Is this Board Going to Lock up During Every Game? (Thread Reopened)

[Ian]

I have not read through the entire thread so I apologize if this has already been covered...

I subscribe to the UConn scout.com board and those who subscribe have access to the chat room during games (men's basketball mostly but also some football games).

Would it be possible to allow those who donate exclusive access to the chat room or to a separate chat?

Just a thought.

I've seen that, and it's a good thought which will likely be included when I purchase the chat software.

 

[Ian]

Re: Is this Board Going to Lock up During Every Game?

Whoa Ian, that seems to be an astronomical number !! With that kind of numbers, I'm even surprised that the forum is up

Which is why we're on a dedicated server. This place would never run on a shared account for $9.95 a month. We'd shut the whole thing down

 

[FalconHeavy]

Re: Is this Board Going to Lock up During Every Game?

Which is why we're on a dedicated server. This place would never run on a shared account for $9.95 a month. We'd shut the whole thing down

Completely agree. so what db do we use underneath ... MySQL ??

 

[Ian]

Also - the next step eventually will be adding another server that hosts just the database on its own and connecting the two, but that will add another couple of hundred dollars per month and unfortunately for now isn't in my budget, at least not in this economy. Like many of you I've also taken a hit thanks to this economy - and adding any more expenses each month will cause my wife to be less than thrilled with me. She's already less than pleased when the bill comes in each month, but that's the way it goes

If we reach a good number and hit our goal of at least getting the first server paid each month for the year, I'll make the move at that point. But it appears at least for now after dumping that table last night and looking at the server stats, it's amazing what a difference it's made. So I think we should be O.K. - and as I said I wish I had found out about this years ago.

 

[Ian]

Re: Is this Board Going to Lock up During Every Game?

Completely agree. so what db do we use underneath ... MySQL ??

You are correct - it's MySQL.

 

[Frezo]

Re: Is this Board Going to Lock up During Every Game?

Mo, I really think the load issues and poster-quality issues are different. But beyond that, on behalf of the mods I have to say that you probably don't realize how much junk IS kept out because...it's out. You don't see it. We never post threads saying "guess who I banned today!!" but we're working at it all the time.

I own a 3000 member Yahoo group and totally understand what you're saying. At times it's a full time job. I'm setup for new member/first post approval and sometimes it's amazing what spammers think they can get away with. It's the type of group that has to be a great deal stricter than this one. One curse gets a member banned and politics and religion gets a strict reprimand. It's not as active as this though. The mods can be very busy here. In the end you all do a fine job.

 

[ScrewDrvr]

Re: Is this Board Going to Lock up During Every Game?

yeah, if the board cant handle the first 2 preseason games, its gonna go out the day BEFOR the opener, lol.

 

[PATSNUTme]

Re: Is this Board Going to Lock up During Every Game?

I own a 3000 member Yahoo group and totally understand what you're saying. At times it's a full time job. I'm setup for new member/first post approval and sometimes it's amazing what spammers think they can get away with. It's the type of group that has to be a great deal stricter than this one. One curse gets a member banned and politics and religion gets a strict reprimand. It's not as active as this though. The mods can be very busy here. In the end you all do a fine job.

Thanks, on behalf of the other mods. We have been told that we are either to loose or too strict. I guess we would not have to be either if people would just be civil to one another and follow the rules that they should have read when they registered.

We all have other things going on, such as work, family, or an occasional round of golf.

But we do look at every complaint, and sometime there are many, and do take action if we deem fit. Not every complaint warrants action. But when we do take action it's usually never seen by other posters.

And I will add that when we do give out an infraction or warning, we almost always get PM's from the person saying how innocent they are and it's either someone elses fault or we are just being mean to them.

 

[PATRIOTSFANINPA]

I have not read all of these comments because a thread like this is unesessary to begin with,Ian does his best to keep this site up and running and sometimes things happen like HEAVY traffic that can slow down or shut down websites,it happens ALL over the internet in popular sites,especially team websites so take it for what it is and deal with it.

