Well said, O-Lugs. Although the speed issues frustrate me, I remain loyal to the VDF for all I've learned from all of you. You have always been eager to share your knowledge and experience in answering my stupid questions.
I scan the Drum Forum email blasts and occasionally find something interesting, but it's too commercial and too "immature" for me. Forgive me for using the word "immature," but I cannot relate to the majority of DF posts.
Regards, Marty Black
The other drum forum is too commercial for my tastes. I've always favored this place, but it hasn't always been able to "keep up" with the ease-of-use of the other place, in my opinion. If this place was able to automatically resize pictures and had a more "picture-posting-friendly" software program, then I think we'd get more people posting stuff. As far as "ask a question/get an answer"....I can't think of a single question about vintage drums that hasn't been asked/answered a million times, already. Some of the sub-forums, here, hardly ever see any use! There was a period of time when it was relatively easy to uncover lost vintage drum treasures. But, after years and years of people scraping every barrel out there, it's pretty much all been found. Now, it all got collected, cleaned up and put away in various man caves, she sheds and otherwise dens. What we have left is the group of people who have the stuff to show and tell. It's not a big group, either. Since there's more people at the other place, there is a larger audience to show stuff to. I'm loyal to this place and always have been, so I will go down with the ship if it comes to it. It's been a very fun ride. If I haven't said it before....Thanks, David and Tommy! You guys are great!
I don't agree that everything has been found. Mike Curotto acquires new stuff all of the time. Some stuff comes from other collections and some are newly found drums that have been sitting lost in someones attic or basement. Look at the massive Gene Krupa find back in 2018. The auction with the supposed GK and ES drumsets that was discussed here was a big find if they are legit. People post newly found drums here and on other groups regularly. There is still plenty to be found, although it is an ever decreasing pool of stuff.
As far as Ricks comments on the like button, true, Facebook didn't invent it, but it is a double edged sword. On a site with mature, focused people, they can be a nice way to show support for a cool post. If a board has a culture of people wanting to stir the pot and drive wedges, the like button can be a cancer. It is used to egg people to escalate a thread to take sides and jump into the fray. That is not really a problem here, but when there was much more traffic, there used to be more drama.
As I have stated earlier, this site is still a great resource and based on the number of visitors, still widely used. There aren't that many posts as there once was, but that is the case everywhere. Facebook groups have hurt all discussion boards. I hope this one can continue. I'm glad to see David and Tommy are still interested in keeping it going.
I'd like to visit more, but the forum speed (lack of) is a real drag. (My internet is smoking fast, too.)
Mike B
I'm with you all on the speed. It has been an issue we are working on. I do think that new information does come out here and there every so often. Any members that are still posting and cleaning up the history as well as adding to it are important to me. It is a small tight nit group.
The site is now a historical reference for new people researching and entering the hobby. As we find new little pieces of history, I will continue to update and add to it.
With all of that said, I have a substantial amount yet to be shown and I bet a lot of you have catalogs and history I have never seen. The more we add to either of the two web sites, the better for the future of the hobby.
Well....Maybe it's just me. I've always been kind of a pessimist.
It is true that Mike Curotto's collection is one to behold...no doubt about it.
Like I say, though....I know people would make more posts if they could show off their stuff more easily. I understand that it is possible to do this and that to post a picture and make it be a certain size....but it's just too much to go through. Even Mike Curotto's pics end up sideways!
One thing is that I've been here since 2005 and so after reading and posting here for all those years, maybe it just seems like I've seen everything and said everything -especially in regards to my rather limited scope of vintage drum interests.
I don't plan on going anywhere, but it would be nice to be able to tap into other people's voyeuristic/narcissistic tendencies by making it easier to post pics here.
-2 cents and a cup of coffee-
I see us as librarians, sitting behind a desk waiting for someone to approach and ask a tough question or hard to find book! We could sit all day or week until we get that one juicy question that sparks our curiosity to dig deeper! Otherwise it is the same day-to-day questions as to what floor the kids books are on, or how many books can I check out. Etc..
The slowness of the site is top priority and still being worked on. I can say that like most sites you visit, depending on how often you do visit you develop a good gauge on when things are awry.
