# RE:Reply to post - feature switched off



## Brother Shatterstone

*RE:Reply to post - feature switched off*



> I've switched off the email notification feature for subscribed threads to see if
> it helps speed up the server.  Some threads are subscribed to by so many members
> that every time they're posted to, the server has to send out hundreds of emails.
> 
> Please don't reply to this email, as it is an automated message.  I don't want to
> receive a reply from all 17,000 members of EN World!
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Morrus
> EN World
> www.enworld.org




I was hoping to get more information on the above...  Is this permanent?  Is it temporary?  If it is permanent is it possible to have it turned on for some of the forum...  I must admit this will severely hurt PbP if people have to hunt for their threads by hand.


Yes I know of the subscription page in the account and anyone needing help getting there they can simply click this:

Subscriptions


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## Morrus

It's an experiment to see if it makes a difference.  I don't know whether it will end up being permanent or temporary, but for the moment it's intended as a trial for a few days.


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## Crothian

Boards seem to be moving faster


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## Brother Shatterstone

Crothian said:
			
		

> Boards seem to be moving faster



Not trying to be a pain but I've noticed no changed.  Then again, my connection from work has always been a bit temperamental.  I'll let you know how things differ at home when I make it their. 

Morrus, thanks for the ino.


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## Piratecat

I've noticed an improvement. Too soon to tell, though.

That being said, I don't expect it to be permanent. If this is indeed the problem, there are probably settings that we can jigger to improve performance.


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## Lela

I really miss the notifications.  It's much harder to keep track of things w/o.


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## Michael Morris

Lela said:
			
		

> I really miss the notifications.  It's much harder to keep track of things w/o.




Continue to subscribe with "no email notification" Then, at the start of your browsing day, go to my account.  You will see a list of your subscribed threads there


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## Lela

Spoony Bard said:
			
		

> Continue to subscribe with "no email notification" Then, at the start of your browsing day, go to my account. You will see a list of your subscribed threads there



This works for those who's browsing day on the boards isn't around 6 hours long (on average) and broken up throughout the day. It amazes me how I once relied completely on the Subscribed Threads page.


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## Thornir Alekeg

I've definitely noticed an improvement and that's a good thing.  It means more a productive day at work reading the boards...uh, I mean working...


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## AGGEMAM

Board loading times and posting have improved dramatically after the feature has been switched off.

I vote for it being permanent.

And to those cry babies that thinks it's harder to navigate without the feature, I must say that I've never used it, and I've had no problem in the past with navigating the board without it. Here's a tip for you btw: there's a scroll bar on the right. I suggest you use, and take note of the blue threads as those are the ones you've read before.


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## Lela

AGGEMAM said:
			
		

> Board loading times and posting have improved dramatically after the feature has been switched off.



I am curious though, has the actual number of posts/day gone up, down, or stayed steady?  What about the number of visitors in general?  Time they've spent on the boards?

Basically, have there been detrimental effects (such as less members/posts coming around) after that was put into place.



			
				AGGEMAM said:
			
		

> And to those cry babies that thinks it's harder to navigate without the feature, I must say that I've never used it, and I've had no problem in the past with navigating the board without it. Here's a tip for you btw: there's a scroll bar on the right. I suggest you use, and take note of the blue threads as those are the ones you've read before.



WHAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

I'm not going to go into what's wrong with that paragraph.


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## AGGEMAM

Lela said:
			
		

> I'm not going to go into what's wrong with that paragraph.




I could probably find a slew of spelling and gramma errors, but it was all in good fun as you've probably guessed.

Seriously though, I don't see how e-mail notifications make surfing easier than logging in and checking your subscribed threads, you're on the internet in any case right? and you still have to open the page to see what's new, right?

On other boards where the feature is turned on to all posts you reply to by default, I just find it annoying (to say the least).


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## Brother Shatterstone

AGGEMAM said:
			
		

> And to those cry babies that thinks it's harder to navigate without the feature, I must say that I've never used it, and I've had no problem in the past with navigating the board without it.




I'm going to ignore you trolling and ask a simple question: 

Do you do PbP game..? 

If not then yeah the emails are important as its not a normal forum where the hot topic stays up and everyone replies to it.  People come in all day and post in it... There might be more of a turn over on game threads then your general discussion.

I can get by without them but imagine alot of others will have problems with this change.


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## Piratecat

As I said, it's not a change we'd like to make permanent. Stability until we have the new server is more important the notifications, though, assuming that we can't improve performance by adjusting settings.


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## Brother Shatterstone

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Stability until we have the new server is more important the notifications.



You'll get no complaints from me and I agree whole-heartedly.  When is the magic sever suppose to appear...? 

I heard rumors that it was a _+5 keen sever of virus bane_ but nothing really official.


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## AGGEMAM

Brother Shatterstone said:
			
		

> I'm going to ignore you trolling




Who's trolling?

