Comments

Randy Brown wrote on 3/24/2003, 6:10 PM
I did about an hour ago, but it seems to be back up to speed now.
Randy
MyST wrote on 3/24/2003, 6:16 PM
"Does any body else find this forum REALLY SLOW"

Whew! I'M glad I read the rest of your post, I thought you meant the users were slow!
(And it only took me 15 minutes to figure it out!)

Yeah, it was slow going this afternoon, but it seems OK now.

M
statas wrote on 3/24/2003, 8:14 PM
this forum has always been slow. hope they fix it...! :)
Spot|DSE wrote on 3/25/2003, 1:51 AM
.05 to open a page here/refresh here.
.11 to open/refresh a page on the DMN (even w/all the ads)
.19 to open/refresh a page on the COW
.22 to open/refresh a page on the DV.com

All just checked just now...
craftech wrote on 3/25/2003, 7:32 AM
Varies.
Pretty fast today.
John
Jay Gladwell wrote on 3/25/2003, 7:37 AM
Like some of those above said, I find some days are better than others.
baysidebas wrote on 3/25/2003, 9:22 AM
It's been excruciatingly slow last few weeks, but today it positively flies!
Randy Brown wrote on 3/25/2003, 9:55 AM
I just want to make sure; is there a way to read this forum in a newsreader (ie OE) or is that something SF would have to set up? Sorry if this is a totally dumb question, but being able to flag threads etc., would make my life absolutely perfect! I think it's the reason a lot of people don't come back to reply to a reply given to them...at least it's happened to me (and I feel terrible when I run across that thread again and realize someone kindly answered my question 2 days ago)
Randy
FuTz wrote on 3/25/2003, 1:35 PM
Maybe we could just insert a velocity envelope and crank it up?

naaaaah...
Chienworks wrote on 3/25/2003, 2:20 PM
This forum is web-based only, so it can't be seen in newsreaders.

There are two suggestions i would make to SonicKSA though ...

1) Since the replies in Non-Threaded view are rows in an HTML table, and since most browsers won't render the table on the screen until it's been fully downloaded, and since rendering large tables can take a while, I would suggest closing the </table> after every 10 or so replies and starting a new <table> for the next block of replies. This won't speed up the complete display of the page, but it will let the first block of replies show up much faster when the thread gets long. This will give it the appearance of faster loading. The only visual difference is an extra bit of vertical space where each new table starts.

2) Allow the Non-Threaded view to be sorted with the newest replies on top. When this is combined with the first suggestion, people will be able to see the latest replies much faster. They won't have to wait for all the old replies to be loaded before being able to read the newest ones.

Anyway ... my two cents as a forum programmer/host ;)
statas wrote on 3/25/2003, 5:50 PM
i'd like them to add a "subscribe to thread" option and email me when there are new replies to a post i'm interested in. that would be koool! :)
Randy Brown wrote on 3/25/2003, 7:02 PM
What Staus said; that would take care of my concern.
Randy
SonyKSA wrote on 3/26/2003, 10:56 AM
The speed improvements you've been noticing are related to some changes we made to database backend on Monday night. We hope this will greatly improve the usability of these forums.

Kelly, good call on suggestion #1. I've implemented that. Should help the load for modem users.

On #2 I think that it's a good idea for people who use the forum everyday. Unfortunately the majority of the people who use these forums come less frequently. So I'm thinking it might work better as a preference (i.e. Non-threaded - Recent Messages First). I'll add that to my list of feature requests to consider when we've got a little more time.
SonyKSA wrote on 3/26/2003, 11:10 AM
This (subscribe to thread) is also on the list of ideas to consider. I've heard some pros and cons to doing this, but as of now it's a feature we do plan to add some day.

Another feature we commonly have requested is to be able to see the message you're replying to when replying in the non-threaded view. I've implemented that as well. I hope it helps.

Let me know if you see any problems. Thanks all for the great ideas.