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2012 Flashback: Free Republic: 2 Weeks Left of Relevancy Unless You Fix It [updates at 130, 270]
October 23, 2012 | Self

Posted on 10/23/2012 3:58:44 AM PDT by PittsburghAfterDark

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To: PittsburghAfterDark

why don’t you go away and never come back!!!


81 posted on 10/23/2012 6:41:35 AM PDT by dalereed
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To: glennaro

I’m sorry. I can no longer agree to disagree. You will simply need to come around to my way of thinking.


82 posted on 10/23/2012 6:44:53 AM PDT by Lazamataz (The Pravda Press has gone from 'biased' straight on through to 'utterly bizarre'.)
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To: HereInTheHeartland
.. or talk to a family member


             

LOL

83 posted on 10/23/2012 6:48:06 AM PDT by tomkat
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To: Arcy
So I'm done at FR

How can we miss you if you'll never go away?

84 posted on 10/23/2012 6:50:35 AM PDT by Lazamataz (The Pravda Press has gone from 'biased' straight on through to 'utterly bizarre'.)
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To: tomkat

Fetch; good dog!


85 posted on 10/23/2012 6:51:43 AM PDT by HereInTheHeartland (Encourage all of your Democrat friends to get out and vote on November 7th, the stakes are high.)
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To: HereInTheHeartland
If FR goes down, do something else like read or talk to a family member.

(((shudder)))

I would never wish something like that on YOU.... why would you curse ME like that?

86 posted on 10/23/2012 6:52:12 AM PDT by Lazamataz (The Pravda Press has gone from 'biased' straight on through to 'utterly bizarre'.)
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To: Arcy; Lazamataz
My post was pulled for "politically correct" reasons. I'm done!


             

87 posted on 10/23/2012 7:04:09 AM PDT by tomkat
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To: Lazamataz

Hey Laz...and everybody....

Got a question: Do we have more members now than we did 4 years ago? It could be a simple matter of more people trying to get on the site.

(I know...it’s simplistic, but sometimes the simple answers are the right ones.)

I mean, I wanted to follow the debates here, but I couldn’t even get ON the site until 45 minutes after the debates were over. I’m going to be relying on FR on election night as I don’t have cable TV. I know there’s going to be a ton of local election threads going on...not to mention the national ones.

And...a thought occurred to me: Not being a computer expert by any means, but is there a possiblity that some lib hacker has developed a program that automatically floods certain sites with traffic, kind of a ‘set-it-and-forget-it” spam program? I realize someone may already have thought of this and answered.

I love FR and I wish Jim and John nothing but the best. But, two weeks from today....FR’s going to be my eyes and ears on the most important election in US history. I hope to God I can use it.


88 posted on 10/23/2012 7:08:26 AM PDT by hoagy62 ("Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered..."-Thomas Paine. 1776)
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To: Lazamataz
Laz, the thing I notice is that these slowdowns/stoppages only occur at the start of the debates and slowly comes back after the debate. Look at the timing on new posts and you will see large gaps in time between posts. The existing posts don't seem to be jumping with activity either so that brings me back to external interference. I'm not sure how to fix a well laid attack, but I think that an internal/software FR problem has been ruled out by JimRob. I agree simply because before and after the debate the site works normally. If there is less traffic during the debate, how can we blame FR for the slowdown?

For now my money on the cause centers on Van Jones and Axelrod being the main culprits.

89 posted on 10/23/2012 7:11:16 AM PDT by Wingy (Don't blame me. I voted for the chick. I hope to do so again.)
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To: Lazamataz

Good one, my friend. (Have enjoyed your informative posts for years!)


90 posted on 10/23/2012 7:17:26 AM PDT by glennaro
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To: Lazamataz
Laz, for you I will suggest gazing at the framed, glossy photo of Helen Thomas that you have!
91 posted on 10/23/2012 7:18:38 AM PDT by HereInTheHeartland (Encourage all of your Democrat friends to get out and vote on November 7th, the stakes are high.)
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

FWIW, and I’m not complaining at all, FR was much better for me last night than during the other three debates.

I noticed that there was a lot of traffic in the afternoon about people switching to the Firefox browser/client. I’ve used Firefox exclusively for years, but can’t ignore the correlation between all the FReepers saying they were switching and the site performing so much better.


92 posted on 10/23/2012 7:20:12 AM PDT by tanknetter
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To: glennaro
:) Thanks!


93 posted on 10/23/2012 7:20:15 AM PDT by Lazamataz (The Pravda Press has gone from 'biased' straight on through to 'utterly bizarre'.)
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To: PittsburghAfterDark

I agree with you. Free Republic has software problems and has had them for some time now starting before Election 2010.

I think it’s time to bring in a consultant to look it over. I love Free Republic. I want it to be around forever.


94 posted on 10/23/2012 7:21:09 AM PDT by katnip (Why Do Democrats Hate Babies?)
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To: tomkat

It’s not ‘sabotage’.

Did you look up where the parent ISP ntt.net is actually located?

The “servers” eventually resolve to gkg.net in CO at IP:209.157.64.200.

