Browser problem

[froggersloth]

Honestly, I don't think the overall site is that bad....

Sure, if you ignore the bloated, slow, resource-hogging implementation. I get your points, but the general theme seems to be, "it's worth it" or "it's necessary given the limited technical skills of the SPE webfolks", or simply, "oops!". That all adds up to a pretty crappy site. Ok, yes, there are limitations, as you and I both pointed out. Those limitations, and the poor setup of the site, make for a slow, resource-heavy site. The fact that they decided to tack on absolutely every last ridiculous connection and ad revenue driver they possibly could only exacerbates the problem. Seriously-- why do we need to see the pictures of random people from Facebook that "liked" this site? It truly isn't worth the bandwidth consumed. You note massive deficiencies, as do I. The difference seems to be that you find them acceptable; I find them absurd. That's ok, though... there's the mobile site, so both of us can be happy. Unless, of course, they decide to start trying to force non-mobile users to the bloated version, like the Gawker sites do. Not a problem... SPE has absolutely nothing I can't live without.

 

[Puzzlegal]

Since it seems to reliably crash my browser (ie 7 on windows vista, yes, it's old, but it works for everything else I want to do.) I think it's pretty bad. :shrug:

 

[Marcus Adolfsson]

I am in agreement that the site is getting bloated, and we will tackle another round of optimization this month.

As froggersloth points out there are many areas where we can see improvement, including minifying and cleaning .js files, as well as enforcing better image compressions (we have the tools on the site, but the writers upload their own content and may miss now and then). Heck last month our CDN pushed 13TB just on AC static content.

I will keep you updated on the progress made in this thread.

Few things we done so far:

- Earlier this year we moved all static assets to a worldwide CDN, and started enforcing a 30-day cache.

- We developed our in-house solution to server-side cache the "Likes Twitter Google+" buttons on the home page, which cut down hundreds of requests to just a few.

 

[Marcus Adolfsson]

- The superfooter is now loaded via AJAX when you reach the bottom of the page
- The superfooter can now be "collapsed", and it will stay collapsed with a cookie.

 

[froggersloth]

My compliments on the work done so far. Just that change (or possibly others I don't know about?) seems to have helped considerably. The home page is noticeably snappier.

Might I make an unrelated suggestion? If possible, the ability for a thread starter to move a discussion thread in the forums would be handy. For example, as an Android noob, I've posted a couple of items in the Evo 3D subforum, only to discover that the topic was really more general, not specific to the 3D, and so would be more appropriate in a general Android subforum like "General Help and How To". Instead of duplicating the thread in the other forum, it would be helpful simply to have a "move to" option. Thread starters could then help keep things a bit tidier. I understand that vBulletin might be limited in that regard, though.

 

[James Falconer]

My compliments on the work done so far. Just that change (or possibly others I don't know about?) seems to have helped considerably. The home page is noticeably snappier.

Might I make an unrelated suggestion? If possible, the ability for a thread starter to move a discussion thread in the forums would be handy. For example, as an Android noob, I've posted a couple of items in the Evo 3D subforum, only to discover that the topic was really more general, not specific to the 3D, and so would be more appropriate in a general Android subforum like "General Help and How To". Instead of duplicating the thread in the other forum, it would be helpful simply to have a "move to" option. Thread starters could then help keep things a bit tidier. I understand that vBulletin might be limited in that regard, though.

froggersloth,

That's not a bad idea. I know at times (on other forums) there have been instances when I've realized after the fact that I've posted in the wrong forum. The functionality might be handy to have on hand... and it'd help the mod team out a bunch as well.

I'll put this on my list over here. We can be hemmed in by VB a bit at times, but that said, we can also to some pretty awesome custom stuff. Anything is possible!