So Slooooooooooooooow

[kodedjay]

Is it just me or is dmoz.org really slow and unreliable? ..we all know how important dmoz is, but over the last couple of months, its difficult to even access the site. It must be dmoz, because i can access any other site in the whole world, no problem. .. is anyone else having this same problem.

 

one last thing... i really do love dmoz.. but what the heck is going on? <img src="/images/icons/confused.gif" alt="" />

[beebware]

Yes, the main dmoz.org server has been under heavy-load recently, but new hardware is on order and will be installed as soon as possible.

 

There is a "near live" mirror available at http://ch.dmoz.org/ (usually a maximum of 24 hours out of date) which may be of assistance to you.

[totalxsive]

The editors have their own server pool which is generally faster, but is password protected to stop it being abused by spiders. After all, if the editors can't edit, we're kinda stumped...

 

As beebware says, new hardware is on order and things should speed up soon.

[Guest jafiwam]

I was going to post this in the Editors forum, but found it too slow to be operable at the moment.

 

Is there a place I can find out about DMOZ infrastructure? I.e. who has the purse strings, what they do with it etc. I am extremely frustrated trying to edit. Now days, sometimes I can barely log in, or even then can't edit, or get half way through an edit only to get timed-out for hours at a time.

 

That stinks.

 

What is the real problem? Bandwidth? Servers? What? Has the staff got a bottleneck somewhere? What is it, money, equipment or knowhow? Why no news at all about the problem?

 

I think the DMOZ project is great, probably one of the top three or four things to ever hit the internet. Google uses it and has blown past Yahoo in signifigance partly because of DMOZ. Maybe staff should figure out how people could donate or something, a PayPal link for hardware, software and pizza donations or something. (Try asking Slashdot, those guys like to talk about DMOZ and rile one another up for a cause.)

 

The server issue is really starting to hurt. I get cranky and pissed-off when I find I can't edit and take good care of the cat I edit, and then find someone else goes in to help out. At that point, why bother? Someone else is doing it. I have a job to get me cranky and pissed-off, DMOZ does not need to contrbute to that. I edit because it is fun. Or...rather WAS fun.

 

It seems to me, that if the issue mattered to staff, they would have pulled the trigger on new stuff a long time ago and the issue would have been fixed long ago. Several months have gone by, still the same performance problem exists. I do network, server and connectivity stuff for a living, I know how long it takes (a long time). However, This has been TOO long. From my point of view, it seems like neglect.

 

I might quit, I might not. The stinkin-slow performance is not helping.

[motsa]

If you're an editor, post a request in the appropriate thread in the Members forum here to have your status here changed to "Editor" (you'll need to give your editor id). Then you'll have access to the Editors forum here.

 

If you're finding it slow editing, I'm guessing you didn't follow the instructions on your editor dashboard (I don't know of anyone who finds it unreasonably slow editing using the editor-only connections -- I'm only using a modem that frequently maxes out at 33K or less and it works fine for me).

[totalxsive]

jafiwam - staff are well aware of the problem. The problem is that the server wasn't designed for as many users as it currently copes with (not just editors but members of the public and scripts which fetch live data). New hardware is on order but it will be a while before it is here.

 

Remember, the ODP is a loss-making division of AOL Time Warner, a company in a bit of a pickle itself. AOL will be looking to spend as little money on us as possible.