Well, lets not get into a debate over my metaphor. I was referring to the energy being burnt in anxiety, not in posting on the boards.
When threads like these come up this point is often raised by those who see themselves as consumers and customers of the SDMB.
But there’s another group who view the boards as a community and the money they spend is almost like the tithes church members give to enable the community to exist.
And never the two groups shall see eye-to-eye.
This is brilliant. 
I second GomiBoy’s request. Can we actually get an IT professional in here please?
More calmly: GomiBoy, your estimations appear far too high. The entire SDMB active database is somewhere between 2 & 10 GB from what I recall of prior comments by Jerry.
The board has 8,138,595 posts. The average would 500 characters plus links. Call it 2K per post. That would be approximately an uncompressed 16gigs. The Data is stored in compressed text format, including the tags. The lack on any stored graphics in the database allows it to remain small.
You might recall that Jerry regularly archives older threads. I would guess that 10 Gigs his current limit in size until he gets a chance to move us to a new version. This might not be a limit of the version we are on, but rather just the MySql setup.
Most of our problems appear to be from a beat up old database being accessed by an obsolete version of vBulletin. The vBulletin message board had threads about tuning the newer versions of vBulletin to fix search problems like we have.
Additionally, the SDMB has problem with general searches. The New Post search is only a small resource hit as it was only checking recent posts. These are fast searches.
**I hope this detail estimate helps clear this argument up a bit. **
Disclaimer: IT Pro, Programmer/Analyst and Database design but no working knowledge of vBulletin
Jim
You’re a nitpicking little annoyance, that’s to be sure. Keep quoting me out of context and you’re sure to prove your point, right?
Well two little things - the ‘overheads’ I was referring to is the costs of servers, bandwidth, administration, license, etc… none of which are free and all of which are costs that you neglect to even consider. So where does that cost come from then? If I did over-estimate the storage requirements, are you now going to tell me that those things are all free as the fairies and therefore the board has no excuse for not running like a Ferrari?
Second - in both this thread and the other, I defended someone’s right to bitch and moan, either about the boards’ service or the French or whatever the fuck you want. What you seem intent on ignoring is that my entire post was to inform people laboring under some misconception that the board was pay because admins were getting rich off of it, which is patently not true.
For the rest of it, do me a favor and fold your outrage into a sharp little ball and ram it directly up your ass. This board will be a better place when posters like you fuck off into the wild blue yonder with your refusal to admit error, your complete incompetence, and your inability to allow anyone but yourself to hold the fucking soapbox of towering indignation that you don’t get treated like some kind of limo-driving fat cat for paying $15 a year.
What Exit? - sure, I could be wrong. As a grown-up I am happy to discuss and learn from another professional, recognize when an error has been made, correct it, and move on. But for a moaning little fuckstain like Dead Badger, why even waste my breath?
You bloody well were not:
This, in a conversation explicitly about the size of the database, rather implies to me that the overheads to which you refer are (shock!) related to the storage. Y’know, like you said. There, in your words. Your entire cost estimate was based around storage costs. Don’t whinge at me because I take issue with your actual argument, rather than the argument you wished you’d made had you been clever enough.
Yeah, huh? Wait, what’s this?
I wasn’t wrong. My estimates of the database size are pretty much bang on, while yours is not merely out of the ballpark, it’s playing a different game. I don’t think the admins are swimming in piles of our cash, and if you actually read my posts I’ve expressed indignation only at some jumped-up dickhead who thinks he knows how websites are run because his company does storage. All I think is that it should be perfectly possible to run a competent messageboard of this size on the subscription money we pay, and that people are perfectly within their rights to complain about it.
This gets better by the second. You are wrong, and yet you have the frankly hilarious temerity to complain that other people won’t admit their mistakes. It’s quite breath-taking, it really is.
You’re not a professional, you’re a twat.
You’re a lying sack of shit.
So’s your face.
Wow, a clever liar. Surprise me.
Don’t you dare give up, GomiBoy! There’s too much entertainment value in watching Dead Badger beating you down and skullfucking you! I can’t help but laugh.
Okay: despite generally being considered a containing bowler, Matthew Hoggard’s strike rate is actually noticeably higher than that of Wasim Akram.
In your face!
He also prefers PostgreSQL to cuddling, and pluralises the names of his tables.
Backing away slowly, “Is this about more than the server issues?”
The first one to come up with “I’m rubber, you are glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks on you.” wins.
Argh. Totally wrong. The correct phrase is…
I’m rubber, you’re glue.
Bounce off me and stick to you.
You’ll notice that the correct version scans.
Am I totally evil if I say that, although I have no idea what the tech-slinging here is all about, this…
…got me totally hot? Instantly I visualized the Straight Dope Matrix humming and throbbing with power, white-coat-clad techies rushing around with clipboards in front of a banked array of blinking lights. Yesss! I want!
Usually the guy that remains calm–especially in the face of the guy that’s getting more and more wound up–is right.
In this case DB is the calm, rational guy, and I’m betting he’s right. Not just because of the above, but because he’s constructed a solid argument based on facts in evidence and furthermore shot down most of GomiBoy’s arguments, often using his own freaking words against him.
Gomi, you and Lobsang are really giving Brits a bad name today. Maybe you two should take a little time out or something.
Thanks, DDG. I’m not going to run off or anything.
Gomi’s American, and Dead Badger is British, as far as I know.
A charter member with over 2000 posts and a memorable name.
Did you use to go by another name or have you barely posted for two year after posting a lot? 
Trust me, he won’t give up. He should, but the evidence has shown that he’ll just continue to proclaim his superiority.