Author Topic: Forum Ideas  (Read 299664 times)

arebelspy

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #100 on: May 31, 2012, 07:23:04 PM »
Is it possible to change the system so that after posting a reply to a thread, I am returned to the thread? Getting bumped out to the forum home page is a bit jolting.

Yes. When you click reply (or quote), right under the box you type in, click the + next to "Attachments and other options" and check the "return to this topic" option.

It should remember your setting.
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Jake D

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #101 on: May 31, 2012, 10:17:12 PM »
Testing, testing...

Thanks a lot!

arebelspy

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #102 on: June 09, 2012, 07:19:55 PM »
Nice, a forum! MMM is one of my favorite personal finance blogs, and I'm glad you guys set up this forum so we Mustachians can all learn from each other.

Can we have mobile versions for the blog and forum, though? I usually browse MMM on my phone, and while the layout looks great on a laptop, it's pretty hard to read on smartphones/tablets. I'm having trouble typing this post on my phone right now.

Thanks!


This is on my list, but it's a bit further down... I will look into this "Tapatalk" thing that I've never heard of before too.

Bump for this suggestion.

Any way we can get tapatalk support (works on android and iOS)?  It has a simple plugin that works with this forum's software (SMF), should be a very quick install.

Really any mobile solution would be great (forum runner, or even just have it reformat on mobile screens), tapatalk is just a common one that's easy to implement.
« Last Edit: June 09, 2012, 07:21:39 PM by arebelspy »
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

Daley

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #103 on: June 09, 2012, 08:43:50 PM »
Nice, a forum! MMM is one of my favorite personal finance blogs, and I'm glad you guys set up this forum so we Mustachians can all learn from each other.

Can we have mobile versions for the blog and forum, though? I usually browse MMM on my phone, and while the layout looks great on a laptop, it's pretty hard to read on smartphones/tablets. I'm having trouble typing this post on my phone right now.

Thanks!


This is on my list, but it's a bit further down... I will look into this "Tapatalk" thing that I've never heard of before too.

Bump for this suggestion.

Any way we can get tapatalk support (works on android and iOS)?  It has a simple plugin that works with this forum's software (SMF), should be a very quick install.

Really any mobile solution would be great (forum runner, or even just have it reformat on mobile screens), tapatalk is just a common one that's easy to implement.

It's not the most elegant interface, but if you'll notice on the bottom of all the pages here, there's a link in the footer labelled WAP2, linking to https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/index.php?wap2

It's no-frills old school mobile browser formatted, but it does make the forums far easier to use on your mobile.

Mrs MM

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #104 on: June 12, 2012, 02:32:26 PM »
Sorry guys... somehow I've been missing all these!  I will read through everything.  Please continue to discuss and figure out how this community can best function.  Summer is busy, but I will be working exclusively on the blog this Fall! (no more part-time job - yay!)

arebelspy

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #105 on: June 12, 2012, 10:21:48 PM »
Sorry guys... somehow I've been missing all these!  I will read through everything.  Please continue to discuss and figure out how this community can best function.  Summer is busy, but I will be working exclusively on the blog this Fall! (no more part-time job - yay!)

Awesome!  Congrats on the (pending) transition from semi- to full time retirement.

I'm sure you'll be busier than ever.  ;)
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

rjack

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #106 on: June 29, 2012, 08:08:57 AM »
Since I just retired, I would like to see a Forum called "Post FIRE".

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #107 on: July 04, 2012, 10:28:14 PM »
I would love to see a thread devoted to food & groceries, with recipes etc.. This is a big area for me to improve upon, and I would love a place to see great, delicious and frugal recipes and tips.... Or maybe you could have a stickie that other's could add to (if this exists, sorry but I'm new around here... love your blog! you and Mr MM are an amazing team :-)

. I love delicious fresh and organic food, and I love hearing how others are able to provide for their families on a mustachian budget.

