Can Someone Sort This Forum Out? This is really getting beyond a joke

[mrdee 1]

Come on folks,this is not funny anymore.Is there really nothing at all that can be done to make this forum go a bit faster?There are occasions where i have to wait up to three minutes before this page even begins to load, and about trying to read or post to a forum, well, this is really pathetic.It honestly takes, without any exaggeration, minutes rather than seconds for a single clicked link to open in this place.Since I assume this forum is also hosted with Xisto, I don't think the hosting provider can be at fault.And it is not due to my setup, neither, all most of the other sites I visit load normally and swiftly.You could argue "this is due to the fact there are constantly a lot of visitors on here", but what about eg. Facebook then?There are probably several million people on facebook at the same time every day, but it loads nowhere as slow as this forum does.Like I said, it is tortue trying to read or post something here, and the majority of us need to post in order to maintain their MyCent credits.So, come on ,powers that be, try to put a smile on our faces again and do something about it.Many people would be very much obliged if you do.

[anwiii 17]

you're wasting your breath. this forum has been abandoned by the owner/administrator "opaque" for some time now and the mods that were here before have for the most part disapeared after the forum was abandoned.basically what's going on is that the mycents system is still working for anyone who still wants to post, but for the most part, they keep it running for the extra ppc revenue it generates from all the past posts.as you can tell, they don't care about the new members or the old members, they don't care about people posting anymore or even all the spam that has filled this place. nobody is even here to care anymore.so wake up and smell the coffee, stop dreaming, and come back to reality. you're hopes and wishes for this place are fine.....but that's all they are ever going to be. hopes and wishes.

[mrdee 1]

I can see what you are saying, anwii.

 

However, i wish I did not have to smell the coffee and I could keep on dreaming.

 

Then again, is this forum very closely associated with Xisto?

Is there any way we can try to find solutions in that direction?

 

Surely, if things like this keep going on, many people are going to turn their backs on Xisto, which, it seems to me will lose Xisto a lot of business, am I right in saying that?

 

I, for one, would do anything, and take part in any action which could give this forum its glory back, and this for a number of reasons:

 

It used to be a place where you could get expert answers to about anything, and even within a very short time

Sometimes you did not even have to ask a question, this forum could sometimes be used like a reference book.

This place also used to be relatively spam-free

And, probably the main reason: the benefits people get from posting, I am very happy with my Xisto hosting and the features it provides, I do not think I could afford paying for a similar service, they already charge extortionate amounts of money for crap hosting in some places.

Like I have said in other topics (and, yes, at the risk of repeating myself): contrary to some time ago, I have posted quite a few topics/posts here to which I never received a single answer, this would never have happened in the past.

You are also right about the amount of spam that has started creeping onto the forum, I could not believe my eyes when i started noticing some posts.

 

Sometimes, i have also posted questions, to which someone replied very enthusiastically, but when I asked some further questions, the person(s) who answered seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth, all of a sudden (more people turning their back on this place, I assume).

 

It is a real dilemma, I only wish i had the knowledge to run a place like that, but unfortunately, I wouldn't know where to start (I run a few forums myself, but they are much more basic than this one, I'm afraid).

 

So, if you, or anyone else has any ideas, let's stick together (the people with the same dreams as you and me) and try to find a way how we can reverse things back to the way it was (even halfway would already make a heck of a difference).

 

Like I said, maybe go through Xisto itself, if we have to (or if we can), surely they wouldn't want to see a majority of their customers taking their business elsewhere, I assume?

 

Anyway, thank you for replying, but, try not to give up yet.

