SMC Statistics for Febuary 2006

[Keith Outten]

Below is the graphic generated by our web site log file for Febuary 2006.

[Dennis Peacock]

Pretty impressive Keith!!!! How far can we stand to grow?

[Keith Outten]

Dennis,

There are vBullitin Forums that have over 50,000 members so the software is capable of supporting lots of growth. We do have the capablilty to add multiple servers to share the load but haven't had the need, the last server upgrade we did is still performing well. I expect that we will be building another machine next year though, not for performance but because the existing server will be about three years old. When they run 24/7 three years is a lot of hours.

Our bandwidth has always been the limiting factor for SMC. Lets hope that we can get a fiber optic pipe in the future.

[Dennis Peacock]

Dennis,

There are vBullitin Forums that have over 50,000 members so the software is capable of supporting lots of growth. We do have the capablilty to add multiple servers to share the load but haven't had the need, the last server upgrade we did is still performing well. I expect that we will be building another machine next year though, not for performance but because the existing server will be about three years old. When they run 24/7 three years is a lot of hours.

Our bandwidth has always been the limiting factor for SMC. Lets hope that we can get a fiber optic pipe in the future.

I've been keeping an eye open at work for a small 4 processor with 8GB Memory, Alpha Server (Enterprise Server 40, ES40). If you are running an Intel platform, I can keep my eyes pealed for a 4 processor DELL Enterprise Server as well. Just let me know and I'll see what I can do from here. They dump a lot of hardware every year.

[Aaron Koehl]

Sounds great to me, so long as it's not like the state (VA), who, for example, just dumped quite a few PowerEdge servers-- Quad-processor 200 MHz.

[Jason Roehl]

There are vBullitin Forums that have over 50,000 members so the software is capable of supporting lots of growth.

There are some out there even bigger than that: I belong to another vBulletin forum (for Ford trucks) that has 321,000+ "members" (many non-participating, of course, and they have no name standard like here). A quick scan of the member list showed that roughly 8700 members have 50+ posts, and around 100k have at least 2 posts. While it is a family-friendly forum, it's just not run the same as this place--more trolls, many ads, much more heavy-handed moderation (Ford vs. Chevy or Dodge, need I say more?!) and the overall education level is definitely lower. I've never seen so many run-on sentences and basic lack of ability to spell in my life! Anyway, the growth here is more than likely limited by the hardware and the bandwidth, vBulletin appears to be very capable.

They also use a feature called "Reputation", which puts little green emeralds next to your name as people give you positive feedback. I can't tell you much more about it than that, as the powers that be there are sketchy on the details to help avoid abuse of the feature, but it definitely shows you who is helpful at answering questions successfully or is otherwise friendly, I guess.

[Bruce Shiverdecker]

Impressive Figures.

Thanks for all the hard work that goes with it.

Bruce

[Vaughn McMillan]

...They also use a feature called "Reputation", which puts little green emeralds next to your name as people give you positive feedback.

Which reminds me...Aaron or Keith, what are the little green or blue dots next to our user names?

- Vaughn

[Jason Roehl]

Which reminds me...Aaron or Keith, what are the little green or blue dots next to our user names?

- Vaughn

I'm not Aaron or Keith, but those dots are green if you're online, blue if you're not. Hover your mouse over one for a few seconds and it will tell you.