The Barrow-Downs site, store, and forum are all ‘hosted’. This means that we do not own our own servers or connections to the Internet, but instead rent them. Each month, we pay an agreed upon sum, and in return the site is available for visitors to see. The host has nothing to do with the content of the site, they only provide a place where you can reach it. The rental agreement comes with two limitations: STORAGE SPACE and BANDWIDTH.
STORAGE SPACE
Storage space is just what is sound like - how many files we can store on the servers. This includes the files you see (eg. quizzes.asp, gravematters.asp, submission.html) and includes all images that appear on your browser screen. There are many other files you don’t see, such as databases and .cgi scripts.
So far, storage space is not a problem, but we are making efforts to prune useless or unused portions of the Downs, particularly the forum. Don’t be alarmed if old threads disappear. It’s just the administrators keeping us well below our storage limit.
BANDWIDTH
Bandwidth is a measurement of how many Kilobytes (KB) of files are transferred from our host server to the browsers of our visitors. Each file that makes it to a visitor’s monitor is added to the grand total of KB moved. Currently, the average page in the forum is 58KB. So, if you looked at 20 topics a day, you would be responsible for approximately 1.16MB a day.
Bandwidth is quickly becoming a concern on the Downs. For now, we are staying under out limit, but if we start to go over, as we did in Dec-Feb, we have to pay fairly steep penalty fees. We want as many members of the forum as possible to enjoy the discussions, but there are ways everyone can help to make sure that we aren’t using more bandwidth. They are fairly simple.
HOW CAN YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
1)
Limit your visits to the site. Visiting the site a maximum of 2-3 times a day will be more rewarding, because you will return to find many topics updated instead of just a few or none. Visiting 10 topics 3 times a day instead of 20 could save almost 10MB a day!
2)
Don’t reply unless you have something to say. There is no need to post simply to say you agree or disagree with what the previous poster said. If you are bored, go outside. There’s a whole world out there!
3)
Don’t reload a page several times to see if someone has replied. Come back in a few hours and you’ll have plenty of new activity to enjoy.
4)
Use the SEARCH function. Searching for keywords is much more efficient than going through every page of a forum to find the topic you are looking for. It saves you time and the Downs bandwidth.
5)
Bookmark your favorite topics. Instead of going to the main page then the forum, and then the topic, go straight to the discussion you are part of. This could save
you tons of time.
6)
Don’t SPAM.
7)
Go easy on the smilies.
8)
Visit during ‘off’ hours. Pages will load faster and you won’t be tempted to
hit the REFRESH button.
9)
Don't have the forum or the site as your homepage. If your start your Internet Browser several times a day but only go to the Downs 2-3 times (as suggested above), you should change your homepage to something else. That way your compute won't load our site even though you are not really going there.
10)
Don't Chat. Read
Discussion vs. Chat for details.
These are just a few ways you can save yourself time and the Downs bandwidth (and money).
We thank you for considering these guidelines, and would appreciate if you would practice them.
Thank,
[ May 21, 2003: Message edited by: The Barrow-Wight ]