Anyways, you could achive the exact same result with subscribing as noted below (in my lastest post and others).


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## Brother Shatterstone

AGGEMAM said:
			
		

> Who's trolling?



let me bold it for you...


			
				AGGEMAM said:
			
		

> And to those *cry babies* that thinks it's harder to navigate without the feature/




If I need to change the size of the text please let me know...



			
				AGGEMAM said:
			
		

> Anyways, you could achive the exact same result with subscribing as noted below (in my lastest post and others).



I know how to subscribe to a thread and no I cannot do the same thing...  The email notification is one stop shopping for me.  The game is posted to and I get a straight link to it and there is no way to beat that convenience. 

Just because you don't use it doesn't make it a worthless option...  Obviously theirs enough people who use it that it its causing sever issues.


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## AGGEMAM

Brother Shatterstone said:
			
		

> let me bold it for you...




Ah .. to boldly go where you shouldn't, eh?   

I already said it was a jest, and I believe most people got it the first time around.

Anyways, I _do_ use the feature, but not on this board. On another board where it sometimes takes weeks or even month between the relevant (for me) threads to be posted to. There I can see the point, but here .. no .. still can't .. and won't if it means the boards being as slow as they have been before.

I would be willing to bet you that those slowdowns and outages have taken their toll on members here. I know a few personally that have checked this board out and dismissed it because of it despite my best assurances that this board is one of the greatest around. During the outages period, I didn't even bother to check the boards, and have only returned to more frequent visits recently.


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## Brother Shatterstone

AGGEMAM said:
			
		

> I already said it was a jest, and I believe most people got it the first time around.




I didn't find any good fun in it nor did I see a serious apology.



			
				AGGEMAM said:
			
		

> Anyways, I _do_ use the feature, but not on this board. On another board where it sometimes takes weeks or even month between the relevant (for me) threads to be posted to. There I can see the point, but here .. no .. still can't .. and won't if it means the boards being as slow as they have been before.




Good, I'm glad you will realize that when I say I have games that get update once a week, its not a set schedule by the way, and with a max of about 8 people having email subscription to it, that its an important and invaluable feature.  



			
				AGGEMAM said:
			
		

> I would be willing to bet you that those slowdowns and outages have taken their toll on members here.



The games too, I'm looking for a solution to the problem also but I don't see how having email subscriptions in the PbP forums is such a big deal...  If it chucks an email it it’s only going to a handful of people.


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## Seonaid

Argh . . . Sorry, I know that it's been said this is temporary, but I want my voice heard: it's a BIG pain in my butt. I don't have the time to check the boards for interesting stuff any more, and like BS said above, I just click the link and go. The extra step of checking my subscribed threads (and then going back to get to the 8 other games I'm in, plus the OOC threads for all) *is* a big problem for me. If it's a big deal, perhaps make it a community supporter feature? That doesn't solve all the problems, but it would help a lot of people.


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## Morrus

Brother Shatterstone and Aggemam, drop it right now, please.  Take it to email if you must.


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## Mac Callum

Morrus - perhaps we could retrict e-mail notices to once or twice a day, and not on a constant basis?  That seems like it might be a good compromise.  

Needing to get your email updates every 5 minutes probably isn't very healthy anyway.   

Mac Callum

PS - Just in case this gets your attention, I used to have the screen name "Irda Ranger", but I had was never able to log on after new years and had to make a new account.  The emails I sent went unanswered (which I can understand), but if you can figure out what's wrong or help me re-log on I would appreciate it.


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## Staffan

Mac Callum said:
			
		

> Morrus - perhaps we could retrict e-mail notices to once or twice a day, and not on a constant basis?  That seems like it might be a good compromise.



That sounds like a good plan to me. Pick a time of the day when the server isn't *too* busy, have it go through and see what threads have been posted to, and send out notices to those subscribed to those threads. Might as well collect all the updates in one e-mail per subscriber while you're at it (instead of one e-mail saying "thread X has been updated" and another saying "thread Y has been updated", just one saying "These threads have been updated: thread X, and thread Y").

I don't know if that's technically doable, but it's a good idea anyway.


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## Olive

Here's a definite vote for putting them back on, as soon as possible. I depend on the updates for my board enjoyment, and to keep track fo threads i'm running, particularly ones in palces like rogue's gallery where there's fairly low traffic.

Also wondering if Morrus sent otu an email about it, and if so why I didn't get it?!!?


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## Brother Shatterstone

Olive said:
			
		

> Also wondering if Morrus sent otu an email about it, and if so why I didn't get it?!!?




My original quote in my first post contains the email I got also this was from the same email address that delivers the thread subscription notices.


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## Morrus

It was sent out to everyone.  If you didn't get it, I have no idea why!


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## Mac Callum

Does the email feature have to be system wide, or can be set by forum?  Some forums (such as PbP) need this feature more than others, I would think.

