............server Is Too Busy At The Moment.................

Stevedge

Stevedge

Gold Member
Joined
May 22, 2002
Messages
602
I hope this will be deemed an appropriate place for this:

The '...server is too busy at the moment.....' notice has been appearing more frequently, lately... This means that paying members are unable to access the forum, while some non-paying members are likely busy doin' their thing... I don't mind sharing something I pay for with others, butttttt...

On behalf of the Forum, and other paying members, I will respectfully suggest that those Basic members who have not yet supported this great forum....do so now, by investing the 8.2 cents per day.... Especially for example, those who: Post here with reasonable frequency,....then sell on another forum where there is no charge to do so,...then bid up to $2000. for a piece they seek, on an auction... (Yes, I did make reasonable assumptions re ID to draw conclusions on which that real example is based, but.. it is very secondary to the main point, anyway)

Aditional server capacity costs money... Let's all contribute, to ensure full-access trade'n'talk for all members...
 
Stevedge,

The Service and Support area under General is the best place for this topic.

It has been very slow all over the net today. There is probably alot of traffic following Hurricane Lili.

n2s
 
While I think it is wise to steer clear of specific examples, Stevedge has a valid point that hadn't occured to me.

I only seem to get this message from about six to ten, or thereabouts, in the evening. Maybe there could be a way to allow paying members in during these times and have a "Sorry Basic Bump" or some such message sent to the nonpaying members. It might be cheaper than a new $erver. Just a thought....Jeff
 
I sure would like to see more basic members step up to the plate and get premium or gold memberships. A server upgrade is expensive, but it is going to need to be done fairly quickly, or things are just going to keep getting slower and slower. Yesterday I got the "Server Is Too Busy" notice 4 times in the afternoon, so it is happening all through the day.

BladeForums is a great community and I think that those that use it should be willing to help keep it running smoothly. $20.00 or $30.00 a year seems like a cheap price to pay for what we get in return.
 
We're looking at a couple options right now.

Kevin
 
yes, something needs to be done

i bought a membership to help support the forum. i rarely buy or sell and do not need a "special members forum"

i would simply like to be able to get online

i post less and less because at least 1/3 times i can not get on and the rest of the time it is pretty slow.

if there is no improvement i will need to think long and hard before i renew.
 
I just renewed my membership last month...and while I don't regret it, the server performance has been pretty frustrating.

I concur with the above analysis regarding what people are willing to spend their money on and how they utilize the various forums to their benefit. I hold nothing against these folks for taking that approach per se - but BF needs to do something. I don't truly have a good suggestion.

I recall that someone posted a query as to why "Bladeforums" has a whole bunch of other non-blade related subforums. I rarely participate in those forums. Maybe these forums, which are tapping bandwidth from blade related discussion need to be re-evaluted. I know that people come here because it is a great place to "hang-out", but they should be paying something for draining resources from the primary reason that folks visit this site.
 
Right now I'm going to disable searching for Basic members. That should help in the short term. In the long term, we've got a couple ideas we're pitching about and we'll be pruning some more threads in the archives as well.

Basically, the server has reached it's limits for the size we are. Sucks, but thems the breaks. More will be posted later
 
Spark,

Even a small nominal fee (~$5/year after 90 day trial) for basic membership should be enough to pay for an upgrade and it would help us to prune some of the trolls and inactive accounts. Something to consider before we start chopping away at the data library.

n2s
 
32055 wrote: " While I think it is wise to steer clear of specific examples, Stevedge has a valid point that hadn't occured to me." ...and: "I only seem to get this message from about six to ten, or thereabouts, in the evening. Maybe there could be a way to allow paying members in during these times and have a "Sorry Basic Bump" or some such message sent to the nonpaying members. It might be cheaper than a new $erver. Just a thought....Jeff"

-------------------------------


Yes I, too, believe that it is preferable to avoid 'specifics'..where possible...but, after having 'connected the proverbial dots' on this one, and reflecting on it for a few days...I decided that it represents the quintessential problematic mindset behind the problem...and I did keep it user-anonymous....

