http://dragcave.net/ slows down the site

[JSWolf]

Sometimes the signatures that are getting data from http://dragcave.net/ are slowing down the usage of the system. The only solution is to edit the signatures to remove the linking. That would speed up the system. It doesn't happen all the time, but for the times it does happen, it is slow.

[RWood]

I too have noticed this Jon. Some of the people have only a few dragons/eggs and others have a bunch. I get the feeling that the servers are very undersized for the number of requests they are servicing. The result, as you point out, is that other sites like MobileRead also slow down.

Everyone likes their own signature; but, I worry about visitors quickly leaving MobileRead thinking the whole site must be slow because of the dragons and their eggs.

[Wetdogeared]

This topic has had previous mention in this thread --> Google analytics slowing things down.

WDE.

[mjh215]

Try editing your hosts file if you find it causes you a problem.

-MJ

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by mjh215

Try editing your hosts file if you find it causes you a problem.

-MJ

I know I can edit my hosts file. But, the issue is a lot of people won't think to do that or even know to do that. It slows the site down for everyone as the dragon stuff is not fast enough to keep up with MR. The real solution is for those withthe Dragon stuff in their signatures to remove them. I had something in my signature that was said to be slowing things down and I removed it. So it's only fair the dragon stuff goes due to slowing things down.

I have hosted out Google-analytics as it is slow.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I know I can edit my hosts file. But, the issue is a lot of people won't think to do that or even know to do that. It slows the site down for everyone as the dragon stuff is not fast enough to keep up with MR. The real solution is for those withthe Dragon stuff in their signatures to remove them. I had something in my signature that was said to be slowing things down and I removed it. So it's only fair the dragon stuff goes due to slowing things down.

Why can you solve the problem by editing the host file. It seems to be the transference of data that takes time.

I just waited 30 seconds for a thread to be loaded just because the data transfer from http://dragcave.net/ took time. This is annoying and destroys the previously very good user experience of MR.

[desertgrandma]

Well, something is definitely slowing down this site.

Lots of times, I'm "hanging" ........when I try any other site on my favorites bar, there is no hang up....

[mjh215]

Originally Posted by tompe

Why can you solve the problem by editing the host file. It seems to be the transference of data that takes time.

By editing your hosts file to redirect dragcave.net to your localhost whenever there is a call to it it would just come up as blank. You wouldn't have the latency problems, and you also wouldn't see those images in signatures. I made mention of that because as it stood there didn't seem to be a bunch of people making complaints and if it was just limited to one or a couple people that was a quick solution without having to ask other users to change their signatures.

Since the list seems to be growing, it probably should be looked into. I don't have the problem, (and this isn't a my browser is better then yours argument, seriously) since I think it has to do with how a browser's engine renders a page. Even if the images from dragcave are hanging Opera has already rendered my page minus those images so I just don't notice it.

-MJ

[tompe]

Originally Posted by mjh215

Since the list seems to be growing, it probably should be looked into. I don't have the problem, (and this isn't a my browser is better then yours argument, seriously) since I think it has to do with how a browser's engine renders a page. Even if the images from dragcave are hanging Opera has already rendered my page minus those images so I just don't notice it.

The problem is if you go to the first unread post in a thread you will not be at the correct position until everything have been loaded. So it is a problem.

I really do not like to break the host lookup because you will probably forget it and in the future get problems with images not loading correctly...

[mjh215]

Originally Posted by tompe

The problem is if you go to the first unread post in a thread you will not be at the correct position until everything have been loaded. So it is a problem.

Like I said, this is probably browser dependent. That may very well be the case for you, I am not experiencing that. I wasn't dismissing that happening for you, or others, I simply said I don't have that problem. For -me-, Opera has been prefetching the image sizes and rendering the pages accordingly quite well on MR and I haven't noticed any problems.

I really do not like to break the host lookup because you will probably forget it and in the future get problems with images not loading correctly...

The only time where this could be a problem for you is if you have any interest in viewing anything from the dragcave.net domain. And again, I only suggested this as a simple solution if there were only a few users experiencing said problem. I regularly use custom hosts files, and add one on any client's system. They are often about the most simple solution to a whole host (ha ha) of problems.

-MJ

[JSWolf]

This problem doesn't happen all the time. But when it does happen, it is annoying. Just because I am the first person to mention it does nt mean others have nt noticed something slowing things down and maybe not noticing what it is. It's not browser specific. It's dragon specific. So if the people who have this in their signatires remove them, then things will be better.

I had something in my signature that others said was causing a problem. I removed to to remove the problem. So if I can be asked to remove something that is causing a problem on MR and I do it, why cannot the others with the dragon stuff remove it from their signatures?

Yes, I can fix it for myself, but I cannot fix it for others. Only the people who have the troublesome signatures can fix it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by RWood

I too have noticed this Jon. Some of the people have only a few dragons/eggs and others have a bunch. I get the feeling that the servers are very undersized for the number of requests they are servicing. The result, as you point out, is that other sites like MobileRead also slow down.

Everyone likes their own signature; but, I worry about visitors quickly leaving MobileRead thinking the whole site must be slow because of the dragons and their eggs.

But since we know these dragons are causing a problem, why allow them to remain?

[RickyMaveety]

Well ..... duh ..... those of us who like our dragons could always host them somewhere else so that they don't slow anything down. Took me all of half a minute to do that.

Can I assume that you don't have a problem with that Wolf??

[mjh215]

Ok, either certain people are ignoring the fact that I -AGREED- with them that it should be looked into by the mods (and forwarded to said users) or they are just complaining about my responses for the sake of complaining. My responses were just on key points that were questioned or commented about, NOT a denial of the problem. So I'll just leave the thread with a quote from a few posts back, by me;

Since the list seems to be growing, it probably should be looked into. I don't have the problem, [...]

-MJ

[pilotbob]

There are several options. The one I have taken is to add dragcave.net to add-block plus. It is a firefox plug in. This is very effective.

BOb