Important poll

[RC Storick]

It seems there is always 500-800 guests online at a time of which I have no problem except that it drains the speed of the forum users. So the question is should I restrict total forum views to members who are logged in or not. Please leave a comment on your feelings.

As of this posting 574 Guests, 56 Users (1 Buddy)

[Jim Kraft]

I personally do not believe it should be restricted unless there are over a 1,000. There are many out there who fly for fun that none of us ever hear of. It may keep up their interest which helps us all. The more we have whether competition flyers or not, the better off we are. So as for now I would not restrict them. Just my 2 cents.

[William DeMauro]

I will say don't restrict it as I'm sometimes on as a guest from work. Its easier to read and navigate than from my phone. My job uses a key logger on their computers and I refuse to enter any personal info or passwords onto work computers. I also respect the right for you to do whats right for the majority. I may be wrong but I would think some of these guests do become members too. Could you restrict the ability of a guest to search? That may encourage more to sign up.

[Dennis Saydak]

Don't restrict. I can live with a little slower response at times. It's best to share knowledge and inspire folks to sign up.

[George Albo]

Don't restrict. Guests ultimately become members when they move past the curiosity phase. My .02

[Dave Harmon]

Restrict the guests.

Many people just leave a window open to SH all the time just because they can't be bothered to navigate to the forum whenever they want to view it.
If they were really interested in joining the group....they would create a login and use the forum like the rest of us.
Usage to many other forums is much higher during working hours meaning that many people use it at work because they are likely bored.....then when they go home they leave their computer turned on and the window to a forum open.
This means to me that they are not serious about a forum or in this case....control line flying.
This is like leaving a TV turned on when trying to go to sleep at night.....noise.

[Mike Griffin]

Robert this is kind of a situation that your are darned if you do and darned if you don't.  I have to agree with Dave, I would restrict it.

Mike

[EddyR]

restrict it
EddyR

[Clint Ormosen]

I vote against restricting most of the forum. Open forum and building techniques especially. If someone new comes here and can’t check anything out without registration, they won’t be back.

[Brian Massey]

I would agree that it might drive possible new members off if it were restricted.

Brian

[Dave Harmon]

I would agree that it might drive possible new members off if it were restricted.

Brian

If there are 800 guests dragging down the SH site enough for Sparky to be concerned.....then my opinion
is.....restrict them all.
If there are 50 guests interested enough to create a SH user.....the site is 50 members ahead from where it was originally.
Yes....I am not much for touchy-feely or freeloaders. Kick em' out then sign em' UP!!
And only allow real names....no handles.

[Lyle Spiegel]

I dont mind slow down now and then. no restrictions. We should be grateful so many people want to be part of this great site. Don't discourage anyone.

[Dave Harmon]

I dont mind slow down now and then. no restrictions. We should be grateful so many people want to be part of this great site. Don't discourage anyone.

If they wanted to be part of this site.....they would be....and join the rest of the greatly experienced members here who would help them along.
A guest cannot post to the site which to me shows the lack of interest enough to join.
I don't think restricting guests is discouraging anyone....quite the opposite....restriction encourages them to join the forum and bring something to the gang.

[Allen Eshleman]

From my point of view, don't restrict.  It might put a damper on member's participation.  It's always been fast enough for me.

[Will Hinton]

The day I don't have time for the site to slow down a little for guests is the day I'm too much in a hurry.  Don't restrict.

[gene poremba]

 Don't restrict. Before I joined this group I read posts for about a year. This site was one of the reasons I came back to building and flying control line. ….Gene

[Brent Williams]

Don't restrict.  You will just find more traffic going straight to facebook.  That's the trend.  There is so much on the many facebook control line groups that isn't making it onto stunthanger.  Don't shoot yourself in the foot.

[Peter in Fairfax, VA]

Question back: Was the fix that happened a few days ago either a specific problem that was fixed or possibly a routine restart/cleanup that can be repeated? 

Granted, we had this one slowdown, but now we don't, so maybe significant restrictions would be too big of a reaction to an isolated incident. 

No question this site helped bring me back to control line, and I did browse for a year before signing up.  Many of the people that sign in are the leaders that have info to communicate:  The CDs trying to get their contests known, the competitors, the people that worked at hobby shops, the manufacturers, the airplane designers.

thanks for asking and thanks for maintaining this site,

Peter

[JHildreth]

     My vote is to not restrict guest access, at least not totally.  In this age of too much personal information solicited on the internet; identity theft, scams, and spam I don't do anything official on the internet and I jealously protect personal information.  From this mindset, if it had been necessary to provide personal information, such as name and/or email address, to register before I could have sampled this fine forum, I would have passed you bye.