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #108 on: July 05, 2012, 05:59:16 AM »
I would love to see a thread devoted to food & groceries, with recipes etc.. This is a big area for me to improve upon, and I would love a place to see great, delicious and frugal recipes and tips.... Or maybe you could have a stickie that other's could add to (if this exists, sorry but I'm new around here... love your blog! you and Mr MM are an amazing team :-)

. I love delicious fresh and organic food, and I love hearing how others are able to provide for their families on a mustachian budget.

I have been scanning the contents of all of the areas looking for cooking and grocery related threads. Food is one of the major things we do (and ought to) spend money on, and I'd love to have a single place to read and discuss that topic :-)

grantmeaname

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #109 on: July 09, 2012, 01:38:33 PM »
Any luck finding a new host yet. At least here (Eastern Time), the website is just about impossible to use between 12-4pm.

arebelspy

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #110 on: July 09, 2012, 04:30:05 PM »
Any luck finding a new host yet. At least here (Eastern Time), the website is just about impossible to use between 12-4pm.

+1.  I had quite a bit more trouble today than normal.

As MMM's popularity explodes, it'll be harder and harder to cover the amount of traffic.  I know MMM was looking for a better host... Anyone have any suggestions?
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

Daley

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #111 on: July 09, 2012, 05:49:48 PM »
Any luck finding a new host yet. At least here (Eastern Time), the website is just about impossible to use between 12-4pm.

+1.  I had quite a bit more trouble today than normal.

As MMM's popularity explodes, it'll be harder and harder to cover the amount of traffic.  I know MMM was looking for a better host... Anyone have any suggestions?

I have to admit, I've been dreading these days ever since I heard mention of Bluehost from the get-go, but figured if it was working at the time, why rock the boat... but it's obvious that MMM and our shared community both are outgrowing them.

As for personal recommendations, I've had good luck with Gandi.net in the past for mid-range scalable hosting and I'll be using them for something in the works here shortly. Additionally, I've also had extensive experience over the years with A Small Orange, and they've treated me well (probably an excellent mid-range solution if the CPanel crutch is needed). If traffic and server requirements eventually demand the need for actual rackspace (which could be possible - I'm not sure without details), Server Beach and The Planet Softlayer are always excellent choices.

Mrs. MM, I don't entirely know your qualifications and background or your skill-set with systems administration and web hosting, but this sort of thing does tend to hit close to my wheelhouse. If you need someone's brain to pick or need a consultant of some sort... you guys know how to reach me. :)

James

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #112 on: July 09, 2012, 06:12:22 PM »
I've been completely blocked out on and off all day, slow access at many times over the last couple weeks as well.  Hopefully something scalable can be found that will work well going forward.  Having been a webmaster myself for many years I understand that it's thankless, behind-the-scenes work and I appreciate your efforts.  :D

grantmeaname

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #113 on: July 10, 2012, 08:33:00 AM »
Not to rock the boat too much, but the outage started for me at 9:30 this morning.

I know MMM mentioned that he likes the 999 posts per page, and I do too, but I think cutting the page size to 25 or 50 posts per page might be a good [interim] solution to decrease the server load somewhat. Then again, maybe that wouldn't help as much as I think it would. I am not a webmaster...

Daley

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #114 on: July 10, 2012, 09:12:27 AM »
Excellent point and you'd be correct, Grant. I'd entirely forgotten about the insane page length settings because I've had my profile set to (I think - can't recall, on WAP forum currently) 15 a page since right after it was implemented. Out of sight, out of mind, eh?

But yes, especially in cases of pages like the superguide, with the current settings, each page load is pulling all posts. This behavior is hammering both the overall necessary bandwidth needed for loading content and killing database performance with massive requests. Trimming back to either 10, 15, or even 25 at the high end could help significantly with performance and extend the need to migrate.
« Last Edit: July 10, 2012, 09:14:11 AM by I.P. Daley »

arebelspy

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #115 on: July 10, 2012, 10:19:23 AM »
I personally like 999/post, but cutting it back temporarily is a good idea (or cutting the default, but still letting individuals set it to 999).

I emailed MMM about the issue and pointed him to this thread.
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

MMM

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #116 on: July 10, 2012, 03:07:46 PM »
Thanks everyone! I am serious about this web hosting switcheroo now.

