Hamsters sick again?

About This Message Board
21

I do not think there’s a new server in our future unless Santa delivers one under the tree.

(I’d be plenty tickled if that happens; hell, I’d sing two choruses of “Santa Baby” for that. And you’re all invited.)

We are looking at the settings for what we can do on this side of the situation to improve performance. I make no promises that adjustments will give great performance, but anything is worth a shot at this juncture.

And we are investigating to see if other options that may be available to us, including more discussion with the company where the server lives. No promises there either, but we are actively looking for solutions.

In stressful times like this it’s just as hard on the staff as it is on our users, maybe even more so, as we find ourselves doing things like getting up in the middle of the night to do maintenance that we would normally do when the whole wide world is not fast asleep. I’m very much aware that the server is stressed and at peak times access is difficult to come by; nobody knows it better than us and we’re as frustrated as you are.

Probably the biggest thing we could do to relieve pressure on the system would be to find a good way to offload our Straight Dope archives. I am looking at alternatives to place all but about a year’s worth of our material in a read-only format that would be accessible to the site but not part of the working database. Things really would pick up and move and that’s doubtless where our true salvation lies. (We could get the same effect if we just deleted several years worth of history, but nobody wants to do that.)

To sum up, we’re not ignoring the problem and we’re working under the burden as best as we can. We’re looking for fixes, both short and long-term. It’s particularly bad lately. We apologize for that. We’re looking for ways to make it better.

TubaDiva
Been an awfully good girl.

22

For what it’s worth, I concur. In fact, it seems to have gotten even worse in the last few days. As a fairly new subscriber and a longtime lurker, I wonder if I would have gotten more bang for my buck if I’d subscribed in 2004 when the server was a little more reliable.

That being said, I’d be willing to pay more for a subscription if it meant the Reader could beef up their server. And I’m sure that more lurkers would be willing to subscribe if they got wind that some changes were afoot. Who knows how many people out there sign up for a guest account, get horribly frustrated with the “waiting for server” messages, and never drop the 14 bucks they otherwise would have spent?

There are some incredibly knowledgeable people on this board, and in this thread, and I hope the administrators will show some humility and frugality and take advantage of the free consulting that’s being offered.

23

Thanks for answering that, it’s good to know what the situation is.

I’m still interesting in knowing the stats of the current server/traffic/etc, I’m assuming that you can’t or don’t want to post them for some reason.

Sorry to ask about stats again but any idea of the size of the archives (pages/threads/Mb/anything) and what sort of usage they get ?

I keep looking for figures partly out of professional curiosity and partly because I think publishing them could go along to showing people just how much traffic the board gets. In addition to all of that you have a lot of intelligent people in this community who have relevant experience who might be able to help in one way or another.

Anyway good luck with trying to improve the situation. I’m sure myself, and many others, will help in any way they can.

SD

24

I’d like to hear you sing ‘Santa baby’, TubaDiva.
Or better yet: Hear you playing it on your tuba.

  • ::keeping fingers crossed::*
25

Hey, I’m doing a TubaChristmas performance Friday the 9th. We’re not doing “Santa, Baby,” but we’ll be hitting most of the other songs of the season.

TubaDiva

26

Or better yet, Pachelbel’s “Canon in Diva”! :slight_smile:

27

hehehe, BrainGlutton :slight_smile:

TubaDiva, how cool! Congrats and break a leg! :cool:

28

I hope your performance went/goes well, TubaDiva.

I’m sorry to sound like a broken record but I’d still really like to know some of the numbers I’ve asked for in this thread. Or tell me that I’ll get them next week. Or tell me that I’ll never get 'em because of something-or-other.

I know you’re busy but I can’t help getting the feeling I’m being somewhat ignored in this thread.

SD

29

Cricket’s Chirping Again?

30

I’d like to see these answers too. Lately, I’ve been thankful for tabbed browsing, because I can click on a link on the SDMB and then go to a different tab and read something else while waiting for the SDMB link to load. This is especially odd, considering the fact that I’m in Japan, and usually read the board during what in the States would be the dead of night/wee hours of the morning.

31

Is anyone ever going to answer SpaceDog’s questions, or what? I’m interested in hearing the answers too.

32

Ha.

