My Experience with Moorcock's Miscellany

[Reinart der Fuchs]

Originally Posted by porcus_volans

Is there a way to make a financial contribution to the running costs?

We have a Make a Donation page. Thanks for asking.

[The English Assassin]

Once my finances are a little bit sorted (I'm a little way away from that point) I'd definitly consider a donation via paypal or whatever to help with any running costs. I don't think a manditory fee is a good idea tho, because I'm pretty sure (even with the best of intentions) it'd have a drastic impact in the number of active members of this forum and an empty forum is a dead forum. Also, this place is a great resource for Moorcock-newbies... it'd be pity to hide it away behind a pay-wall. Unless I'm misunderstanding how a fee might work?

EDIT: sorry Mr Fox, missed your last post - I'll definitely donate a few quid in a few months, but at the moment... I'm brassic!

[Reinart der Fuchs]

Originally Posted by The English Assassin

it'd be pity to hide it away behind a pay-wall. Unless I'm misunderstanding how a fee might work?

The charter of Moorcock's Miscellany is not to behave like a business and charge for access. I don't have the resources to run a business. Also, it would hinder the beautiful contributions that everyone makes. We would need to pay contributors, and that's not going to work. I forget who said it here, but The Miscellany is like a big picnic in the park. Everyone brings a little something, and takes a little something.

Our operating expenses are tiny, and I have a reserve of contributions that will cover the up and coming expenses at the start of 2014. You'll see more active fundraising then.

There will never be a paywall. I am guilty of a little social engineering with those poll options.

[Heresiologist]

Originally Posted by Reinart der Fuchs

It doesn't help that the server is in Los Angeles and you are on the other side of England. I will be examining options that bring service a wee bit closer to Europe. 5 to 6 seconds seems to be a hedge case, but not a good one. Tables can be an issue if they are coded wrong. I am examining options which will bring mobile friendly version of the site as well as something that loads faster. Poorly designed databases do not speed things up either.

Wait. What? The server's in LA, but people in England are getting 1.5 second page loads, while I get to wait an extra 2 or 3 seconds? Is this some kind of "triangular routing" type problem?

Anyway, it's been a while since I've had to respond to a "OMG! We've got to optimize the site" task, but tables render slower than most HTML elements. And this is usually made worse if the table contains images without explicitly provided dimensions (which it looks like is the case with all the avatar images).

I think it actually makes the page load time seem worse than it is because, while they wait for all the info they need to be downloaded, tables tend to block rendering. Basically, the "perceived versus actual speed" effect. (In case anyone is interested: a page that starts appearing in, say, a second and completes in 5 seconds, will be perceived by many people as faster than a page that takes 3 seconds to start appearing and completes in 4 seconds).

But it sounds like you'd get more "bang for the buck" looking for ways to reduce DB hits. Then again, perceived speed is often thought to trump actual, or objective, speed

[The English Assassin]

Originally Posted by Reinart der Fuchs

There will never be a paywall. I am guilty of a little social engineering with those poll options.

Sneaky!

[edgewalker]

No problems for me. I haven't been accessing the forum much recently -- but when I do it loads much faster than my work homepage,

Thanks


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[opaloka]

Heresiologist, I'd be interested to see the results if you ping the site and see where you're bottlenecking.

Reinhart, I never get any lag while the page is loading, but I do occasionally get some while waiting for the server to respond. The biggest problem I've had at one time or another is when trying to make a post and the server takes forever, occasionally freezing me on the submit page while the post goes through, unbeknownst to me (leading to multiple posts), or occasionally I have lost a post altogether. This makes me think it's a database issue, perhaps it has to do with how your host handles database requests. That might also account for the occasional 500 errors, in my opinion.

All of these problems are FAR less frequent than they used to be, btw.

[Heresiologist]

Originally Posted by opaloka

Heresiologist, I'd be interested to see the results if you ping the site and see where you're bottlenecking.

...

Ah, good idea. I ran trace-route and ping and didn't see anything noticeably poor in the results.

The slow pages are internal, not the home page, which I now notice is fast as the rest of the Internet. It's probably just that I'm accustomed to going straight to "New Posts" and bypassing the home page.

Also, I'm driving around in a brand new computer, so an unprimed cache. Still, 3 or 4 "one one thousands"...

[Nathaniel]

Really, this is an incredible site, but I think more because of those who frequent/run it than any technical whiz-bangery (that might be because I am unaware of it though...)

The only option I hovered over and didn't tick was the "I would never pay to use this site" one. This was due to me thinking it would be hard to justify spending money on a site that I primarily use as socially, not as a source of infortmation (other peoples view points yes, but not data). I didn't check it because if there was a fee I would probably still want to find a way to justify paying it.

I think the admins and Reinart do a fantastic job really, and thank them for doing it.

[Wanderlust]

Pages may load a wee bit slower than other sites I frequent, but mostly it's negligible. I'm just happy this place exists at all, and I get to yammer with all you wonderfully silly buggers.

Think I better dance now!

[Reinart der Fuchs]

Originally Posted by Heresiologist

Ah, good idea. I ran trace-route and ping and didn't see anything noticeably poor in the results.

The slow pages are internal, not the home page, which I now notice is fast as the rest of the Internet. It's probably just that I'm accustomed to going straight to "New Posts" and bypassing the home page.

Also, I'm driving around in a brand new computer, so an unprimed cache. Still, 3 or 4 "one one thousands"...

We share the database resource with untold others. Clearly it's overloaded. This poll is part of making a case for them to do something about that.

[Reinart der Fuchs]

Originally Posted by edgewalker

No problems for me. I haven't been accessing the forum much recently -- but when I do it loads much faster than my work homepage,

Thanks


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Hey Edgewalker! I am thinking of pulling Tapatalk out. Any feedback on that idea?

[Reinart der Fuchs]

Originally Posted by opaloka

This makes me think it's a database issue, perhaps it has to do with how your host handles database requests. That might also account for the occasional 500 errors, in my opinion.

[Reinart der Fuchs]

Thanks to those of you who participated in this poll. I have closed the poll.