Artemician
2007-10-13, 05:41 AM
We are currently dealing with some bandwidth and server load capacity issues. Please bear with us as we resolve these issues. Some features may be temporarily or permanently disabled. We are addressing the issues and appreciate your patience.
It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great forum or travel in the internet, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with internet traffic of all shapes and sizes, followed by thirty, forty, fifty second delays in loading pages, accompanied by "The Page you Requested has Unavailable" messages.
I think it is agreed on by all parties that lag is bad. And lag, on this forum, is even worse. Now, we know that many features have gone the way of the dodo, or have been carefully chained up, to preserve bandwidth on this forum, and preventing it from exploding, Polls and Searches amongst others.
It has been deemed necessary for these noble creatures to be slain.
But are there any other alternatives? A sensible alternative has been mooted by Lingerance here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52521). Has it been adopted?
But I digress. The main aim of my post here, is to pitch a modest proposal, which I trust that most of you will find agreeable. If you take up this suggestion, the forum will be freed of no less than 28.292 per cent of the strain on the server, which might allow the reintroduction of these magnificent beasts back into their local habitat.
Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving up something in return. That is Alchemy's first Law of physical exchange, and one that is inviolable. Something has to go! But what- that is the important question.
And right on the cutting board, are Player Recruitment Threads that are More than 3 Months Old. Odds are, if a DM hasn't started a campaign by then, he will never do so in the forseeable future.
Another possible candidate, and perhaps a more possibnle one, would the whole bloc of threads collectively known as SMBG, or Silly Message Board Games. While some would consider them as interesting and/or fun, I would postulate that most others on this board do not care for them. Why posts made in there are not considered as "Posts" would be a reflection of this.
Now, you may ask, why bother? Isn't it better to let people do what they like? And I agree. However, this statement only applies when there is no third-party harm involved. You may not have a case if your neighbour watches movies at home and you don't like it, but you will have a case if he watches movies so loud that it impairs your sleep cycle.
While SMBG does not affect our sleep personally, it consumes bandwidth, bandwidth considered so precious that other valuable forum features, such as Polls, have been disabled. The bandwidth freed up from this move, which is a significant amount, could be funnelled to other important tasks, such as the resurrection of Polls, or the ability for people not to wait 5 minutes between searches (which is especially painful to those whose fingers are prone to typographical errors), or even the introduction of new features, such as Custom User Titles.
Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, till he hath at least some glimpse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice.
I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of this forum, by advancing our bandwith, providing for others, and relieving the lag.
It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great forum or travel in the internet, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with internet traffic of all shapes and sizes, followed by thirty, forty, fifty second delays in loading pages, accompanied by "The Page you Requested has Unavailable" messages.
I think it is agreed on by all parties that lag is bad. And lag, on this forum, is even worse. Now, we know that many features have gone the way of the dodo, or have been carefully chained up, to preserve bandwidth on this forum, and preventing it from exploding, Polls and Searches amongst others.
It has been deemed necessary for these noble creatures to be slain.
But are there any other alternatives? A sensible alternative has been mooted by Lingerance here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52521). Has it been adopted?
But I digress. The main aim of my post here, is to pitch a modest proposal, which I trust that most of you will find agreeable. If you take up this suggestion, the forum will be freed of no less than 28.292 per cent of the strain on the server, which might allow the reintroduction of these magnificent beasts back into their local habitat.
Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving up something in return. That is Alchemy's first Law of physical exchange, and one that is inviolable. Something has to go! But what- that is the important question.
And right on the cutting board, are Player Recruitment Threads that are More than 3 Months Old. Odds are, if a DM hasn't started a campaign by then, he will never do so in the forseeable future.
Another possible candidate, and perhaps a more possibnle one, would the whole bloc of threads collectively known as SMBG, or Silly Message Board Games. While some would consider them as interesting and/or fun, I would postulate that most others on this board do not care for them. Why posts made in there are not considered as "Posts" would be a reflection of this.
Now, you may ask, why bother? Isn't it better to let people do what they like? And I agree. However, this statement only applies when there is no third-party harm involved. You may not have a case if your neighbour watches movies at home and you don't like it, but you will have a case if he watches movies so loud that it impairs your sleep cycle.
While SMBG does not affect our sleep personally, it consumes bandwidth, bandwidth considered so precious that other valuable forum features, such as Polls, have been disabled. The bandwidth freed up from this move, which is a significant amount, could be funnelled to other important tasks, such as the resurrection of Polls, or the ability for people not to wait 5 minutes between searches (which is especially painful to those whose fingers are prone to typographical errors), or even the introduction of new features, such as Custom User Titles.
Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, till he hath at least some glimpse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice.
I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of this forum, by advancing our bandwith, providing for others, and relieving the lag.