I am always surprised that seemingly all thread users seem to have unlimited traffic allowances and computing power.
And all website visitors have DSL connections (some of mine have 3rd world dialins at theoretical speeds of 14 k, but effective speeds of 2k!)
I am paying dearly for having chosen threads as my software (excess traffic charges,database overload)
a)automatic archive board
one of my boards has now 80 000 posts. This, I presume, is the reason the database alone uses 30-100% of the cpu time of a celeron 700, with only 10-35 users present!
I presume, if I could use a well integrated and autmatic archive board (which would rarely be used), and left only 1000 posts on the main board, the load would drop considerably!!
QUESTION: maybe a few sql commands can set up this archiving? where are the database gurus? move all posts except the last 1000 posts to the archive board. Also copy the most recent version of the user data to the archive board.
Actually, some people suggested to make the archive board static html! but a regular board would also do, no posting allowed.
b) optional disabling of server hogging features
disallow searches, or disallow certain searches, or require special permits for searches
also, certain things like constant updating of "who is where" lists are non-essential "niceties" that create huge amounts of unnecessary database calls. The webmaster should be able to disconnect it!
3) traffic allowance and speed
To save my big excess traffic bill, and make access faster for those with the 2k dialins, I made a "faster leaner output" version of threads. Basically it does NOT use frames, but more a Matt's WWWBoard-like output. It also removes all unnecessary long complete urls in exchange for relative urls.It makes the beginning of the page load 10 times faster (because it does not wait for 2 minutes till the entire table is loaded), and the entire page to load up to 3 times faster with 1/3 of the traffic cost!!!!
4) frames versions and certain (optional) caching provisions would also greatly reduce database load and traffic
