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‘Recent Comments’ Feature Offline
posted by
Patrick Crowley
on
August 31, 2005 at 5:47 am
As many of you have noticed, we have temporarily removed the ‘Recent Comments’ feature from our homepage.
Unfortunately, this action was necessary because the number of comments on Cinema Treasures is growing so greatly that our database is being overwhelmed. (We’re adding approximately 5000 comments a month.) As a result, the rest of the website was sluggish or even inaccessible.
This feature will return, of course. But not until we can safely insure that the rest of Cinema Treasures will not be negatively impacted.
As always, thanks for your patience and support.
Ross Melnick and Patrick Crowley
Co-Founders, Cinema Treasures
Comments (38)
Seems like a necessary step. I’ve noticed less timeouts and freeze ups since you made the change.
Nice feature – hope it can return soon.
tc
If the comments section is getting overwhelmed, why not erase any comments previous to 2004. Seems like many of the older comments have dead links noted and outdated information.
I would not be in favor of an arbitrary cut off date for deleting comments. Yes a lot of links are dead but a lot of “older” comments still contain valuable information on a theater.
I love the site but I hope the comments section returns quicker than the “add a photograph” section! These two sections are the two I most value(d) on the site. Perhaps the CT Poll could be used to find out which features the users find the most useful. I agree that some kind of a time limit could be imposed – some theatres have 500+ comments attached to them which are near impossible to sift through. Although I also accept that some crucial information could be lost in this way.
One of the things that concerns me about the comments section is the bickering that is going on with certain theatres that has nothing to do with the preservation of theatre. As examples look at the Dupage with almost 350 comments and better than three fourths of this has nothing to do with the intentions of the CT goal. It is just the same bickering over and over again, another is the Wheaton Grand, the same thing. It seems like if such comments can be curbed it would ease some of the pain on the databse. I understand that debate is good and that personal feelings are strong on some theatres but should it be allowed to be carried on to the point that it has been? I don’t believe in censorship but really.
Erasing old comments is a very bad idea. This site is about historic preservation, after all!
Some of the comments are missing from this news item! The front page says there are 10, but I see only 6 now.
If you sign in and click on your own name you get a list of theaters you have posted to. Open one and the Recent Comments section appears.
Here’s my two cents: I agree with Mr. VanBibber; some of the comments really don’t add much to enhance either the accuracy or completeness of the information about a particular theater or contribute very positively to preservation efforts. I admit I enjoy reading some the nostalgia when folks mention a movie they saw there or tell us they met the person they later married or that they used to work there, but this is essentially a database of theater information, not a blog. Unless the moderators can acquire more capacity, criteria for comment posting is going to be a necessity.
Here’s my two cents:
I too have noticed how slow the site has become and therefore welcome the suspension of the “Recent Comments” feature, as it seems to have sped up the site.
I respectfully disagree, however, with those who feel it would be a good idea to delete posts according to age (i.e., deleting those before a certain date). It seems to me that among the theater listings that I’m most familiar with, it is the older comments that are usually the most germane to the theater, and it is the newer comments that tend to be less germane (and more suitable to a chat room). Plus the older germane comments create a “paper trail” which enables people to evaluate newer “corrections” (i.e., whether they are actually valid corrections or not).
Here are my two suggestions for dealing with the problem of the site being overwhelmed by too many posts:
1) I think you should elimate the “Recent Comments” feature PERMANENTLY. I think it encourages more of a chit-chat “chat room” atmosphere where people are more likely to add comments that have nothing to do with a particularly theater. If people are truly interested in a theater, they can look it up using the search feature.
2) I think you should add two more general features (or “highlight” them for these reasons, if they exist for a slightly other reasons already):
a) Have a section where people can talk about cinema developments in general (rather than having them post such discussion on the page of a particular theater).
