Rumour or News? Server Too Busy!!!

[126.9]

ProblemThe server is always running slow or too busy because the moderators/censors are so indulged in using up precious bandwidth by cutting, censoring and moving as much as they possibly can! Also, extrteme individuals (such as myself, I'm sure) have the cheek to continually write stuff which is in total contravention of the opinions of the ownership, and in so doing create more work that needs censoring and create a drain on the resources since more censors are required to cut, clip and paste!? Unacceptable!

Solution Start charging a subscription fee (a hefty one) to all users. Or even better; ban everyone with an opinion different to that of the Administration (look how well it worked for Pinochet). That way, you not only free up useful bandwidth, but you no longer have to pretend to be the voice of international aviation opinion, nor do you have to worry about unscrupulous journo's bottom-feeding from your VERY WELL SUPERVISED BBS and your censors get to go home to their families for a change.

An added bonus to this is that within a single short month, we'll all (except for those of us that have been banned, incarcerated or donated a pair of concrete shoes) be able to see exactly how many of those 70-something thousand members are active..? It might be interesting to know... :ok:

[FJJP]

126.9

I'm sure Danny can pinpoint just who are routine users and those who rarely post. Charging a fee is not the answer - it would put a lot of people off.

Your description of the problem as you perceive it is less than helpful. I would remind you the Danny and the other moderators work full time and arrange to have this facility available to us in their precious spare time. I for one would like to acknowledge the contribution made by their partners - long suffering, watching their other half spending hours pouring over a computer.

As for moderating - you can thank your lucky stars that they are the ones doing it and not me. I'm afraid I have a much shorter fuze than they, and I would have slammed the door at a much earlier stage they they do.

And before you ask, no, I don't know any of the moderators personally, only through these forums. I just happen to appreciate their efforts on our behalf. If you want to vent your spleen, don't waste precious bandwith on these forums - go to the pub and get pi**ed, thump a policeman and get yourself locked up. That will give you time to reflect on the stupidity of your post.

[Bre901]

we'll all (except for those of us that have been banned, incarcerated or donated a pair of concrete shoes) be able to see exactly how many of those 70-something thousand members are active..?
This information is freely available on the site, just go to the member list (http://www.pprune.org/forums/memberlist.php?s=), which may be sorted by number of posts.

Coincidentally, I recently did take a closer look :

29402 members have made at least 1 post

top 10000 : 11 posts or more
top 5000 : 30 posts or more
top 1000 : 167 posts or more
top 500 : 304 posts or more

[Jetdriver]

Just to correct your assumptions slightly.

The server isn't always busy, although at peak periods it often is. During such times there might often be around 500 peopleor more on the forums at any one time. In fact it is rare to see more than 3 or 4 moderators on line at the same time. Quite often there are one 1 or 2 and sometimes no moderators here at all. Moderators don't actually cut censor and move as much as they possibly can, they simply attempt to keep the forums tidy and interesting to the readership. In doing this, it is necessary to ensure the forum rules are being generally adhered to. Sometimes contributors to the forums will themselves waste bandwidth by posting the same thing on two or more forums. In these situations the subject will be addressed by deciding which forum is most appropriate and removing the rest. Sometimes contributors will post in a forum that is not best suited to the topic. This isn't something done with malice, but often because the poster is not sure where best to place the topic. Sometimes posters want their particular topic to get "maximum exposure" as they perceive it, and will place it in a forum where in reality it is otherwise not best suited. These are the main reasons for moving a thread. Even where this occurs the topic has a link from the original forum for a period of time.
"Cutting and censoring" are usually only done when a violation of the rules has occured. For example somebodies use of language may be deemed to be innapropriate. The use of a real name that is deemed unacceptable. In such circumstances the thread may be moved to the administrators own forum for further ( non public) consideration. In this forum a thread can be considered by all administrators and moderators and commented upon as necessary. some threads are returned to their originating forum, some are modified and returned and some are simply removed permanently. In fact you might be surprised just how few threads are actually referred, and this is a result of the moderators own judgement in their particular forums of responsibility. Sometimes the removal of one word or sentence enables a thread that is of interest to many people to stay active when it might otherwise be removed. Once again this happens less often that you might think.