Mac Callum


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## Gez

Me, I only use daily or weekly updates. Rather than one mail per post, it's one mail per day or per week (assuming, of course, there were any post).

And these are not disabled, (unless I'm somehow priviledged, I haven't got a mail telling me it's disabled; but I still got my daily PBP and weekly Sep's SH) so you should try that instead.


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## Creamsteak

Morrus said:
			
		

> It was sent out to everyone.  If you didn't get it, I have no idea why!



I didn't get it either, I knew about it though.

I just figured out that it disables the report a post bit too...


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## Brother Shatterstone

Creamsteak said:
			
		

> I just figured out that it disables the report a post bit too...



Oops, yeah I forgot to tell that when I found it the other day...   

And I think I might convert my subscriptions over to ICQ so when, if, this experiment ends if someone could make a note of it here I would be a happy man.


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## Lela

Did it also disable the e-mail feature?


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## Creamsteak

Lela said:
			
		

> Did it also disable the e-mail feature?



 In short, yes. Except for when you recieve private messages. -if I understand what your asking...


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## Seonaid

I also did not get the email about the disabling of the notifications . . . I went a-hunting in Meta to figure out what was wrong!


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## Bendris Noulg

Seonaid said:
			
		

> I also did not get the email about the disabling of the notifications . . . I went a-hunting in Meta to figure out what was wrong!



Ditto.


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## Lela

Bendris Noulg said:
			
		

> Ditto.



 Me three.


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## Berandor

I didn't get the e-mail either.


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## KB9JMQ

Me 4


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## Brother Shatterstone

*Me starts to feel special for getting the email.*


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## BSF

Hmm, I will leap into the fray here.  

OK, I did not get Morrus' email notification on shutting down the subscription emails.  I did read it from Piratecat in the Ceramic DM thread.  

I am not getting instantaneous notifications of threads that I am subscribed to.  Including the Encounters with the Supernatural thread and Piratecat's storyhour.  However, I am getting summary notifications for the Kiln-Fired Ceramic DM thread.  

As a side note, I have been idly wondering if subscription notifications had an impact for a little while.  I noticed that the boards would slow down anytime Piratecat updated his story hour.  Of course, the boards slow down plenty of other times as well, so it was more a possibility I had in mind and never felt I had anything more than anecdotal evidence to worry about. 

I am still seeing the boards slow down, so turning off email might have helped, but it isn't the sole cause of any lagging.  OK, that isn't a huge revelation.  EN World has a lot of traffic throughout the day and we aer all doing our part to keep that up.  

Hmm, I am going to set myself to receive PM notifications in email, somebody mentioned that those are still being sent out, so I will take a look to see if I can figure out what kind of MTA EN World is using.  

Nope, nothing clear at least.  Morrus, I am not sure how you have vBulletin configured for email.  If it is just talking to Cyberstreet's mail gateway, you might not have many options on fine-tuning that outside of the vBulletin settings.  If the board talks to a Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) on the same machine, then you might be able to tweak things a bit more.  

As an example, newer versions of Sendmail can delay email delivery if the load on the server gets too high.  You can also configure sendmail to only deliver email every x number of seconds.  In this case, you could set it up to only deliver email every couple of hours.  Not quite instantaneous, but better than no delivery at all?  

This doesn't really solve the problem, it just helps you mitigate it.  If you want to look at some of those options, I am sure that the CyberStreet folks can help out.  Or, feel free to email me and I will help if I can.


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## Dimwhit

I was wondering why I wasn't getting subscription emails...until I found this thread. Apparently I, too, did not get the email. 

I've actually found that I more and more rely on my subscription page in the CP and less and less on the subscription email that is sent. However, I understand the convenience of having the email, especially for pbp and such. So I guess I'm fairly neutral on making this permanent or not.

Which makes me wonder why I bothered posting this message in the first place...


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## Lela

Dimwhit said:
			
		

> I was wondering why I wasn't getting subscription emails...until I found this thread. Apparently I, too, did not get the email.
> 
> I've actually found that I more and more rely on my subscription page in the CP and less and less on the subscription email that is sent. However, I understand the convenience of having the email, especially for pbp and such. So I guess I'm fairly neutral on making this permanent or not.
> 
> Which makes me wonder why I bothered posting this message in the first place...



 For one thing, I always find that avatar fascinating.  So I'm happy you posted.


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## dpdx

The good news is we're transitioning to a newer and better server, neh? 

If that will cure the lag that cripples this board about 60% of the time (even after the measures re:notifications, to tell the truth), and if there's some kind of meeting halfway we can reach about the instant notification on subscribed threads, I'd be a happy ENWorlder.

I'd add that the notifications don't need to contain the body of the latest post. One notification with a list of all my subscriptions that had been posted to in the last 24 hours, with the links, would work just fine, if it helps ease the load on the sendmail client.

