# How many paying subscribers does this board currently have? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [August 22, 2005, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167 "2005-08-22T20:36:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167/101 "2005-08-27T14:16:01Z")
> [@Una Persson](#): > > You quoted Sam so I’m not sure who you’re talking to. Assuming it’s me, my numbers are lifetime, over 4 years. However, I also noted in my second post in here several other sources of error when making comparisons between my place and the SDMB. Sorry for quoting Sam instead of you. ☹ From what I have seen from stats of various boards, likely the SDMB averages over 10 reads per post. The reason being most of the SDMB is information type posts that people would want to search the archives for. On a boards that is mostly MPSIMS or BBQ Pit type posts, people have little interest in reading 4 year old mindless or flame threads. However, with say GQ, **that** is a forum worth searching the archives for. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167/102 "2005-08-27T16:12:23Z")
> [@C K Dexter Haven](#): > > Interestingly enough, I was at a restaurant just the other day; it’s a place I like very much, a very amiable crowd. They’ve been in business for many years. The owner came by and asked how everything was, and I said it was fine, but that I thought he would do better by setting up the bar as a separate profit center, by offering t-shirts for sale with his logo on it, and by charging more for drinks and less for steak. Also, of course, if he would print the “specials of the day” on plastic cards, full of witty sayings, then he could sell those too. > > He smiled blankly at me and then moved on to the next table. Interestingly enough, I was at the local IKEA store the other day; it’s a place I like very much, having good furniture at very affordable prices. Right at the exit they have alarge sign soliciting suggestions from the customers: “Help us become better! Do you have any suggestions, complaints or other thoughts you want to share with us?” One would assume that the management appreciate people that actually fill out the form and provide some kind of feedback, realizing that maybe they’ve missed something, or that some stuff could be made better - or even the odd note with just praise for how good things are. Most people don’t bother filling out these forms, but I’m sure that when someone do, they just don’t throw it away and move on to the next item on the agenda, while smiling blankly. Maybe this kind of customer feedback will make itself across the Atlantic eventually. And maybe it will even reach the Reader and the SDMB. Oh wait, it seems it did: > [@forum description](#): > > For technical questions and **concerns** about the SDMB. (my bolding) Did you get the memo **Dex**? Or were you too busy writing up a not so witty, but snarky reply? ---
**Author:** ![JimOfAllTrades](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@JimOfAllTrades](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimOfAllTrades)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167/103 "2005-08-27T16:20:05Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > From what I have seen from stats of various boards, likely the SDMB averages over 10 reads per post. If by “over” you mean easily double that, and almost certainly higher, then you’re in the ballpark. Some information on the posts/reads ration is easily available. Taking the first page of each forum as it appeared in my browser in the last few minutes, I just cut & pasted the posts and views for each thread into a spreadsheet. The result is the following: ```auto Forum Posts Views Ratio ATMB 299 5878 19.65886 CCC 134 5290 39.47761 CSR 62 3241 52.27419 GQ 715 21728 30.38881 GD 2614 61403 23.49005 CS 3995 42764 10.70438 IMHO 1454 30143 20.73109 MPSIMS 1834 35028 19.09924 BP 2849 104795 36.78308 Average 13956 310270 22.23201 ``` So taking posts only\*\*, we see ratios of as low as 10 to 1, and as high as 52 to 1, with an overall average of 22 to 1. This says nothing about searches of course, which can read dozens, hundreds, or thousands of posts at a time, and assumes that the ratios wouldn’t change dramatically over time. IMHO, adding searches would easily bump that ratio to 50 or 100 to 1 (as **Una** has already pointed out). \*\* These numbers do not include the “sticky” posts (which have much higher ratios for the most part) because they are relatively few, and since they collect posts and views over a longer period of time, I didn’t think they were strictly on point for average bandwidth usage or server resource utilization. ---
**Author:** ![JimOfAllTrades](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@JimOfAllTrades](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimOfAllTrades)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167/104 "2005-08-27T16:44:24Z")
> [@The Gaspode](#): > > Interestingly enough, I was at the local IKEA store the other day; it’s a place I like very much, having good furniture at very affordable prices. Right at the exit they have alarge sign soliciting suggestions from the customers: “Help us become better! Do you have any suggestions, complaints or other thoughts you want to share with us?” > One would assume that the management appreciate people that actually fill out the form and provide some kind of feedback… Found in the IKEA suggestion box: Nice store, although the windows could be bigger. And why not get more bamboo furniture? We like bamboo. And even though I’ve never been out on your loading dock, I’m pretty sure you have no idea how to run one. Based on the way the furniture is scattered around the showroom, I think you should definitely get bigger trucks. In fact, I can show you how to get bigger trucks for only $200 per month. And the cash register? Forget it! Obviously proof that your corporate IT people have no idea how to do these things. I don’t have a cash register mind you, but I’ve seen the one in McDonalds, and you should be using those. I can even show you how to make those little pictures for the keys. The one for that little bookshelf on page 59 of your catalog is cute as can be. And by the way, when I was telling you staff about some of my suggestions, they looked at me funny and just walked away. Could you fire them please? Yours truly, A concerned customer ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167/105 "2005-08-27T21:25:19Z")
Possible response to concerned costumer 1: “We value your business and your suggestions. We’re going to look into the things you suggested and will take your views into considerations in our future plans. Please feel free to contact us again should another matter arise.” Possible response to concerned consumer 2: “You’re ignorant and unwilling to accept reality. We will certainly disregard anything you say, because we know how to handle things better than you do.” Which would be a better way to handle suggestions and questions, **RJKUgly**? Option 1 or 2? Mind you, the end result and lack of action might be the same, I’m just wondering if you really think that option 2 is the better way to deal with someone if a complaint, suggestion or question should arise? ---
**Author:** ![Alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/57b2e6/32.png) [@Alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alien)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167/106 "2005-08-27T22:00:44Z")
Interestingly, according to the Chicago Reader, the combined websites of [chicagoreader.com](http://chicagoreader.com) and [straighdope.com](http://straighdope.com) had over 100 million page views in 2003. I assume the subdomain [boards.straightdope.com](http://boards.straightdope.com) is included in these figures. [http://www.chicagoreader.com/readerinc/pdfs/RetailRates.pdf](http://www.chicagoreader.com/readerinc/pdfs/RetailRates.pdf) Note that _page views_ is usually counted as _one view per user per day._. Multiple views (refresh) are not counted. According to the usage graph at Alexa, [straightdope.com](http://straightdope.com) had, in late 2003, about three times the traffic of [chicagoreader.com](http://chicagoreader.com). So out of these 100 million page views, [straightdope.com](http://straightdope.com) may have generated roughly 75 million recorded page views. That’s more than 6 million page views/month. [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic\_details?&range=2y&size=medium&compare\_sites=chicagoreader.com%20&y=p&url=boards.straightdope.com#top](http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&range=2y&size=medium&compare_sites=chicagoreader.com%20&y=p&url=boards.straightdope.com#top) Note that the traffic for 2005 is almost twice that of late 2003. We can also see that usage went down in 2004 (the board switched to pay in April 2004), but usage went up again in late 2004 (the server move was in September 2004). Earlier in 2005 the board peaked at more than twice of that of late 2003. So about 12-13 million page views per month could be a fair estimate of what the server needs to be able to handle (again not including refreshing). If each page is 50kB that’s… that’s (counting on fingers) … 600 GB of bandwidth per month? If each page is 100KB it’s 1.2 terabyte. On the other hand, if anybody bothers that person can also send an email to [onlineadvertising@chicagoreader.com](mailto:onlineadvertising@chicagoreader.com) posing as a webmaster and ask for the real stats … ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167/107 "2005-08-27T22:21:51Z")
> [@C K Dexter Haven](#): > > He smiled blankly at me and then moved on to the next table. Much the same way as some of our pertinent questions get treated by the board admin, I suppose? ---
**Author:** ![Alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/57b2e6/32.png) [@Alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alien)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167/108 "2005-08-27T22:24:27Z")
> [@ZebraShaSha](#): > > I only have one question, as an amatuer historian/statician, that is only slightly related. My apology will occur now, so as to not muddle my post later: Desole for the query. > > Anyway, is there anyway one could find out the average cost per costumer? From the beginning of this thread, I basically realize there is no way for this to happen (for us to see atleast), but felt like I should ask in this manner anyway. For no reason, I have a burning desire to track the Charter Member to Member status overtime. > [@GorillaMan](#): > > ----\> BTW, exactly what are the specs of the box this board is running on?