david_henderson Posted December 18, 2003 Share Posted December 18, 2003 I often find the Unified view very slow to load. Tonight it isn't accessible - "The Unified View is temporarily disabled due to heavy traffic". If, as used to be the case, there were only a couple of forums, an unco-operative Unified View would be no big thing. Now that the forums are well and truly proliferated, it has an important effect on the site's usability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobatkins Posted December 18, 2003 Share Posted December 18, 2003 It depends on what you are used to! I'll have to admit I don't use the Unified View. I have each forum that I'm interested in saved as an IE "favorite", so all I have to do is click on the link to each forum in the order I want to read them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robert_hout Posted December 18, 2003 Share Posted December 18, 2003 Yeah.. I really like the unified view. Sometimes there are topics in forums that I might not otherwise have seen that my interest me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sean_harding Posted December 18, 2003 Share Posted December 18, 2003 I find the site very hard to use without unified view. It wouldn't be so bad if the site weren't so horribly slow, but it takes a long time to open each forum, so having to go to each individually takes FOREVER. I wonder if the load generated by unified view could be lessened by reducing the time period it displays. More than once, I've noticed that the unified view page is really huge. Maybe by default it could only show the last 24 hours or so, and let people go back further if they want to... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
continuity Posted December 18, 2003 Share Posted December 18, 2003 I prefer the Unified View because it allows you to pick off those pesky duplicate topics in a hurry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris_hawkins Posted December 18, 2003 Share Posted December 18, 2003 I got this message for the first time today. Bummer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimvanson Posted December 18, 2003 Share Posted December 18, 2003 I'm wondering if it's not a better idea to cut the Unified View (which I use all the time) back to 3 days worth of posts instead of the present 7 days.<P>Would that not help free up the present bottleneck? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seanb Posted December 19, 2003 Share Posted December 19, 2003 The unified forum view must be quite database intensive, as it has to check your preferences for which forums to include and then go off and check those forums. An alternative, albeit less functional, approach would be to prebuild a unified view table when each forum is updated. Then the unified forum view could be generated as easily as any individual forum. To really speed things up, at the expense of some functionality, the forum contents could be prebuilt static html, generated once when forums are updated. The same could even be done for the message threads (i.e. when a message is posted, refresh the html for that thread). The cost is extra storage, but performance of a mostly static html site would be much better and might reduce the need for costly hardware and software additions (and as the site uses Oracle, the software costs probably match or exceed the hardware costs). Any such changes, however, would be a lot of work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobatkins Posted December 19, 2003 Share Posted December 19, 2003 Here's a novel proposal: Make the Unified Forum view a subscriber only feature. This idea has a number of things going for it: (1) It will decrease database loading and thus improve system response time. (2) It maintains full free access for every user, non-susbscribers simply have to use the forums individually (no great hardship, that's how I read them anyway) (3) It provides a positive subscriber benefit (4) Anyone using the Unified View is more than a casual vistor to photo.net and thus really *should* be a subscriber (5) The programming required to do this is trivial. If the user is identified as a subscriber, the page loads as normal, if not, a page listing all the forums is presented. From photo.net's viewpoint it seems like this is a win-win situation. It's easy to do, costs nothing, improves system response by lowering database loading and encourages frequent users to become subscribers, while still allowing full access to all forums by non-subscribers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robert_hout Posted December 19, 2003 Share Posted December 19, 2003 Bob, you have a point. Off to sign up.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seanb Posted December 21, 2003 Share Posted December 21, 2003 <I>Anyone using the Unified View is more than a casual vistor to photo.net and thus really *should* be a subscriber</I> <P> Agreed. I will become a subscriber the day there is an online credit card option other than PayPal. I know this has been discussed before, and I believe that there are other people who feel the same way. </P><P> I also appreciate the downside to other payment options in terms of the cut that these services take. It may be, however, that the number of extra subscriptions generated more than compensates for the loss of 10 - 15%. </P> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobatkins Posted December 21, 2003 Share Posted December 21, 2003 I don't know what Brian has planned for next year, but I hope either we can offer a different option for credit cards and/or streamline and secure the check payment option. Even if we had to add a small premium for payment via some other service, some people might still prefer to do that. So far I've had no trouble with Paypal and I find that for small amounts it's pretty convenient, but I know some people don't like to use them so it would be in photo.net's best interest to offer an alternative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
._._z Posted December 21, 2003 Share Posted December 21, 2003 <i>Make the Unified Forum view a subscriber only feature. </i><p> I remember a NYC-based BBS (remember those?) in the 80s which did that, and new visitors couldn't negotiate around easily, or even know at first the depth of the system's offerings -- and they tended to leave quickly after visiting once or twice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobatkins Posted December 21, 2003 Share Posted December 21, 2003 Good point. Maybe make the Unified View avialable for the first 30 days to non-subscribers? Or maybe make it available only at times of light server loading. There are plently of options we could use that wouldn't discourage new users and yet still keep the load on the database under control. Sooner or later we're going to have to start restricting access for non-subscribers to functions that are database intensive or subscribers are going to get pissed-off at the slowdowns (if they aren't already!). I suppose if a huge chunk of money lands in photo.net's lap that allows the purchase of some super fast hardware and an exorbitantly priced multi-processor Oracle licence ($15,000 to $40,000), such restrictions wouldn't be needed, but I'm not sure that's likely to happen anytime soon unless photo.net is on Larry Ellison's Xmas gift list! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
._._z Posted December 21, 2003 Share Posted December 21, 2003 I think that a trial period is a good idea. Of course you'll always have people who visit once then show up 90 days later locked out of certain features.... It might be useful to have a prominent button/link on the main page (or even one delivered on every page a non-member sees) linking to a list of benefits to membership. to go off on a bit of a tangent, although navigate the site well, I wish that certain aspects were more integrated and clearer. For example, in the forums names now come before postings, but in the reviews the old system still flourishes. The link- through to stores like B&H could be more prominent. The link to membership could be as well. And although I'm used to the (new, improved) main photo.net page, and it's generally fast, it still seems overstuffed. I do like the tabs at photosig, and there's one photo site whose name I don't remember whose main page starts off by letting you go either to Forums or to Pictures. I like that. I also like the way that hte main page at photoserve welcomes new registrants. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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