EarlG plans DUmp shutdown

[FunkyZero]

Sure thing, Earl. We know what time it is. You are the one who hitched you wagon to that psych ward... you KNEW better and did it anyway.


https://www.democraticunderground.com/101315134

EarlG (22,486 posts)
Mon Nov 4, 2024, 01:52 PM

A note about increased traffic and the possibility of DU restrictions on and around election day
Last week we struggled with a completely unanticipated issue -- our database glitched out and it took around 48 hours to fix it, during which time we had to significantly reduce the database load by restricting who could visit DU. We think we now have this situation resolved.

However, beginning today, and going through election day and beyond, it's likely that extremely high traffic will force us to make similar restrictions. To be clear, this would not be the same problem as the database glitch which happened from Thursday thru Saturday last week. However, our multi-step approach to dealing with it is the same.

Under normal circumstances, anyone can visit and read DU. But once our traffic load gets too high, the site will slow down and eventually crash if we do not take action.

When that happens, our first step is to restrict access to registered members only. If you have a DU account, whether you're a Star Member or not, you can get in and read the site.

If this "Level 1" procedure is not enough to reduce traffic to a manageable level, we restrict access further. Our "Level 2" procedure is to restrict access to Star Members only. If you have a DU account and you are Star Member, you can get in and read the site.

The less said about our "Level 3" procedure the better, but just know that if we hit that level, nobody will be able to access the site. In that worst-case scenario, we will post further information on the homepage explaining the situation.

During these periods of expected high traffic, we constantly monitor the site's performance to make sure that things are not getting overloaded. When traffic gets too high, we may be forced to switch to one of these restricted levels in order to stay online.

This is, unfortunately, very difficult to resolve. It is not cost effective for us to run servers powerful enough to handle the kinds of traffic we might see over the next 72 hours or so, when those circumstances only occur once every four years. And I'm afraid it's not as simple as just "adding more power" temporarily.

So while we have done our level best to prepare for tomorrow's election when it comes to security and traffic load, and we will be monitoring the site constantly and doing our best to run under "normal" conditions for as long as possible, I'm not going to sugarcoat it -- this is your official heads up that there is a good chance that we'll be operating in a restricted mode at least partially over the next few days.

Thanks for reading, and please let me know if you have any questions.

EDITED TO ADD AN IMPORTANT NOTE: If the worst should happen and DU goes down completely, we will post updates on our Facebook page. (We no longer have an active Twitter account.) We may also send updates to the DU mailing list. If you receive our weekly "Last Week In Review" emails, then you are already on this list. If you are not on the list, you can sign up via the form on our Contact page.

[Airwolf]

Shutting it down is like the ending of the movie "Alien." Yeah, Ripley got the control rods in place but that didn't stop the reactor from going critical. The DUmmies are still going to lose their ever-loving minds if Trump wins.

[SVPete]

We no longer have an active Twitter account.

DU-Twits left Twitter?

[Ralph Wiggum]

The less said about our "Level 3" procedure the better, but just know that if we hit that level, nobody will be able to access the site. In that worst-case scenario, we will post further information on the homepage explaining the situation.

Reading that drivel means that SquirrelG and ENads will invoke "Plan R" from the movie Dr. Strangelove. In this case, blame Russia for shutting down the site  instead of bomb them.

BadCat used to track how many active members the DUmp had, and I be willing to bet it is 50% less than its heyday, if they ever really had one. A truly insignificant website that claims how influential they are.