Why is the search disabled?

[edmundito]

My idea would be to reduce the forums to technical things like games in productions and and move the community and general topics somewhere else where there is more bandwith. Maybe we can all hang out in a new forum, like the adventure developers forums or something! We're dying again!!!!11

Unless we can gather like $120 a month to support a dedicated server...

[Traveler]

I see at the bottom of each page that it takes 18 queries to construct a page. If I open 10 topics during a forum visit, that's 180 queries for a single person. If there are 10 users active at one time, we're talking about 1800 queries in a few minute interval. That's quite a lot, considering that the server is shared with other websites, which place load on the machine as well.

Does anyone know what these queries do? I once downloaded the SMF source code, so I could search it through to see, but if someone knows it for a fact, that'd great. Let's see if we can somehow cut down the number of queries to construct a single page, I bet we would make a serious cut on the processor load. Obviously, this would mean cutting some forum features, but first let's see what's what, then we can decide.

I'd vote for keeping all forums in one place, if it's feasible. What do you guys think?

[Pumaman]

Just to bring you guys up to date:

I have been looking into the high load problem along with my web host. They've been very helpful and co-operative, and we've been trying various things to get the load down.

Over the last couple of days, we've had all the forums running except General Discussion, Hints and Tips and Games In Production, and due to the changes we've made, the load was at an acceptable level.

I have now re-enabled all the forums as a test to see whether the load remains ok. If so, then great, we can all carry on as before; if not, then due consideration will be given to the permanent removal of the General Discussion forum. Anyway, we'll now leave it for a couple of days to see how things shape up.

[Ishmael]

Oh noes D:

No gengen would be... like... I can't think of a good comparison, but it would mean we move the photo topic etc. into adventure chitchat...?

[Andail]

I certainly think gen gen is a vital part of this community. There's a lot of crap here, but also some really good discussions every now and then.

[Moresco]

I realise this has probably already been thought of but:

The zipped techinical only, is it in txt only format?  Can you do that? Would that be smaller?  Just a thought.

Also, what forums are searched the most?  Can you maybe say, only search the technical forums?

For games forums, for each game could you maybe do posts in alphabetical order, and then just click on the letter you want? Sorry if that's a crazy question, I'm not a forum expert so I don't know how it all works. 

What about asking for donations to get better hosting?  I know people don't like to go there sometimes, but maybe you should?

[Domino]

I agree with andail about gen gen being a vital part of this community.  I think there would be a huge void if it had to be removed permanently.

If worse comes to worse. I'd be willing to donate some cash to keep this place up and running, and to make sure that the AGS forums remain intact for generations to come. 

I'm serious about the donation part, so please save General Discussion.

Shawn

p.s. had to write this quickly because i'm at work and don't want to get caught.

[auhsor]

Its been interesting the past few days with the forums coming back to life slowly. I agree fully that the gen gen is avital part of the community. It's probably where I spend the most of my time here. It would be very bad to see it gone, although if you have to, then I guess you have to.

[Pumaman]

It's looking ok so far, so fortunately it looks like all the forums can stay.

Whether I'm able to re-enable the search feature or not is another question, which I'll look into in a few days time.

[Jay]

What I don't understand is why removal of the General forum would be considered before considering switching plans or hosts. You're using WestHost (it looks like). They offer inexpensive VPS plans, have those been considered?
Also, Site5, which I find to be a very reliable host, just launched a new line of hosting packages that include RapidReflex - a technology that handles high CPU usage without causing any downtime.

[Pumaman]

Ok, well the load has been acceptable now with all the forums back on, so I've now re-enabled the Search function. Hopefully, if this doesn't cause too much additional load, it can stay too and then we're all back to normal.

What I don't understand is why removal of the General forum would be considered before considering switching plans or hosts. You're using WestHost (it looks like). They offer inexpensive VPS plans, have those been considered?

This site is running on a VPS plan. There's no point continually switching hosts, I've already done it twice and the new host has complained about server load. So, realisitcally the only option is to upgrade to a semi-dedicated server which costs quite a bit more.

Anyway, the point should hopefully be moot, because I've managed to reduce the load to an acceptable level now.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

I've managed to reduce the load to an acceptable level now.

I'm the layman of all laymen, so excuse me if the question is below the average level of intelligence or something ( ) - I'm curious as to how you did it, since when all's said and done everything's back to normal...

...oh, sorry, it wasn't a question. : If, when all's said and done, everything's back to normal, how did you reduce the load? Did these board-less days do the trick? And if so, does that mean we can expect more of the same when the load increases again (as it will if this was all that did it)?

[Pumaman]

It's a result of trying different configuration settings in the forum software, and more significantly installing a utility called eAccelerator, which improves the speed of PHP scripts.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Kay-ay. Thankya. Just curious.