\* > > This question has been asked MANY MANY times, and never to my knowledge has any response been given. General information about the SDMB is available from bits and pieces dropped by the powers over the years: 1. When board changed to subscription in April last year, 3.800 signed up at $5/year. That’s $18.000. More signed up later of course. (04/2004) - [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=251122](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=251122) 2. The highest number of users online simultaneously by 2003 was 1.626. In the same thread it’s stated that the member versus guest ratio is 2:1 (07/2003) - [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=199456](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=199456) 3. In 2001 the index file was 825 MB, which tells us something about the minimum amount of RAM the server should have. If someone knows where to get the postcount as of 2001, we can compare it to todays postcount and calculate how much RAM the server should have today. The Wayback Machine haven’t stored any SDMB pages, unfortunately. (07/2001) - [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=77679](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=77679) 4. According to Netcraft the server is currently running Apache/1.3.31 (Unix) PHP/4.3.11 mod\_gzip/1.3.26.1a on FreeBSD. [What's that site running? | Netcraft](http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?mode_u=off&mode_w=on&site=boards.straightdope.com&submit=Examine) As for the hardware specs, I thought of playing around with some tools but I chickened out … 😉 5. And finally, a little bit of info about running SDMB before the server move, by IT-man **Jerry** : > [@](#): > > As I was leaving work on Monday afternoon at 5:15 I restarted the server just like I have hundreds of times in the past when it looks like things have gotten a little out of whack. This time however the database didn’t shutdown correctly and one of the major tables got corrupted. The end result was thread replies weren’t getting updated in the forum listings as well as a few other things. I noticed this about 9:00 PM in the evening and mucked around a bit to try to fix it from home. No go. > > Come Tuesday morning I started to try to fix the problem by just repairing the specific database corruption. After running a database corruption fixing program for over 6 hours with NO IDEA how much longer it might take or whether or not that approach would even be successful I decided to pull the plug. So for the next 49 hours we were restoring the most recent valid backup of 3.8 GBs worth of data. Took forever. Did I know it was going to take forever? No, mercifully my senility is kicking in more and more and I tend to forget how long it takes to do a complete restore of this board. > 09/2002 - [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=135723](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=135723) > > I can put in ever more powerful servers and upgrade the bandwidth for the rest of my life and usage would still increase to the point of sucky performance. Every time I’ve done this (3 times now) it’s only been a matter of a few months before we’re maxxed out once again. The basic problem is that the SDMB is free and therefore there is no reason for people not to continuously overutilize it until the point that performance will once again at times suck. When performance starts to suck people stop using it and we reach an uneasy equilibrium point of just how much time people are willing to waste in order to get something for free. > (03/2003) - [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=168536](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=168536) ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167/109 "2005-08-27T22:32:03Z")
Here’s another easy fix constructive criticism: That banner at the top that says “The Straight Dope” should link to oh, I don’t know, maybe “The Straight Dope”. If you want people other than the staff to think of this as a cohesive site it should have more obvious connections. ---
**Author:** ![Alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/57b2e6/32.png) [@Alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alien)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167/110 "2005-08-27T22:33:45Z")
> [@Alien](#): > > 1. In 2001 the index file was 825 MB, which tells us something about the minimum amount of RAM the server should have. If someone knows where to get the postcount as of 2001, we can compare it to todays postcount and calculate how much RAM the server should have today. The Wayback Machine haven’t stored any SDMB pages, unfortunately. > (07/2001) - [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=77679](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=77679) Answering my own question, the 2001 index file of 825MB had 1.34 million posts. Today we have 6.4 million posts, about 5 times that. I don’t know enough about databases to say that simply multiplying will return an accurate estimate. But anyway, so far we can estimate bandwidth, RAM and storage. We only need the CPUs. **rfgdxm** , I guess you can go shopping … ---