[anwiii 17]

well, i try to post where i can, but i would never encourage anyone to post only because every post now will get lost in the spam most likely.i used to report all the spam, but i quit doing that and i don't encourage anyone else to either because it is a waste of time. 1 person can spend a half hour a day to report all the spam in a day. then times that by the number of people who are reporting the same posts. let's say we all get together and start reporting the spam to be deleted. that's 5 man hours between 10 people who are wasting their efforts reporting the same things.i have tried to talk to opaque who has shown absolutely no interest in helping with this spami have reported status message spammer and will continue to do so since it's not as rampant as the forum spammers, but it really should mainly be up to the ones who write a status message to delete their own spam. do they? no. why? because people come on, write a status message and don't log in for a week to even see it.i have suggested we close new memberships. to no avail.i have suggested we put a captcha within the signup form. to no avail.i have suggested a new admin and new moderators. to no avail.opaque doesn't even have the decency to log in and write an update to let people know what is going on or what to expect or what he even expects from his loyal members who are wondering what the heck is happening. he started this place years ago. it was a struggle and he built a great place. he made new friends. but are they really his friends when he can just desert everyone without telling anyone what is going on? i have to question that. i like opaque. he has given and shared with me a lot. i am trying REALLY hard to understand him when he is giving absolutely no clues to be understood right now.even if we all take things in our own hands right now, it wont be enough to fight off all this spam. only admins and moderators have that ability. the only mod that has even shown an interest lately to help with things is rvalkass but it's way too much for one mod to control around here. if he quit too, i wouldn't blame him. it's just way too much without admin support.yea, i still hope, but i sure as hell am not gonna hold my breath....

[mrdee 1]

You are right in most of the things you say, of course.However, spam is not the only issue on the forum, is it?Only the other week, I was recommending the Xisto hosting to some friends, friends who run a substantial website.They were even interested in the big one (the unlimited plan), and were even considering to pay for it with real money if they had to, but stopping by at the forum first put them off when they saw how long hey had to wait before the forum even came up.Well, a few of those, and if that is not beginning to count as serious loss of business for Xisto, then I don't know what is.

[rvalkass 5]

Of course steps can be taken to speed the forum up. I've just run YSlow on the forum to see exactly why it runs so slowly. Remarkably it scores a C overall, but with quite a few components scoring F. The forum currently makes 26 HTTP requests per page load, which is a huge number and could be cut down to two quite easily by combining all external Javascript into one file and all CSS background images into one file. Stunningly, each page uses 87 external elements - a vast amount! That could also be cut down to improve page load times. The mistake has been made that 84 of those do not have "expires" headers, so they have to be loaded every single time you load a page. Adding the headers would let your browser cache the files so you'd only need to download them once in a blue moon. ETags are also not correctly set up, meaning the browser has no way to verify if its cached version of a file is still good, so it has to fetch a new version on every single page load. Content is also not sent with gzip compression, increasing the amount of data that must be transferred. This mainly affects the Javascript and CSS components of the pages. The Javascript and CSS could also be "minified" to further reduce the page load times by reducing file sizes. Good old fashioned streamlining can also be applied. Each page load requires downloading 2 170kb Javascript files, which should probably be cut down.

 

If all that doesn't help, the problem could possibly be due to a lack of sufficient hardware. If the site is really that popular that the server can't cope with the requests, then more hardware may be required, either in the form of more servers, or a wider Internet connection for the server. This is something we can't really speculate on without server load statistics.

 

Then again, is this forum very closely associated with Xisto?

Is there any way we can try to find solutions in that direction?

 

Xisto owns KS, yet still calls it Xisto on their homepage: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

OpaQue owns Xisto, so he's pretty closely related with the forum and the business.

 

Surely, if things like this keep going on, many people are going to turn their backs on Xisto, which, it seems to me will lose Xisto a lot of business, am I right in saying that?

 

Definitely. I have recommended Xisto/Xisto - Web Hosting/Xisto/Qupis to many people in the past, many of whom trust my recommendation and signed up. Now, I don't recommend Xisto/etc. They have therefore lost business. I imagine other members do the same.

 

Like I have said in other topics (and, yes, at the risk of repeating myself): contrary to some time ago, I have posted quite a few topics/posts here to which I never received a single answer, this would never have happened in the past.