But I didn't get the email, either, and I'll also admit that I haven't been a big fan of Cyberstreet as this board's ISP all these years, so take all this how you will. I'm off to blow out all my old, dead subscriptions.


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## Dimwhit

Lela said:
			
		

> For one thing, I always find that avatar fascinating.  So I'm happy you posted.




Really? Cool! Glad someone has noticed it.  It's one of the best portraits I've ever seen from a photographer. The fact that it's my son is merely a cooincidence.  I was kind of hoping EN World would bump up to 100x100 avatars so I could put more of the portrait in. Oh well...

Back to the topic at hand...


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## Lela

Yes, I've noticed the boards have been very slow today.  Is there anything else we can do while waiting for the new server?  Turn off the avatars maybe?*

Is there a thread about the new server around somewhere?

Cutting the e-mails down sounds like a good comprimise.  Even taking out the message that has been posted could make a serious dent in server issues long term.  Especially for some of the Story Hour posts (P-kitty anyone?).


*Sorry Dimwhit!  I do really like it, it's amazing.  I'm tempted to ask for a copy.


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## LightPhoenix

Well, since no one has made this point, I will.

You can just as easily bookmark (or whatever your browser does to save URLs) a thread and go to it with a single click.  This is most useful for the PbP games, IMO... just bookmark and click, and check.  Sure, you can only check one thread at a time, and that sucks, but it's not the end-all-be-all of the PbP board that some would make it out to be.  You could even make a bookmark to go to the last thread in a post, with a little clever cut-and-paste.

Also, I didn't get an e-mail about the change either...


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## AGGEMAM

LightPhoenix said:
			
		

> You could even make a bookmark to go to the last thread in a post, with a little clever cut-and-paste.




You can also change display mode so that it always display the last post first, which is what I have.


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## Brother Shatterstone

LightPhoenix said:
			
		

> You can just as easily bookmark (or whatever your browser does to save URLs) a thread and go to it with a single click.




I have something close to this at home, but I truly doubt the navy wants me to have bookmarks like that at work... 

And I never said it was the end all of PBP gaming it's just going to make all of the games proceed much slower than before.


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## dpdx

We've got plenty of resources to work on play money and 'petz', but we still can't find a compromise that works for everyone re: notification on subscriptions?  :\

For real, though, a lot of people didn't (and will not) get the alleged 'email,' we have no idea why, but unless they suspect something's gone wrong, they won't bother to check to see if their threads have in fact been posted in. This is gonna wreak havoc on PbP, if not outright kill a lot of the games.

I'm lucky I play in a PbP that approaches Academy of Drell in its posting frequency, if not longevity, or I'd have never known myself. And whether I can now turn it on again, or not, doesn't much matter, because everyone else has to figure this out, too, for there to still be a game. And once again, they didn't get the email. And noone knows (or seems to care) why.

I still love this board, but I'm gonna remember this at the next pledge drive, and talk about it then, too. 

This ain't right.


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## Morrus

dpdx said:
			
		

> We've got plenty of resources to work on play money and 'petz', but we still can't find a compromise that works for everyone re: notification on subscriptions? :\
> 
> For real, though, a lot of people didn't (and will not) get the alleged 'email,' we have no idea why, but unless they suspect something's gone wrong, they won't bother to check to see if their threads have in fact been posted in. This is gonna wreak havoc on PbP, if not outright kill a lot of the games.
> 
> I'm lucky I play in a PbP that approaches Academy of Drell in its posting frequency, if not longevity, or I'd have never known myself. And whether I can now turn it on again, or not, doesn't much matter, because everyone else has to figure this out, too, for there to still be a game. And once again, they didn't get the email. And noone knows (or seems to care) why.
> 
> I still love this board, but I'm gonna remember this at the next pledge drive, and talk about it then, too.
> 
> This ain't right.



1) Petz is, theoretically, a very tiny drain on resources (if at all). Looking at a Petz page is no different to looking at a thread. If, somehow, it turns out that Petz is using important resources, it will be switched off.

2) The "compromises" suggested are not as easy as you appear to believe. They would require changes to the way vBulletin works. I've been trying to find resources on the subject, but no luck yet.  Or do you have some information that I don't, in which case perhaps it would be helpful to share it?



> And noone knows (or seems to care) why.



Don't be ridiculous.



> I'm gonna remember this at the next pledge drive, and talk about it then, too.



Fine.


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## dpdx

Morrus said:
			
		

> 1) Petz is, theoretically, a very tiny drain on resources (if at all). Looking at a Petz page is no different to looking at a thread. If, somehow, it turns out that Petz is using important resources, it will be switched off.



What about your time, and that of the other admins, Morrus? Those are resources, too.



