Welcome Back To Cryptomundo
Posted by: Administrator on August 21st, 2008
We are back. You are back. We are happy to be here again. With all of the server shuffling we’ve been doing over the last several days, we are glad to be back.
For those that missed it, first we had temporary server issues with the Montauk monster posts that became popular here. Then the server we were using could not take the load of being “the” spot all the search engines in the world first pointed to for news on the bigfoot photographs that Loren posted, as soon as they were released by Searching for Bigfoot, Inc.
It is a fact that we saw a rise in users at a rapid rate unlike anything people here in California at Cryptomundo admin central had ever witnessed. The increase in hits (that got through) went from our average of 23,000-38,000 or so hits per day for a day like Monday, August 11th, to the incredible load we saw beginning on Tuesday night at around 6:30 pm Pacific, when the site soon began crashing through the 27.8 million hits leading up to “Bigfoot Friday,” as it now called by web admin people around the world, on August 15. Reportedly 85% of all the servers in the world with any link to “Bigfoot” crashed or slowed down greatly. We did. We crashed. We would upgrade something and go back online. Crash again. Go offline to fix it. On and on.
You may see some changes in this site due to the fact we upgraded the software twice during the last week, as well, we bought space with a new host, and moved the whole blog to three servers that have hopefully near fail-safe overload and security measures. We spent many hours over the last several days working on the performance problems. We upgraded WordPress several times to get it up to the latest version 2.6.1. We also made programming changes to the theme (user facing webpages) to improve performance.
We were able to configure three web servers and introduce load balancing. What this means is that we are no longer limited to one web server. With load balancing the three web servers work together, each one able to serve the same Cryptomundo web pages. As one server becomes overloaded, the second automatically takes over, etc. That’s the good news.
The bad news is it took a long time to write code and get the other servers around the world to refind us. The DNS propagation was a long process. It is a process where ISP companies refresh their internal DNS servers, which is a mapping between domain names and IP addresses. Once your ISP updates its DNS server, your local site will be pointed automatically to the new Cryptomundo servers. At this point the propagation is most likely complete, although it could take maybe a little more time to hit the outback of Australia and Antarctic.
Because of this move, old summaries are gone. Unfortunately the standard wordpress export/import process that was used to bring the data over to the new system does not support the summaries. Strange, but that is how they designed it.
Yes, every photo from old posts were brought over. The bloggers had nothing to do with items that might have been dropped out, lost or reformatted. It had everything to do with internalized items that were not stored, archived or captured. It is the best we could do, and I think you will agree that most of Cryptomundo is here, including archives back to the beginning.
Considering what we were up against, we are happy with the transfer.
Before the recent picture interest in the things that Loren was sharing with you about that hoax, then through that California media news conference, and hoaxed suit stories, we had 9000 registered users. That is a lot of people and a high volume of comments that needed to go through our automated software, spam filters, and human editors. Nevertheless, we tended to keep up with it, and could keep an eye on those less than kid-friendly comments and flaming insults that leaked through. Those were deleted.
But now, we find ourselves with many, many new registered comment makers and new eyes on this blog. We therefore have decided to moderate each and every comment coming in, to retain the high standards at Cryptomundo. This may dismay some of our old and loyal readers, but we ask for your patience while we smooth out some wrinkles and it might cause some delays that are new to you. But this is the way all the most successful sites evolve to, such as Boing Boing, because the off-topic, profane, personalized and childish remarks must be screened out.
Additionally, for new readers, let me share the following keys to getting your good comments posted, which has previously been posted here.
Although the bloggers at Cryptomundo have spent hours replying to various individual emails to a few registered readers, people are routinely surprised to not see some of their comments after a blog or for it edited to bring it up to Cryptomundo standards, if time allows.
First, it is suggested you read the “Terms of Use” statement, again, slowly.
This posting is an attempt to give a reminder of some other things you can do to make certain a comment sent in makes it through the process to be uploaded under a blog.
First of all, although some people seem to not believe it, the Cryptomundo hosting site has high quality software to catch certain keywords that automatically throw some comments out entirely or are “red flagged.” Because this site is a children-friendly site, in general, most forms of profanity are screened out at the point of originally coming into the site.
During that screening, and the regular moderating that occurs, some posts are tagged for additional reconsideration or deletion.
There is a long list of reasons that some posts never are displayed. Common reasons for deletion and/or non-approval of comments include but are not limited to the following items:
Spam email
Ads
Off-topic
Profanity
Personal material
Negative remarks which discourage others’ comments
Flaming
Divisive political comments
Name-calling
Making inappropriate racist, ethnic and sexist comments
Noting past comments have been deleted
Mentioning moderation
Referencing comments not present
Cross-posting
Commenting about another blog with no link to posting
Referencing another blogger, out-of-place
Sharing personal information
Divisive religious comments
Expressing biased data
Passing along misleading info
Posting false information
Noting as fact opinions
Divisive cultural comments
Placing a link in a comment (needs approval)
Quoting another’s work without a citation
…to name a few.
Comments to Cryptomundo may be deleted, edited, and moderated for a variety of reasons and such actions are completely at the discretion of the administration, the technical editors, and the writers at the site. If you use the site and send in your comments, you agree to these terms.
Requests for reasoning on selective individual decisions cannot routinely be given due to the volume of emails, comments, and readers who use our site. But if you have a question, which is personal or private, or you wish to pass on a news tip, you may always write us at editor@cryptomundo.com
We hope you find the above insights and parameters helpful, and you use them as yardsticks before sending in your future comments. Thanks.
Cryptomundo Administration