On the subject of writing posts in contravention of the opinions of the ownership. Well of course Danny is the owner of this site and naturally it is his rules that prevail. He is ultimately responsible for the content and conduct of this site and all its forums. Each of us as members signed up to the rules when we joined. As members we are all expected to comply with the rules and to appropriate levels of conduct. As a moderator I can tell you that my only knowledge of the site owners opinions are those that he posts himself on these forums from time to time. I have never had the site owner tell me or even suggest that in moderating any forum I should comply with his own personal opinions. Indeed I should not moderate the forums in accordance with my own personal opinions except where these relate to the efficiency and conduct of the forum generally.

Each forum is usually moderated by a different moderator or group of moderators. They (we) are given a good deal of latitude in how to moderate that forum. Of course there are general parameters and these are subject to frequent discussion. For this reason you will often see differing degrees of acceptability and content on the various forums. This gives each forum its own flavour and style.

The site is free for members and it has always been Dannys declared intention to keep it that way. The popularity of the site has been the cause of so much traffic andt hus bandwidth utilization. If you will, it has almost been a victim of its own success. A great deal of money and effort is put into this site by Danny and his admin team thus keeping the whole thing an ongoing success.

So I am afraid your perception of the "problem" is totally inaccurate, which rather makes the "solution" a bit of a non starter as well.

In summary, for nearly 70,000 members there are probably almost as many opinions. It is the differences that result in this site having as many daily hits and contributions as it does. The moderators main task is to keep the whole thing in some semblance of order. Given so much human input it will never be perfect, but we try nontheless. Sanctions against members are rare and normally only applied in a very measured way. Even in those cases where an individual has adopted an extreme or wholly inappropriate stance it is often resolved by something as "simple" as an apology, and / or an undertaking to comply with the site rules in the future.

[126.9]

No the server is not always busy; just most of the time! And I guess that all that cr@p about not censoring is how this one ended up in the COMPUTER section? Any criticism, as I've noticed over time, inevitably draws quick action into the bin. And before some idiot tells me it's Danny's Board again; please, it's on the damn internet and he benefits from every single unique user here. Now, if you don't like my tone, do a search and check out Danny's posts over time. He's my teacher!

Short of going into that condescending nonsense you wrote there; check out the phpBB Community site which has almost 110,000 members, is a site busier than this one, does very little to no CENSORING and NEVER, I say again NEVER gives a server too busy message. Now stick that in your computer section!

PHP Community HERE! (http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/index.php)

[Jetdriver]

Well I tried to reply to your post objectively. I did rather wonder why you posted it in the R&N forum, as it seems to be neither. An admin or moderator from that forum would have seen fit to move it. As I thought I had explained, moved threads are not tantamount to censorship. The thread still exists in its entirety and a link from the original forum still exists.

Telling you this is Dannys board isn't intended to be viewed as an idiotic comment simply a matter of fact. I am sorry you find the reply condescending, as it was intended to answer your obvious misunderstandings. It may be that other sites have more powerful servers and generally satisfy your user criteria, and no doubt somebody with more technical expertise than myself will address that point. No need to stick it in the computer section of course as it is already here!

Hopefully when you have calmed down a little, this will all seem a bit clearer.

[P.Pilcher]

Yeah - and the reason that "server too busy" messages are appearing more and more frequently is that Danny and his most excellent team have only their spare time to run this website. I understand that servers of the capacity now needed to run this extremely popular site cost a fortune and there is a limit to the advertising funds available. No doubt a solution will eventually be found and in the meantime I would like to thank Danny and his team for providing, free of charge, such an excellent facility for us all. It has been my homepage for a number of years and I bet it is many others'.

P.P.

[fobotcso]

Wind-up Alert :* .

Some Forums are used to attention-seeking wind-up merchants. Because we tend to be a bit serious here we may not recognise an intrusion as quickly as we should.

I recommend we ignore this one. It'll go away. Whatever else you do, don't try to answer the Wind-up Merchant with logic and facts.

fobs

[cribble]

Fobotsco

Forgive me, for I know I waste bandwidth, but:


Attention 126.9:

If you don't like it here then **** off back to the PHP community:mad:

[Wing Commander Fowler]

Took a look at that site...... nothing to interest pilots there anyway!