> 2) The "compromises" suggested are not as easy as you appear to believe. They would require changes to the way vBulletin works. I've been trying to find resources on the subject, but no luck yet.  Or do you have some information that I don't, in which case perhaps it would be helpful to share it?



No, I'm not a VBulletin guru, either, and don't have access to the documentation for it, but I can brainstorm a solution as well as anyone else. I'd be happy to start, if it does in fact help.



> Don't be ridiculous.



I honestly didn't see a lot of concern about this. I still haven't seen a sticky announcement thread about it from admins, which has been true of other board changes like this, and which I think would help.



> Fine.



Well, like I said, I love this board... 

I do respect the situation you're in with a tradeoff between this feature and the bandwidth it's using, and I'll repeat my offer to help with it however I can. But the petz thing made it seem like you were moving on, and I disagreed with it for the reasons I posted.


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## Lela

Well, really, when features that a whole lot of people really enjoy disapear without warning (for many) and no back up, such as a Sticky Thread, goes up a lot of people are going to be annoyed.  But then completely different features pop up that are usable only by the paying minority.  Yeah, I'm betting a lot of people are gonna be angry, regardless of the argument.

I'm also betting people are a little afraid that this is heading towards being, essentially, a pay site.  That tends to be the trend after features start vanishing.  Especially when new incentives suddenly pop up for getting membership/account/supporter/donator status.  No one really cares about the reasoning behind it.  They've seen and heard it all before and it usually ends the same way: Pay Site.  Which, as often as not, goes under anyway.

They don't want to lose the boards.  Can you really blame them?


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## Morrus

You need to make your mind up about what you feel the issue is.  On the one hand, I have someone saying "it's using resources!" and on the other hand I have someone saying "its use shouldn't be limited to a small group!".  These are contradictory.

I added Petz for one simple reason: it seemed like fun, and I thought some people might enjoy it.  If you personally aren't interested, that's fine; it's probably not for everyone, but it didn't take much effort to install.  

As for sticky threads: nobody reads them.


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## WayneLigon

_Anything_ that speeds the boards/server up gets my vote. You can take down thread emails, eliminate _whatever_; as long as I can read and reply and post I'm fine


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## Lela

Morrus said:
			
		

> You need to make your mind up about what you feel the issue is. On the one hand, I have someone saying "it's using resources!" and on the other hand I have someone saying "its use shouldn't be limited to a small group!". These are contradictory.



Sorry if it came off that way. I did not mean to say that you should give it to everyone. I merely said that pulling something from everyone and then giving to a select few can seriously piss people off.



			
				Morrus said:
			
		

> I added Petz for one simple reason: it seemed like fun, and I thought some people might enjoy it. If you personally aren't interested, that's fine; it's probably not for everyone, but it didn't take much effort to install.



It probably doesn't take any real resources. In fact, I figured that you wouldn't have put it up if it were going to cause a problem. Though I was interested in Drego the Spider, it's not a big deal for me who gets to play and who doesn't. I haven't ever been to NeoPets and I'd likely lose interest in Drego after a while even if I did play.



			
				Morrus said:
			
		

> As for sticky threads: nobody reads them.



I do.  In fact, I read the titles of the sticky threads before I came over to meta to check why no e-mails were forthcoming.

Besides, who does it hurt to put one up? Make P-Kitty do it. We all know he has nothing to do ).


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## Lela

Morrus,

As to ways to cut down on bandwidth, I assume you've seen these threads on vBulliten's support boards:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17943

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=29446

There are several more that I noticed a few hours back. Just do a search for "Bandwidth" or something similar and they should pop right up.

It doesn't allow me to start new threads due to me not actually owning vBulletin myself.  As such, I was unable to ask (or suggest changes in new versions) regarding different ways to do e-mail notifications.

[Edit  There also seems to be a number of hacks into vBulletin linked to from those boards.  Perhaps there's something in those or you could request something.


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## Morrus

Thanks, Lela.

Bandwidth isn't so much of a problem, though - the real crunch is database queries.  Anything which reduces those will make a difference.


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## Lela

Morrus said:
			
		

> Thanks, Lela.
> 
> Bandwidth isn't so much of a problem, though - the real crunch is database queries. Anything which reduces those will make a difference.



Hmmmm,

Well, this thread looks like it might go somewhere eventually:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57611&highlight=Reduc%2A+queries

It looks like you're already doing just about everything on this page but I'll drop it in anyway:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=78701&highlight=Reduc%2A+queries

Ah, this looks promising.  Note that I know very little php (i.e. none at all) so I could be wrong:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57611&highlight=Reduc%2A+queries


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## BSF

Morrus,
Are you using a basic install of MySQL and/or the underlying OS?  There might be some performance optimizations that can be achieved by compiling MySQL and statically linking libraries on the server.  There might also be some server parameters that can be tweaked to utilize memory, etc.