**Author:** ![JimOfAllTrades](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@JimOfAllTrades](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimOfAllTrades)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2005, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167/111 "2005-08-28T00:19:52Z")
> [@The Gaspode](#): > > Which would be a better way to handle suggestions and questions, **RJKUgly**? Option 1 or 2? > Mind you, the end result and lack of action might be the same, I’m just wondering if you really think that option 2 is the better way to deal with someone if a complaint, suggestion or question should arise? My little attempt at humor (probably poor attempt, I’m a techy guy, definitely not a comedian) was supposed make the point that it’s possible for someone to be rude and assholish even if that someone is being “polite” on the surface. To answer your question, I’m fortunate in that I have a fairly small group of customers and I have good relationships with them. So my reaction to any customer suggestion is not to just say I’m going to give it serious consideration, but to actually give it that consideration. However, not all businesses are so lucky. Many have deal with any idiot that can afford the price (as an old boss of mine used to say). For the most part, they still do the same thing: give a polite brush off no matter how dumb the suggestion or unfounded the speculation. But the customer who continually pushes the “customer is always right” button as an excuse to spout off shouldn’t be surprised if they sometimes get the real answer they deserve. I’ve done it under the proper circumstances, and I’d do it again. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2005, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167/112 "2005-08-28T01:16:57Z")
> [@Alien](#): > > Answering my own question, the 2001 index file of 825MB had 1.34 million posts. Today we have 6.4 million posts, about 5 times that. I don’t know enough about databases to say that simply multiplying will return an accurate estimate. > > But anyway, so far we can estimate bandwidth, RAM and storage. We only need the CPUs. **rfgdxm** , I guess you can go shopping … So, maybe it should cost more like…$250/month, maybe even $300. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2005, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167/113 "2005-08-28T01:46:46Z")
> [@Alien](#): > > 1. The highest number of users online simultaneously by 2003 was 1.626. In the same thread it’s stated that the member versus guest ratio is 2:1 > (07/2003) - [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=199456](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=199456) To throw some, yknow, actual hard numbers into the debate re: costs, [this board](http://forums.overclockers.com.au/) seems to be roughly in the same size range compared to the SDMB and is also running vBulletin3. Peak users for them was 800 or so and typical is about half that. From as much as the admin will leak out, it seems that this board at the current stage is just slightly more active than early 2004 so peak of 1800 and typical of 600 or so would be reasonable. Now, in Nov 2004, the aforementioned board built themselves a new server and the process was detailed [here](http://www.overclockers.com.au/article.php?id=323982). Rough server specs include 2xAthlonMP2800+, server class MB, 1.5GB of RAM, fast SCSI hard drives and hardware SCSI RAID etc. They got their hardware for free so there was no final cost but all of this stuff is very high end. Assuming that the SDMB is twice as busy, costs don’t increase linearly at that level. At this size level, your straining the capacity of what a single machine can do. Virtually everything you buy has to be be bleeding edge top of the line just to get acceptable performance. Note that this is far and away from the 486 comments made earlier. The OCAU board is a board by computer enthusiasts, for computer enthusiasts. Several of their members are very experienced systems and network admins who helped extensively in drawing up the design and implementation of their new server. The sponsers who provided their hardware also sell to several enterprise level buyers and know what is neccesary to build sites similar to theirs. All in all, this represents a very competently designed server servicing a very similar need to the SDMB. It’s clear that, contrary to the uneducated opinions espoused by people who have never actually built a message board, such sites are incredibly resource intensive and require very high end hardware to run which costs in the order of 10’s of thousands of dollars. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2005, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167/114 "2005-08-28T03:30:16Z")
> [@Alien](#): > > 1. And finally, a little bit of info about running SDMB before the server move, by IT-man **Jerry** : > [@](#): > > I can put in ever more powerful servers and upgrade the bandwidth for the rest of my life and usage would still increase to the point of sucky performance. Every time I’ve done this (3 times now) it’s only been a matter of a few months before we’re maxxed out once again. The basic problem is that the SDMB is free and therefore there is no reason for people not to continuously overutilize it until the point that performance will once again at times suck. When performance starts to suck people stop using it and we reach an uneasy equilibrium point of just how much time people are willing to waste in order to get something for free. > (03/2003) - [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb...ad.php?t=168536](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb...ad.php?t=168536) This is no longer a concern. What Jerry wrote makes sense when a board is free. Since it costs nothing to use, anyone on the Net can use it. There are a **lot** of people on the Net. However, once you start charging this will discourage most of them. They won’t want to pay $15 a year to make a couple posts a month. And now that we charge, no worry if lots of people decide to pay up. If 1000 new people sign up, just use that $15,000 to rent a bigger server. The only problem would be if the SDMB is charging too little to cover costs. If 1000 new people raised costs by $20,000 a year, things go in the red. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2005, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167/115 "2005-08-28T03:34:48Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Here’s another easy fix constructive criticism: > That banner at the top that says “The Straight Dope” should link to oh, I don’t know, maybe “The Straight Dope”. If you want people other than the staff to think of this as a cohesive site it should have more obvious connections. To say the least. I always thought the static site was an independent financial entity. In fact I see no sense that it isn’t. Why should **I** and all other paying subscribers have to subsidized users of the free to the world static site? The static site is easily able to pay for itself. That it doesn’t is due to the fact the Reader is clueless about monetizing a web site. Just put banner ads on all of the pages of Cecil’s columns. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2005, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167/116 "2005-08-28T03:37:17Z")
> [@Alien](#): > > Answering my own question, the 2001 index file of 825MB had 1.34 million posts. Today we have 6.4 million posts, about 5 times that. I don’t know enough about databases to say that simply multiplying will return an accurate estimate. > > But anyway, so far we can estimate bandwidth, RAM and storage. We only need the CPUs. **rfgdxm** , I guess you can go shopping … Rather than estimate, why doesn’t the Reader just give the actual figures? They know the exact specs of the server this site is on. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2005, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167/117 "2005-08-28T05:44:08Z")
Three things tech-wise: 1. I posted my stats on the database makeup for vBulletin 2.0 in this forum, with all the byte sizes of all the tables, at “X” number of posts. Oddly I cannot find it by searching, but I did list things so people could see the comparative sizes of the “posts” table, the “threads” table, etc. 2. My observation over about 280,000 some posts now is that growth of the “posts”, “thread”, and “search” tables is fairly linear. 2.5) I don’t think the Index file is what you’re interested in exactly, and IIRC, Jerry posted later on that the 800 or so MB size reading was erroneous, although I cannot remember in which way … 1. CPU usage is a strange one, and very function dependent. Jenny’s told me in the past that the SDMB CPU is maxxed out at times, although she did not say how many were online then. My experience is that on my server, I never go above 5% _typical_ CPU usage (P4-2.8GHz, 1GB RAM, 2x120GB SATA RAID1 drives), even with 50+ users online. Typically, even under that loading, my CPU usage (via Task Manager) is 2%. If I do an IP search, however, it jumps to 50% (not 100%; thank you, Hyperthreading). So a basic Admin function takes away half of the Board’s power. Two Admins doing IP sweeps at the same time spike the CPU to about 90%. Three or more people doing “Search” at the same time will spike it briefly to 10-25% on a busy day. Now, since the SDMB has typically 10-100 times the number of people using it as my place, you can scale things a bit. IIRC, my server was at one time more powerful than the SDMB’s in terms of CPU; I don’t know the situation now. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2005, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167/118 "2005-08-28T07:43:21Z")
> [@RJKUgly](#): > > But the customer who continually pushes the “customer is always right” button as an excuse to spout off shouldn’t be surprised if they sometimes get the real answer they deserve. I’ve done it under the proper circumstances, and I’d do it again. I know that. It’s just that when the members (as I see it) are showing concern or offering advice, I think some admins need to be a bit more graceful about it. It’s not as if someone’s being pitted. I read most of the posts as people trying to help. Sure, they don’t know the whole picture, so some advice might be really stupid. To tell the poster that they are being stupid for trying to help seems… what’s the word I’m looking for … jerkish. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2005, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167/119 "2005-08-28T16:26:45Z")
> [@The Gaspode](#): > > I know that. > It’s just that when the members (as I see it) are showing concern or offering advice, I think some admins need to be a bit more graceful about it. It’s not as if someone’s being pitted. On that point, I’d like to know how I took a “slap” at anyone in this thread as stated by miss humble: > [@](#): > > **TubaDiva:** > You misstate the situation and slap at us along with it, which is not appreciated. I’ll be glad to give you the benefit of the doubt if you stop acting like an asshole. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2005, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167/120 "2005-08-28T17:26:57Z")
And that’s why I said that TD is treating this as her baby. Most mothers (and fathers) will lash out if anyone critisizes their child. Members have been warned for less, but I guess some are more equal than others. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-paying-subscribers-does-this-board-currently-have/318167.md?page=7)