You guys have to remember... we aren't the majority, we are sadly the very small minority of their install base, and frankly we are their target audience any longer. We've already bought the software, we pay a measly $30 a year for upgrades, so that puts us in the category of don't fix it.
It is really sad though. We are pushing 21.2 millions posts, and without this hack the site would have eaten itself. As it was, people would have to wait an average of 15-60 seconds when someone would post a really nasty search. Towards the ends I had literally hundreds is disallowed common, but still very useful, words on the search just to limp by.
Being probably just 1%, or less, of their customer base puts us at a real disadvantage when it comes to solving issues like this.
It seems as though the development team over there is resistant to change these days. The smallest and silliest example I saw the other day was an argument on .com about the feasibility of adding a gtalk IM to user profiles. The still don't believe enough people use it to add it in. Maybe that's changed on 3.7.0, but I'm still on the 3.6 branch while I wait for the rest of our hacks we use to be ported.
I know this thread isn't for solicitation, but I know Teck's posts were removed as he was deemed to be "vending." I personally would be very interested in his packaged commercial solution if he actually develops it.
Sphinx saved my butt, and I'd like to ensure that I have the option for many years to come.
I would like to chip in to this thread, especially with the aim to provide a real customer testimonial to TECK's sphinx solution.
Our forums had been struggling with the vb-internal search at about 1 million posts, the mysql fulltext search gave in at around 2.5 million. At that point, the processes on our front ends would be just eating up resources, waiting for the responses from the sql backends, a sphinx solution had to come into play, stat. A nice chap that I found on here installed an implementation that followed the instructions from this thread, the solution was sufficient, lacked a lot of deep functionality though. I do not recall what branch I upgraded vB to in May, but the old sphinx implementation was just not cutting it anymore.
I emailed TECK first about server optimization work, as my boxes were struggling badly during peak traffic times. It turned out that he had a sphinx solution of his own, he promised a commercial solution for large vB installs. I agreed to pay a premium price for it, which turned out to be the best investment I had yet done for my business and community.
I realize that it is not within every webmaster's means to pay several thousand dollars for a custom software solution. However, considering the performance of the product and TECK's dedication to his customers, I have no regrets whatsoever. Due to the painful circumstance that my host doesn't give root to managed boxes, the install of the search and optimizing my servers was a real pain in the f***ing ass. TECK often spent long nights until 3am working to get the solution working in my tedious environment. If I am to spend thousands for code, I expect proper customer service, and TECK delivered.
Now I have a perfectly working vB install and search solution with sphinx 0.9.8, my servers have now plenty of resources and room for future growth, and our members are delighted to have a fast and accurate, rock-solid search. Money well spent.
Feel free to contact me if you have any other questions.
09-10-2008, 03:33 AM
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