In late June, the blog jumped to a new level of traffic and started bogging to death. I talked to Bluehost and they promised that we'd see better results if I upgraded to the "Pro" plan where the blog would be hosted on a less-busy server. But there was still no guarantee of CPU time availability, which is what had been the bottleneck before.

This upgrade improved the average page loading speed for a while, but didn't eliminate the fact that the blog tends to shut down when it gets more than a couple hundred users on at once.

I don't think it's the forum that is doing most of the loading, since the main blog has many times more readers. But I could be wrong on that - let me at least tune that posts-per-page setting downwards a bit and see what happens.

 I'm also working on finding a new host with all the free time I can gather, but it's tough: you either have no-promises shared webhosting like bluehost and hostgator ($100/year), or you have untested/unknown ones that vary widely in price ($1200/year to $5,000/year+). There are strong but conflicting opinions on each one. According to the guidelines of some web hosts, the MMM blog's traffic level falls into some sort of "Ultra Ridiculous Enterprise" level where prices are so high they don't even list them (example: http://wpengine.com/pricing/). After shutting off most of the blog's income recently, it would be painful to pay a bill like that!

I was thinking of just following the lead of a known-big blog like smartpassiveincome.com, who uses ServInt. Those guys start at $600/year, although with no promises or traffic guidelines (From one of Pat's earlier articles, I think MMM has a much higher number of monthly page views than smartpassiveincome.com).

Daley

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #117 on: July 10, 2012, 04:17:49 PM »
Thanks everyone! I am serious about this web hosting switcheroo now.

In late June, the blog jumped to a new level of traffic and started bogging to death. I talked to Bluehost and they promised that we'd see better results if I upgraded to the "Pro" plan where the blog would be hosted on a less-busy server. But there was still no guarantee of CPU time availability, which is what had been the bottleneck before.

This upgrade improved the average page loading speed for a while, but didn't eliminate the fact that the blog tends to shut down when it gets more than a couple hundred users on at once.

I don't think it's the forum that is doing most of the loading, since the main blog has many times more readers. But I could be wrong on that - let me at least tune that posts-per-page setting downwards a bit and see what happens.

 I'm also working on finding a new host with all the free time I can gather, but it's tough: you either have no-promises shared webhosting like bluehost and hostgator ($100/year), or you have untested/unknown ones that vary widely in price ($1200/year to $5,000/year+). There are strong but conflicting opinions on each one. According to the guidelines of some web hosts, the MMM blog's traffic level falls into some sort of "Ultra Ridiculous Enterprise" level where prices are so high they don't even list them (example: http://wpengine.com/pricing/). After shutting off most of the blog's income recently, it would be painful to pay a bill like that!

I was thinking of just following the lead of a known-big blog like smartpassiveincome.com, who uses ServInt. Those guys start at $600/year, although with no promises or traffic guidelines (From one of Pat's earlier articles, I think MMM has a much higher number of monthly page views than smartpassiveincome.com).

If the bottleneck has been the CPU, it's definitely sounding like all fingers are being pointed at the database and the forums. The thing with forum software like this is that each post is a discrete database entry. This means that in the case of this thread alone with the "all posts/topics on one page" setting, no matter where in the thread you're reading, as of this post, there's at least 118 SQL queries generated just for the posts for each reader to render the entire page each time its pulled up, plus the time it takes to parse and load all that content for the user. This is why forums default to paged layouts for content with traditional message boards like SMF. Switching the default settings back on for paged forum and thread layouts will likely go a long way towards improving performance and reducing load. Similar can be said about the comments on articles, number of articles on each page, and the display settings in WP.

As for other hosts to consider switching to, look into the ones I recommended, MMM. Right now, at least just guessing on your numbers, a VPS solution would probably be your best option for the money and would simplify scaling. Definitely look into Gandi.net, but keep in mind they aren't a CPanel solution... they expect people to know how to (mostly) run their own server instances. Your hosting costs are going to be dictated by support levels, software backend, infrastructure, the SLA and knowledge. Knowledge can impact cost the most, and the more skilled the user and less you need crep like CPanel and tech support hand holding, the cheaper the services. Most non-CPanel based providers almost always have a core of bad reviews centered around users who don't know their ASCII from their elbow... and always take massively positive rackspace provider reviews from providers that have generous referral programs with a grain of salt (no offense).