Other sites have issues as well, but since visitation is every-so-often, you may not realize they have or are having issues. It is common. In fact, I have had issues with eBay selling. Things not working and other issue since I'm on it daily and most of the day. I can tell when things are not working. They have teams of thousands, so the issues are rectified quickly!
With all of that said, I can't expect everyone to read my posts or even read my sometimes lengthy topics in the Webmaster Section.
Maybe here I can go over some of that with you all. This will mainly be about the gallery system which as many of you might not realize had over 125K images - Which was 250K including the thumbnails. It was the main reason I had to make the change to this newer site and add a Gallery section which was part of the VB system and not a hack into the system which we had.
I needed a new starting point for the future, whether on VB or another platform and why I made the changes.
Our new gallery system is very cool and offers all kinds of features we have never had. There is a "My Collection" section which stores all of the photos you have posted allowing you to delete, edit and categorize them. "Gallery" - "My Images" There is quite a bit under that tab to look at and learn!
From a managerial standpoint the old system had none of that or even a way to categorize the images. You can now see the different image sections which we never had. Look under "Gallery" - "Categories" It is a way for me to move images into new sections so depending on what you want to view specifically you can now. That was never an option and something I wanted for the future Google Searches.
The moving of the past 125K images is a massive project which on the back-end we are still trying to work out. That is why there are 113K uncategorized images. I have not been moving them over as fast as I would like.
Enough of that! There is so much more I can tell everyone, but some of it is just digging deeper into your controls and options. Plus the site being slow it is a pain in the rump.
Two other things I have mentioned in a long previous post like this.
1. I asked all members to give me photos, details and your life story if you wish so I can make a contributing members page on VDG for the future. Match the forum name to the collection and what your life story is.
2. Attachments. That system is still not perfect, but we did implement a new attachment system for the Mike Curroto's of the world :) I even posted and let him know that the new system allows you to crop, edit, turn your photos around as well as other editing you can do. **[COLOR="Blue"]It is the BLUE Paperclip[/COLOR]** not the old one you are used to using. There are some things we are still working on there, but generally speaking it works great. We can call this the "Curroto System"
And finally back to the gallery system and how important it is to put in keywords and correct titles to match the image. TommyP used to be able to edit a title from "Slingerland Drum" to " 1957 Slingerland Black Diamond Pearl Snare Drum" which he did a lot! Now, you all have that option to add keywords and make a complete META friendly title. Also to put the images in the correct category.
Here again, I talk to much!
This is the first time I’ve gotten on here in a month. Load times are terrible. I go to Drumforum. Loads great and easy to use.
Do they have a "Like" button?
Yes, there is a "Heart" button
The site was down for me all weekend and didn't come back up until this morning after I got up. Did you have the site down working on it?
Just went to DFO Speed is very fast
Members online 150
Guests online 1,097
Total visitors 1,234
Load time from VDF is all over the map
To get into a sub-forum takes 2 to 5 seconds. Slower than DFO but OK.
Click on a thread with a couple or more posts and any thumbnails and it takes at least 20 seconds for one thread that had two posts and one thumbnail.
30 seconds or more for a larger thread with several more thumbnails.
I get conflicting info from VDF
On the main screen at the bottom "What's going on"
It shows Currently Active Users 943 (3 members and 940 guests)
If I click on Currently Active Users in the same spot it shows 3 members and 0 guests.
I'm not sure why they are different, but assuming there is some coding issue causing that. Using the higher numbers, those shouldn't be causing slowness by just browsing the forums.
The issue looks like more of a database issue. A database that isn't getting re-indexed daily and other routine database maintenance will grow too big and become slower and slower. And will be slow doing certain things and fine doing others. That is exactly what I am seeing right now.
When you have a hosting service host your site, they usually offer different tiers for different levels of usage. They will give you a certain amount of CPU, memory (RAM), Storage space and bandwidth. Databases require a good deal of all of these and from what I have read on the vBulletin site, when they host sites, they dedicate all of these resources to each site. Many other hosting companies share the resources over several sites. So if some other site is getting hammered, it would affect this site.
Just while typing this, which I type in Notepad in Windows, otherwise this would never have worked, the speed has improved some and gotten worse and then improved again.
I personally think you have Database problems and problems introduced by your hosting company. The user numbers I am seeing, if correct wouldn't cause this unless they are running DDoS attacks, which doesn't appear to be the case.
