The slowness of window changes on AWADtalk today is bad enough to take the fun out of participating. I have suggested to tsuwm that we should find out if it is within our means to finance a solution to the problem. I have no idea what the cost might be, and whether or not we have participants enough willing to contribute the amount needed to pay for the new equipment that may be necessary.
Let's find out. Perhaps tsuwm would be willing to coordinate the discussion.

Yes, well it took forever to generate this meager response, didn't it. I have sent an email to Anu, hoping that he has some thoughts about upgrading the server, or maybe just some thoughts.

For what it's worth: It's speeding along pretty well at this minute!

It may be better at the moment, but it was lousy all morning and all afternoon. But it would be nice to know how much a new server would cost, then we could figure out if we could raise the money. I have a problem now, my daughter cancelled my credit card claiming bank was charging too much. I can get her to use her credit card if amount doesn't seem excessive to her. Naturally it would be easier if I still had the card.
But how do we find out how much we would need to raise? And who will bell the cat?

Does this have anything to do with the e-mail from Anu entitled "Your turn"? I was a little worried when I got that and saw that it was just a quick message from him, thinking that he was delivering bad news to us all that he was shutting down wordsmith.org. Fortunately, that's not the case, but I still didn't get my word for today.

Dr. Bill, I really can't say why, but every instinct I have is telling me that discussing this on the board is a bad idea, despite the fact that your point is obviously a good one. I get the feeling that any who are willing and able will do what they can. Perhaps all who are willing/able to do more could just send privately to Anu, and let him say whether more would be welcomed or not?

well, I didn't hear from Anu, but I did get this response, which is in line with the "Dear Reader"....

This is Sure Gupta bringing you greetings from Anu Garg.

I saw the post from WWH - and on an earlier occasion, someone from
AWADtalk had spoken to Anu- re. the slow response. Anu is aware of it and
will try to work out a solution. It is on his priority list.

There is no need to raise funds especially for this purpose. But if you
like to raise funds generally, you are welcome.

Thanks for your initiative, thanks also to WWH.

Sure Gupta
Outreach Lead
Wordsmith.Org

It is good to know that Wordsmith knows about the problem. Now it will be easy to be patient. Thank you,

Jackie says, I really can't say why, but every instinct I have is telling me that discussing this on the board is a bad idea.

Folks, I'm not sure whether I agree with Jackie -- but I am sure that her instincts are usually good ones.

And surely if we follow her instinct for now, we can always change later --- but the converse is not true. So perhaps it would be well if for the moment we follow Jackie's suggestion, at least through the weekend, and use that time to reflect on all the ramifications, not just on the immediate financial ones.

As tsuwm quoted:
There is no need to raise funds especially for this purpose.

This comment leads me to continue my suspicions that since 9/11 (@ the time the slowdown began) a heck of a lot of internet traffic has been rerouted through nodes just outside of the NY area... possibly close to Ohio, maybe... and the amount of traffic alone, well, I'm sure someone with statistical *inclinations could *prove this point.

The wide fluctuations in access speeds go far to suggest that it has nothing to do with the wordsmith server. Hasn't anyone else noticed the overall slowdown of downloading that occurrs betweeen 3 and 5pm, the time that kids get home from school and the time that office workers get bored.

I felt that Capital Kiwi might be the most qualified of those among us to judge, and he put the blame on the server. And while other servers are slow, I can't tell when it is my ISP timing out on me. The trouble with AWADtalk has been much greater than on any other site.

I think it's the server simply because it's the only site I go to which is so slow. i don't claim to have any special knowledge about the AWAD site in particular. But a server which is already overloaded will grind to a halt during "busy" periods, like after school and around dinnertime.

It could also be that the server is very badly configured, or that the bandwidth available to the server is minimal.

Whichever, I have spent less time on the Board lately because of it. I simply don't have the time to wait for it to cough up the next page when it feels like it. I timed it at three minutes last night between clicking on the post button and the successful post message coming back.

Two days ago I went ot the collapsed threads view for the first time simply because the time consumption of opening expanded threads was becoming torturous and, time-budget-wise, impossible. (I like seeing who's posting what on the expanded view). But I also have posts responding directly to mine mailed to my home mailbox. In the collapsed thread mode I can open the link in my mailbox to the AWAD page, the post comes up open with the rest of the collapsed thread in view, and I can post a response. I was always unable to post from the home mail link in the expanded view mode??? What's more, all the pages move zip! zip!...even the post! This expedites direct post, but you still have to go into the site to open other new posts not responding directly to yours. But it does save a lot of time. For new folks, to have your post responses mailed to your home mailbox, just check the proper box in your AWAD profile screen. Does this indicate that the server may not actually be the problem??

I usually go to AWADboard about 9:30 a.m. and it is so slow that I've about given up trying to read the posts on the weekdays. One night last week I couldn't sleep and got on about midnight. Still slow as poke.
Weekends (Sat/Sun) are decent time but the worker bees are noticeably absent and I miss their comments.
But then, if I use Atomica on weekends it is pokey too!
Anyway, after reading Anu's note I sent off a small check - all my budget can handle right now, what with Christmas and fixed income. I have no idea what it costs to maintain a site like this but it must be considerable and The Great Anu is bearing the cost out of the goodness of his heart and his love of words.
I certainly do *not* think he is in it for the money!!!

Aside Comment : it is December First and 70 degrees here on the New Hampshire Seacoast today! I'll take it!

Who is the person best positioned to diagnoes the problem and identify a possible solution? I would think that Anu would be far better positioned than any of us.

I would think that Anu would be far better positioned than any of us.

Yes.

>Yes.

anu@wordsmith.org

(it seems obvious that Anu doesn't take it (or handle it) personally, so you shouldn't feel shy about making your feelings known.)

>I went to the collapsed threads view for the first time ...

I do three things that help and I don't have too much of a problem.

(1) I get the e-mail summaries mailed to me every day for the main sections. I can skim through those in no time and get the gist of what is going on. I know that it jumps around a bit between threads but it is at least sequential and especially good for spotting posts which sink from the first page within a day. If I don't have time to read them then I just delete them and hope to catch up another day. I rarely have the time to go through days and days of posts.
(2) Replies are e-mailed to me and I can always open then (in collapsed mode) from my e-mail inbox as described by WhitmanO'Neill.
(2) I run collapsed mode, so threads always open quickly. I then use the icon at the top to convert to flat mode, so I can read all the entries quickly - this is sometimes the slowest bit but since I set the view number at 99, at least it doesn't open up in multiple pages any more so that I have to use a another step to click "show all" as I used to do.

Since I've had ADSL it has been generally fast with the odd slow day. I tend to clear my off line content and have reduced my history to keep pages for 0 days to stop my cache getting overloaded.

Jo

Someone commented on duplicate posts, lately, and I have both received and sent multiple copies of the same PM--once, seven copies! (Sorry, Sweetie.) So I am posting this in case there is anyone else as slow as I am to catch on to this: I think, when you have typed a post or a PM and hit Submit, that when the page disappears, we can assume the thing has actually gone, even when the next page that comes up says "Cannot Find Server". Am I right?