SecretMethod70

You may have noticed the site has been a bit slow lately. We're looking into it.

You may have also noticed that the shoutbox is missing as of right now. That's part of us looking into it. We're experimenting.

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

__________________
Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

JumpinJesus

There's no rule saying the shoutbox has to return, is there?

__________________
"I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses

Midnight

Also might want to look into regulating the size of the photos in the threads. I was on a "similar" site to this one a while back and it was one of the problems they had - when a bunch of people were looking at the same threads at the same time and waiting for the pics to load and they were all different sizes, some being exceptionally large files. Regulated the pics to a site wide standard that was considerably smaller than what had been generally posted and the issue resolved itself.

Not that anyone asked me...

SecretMethod70

Thanks for the input. There are filesize limitations for attachments. If the photo is hosted on another site it doesn't make a difference.

Also, this problem has to do with CPU load as opposed to bandwidth.

__________________
Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

Hyacinthe

I miss the shoutbox =(

__________________
"I want to be remembered as the girl who always smiles even when her heart is broken... and the one that could brighten up your day even if she couldnt brighten her own"

"Her emotions were clear waters. You could see the scarring and pockmarks at the bottom of the pool, but it was just a part of her landscape – the consequences of others’ actions in which she claimed no part."

uncle phil

/me echoes the question...

__________________
"We were wrong, terribly wrong. (We) should not have tried to fight a guerrilla war with conventional military tactics against a foe willing to absorb enormous casualties...in a country lacking the fundamental political stability necessary to conduct effective military and pacification operations. It could not be done and it was not done."
- Robert S. McNamara
-----------------------------------------
"We will take our napalm and flame throwers out of the land that scarcely knows the use of matches...
We will leave you your small joys and smaller troubles."
- Eugene McCarthy in "Vietnam Message"
-----------------------------------------
never wrestle with a pig.
you both get dirty;
the pig likes it.

Midnight

/me echoes the sentiment

DaveOrion

Cmon phil, you're a jedi knight & a shaman on the shoutbox. You wouldn't want to give that up would you???

__________________
Syriana...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer...

The_Jazz

Folks, we have a perfectly good chat feature that does the exact same thing as the shoutbox. Let any staff member know if you need help accessing it in one of the several ways that have been made available, and there's a handy how-to here:

TFP Chat instructions and rules

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Sultana

Can't chat at work, heh. (During lunch breaks, of course!)

I like the shoutbox, however if it's pulling the site down, I guess I can give it up.

__________________
"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath.
At night, the ice weasels come." -

Matt Groening

My goal? To fulfill my potential.

Glory's Sun

Does the java chat function (top nav bar of the menu) cause problems at work?

tecoyah

Well as it just took about 20 seconds for this page to load....I don't think the shoutbox was a primary culprit. It was quite fun while it lasted, and its unfortunate that it was removed...Oh well...evolution at work.

Glory's Sun

site seems alot faster for me today.. even on a laggy connection..

tecoyah

Then I stand corrected.

ngdawg

Didn't have a problem with it loading slower; I have DSL, which we acquired two months ago after years of cable and no discernable difference. I had noticed that sometimes saying something in the shoutbox took a while to get there.
It's a nice little feature-I don't chat any more-but if it's a thing of the past, then that's ok too for me, not for those that can't get chat at work. (then again, shouldn't y'all be working? )

__________________
Don't blame me. I didn't vote for either of'em.

LoganSnake

I have Comcast cable and this site has been loading slower than a turtle stampede through peanut butter for me for the past two weeks. Opening threads would take at least 20 seconds.

__________________
Maturity is knowing you were an idiot in the past. Wisdom is knowing that you'll be an idiot in the future. Common sense is knowing that you should try not to be an idiot now. - J. Jacques

Halx

We've got some short term fixes in mind, but we're still looking into long term solutions.

__________________
You have found this post informative.
-The Administrator
[Don't Feed The Animals]

abaya

Heh, I didn't even notice the shoutbox was gone until I saw this thread...

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Jinn

likewise

__________________
"I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel

ShaniFaye

the chat feature is useless to me at work

__________________
I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

World's King

I never notice when things are moving slowly...


I'm wither hungover or drunk so things are always moving slowly.

__________________
heavy is the head that wears the crown

Plan9

But I like the Shoutbox.

Its like a FWB or something.

I come to the site, put my wang in the box, look at some threads, type some stupid "WEREWOLVES, ZOMBIES, ___" crap.

(sigh)

But WHAT KIND of peanut butter?

You've done this before, haven't you?

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Infinite_Loser

Yes, there is. You just don't know it.

__________________
I believe in equality; Everyone is equally inferior to me.

Plan9

YAY! The only box I get is Shoutbox.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Martian

I don't want to threadjack any worse than has already been done, but I feel the need to state my opinion that this is not entirely true. The shoutbox and IRC chat are two very different animals; the shoutbox, in particular, has a certain spontaneity that chat lacks, which is something that I like particularly.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

aberkok

I'm certainly more of a chat fan, but the Shoutbox has enabled some people to have an outlet. It's like blaming society's ills on a technology. Sometimes it's not about whether a technology should exist - it just does. People don't always decide on using the Shoutbox over IRC, they just do, and continue to. If it doesn't come back, then these folks won't have that outlet.

Not that I'm suggesting it was removed for any reason other than a system glitch.

__________________
!check out my new blog! http://arkanamusic.wordpress.com

Warden Gentiles: "It? Perfectly innocent. But I can see how, if our roles were reversed, I might have you beaten with a pillowcase full of batteries."

Infinite_Loser

You know, I never have been able to get the 'chat' to work. And I've tried no less than a hundred times.

__________________
I believe in equality; Everyone is equally inferior to me.

LoganSnake

Well, that's strange because it took me about 37 seconds...

__________________
Maturity is knowing you were an idiot in the past. Wisdom is knowing that you'll be an idiot in the future. Common sense is knowing that you should try not to be an idiot now. - J. Jacques

Infinite_Loser

Whenever I try it says "Can't connect to server" >.>

__________________
I believe in equality; Everyone is equally inferior to me.

seretogis

One reason why I dislike vBulletin is that even templates are stored in the database, so even loading a practically static page results in DB queries. If you are on a shared-hosting system, it's that much more stress on the server. In my experience, the majority of slow-downs with dynamic websites is a result of too many or too-intensive DB queries. Try throwing some microtime log statements around in the scripts and see what is returning slowly -- I bet it is database related.

__________________
seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

JumpinJesus

Are you using the chat link across the tool bar at the top of the page or are you using something like xchat or mIRC?

__________________
"I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses