This years update

[anthony]

Spotify Connect

Users will be able to link their spotify account to their profile, so others can see what they're listening to, can share your listening amongst friends, so forth. It is all totally private, between you and Spotify. It uses your username here, and does not associate your spotify username here.

You connect it via connected accounts in your profile. When you listen to spotify, it will show what you're listening to by hovering over your username / avatar, membercard popup will appear with the spotify popup to be launched.

 

[anthony]

Ok... the development site is pretty much done, for the most part as a dev site.

If those who can access will put it through its paces, that would be super appreciated. Try and break it, in essence. Post any issue there, anywhere, as I will find it.

 

[anthony]

Server Upgrade

After much testing, failures and banging of ones head onto a hard surface, I can now confirm that the server system will be upgraded with this upgrade schedule. When I say upgraded, I mean totally rebuilt and new platform running the latest security for both system and user privacy / security concerns.

I am still working through some fine tuning, and I will have to work through more fine tuning once rolled out publicly (as that is when real shit happens once under real person load)... but things are promising and the backend server software will be a whole bunch nicer for performance and security.

 

[anthony]

Campaign Goal Change

Why is this here? Well... it is directly related to the above server changes. I have lowered the campaign goal by $500 per annum due to changes implemented at the dev site, I believe once the new server gets rolled out, less resources will be needed as the new setup is better optimised for performance, thus less overheads needed.

 

[anthony]

Ok, phased rollout for upgrade will be as follows:

Phase 1 - Server Upgrade

The current site will be closed for a period of time, whilst being migrated to the new server stack. The new stack enhances security, improves performance and page rendering. Whilst the site is closed you will encounter a security login like attached below. DO NOT attempt to login to that with your website login credentials. You will lock yourself out of the server for a further 48+ hours until it resets your IP.

When you see this type of popup, except with myptsd.com, DO NOTHING until you do not see it and instead see the website.

This phase will continue until such time as all issues are ironed out, analysis of load is performed and monitored to ensure everything is working as expected.

Phase 2 - Initial Site Upgrade

The primary upgrade to the next version of MyPTSD will be performed. This will entail only important aspects, such as the software upgrade, forum changes, user group changes, etc.

During this time members will get the above security locked out window, again, DO NOT attempt to use your forum login credentials as you will lock yourself out. Once the initial and significant aspects are upgraded, tested and concluded, the site will reopen to existing members only. New registrations will be disabled.

Phase 3 - Follow-up Features

To limit any issues from new members or potential spammers, registration will remain disabled until all the remaining features are added, and distributed across the new user group system, and I'm happy with all new anti-spam changes made.

Once I am satisfied that all is well, any issues raised by members are worked through or satisfied to pending correction, registration will be enabled again and all is continue forward as normal.

Conclusion

This upgrade is one of the largest to be performed in many years. It is rare that an upgrade of this magnitude is done, and it will come with teething issues compared to other minor ones that are usually all good within a couple of hours. A lot of work has been done prior to try and minimise issues, to fault find and discover problems, to avoid live site issues. This is technology though, so shit will happen to some degree.

Phase 1, I expect to take no longer than 6 hours. Phase 2, could be a solid day or two. Phase 3 will take a further week to install and iron out minor aspects.

 

[anthony]

Article replies are now open, as they are completely imported. Phase 2 will begin in the next 24hrs (unless anything stops me from dedicating the time needed to perform it).

 

[anthony]

User registration is now disabled and will not be enabled until the end of phase 3 of the upgrade.

 

[anthony]

A Week On

Having the upgrade now running for beyond a week, some errors are still showing themselves, and will be corrected going forward. I am most impressed with the server, the results are quite astounding, especially much of the anti-spam and removing rubbish traffic. From 160k daily attempts to access the actual site, I have filtered out everything to just 4.5k - 5k of actual humans allowed through to the site, and then there are around 30k of allowed robots through to index pages. Bing is the worst offender wanting to scan around 22k daily. A bit of a simple bot compared to Google. The rest is just noise, lots of spam and rubbish traffic.

End of the day, users want real human beings, not the noise. So that is what you see in our online data now, just these 4.5k avg daily humans. Everything else, even the good bots that we need, are relegated out of the system stats.

Our registrations are super good quality since reopening them, much better than pre-upgrade. We had 10 to 20 registrations daily before, most of which were just junk and potential spam. Now we have maybe 5, all of which are real people looking for PTSD help.

I like good numbers, not big numbers, and that is what I've strived towards for years. Technology continues to allow my quality targets to be met over quantity. Blocking the noise has been ongoing for years now, hence why this significant upgrade was required at near full rebuild level, because technology has improved enough to make my targets more tangible and realistic to meet with ease.

It was inevitable really, in that as the noise of the web continued to grow, very smart people would find and deploy suitable methods to help the world counter the noise, and not just put up with it.

I guess you could say it has gone with my ideals that I've shared since creating this site, "less is more."

 

[anthony]

Top Posters Block

I have added a top posters block, monthly based, which only counts public forum postings. Anyone highly active in member only areas, or more private, those posts are not counted. This highlights those who are responding and posting to the general PTSD public.

You can access more posters from the member area page.