For instance people have had some things to say about the presentation of 70 mm movies, Cinerama, etc. — in general — that are very interesting and useful but oftentimes have very little to do with specific theater where the info is posted. Putting them in their own section would not only unclutter a theater’s page, but would also put these interesting comments in an area where people could more easily find them. (And therefore avoid possible multi-entries of similar kinds of info when people don’t realize that this topic has already been discussed at length on another page.)
b) Have a “questions” page (that could be periodically trimmed of outdated questions) where people could ask about the name or listing of a particular theater that they can’t otherwise find. (I’ve noticed that people will post such questions on the page of an unrelated theater — “cluttering” up that page with information extraneous to that theater.
Again, having a central page with questions about “lost” theaters would also make such information easier to find — and raise the liklihood of a helpful answer being posted.
I’d like the ability to sign up for e-mail notifications on theatres where I haven’t posted my own comments. For instance, I would love to be able to find out whenever someone posts a comment about any theatre in Massachusetts. Such a facility might reduce the need for a “Recent Comments” list.
Mr.Melnick & Mr.Crowley have done a super job on this web site.
They are both creative and intelligent. I respect anything they do in maintaining CINEMA TREASURES. I am sure there are many members who feel as I do.
Call me crazy, but for quite a while it’s been my belief that, in order to restore the “Add a photo” feature and improve the site’s overall performance, Mr. Melnick and Mr. Crowley should tell the members (if not all users) how much it would cost to do so and request donations for that purpose.
Also, perhaps elimination of the photo displays in the “favorites” area and elimination of the poll might be better ways to improve the site’s performance.
(Personally, I come here for the comments much more than to discover if 10 people think Herbie is the best all-time movie car.)
With the work this site requires to maintain and the fact that it has remained free even as it has grown puts no one in a position to complain. If you want pictures, there are lots on Cinematour. If you want to actually learn something, this is the place. I agree that many, many comments are posted that are off topic discussions and I have been guilty of that myself. However, I had no idea there were 5,000 posts per month and on a site maintained by volunteers that is a massive amount to review. I, for one, will from now on be more selective with my posts and hope everyone will do the same.
Oops. Apparently my previously posted workaround no longer works.
I’m lost without the Latest Comments feature, and will have to greatly curtail my contributions until it returns. I just don’t have time to look up theatres individually to see if there’s been a new posting. Couldn’t Latest Comments and Updated Theaters be combined into one, since they seem to amount to the same thing? Most comments are updating what has already been published about the theatres.
I don’t know enough about the software you use to run this site to know if this would be of any use to you, but you might consider using Brad Fitzpatrick’s open-source memcached system to speed things up. I’ve been using LiveJournal, where memcached was first launched, for about four years, and the improvement in the site’s functionality was astonishing when memcached was adopted.
Thanks to everyone for all the great feedback! I can’t respond to every post individually, but here are a couple of quick points:
edward1 — As others have pointed out, deleting older comments is counter-productive. It doesn’t really solve the slowdown issue, and we’d lose a tremendous amount of valuable information about theaters.
Benjamin — ‘Recent Comments’ is very important to many Cinema Treasures users, so we don’t want to remove it. But I like your other ideas. We’d love to add a message board in the future, and the “Lost theaters” idea is very cool.
Damien Farley (Pt. 1) — You aren’t crazy. We also think that this project has reached a point where it now requires significant support from its members to move forward. Ross and I are working on this issue now, and you should see some progress soon.
Damien Farley (Pt. 2) — Removing the favorites system and the poll wouldn’t significantly improve the site’s performance. And, btw, Herbie is the best all-time movie car. ;)
Manwithnoname — You get the credit for truly solving the ‘Recent Comments’ issue! The site is so large that I’d forgotten we also were displaying the ‘Recent Comments’ block on all theater pages. Since there are 10,000 plus theaters, and we get a ton of first-time visitors to these pages, this was the true cause of the slowdown.
Joe Vogel — Yes, I’m familiar with memcached, and it’s definitely something we’ll look at in the future.
ERD — Thanks for your support!
BTW, I’m going to try an experiment today. I’ve re-enabled the ‘Recent Comments’ block on just the homepage.
If the slowdown was truly caused by including this block on theater pages, then we should be able to restore this feature to the homepage without impacting the site’s overall usability.
Keep your fingers crossed!
