I don't mean cut visitors off completely, but there needs to be something put in place to limit visitors and make them want to register as opposed to just bleeding all the bandwidth from the registered users enjoyment of the site. I've noticed that at almost ALL times, there are 4X the amount of visitors as there are registered users online and the site's bandwidth is suffering because of this.
My ideas for "bandwidth alleviation" are:
Visitors can only access the content of stickied posts, not the non-stickied post content. When they try to access non-stickied post content, the forum should redirect them to the register page. All they should be able to see is topic titles for non-stickied posts. If they want to see the content of non-stickied posts, they must register. This may also cut down on redundant posts in the long run.
They should not be allowed to download squat from GBAtemp (except maybe flashcart firmware's) without being registered. Attempting to do so would take them to the register page. Why should they be able to tap our download bandwidth without us knowing who they are?
The Official cheat database downloads should DEFINITELY be for registered members only, not for every schlep that wanders in our direction looking for cheats. Maybe only that "CheatUp" or other such programs could have such access without being registered....and that would have to be worked out with the app creator for it to reprogrammed to correctly access the cheat database.
Maybe even just prioritizing members over visitors when things start bogging. Like, if a visitor and a member both clicked on the same thing, the member gets there WAY before a visitor ever will. Don't know if that bandwidth priority ability already exists or not, but it sounds good to me.
Like I said, it's not to punish visitors, but to entice them to actually register and possibly become useful members of the community instead of just tapping the site's bandwidth all the time. At least if they were coerced to register to have access to things like downloads, they may just go somewhere else to continue their "free ride" at someone else's bandwidth expense if they don't want to register for whatever reason.
Just throwing some ideas out there. I realize those changes couldn't be implemented overnight, and lord knows I wouldn't have a clue how to implement such changes, but something like this needs to happen or the bandwidth issues will likely continue.
What do you guys think about these ideas? Good? Bad? Stupid? Brilliant? Mean? Inspiring? Tell me what you think.
My ideas for "bandwidth alleviation" are:
Visitors can only access the content of stickied posts, not the non-stickied post content. When they try to access non-stickied post content, the forum should redirect them to the register page. All they should be able to see is topic titles for non-stickied posts. If they want to see the content of non-stickied posts, they must register. This may also cut down on redundant posts in the long run.
They should not be allowed to download squat from GBAtemp (except maybe flashcart firmware's) without being registered. Attempting to do so would take them to the register page. Why should they be able to tap our download bandwidth without us knowing who they are?
The Official cheat database downloads should DEFINITELY be for registered members only, not for every schlep that wanders in our direction looking for cheats. Maybe only that "CheatUp" or other such programs could have such access without being registered....and that would have to be worked out with the app creator for it to reprogrammed to correctly access the cheat database.
Maybe even just prioritizing members over visitors when things start bogging. Like, if a visitor and a member both clicked on the same thing, the member gets there WAY before a visitor ever will. Don't know if that bandwidth priority ability already exists or not, but it sounds good to me.
Like I said, it's not to punish visitors, but to entice them to actually register and possibly become useful members of the community instead of just tapping the site's bandwidth all the time. At least if they were coerced to register to have access to things like downloads, they may just go somewhere else to continue their "free ride" at someone else's bandwidth expense if they don't want to register for whatever reason.
Just throwing some ideas out there. I realize those changes couldn't be implemented overnight, and lord knows I wouldn't have a clue how to implement such changes, but something like this needs to happen or the bandwidth issues will likely continue.
What do you guys think about these ideas? Good? Bad? Stupid? Brilliant? Mean? Inspiring? Tell me what you think.
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