Right now you thread the threads (topics...) page by listing all topics. You'd save a lot of bandwidth if you did the same for thepage that currently has all the comments. I won't bore everyone with all the math, but one recent comments page was 42K and growing while the average one comment by itself page would be about 1-2K. The majority of active users reload the forums at least once a day (viewing from the posters, many of us seveal times a day - and we have no visible accounting for lurkers, but langdon and Drew do...)
Each time we see a new post in that thread and want to read it, we're also loading about 40K of "useless" data. I say useless not cause the old posts suck, but because we already read them and on average are not there to read them again. Wasted bandwidth transfer...
Also, it is kind of frustrating that we have to scroll all the way down to the bottom to see new posts.
So, bottom line: redesigning the forums just a little bit will make things easier for those of us using them, AND save you money in the long run... |
