Fucking Board Speed

[TubaDiva]

@deevee

Although I changed my mind and re-upped, it gets a little tiresome reading about what a fucking burden we all are. We’re still paying customers so how about a modicum of respect? Good luck working in the fast food industry when the reader does finally pull the plug.

A burden? Not at all. We’re thrilled you’re here and thanks for reupping, that’s great.

The staff has tremendous respect for our members, it’s that desire to serve that puts them in this position to begin with. We wouldn’t be here if you weren’t and you make the community what it is, that’s important. The work we do here is on your behalf and we do so happily.

Yes, you are paying customers, and also our guests. In that regard, to steal a quote from Rex Stout, you are a jewel on a cushion of hospitality here and we do work hard to make you so.

To belabor just a little, the cushion we’ve been able to offer has not always been as big or as comfy as we would like, but it has been the best that we could do with the resources we have to command.

It would be hoped we can all operate from a place of mutual respect, that’s the best. Sometimes feelings run hot and emotions get high and that mutual respect dwindles. It does seem to be scarcest when it is most needed, at those times when people are most pissosified and want to take out that anger/frustration/angst on someone or something else.

Staffers routinely deal with negative attitudes and sometimes even downright abuse in the everyday course of doing their chores and mostly do so with goodwill, though there are times the exasperated response gets the send button. We are not robots and all too human.

Over our time here things have been worse than they are now. We look forward for better times to come. Between the worse and the better we strive to be the best we can be on your behalf. Trite as it sounds, we’re all here together and for common purpose. We are not your adversaries.

TubaDiva
We like you! We really really like you!

[Go_You_Big_Red_Fire_Engine]

@TubaDiva

The tech staff has had other concerns at the Reader, including the implementation of a new classified ad system. Why the Reader chose to involve the tech staff on a project that would potentially bring in a large amount of income rather than make the Straight Dope what it could be, gee, there’s no figuring priorities around here.

TubaDiva

Thanks for completely missing my point.
I’ll make it a bit clearer. It’s awful funny how the Reader chooses next week (that is, the week that most members’ subscriptions will lapse or renew) to decide they’re going to do a server upgrade. And by funny, I mean transparent. Try harder next time.

[kushiel]

@Fromage A Trois

Forgive my double post, but I forgot to mention that over in the UK I notice the board being slower in the afternoon - i.e. once all you Yanks have got to work and logged on. Which suggests that the major bottleneck is at the SDMB end.

Still, the content makes the wait worthwhile.

I regularly try the board anywhere from 10am-midnight where I live, and I’ve gotten timeouts throughout. I think it is a bit of a combo between peak times, the server and each independent Doper’s connection. My school connection is often craptastic in the mornings, but better in the afternoon, but the entire network is also bad at times, unlike my home connection.

[Uvula_Donor]

@Ed Zotti

Jerry says he’s going to upgrade the server when he gets back from vacation, which I think is sometime next week.

www.chicagoreader.com:
OrgName: Chicago Reader
OrgID: C00556955
Address: 11 E. Illinois St.
City: Chicago
StateProv: IL
PostalCode: 60611
Country: US

NetRange: 65.201.198.0 - 65.201.198.255
CIDR: 24
NetName: UU-65-201-198
NetHandle: NET-65-201-198-0-1
Parent: NET-65-192-0-0-1
NetType: Reassigned
Comment:
RegDate: 2000-04-01
Updated: 2003-05-30

TechHandle: OA12-ARIN
TechName: UUnet Technologies, Inc., Technologies
TechPhone: +1-800-900-0241
TechEmail: help4u@mci.com

OrgAbuseHandle: ABUSE3-ARIN
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OrgNOCHandle: OA12-ARIN
OrgNOCName: UUnet Technologies, Inc., Technologies
OrgNOCPhone: +1-800-900-0241
OrgNOCEmail: help4u@mci.com

OrgTechHandle: SWIPP-ARIN
OrgTechName: swipper
OrgTechPhone: +1-800-900-0241
OrgTechEmail: swipper@mci.com

ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2006-04-23

boards.straightdope.com:
OrgName: Rackspace.com, Ltd.
OrgID: RSPC
Address: 112 E. Pecan St.
Address: Suite 600
City: San Antonio
StateProv: TX
PostalCode: 78205
Country: US

NetRange: 207.97.192.0 - 207.97.255.255
CIDR: 18
NetName: RSPC-NET-4
NetHandle: NET-207-97-192-0-1
Parent: NET-207-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
Comment:
RegDate: 2004-04-28
Updated: 2004-10-04

OrgAbuseHandle: ABUSE45-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: Abuse Desk
OrgAbusePhone: +1-210-892-4000
OrgAbuseEmail: abuse@rackspace.com

OrgTechHandle: IPADM17-ARIN
OrgTechName: IPADMIN
OrgTechPhone: +1-210-892-4000
OrgTechEmail: ipadmin@rackspace.com

OrgTechHandle: ZR9-ARIN
OrgTechName: Rackspace, com
OrgTechPhone: +1-210-892-4000
OrgTechEmail: hostmaster@rackspace.com

ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2006-04-23

Jerry’s going on a road trip to San Antonio?