On the OS side, especially if you are using a linux flavor, there might be some kernel tuning that you can implement.  Modules that are unnecessary, services that can be shutdown, tweaks geared toward server performance as opposed to desktop performance, etc.  

Hmm, what about any tweaks with the web server software, or with PHP?  

You indicate that bandwidth isn't really the problem, which isn't a surprise since you have done a lot the past year or so to reduce bandwidth consumption.  Have you been able to ascertain that the problem is with database performance as opposed to server performance? 

And Morrus is correct, all the changes I have suggested are non-trivial.  Many of the suggested changes are not, necessarily, straightforward to implement.  Any changes should be carefully evaluated because they do bring forward an element of risk.  With some of these ideas, it might be better to analyse the condition on the current server and look for optimizations that can be implemented when the server is upgraded or replaced.  Yes, I know that sounds a little harsh, especially when there are features right now that people are missing.  But, I am just thinking from the standpoint of how difficult some of these are to implement on a production system where you do not have a regular maintenance window to test things.  I'm sure none of us wants Morrus to schedule regular downtime.  

As for Petz, I trust that Morrus has looked at it and is reasonably sure there won't be a huge impact on the site.  I would check it out myself, except I spend enough time on EN World goofing off.    (In other words, maybe later)

Morrus, server tuning for databases is not my strongest point.  But, I have done server tuning on a couple of OS's.  If there is anything that you think I can help you with, please feel free to email me.


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## DaveStebbins

For the record, I didn't get the e-mail either. If I didn't check Meta as part of my daily wanderings around the boards, I'd never have known. I also at least read sticky thread titles, if not always the messages.


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## Morrus

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> You indicate that bandwidth isn't really the problem, which isn't a surprise since you have done a lot the past year or so to reduce bandwidth consumption. Have you been able to ascertain that the problem is with database performance as opposed to server performance?



Yup, this time last year, bandwidth was a major problem.  Not any more, though.

The database queries have been reduced drastically since the site redesign, too.  Removing those PostNuke sites was a godsend.  However, the result, of course, is that forum usage increases again, using up the nice "buffer" created by removing the extraneous software.


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## MerricB

> However, the result, of course, is that forum usage increases again, using up the nice "buffer" created by removing the extraneous software.




Yeah, make the site better and people use it more. All you have to do is do nothing, and the problems will disappear as people abandon ENworld. 

I wonder how the WotC servers cope - that must be one amazing system they have there for running the boards.

Cheers!


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## Brother Shatterstone

Morrus, not trying to flog a dead horse, but I'm rather curious as to how your experiment is going.  How do the numbers stack up?  Does it look to be permanent? 

I myself can really say I’ve seen no changes, but I don’t trust my connection speed while at work, it always seems slower than my dialup connection at home, and by the time I get home I’m not surfing the boards anymore at peak times.


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## Lela

There's also been mention of a new server.  Any information on that?

(C'mon Morrus, we all know you have nothing better to do than answer my endless and inane questions.  )


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## Olive

Morrus said:
			
		

> As for sticky threads: nobody reads them.




Although I bet a lot of people read the thread title, and if it said 'thread subscription emails turned off', then it would be enough. Regardless, surely more people read them than read emails that enver got there.


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## Knight Otu

Olive said:
			
		

> Also wondering if Morrus sent *otu* an email about it, and if so why I didn't get it?!!?



Why would you get the email if he sent it to me? 

As far as I can see, I have not received any email about it, but then again, most of the time I only used subscription without mail once it became available. I guess the mail was put into my Notifications folder, where any mail is deleted after three days, and since I've had/still have a few problems with getting online...


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## AGGEMAM

Knight Otu said:
			
		

> Why would you get the email if he sent it to me?




ROFL. Good one, ol' mate.


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## ledded

Well, I went several days before I realized they had been switched off, I even went and deleted a lot of my old subscriptions before I finally wandered over here and slapped my head with a big "Doh!" for not figuring it out sooner.

I love the email subscriptions;  I don't have the time to always spend just navigating in hopes that something I'm interested in has been updated or replied to.  As a result, I only usually jump on the boards to cruise around every few days or so (evidenced by my lack of realization that it was turned off on purpose).

But, realistically, if they are hurting the boards then something has to change, more power to the admins for whatever solution they deem necessary.

I wish we could keep it *just* for Story Hours at the very least.  There is usually such a lag between actual story posts that I scan the emails and often dont jump on the boards unless there is a flurry of posts or a big story update.


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## dpdx

ledded said:
			
		

> I wish we could keep it *just* for Story Hours at the very least.  There is usually such a lag between actual story posts that I scan the emails and often dont jump on the boards unless there is a flurry of posts or a big story update.



Sorry, but there's no way it should be just for Story Hours, much as I dig Medallions and the other major SHs. 

PbP games and discussions use that feature in a big way, for one. For another, in the Rules and House Rules forum, isn't it the right thing to do when you post a new thread, to subscribe to it?

