Hivemind, Bandwidth, and Board Resources

[Fast Learner]

I'm sure bringing this up won't make me popular, but it seems important enough.

I've been on many boards that have gone through postcount "contests". Such friendly fun has always proven to be a needless resource and bandwidth strain on the server, resulting in pointless extra expenses for the board owner and, eventually, board crashing problems.

Obviously I don't know if the hivemind threads here have any actual effect (their total percentage of board resources and bandwidth might be comparitively quite low), but I'm certainly concerned. The previous pattern I've seen is that, over time, more and more people start participating in the postcount competitions until the board really begins to suffer.

Please know that I only bring this up due to what I've seen happen elsewhere and the pain I feel every time the board is down (withdrawal is tough!).

 

[Horacio]

Some things:

A) Piratecat, board administrator, authorizes the Hivemind thread if be respect some rules, and we do

B) Hivemind threads are NOT postcount contest. I think it is too easy to say that "postcount contest" thing, and not fair.

For me, I live far from many Hivemind members, but I considerer them my friends (Tallar, Arwink, Crothian... and of course the scary Dragonperson), and Hivemind posts are the only way I keep contact with most of them as a group.

Postcount truely doesn't mean anything. Yeah, I'm a bigger geek and have more free time that others, cool... But for me the Hivemind is a wonderful way to speak with my friends, and they gave me some smiles when I needed them, so they are GREAT.

C) If you compare the global number of post per day and the Hivemind posts, you will find we are a very small percentage, so please, don't try to blame us for the crashes. We love crashes as little as you, at least. What would be the next, banning "You Bastard!" posts? Or Story Hours? Leaving only the post you are interested in?

Please, don't take this as an attack, but I trust on Piratecat and Morrus, and they let us do it, so it can be so bad.

 

[arwink]

[edit - see Horatio got here before me. I'm probably repeating the same things, but I'll leave it here just in case)

Why would it make you unpopular? Most of us are just as concerned about the boards going down as you are, and if a Morrus or any of the other mods responds and says we're doing the boards damage, we'd stop all the Hivemind posts immediately.

At present, we're currently opperating with Piratecat's blessing, as long as we don't have more than three threads opperative at the one time.

It's also worth noting that in many respects, Hivemind posts aren't about the postcount at all (although that draws a lot of people in). There are a lot of people I enjoy conversing with and being silly with on these boards. Many of them are in completely different timezones to me. These boards and the Hivemind threads give us space to sit down and talk as a group without someone having to stay awake until 4 in the morning. Occasional silliness aside, this is what I love about the threads and this is what I'd miss if they were closed down.

 

[Piratecat]

Not to worry. The crashes are probably being caused by a few things:

1. Possibly not enough RAM
2. Definitely not enough bandwidth

We are already fixing 1, and we plan to increase bandwidth as well. The messageboard is fairly minor in comparison to the main site in this regard. The main site uses maybe ten times or so more resources than the boards. An individual thread, even a very active one, isn't going to have much effect.

One thing, though; if the boards get slow, walk away for a while instead of clicking refresh again and again. That will help.

 

[Fast Learner]

That's cool, hope I didn't ruffle any feathers. And so it's clear, I didn't mean to indicate that Hivemind was only about postcount; that was just the portion of it that I was concerned about. In addition I certainly wasn't "blaming" anyone for anything, but rather just thinking about the future based on some other experiences.

Goof on!

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Not that it matters now, but I agree with Arwink and Horacio.