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Hi everyone –
It’d be great if we could get some feedback on loading speed, particularly from people who reported problems before.
We’ll respond individually on every single point made in due course.
Some of the things fixed so far (in no particular order) –
Guests no longer allowed in chatroom
no nickname changes allowed in chatroom
Avatar file size increased to 24kb (avatar size left same as current) – Matron, I know avataras not your cup of tea but people do like them – however we will stick to the policy of no animated avatars and reserve the right to delete anything deemed inappropriate
Private Messages – weren’t showing for all users – now
fixedBackground colour to posts now lightened up considerably
The ‘Hot Forum Topics’ listing has now been changed to reflect only last 5 days, making it much more relevant
We’ve made a series of other technical tweaks to help smooth things but bulk of work today has been optimising speed with more to do on that tomorrow, etc, until sorted.
Thanks everyone for patience and support, much appreciated.
Yep Dave, and I saw that you’d suggested looking at the funding of the site as an option to reduce requirement for ads.
I had two options when I took over the site. One was the relatively safe option to leave things as they were. Second was to have a go and try to turn it into the best horse racing site of its kind in the world bar none. Nothing wrong with it as it was, but doing nothing with it didn’t really seem like the thing to do, and those of you who knew Daylight would appreciate that he wasn’t the type to let the grass grow under his feet either, so I also felt I owed it to him (and Debs) to do something with it.
This is the second re-vamp since I took over and I’ve also, in teh meantime, brought some people on board to help me with both the technical side and with the commercial aspect. I think we have a really great team now and I’m really looking forward to some of the things we’re now working on coming to fruition.
But, it all has to be funded somehow and I really appreciate that there are some of the forum who would gladly contribute to a fighting fund (others have offered in the past both privately and on the forum). My view, at the minute, is that would be unfair on those who felt obliged to contribute and would also leave the forum and I indebted and potentially in a difficult position in terms of moderating the site. Imagine a spat developing between a contributor and a non-contributor. We’d be in a no-win situation.
We very much appreciate that offer Dave, and its something I won’t dismiss totally, but at the minute we don’t think that it’s the right thing to do.
Hope that explains our thinking.
Mind you if we don’t get the loading time down soon…..Good bloody grief!!!!!!!!!!!
This is awful! you have gone Racing Post mad!
Why on Earth change what was a really good site?One can never say zero out of 10 but this is poor.
The Topics sections (and ‘Most Active Posters’ for that matter) down the right are completely unnecessary, and add precisely nothing to the site.
If we got rid of those, would the pages load any quicker? Keep the adds if you must, but I’d rather have that ‘space’ down the right hand side devoted to a wider posting/reading window, if it was at all possible. Those Topic sections are just utterly pointless – you should get shot of them.
The space for the postings is just far too small. Even aside from the adverts,on either side of the screen there is loads of "grey area". Can the adverts not be pushed right onto the border allowing the actual message space be stretched?
Whats more when you log in, only around 3-4 thread titles are visible before having to scroll down….and in this section they will always be the same few seeing as they are stuck to the top.
So stretch the width of the thread content and condense the thread titles….plus all the stuff Grasshopper said.
We need more space so text can be larger and more defined. The posts don’t seem to carry any punch…like
Way too much going on – less is more. 
or even possibly make the text darker? Following the more heated debates wont be half as much fun!
The space for the postings is just far too small. Even aside from the adverts,on either side of the screen there is loads of "grey area". Can the adverts not be pushed right onto the border allowing the actual message space be stretched?
Agree. The new site has taken the emphasis away from what makes TRF a great site in the first place….the threads themselves.
Its loading at very high speed here, using Firefox.
I’ve just used the recent topics bit down the righthand side for the first time.
If people are keeping up with a thread and want to see the latest contribution to it , is it possible to be directly taken to the last page of that thread instead of the first?
I suppose the same applies to the Hot Topics.
Still slow.
The time it takes my pages to load has gone down by one second; yesterday it took 10 secs, today it has taken 9 secs.
I happen to agree with Grasshopper – the column highlighting discussed topics down the side is totally unnecessary and is literally a waste of space.
Gambling Only Pays When You're Winning
Still slow.
The time it takes my pages to load has gone down by one second; yesterday it took 10 secs, today it has taken 9 secs.
I’m picturing you with a stopwatch timing every page loading lol
Corm, is it possible to explain in very simple terms why the clock is always wrong. I’ve never visted another website (ever) where it has been.
However, I do see in the ‘user control bit’ options for the clock, including a ‘daylight saving setting’ so is it something we have to set ourselves? I haven’t touch it yet as I don’t want to break anything.
Thanks
Lighter grey background to the posts is a major improvement; draws the eye and text now easy to read. I would still suggest you experiment with a dark blue default text colour however, and gauge reaction.
Loading time remains adequate to very quick here but I do have a new, fast PC.
Presumably this site is ‘state of the art’ to coin an ugly phrase i.e. only the most modern of PCs can cope with its demands on processor, memory and broadband connection speed.
Therefore, given the wide-ranging reports on loading times I’d guess slow loading is more likely to be a problem at the users’ end.
Rapid redundancy of PCs is a fact of life, given the love web-developers et al have of inflicting on us the newest technology they can lay their virtual hands on
First time I’ve been able to load the site. Both my work and home computers are prehistoric artefacts and it appears that it will be necessary to replace my PC if I’m to continue to participate here.
It’s certainly very pretty.
It’s not as slow as when I first logged on here after the change over but it’s still a lot slower than all the other sites I go on and even facebook is fast compared to this site
Somebody mentions using firefox instead of IE but my friend has it and it is not user friendly on some web sites so if I switched then I may go on this site faster but have problems elsewhere – can’t win.
I agree that all the subjects such as hot forum topics, recent forum topics and most active members are a waste especialy the latter.
PS – It’s taken me 15 mins to log on and post this message and I do not have this time to spare each day.
Slow loading speed is not an issue of old, outdated equipment. My PC is very new, has huge capacity & handles much more complex websites & databases than this one in lightning quick speed.
TRF is currently very,very slow and liable to "freezes" – I guess an old PC wouldn’t help but it is not the reason for the sluggish performance.
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