Hehe..... :ugh: :8

[Danny]

We have already PURCHASED a new, all singing and dancing, multiple bells and whistles, sooper dooper server. It is undergoing testing as I write this and should be on-line within a month. The server is being relocated to the UK and once on-line should remove all the server too busy messages for about a year... hopefully.

I think 126.9 is aggrieved that some of his posts may have been deleted from one or two threads on R & N where I thought the content was so far off topic and diverting the thread into areas that were not relevant for the forum. Trouble is, with an attitude such as the one expressed by 126.9, there is probably a feeling of persecution. Rest assured though, I delete all posts that I think are irrelevant and likely to draw an hot topic off course.

Of course one mans censorship is anothers editorial control. Methinks that 126.9 is under the flawed impression that because PPRuNe is on the WWW and it is accessible to anyone that it should be subject to 'free speech', which probably means to 126.9 that anything can be written with impunity. There is no such thing as free speech, at least here and I have never tried to hide the fact that PPRuNe is run as a dictatorship, albeit a benevolent one.

As is proven here, 126.9's post has not been censored at all. It has been MOVED, with a link, to this forum but to call that censorship shows an extremely poor understanding of the word and its meaning. I think it more likely to be a bruised ego, not used to the experience of not getting its own way! Of course 126.9's credentials don't exactly leave me worrying that I should heed the advice offered in the first post. As long as the best argument offered is a comparison to the php website with no technical data then perhaps I should't lose too much sleep over it!

BTW, PPRuNe actually has about 200,000 visitors as the ratio of 'guests' to registered readers is 3:1. Referring to the number of registered members is not a reflection of how busy the server is. It is the number of people actually viewing the website at any one time that will determine the load on the server.

Just checked the php board out and it would appear that during PPRuNe's peak time (1100 UTC to 1400 UTC) they only had 221 users online (38 Registered and 183 Guests). Also, the most users ever online was 620 on Wed Oct 22, 2003 10:31 am. At our peak time, on average, we have 500-600 users on line and during the quietest times we still have 200-300 on at any one time. I challenge 126.9 to delve into the stats and the type of server and the peak times for the php website and give me something to argue about!
:hmm:

[Wholigan]

"Service Miss 126.9 ....... new balls please."

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Danny,

phpBB has a very good Forum Software Package. I currently Admin 5 Forums running phpBB. vBulletin is comparable to phpBB and I would not see any need to change from one to the other.

Another example of vBulletin (Version 2.3.4) with:

Members: 65,600
Threads: 272,328
Posts: 2,392,969

Is the Amdmb.com Forums (http://forums.amdmb.com/index.php) running about the same load as PPRuNe without issues.

If 126.9 feels aggrieved and has an axe to grind with the PPRuNe, then maybe the thread should be moved to Jet Blast. Everyone in this forum works together to help others. The only Axe Grinding allowed here is the PC vs MAC Axe Grinding we all kiddingly enjoy. :D

Take Care,

Richard

P.S. As TCS said, we would love to hear the specs on your new Server. Just cover it with some plastic before you let TCS near it. We do not want his drool to short it out! :eek:

[The Nr Fairy]

126.9 et al:

IMO the server performance problem is because PPRuNe is so popular - kudos to Danny for kicking off something and only asking for contributions for the frilly bits around the edges.

I've made the point before, but I've made it again. Too many people connecting to one server means the server has to keep track of lots of individual sessions at the networking level, long before any data reaches the database / vBulletin software. It's this which impacts performance - lots of people, lots of connections, lots of processor time keeping track of them and lots of memory too - all leaving less time for the main work.

Upping the processor will help - and as others have said, if you're not paying for the service, you can't really bitch about the poor performance.

[PPRuNe Towers]

err, this might help - for a few months anyway:suspect: :suspect: :ouch:

2U Rackmount server with 2x 2.8GHz Intel Xeon Processors
512KB Level 2 cache
2Gb DDR SDRAM
3x 36Gb 15,000RPM SCSI discs
24 speed CD-ROM
Perc 3/Di RAID SCSI Controller with 128Mb cache
2x Hot-swappable PSUs
2x 100Mb Network Interfaces

We're not rushing the system into service. Spending time getting it thoroughly sorted before the final port of the site over to it. Therefore there may be some detail changes to the spec by mid March when we hope to put the beast on-line.

Regards
Rob