[Closed] The community here is great, but the forum software and servers SUCK!

The forums are not finely divided enough. Topics sink onto the 2nd page sometimes within hours.

No no no! Bring back the old single forum, it was much better. Thank god for the "Overview" link.

You're not wrong about the monotonous regularity bit, though.

This site goes down with monotonous regularity.

There's got to be a joke in here somewhere..... 😈

The forums are not finely divided enough. Topics sink onto the 2nd page sometimes within hours.

And it's alot easier to find the second page than trying to remember which sub division of which sub division I posted that black spokes are faster than silver. 🙄

Pehaps a new section for time wasting threads??

forums with loads of subdivisions = horrible

ahhh 7hz, you made the same mistake as me... posting a preference that old school STWers don't share, sit back and enjoy the telling off 😆

(i agree with you by the way, sub-divisions would make it easier to avoid all the car threads, political threads and stuff.. meaning i could focus on a "messing around" type sub-section and a "videos" section)

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[b][u]NO NO NO Don't sub divide any further![/b][/u] It's spot on as it is when it is working.

Format is fine, but the hamsters need a holiday.

forums with loads of subdivisions = horrible

yes but they work, ive never understand the 'form over function' ethic of this forum....

i go on loads of other 'sub division' type forums that have just as much traffic if not more and never go down. you soon get used to them.

if you want to post a questions about a car, you post it in the car section...

Forums with endless categories and sub-divisions are horrible, this is perfect.
And if you hadn't noticed, if you click on your user name up at the very top, you can find all your posts immediately making it dead easy to track old threads down.

yes but they work, ive never understand the 'form over function' ethic of this forum....

I disagree, they don't work: you miss loads of potentially interesting threads because they're on a board you never check out.

I say keep it as it is. I couldn't deal with anymore than 2 seperate distinct areas to look at.

Sometimes I look on the bike forum and someones started a 'chat' topic there. This makes me sad.

Imagine how sad multiple divisions would make me...

Personally I think what makes this forum a nice place to hang out is that there is quite a focus on banter & interesting/fun off-topic posts. I'm a member of about a million (give or take) other forums & whilst I don't think this format would work on most of them, particularly those of a more technical nature, somehow it suits STW to be like this imho. If it were down to me I'd roll back the software to the days where you could see who was online over there on the left <---

This forum will be sub-divided over my dead body. 8)

...especially as we need a permanent edit function and a pm function more.

I think that you'll find that 203mm rotors are overkill on an XC bike, but you can always give it a try.

i find having lots of sub forums a nightmare, unless you know exactly what you want to read you never find anything. You have a question where does it go to get an answer?

Leave it as is it works, and works far better than most other forums out there.

people can't seem to manage bike/none-bike/classifieds how the hell are they going to manage with even more categories.

I think I'd miss some decent threads if it was split too much.

Reliability problems? Have I missed a recent crash? I've not been on here as much as usual - sorry must try harder.

Please dont subdivide any more, some of the best threads on here are about stuff I have no interest in or expert opinion to offer, and just click on because I am bored!! I would miss them otherwise!

EDIT: D0NK beat me to it!

Luddites!

At least a few categories would be better than the current cluster****.

Jog on?

Abuses this place then goes for swear filter avoidance!!, ban him!!

how come nobody jumped on the PM suggestion up there?! when i suggested it i got told off.... i demand equality 😈

of all the forums i am a member of i come back here time and time again. the reason: because the forums aren't separated.

Personally I think all they need is a SQL guru to have a really good look at the database and give it a bit of tuning.

Nothing against TdB but, in my experience, even the most db savvy of developers won't have as much success with a badly performing database as a 'proper' db Admin.

Anyway, currently, servers are in a state of flux as I understand it so I'll reserve judgement until they've finished making chnages.

A bit more info on what's happenign when might be handy, though.

philconsequence:

how come nobody jumped on the PM suggestion up there?! when i suggested it i got told off.... i demand equality

No-one likes a grass Phil.

[i]At least a few categories would be better than the current cluster****.[/i]

So OT would be divided into sections such as -

Angry people
Deluded people
Drunk people
Mental people
Dumb people.

I'm just not too sure that it would make it easier working out where to post.

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Can I stab him with it? Can I, can I?? He only posts over there<< normally anyway.. please??

if i'm going down i'm taking you all with me! 😆

The forums are not finely divided enough.

Bike / Chat / Classifieds. + Overview

Seems pretty perfect to me. Simple and works very well.

I hate forums with 147 sub-topic forums each with a single lonely post in them (usually with a reply saying something like "Wrong forum you idiot: this forum is Bottom Brackets: Shimano: General. Your post should be in Bottom Brackets: Shimano: Square Taper: UN26"

I only ever use "overview" anyway!