IMHO, Story Hours are probably near the bottom of the food chain of importancy for subscriptions, even if they're near the top in actual popularity.


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## Brother Shatterstone

Brother Shatterstone said:
			
		

> Morrus, not trying to flog a dead horse, but I'm rather curious as to how your experiment is going.  How do the numbers stack up?  Does it look to be permanent?
> 
> I myself can really say I’ve seen no changes, but I don’t trust my connection speed while at work, it always seems slower than my dialup connection at home, and by the time I get home I’m not surfing the boards anymore at peak times.




Still looking for some more information on this... :\


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## Desdichado

Apparently, the switch off has also disabled the "Report a Post" function.  Was that intentional?  What's the protocol to report posts without it?


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## Morrus

ledded said:
			
		

> I wish we could keep it *just* for Story Hours at the very least. There is usually such a lag between actual story posts that I scan the emails and often dont jump on the boards unless there is a flurry of posts or a big story update.



The Story Hours are the worst culprits.  The server has to send out thousands of emails _every time_ someone replies to PC's Story Hour, for example.  And that's just one thread. 

PC has noticed that if he, or someone else, replies to his SH, the boards slow to a crawl for a while - which corresponds to the emails being sent.

One solution, of course, is to bring back the old thread-length limit, closing threads when they reach a certain number of posts.  In the case of Story Hours, though, that can be a tad disruptive.


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## Piratecat

I'm not sure it would help, either, as people would just subscribe to the new thread. That's a zero sum gain.


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## thatdarncat

I've actually been finding that just subscribing without notification works fine. The first thing I do when I visit the site is check my account for updated threads or forums I've subscribed to. It seems to work fine for me 

Incidentally, we still get e-mail notifications daily for forum subscriptions.


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## Lela

Something I've heard requested in many a Sep thread (and other places) is a subscription option that only sends the e-mail when the thread author replies to the thread.  That would really help in story hours.


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## Dimwhit

You might look for some mods that would allow stuff like that. I think a cool feature would be to limit the number of subscriptions a user can have. Like maybe they can only subscribe BY EMAIL to up to 5 threads. After that, no more notification. Stuff like that.

But I can only imagine the strain all the notification emails must take on the server. I wonder how many were being sent out each hour.


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## Brother Shatterstone

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I'm not sure it would help, either, as people would just subscribe to the new thread. That's a zero sum gain.




Not if we ban you from story hour also...   

On a serious note.  

How the amount of posts picked up and such since then?  Are we up or down and such?


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## Seonaid

I've changed my mind. It's easy, if not _just_ as easy, to check my subscriptions instead of looking for an email notification. It would be _nice_ to have the emails, and I agree that if they can be reinstated that would be wonderful (and I think it's completely unnecessary to include the text of the new message), but I withdraw my objections.


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## ledded

I agree, I am continuing to survive without email notification  

You did make a good point, Morrus, that the Story Hours are some of the worst culprits, that I smacked my head and went 'Doh!' for not realizing sooner.  How many non-SH threads out there have 1000 people subscribed to them?  Even the more intense PbP's cant be generating as much traffic as a relatively popular SH can generate.

Anyway, I miss 'em, but also withdraw my whine about them being gone.  Especially since the boards havent ground to a halt in a while (that I've noticed, at least).


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## woodelf

AGGEMAM said:
			
		

> Seriously though, I don't see how e-mail notifications make surfing easier than logging in and checking your subscribed threads, you're on the internet in any case right? and you still have to open the page to see what's new, right?




Well, first of all, i frequently am interested in a thread that gets intermittent posts. These threads are often bumped off the front page by the popular ones. So i'd have to go to the subscriptions page, which is one more step. Moreover, the interface to the forums, like to all web-based BBSes, sucks. So the less time i have to spend dealing with it, the better. I can much more easily get at a thread from my email client. Now, what i *really* want is like the Lego boards (well, one of them, anyway): a BBS with both web and NNTP interface, so i can point my newsreader at an address and read the forums that way. But that's an almost-completely-separate topic.



			
				AGGEMAM said:
			
		

> Anyways, I _do_ use the feature, but not on this board. On another board where it sometimes takes weeks or even month between the relevant (for me) threads to be posted to. There I can see the point, but here .. no .. still can't .. and won't if it means the boards being as slow as they have been before.



Well, i don't want to check, at all. I want to be told. If there's nothing to catch up on, and i don't have time to just go poke around, i don't want to even have to log on to the board to find this out.



			
				AGGEMAM said:
			
		

> I would be willing to bet you that those slowdowns and outages have taken their toll on members here. I know a few personally that have checked this board out and dismissed it because of it despite my best assurances that this board is one of the greatest around. During the outages period, I didn't even bother to check the boards, and have only returned to more frequent visits recently.