Is the sniping between people at the DuPage and Wheaton a major issue? True, those two message areas are like a soap opera, but, those messages are theater related and should remain until the theater is either saved or demolished. The Dupage theater messages did not cause this system to reach 5000 comments in a month. I don’t post in either of those theaters so I’m not defending those comments.
How about the people that post 20+ links to theater photos or newspaper ads per day? I enjoy the photos and ads and they do belong on here but the system is overloaded right now. And why is it that a photo link is posted and within one minute the same person posts another photo of the same theater from another angle. Somtimes there are three in a row. Why couldn’t the two or three photo links be put into one message?
If you have photos or ads in a Photobucket account, they won’t go bad if you leave them there. If your photos or ads are on another website, bookmark them. When this site is running normal again, you can post them all. If you can’t limit yourself, maybe a comment limit should be imposed on you. I’m not mentioning any names THIS TIME because you know who you are. If you continue to do this I will be very happy to make you “famous”. Give other people a chance to log on here and contribute.
Up until the date of this news file no one can be faulted because we weren’t aware of the problem. But these same people continue posting these links KNOWING that the sight is having problems with the number of comments posted. What part of “TOO MANY COMMENTS PER MONTH” don’t you understand? There is no contest on this site for who has the most comments. There is no prize awarded. A few people do consider the number of comments posted to be a game. Its sort of an ego trip to them. All you are doing is causing more features to be removed from this website to compensate for the overload. If you enjoy playing games, buy a Playstation or X-Box. Don’t make using this website more difficult for everyone else on here. Game Over!
I am sorry but I think that posting links to photos are important. Since the add a photo is not online and will not be for sometime it is a way of adding a photo. I do try submitting all my photo links in one post but sometimes you go back and find another one with a better angle or better view. I think we all add photos when we have a link that we come across so that the others can see the theatre and a photo will define the post. If Pat or Ross feels that these links are too much I will be the first to stop. On the Dupage and Wheaton I still feel that 355 posts is more than enough to get a point across and it is not as much arguing for preservation as it is bickering and name slamming. I for one don’t believe in censorship but really, is all that has been posted to the DuPage been necessary and has it helped preserve the DuPage?
The people on the Dupage theater listing are debating a time related issue. The clock is ticking on that theater. Photo links are not time related. They will keep until the system is running normal again. Like I said before, I enjoy both the photos and the ads but there is a time and place for everything. Posting photo links is important, but right now they are not that important. Most of the regulars here have reduced their comments and on site time voluntarily. That doesn’t mean that a handfull of others have a green light to makeup for that reduction in comments. Posting 10-15 photo links per day averages out to 300-400 comments per month. The 300 messages in the Dupage section are being posted by 6-8 people. Thats only 40-50 per person and many of those people only post in that theater section so they are not the main problem. Are posting those photos worth the cost of the site freezing up and preventing people from getting on here? Are they worth us losing more features? I don’t think so.
Don’t add words that I didn’t write. I don’t post in the Dupage section and I know nothing about that theater. I am not validating what goes on in there. I said they are not the main problem. You seem to know alot about the messages in that theater section. If they bother you, do as I do, don’t read them. Where did I write that I dislike a few people? This has nothing to do with disliking people. Posting photo links does not offend me. It has to do with common sense or lack of it. Is a photo of a megaplex time related? How about a postage sized photo of a theater built in 1998? Is that time related? Does that bring back alot of fond memories? Do you like theater photos? Search the web, you will find thousands of them. Theater photos can be bookmarked and posted later. This is about keeping this system running and restoring features such as the Recent Comment function.
As far as I know, the problem wasn’t “too many comments”, it was “too many hits on the Recent Comments function”. That seems to be fixed, at least for now.
I surely didn’t want to see a pi**ing contest going on here. it’s just that a picture is worth a thousand words. We each have our own opinions and see things differently. Iam sure that we will al abide by what ever Pat and Ross decides would be the best solution to any problem and do so with a smile.
If “before and after” shots of the Trylon can be posted, I doubt a link is going to cause an issue. It’s the best alternative to the lack of an add-a-photo option. The shots of the Beekman, for example, really brought the loss of that theater into focus (pardon the pun) since I have never been to NY. I appreciated it.