Server performance tuning and management can be an art, but it can be done. Hope this helps you!
« Last Edit: July 10, 2012, 04:28:07 PM by I.P. Daley »

grantmeaname

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #118 on: July 12, 2012, 01:15:41 PM »
Performance has been perfectly fine here since the page switch. Have things been going smoother as far as CPU utilization is concerned?

Nords

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #119 on: July 12, 2012, 11:45:34 PM »
Thanks everyone! I am serious about this web hosting switcheroo now.

In late June, the blog jumped to a new level of traffic and started bogging to death. I talked to Bluehost and they promised that we'd see better results if I upgraded to the "Pro" plan where the blog would be hosted on a less-busy server. But there was still no guarantee of CPU time availability, which is what had been the bottleneck before.

This upgrade improved the average page loading speed for a while, but didn't eliminate the fact that the blog tends to shut down when it gets more than a couple hundred users on at once.

I don't think it's the forum that is doing most of the loading, since the main blog has many times more readers. But I could be wrong on that - let me at least tune that posts-per-page setting downwards a bit and see what happens.

 I'm also working on finding a new host with all the free time I can gather, but it's tough: you either have no-promises shared webhosting like bluehost and hostgator ($100/year), or you have untested/unknown ones that vary widely in price ($1200/year to $5,000/year+). There are strong but conflicting opinions on each one. According to the guidelines of some web hosts, the MMM blog's traffic level falls into some sort of "Ultra Ridiculous Enterprise" level where prices are so high they don't even list them (example: http://wpengine.com/pricing/). After shutting off most of the blog's income recently, it would be painful to pay a bill like that!

I was thinking of just following the lead of a known-big blog like smartpassiveincome.com, who uses ServInt. Those guys start at $600/year, although with no promises or traffic guidelines (From one of Pat's earlier articles, I think MMM has a much higher number of monthly page views than smartpassiveincome.com).
These sound like really good problems to have...

Another option might be contacting Andy R at Early-Retirement.org.  He's lumped together a bunch of discussion boards under the Social Knowledge brand and has some fairly high traffic numbers.  He might be able to share what works for him.

arebelspy

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #120 on: July 13, 2012, 03:33:56 PM »
These sound like really good problems to have...

Another option might be contacting Andy R at Early-Retirement.org.  He's lumped together a bunch of discussion boards under the Social Knowledge brand and has some fairly high traffic numbers.  He might be able to share what works for him.

They also pay $600/yr. for apps for the e-r.org forum for iOS and android. So to make that worthwhile they must be getting decent revenue off of e-r.org.  They're amazing apps, but it surprised me the other day when I found out the cost of it.
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

Nords

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #121 on: July 13, 2012, 09:40:45 PM »
They also pay $600/yr. for apps for the e-r.org forum for iOS and android.
Yikes.  I hope that includes 24/7 tech support for the users who complain about the formatting and "new threads" display!

In Andy's defense, I wonder if that $600/year includes all the Social Knowledge forums-- not just E-R.org.

arebelspy

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #122 on: July 14, 2012, 01:25:04 AM »
They also pay $600/yr. for apps for the e-r.org forum for iOS and android.
Yikes.  I hope that includes 24/7 tech support for the users who complain about the formatting and "new threads" display!

In Andy's defense, I wonder if that $600/year includes all the Social Knowledge forums-- not just E-R.org.

It's a per site charge, however they do offer bulk discounts for owners of multiple sites.  So I'd imagine he's paying quite a bit less than $600/site, but quite a bit more overall.

More info: http://forumrunner.com/?p=branding

Quote
Branding Cost

The cost for licensing is $599 per year. The license gives you the right to have your Forum Runner branded applications in the iTunes and Google Play app stores for the purchase period. If the purchase period expires and the branded apps are not renewed, the apps will be removed from the app stores and existing installs of the app will not function.

