Weekly Update - 8/20
Entry posted by Black Six
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Intro
Yay, the weekend is here once again. That means so much more when you're a working stiff. I think I'm going to try something different this week.
Updates
So, I have a story for you all, hope you like.
Many years ago, almost a decade, in fact, a pretty cool guy who used to really love LEGO discovered Bionicle, and thought it was cool enough that he should make a community site for it. A year later, it merged with a big Bionicle news site, and BZPower was born. During that first year, we hopped servers and changed domains and even changed our forum software. Custom addons and tweaks were made, such as Proto, spinnies, spoilers, and a plethora of other things. Even after that, there were many changes as the site grew.
And then we grew.
And grew.
And grew.
So now here's where things get interesting.
Every member, post, topic, PM, blog entry, etc, on BZP was put into a database. For the uninformed, think of it as a huge Excel spreadsheet, but way more advanced than that, and way bigger too. Imagine putting forty-five thousand members (and all their information), two hundred and seventy thousand topics, almost six million posts, and sixteen hundred blogs with over eighty thousand entries and four hundred thousand comments in an Excel spreadsheet. Now imagine trying to open it.
It would probably take a while.
Every time you try to load the forums or the blogs, BZPower's server has to access this database to find what you're looking for. Now, thanks to the wonders of Computer Science, it doesn't have to search linearly (one at a time) through those millions of entries, but it can still take a while. At peak usage, when lots of people are trying to access it, this can cause things to slow down.
What can also happen is that when lots of posts are made, the server isn't able to put them in a way that makes them easy to access, or that while it's doing so, something interrupts the process. This can cause corruption and potentially loss of data, though not usually. Corruption can prevent portions of the database from being accessed though, which can cause the forums to not load.
But I digress.
So all that stuff was put into a database and it got really really big as the site got really really popular. The site's popularity became its curse, and caused it to get slow and cranky. This made the members cranky too.
That guy who originally made the site hang around, and made some friends who helped him keep it going. Unfortunately, they practically lived in three different corners of the country and all had lives that they wanted to live in addition to running the site. This meant that when they wanted to change things, they all had to find time to discuss it, come to and agreement, and then move forward and actually do it. For some things, it wasn't too bad, but for other things, like a very big database, there were a lot of options to discuss and a lot of things to take into account. And the server wasn't even the biggest problem on their radar.
Despite this, they thought and brainstormed and had an idea for making things better. It was possibly the most ambitious change to the site since the merger that created BZPower. It took a long time plan out, and even longer to implement. So long that it's still going on.
But the plan is there, and it is very sound.
I warn you though, there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth. There always is.
Sometimes change is bad, but most times I think, change is for the best. That's what evolution is all about - if we don't change we don't survive. BZPower is no different.
I hope you all enjoyed that.
Mailbag
1.Have you ever done anything to the forum you regret?2.In what way do you feel BZP's changed the most since the beginning?
3.When was your first rejection?
4.Do you MOC?
5.Where do you live?
6.Do you object to stalking?
7.Do you ever dread reading your mailbag?
8.Do you know of Doctor Who?
9.If yes, do you like it?
1. To the forum? No.
2. In so many ways. In our size, our membership, our coverage. I think perhaps our overall philosophy is about the only thing that's changed.
3. Not sure what you really mean by that.
4. I built some parts for the BrickFair Mosaic project, but aside from that I haven't built any original creations in a few years.
5. Maryland.
6. Depends if I'm on the giving or receiving side.
7. I look forward to it, as long as it's not empty.
8. Of course!
9. It's a great show - I love it.
Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update.
Conclusion
Comments, thoughts, questions, etc - leave them down below. Have a great weekend everyone, I think I shall.
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