Maybe. The lack of email notification completely dropped me off the boards for a few weeks--i just assumed nobody was posting in the threads i was interested in any more, and i was too busy to bother seeing if something new had popped up. Now that i know it's off, we'll see how my behavior changes. I'll probably just spend that much more time on RPGNet and The Forge. Personally, if i have to choose between slow-with-notification, and not-slow-without-notification, i'll take the former--i usually have half-a-dozen threads in separate tabs anyway, so i just read another one while it's loading.

In short: outages drive me away, sure. But slowdowns generally don't. And lack of notification might mean it simply doesn't cross my mind as often to come here.


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## woodelf

Staffan said:
			
		

> That sounds like a good plan to me. Pick a time of the day when the server isn't *too* busy, have it go through and see what threads have been posted to, and send out notices to those subscribed to those threads. Might as well collect all the updates in one e-mail per subscriber while you're at it (instead of one e-mail saying "thread X has been updated" and another saying "thread Y has been updated", just one saying "These threads have been updated: thread X, and thread Y").
> 
> I don't know if that's technically doable, but it's a good idea anyway.




That's sort of already an option: "Daily email notification" instead of "Instand email notification". Though i don't know if that does one post or multiple. While we're at it, how about only sending the thread link? On most [vBulletin-powered] BBSes i'm on, the email sent is much more compact: "so-n-so has just posted a reply to the thread such-n-such" followed by a link. Surely that's gotta save a *little* overhead over sending the entire text of the post, too? Not to mention, i don't want to read the post in the email: i need to go to the forum, anyway, to see who else might have replied, and if i'm going to reply i need to go to the forum, so i'm going to go to the forum whether or not the text of the new post is in the email, so why not dump the text?


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## woodelf

Morrus said:
			
		

> 2) The "compromises" suggested are not as easy as you appear to believe. They would require changes to the way vBulletin works. I've been trying to find resources on the subject, but no luck yet.  Or do you have some information that I don't, in which case perhaps it would be helpful to share it?




Well, i'm pretty certain that TrekRPGNet and RPGNet and The Forge all use vBulletin, and they only send the notice of a new reply, not the content of the new reply. So that, at least, should be doable.


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## thatdarncat

but it might be a "hack", an option that doesn't come with vBulletin and needs to be found and installed seperately, and will not be supported by vBulletin.


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## Eosin the Red

How can you tell how many people are subscribed to a thread?


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## Lela

I think it's a mod option.

Morrus, I dig a little deeper and found _one_ thing that might be doable to lower Quiries, though I doubt it'll have too much of an effect (and I'm betting a ton of complaints will flow through).  Dropping the Forum Jump from the pages.

Shrug, I can't find the reference right now (dangit).  Still, it might be worth a short test run.

Again, though, I'm wondering about the new server thing we've seen many references too.  Any information would be great.  Even a "Yes, we're looking into it" or a "No, we have no such plans" would ease our endless questions for an hour or so.

Maybe, if you're lucky, even two hours.


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## James Heard

Ok, I admit I know nothing about your database or how it works or what it can do BUT...

ENWorld already has a subscription page for every user right? Can't that just be placed somewhere even more easily accessed and maybe have a more unique icon or highlight that shows users which threads have new unread messages? That way people would at least have to visit to find their subscriptions, they'd more easily be able to look down a list and see which threads have new messages, maybe even bump the threads with new messages to the top of people's subscription page? No fault on the current flavor, but even a background change in the thread name for new messages would do wonders and I don't see how it could be terribly difficult to author?

Maybe for registered users the "Join ENWorld!" bar could vanish and be replaced with a "Subscription" page link that's not attached to the Control Panel? Not that the Control Panel is bad, but divorcing the Control Panel and the Subscribed page might be sort of cool. And you could put an ad in the sidebar instead, and stickies for people not to read 

Just my suggestions for the suggestion box...


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## MerakSpielman

I'm sure part of the performance increase is due to less traffic on the boards - which is due to people not visiting each and every time they get an email notification.


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## Dimwhit

MerakSpielman said:
			
		

> I'm sure part of the performance increase is due to less traffic on the boards - which is due to people not visiting each and every time they get an email notification.




I don't know...for the last week, I haven't noticed any improvements. Things seem to have regressed back to being slow most of the time.


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## Brother Shatterstone

MerakSpielman said:
			
		

> I'm sure part of the performance increase is due to less traffic on the boards - which is due to people not visiting each and every time they get an email notification.




I agree with this for the most part...  I think the boards are slower, I've seen allot less activity in the PBP forums, but I'm not seeing any increase in performance.  

At work I can be watching a 300K streaming video, surfing a few message boards, watching a baseball game via applet and the only thing that is slow is ENworld...  

Removing email notifications has done little except for hurt a few games and changes my browsing habits to setting in *my account* and clicking *subscriptions* every few minutes.


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