Front page wonky

[Morrus]

Sorry guys, it's staying off for now. I've explained my reasoning. I'm afraid repeatedly asking isn'y going to change the server load situation - and having that on the most viewed page of the site, whether you believe it or not, does have an enormously negative effect on server load. We've tried just about everything else.

 

[Wystan]

Sorry guys, it's staying off for now. I've explained my reasoning. I'm afraid repeatedly asking isn'y going to change the server load situation - and having that on the most viewed page of the site, whether you believe it or not, does have an enormously negative effect on server load. We've tried just about everything else.

Just noting one last time, The quick links is what draws in the new visitor to the community, this is what makes new community supporters..

It makes the site less new user friendly, that was an easy way to get integrated into the various discussion. I have noticed no perfomance difference without it...

And Morrus, then make the main page for the forums a full userbase viewable new message page. This will remove the load from the main page and allow users to still have the functionality that made this a better place to surf than RPG.net, now this looks more like a store and less like a community.

 

[Wystan]

Another note,this is now a good way for ENworld to get more ad revenue as me keeping 5 pages open to refresh on a regular basis is causing me to refresh 5x as many impressions for the companies that are paying for them. How is this affecting them. I know that if I were a company that was advertising here I would expect the price for impressions to go down as you are causing m to burn through them 2-5x as fast or more.

 

[Morrus]

Just noting one last time, The quick links is what draws in the new visitor to the community, this is what makes new community supporters.

No, it's not. It might be what brings you and a couple of other people in this thread in, but you're making an assertion with no empirical evidence whatsoever.

For the very last time - the server load is too much. It's that simple. Making the site more convenient for you doesn't override making the whole server inaccessible to everyone else. Server load is down drastically, whether you believe it or not. Average number of people online is up, whether you believe it or not.

I'm sorry if I sound snippy, but I've made my decision. I've tried to say "no" several times nicely in this thread, but it looks like I need to be really blunt: No.

Anyway, I'm not going to stop you discussing this amongst yourselves, but I've made my decision, so I'm going to leave this conversation alone. Have fun!

 

[Ilium]

I have noticed an improvement in performance, actually.

 

[FreeXenon]

I really liked having the recent posts on the front page.

It was undoubtedly my #1 most used site feature.

Me too!
I do see an increase in page loading.

 

[Jdvn1]

I'm afraid repeatedly asking isn'y going to change the server load situation - and having that on the most viewed page of the site, whether you believe it or not, does have an enormously negative effect on server load. We've tried just about everything else.

Would 'Recent Forum Topics' load quicker if it had its own page? So, it wouldn't have to compete with everything else on the page?

This question was technically never answered, though such a feature anywhere might be too much. It was only effectively said that the Search feature has similar usability.

I have noticed an improvement in performance, actually.

I have too. And I'm glad for that (thanks for the efforts, Morrus). And I'm also getting used to that 'New Posts since my last visit' page, though that's only available to paid users. It's also a little different from 'Recent Forum Topics'.

It's probably not possible but I might as well ask--is it possible to give unpaid members access to just that bit of the Search feature?

 

[Wystan]

[irony]But it is so much more fun to have 10 different ENWorld pages open to refresh and use up ad impressions on when I refresh every few minutes to see the new topics...[/irony]

I do see a slight increase in speed, but some of the pages are still taking 15-20 seconds to reload and sometimes more.

 

[Knight Otu]

[irony]But it is so much more fun to have 10 different ENWorld pages open to refresh and use up ad impressions on when I refresh every few minutes to see the new topics...[/irony]

I do see a slight increase in speed, but some of the pages are still taking 15-20 seconds to reload and sometimes more.

Do you honestly think your new browsing habits are somehow typical? Because I'm pretty sure they aren't. Most posters likely won't go beyond the first three forums. They may be totally unaware of the other forums, whether the New Topics box exists or not.

And why would you even need to keep so many pages open and constantly refresh them? Seeing which topics you are subscribed to have new posts? That's what the User CP is for, which is available to non-supporters. Seeing which topics did get replies, even when you are not subscribed? Outside of General, it is overkill to refresh every few minutes. The other forums generally do not move that fast. Also, you can subscribe to whole forums, so you see the most recent topic that was responded to, and whether there are new posts in that forum. Subscribing to those ten or so forums you want to monitor and just refreshing the User CP page should help.

I'm kind of missing the New Topic box myself. But typically, I just used it to jump into a thread or forum I needed to be in, and browsed normally from there on.

 

[Wystan]

I kept the front page up as a way to see the new and interesting topics that were and are being covered. I have 4 forums and 2 fast moving threads that I keep refreshed.

General
Rules
Off-topic
Meta
The threads are moving about as fast as I can read them and that means refreshing as well.

I can see people keeping at least 2-3 Forum mainscreens open and refreshing. That is why I stated 2-5x as often. even 1.25 times as often is still costing every advertiser on ENWorld 1.25x as much on a regular basis to advertise here, even though the number of actual click through choice will stay flat as the same person will now just see more of that same ad impression.