For those who have not donated,please do so in the future when you can BUT....For those fans who don't donate AND complain,frankly IMO you have no business b!tching about anything so simply stop moaning and keep your mouth shut.

To me, people that don't donate here but still complain is like a hobo holding out a hat to get money and complaining that he doesn't want pennies.

 

[Ian]

For those who have not donated,please do so in the future when you can BUT....For those fans who don't donate AND complain,frankly IMO you have no business b!tching about anything so simply stop moaning and keep your mouth shut.

I have no issue with the complaining regardless of whether or not you donate - and I don't blame people for being frustrated. Truthfully this issue has been annoying, and has been since we've been dealing with it. I wish I had found out about this a couple of years ago so we could have completely avoided it - but hopefully now it's over and done with.

 

[Box_O_Rocks]

Re: Is this Board Going to Lock up During Every Game?

Thanks, on behalf of the other mods. We have been told that we are either to loose or too strict. I guess we would not have to be either if people would just be civil to one another and follow the rules that they should have read when they registered.

We all have other things going on, such as work, family, or an occasional round of golf.

But we do look at every complaint, and sometime there are many, and do take action if we deem fit. Not every complaint warrants action. But when we do take action it's usually never seen by other posters.

And I will add that when we do give out an infraction or warning, we almost always get PM's from the person saying how innocent they are and it's either someone elses fault or we are just being mean to them.

You, Mr. Aceclown, are both too "loose" and too "strict." (Though how that relates to your moderating duties on the forum is another subject.) :snob:

 

[IcyPatriot]

I was the first one to suggest 3 years ago ... board should be members only during games. Too many trolls go to other boards and open up multiple windows to the same site... Ian did not like that idea ... with good reasoning ... but I still like to say it. Members only ... screw the trolls.

 

[tbrown]

Re: Is this Board Going to Lock up During Every Game?

I attempted to complete the second part of the search changeover late last night at around 12:30am - and stupidly didn't run a backup then because I thought it was going to be simple and didn't expect to have a problem. Instead one of the tables that needs to be modified (the one that holds all the posts) is huge and it timed out when I tried it at the browser level - which corrupted the table and I couldn't repair it. Shame on me for being stupid and not running a back up, but at that late hour I was hoping to get it done without a problem. No such luck. Instead I had them restore the backup we ran just before 8:30 prior from when we dumped that table. So instead I'll it's going to require me to shut the server down for about 10 minutes to have it done at the root level. If I don't do this it will continue dumping data into the two tables I emptied, which months from now could cause a problem.



This problem will solve that - as I said that one table was more than half the size of the entire database - and was only used for forum searches. It contained over 37,000,000 million rows of unnecessary data and has been the root of our issues because it bogged down EVERY query because they're all tied in together. I discovered it this week while researching our problems after last week's game - and apparently the later versions of vbulletin added a "Full Text Search" which eliminated the need for those tables and made them obsolete. I had scheduled to have it dumped, but when we went down I had support do it then, and I think everyone saw how well we ran from that point on.



We've removed quite a few problem posters this week as patchick said, and I have quite a few people in moderation. I've increased the number of posts required to start threads, and am adding a function to remove people from threads if necessary if they hijack them, cause issues, etc. So things are being done and I'd have to say we're light years ahead of last year.



Being able to remove people from game threads will hopefully address that issue, and we'll have much more control than last year. I'll be installing that function over the weekend and will begin testing it - so hopefully that will make life easier this year since we didn't have that function last season.

Ian, I know lots of people give you extremely well-deserved props all the time, but I would just like to add my thanks. I rarely post, mostly because I just like to learn more and more about the game every day from some excellent posters here, but I have loved the Patriots since the 80's and when this site came along, it was a dream come true. I do admit having the board down occasionally is slightly frustrating, but when that happens I know you are hard at work behind the scenes. Great job as always. And well done to all the mods as well.

 

[QB12]

Re: Is this Board Going to Lock up During Every Game?