...

Contact us at support@forumrunner.com for information on bulk pricing (multiple forums) or any special needs.
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

MMM

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #123 on: July 14, 2012, 10:07:10 AM »
Update on web host situation: I signed up for a new hosting account at a to-be-named host after a great introductory chat with them, but the order became effed up due to the fact that I was making the order from a Canadian IP address with my US address/credit card information. So I'm still working on that issue - this will be after this weekend then another few days at the cottage where there is a blissful lack of internet access.

I.P.'s points regarding database access are well-taken - except for the fact that the forum is so much less trafficked than the main blog*. After dropping the SimpleMachines posts-per-page number down, I still saw a couple of full-website drops in the following days, even while Google Analytics indicated that virtually nobody was using the forum at the moment. But these are just initial speculations - I'm still having fun learning about it.

 Does anybody know the shell or cPanel method to check the CPU time that has been tied up by the database access for each of these separate parts of the site? I'm guessing there are two different measurements - CPU time used on my actual host by wordpress and simple machines script processes, plus database server time (on another machine somewhere) from the queries my main server is making. (Unless it all runs in one space, partitioned off for me?)

Anyway, the big news is that I turned off the main blog's "all posts since the beginning of time" feature and turned it into a static page instead. That was an obvious resource hog, since it is a very popular page and it does a gigantic loop through the database for every person who reads it. You may laugh at the fact that I allowed that script in the first place, but I guess I was assuming that computers were fast enough these days to not bog down doing a few hundred loops of a "for" statement, a few tens of thousands of times per day. I know, I know, it's all in the number of CPU instructions that REALLY happen for each database query (probably millions), but still.. this blog is TINY compared to a page like the Wall Street Journal or even Lifehacker.com, so I'm surprised that it is slowing down with only 60 pageviews per minute. I mean, even a large-print paperback book could deliver almost as many pageviews per minute to a group of 60 people!

Anyway, it's all learning for me, which makes it all good..

 *There's also a nice "uncorrelated assets" thing going on with the forum where usage ramps up in the evening hours and on weekends, while the main blog traffic is driven purely by people slacking off at work: mostly in the US, mostly during the 9-5 period in the country's four primary time zones.

arebelspy

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #124 on: July 14, 2012, 11:07:52 AM »
I.P.'s points regarding database access are well-taken - except for the fact that the forum is so much less trafficked than the main blog*. After dropping the SimpleMachines posts-per-page number down, I still saw a couple of full-website drops in the following days, even while Google Analytics indicated that virtually nobody was using the forum at the moment. But these are just initial speculations - I'm still having fun learning about it.

One other thing to note about I.P.'s points about having forum pages load only X number of posts to limit the amount of data pulled is that it's not a scalable solution.

That is, based on the traffic the forum gets now, reducing a page from showing 999 ax posts to 25 (or whatever) max posts may temporarily alleviate the strain, however as MMM grows and the forums grow, soon more people pulling those 25 posts will put the same strain as the current amount of users pulling 999 posts.

So it's a temporary fix, at best, and it's good you're switching hosts now to deal with future traffic.

Good luck with the switchover!
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

Daley

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #125 on: July 15, 2012, 11:41:28 AM »
Update on web host situation: I signed up for a new hosting account at a to-be-named host after a great introductory chat with them, but the order became effed up due to the fact that I was making the order from a Canadian IP address with my US address/credit card information. So I'm still working on that issue - this will be after this weekend then another few days at the cottage where there is a blissful lack of internet access.

I.P.'s points regarding database access are well-taken - except for the fact that the forum is so much less trafficked than the main blog*. After dropping the SimpleMachines posts-per-page number down, I still saw a couple of full-website drops in the following days, even while Google Analytics indicated that virtually nobody was using the forum at the moment. But these are just initial speculations - I'm still having fun learning about it.

