slashcode-development

[Slashcode-development] comment question

[CertIndex.com W. <web...@ce...>]

 anyone know what commentspill in users_comments does? commentlimit determines the number of
comments to display per page, but what does commentspill do?

thanks. been beating my head against this one and playing around on /. to try to figure it out for a
while now

Re: [Slashcode-development] comment question

[Ask S. G. <cl...@sl...>]

On Mon, 16 Apr 2001 21:22:53 -0700, CertIndex.com Webmaster said:

>  anyone know what commentspill in users_comments does? commentlimit determines the number of
>  comments to display per page, but what does commentspill do?
>  
>  thanks. been beating my head against this one and playing around on /. to try to figure it out
>  for a while now.

A users commentlimit is fine for light stories (stories between 100-150
comments, I think), but for larger stories, the system needs to establish an
override for this limit (if 50 users ask for a 500 comment article and display
all 500 comments, you can figure out how badly the machine will get loaded. Do
the math for yourself and see...)....

So commentspill is the system limit to prevent this from occurring...at least
as I've determined, as I was in the same spot as you are about a month ago.

So commentspill takes effect when stories hit a certain number of comments and 
if commentlimit > commentspill.

Hope this explains it.

- Cliff

Re: [Slashcode-development] comment question

[CertIndex.com W. <web...@ce...>]

thanks a lot for taking the time to address this.

let me give a scenario just to make sure i 'got it'.

you have 1000 comments in a story.

user sets his commentspill to 500 and his commentlimit to 100

since commentspill is at 500, only 500 comments are 'acknowledged'. from that 500, they are divided
into pages, 100 comments each. so the user ends up with 5 pages of 100 questions each of 500 of the
1000 comments.

correct?

(if so, is it the 500 newest or oldest? or is that determined by how they sort the story.)

thanks again


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ask Slashdot Guy" <cl...@sl...>
To: <sla...@li...>
Sent: Tuesday, 17 April, 2001 10:42
Subject: Re: [Slashcode-development] comment question


>
> On Mon, 16 Apr 2001 21:22:53 -0700, CertIndex.com Webmaster said:
>
> >  anyone know what commentspill in users_comments does? commentlimit determines the number of
> >  comments to display per page, but what does commentspill do?
> >
> >  thanks. been beating my head against this one and playing around on /. to try to figure it out
> >  for a while now.
>
> A users commentlimit is fine for light stories (stories between 100-150
> comments, I think), but for larger stories, the system needs to establish an
> override for this limit (if 50 users ask for a 500 comment article and display
> all 500 comments, you can figure out how badly the machine will get loaded. Do
> the math for yourself and see...)....
>
> So commentspill is the system limit to prevent this from occurring...at least
> as I've determined, as I was in the same spot as you are about a month ago.
>
> So commentspill takes effect when stories hit a certain number of comments and
> if commentlimit > commentspill.
>
> Hope this explains it.
>
> - Cliff
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Slashcode-development mailing list
> Sla...@li...
> http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/slashcode-development
>

Re: [Slashcode-development] comment question

[Ask S. G. <cl...@sl...>]

On Tue, 17 Apr 2001 13:29:53 -0700, CertIndex.com Webmaster said:

> thanks a lot for taking the time to address this.
>  
>  let me give a scenario just to make sure i 'got it'.
>  
>  you have 1000 comments in a story.
>  
>  user sets his commentspill to 500 and his commentlimit to 100
>  
>  since commentspill is at 500, only 500 comments are 'acknowledged'. from that 500, they are divided
>  into pages, 100 comments each. so the user ends up with 5 pages of 100 questions each of 500 of the
>  1000 comments.
>  
>  correct?
>  
>  (if so, is it the 500 newest or oldest? or is that determined by how they sort the story.)
>  
>  thanks again
>  

ACK! I completely misinterpreted your question. This is what I get for trying
to answer technical details before my morning caffeine intake.

*COMMENTSPILL* is the threshhold a user sets so that they can get more
"threads" displayed per page on a story with a large number of comments. Put
simply, if a story goes over <commentspill> comments, then it is automatically
switched to indexed mode.

Some people prefer this than having to scroll thru 10-20 pages of comments to
see most of the threads.

Scenario:

A story is posted that is more popular than normal and it goes over 600
comments.

User A, with a commentspill set to 500 and preferred post mode of "nested" will
view the article and comments will be displayed in "indexed" mode, instead.

What I was referring to before was 'Overload Mode'. Slashdot has a "breaking"
variable, which when set, will effectively limit the maxiumum size of a users
CommentLimit setting. Basically if CommentLimit > Breaking, then CommentLimit =
Breaking / 2. 

Sites with bandwidth concerns will definitely want to look into this value.

Sorry abuot the confusion. Hope this clears everything up.

- Cliff

Re: [Slashcode-development] comment question

[CertIndex.com W. <web...@ce...>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ask Slashdot Guy" <cl...@sl...>
To: <sla...@li...>
Sent: Tuesday, 17 April, 2001 22:07
Subject: Re: [Slashcode-development] comment question


>
> On Tue, 17 Apr 2001 13:29:53 -0700, CertIndex.com Webmaster said:
>
> > thanks a lot for taking the time to address this.
> >
> >  let me give a scenario just to make sure i 'got it'.
> >
> >  you have 1000 comments in a story.
> >
> >  user sets his commentspill to 500 and his commentlimit to 100
> >
> >  since commentspill is at 500, only 500 comments are 'acknowledged'. from that 500, they are
divided
> >  into pages, 100 comments each. so the user ends up with 5 pages of 100 questions each of 500 of
the
> >  1000 comments.
> >
> >  correct?
> >
> >  (if so, is it the 500 newest or oldest? or is that determined by how they sort the story.)
> >
> >  thanks again
> >
>
> ACK! I completely misinterpreted your question. This is what I get for trying
> to answer technical details before my morning caffeine intake.

Oh, no!

>
> *COMMENTSPILL* is the threshhold a user sets so that they can get more
> "threads" displayed per page on a story with a large number of comments. Put
> simply, if a story goes over <commentspill> comments, then it is automatically
> switched to indexed mode.
>
> Some people prefer this than having to scroll thru 10-20 pages of comments to
> see most of the threads.
>
> Scenario:
>
> A story is posted that is more popular than normal and it goes over 600
> comments.
>
> User A, with a commentspill set to 500 and preferred post mode of "nested" will
> view the article and comments will be displayed in "indexed" mode, instead.

Aha, and what is the difference between indexed mode and 'non-indexed mode'? I looked into this a
while ago I believe and I think it only applies to nested displaytype correct? If so then it's not
relevant to us since we only have 'flat' and 'threaded', and comments never 'break out' of their
thread status and show fully. