You need a "Graceful Degradation" plan for slow times

[It_is_to_laugh-Non]

You need a "Graceful Degradation" plan for slow times.

When you post the "too many posters" message, it should trigger a halt to searches.

If searches are off and still too many posters, drop (or queue-up) New Threads.

Others that are low on my list of priorities (yours will differ) and hence queue-able:

. Archive requests
. Any thread with an old last post date
. Change your signature requests

[TubaDiva]

Thanks for your comments, I'll make sure the techs are alerted.

your humble TubaDiva
Administrator

[Chronos]

Problem with that plan: Say you have a member who's only able to access the boards during slow times (ferinstance: A Californian who only has access to the Internet at work, and can only use it for personal purposes on her or his lunch hour, say, 12-1). That person would then never be able to search or use the other "low priority" features. I can see juggling the priorities, but not turning features off entirely.

[TubaDiva]

It's kind of moot -- though thanks for the suggestion -- because it's not possible to turn stuff on and off like that.

Not to cast aspersions or throw blame onto something else, but the problems may not be solely with us; there's just a lot of internet traffic and we're not the only site to be affected by it. (A theory says that Napster is to blame for a lot of the extra traffic these days, it ties up lots of bandwidth.)

Our techs are studying the situation, looking at the servers, etc. I can't give you a good answer -- or even an answer at all right now.

your humble TubaDiva
Administrator

[elbows]

Or the whole internet slowdown story either.

Sorry, but neither of those explanations cut it with me. I could not access this board yesterday even though I tried at about 10 different times, starting at 10am and ending at 2:30am. I was all over the internet, including other Chicago sites, and nothing else was near as slow as your site.

I don't understand, if you have 6700 registered members, and this number increases by 100 per day, why would you choose software that only lets in 100 people at a time?

I appreciate how wonderful it must be to not have the board crash every other day. But , it seems to me, that your members are spending a lot of time trying to tell you that there's a big problem and you all seem to be spending a lot of time telling us that it's no big deal?

For people who are experiencing painfully slow access, if they can get it, this is little solace.

Personally, I have to say, if it doesn't improve I will stop visiting. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. Now, I'm very aware of the 'don't let the door hit you' policy. I love the board but I'm just not up for waiting 5+ minutes for every page to load even after midnight. And I have a cable modem, I can only imagine the torture it must be for people with phone access.

I mean, what's the point of running a site where you can ask questions if you can't get access again to view the answer?

Perhaps this is the managements way of reducing the number of regular users and thereby, reducing the numbers of people accessing the boards, thereby reducing the crashing and other problems. If so, I'd have to say I think they're onto something. Perhaps you will end up creating a better bulletin board, with only the most patient of posters accessing it.

(I also can't figure out why, when I posted this, the margins seem so huge, I didn't change anything, and I looked around to see if I could change it back but couldn't find anyplace, let me know how you do this please. I hate viewing posts like this myself, and have always wondered what causes it.)

[andros]

Christ, elbows, it's not like it happens every day. Things are fine today, right? If you never return to a site because it's slow one day, you'll eventually never be on the web at all. . .

[kayT]

Um, no actually it happens a lot. Even today, depending on the forum you are in, it just took about three minutes for me to get from the home page to the message board page. However, I don't agree that this is the only slow site. Every site I went to today and yesterday was s--l--o--w. Maybe it is napster. If so, then what?

[elbows]

Um, it's 12:01am and it's the first time it seems to be up to speed all day.

8 unsuccessful tries, from 11:00am to 4:30pm, got in briefly twice but it was so slow, 5+mins per page, too much time. This is the case more and more often.

Sorry to get your panties in a twist Andros.

But I beg to differ, yes, it was the same today. And no, the other day, 'the whole internet' was not slow!

I love the board and would hate to leave. But, I'm no different than other people, I suspect, they try to access, they wait and wait, and then they go off somewhere else. And, if only 100 people get in at a time, you do the math, how many are going off to find other things to do?

I didn't say they were suicidal about it, I didn't say I was losing sleep about it. I just said I don't believe the current round of opinions being bandied about.

[Chronos]

You say that the board doesn't crash anymore? In practical terms, what's the difference between a crash and a state where a person with a fast connection can time-out repeatedly for two hours straight? It's been bad ever since the switchover, and in the past week or so, I've been lucky if I can get on at all. It is only just the message board, too... Everything else I've been to lately is running at full speed, including the rest of the straightdope.com site.