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SPEED of the forums

donaghy

donaghy

CJ-8.COM owner
SOA Member
FORUM OWNER
City
Lexington
State
SC
I was at someone elses house last night using their DSL and the forums seemed to be slow. When I am at home using my cable modem, the forums seem to be fairly fast. When I am work, my response time to the server is totally skewed because it is sitting on my same network, so it is really fast.

So, what I wanted to ask some of you guys, is does the forums seem to be "ok" in speed in regards to other web site forums you visit? IE.. does it seem to be just as fast as jeepsunlimited.com or some of the others.

I have had this forums software up there for over a year now. And I now have to start deciding a couple of things.

A. Do we try to keep ALL postings, all the way back since the board started?
B. If we don't keep all the postings, what is the cutoff limit to keep what amount of postings (9 months, 12 months etc)

IF we do not do some posting "trimming" the database will get large and it will eventually slow down on the cheap little server I am running. There is certainly value in all of the old postings that are out there but it will eventually come at a performance cost.
 
Hmmnnn.....What to do?

I haven't really noticed any speed issues.
Sure it's faster sometimes on other systems and service providers as well as connections.
I've used DSL (work) Cable (old Home) and Dial up (home).
the performance varies but is not something that makes for an undesireable web experience.

I'd say trim the posts a year and older that have not been active or viewed for 1-2 months.

If say someone (like me!!!) statrted a thread regarding ,oh say... Axle swaps or engine conversions and you intended to delete the thread maybe you could give some advance notice so the thread author could download it and it's lionks and images for future reference.

I've been really happy with this website over the years. This current version is way better than the old and unprdictable one!

Thanks for your time, trouble and effort!

Sincerely

Mark Rogalski
mrmacrro
Big_MARK
 
Matt, I'm on dial-up on a screwed up PC at home (working on that); so speed isn't an issue for me to comment.
As far as old posts, Is there a way to archive them for access only, no responses? I've seen this done on some boards. There could be an archive section under forums separated from ongoing stuff. Quadratec and some others do this.
 
couple performance thoughts

Another idea would be to first remove all the threads that are say 3-6 months old that have 0 replies. That would give you a start and you won't be deleting something with serious interest. You could then go to posts with only 1 or 2 replies and 3-6 months old. Over 2-5 replies and you need to hold on longer I think.

Also, does it take up the same space to have the image embedded into the post then attached? I've noticed some of the forums allow you to attach and some allow you to show it right there. I can't see how it would be more, but maybe switching them all to attached would be good. Then maybe on posts older than 6-9 months you start removing the links to the attachments only and see how that goes.

I think there's a lot that could be done before really needing to do something major like have an entire archive section...because really I don't think you help the situation. The archive would be only informational, but most people are not responding to threads that are 9 months old...if they search they find what they need and maybe the email that individual person...but it's not like threads (besides crash's build of zero2wow) are accessed and responded to and on going for months and months. People get on, ask the question, get some replies, find an answer and make a decision, and it moves off the board quietly. So by archiving 9 month old threads you still have to hold that space on the server and you still have to load them with the website. I think every forum here is defaulted to only showing last 30 days anyway.

I have not noticed a performance issue, but I think here's some ideas that you could try out before needing a major site change. I know it's tough for us Jeepers to throw out stuff we know we might in the future use some day, but sometimes you do what is prudent and make some space in the garage. ;)

$.02 from a techie/business nerd
 
I'm on a T3 at work. The speed seems fine to me. The other forums I visit usually dump the old stuff after 3 or 4 months depending on the topic forum.
 
The guy that I have writing the transcripts at home for my parusal is pretty slow:p ( dial up that gives me 34,666 on good days) but at work on a 'T' it is fine. So no real complaints on speed.

I like the idea of jpduece of ranking the threads by age and activity. If there is no interest after 6 or 9 months, dump it

Later,
 
Well, I'll go against the grain here and say that I think there a lots of valuable old threads and I would hate to see them just disappear. While I personally have not noticed any issues with the speed of accessing the forums, if need be to help someone else with faster site speed, perhaps create an archive forum for the older threads, but don't just delete them as there is literally a wealth of information to be had from them. This is actually why I don't post more often, because between here and the CJ forum at Jeeps Unlimited, I can usually search and find the information and answers that I am looking for.
 