Does anybody know the shell or cPanel method to check the CPU time that has been tied up by the database access for each of these separate parts of the site? I'm guessing there are two different measurements - CPU time used on my actual host by wordpress and simple machines script processes, plus database server time (on another machine somewhere) from the queries my main server is making. (Unless it all runs in one space, partitioned off for me?)

Anyway, the big news is that I turned off the main blog's "all posts since the beginning of time" feature and turned it into a static page instead. That was an obvious resource hog, since it is a very popular page and it does a gigantic loop through the database for every person who reads it. You may laugh at the fact that I allowed that script in the first place, but I guess I was assuming that computers were fast enough these days to not bog down doing a few hundred loops of a "for" statement, a few tens of thousands of times per day. I know, I know, it's all in the number of CPU instructions that REALLY happen for each database query (probably millions), but still.. this blog is TINY compared to a page like the Wall Street Journal or even Lifehacker.com, so I'm surprised that it is slowing down with only 60 pageviews per minute. I mean, even a large-print paperback book could deliver almost as many pageviews per minute to a group of 60 people!

Anyway, it's all learning for me, which makes it all good..

 *There's also a nice "uncorrelated assets" thing going on with the forum where usage ramps up in the evening hours and on weekends, while the main blog traffic is driven purely by people slacking off at work: mostly in the US, mostly during the 9-5 period in the country's four primary time zones.

It looks like myself and others (Grant at least) have noticed a more consistent performance out of the forums since the initial changes you made, including the default displayed posts in the forum. I've still noticed a couple full-fledged outages since, but when the site is responding the forums do too, now, instead of timing out and throwing Wordpress 404 errors. So, we're down to 503's only now (at least from my observation). Definitely a step in the right direction!

Good to hear you're switching providers, here's hoping it's a good mix of price and performance for you.

There should be some semi-relevant logs in your phpMyAdmin page, but not too complete. From SSH (if Bluehost provides the following utility), give sysstat a crank.

I'd also take the time to optimize and clean up the databases if you haven't done so already (preferably before migration): Wordpress guide here. SMF's primary method of performance enhancement is through using an accelerator like eAccelerator or APC and a few more minor tweaks. I'm not sure Bluehost provides accelerators like APC, though, as they appear to prefer forcing you to upgrade or boot your account for CPU hogging than let you optimize performance... but it would be worth looking into and utilizing on the new host if available.

grantmeaname

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #126 on: July 16, 2012, 11:51:00 AM »
I've still noticed a couple full-fledged outages since, but when the site is responding the forums do too, now, instead of timing out and throwing Wordpress 404 errors. So, we're down to 503's only now (at least from my observation). Definitely a step in the right direction!
For what it's worth, which may be nothing, I get formatted MMM 404 errors and unformatted Wordpress 404 errors about equally often (and seemingly interchangeably, even within the span of a few minutes). I guess that those could indicate different degrees of overloading, depending on how far into the stack the requests get, but I don't know for sure.

I've also gotten 403 (access denied) errors today, but I had never seen them before that. I'm not a webmaster and can't speculate why, but I figured I'd at least note them. I forgot to check whether the blog worked, but it was during the blog's peak hours, so I assume it was related to overall traffic and not just forum traffic.

JohnGalt

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #127 on: August 08, 2012, 08:08:56 PM »

I keep hearing this over and over on the forum and in blog post comments.  I think we need a category for single Mustachians.  It would be a great way to exchange dating tips and, if two Mustachians should happen to realize they live in the same area and choose to meet.....
Anyone know how we could get singles category (not just a thread)?

Just posting this idea over from another post

kisserofsinners

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #128 on: August 17, 2012, 09:35:58 AM »
I'd love to see a forum for the "softer side of the stach" or "Softer Science"; softer science less numbers. Share beauty tips, discuss building self worth, charities and everything else in life *other* then Making making and not spending money, but that truly improves our lives none the less...

The "lady stach" thread was AMAZ-BALLS and it got a little too think for me to get in there without feeling like a thread jacker...It's also hella long now and could easily be broken up into smaller chunks.

