are wondering what they are getting for their subscription the answer is they are getting the continued existence of the board. Improved board performance was not supposed to be promised as a result of subscriptions. It may have been speculated upon but to the best of my knowledge it was not promised when we devised the subscription plan.

What we did promise was the continued existence of the board in the general state it had existed prior to the implementation of the subscription plan. We are and will continue to deliver on that promise. ]]

your humble TubaDiva
Administrator

[iamme99]

You cannot compare a home user system with Windows XP to a server running a message board for thousands of users, that's apples and oranges!

Here's what Jerry the Tech God says on the situation and mirroring search:

[[ I'm sure it's technically feasible but it's not something I'm capable of devoting resources to at this time. Increasing search performance by mirroring the MySQL databases and/or adding additional search servers would only exacerbate the bandwidth problems we are already having.

While I'm sure people are wondering what they are getting for their subscription the answer is they are getting the continued existence of the board. Improved board performance was not supposed to be promised as a result of subscriptions. It may have been speculated upon but to the best of my knowledge it was not promised when we devised the subscription plan.

What we did promise was the continued existence of the board in the general state it had existed prior to the implementation of the subscription plan. We are and will continue to deliver on that promise. ]]

your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Regardless of home vs. business, what I am talking about is concepts. It's just a matter of scale. Of course, it also depends on what software you are running.

I don't know if this has been addressed sometime in the past, but I'd be willing to wager that there are a good number of people with heavy duty tech expertise here who might be willing to volunteer to help out. Has TPTB every put out a call for volunteer help, seeing the "Jerry, the tech god" has too much other work to do?