Bandwidth Troubles in January

[Unimatic1140]

I was notified by our ISP that automaticwasher.org used up 80% of its allowed December bandwidth on December 30. Bandwidth is traffic allowed on the site per month. Now being that this happend on the 30th, we only had one more day to go so there was no way at this time we were going to use up the other 20% in one day.

Now unfortunately the Super Forum is taking up well over 50% of the traffic of the entire site. If we continue to grow at the same pace that we are growing, the bandwidth is going to go over 100% before the end of each month probably by this Spring or early Summer. When then happens is the site will become unavailable until midnight of the 1st of the next month.

Any suggestions on how to curb the bandwidth/traffic usage?

 

[Unimatic1140]

Opps the title of this thread should read "Bandwidth Troubles in December".

 

[peteski50]

Bandwidth Troubles

Robert,
I do not know what would have to be done in this case. But please know I am here if you need any assistance at all to keep the club going. If you need a contribution to update that will be no problem at all.
Happy New Year
Peter

 

[peterh770]

When you say traffic, is that just people coming in to look, or is that postings, or both?

I already made a new year's resolution to not start a new thread every time a thought enters my brain. Will that help?

 

[brettsomers]

i dont know about these things really... but how about decreasing the size of images that are allowed to upload? as it is, the size allowed is very generous.

 

[toggleswitch]

I too am willing to pay a membership fee, and limit my postings.

Will avoiding the archiving of non-essential threads help any?

 

[brisnat81]

What about

Hi Robert,

From the Create new thread page, use the Other Non-Appliance Related Topic radio button, to hide the Upload JPEG part of the new message form?

Add an extra variable to the Create new thread form, and make the display of the Upload Dialog on the message form dependant on its value.

That would still allow for non appliance related chat, but would require any images to be linked to, rather than imbedded in the message.

Regards

Nathan

 

[sudsdudeshane]

Unimatic1140~

Robert~

Wow, the Super Forum has really taken off!. Whatever I can do to help let me know. AndrewinOrlando would be a great person to ask for help since he is a software engineer.<a man that knows everything,truly!>
This site brings alot of pleasure to many. I am sure whatever we need to do to prevent this we will all happily oblige.

Take Care
SudsShane

 

[Unimatic1140]

Thanks guys good suggestions so far. One thing to note is that money will not cure this problem, unless its a huge amount something that I will do not wish to bother with. The only thing that will cure this problem is using less bandwidth.

Not allowing pictures in the Super Forum would help for a while.

Not archiving the Super Forum might help a small amount, but most of the bandwidth usage comes out of the active Forums.

Other suggestions?

 

[gadgetgary]

Robert,

Whatever you need to do, please let us know. Perhaps a monthly or yearly 'fee' would help.

Just a thought:

I am a card carrying member of AutomaticWasher.org

 

[hoover1060]

I'd pay

Whatever it takes, I love this site!

 

[Unimatic1140]

Guys please read what I am saying, I'm going to say it again, money will not cure this issue.

 

[andrewinorlando]

Imbedded images or linked images will still generate bandwidth traffic since the activity to view or to download must still come through the site. Images co-located elsewhere, for example, on YouTube create utilize bandwidth to get to the image itself, as it must come through the site here first via a posting.

Video/audio files played through the site will generate more bandwidth traffic then those downloaded from the site and viewed offline, especially if they are viewed multiple times. Would preventing viewing of video/audio files through the site help alleviate some of the problem? Do we have statistics as to how much bandwidth these are taking up? Many of us love to imbed video images into our posts, and there are many excellent ones out there, too, which we enjoy viewing over and over again! There are also the video/audio files housed in the "See It Wash" and other areas of the site, too. Might this help?

Andrew

 

[gansky1]

Perhaps we should return to a Yahoo-groups type site for ALL non-appliance related postings. Obituaries, political discussions, cooking, etc. could be moved saving tons of bandwith.

 

[andrewinorlando]

Greg - that's an excellent idea!!

 

[gansky1]

I'm already trying to save bandwidth with poor spelling ;-)

 

[brisnat81]

A further thought

I know most of the time after you initially read a thread, you dont necessarily go back to look at the pictures, you might just scroll to the bottom to catch up on the latest info.

If all pictures were uploaded to aw.org as per the current form, but were displayed as a hyperlink that created a popup, that way the pictures wouldnt consume download bandwidth unless you actively chose to view them.

The layout wouldnt be quite as smooth, but it would reduce the bandwidth required to view a thread with 4 or 5 images from 500K to 20K.

 

[Unimatic1140]

Hi Andrew,

The video is not stored or viewed on this site, we have a separate server for that, Jon Charles (Jetcone) pays for that every year.

So the bandwidth issues are not video related.

 

[goatfarmer]

Gee,I thought money cured every problem.....Hmmmmmm......

I concur,Greg's idea is a good one.