Why not call it "lady Stach"? Because i don't really consider myself a lady and i also think that men have just as much to gain from the conversation. Calling it that might create a barrier to entry for some of our more macho mustachians. Plenty of guys here are still working and i'd imagine lots in offices where grooming standers might go beyond the UMG's abilities. There's been plenty of conversations about charities scattered around as is. And EVERYONE should read Bicycle's post about smiling and inner beauty (i think i'll go re-read it now...).

So yeah, let's get softer and share feeling and shit, while building the badassity. :)

grantmeaname

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #129 on: August 17, 2012, 09:54:04 AM »
I'd love a permanent off-topic thread to chat about day-to-day random life, sports, weather, or whatever.

In fact, if there's no objections, I might create one.

arebelspy

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #130 on: August 17, 2012, 10:21:52 AM »
I'd love a permanent off-topic thread to chat about day-to-day random life, sports, weather, or whatever.

In fact, if there's no objections, I might create one.

Even a whole forum category.  One thread might be a little much for all that.

I know you're just dying to discuss football.  ;)
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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #131 on: August 17, 2012, 10:22:48 AM »
Yeah, you got me. Me and my undying love of football.

Mrs MM

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #132 on: August 17, 2012, 01:05:47 PM »
If there's an undeniable need for a category that you all agree on, and if you're a moderator and can add a category, then please go ahead!  I'm having trouble keeping up with everything, although I do have this on my to-do list.

arebelspy

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #133 on: August 17, 2012, 02:30:17 PM »
If there's an undeniable need for a category that you all agree on, and if you're a moderator and can add a category, then please go ahead!  I'm having trouble keeping up with everything, although I do have this on my to-do list.

Cool, done!
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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #134 on: August 27, 2012, 07:38:06 PM »
Is there a way to prevent users from including links on their first post, or something like that? It's awfully spammy lately...

MMM

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #135 on: August 30, 2012, 08:45:43 PM »
I'll look into that right now, as I've been noticing all the spam you have been deleting too.

At the minimum, I could make the "skill-testing question" a bit more difficult for the typical spammer to answer. Just adding that thing in the first place seemed to eliminate 90% of the fake sign-ups we immediately started getting when this forum first went up.

MMM

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #136 on: September 03, 2012, 09:18:08 PM »
Update: I added two more skill-testing questions. They may be a little TOO hard, since they require a cursory knowledge of the blog itself (what state does Mr. Money Mustache live in, for example).

We can see if this eliminates the spam, and if it ends up eliminating all new users, which would probably mean I've made them too hard. Unless the 1400 existing registered users would prefer to keep it as an exclusive club :-)

arebelspy

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #137 on: September 03, 2012, 09:47:08 PM »
Update: I added two more skill-testing questions. They may be a little TOO hard, since they require a cursory knowledge of the blog itself (what state does Mr. Money Mustache live in, for example).

We can see if this eliminates the spam, and if it ends up eliminating all new users, which would probably mean I've made them too hard. Unless the 1400 existing registered users would prefer to keep it as an exclusive club :-)

Nope. The more the merrier!

As long as they can google it, I'd think that's an okay question.
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focusaurus

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #138 on: September 26, 2012, 03:35:00 PM »
Suggestion: http://money.stackexchange.com/.

If you haven't seen the stack exchange software, it is a LEAPS AND BOUNDS improvement over discussion forum software like this for questions with specific answers. I am a huge fan of the software, which grew out of the http://stackoverflow.com site where computer programmers ask questions and get specific answers. This would be great for certain types of questions, but the forum as is would be better for some things. We could create tags like #frugality, #badassity, #mrmoneymustache, etc.

Better on Stack Exchange:

  • What is the best checking account?
  • What is the best index fund?
  • What bike lights should I get?
  • Is it better for me to pay off my student loan faster vs. investing?

Better on a traditional discussion forum:

  • Introduce Yourself
  • Personal stories/anecdotes

Quick list of things that make stack exchange so vastly better (the full list is LONG, the authors solved almost every problem with old school PHPBB style discussion forums):

  • The top-voted "correct" answer is bubbled to the top
  • Bad, old answers are sent to the bottom
  • Questions can be tagged for categorization in multiple categories
  • Very sophisticated software automatically searches for duplicate questions even as the author is composing a question
  • Participants gain reputation scores that can convey authority (but it's a richer metric than the simple post count used here)

arebelspy

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #139 on: September 26, 2012, 05:54:49 PM »
StackExchange seems great for answering questions.