[SpaceDog]

@TubaDiva

The staff has tremendous respect for our members, it’s that desire to serve that puts them in this position to begin with. We wouldn’t be here if you weren’t and you make the community what it is, that’s important. The work we do here is on your behalf and we do so happily.

I’ve noticed you’ve used the word community there again, and I’ve seen it used a few times lately. Good. That’s how I like to view the board. I think part of the problem is when you sometimes view the board for as a business and less as a community. In this very thread you’ve mixed both views. I think deciding exactly where you draw the line between the two and acting consistently might clarify things, at the moment there seems to be some hedging, maybe to avoid scaring off too many people.

To belabor just a little, the cushion we’ve been able to offer has not always been as big or as comfy as we would like, but it has been the best that we could do with the resources we have to command.

IMHO you consistently ignore the resources available in the community (aside from our $) but, hey, that’s your call.

Over our time here things have been worse than they are now. We look forward for better times to come.

Indeed. But that does seem just a tad “Better in a wee bit”, “Just round this next corner”, or “Just over this next hill”, it doesn’t really seem to be addressing what will happen to make things better, or even really what the peoples problems with the board are.

I know now that people will say “I have no problems with the board”. It always happens people who aren’t re-upping trot out the refrain that “It’s not the same as it used to be”, and the rest respond “Well just leave, we like it and we’re staying”. I can understand that, I can see the attraction of the place, and I can see why people don’t think it’s that bad or don’t seem problems.

I ask all of you who’ve said “It’s OK” to consider if it could be better. Don’t see people pointing out problems, take it as a personal slur and immediately circle the wagons. Look at it as someone saying “Things could always be better”.

Finally, I’m going to remake a suggestion I’ve made before, this time I’m going to plead. Please, please, please let Google index the boards again and encourage people to use Google search rather than the in-built one. I know you’re touting search as a ‘value-add’ feature but I think the extra people driven here via Google results would outweigh the people you lose 'cos they’d only pay to search, and it’d speed up the board.

SD

[SpaceDog]

Oh, since I’m here I’ll respond to this:

@Uvula Donor

Jerry’s going on a road trip to San Antonio?

I take it you’re suggesting that since the boards are hosted via RackSpace in San Antonio that JD would have to go out there ? Of course that’s not true, he could easily just be renting a better (or extra) server and shifting the software remotely. Or just upgrading the software or OS remotely.

No reason at all to be there physically, unless you’re doing some sort of physical work, maintenance, etc. And even then many hosting providers will do that for you (although they’ll charge a small fortune for it).

It all depends on what sort of hosting package the board has, what sort of server is under it and exactly what Jerry is planning to do. Of course they’ll not tell us any of that so it’s all just speculation really.

[Jonathan_Chance]

God’s honest truth that. I’m currently responsible for three seperate sites and I’m not within 1000 miles of the location where any of them are hosted.

[Uvula_Donor]

@SpaceDog

No reason at all to be there physically, unless you’re doing some sort of physical work, maintenance, etc.

Yeah, I know. Kinda makes the “Jerry hasn’t got time to do this” and “Jerry needs to do that” excuses pretty thin, since to upgrade a server all Jerry has to do is pick up a phone, right?

Whatevah. In four days it won’t mean to shit to me either way.

[TubaDiva]

@SpaceDog

IMHO you consistently ignore the resources available in the community (aside from our $) but, hey, that’s your call.

Finally, I’m going to remake a suggestion I’ve made before, this time I’m going to plead. Please, please, please let Google index the boards again and encourage people to use Google search rather than the in-built one. I know you’re touting search as a ‘value-add’ feature but I think the extra people driven here via Google results would outweigh the people you lose 'cos they’d only pay to search, and it’d speed up the board.

SD

Actually, it’s NOT my call.

In the main these are not decisions made by the Straight Dope staff but by others above us. We do not own the board but moderate and administer at the pleasure of the Chicago Reader. You are certainly free to disagree with what we tell you but in many if not most things we are just the messengers and not the vehicle of change.

This is a community of users but ownership and upper management is a corporate entity. Corporate aims and views tend to be different than personal ones and so are choices.

