Why not?
Is it possible to simply queue queries that fail the time limit test? It seems supremely wasteful of bandwidth to send me a message telling me I misjudged the time by 1 second so that I can then immediately resend the exact same request.
**jdavis ** - appreciate your efforts and realize you’ve been working on a Saturday night.
Just a thought. There are people on the board with IT backgrounds, probably with message board technical expertise, and may work for a company that might do a deal on some discounted/free software or hardware. Might be worth opening a SDMB performance thread and picking the brains of the dope.
:dubious: Really? Well, until someone revises the basic principles of our capitalist economy, I’d suggest that you buy a nice comfy mattress.
Thanks. But if it’s all the same to you, I’ll make that decision for myself. Sure do appreciate the directions, though.
You know, the door is --------------------------------->
I get tired of people acting like just because they pay money, they have a right to dictate to others what they should and shouldn’t expect. If you don’t like what you are reading, leave. If you would like someone to not post valid arguments, ask nicely. In the meantime, assume that you don’t know all the facts, and don’t expect that you ever will. And, again, if you don’t like that fact, the door is right over there. :dubious:
I, too, was perplexed abnout how one can abuse a search engine, but it sounds like people could tie up the board by flooding it with searches? If so, I can see why that should be prevented. I can’t say I’ve had a problem with the board being tied up, though.
But it’s not just searches. I’ll go to, say, Page 2, see quickly that there’s nothing there I want to see, then try to go to another page, only to be told I have to wait a total of 2 minutes. That seems a bit long. Sometimes I accidentally double-click, and that’s taken to be two separate tries, and now I have to wait two minutes for it to settle down agian instead of 30 seconds. Seems a bit extreme to me.
Page two of a thread, or page two of the “New Posts” page? 
New Posts page.
Just now someone posted a reply to a post of mine. I clicked to look. I read the 7-word reply, so then clicked on New Posts again, because that was done and I had no return reply. But I was told I still had to wait another minute! Sat here twiddling my thumbs for what seemed a long time, tried again, but no, 30 more seconds to go. Waited awhile longer, 4 seconds to go. 120 seconds seems too long.
Correction: Apparently not between pages of posts or threads. But if it takes me less than two minutes to see inside a thread, I have to wait to get out of it.
Yes, that was my thought too. We’ve all just resubscribed and suddenly there’s a significant diminution in the service level.
Maybe it’s time to revisit the topic of getting a different searching mechanism.
Jerry, what search algorithm is the SDMB software currently using? I know that there are a few choices to choose from. I have read some forum threads on other message boards that the search algorithms in vBulletin are very inadequate for a large database size.
From TubaDiva, I know that the SDMB doesn’t want Google to index the messages here for privacy reasons. But, I propose that you take the Seekafile search engine source code and use it for the SDMB. The code writers for Seekafile had a website that hosted a demonstration search engine using their code, but has since been taken down.
Don’t point Seekafile at the actual SDMB database, but point it to the SDMB archives. The archives are straight forward HTML files. Indexing them is easy and this method should dramatically decrease the amount of CPU resources and hard drive seeks needed in the future.
I have used Seekafile on my desktop and it is very quick. Since the entire SDMB archive is only around 30-40 gigabytes, Seekafile should have no problems.
I think it would be beneficial for everyone here if you listed the hardware and software specifications for the SDMB so that we know what we are working with.
I don’t see how it possible for people running searches to bring the system down unless vBulletin is actually searching through all the threads every time a person does a search. :dubious: There are ways to fix this that don’t involve increase the time between searches.
Duplicate Thread ----> Deleted
If the problem is that some person or group of people has purchased multiple accounts and is running what amounts to a DOS attack on us, then I’m sorry, but upping the time between searches is only going to piss us legitimate paying customers off and won’t do much good.
Say someone was using 10 accounts to run a massive search every 3 seconds (30/10). All they need to do is register for 30 more accounts – or spend about $450 – and we’re right back where we were DOS-wise, along with the 120-second search limitiation (120/40 == 3 seconds between DOS searches.) If someone is getting their jollies from DOS-ing the SDMB, I doubt $500 (if it’s even that) will be what stops them.
While I agree we can all put up or shut up, I think you will find it good policy to try and explain to the Boards’ membership at large what is really going on here, and why you think this latest hardship is likely to help. Not only will many of us feel better about being here – ultimately making your job easier as well as increasing the chances of our staying aboard in years to come – you may (probably will) get some good advice from some extremely savvy members as to how you can address the situation even better than you are currently.
I know the Moderating staff and (especially) Jerry are working very hard on this. I appreciate your hard work and I do not mean to come across as a snarky, critical individual. I appreciate your (implicit) concern that disclosing too many details could cause future security problems. But I still think it is in your own best interest to share as much as you can with us members – as we, too, are bearing the brunt of a significant degradation in service due to whatever is going on behind the scenes.
Thank you
I know there are a lot of strange people on the Internet, but my mind still boggles that someone would take the time and trouble to do something like that. I know they do, though. Simply amazing.
Touching SDMB search in its no no place :: Google’s I feel Lucky place
Use of a SDMB Captcha :: Finding Googles ‘g-spot’.
Tell me Im wrong.
I normally agree with this argument, but this is not a case of him not liking the service level he’s paying for. It’s a case of him not getting the service level he’s paying for. If he paid for the service with the 30 second search timer–which is an epic pain, by the way, especially when having it return with an error message counts as a search–then search with a 2 minute timer, which makes searching for anything specific a long drawn out stupid process is a significant degradation of service for anyone who searches a lot.
If the problem is automated searches slamming the server, then I’d suggest a capcha is a much more user friendly way of cutting back on searches than increasing the timer. If I’m looking for something and don’t get it first try, I don’t want to twiddle my thumbs for a 1:45 while I wait for my timer to reset. I’d much rather type in a bunch of silly letters and get on with it.
vBulletin is one of the best there is - and it’s very easy to make backups with it. Of course, as the database grows routine maintenance becomes more of an effort, but that’s going to be true with any software.
Use the back button on your browser.
While we’re here, I have two questions.
1)Why does it take longer to seach Titles Only?
2)Does vB offer a load meter. I made this suggestion years ago and I don’t remember what the answer was, but it seems like a good idea. You can see one at www.dslreports.com, it’s the green boxes in the upper right hand corner. It would be nice to pull up sdmb.com and notice that the servers are busy and it’s probably going to run slow. That way I can just check back in a little while instead of taxing the servers even more trying pull up pages.
Upon review I just found my old thread http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=117541&.
ok 3) is implementing the 2 minute search rule going to cause people to start redundent threads. I think people are going to find it easier to start a new thread then to spend 20 minutes trying to dig up an old one.
wait 4) If we must have the two minute rule, can you change it so we can search for 3 letter words. Maybe you can set it up so that it only brings up the first, say, 50 results and if you want more it reruns the search to get the next 50 etc…
Ditto.
Yet, it is now over 22.5 hours since an administrator contributed anything to this thread (that being jdavis in post #13). If daily updates are not an unreasonable request, then I hope to see something in about two hours from now.