I cant see....I cant see......

[KatDiesel]

The "show sig" default should be unchecked. That way its required to check it when you post... ... "my opinion" is should jsut post it once per thread, but in my laziness sometimes I just hit submit... and its added onto it. Speaking of that I think I will go change that setting in my profile.



Heres the annoucement I was talking about. Might shed some light on the issues at hand.

 

[Mark_Kendrick]

Patriot,

Turning off the avitars has reduced the server and banwidth requirements similarto. . adding a DB server box AND adding a T1 to their telco connection.



The increase in performance and reliabilty IS worth the tradeoff.



These are not simple issues to decide or implement. Give Admin a little credit where its due.

 

[Bud Fox]

I am NOT a computer genius by any means but maybe you should change to a better server. I have been on many forums likethis one and they have alot more avatars, sponsors etc. loaded on then this site does. Again, I am not an expert just giving an opinion.

 

[Joe G.]

Bud,



The problem is the amount of traffic this site has. Other popular forum sites just don't have the traffic thus they have less problems. Everyone should read the announcement at the top of the topic page to see what's going on and why the site slaves are doing what they are doing.

 

[Shovelhead]

I understand the Website Admin. folks are between a rock and a hard place. Speed vs Toys. :-{}

The site IS running better, but it sure LOOKS plain.



Oh, well... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ..... It's just another day in paradise... ... ...

 

[jthorpe]

Originally posted by Joe G.

Bud,



The problem is the amount of traffic this site has. Other popular forum sites just don't have the traffic thus they have less problems. Everyone should read the announcement at the top of the topic page to see what's going on and why the site slaves are doing what they are doing.

Joe,



The Corvette forum he's talking about has over 31,000 registered users. When I last checked, there were 566 active users currently on the site. I can guarantee you that they do more bandwidth then TDR and many of the other sites combined. 2. 5mbps isn't REALLY that much when you compare it to some of the sites our customers have. I have seen a relatively cheap web server push 3-4mbps with no significant speed reduction, even ones that have forums running mysql and php.



Jack

 

[admin2]

Server.

Originally posted by Bud Fox

I am NOT a computer genius by any means but maybe you should change to a better server.

We have been saying for a while that we are doing just that but it will take time to investigate the correct path to take.

 

[Joe G.]

Jack,



The point I was trying to make is to stay out the admin people's hair until this problem is resolved. The growth of this site has surprised everyone. When I first signed on there were only about 200 of us. Mostly talking to ourselves. Of course, there are larger sites but I suspect that there are few of them that have grown as fast as this one has. When they have caught their breath then I can go back to griping about the search engine.



Joe

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

We had already looked at the Corvette forum and their provider. Given our usage level IF we assumed that only 1/2 the traffic was from the forums (it's a LOT closer to 3/4's of the traffic if not more) the TDR would be looking at these costs (as of today):



$199 base fee

$197 for extra messages ($1/1000 over 50,000 messages) - which would increase weekly

$2000 for bandwidth ($10/GB) - which would increase daily

--------

$2400/month ($3400 if using the more realistic 3/4's of traffic coming from the forums)



That would just host the forums, not the rest of the website. Take a look here - http://www.zeroforum.com/ - that's who host's their forums and look at the hardware their using to support it! Also, looking at their forums their current user list is based on those who are on in the previous 2 hours, whereas on here it is set to those who are on in the last ten minutes. They had 84 online in the last ten minutes, we had 110. In addition they have no options for comparing the user database to the TDR subscriber database and removing people no longer subscribed, etc. We are working hard on finding a permanent solution and everything we're looking at is far beyond the level of what's been proposed here. Please read my message in the announcement at the top of all of the forums and you'll have a much better idea of what's going on. Thanks for your patience.



-Steve St. Laurent

Lead Moderator

 

[Mark_Kendrick]

Steve,

Too bad you guys don't have an endless supply of money. JUST go BUY 6 or 8 Suns and a couple of redundant fibre feeds. then the tape drives and UPSs. While you're at it redundant routers would be nice and hire a CNE and DBA to keep it tuned. A terabyte or so online witha dedicated GB of bandwidth and some room for growth of course is ALL that's needed



To cover the cost just up the subscription price to about $390/yr.



I understand the complications. . just keep up the good work.

 

[RottnDogue]

Originally posted by KatDiesel

The "show sig" default should be unchecked. That way its required to check it when you post... ... "my opinion

Eric I agree with you, alot of times I don't remeber to uncheck it until I hit submit..... Should be unchecked by default... Maybe admin can add that to the list of many many things they are already doing... JM. 02



Darren

 

[DarrellB]

Bomb it, Bomb it, Bomb it, Just Bomb it



Big D

 

[Chasman]

avatars? what avatars?

Avatars? I turned off the avatars in my preferences when they where first introduced in order to speed up down loading threads into my computer. If it wasn’t for the ruckus I wouldn’t have known they where gone.



Charlie

 

[illflem]

Charlie, I'm with you. I saw the avatars for about five minutes before I said enough and disabled them. Same goes for including my sig on every post, I only use it when it matters and have the sigs in posts disabled also. Like I really care what color some guy's tire air valve caps are.

 

[RottnDogue]

Well you should and there Chrome :-laf :-laf :-laf :-laf

 

[Mark_Kendrick]

th mutt strikes again....

:-laf:-laf

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

It took me a little while to figure out where and how to do it. But I was able to change the default on whether to show the signature in a post to off. It was buried down in the templates and at first I thought I could just change the yes to a no - that didn't work. Had to change the variable name from signaturechecked to signatureunchecked - it was just a guess but it worked .



-Steve

 

[RottnDogue]

Hey Steve you did it... . Cool, now you'll have to field all the Where is my Signature ? Posts...

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Yep

 

[The patriot]

I always thought that was one of the preferences I set when I signed up?

I was just checking it whenever I didnt need it.

It IS easier this way since I didnt use it much.

Thanks Steve.