I’m going to bump this thread one last time since my last post was just before the weekend and maybe it slipped through the net.

To reiterate:

SD

33

This is starting to become annoying/ludicrous. Could someone, anyone, please stop by this thread and either explain 1) the answers to SpaceDog’s questions, 2) why you will not be answering his questions, if that is the case, or 3) that you are trying to figure out the answers and will get back to us as soon as you find anything out?

34

It can’t be choice 3. One week ago, it was reported, “we have more visitors these days, we’re really popular right now”. Hence, the SDMB traffic stats are known. Whether or not the data’s made public is the only issue I see.

Based on my personal experiences @ my job, until the day comes that we see those ‘archives offloaded’, don’t expect to see any major spikes in performance. The band-aid approach would be to back-up those 1999-2004 archives, squash them, and restore them on another server after the next subscription drive.

35

No, you’re not.
There is no “somewhat” about it.

36

Maybe, maybe not. I think we’ll go over here to find out.

Thanks to furt, JohnBckWLD, MsWhatsit, and RobuSensei for adding their voices to this thread (and showing that at least some people could see my posts).

SD

37

Answer to questions about server specs, utilization, pageviews, subscription revenue, ad revenue, expenses, database size, membership, etc., are not going to be forthcoming. The expectation that I’m going to open in essence our books because there are questions is a nice notion but I’ve not seen it practiced that much in my life. Maybe I’m out of line here by not answering what is being asked. I don’t know.

I do know nothing much is going to change about the SDMB for at least the next 3 months. Maybe sometime in the spring. Maybe after I get to take a bit of a vacation. I’d like to do that…at some point. Right now I am working on another project. There is nothing I can do about it. It’s vital to the very nature of the company I work for. This other project makes over 200 times the yearly revenue of the SDMB. Which do you think I should work on? I know what my bosses want me to focus on and I’m focusing on it.

Sorry,

Jerry

38

Cool. So we are being strung along with maybes again till just around the time we are meant to pay up once more for a service that isn’t very good.

For two years(well actually since I’ve joined this has being going on but it’s only two years that we’ve actually had to pay to be ignored and pawned off with false hopes and maybes) now all we’ve got is maybes, excuses, and statements about how this place isn’t important to the management of the Reader.

It’s getting very old.

39

Not at all. It’s your business whether you want to share that information or not. It’s an odd thing to be silent about, but I’m sure you have your reasons.

And thank you for adding this, which was necessary to maintain the tone that the administration here has developed for itself.

40

Thanks for the candid answer. I really appreciate it and I’m sure others on the boards do too.

I don’t know if you’re out of line either, it’s a tough call. I figured the traffic stats might not be too sensitive and could go someway to showing some people just how hammered we are. You may disagree and ultimately it’s your call. What you said seems final so I’m not going to attempt to enter into a discussion about it, but if you wish to do so I’d be happy to give and explain my differing view (by e-mail if you prefer).

Jerry, I’ve never thought that you should drop what you’re doing and jump whenever the SDMB sneezes. And I’m sorry if we’ve somehow given you the feeling we’re ungrateful for what you’ve done and do for the SDMB, I think I can sense some tension from you and I understand, really, I’ve been there.

I realise the we’re by far not the Readers first priority and never will be, but we are still here and we did pay for the privilege to be here and post to these boards. I know nothing was promised to us at the time but I’m sure you can understand some of the frustration that the members feel here.

I view this board as a community, one of the reasons I thought I might see some answers to my questions. Communities have become quite powerful and useful things on the internet. I’m not always sure the admins do share this view.

I know this is going to get shot down but I can’t not suggest it given my viewpoint. There are people on this board who have offered their services and expertise, often for free, for the good of the board. If you’ve got plans for the SDMB maybe you could get some of the qualified and provable reliable people who’ve offered in the past to help, something like offloading the archives. I get a sense of ‘fighting against’ from the admins here, and maybe it should be more ‘working with’.

In any case, all I can ask is you keep us informed and share as much as you feel you are able to share.

I think we all want to see the SDMB prosper going forward and I worry that the some of the complaints and server problems are going to effect the subscription rate in the next drive. I guess we’ll see how things go.

Anyway, thanks again for answering, at least I know I’m not invisible.

SD