** Must Read ** Explaining STORAGE SPACE and SAVING BANDWIDTH

[The Barrow-Wight]

The Barrow-Downs site, store, and forum are all ‘hosted’. This means that we do not own our own servers or connections to the Internet, but instead rent them. Each month, we pay an agreed upon sum, and in return the site is available for visitors to see. The host has nothing to do with the content of the site, they only provide a place where you can reach it. The rental agreement comes with two limitations: STORAGE SPACE and BANDWIDTH.

STORAGE SPACE
Storage space is just what is sound like - how many files we can store on the servers. This includes the files you see (eg. quizzes.asp, gravematters.asp, submission.html) and includes all images that appear on your browser screen. There are many other files you don’t see, such as databases and .cgi scripts.

So far, storage space is not a problem, but we are making efforts to prune useless or unused portions of the Downs, particularly the forum. Don’t be alarmed if old threads disappear. It’s just the administrators keeping us well below our storage limit.

BANDWIDTH
Bandwidth is a measurement of how many Kilobytes (KB) of files are transferred from our host server to the browsers of our visitors. Each file that makes it to a visitor’s monitor is added to the grand total of KB moved. Currently, the average page in the forum is 58KB. So, if you looked at 20 topics a day, you would be responsible for approximately 1.16MB a day.

Bandwidth is quickly becoming a concern on the Downs. For now, we are staying under out limit, but if we start to go over, as we did in Dec-Feb, we have to pay fairly steep penalty fees. We want as many members of the forum as possible to enjoy the discussions, but there are ways everyone can help to make sure that we aren’t using more bandwidth. They are fairly simple.

HOW CAN YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
1) Limit your visits to the site. Visiting the site a maximum of 2-3 times a day will be more rewarding, because you will return to find many topics updated instead of just a few or none. Visiting 10 topics 3 times a day instead of 20 could save almost 10MB a day!

2) Don’t reply unless you have something to say. There is no need to post simply to say you agree or disagree with what the previous poster said. If you are bored, go outside. There’s a whole world out there!

3) Don’t reload a page several times to see if someone has replied. Come back in a few hours and you’ll have plenty of new activity to enjoy.

4) Use the SEARCH function. Searching for keywords is much more efficient than going through every page of a forum to find the topic you are looking for. It saves you time and the Downs bandwidth.

5) Bookmark your favorite topics. Instead of going to the main page then the forum, and then the topic, go straight to the discussion you are part of. This could save you tons of time.

6) Don’t SPAM.

7) Go easy on the smilies.

8) Visit during ‘off’ hours. Pages will load faster and you won’t be tempted to
hit the REFRESH button.

9) Don't have the forum or the site as your homepage. If your start your Internet Browser several times a day but only go to the Downs 2-3 times (as suggested above), you should change your homepage to something else. That way your compute won't load our site even though you are not really going there.

10) Don't Chat. Read Discussion vs. Chat for details.

These are just a few ways you can save yourself time and the Downs bandwidth (and money).

We thank you for considering these guidelines, and would appreciate if you would practice them.

Thank,

[ May 21, 2003: Message edited by: The Barrow-Wight ]

[GaladrieloftheOlden]

I do a lot of the things on the list, so I'll try to stop now... I just had a question. Would shorter signatures do anything at all to help? Or do they have nothing to do with it?

~Menelien

Edit: And would stopping having the BDs Forum as my homepage do anything?

[ May 21, 2003: Message edited by: GaladrieloftheOlden ]

[The Barrow-Wight]

We have already limited the sigs to 3 lines, so they are not a problem. The homepage question is a good one. I would recommend *not* having it as a homepage. I will add that to my post.

Thanks!

[Bêthberry]

One place in particular where I think many of us get caught up in wasteful chatty posts which are more personal rather than discursive is the discussion threads for our RPGs.

It is easy to slip into social chit-chat there, so perhaps we need to be particularly vigilant on these threads that we limit our posts to actual discussion of the game.

Bêthberry

[Meela]

Define chat. If someone answers to a forum post, and it requires an answer, does that become a chat among two people? sometimes it is necessary to "chat" on a thread.
I understand that sometimes we can be a bit chatty, but the cases I'm thinking of is on the Movie Bloopers thread, for example, where we respond to some of the posts with compliments or comments on a person's post. Is this now banned? I hope not, because a little chat livens up the thread. It would be a shame if we didn't deliver feedback to anyone over their post.

Hope you get my meaning.

Lady Meela Of Gondor.

[The Barrow-Wight]

Meela, the topic of chatting is already being discussed in Discussion vs Chat.

[ May 21, 2003: Message edited by: The Barrow-Wight ]

[The Barrow-Wight]

It is not necessary to post that you agree or disagree or that you understand.

It's a wasted post.

As is my reply.

We are off-topic and wasting bandwidth.

[Eruanna]

A question about bandwidth....Do threads such as "Guess the Scene From the Pic", use up a lot of space, because of the pictures? And if so, should we refrain from that type of quiz?