But not for discussions and building a community.

I'd rather repeat the answers a few times or link to old threads a few times and get the camaraderie of chatting with other Mustachians than give up the latter to not have to do the former.

IMO.
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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #140 on: September 26, 2012, 06:19:20 PM »

I'd rather repeat the answers a few times or link to old threads a few times and get the camaraderie of chatting with other Mustachians than give up the latter to not have to do the former.

IMO.

+1 to this.  There's not nearly enough volume here yet that "veterans" will be mad at repeat questions.  I was very active in the Crossfit "Newbie" forums awhile back (shoot, I even wrote the FAQ), and people were endlessly complaining about repeat questions.  It's the nature of a discussion forum!

Nords

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #141 on: September 27, 2012, 12:54:30 AM »
This would be great for certain types of questions...
Better on Stack Exchange:
  • What is the best checking account?
  • What is the best index fund?
  • What bike lights should I get?
  • Is it better for me to pay off my student loan faster vs. investing?
A Dilbert perspective on this software would be that it must have already created the best forums with the answers.  Can you point us to a forum or two that might actually already have the best answers to these types of questions?  I'd rather see it in action before trying it here.

arebelspy

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #142 on: September 27, 2012, 07:14:25 AM »
A Dilbert perspective on this software would be that it must have already created the best forums with the answers.  Can you point us to a forum or two that might actually already have the best answers to these types of questions?  I'd rather see it in action before trying it here.

I'm sure many would love the correct answer to the pay off the mortgage versus invest question.  ;)
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

focusaurus

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #143 on: September 27, 2012, 08:42:34 AM »
This would be great for certain types of questions...

A Dilbert perspective on this software would be that it must have already created the best forums with the answers.  Can you point us to a forum or two that might actually already have the best answers to these types of questions?  I'd rather see it in action before trying it here.

Here are some good examples:

http://money.stackexchange.com/questions/16397/are-previous-home-owners-eligible-to-be-defined-as-first-time-home-buyers

And since this is personally relevant to me right now since I'm switching from Chase to ING Direct, here's a question with a great answer:

http://money.stackexchange.com/questions/15914/common-practice-to-closing-a-checking-and-savings-account

Nords

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #144 on: September 27, 2012, 10:38:53 PM »
Here are some good examples:
Thanks.

I'm sure many would love the correct answer to the pay off the mortgage versus invest question.  ;)
Yeah, I bet it gets a little gnarly with 100-post topics.  But it'd be a big help in a thread like "Funny Joke Thursday"!

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #145 on: October 09, 2012, 06:09:39 AM »
How about a baby-clothes (and toys) gifting/trading/sharing forum?

grantmeaname

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #146 on: October 09, 2012, 07:07:07 AM »
That might be a good thread for the Mustachian Marketplace forum.

Self-employed-swami

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #147 on: October 17, 2012, 02:11:16 PM »
Update: I added two more skill-testing questions. They may be a little TOO hard, since they require a cursory knowledge of the blog itself (what state does Mr. Money Mustache live in, for example).

We can see if this eliminates the spam, and if it ends up eliminating all new users, which would probably mean I've made them too hard. Unless the 1400 existing registered users would prefer to keep it as an exclusive club :-)

I'd only been reading the blog for 2 days when I signed up for the forum, and I got the questions without having to google, or look back at anything.

:)

giggles

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #148 on: November 06, 2012, 01:25:39 PM »
how about a "refer a friend" section?  I have seen this develop within threads for products like credit cards so MMM member get receive/share bonuses, and it would be great to be able to see all these offers in one place.

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Re: Forum Ideas
« Reply #149 on: December 04, 2012, 03:26:33 PM »
I support a "Food/groceries etc" category as well. I'm currently looking for threads about those topics and its hard to navigate.

 

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