You are also right about the amount of spam that has started creeping onto the forum, I could not believe my eyes when i started noticing some posts.

There used to be five pages of new posts waiting for me each morning. That was great - there was loads to read, and always something to talk about. Now, there are about five posts each morning. That's a shocking decrease. Recently it's picked up again, but 95% of the posts are spam Unfortunately, due to the nature of some of the spam, I now cannot moderate the forum in any public place or on any unsecure Internet connection. That has cut down the time I have available to moderate the forum, and I apologise for that.

 

It is a real dilemma, I only wish i had the knowledge to run a place like that, but unfortunately, I wouldn't know where to start (I run a few forums myself, but they are much more basic than this one, I'm afraid).

 

So, if you, or anyone else has any ideas, let's stick together (the people with the same dreams as you and me) and try to find a way how we can reverse things back to the way it was (even halfway would already make a heck of a difference).

 

Like I said, maybe go through Xisto itself, if we have to (or if we can), surely they wouldn't want to see a majority of their customers taking their business elsewhere, I assume?

 

If the admins have abandoned the forum there is nothing we can do, as there is no way for anyone to get into the admin controls to change anything. All we can do is hope they come back and sort things out. You could also try the more direct approach of writing to Xisto to ask questions. The address, according to the Xisto website, is:

 

Xisto Corporation

218,Shiv Center,

Sector -17, Vashi

Navi Mumbai-400703,India

 

It's only £0.67 for an airmail stamp so give it a go

 

even if we all take things in our own hands right now, it wont be enough to fight off all this spam. only admins and moderators have that ability. the only mod that has even shown an interest lately to help with things is rvalkass but it's way too much for one mod to control around here. if he quit too, i wouldn't blame him. it's just way too much without admin support.

 

Part of me wants to leave the spam to see if OpaQue/Buffalo actually notice. I'm sure it would affect revenue eventually. I just can't bring myself to do that when there are people still here using the forum.
Edited April 30, 2012 by moderator
updated Xisto's address (see edit history)

[anwiii 17]

yea, my first thought a while back was to leave the spam for the very same reason. i feel bh is gone for good he just doesn't log in anymore period. during one recent period of time, it took opaque 1 1/2 months to log in. opa supposedly is working on a new ks but who the heck knows when that will be up and running. no updates, nothing. i decided not to leave the spam because it's just plain unfair to the members. now i am leaving it. not because i want opaque to notice but because of my reasons stated above. a mod can EASILY mass delete spam by guessing. you risk losing valid posts, but at least there wouldn't be spam. most of the spam is coming from certain categories too so it's easy to detect and guess....along with unfamiliar users who are posting.i feel for opaque because i know he has been busy. i know he's logged in recently and i know he has plans and it takes time, but there is absolutely NO excuse for not posting an update. even if it's to say the board is crap and no plans are going to change soon. even if he said that, it would be respectable just to let us all know what to expect and why we are all still here supporting this forum, and in my case, supporting him. even velma was around for a while when the board was going downhill. i don't know what happened to her but even she isn't seen anymore and she was telling me her high hopes for this place.if you ask me, opa should give you temp admin status until he can figure out what he is doing with this place. my heart drops every time i think about how this forum was doing well, and then went to crap over bad management, and then hoping every day that this will be the day when things turn around and doesn't. i would even be glad to mod again just to help get rid of the spam but it seems that no new changes are gonna happen anytime soon unfortunately.this wait and see game sucks, but personally, i cannot abandon this place no matter what.... or how busy i get.

[mrdee 1]

I don't know, it was probably my imagination, but for a moment I had the impression the forum was running slightly faster when I came back to it a few minutes ago.

 

However, having said that, it was only in certain areas, such as opening the start page of the forum and clicking on the odd topic, only for my "somewhat happier" feeling to disappear when I went to see my profile and had to wait quite a while again.

 

Nevertheless, has some work/maintenance been done to the forum at all during recent hours?

