Forums in trouble?

[jome]

Hi,

Lately I have noticed an increasing amout of errors and misbehabviour in the forums. The db must be pretty huge by now, and it seems to have trouble handling the load.

Things I've noticed:
-On several occasions replys send to one thread have somehow "jumped" to a completely different one.
-Recently there was multiple empty posts on one subject. It should not even be possible to make an empty post.
-It is more often than not that I get the "server too busy" reply. It is of course normal, but at such frequency very very annoying.

Have you noticed these things, do you have any idea what's causing them and is there hope for doing something about it?

The forums are exellent and full of valuable info and I would really like to see it as such in the future. Exellent job!

Maybe it would be possible to somehow archive older posts to a different system or something to ease the load...Dunno.

Also I would like to suggest that there'd be a minimum karma limit for a person to be able to create a poll. I'm simply sick of more or less idiotic polls flooding the forums. Or at least modify it so that a vote in a poll does not register as an update on a forum. All these old ass polls keep popping up and the only thing changed was a vote and it makes it really hard to follow what's really new in the "real" threads. Or make polls their own forum all together leaving the "real" forums poll free! Just my 0.02€.

 

[Shadowkiller]

Originally posted by jome

-It is more often than not that I get the "server too busy" reply.

Same here. It happens almost everytime I get on, and when I do get onto the forum page, theres only 15-20 users. Yet I have seen tons more people online, with no access problems...

Server choke point problem?

 

[Stephan Whelan]

jome,

Thanks for your input!

I am aware of the things you have listed and am frustrated by certain issues as well. The database is huge (as you say) and server performance isn't as good as it could be. I've got engineers working on some aspects this weekend which should help remove the "server too busy" aspect, which in turn may help the other things.

I'll give some thought to polls to see how they can be improved.

We also hope in September to start the forum upgrade process to the latest version of the software which will improve stability as well as introduce excellent new features.

Keep me informed of any thoughts you have (anyone!) as your input is invaluable!!

 

[Pekka]

Stephan, I salute you for having such a great forum..
I have one suggestion, I know this is not the thread for new features, but hey.. I would love to have some way to locate members who have registered and put their location on the profile.. this would make it much easier to see who is where.. as I travel quite a bit I would use this to send mail to people who live in certain areas..
I know that there is a poll that asks people to post about diving in their area.. If it would be possible to have map that one could cklick and then get a list of members in that area finding the divers in specific area would be very easy and convinient..
just a thought, I dont know if it is possible... as I dont do computers that much..

thanks,

Pekka

 

[Stephan Whelan]

Pekka,

Great suggestions! The profile one is on it's way with the upgrade. The others i'll work on

Anyway - there is no such thing as a crazy suggestion. I work as a consultant for a software house, so as I say to my clients "nothing is impossible, it is all just a matter of time and money!"