slowness and ads, any work being done on that?

[Beautiful_Chickens]

Hello again, I am trying to send constructive comments. I know there was a lot of negativity when the new platform went into effect, and some users and moderators advised to wait a week or so to see how things had been tweaked. Also many people reiterated over and over that we just need to learn how to use the new site.

I think there are 2 separate issues here though...One is learning how to use the new site and its powerful and useful new ways of doing things. There are lots of things that work well and were well thought-out. However, the site is just plain SLOW for many users, even users who've downloaded and switched to completely new browsers, etc. just to be able to run this one internet site. To me, it seems that if people are having no trouble with any of their other computer activities and also had no trouble with running the old BYC, then there is something actually wrong with the new platform, not just a matter of the user learning which button to hit, etc.

The main problem I have is the speed. (I searched several weeks ago and spent hours and hours trying everything I was capable of to speed it up. As a result, I am now using the newest Chrome, as several people suggested.) (also, I have NO NO NO speed issues with anything else at all that I do online.) Still, today, for example, I was looking at the egg auctions. I wanted to see photos of the parent birds, but each photo took about 45 seconds to load. I am not a programmer, but I can't help but wonder whether all those colorful ads and unrelated info at the right third of the screen are partly at fault. I also know from hours of reading about how to run the new platform that many many people object to that stuff at the right side. What I'm wondering is whether the programmers/moderators etc are considering any changes to the stuff that makes the site so slow to work for a fair number of people. Could you possibly have an option for people so all those ads could be changed to text only? (out of curiosity, I just now counted the ads on just this one page I see as I type this message. There were fully TWENTY-TWO ads on this page. That seems excessive to me; doesn't it seem excessive to you moderators/programmers, especially since so many people are having the site run so slowly?

I apologize if this has been discussed recently, but I just ran some searches, very frustrating: the last one was in only the one forum BYC Website and Forum Feedback and Announcements, and this is what my search results said:
3184 posts found for ""too slow" ads"

I simply am not capable of reading over three thousand posts to find out whether my concern has been addressed, especially considering how long each individual page takes to load. It would take me a lifetime! No wonder people are frustrated with the speed and not being successful. I am not trying to be mean, but I am trying to show you a detail of what the users are sometimes up against here. I assume the moderaters and programmers etc who chose this platform must not have the speed troubles; nevertheless, they are real for many people.

I do not recall ever seeing ads on the old BYC. Of course they may have been there but may have been unobtrusive, like the ads on Google mail are. I am wondering why there was such a huge jump from what seemed like NO ads at all to this current 22 on my current page. I can see that ads bring in money for people's salaries to run the site, but why such a drastic change, and if Google can have unobtrusive text only ads, might you be able to consider that option for some of your users that can't get t he site to load and run right?
Respectfully yours,
Beautiful_Chickens

 

[ivan3]

What are you connecting with? At what speed?

 

[bargain]

He said newest Chrome, Speed is slow for me, no matter the hour or number of folks on the new BYC. I'm on a fairly new computer and nothing else is slow other than BYC, I'm on Mozilla and high speed cable connections. It took me almost 1 hour 15 minutes to repost 3 ads, would have taken maybe 10 minutes to do that on the old platform... Now a relist of the auction, drags all the comments with it which the original poster of the ad cannot delete, so it's really not a good relist because it will confuse people . So each auction has to be done and slow it is! well, I've just spent my sleep time posting so I'm really going to close out and maybe tomorrow at lunch can post one more auction... Have a good night BYC.....

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

Thanks for the feedback. A few quick things:

1. Try reading over this: Speed up your BYC
2. Performance / speed improvements are at the very top of our priority list. While we don't expect any huge overnight changes in performance across the board, we've already seen some incremental speed improvements and will be adding more and more as the engineers find ways to improve the system.
3. Ads can be turned off if you are a GFM (which is very cheaply priced and/or can be earned or won).

 

[Beautiful_Chickens]

Hi and thanks to all for the replies!

Nifty, thanks so much for your reply and links to pertinent hints. I actually had already read the info on Speed up your BYC and also other threads incl. something like "what worked for me" and other threads about problems and some hints.

The salient point is, nothing else I do on the computer is slow, and I spend hours researching using hundreds, probably thousands, of sites researching a variety of subjects: plants, health, books, how-to of various kinds. It seems to me that the platform of BYC itself is the problem, not my internet speed, cookies, cache, etc. I actually am not comfortable going in and fiddling with all sorts of settings on my computer. I'm afraid I will really screw something up, so that's why I have not done some of the suggested things that computer savvy people have said have helped them. (Also, one user who seemed very knowledgeable said doing all sorts of fiddling and ad blocking and other things sped him up by about 30%. That does not seem as if it would be much help. A bit, but not a real solution.) Again, I am having no trouble on any other sites, so I feel the problem is just BYC's new platform somehow.

Ivan3, you've probably guess by now that I am not great w/ computers, and I don't know my internet speed, but it is wireless and very fast with everything else including you-tube clips, running smoothly and quickly.

Nifty, I'm glad that the speed issue is top priority for the tech team--that is great news to hear! On the down side, though, I assume that BYC is now locked into some sort of contract that was entered into, and that is why ads cannot be changed to be less resource-using. Are you not allowed (by your contract w/ the software company or else the individual companies that are paying for ads) to change or eliminate the ads? I'm wondering if there is the possibility for any really effective and substantial help from the tech team or whether they basically have their hands tied by legal contracts, etc. I sure hope they are able to do some things that will make a major difference in the speed!

Bargain, I think you are a platinum member? If so, I suppose you would be able to turn off ads on the site (See Nifty's comment about GFM near yours on the thread) I would be very interested to hear from you whether you are able to turn off ads, or if you already have them turned off. Anyway I'd like to know if it speeds you up so you are able to use the site normally. I assumed it would not help much from other member comments mentioning turning off ads through an ad blocker add-on and doing other fiddling and still getting just 30% faster performance, but maybe it is much more effective for some users than others.

Keeping my fingers crossed,
Beautiful_chickens

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

I too would be interested to hear if buying a GFM will help speed up the site.

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

GFM's have the option to turn off ads, which definitely has been proven to speed up the site for users.

 

[elevan]

Beautiful_chickens - I checked your setting and you can do some basic account settings here on BYC that can speed things up a little for you.

Go to My Profile and Edit Account Details. Scroll down until you see Forum Preferences. Now click the boxes that say "Hide User Avatars" and "Hide 'My Stuff' in Signatures". Then click Save.

Those 2 things will remove a LOT of graphics from your version of what you see on the site. All of those graphics take up your performance time.

You can also "Hide User Signatures"...this probably won't speed things up much but it's good to know that you can hide them if you want.

If you need further assistance with this I'd be happy to help.

 

[Beautiful_Chickens]

Thank you, elevan!

I have just turned off the avatars and "my stuff" in my forum preferences. I'm not sure what "my stuff" is, and that's why I had not turned that off before. I had not turned off the avatars because they are fun to see, but I definitely would prefer speed to seeing the avatars, so I'm trying that! You were very helpful to mention the signature stuff that would probably not speed me up much. That's good to know since I really do like to see the signatures to see what breeds the people have! thanks again!

 

[elevan]

You're very welcome.

The "My Stuff" in signatures is where peeps can add little pictures of things like classified ads that they are running. So it's another graphic that can slow down your experience.