I just made my donation to PatsFans.com. Frankly, I didn't know of such an option before, and I understand how some who have donated could interpret my question as whining from someone who's getting something for free.

Without divulging what I would rather keep private, Ian is a class individual, and deserves all of our thanks and appreciation for a job extremely well-done.

I don't expect my donation to be the tipping point towards a solution to the 'lock-up' problem that I originally posted about, but I offer the donation in good faith and in appreciation for Ian's time and dedication to the site.

QB12

 

[Gunnails]

I'm a feeloader. I budget my money where I feel it will do the most good for my family, as I'm sure Ian does for his. I'm happy for him and his passion for NE football, and I'm happy to participate and try to make his site successful through my participation. I would kindly request we not choose to second guess each other over our financial choices, we're here to discuss a shared enjoyment of football and to share our interest with others of like mind. I thank Ian for his time, effort, and commitment, but if this were a pay site, I'd probably not spend my time here - Ian has already made a decision about how he wants to work around that issue, let's respect him and each other and not get into name calling over how we spend out money - or at the very least take it to the political forum where it belongs.

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Name calling is weak Ju Ju, My apologies.

I never I was poor. And I'd garner a bet that the COL is higher where I'm at than where you live. I said I have things I'd rather spend my money on, and my discretionary funds aren't up to part atm. Or do you just throw money away on stuff that doesn't affect your everyday life all the time?

That's what I mean by discretionary funds. I've got goals, dreams and other more important (to me) aspirations for my money. Freeloader? Were donations the norm when you joined? The answer should be no, because they weren't when I did, and I joined after you. Also, the rest of the internet also take money to run, and hardware to upkeep, should we be donating to every site we frequent?

So please forgive me if I feel that I'd rather put some extra effort in paying of a little more debt, or buy my 18mo old a new toy etc... There ARE people that are legitimately unable to put the 18$ up right now, and as has been stated, it's pretty effed up to just lump people into a "cheap" category, because they don't either A) have the money, or B) choose to be more frugal right now.

Would you like a cookie for being **** of the year?

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Name calling is weak Ju Ju, I apologize. I no longer have dreams and aspirations, I am just a bitter Jet fan, somewhat myopic in my points of view.

 

[Leave No Doubt]

At the end of the day it's really all about the quality of what's posted here and that quality has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not someone donates money. I pay no attention to the "supporter" tag when I want to read awesome insight about the Pats because good stuff comes from everybody.

There are many ways people Contribute to this site; I may contribute financially but think of it this way; if we had just one final post to read before this site disappeared forever, and that final choice was between my post and Box's for example. I know it's a tough choice but... :singing:

There are some really good posters here and that's what counts. If it weren't for the humor,insight,news and controversy that's discussed here the site wouldn't ever go down because nobody would ever bother to read it. Jussayin

 

[reflexblue]

Re: Is this Board Going to Lock up During Every Game?

I just made my donation to PatsFans.com. Frankly, I didn't know of such an option before, and I understand how some who have donated could interpret my question as whining from someone who's getting something for free.

Without divulging what I would rather keep private, Ian is a class individual, and deserves all of our thanks and appreciation for a job extremely well-done.

I don't expect my donation to be the tipping point towards a solution to the 'lock-up' problem that I originally posted about, but I offer the donation in good faith and in appreciation for Ian's time and dedication to the site.

QB12

I'm sure you fell better now I mean were else could you get so much fun and entertainment for .35 cents a week.

Seriously i use to spend $12-$15 dollars on draft magazines now i come here and get better insight by people that know what there talking about......most of the time.

 

[Horace's Ivories]

Is this Board Going to Lock up During Every News Release

Hi, is it possible to limit the visitors to subscribers during any signficant news release?

 

[paranoia]

I am new here so I won't give my opinion about everything that has been said, but almost the first thing I did was donate to help with server cost, I am a member of other boards about other things if I can't donate when I first join I wait till I come to a month when I can donate but I still join,whether I donate or not.

But I feel it is a choice I choose to make and I think it is a individual decision everyone makes for themselves .