OLD VS NEW

Hey i'm on a horribly slow dial up(20k at best) and everything works fine here-If you lose the old info then why keep the seach mode?-i know from time to to time i like to refer back to old threads-so i say keep them untill things get to be a promblem then decide what to do-JC
 
wealth of info

My suggestion was to just get rid of stuff that was not terribly essential (i.e. threads that have ZERO replies for 3-6 months). I agree totally with Mules and Boomer about the importance of SOME of the info that is on this site, but chances are the wealth of information isn't going to be found there. On the other hand...threads that have over say 5-7 replies, or 500+ views, or something like that, are probably some that should stay on the board.

I was thinking of doing something as a quick hit, get rid of stuff people hardly looked at or when they did look at it had no reason to reply or continue the discussion. Or to just get rid of the pic files that take up space on older threads like 6 months old. Then you wouldn't have to have a major site change to have an Archive Forum, and anyone feeling server problems would be relieved.

If there were still problems after that then we could move in to a discussion about archiving, but from what it sounds like, most people are fine the way the site is right now.

Who knows? Just some suggestions. Whatever happens, obviously this whole forum is important to people. It's a great resource, as well as connection with other Scrambler owners. Nothing is more valuable than experience and you can pretty much gain experience without the cost and time that it usually takes. But there is also stuff out here on the board that doesn't add to or take away from what people are looking for.

ACTUALLY, I had another idea just now...I know...I hope you're sitting down...what I was thinking also was the Classifieds section of the board could be adjusted as well. I mean how often is a JEep that is for sale or parts that are for sale STILL for sale after 6 months? Or even 3 months? Probably the Jeeps, but if there's no activity on an ad (Jeep or parts) for say 3 months, then maybe that could be deleted? And then if you still need to sell your crap put a new thread on updating the price and availability. I know when I was looking for my project it was such a pain to email someone with a listing on this board and find out it's sold. Anyway, that might be able to cut down on the clutter without getting rid of valuable information people are using or will use.

Sorry, that was more than my 2 cents...but this is actually something I can help with...don't have much real world experience with the Jeep, so I gotta pitch in somewheres.
 
speed

I am on a horribly slow dial up and the system works great for me. Absolutely no complaints. I agree with deleting the threads with no interest i.e replies. I have also seen some other sites start an archives to save room . There is such a wealth of great knowledge on this board and it is great to have but sometimes you have to let go of some of the old so the new stuff can work faster(It's like throwing away parts you will never use, that's why I have a junkyard). Just wanted to say thanks to Matt and everybody else for their work,it is greatly appreciated, This site is is an vast base of information and help for rookies like me and you pro's are always willing to lend a hand.
thanks again everyone,
-Will
Just my 2sense
 
a little research

Well, I finally got around to a couple of things.

1. After struggling for a couple of nights over Labor Day weekend, I finally got this friggin IDE drive to work in the server. So.. you should feel a bunch more room now.. (120 GB) more room. So, space should not really be an issue.

2. Even though, space is not an issue, the size of the database can become an issue eventually. I researched the administrative functions for "pruning" or "trimming" posts and I can do the following:
a. trim by date of the last posting in the forum and I can specifically choose a forum.
b. trim the postings by date of last posting, but move them to a different forum.

If I select choice B, we really are not affecting the overall size of the database. But, if we choose A, then the postings are gone for good.

For now, I think we are fine. Since we have space on the drive, and it really does not seem to be affecting the speed of the forums, I will probably just leave it as is.

Matt
 
Can you trim by date of LAST VIEW? Instead of last POST?

Just curious.

I'm surprised there isn't the functionality to set up a query similar to Access or anything else that you can specify different "qualifiers" and then see the subset of that query.

Who knows.
 
trimming postings

unfortunately, they do not have a trim postings by last view. Seems like they should or they would, but they don't.

Only by:

a. last posting
b. by username
 
Speed is okay with me. I guess i like to save a lot of things, probably too much, but i like the fact that we can go back and look at old posts. Archiving would be nice if we could do that.
 
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