     This forum already restricts guest access to some of the features.  For example, a guest cannot post, a guest cannot access the "At The Handle" section, a guest cannot access Bob Hunt's vendor's site.  I would offer these suggestions.  Do not totally restrict access to the Open Forum.  For a guest, maybe limit the access to topics older than 30 days.  I am not sure if a guest can search for a topic or not.  If he can, then restrict this.  Some access to the Open Forum is the Forum's primary means for enticing a guest to register, in my opinion.  If you can restrict access to other sections of the forum, as you do with "At The Handle" and still have the name visible in the index, do that.  At least a guest will be able to view the titles of other sections that may be of interest to him and, thus, be further enticed to register.

     Personally, I have not found the very few occurrences of slow response, no response, or site failures of one form or another to be a problem.

Joe

[Randy Cuberly]

It looks like most people want to not restrict but I don't agree.  It's very easy to join the forum, it just seems that some people seem to be "anti-joining".  Perhaps they are simply afraid of being recognized.

It makes no sense to me that "guests" should be afforded more privileges and freedom that members.

If the number of guests exceeds the number that begins to slow the forum.  Kick them off and restrict them!


Randy Cuberly

[dave siegler]

Are all the guests real people or robot web crawlers mining data? 

I think some restriction is not a bad idea 

[James Holford]

I never had a slow response tine or anything slow from here.

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[Ken Culbertson]

Don't restrict. Before I joined this group I read posts for about a year. This site was one of the reasons I came back to building and flying control line. ….Gene

Ditto's

It was this site that got me to stop watching and start building/flying again.  In my case it was 3 years of hiding in the bushes before I decided to get back into the game.  I would only restrict posting. 

Ken

[M Spencer]

Wasnt it originally so you got the general forum & others ,

But had to sign on the see the lot .

thats why someone here registered ! a incentive etc .

[Peter in Fairfax, VA]

And another thing about robot crawlers that mine the info, such as google.  Without them, I would never have found this site.  So, if restricting guest access also means that no one can find the site, that would also reduce the size of the user community. 

[wwwarbird]

 
 If this type of adjustment would actually help then I'd also say go ahead and restrict the guests. If anyone is actually serious about wanting to regularly enjoy the benefits of this forum all they have to do is register, it's easy, and it's FREE. If that simple commitment alienates them enough not to come back we're not losing anything by it. 

[paw080]

Hi, I believe it crucial to not restrict this site;  Thank You.

Tony G

[Mark Mc]

I'd say don't restrict.  I checked this forum out once and decided it wasn't for me.  A few weeks later, I came on again to read through the 1/2A section.  As in, the whole 1/2A section.  That motivated me to join.  Now, 6 years and a few hundred posts later, I look at the 1/2A section just a small portion of the time, but check the Main section and the rest of the forum daily.  If I'd not joined, I'd not have gone to the NW Regionals this weekend and met some of the people I've seen here on the forum, and been even more motivated to get off my ass and get practicing so I can compete.  Also, I often log in from work as a guest.  I could wait 'till I get home, but when I have a few minutes I like to check on topics that I'm interested in.

Mark

[RC Storick]

Wasnt it originally so you got the general forum & others ,

But had to sign on the see the lot .

thats why someone here registered ! a incentive etc .

I forgot about this after the last forum software update. Guess I must be slipping.

[Ken Culbertson]

In reading this thread from top to bottom it is apparent that we are quite split on this issue.  Maybe we need to know what the impact on the site is if we restrict.  Last week it was nearly unusable, today it is real time.  I am only for restricting posting to guests without a good reason but if the membership is split then I think you should do what is in the best interest of the site.

Ken

[Dan McEntee]

    I just compared what I see on my PC to what I see on my phone, and there are only a few sections I can't see on my phone, plus I can't post from my phone. Maybe look at thinning the selection a guest can see?  And keep restricting posting to registered members. If someone stumbles onto the site accidentally, you need to be able to let them get a decent sampling. Is there a way to limit the time a guest can view?
   Everyone have a safe Memorial Day Holiday,
  Dan McEntee

[Jim Mynes]

Ten times as many guests as registered users at the time of the original post?
I say restrict the number of guests allowed at any one time. Perhaps a limit of 100 guests, with a rejection message explaining the guest limit has been reached, along with a prominent button that says “it’s free, so register now”

[Joseph Patterson]

      HAVE SOME RESTRICTIONS.
          DOUG

[phil c]

at the moment, 05/27/2019  11:12 am, there are about 200 logged on.  Page switching seems to be plenty fast.  Is there a way to determine when the delay starts getting obnoxious? - I'd put it at more than 3 seconds to switch a page and 5-6 seconds to make a post with a picture or two.

a limit of 50-60% of the peak load would be reasonable.  People have to realize that any private site has limitations and can't afford to supply instant page changes like the big new sites all the time.

Phil C

[john e. holliday]

I am guilty of not logging off when I am done with forum.  I have to log in on the other sites I frequent, but that is no problem to me.  I also tell people that are interested in control planes and flying to pull up Stunt Hanger.  Need to find my login/password.

