Do we have a significant spike in viewership today? The board’s been timing out on me a bit this morning and with it being election day, I assume it’s due to higher traffic.
Well, right now we’re running at just over 700 people online (members and guests). Our record was over 1600.
When was that?
And what’s the average?
The record was set on 01-07-2003 at 12:35 PM (and I don’t know what, if anything, was so special about that date and time). I’m afraid I don’t know what the average is. All I can say is that at the moment we’re still pretty far from setting any records.
That was the day our “Lord of the Rings” thread was featured on slashdot.
Damn near shut down the board; at the height of it, slashdot had set up 2 mirror sites to handle the overload and we were STILL slammed.
It’s nice to have positive attention, but that week was proof there is too much of a good thing.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Just speaking generally, and there are of course, peaks and valleys and variance due to subject matter and interest, but we seem to average somewhere around 500-700 posters and guests online at the same time from about 8:00 a.m. to about 10:00 p.m. From 10:00 p.m. or so to 8:00 a.m., it’s more like 300-500. All times quoted courtesy of the eastern time cabal.
I haven’t really looked at the numbers since we changed servers and no longer have that backup time when the board is unavailable, so that may have changed. Next time I’m pulling late duty, I’ll try to look at some numbers, see what we have happening.
Those numbers have stayed pretty constant through everything we’ve been through, including the subscription process; there’s been no real drop off that I can see. Those who predicted that subscriptions would kill this board were dead wrong. We still have our periods where demand outstrips supply, unfortunately, but there seems to have been less of that since the move to the new server. Complaints have been relatively few after our initial transition.
BTW, as of right this second (2:10 PM Eastern Time, Tuesday, November 2), we have 4,217 subscribed members. So there.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Right now reporting:
Server Load Averages: 5.99 7.73 7.95 | 806 Users Online (500 members and 306 guests)
So, yes, it is well above the average today. Usually it’s around 300 members and 100 guests or so.
I’d noticed the same thing. I knew that if I had been away from the boards, I know I’d come back for election day.
(As it is, I’m on the boards pretty much all day, every day, so today I have two windows open. 
)