TubaDiva

[Plynck]

@SpaceDog

… Please, please, please let Google index the boards again and encourage people to use Google search rather than the in-built one. I know you’re touting search as a ‘value-add’ feature but I think the extra people driven here via Google results would outweigh the people you lose 'cos they’d only pay to search, and it’d speed up the board.

I’m going to respectfully disagree with this suggestion. I had serious qualms about renewing during that brief window when this was possible. Some people here post with names that are quite close to their real life names, and might prefer to not have their posts searchable. My username doesn’t have anything to do with my real life name, but I do use it on other message boards; things just get messy when worlds collide.

A compromise might be to only have the Cecil’s Column and Staff Reports forums searchable (from an informational point of view), and to leave the community forums as is.

[Ponder_Stibbons]

@TubaDiva

@deevee

Although I changed my mind and re-upped, it gets a little tiresome reading about what a fucking burden we all are. We’re still paying customers so how about a modicum of respect? Good luck working in the fast food industry when the reader does finally pull the plug.

A burden? Not at all. …

Well, it’s nice you don’t see us as a burden, but I don’t think that’s what deevee had in mind. Specifically:

@TubaDiva

In the main these are not decisions made by the Straight Dope staff but by others above us. We do not own the board but moderate and administer at the pleasure of the Chicago Reader.

And there it is in a nutshell. We are constantly reminded how “management” finds us to be a burden. That gets really old, you know?

[Ponder_Stibbons]

Hmm, that’s wierd. The forum page says there are 49 posts and one page in this thread, but I’m looking at Plynck’s post as #50 with a non-operational link to page 2. I hate it when that happens …

[SpaceDog]

@Plynck

I’m going to respectfully disagree with this suggestion. I had serious qualms about renewing during that brief window when this was possible. Some people here post with names that are quite close to their real life names, and might prefer to not have their posts searchable. My username doesn’t have anything to do with my real life name, but I do use it on other message boards; things just get messy when worlds collide.

I never even thought of that angle. On the one hand you have a valid concern, on the other hand I doubt it makes much difference. You’re certainly protected from casual searchers turning up your posts but that’s about all. Anyone after you in particular could turn up stuff fairly easily, and as soon as they find you on the board they just sign up to search, I’m not even sure you need to do that to do a 'posts-by-username search.

You’re also assuming that the powers that be will never make the archives searchable again, since they only did that to make searching a value-add and not for privacy I don’t see why they might not reverse it. Thus everything you’ve ever posted becomes searchable if they flip the don’t index instruction (either by choice, or by accident, or done malicously by someone).

Lastly everything you’ve posted is still there for anyone to see, just because the board asks not to be searched doesn’t mean every search engine respects that request. And people can take stuff, post it, distribute links, lots of ways for things to get off the board.

I’m not trying to scaremonger here but if you’re posting stuff that you wouldn’t post if the board was searchable by google then you might want to go back and rethink things. Way back when I was introduced to the internet (young and much less whizz-bang back in the day) someone said “don’t post or e-mail anything you’d not print out and pin on the noticeboard”. That’s good advice regardless of how secure the board/recipant is supposed to be.

Bottom line, unless someone points me to a mod/admin post stating otherwise, anyone that signed up / posts to this board on the basis that the posts are and always will be non-searchable is deluded.

A compromise might be to only have the Cecil’s Column and Staff Reports forums searchable (from an informational point of view), and to leave the community forums as is.

True, but part of my goal was to offload the search burden onto someone else, which really means at least GQ and GD as well (and really probably everything, or everything bar the pit and ATMB).

Moving backwards up the thread …

@TubaDiva

You are certainly free to disagree with what we tell you but in many if not most things we are just the messengers and not the vehicle of change.

Perhaps my use of ‘you’ in the posts above was wrong, but short of digging out contact details for people at the Reader I have no really way of addressing them. Fair enough it’s their call, I hope my suggestion (and Plynck’s response) will be passed on at somepoint.

This is a community of users but ownership and upper management is a corporate entity. Corporate aims and views tend to be different than personal ones and so are choices.

What are the corporate aims for the board? I mean, what’re we signing up for? I don’t really begrudge the money to hang around, and I’m rarely on at slow times, but what happens if we lose half the board paid membership in the next week? No new server then I guess?

SD

[samclem]

@Uvula Donor

Yeah, I know. Kinda makes the “Jerry hasn’t got time to do this” and “Jerry needs to do that” excuses pretty thin, since to upgrade a server all Jerry has to do is pick up a phone, right?

Whatevah. In four days it won’t mean to shit to me either way.

You would have to ask the Reader management that question. Jerry gets paid for keeping the Chicago Reader hopping. When and IF he has time, he works on this board. This board is but a pimple on the Reader’s ass.

Thought I would post this right away since you might not see it next week.

[rayh]

Did we ever get an answer to the question?

At what speed does the board fuck?