PM system as well - yes please.

Can we drag this forum into the new millennium please?

Sorry about the swear.

This is an improvement for a start - http://wonder-tonic.com/geocitiesizer/content.php?theme=2&music=4&url=www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/the-community-here-is-great-but-the-forum-software-and-servers-suck

I wish this forum was not as nice to use. Then I would get my life back.

It doesnt need dividing up any more !

I like being able to browse the chat forum just to see what is being talked about, might be stuff I had never thought about which other wise I would miss.

The search function can be a bit annoying but helps you find anything you should wish.

The downtime and glitches can be annoying at times, but I dont pay to come here so I dont see its really some thing I can get too upset about. If I was paying for lots of annoying flashy advertising though, I think I would get a tad upset.

http://goo.gl/rK9gp

Heh...that Geocitiesizer is pretty cool. Takes me back....

I like it when it goes down. I get work done.

Here's another cluster of ***s

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I like this forum layout. Shame about the people, but you can't have everything 😉

I would like a PM function though.

This site goes down with monotonous regularity.

As in sometimes on a Sunday evening unless there's maintenance going on to make it stable. You must permanently think you have diarrhoea unless you only shit once a week.

The forums are not finely divided enough. Topics sink onto the 2nd page sometimes within hours.

It's a busy forum, subdivisions aren't going to happen they've already divided a few times from what they were. Your not going to get a multi divided forum on here, as you can see a majority don't want it.

PM will put extra pressure on the DB so unlikely to happen.

Personally I think all they need is a SQL guru to have a really good look at the database and give it a bit of tuning.

Toms are doing just that they're working behind the scenes and have a few plans, it takes time. "...600 database queries performed every second during normal conditions." is a lot of pressure.

The server has been upgraded and was due some hardware tests, as I mentioned in the sticky this may have been in the early hours hence the downtime earlier.

These problems aren't being ignored, if you think they're causing you worry not visiting your favourite site you imagine how the guys who make a living from ST feel.

The weakness with the forum as I see it.

1. Opening a previously read thread does not take you to where you were last.

2. No distinction on posts between read and unread / new posts.

3. No quote buttons on posts make quoting needlessly awkward.

All simple and basic features.

Also when maintenance is being done a holding page is nice feature.

As in sometimes on a Sunday evening unless there's maintenance going on to make it stable. You must permanently think you have diarrhoea unless you only shit once a week.

If we ever get avatars Drac, may I suggest this:

[img] [/img]

😉

Thanks Drac - as I also said things are changing and there's no point getting upset 'mid-flow'.

However, I think more info on what the issues are in the background might help defuse concern without necessarily openign the debate for everyone with a bit of db experience to chip in with a solution that's 'bound to work'.

It's like when the train's sat outside the station - people stay calmer of the guard keeps them informed about what's happening...

Please no subdivisions......... it's fine as it is. But there must be hardware/software issues somewhere as the delays/slow response times are far more frequest than they were 12 months ago - I can't beleive it's [i]that [/i]busy.
If the servers are hosted in-house then it may well be time to get it into the cloud which would certainly fix the speed/reliability - only issue is the potential cost.

So moderators can swear but the proletariat can't?

The site seems to be down at least once a day at the moment. That would seem to be monotonously regular WRT server / site uptime. I don't understand your analogy between that and 'permanent diarrhoea'?

There are constantly posts going into the wrong section because of the 'overview' button and people being clueless.

Sorry for the moan. Site is generally good. Hugs and kisses.

I have a theory that it's the embedded videos that have caused the crashes lately.

Seems like the servers are getting worse.

I think its a ploy and a working one... Since the rubbish servers my browsing of this site has gone down to once/twice a week rather than daily. In a few months things will be fine because the amount of people viewing will be a lot less. 😉

1. Opening a previously read thread does not take you to where you were last.

So it would have to store the last post number of every thread that you have read, and do this for every user? The database is already struggling!

2. No distinction on posts between read and unread / new posts.

Again that would require storing a value to say whether or not you had read every thread. Or at least storing an expanding list of all the threads you have read. More work for the database.

(They used to do this with cookies, back in the day, but the cookies would become massive and the site would stop working unless you manually deleted your cookies)

3. No quote buttons on posts make quoting needlessly awkward.

Discourages people from quoting entire posts instead of just the bits they are answering.
How hard is it to copy-paste text then highlight it and press quote? I manage it on a phone.

Also when maintenance is being done a holding page is nice feature.

Agreed. Ideally it could present a read-only version of the forum and just prevent new posts.
Failing that it could at least offer a reason and a rough idea when it will be sorted.