[Ken Culbertson]

I am guilty of not logging off when I am done with forum.  I have to log in on the other sites I frequent, but that is no problem to me.  I also tell people that are interested in control planes and flying to pull up Stunt Hanger.  Need to find my login/password.

Interesting point.  If you don't log off but just close the window - like I do - does it maintain the connection.  I doubt it does but I could be wrong.

ken

[BillP]

I normally lurk on sites to see what's up before registering. If I have to register just to look I pass and rarely go back and register without knowing what the site offers...so I'd say just restrict the number of visitors like mentioned already.

[RC Storick]

The fixes included server cache dump and Moved board to level 3 caching
Freed up about 3 gigs of space.
Optimized pretty URLs installed new code to make the site function on a different code
Removed a couple of scripts looks like old exploits from 2018
Oscommerce made a change to reduce error logs which ate up space.
Fixed an error log caused by the gallery system in the forum.

Next generation is adding 100 gigs more of space for just for pictures space. Now for the visitor issue. In the coming weeks, I will add the old restrictions for visitor viewing. Which was limited viewing of the boards and will still include no postings. I do think it is necessary to leave it open to the guests to a degree.

[Steve Helmick]

If I just log off and shut down my computer, or if I close my browser, then I have to login again when I come back.  That should mean that I would not be counted as a guest or as being signed in. It's nice to just click on the button and be signed in. Clicking on "stay logged in forever" does allow me to just click on the "login" button and almost instantly I'm logged-in...don't have to remember or enter my password.   

Seems to me like some folks might be reluctant to "join", expecting to be asked for their credit card number. Pinning a post (somewhere) stating that it's free (but donations are accepted) might encourage folks to join and reduce the guests while increasing the membership. 

One thing, to be clear...if the 574 guests were to become members and signed-in, making (per Sparky's first post data) a total of 630 members signed in, I'm assuming that would still slow down the site, correct? I don't see restrictions to be a good thing. I recall there are/were restrictions applied to the Rules forum and a few others, but don't recall which other ones required being logged-in to view, or a permission to post there. 

As always, I'll suggest that getting members to limit photo & attachment file sizes would do a lot toward reducing the space needed. It would be nice to allow larger other types of files, so keeping it voluntary seems most practical. OR, if somebody sees a NEED to post a large file of some type, then maybe a moderator could be asked to do it? A lot of members post photos that are way too big or way too small...I'd like to see us put some effort into solving that problem! It isn't that difficult, but a bunch of guys always post how they do it, confusing the reader. Reduced confusion is a good thing! Steve

[Ken Culbertson]

As always, I'll suggest that getting members to limit photo & attachment file sizes would do a lot toward reducing the space needed

My problem is that my cell phone camera takes 2.6mb pictures.  I upload them to my computer then use Paint to resize them to 25%.  I then crop the picture to remove all that useless background.  In 15 seconds you can have a 2.6mb picture reduced to 93kb.  The attached is only there to show how a 93k picture looks.

[proparc]

Ten times as many guests as registered users at the time of the original post?
I say restrict the number of guests allowed at any one time. Perhaps a limit of 100 guests, with a rejection message explaining the guest limit has been reached, along with a prominent button that says “it’s free, so register now”

BINGO!!!

[Skip Chernoff]

I vote to restrict.....Cheers,PhillySkip

[Tom Vieira]

yeah, put a choke hold on the forum so that guests can't view it.....

that'll do wonders for how our hobby is viewed...

leave it open, people can deal with waiting a few seconds.

[pat king]

Much of the time I am not logged in when I stop to check things out. That is probably a mistake. I say we should put a time limit on guests if there is a easy way to do it. I think we want people who are interested to be able to check out the site. If we just shut out guests I fear we will turn away potential C/L flyers.

Pat

[Tim Wescott]

I vote for being hospitable.  The guests are viewing the ads, and thus helping to fund the forum, yes?

[Ken Culbertson]

I'd be more interested in why "guests" don't diminish and become members.

Probably the same reason many leave the Forum,

They don't like the trolling.

What trolling?

Ken

[Avaiojet]

What trolling?

Ken

Exactly.

[wwwarbird]

Exactly.

 OMG, here we go again. 

 'Jet, you don't even know the definition of the "trolling" that you CONSTANTLY accuse people of. If you did, you might realize that you're the by far the biggest culprit on the forum. You have just proved it again for the umpteenth time with your accusation in this very thread. And please, don't bother trying to argue this with another of your typical and long ago worn out insults, just stop your trolling and go away.

[Dennis Toth]

I have had no problems with speed on this forum. Don't restrict, we need all the exposure we can get for any of this to survive.

Best,   DennisT

[Tom Vieira]

Guys.....  don't start.....  and none of that "he started it" garbage either.

Holy crap, I sound like my dad admonishing my sister's and I.....

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