A little while after I had opened this topic here and checked to see if there were any replies (yes, the email notification does not seem to work properly neither), the forum refused to load altogether, with the message "The connection has timed out".

 

That is why I was wondering if anyone had done something o the forum, especially because of the impression I had when I managed to get back on.

 

I really hope the powers that be take heed to what has been said here, even the previous two posts are extremely valuable, with great analyses and very useful suggestions.

 

If they could only follow what has been written, and, if they are too busy for the time being, like I have seen written about Opaque earlier, then why not give temporary Administrator access to knowledgable people who are wlling to help out?

 

Don't these people realise the are only cutting into their own flesh with doing things the way they are going now, or do they think people are all of a sudden going to stop using the forum and start paying for their hosting with real money?

 

Fat chance, i would say.

 

By the way, that reminds me: I just saw something on Twitter about MyCents 4.0 now being installed, doe sanyone know more about this?

Does anyone know what difference it makes (if any), has the update any beneficial points?

 

Anyway, if anyone can keep me up to scratch with all the latest developments, that would be a great help.

[web_designer 7]

yeah i agree with you two, things here are worse than ever and the slow loading of the forum is making things even more worse. a lot of times i try to open the forum to see what is the news in here, but it takes a minute or two to load the sign in page and the same for every page i try to open. so finally, i give up and leave the forum, well usually i don't do that but really right now i don't have enough time to wait and try to deal with things here. so thanks god the forums is now loading fine, therefor i could post and do some things in the forum, and really hope it will still the same.

[mrdee 1]

Maybe it works for you, but this end, things are quite slow, as usual (although a bit better than I was used to).However, if it's not one thing it's another: for a number of days now, my MyCents credit has not updated, although I have been posting every day.Goodness gracious me.

[Harlot 2]

I agree, its not just you, the forum is slow. This is my first time coming on Xisto in a month or so, and I thought my internet connection was down when I attempted to come on the forum. I shut down my hosting account, which I shouldn't have, thinking that I would be satisfied not running a website. Now I want to restart my website though. I am kind of sketical about coming back, especially knowing that the spam has increased since my last visit, on top of the fact that the forum has become slow. I actually had to go play games while waiting on the page to load to post this comment. The community is pretty much dead, and most people are here for the hosting and domains.

[mrdee 1]

Well, harlot, you have a point here and there.I, for one, am indeed still here for my hosting, especially because I am still happy with that, so, I might as well keep posting (and not spam, that is) to keep getting my service, because, as we say "the price is right".Although the Xisto - Support lacks a bit in speed sometimes (unlike some years ago), I have not needed them that often anyway, as my hosting service is quite reliable.Also, if you tried to get hosting with the same features elsewhere, it would cost you an arm and a leg, they usually charge amounts I certainly cannot afford, and, if you do get it free, or cheap, then there is usually something (meaning "a lot") missing from the features that we at Xisto do get (eg. no or only 1 MySQL database, or, in case of none, no PHP neither, or else "Safe Mode" is turned ON, which stops you from running the most innocent and legitimite scripts, or, if you don't get a number of visitors, they just stop your service, but, on the other hand, you get such a small amount of bandwidth that they suspend your site until the next month if you get a certain number of visitors, etc. etc.)So, I would rather stick with my Xisto hosting than go anywhere else.However, I do get annoyed at times here, mainly due to the lack of speed of the forum, and even more, due to the fact that, as you mention, the community seems to be dead.The help I used to get here when I was struggling with problems: 1 post, and about 10 minutes later, you had between 5 and 10 replies, replies from knowledgeable people who knew what they were talking about and solved our problem in no time, while now, you are lucky if you get 1 reply after a week.That is why I am trying to do what I can, by talking to the right people, to get this place moving again, so we can keep making the most of our hosting, but also for the benefit of people who come here expecting to get what this forum should be for: answers to their questions and quality discussions. (Apart from my hosting, I fall into that category too).