Is there anything us SDMB members could do to force the administration to improve the boards speed? Being told that it’s a victim of it’s popularity isn’t cutting it with me. There are some days that it drags so much that I just avoid the whole thing.
Is there anything the masses can do to get them to improve this situation?
perhaps they could offer a stripped down version during peak times. Like text only.
Well, posting this in the Pit or in ATMB would have forced them to refrain from moving it, thus keeping the amount of traffic down and reducing extended index usage.
::: g, d, & r ::
Since this is a question about this message board, I’ll send this thread to ATMB.
Find an eccentric billionaire. Get him to buy a super-powerful server, preferably one along the lines of a Cray supercomputer. Hook it up to the internet, and move the boards over there. Know any eccentric billionaires willing to help fight ignorance? No? Good, neither do I.
One way to make the boards run smoothly is to log on only at certain times. The boards are international, but the bulk of the traffic is from the United States and western Europe, during the daytime hours - it’s a WAG, but between nine AM and eight PM for everyone involved. Figure out when they’re all in bed, and surf to your heart’s content. I’m an insomniac myself, and my computer is no more than two paces from my bed. It works beautifully for me.
I like text-only myself. We don’t need no steenkin’ smileys.
No dice. We don’t have any eccentric billionaires, but we have several hundred “Thousandaires” which offered to give money for a new SDMB server.
Refused.
All this free shit and you gotta go and bitch about it…tsk, tsk.:smack:
I’m SURE that I speak for the majority when I say that you should be damn grateful for what you’ve got.
If you had your way, we’d have a honkin’ fast SDMB that cost us $4.99 a month!
I, for one, am old enough to appreciate a really good deal when I see it and also old enough to stay the hell off the boards when it’s slow and (here’s the kicker…) old enough to shut the hell up and not give anybody any bright ideas.
I don’t think you have even the slightest clue as to how expensive a site like this is.
Relax, ask mom and dad if you can stay up late tonight and try the SDMB around midnight EST and I think you’ll like what you see.
What, you think they don’t want to?
It’s summer. i stay up as late as I want.
I don’t want to have to wait. I want the boards to be fast always!
Viva la Resistance!
Hayduke, man, you know I love you, but…
:smack: <— my hand, your head
We could all stop posting…
Yeah! I’m not gonna post at all in this thread!
(Old joke, I know, but someone has to make it.)
Not really. I go to the forums at somethingawful.com and they are almost never slow. There are various things that the SDMB could adopt to make the servers faster like letting forum members put up their own banner adds or letting people change their own or other peoples custom titles for money without actually going to a pay service. That is if the chicago reader would be ok with something like that instead of donations.
At somethingawful.com you also have to pay 10 dollars to even see the forums so it probably still would not be as fast, but hey it would be an improvement.
Yeah! We could get pitchforks and torches and run down to The Readers headquaters in a raving, screaming mob. We should all dress like simple peasant folk for added effect.
Gee, and I thought somethingawful went subscription a few months back.
We can buy the Chicago Reader, and then impose our collective will on the people we employ to manage it - if 20,000 plus members could ever decide just what IS our collective will.
Well, I think we all agree that Ukulele Ike should be living a life of hedonism and leisure, copiously supplied with fine whiskey and scantily-dressed women.
Over at Ship of Fools, they offered avatars for a price, and seem to have sold plenty.
I agree, Uke, but with the proviso that the rest of the staff should have partial benefits: Either booze or scantily-clad members of the appropriate sex, at the staff member’s discretion.
But seriously. There are a few things that members can do to help board congestion.
1: Avoid peak hours, if possible. Even now, there are times when the boards are reasonably fast: Generally American nighttime.
2: Search is hard on the hampsters. Use alternate methods of finding threads, if possible. For instance, if you think the thread you’re looking for might have been in Threadspotting, check the Threadspotting archive (or general search index, if it’s recent) first. When you do use Search, use it intelligently. Only search at off-peak times, and make it as specific as possible: One forum at a time, specific search terms, a date range that’s as limited as possible.
3: Some moderator functions are also hard on the hampsters. Moving a thread used to tie up the entire board for five minutes or more… It’s not so bad, now, but it’s still not the easiest thing on the server. Figure out the right place for a thread before you post it. If you’re not sure, e-mail a moderator and ask.
You’re right, Hayduke. The Chicago Reader isn’t getting another red cent from me until things improve.
If I were an eccentric billionaire, I’d give you your own TV show where you could show the hoi polloi all the wonders of high-class living and drinking. Alas, I’m just a working stiff.