[The Barrow-Wight]

Actually, they don't cause a problem because the pictures reside on someone else's server. We do that people limit their size so that members with slow connections don't have to wait so long to read a page.

[Sophia the Thunder Mistress]

Another question about bandwidth (as I'm relatively ignorant about how internet works). Does it make a difference how long a page is up, or just how many times you load it? For example, is it more efficient for you if I leave the Barrowdowns quiz room page running while I look up the answer, or if I close and come back? Occasionally I'll leave one page up for long amounts of time (while thinking through a post or something), but I can stop doing that if it's costing you bandwidth.

Sophia

[The Barrow-Wight]

Bandwidth is only a tallied when files are moved. Once they are on your comp, they can sit there all day and they won't tax the site's server. So, the answer to your question is that it is better to leave a page open than to close and reload later.

[The Saucepan Man]

We do that people limit their size so that members with slow connections don't have to wait so long to read a page.

The "Crazy scenes with pics" thread still takes an Age to load on my computer ... but it's worth it. There are some gems there. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

I have some questions:

1) Does it only take up bandwidth when we log on, or does it have the same effect when we view the site without logging on?

2) Does it really use up bandwidth just to refresh a page? I often do this to see what new posts there have been while I've been on. If so, is it better to go to "forum home" and follow up new posts from there?

Don’t reply unless you have something to say.

I agree wholeheartedly with that. We should all make an effort to consider whether what we are thinking of posting is really worth saying. Mind you, I hope that there isn't any problem with the odd light-hearted response to someone's post, as long as it doesn't turn into a "chat-type" conversation. It's part of what makes the Downs a pleasant and friendly place to be. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[Elanor]

I have another question: does it make a difference if we open up the forum pages in lots of separate windows? I like to open up all the different threads I want to read in separate windows, and then shut down each one when I've finished. Is that worse for bandwidth? Or could it mean that as I don't keep going back to the central forum page, that it's actually slightly better?

I have limited my visits to one a day - especially considering that I don't post much, it's just as enjoyable.

Sophia: it's nice to see your raindrops back!

[The Barrow-Wight]

If you are right-clicking the topic link and opening it in a new window, then that doesn't add or save bandwidth. But if you are loading the forum in a new window and moving through the forum to find the topic you want in that window, you would be effectively revisiting the site each time you did it that way. The former way is obviously the preferred method if you like to have many windows open.

[Elanor]

Thank you! I use the first way, so I'm glad I'm not hindering the BD in any way. I would happily change if it helped things out. But now I know I can continue merrily along...

[Niluial]

Just a question but when I check my profile to see if I have PM’s use up bandwidth?

[Liriodendron]

A victim of it's own success! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] I have this feeling of "the party's over" though. [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img] Meaning... once a guest feels "unwanted", it sort of kills the joy. I would suggest stricter (crabbier! [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] ) moderators. Middle Earth mayhem is an invitation to spam. I don't know....I am constantly worried about money in the real world. Having to pinch pennies on a forum is more pressure than I can take! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] (this is meant jokingly) I'm not trying to be a snot, (thoughI've never felt very welcome at BD [img]smilies/confused.gif[/img] ) I have enjoyed checking The Barrow Downs out. I'd still just like to send you a check for ten dollars and clear my conscience of costing someone else money. Too many "hyper" kids sometimes! (IMO)

[ May 26, 2003: Message edited by: Liriodendron ]

[Liriodendron]

I have just signed up with "paypal" (shudder! ) and sent $. Now I will relax! [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Just a random related something I've noticed...

The file sizes of the pages on this board tend to be a bit bigger than the file sizes of the pages on most other boards I visit, even the ones that are bigger. You can sit there and type out ways for the users to use less bandwidth while viewing the boards until your fingers fall off, but it's not going to help too much in the long run if they're loading these huge files all the time.

Now, this other forum I used to go to a lot used to run a ubb, and they also used to have a lot of monetary & bandwidth problems caused by the masses of people always visiting the site. They actually resorted to shutting down some of their forums to save bandwidth, which made a whole lot of people mad. Then they switched to a vb, and they didn't have bandwidth problems after that, and it was a lot less server-intensive, and the forums as a whole ran a lot better.

Not that I'm saying this sort of thing is a magical cure-all for all the problems, or anything, but you just might want to consider trying to streamline all the html that the forums do produce (css helps a lot so you don't have tons of lengthy font tags all over the place) to cut down on file sizes. It might only amount to being like 1 kb per page, but 1 kb saved per page times all the thousands of pages viewed adds up after a while...

Just some food for thought. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[VanimaEdhel]

Mr. Barrow-Wight, I have a question: are we planning to do one of those enormous Forum clean-outs soon? We seem to do such a thing about once or twice a year. If you were not planning to do so, I would suggest it. I think that it would be a good idea. I noticed that a lot of really old, ridiculously long threads were being closed down, and I think it might help us out if we deleted them, right?