The 'Sorry Basic-Member bump' is a reasonable idea...with a note..explaining the situation...and a link to the 'get a Gold Membership' page...

I, particularly, like this forum...and will support it further...but not while others...who are likely more able than I to do so...are not...
Thanks for the good discussion on this.... I'm sure there are fair, reasonable, and expeditious answers to the situation...
 
Why not make all the exchange forums only available to "paying members"? Have a:
bronze member- $10.00 which allows access to the exchange forums
Premium- $25.00 post pics but not sell
Gold- $35.00 full access

This place is to damn good for the cheap folks to ruin


Phillip
 
Spark, could you please make the dead unpostable forum archives free to search? that shouldnt take up to much space?

Maybe you should delete old members accounts with 15 posts or less, this would remove there profiles, and posts.

I know that some people just come here to have one question answerd IE. what knife is this? im selling it on ebay dont really care much about it, but am wanting as much money as possible also I never plan on returning.

Something like that?
 
The place is running much better now. :)

I was just loading a thread and noticed the avatars come up last. Would it be possible to make avatars a feature that only paying members can use? That's something the basic members could get along without....

I think Bladeforums is running well again now, but of course the load is going to get too much again as more members keep joining....
 
Again, I agree with Stevedge.
Like Spark said, this fix is temporary.

We should all look to the future!

ARRRRRRRRGH!!

LET THE BASICS WALK THE PLANK!!!
 
I know I'm one of many unpaying infidels...

I should be tossing in my fee for this great service provided to us knifenuts, as should many.

what could be done to help alleviate the problem, is:

send out an email, link it to a post here, and have all members put in thier *one* post. Go though those, after a 1 week wait, and adjust the members who didn't post.

even just something like: post here by **/**/** to remain a member at BFC. if you fail to post, your account will be put on hold, and deleted after **(+7)/**/**.
so post by nov 01, 2002... hold till nov 08, 2002... delete on nov 10, 2002

think of the cleanup... all the inactive trolls, dead accounts, banned acounts... gone... along with thier posts.
 
Cougar, but wasnt it spark that said, comeon people, avatars can now be larger, we have lots of space avaiable! Seems like that was intended towards ALL members.

Maybe that was the wrong suggestion.

Personally avatars dont matter to me, I rather be lurking/searching threads when there wasnt even avatars on bladeforums. AS A BASIC MEMBER!

I know alot of people that come here just to lurk/search, it's kinda unfair when you do these things like, you cant see the ninja crap forum (fake whine and cheese) with out being a gold member.

Would it be possible to get rid of broken links extremely quickly with out checking it, IE. do a scan for any post with the partial URL photopoint.com and then remove it. But I dont think that a URL would take up much space, would it?

Maybe, some more space could be sparred by removing unecessary links, like having the "PM" option for basic members after every post and in there profiel. Would that image, link and feature take up much space of bandwidth?

Also, I dont know about other people, but with my self I dont use that buddy list, tried using it, but I found it useless. Is this feature used much by others, and does it take up much space?

What I think you need to do, is mass message every BF with a "Must Sign/Check In" thread/feature, give them a 2 weeks notice to sign in. The offenders that dont sign in, lose there membership. Or something like that, might be a little sever for people trying that like to lurk will lose the potential valuble info.

Also, you might want to remove that "delete post" option when you edit your post, I have found it not working. IMO just takes up screen space.

I'll think of more ideas instead of just having the option of being a gold member.:grumpy:
 
Cougar, but wasnt it spark that said, comeon people, avatars can now be larger, we have lots of space avaiable!
Click to expand...

That was about the size of the picture on the screen -- not the file size. Spark noticed that column is wider than the old avatars were and changed the limit on width but the file size limit remains the same.
 
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