I agree that a picture is worth a thousand words. I said that I enjoy those photos. I did not say that photo links should be banned or eliminated. Why would I want links to theater photos eliminated when I have posted hundreds of them myself? The point that I was trying to make was, reduce the number of them until the system is back to normal. Why is that so difficult to understand?
I think it’s important to preserve all the comments on each theatre – they are part of the historical record of each theatre. There is no written history on most of these theatres other than on this site. The exception I would make would be deleting the comments where people are sniping at each other and those having nothing to do with anything on this site, and the ones who want to know the upcoming schedule at RCMH or the El Cap. I realize however this would be a huge undertaking, sifting through all the posts of 11,546 theatres, so maybe it should be left as it is…(IMHO)…
I assume the website is running okay again. The individual that thinks a picture is worth a thousand words posted 17 photo links yesterday, so it must be okay. I’ve been doing research on NYC theaters which is time consuming and can become boring at times. I’m going to put that task aside and concentrate on finding theater photos to bring here. The photos seem to be a popular item with many people so I will be happy to bring them to you. I guess that everyone should start posting photo and ad links again. No sense in letting one person have all the fun. Enjoy the site and lets get back to normal.
I feel so much better now that we have your permission.
My goal in life is to make you happy.
You know I quit coming to the Cinema Treasures site sometime back because it was getting to a point where there so much disention among its members. I thought I would try this morning to check on some theatres and catch up on things but when I cam to this I see that things haven’t changed. It seems that in the past lostmemory was very much in defense of some vindictive posts to cvb’s comments on certain theatres and now it seems he has become vindictive towards him. What happened? He even stated that it is not a contest as to who posts the most on this site but yet he counts the number of posts another person makes. I guess the biggest problem that exists is that it is an open forum and not controlled so people can say what ever they feel. Is that what this site is all about? If you have ill feelings about what a person does why not take it up with that person and not use the space on the Cinema Treasures to vent your frustrations. I agree with hdtv and manwithnoname, I like the links to photos of theatres whether they be small or large. You are able to place a photo with a description much easier. Why not work together like it was said before, if you come across something that is not posted on a certain theatre, post it and bring it up to date, if it is a photo or new information. Seems simple to me. Snide remarks and personal put downs prove nothing. Work together for a better site.
What is really worse than snide remarks CHUCK is coming on here as HawaiiGuy to voice your opinion. Did you forget that I know your alias is HawaiiGuy? From now on I’m going to call you Chuckle because you make me laugh. :)
Wow… looks like whatever is going on in the Dupage and Wheaton sites has spread to this thread! Anyway… I am recently guilty of sharing a number of photographs via links to Photobucket within my posts on the appropriate theater pages. I’d love to share more of these in the future (especiailly since Add a Photo is out of commission) so, I’d really like to know from Patrick or Ross if adding a link to an image within a post poses a problem with bandwidth or system response time. If so, I’ll stop doing this until such time as any problems are resolved.
I’d also like to say that Ross and Patrick (and their small army of volunteers) have done a fantastic job at building and maintaining this site and I’ve been enjoying the free ride for about 2 years now. If a reasonable membership fee is required to keep it going and enhance its functionality, then I’m in full support. This site is indispensible to me.
Again… thanks guys, for everything!
EdSolero — Thanks for your support!
Everyone — FEEL FREE TO POST PHOTO LINKS IN COMMENTS. Again, the slowdown issue was caused by the ‘Recent Comments’ feature — but that doesn’t mean we can’t have lots of comments or lots of comments with links and photos. In fact, if anything, we expect the number of comments to continue growing substantially and that’s a great thing! ;)
Ross Melnick and Patrick Crowley
Co-Founders, Cinema Treasures
Shalom
New to all of this!
66 yrs. old and made a DVD movie
Where does one go to preview a motion pic; DVD ?
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Joe
i have been trying to tell the histories of the theatres I worked at by telling stories that happened.Often when i get fact wrong someone can correct it and usually does.It amazes me how someone far away in another state can inform me when i have a date or film wrong 35mm or 70mm. But i take it in good stride and try to be positive in the response.