It’s a wonder FR loads on a good day.

Definitely needs a better/bigger web host and lots more bandwidth.

I agree whoelheartedly with those who say FR needs to seriously consider hiring IT professionals to run the site.

It’s getting far too much traffic for their web host to handle.

2 terabyte tansfer limits and 250g storage isn’t cutting it.

There are tons of web hosts that have Unlimited Data/ Storage/Unlimited Data Transfer

FatCow has forum capability and unlimited space/bandwidth and is *really* cheap and extremely dependable.

They’re also ranked #1 for forum hosting.

http://webhostinggeeks.com/bestforumhosting.html


95 posted on 10/23/2012 7:27:26 AM PDT by Salamander (Can't sleep. Clowns will eat me.)
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To: shibumi

Reckon you may as well be here for this.


96 posted on 10/23/2012 7:29:27 AM PDT by Salamander (Can't sleep. Clowns will eat me.)
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To: PittsburghAfterDark
A couple of unsolicited points from a seasoned FReeper, and a long time Fortune 100 IT wonk and DBA...

1) The Free Republic website is the Robinson's gig. No amount of chatter or well-meaning advice will cause them to change their business plan or their approach to the construct of Free Republic.
2) From a systems point of view, FR is scaled to handle a certain amount of traffic. The high end of popularity was probably gauged by John at some point in the past - maybe 9/11 or a previous election cycle. This top end was likely used to determine FR's scalability in terms of usage handling. Elementary stuff.
3) Free Republic is both popular with its adherents and a target to its detractors. It is "attractive". This makes it vulnerable from a number of points of view. It can be killed with kindness by its popularity, and it can be attacked and its defenses overwhelmed by the haters. On debate nights, and on election night, we see a syzygy where both groups are drawn to FR. This amount of usage no doubt exceeds the system's abilities.

So - what does a business owner do when faced with this situation?

You consider ROI. Do you throw the limited money you have at a temporary problem by scaling the systems to accomodate a short-term, periodic event? Probably not. You take the hit and try to move past it, thinking that the value of your product will overcome the annoyance caused by outage.

However, is the draw of Free Republic greater than its unavailability during "crisis" times? Quite possibly, No. The stigma of downtime is enormous in these days of 100% availability and the use of social media. And that raises a very big question. How can John provide 100% uptime if he is the sole technical resource. Quite simply, it cannot be done.

What began as a hobby/bulletin board has turned into an technical enterprise and a technical enterprise cannot be run by one guy 24 x 7. As good as John is (and I’ve watched his work closely from an educated user POV over the past 12 years), it is a herculean task and more than he should have to bear.

So – what is to be done? In my humble and unsolicited opinion, if FR is to thrive in the long term:

1) The physical systems need to be rescaled to a new threshold. John can determine what that is.
2) Peak chat usage or "EVENTS", such as debate nights, election nights, etc. should be offloaded to a new, social media paradigm which is scaled to handle the enormous amount of traffic required.

Yes I know that “letting go” like this is anathema. Too bad. Tough times call for tough decisions. IMHO, Jim and John are betting the enterprise and risk being left behind as their user base moves to the new paradigm. The social media giants like twitter and facebook both have the capacity to handle these peak loads. I would recommend taking advantage of them by sponsoring these one-offs – talk them up! Sell them to the regular customers. Redirect your users from the primary FR website to these “alternately-hosted” sites for the duration of the event, and then back to normal. Think sales-y. Other companies do this frequently.

What are the risks and rewards of this approach?

Loss of control. Possibly a permanent shift to the new paradigm meaning loss of income. From the rewards side – John regains his life, FR becomes somewhat more predictable, FR gains credibility, FR becomes a shining beacon of light and the conservative cause prevails!

Just some thoughts.

97 posted on 10/23/2012 7:39:13 AM PDT by Ol' Sox
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To: Salamander

No, I hadn't looked that up, but it doesn't surprise me .. thanks for the info, kinda validates some of my guesswork.

The pipe being the main culprit makes more intuitive sense than most other possibilities, imho.

It just seems that database or other coding errors would cause sporadic / unpredictable poor performance, quite unlike the 'special event' logjams that occur here, almost like clockwork.

98 posted on 10/23/2012 7:41:31 AM PDT by tomkat
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To: tomkat

Possibly having the everything routed through a Tokyo backbone isn’t helping much, either.

I was just snooping around and there are literally tons of forum specific web hosts available.

No muss, no fuss and no errors.

Pros run the databases.

If it were my website, I’d be moving to one of them.


99 posted on 10/23/2012 7:50:31 AM PDT by Salamander (Can't sleep. Clowns will eat me.)
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To: Ol' Sox; CedarDave; Salamander; John Robinson
Dave, this is the kinda thing I was talking about, esp. Sox's #97.

The specifics are way above my minimal familiarity, but this kind of brainstorming / teamwork can find workable / affordable solutions and put an end to all the bitchin' that J & J are surely about sick of by now.



             

100 posted on 10/23/2012 8:04:06 AM PDT by tomkat
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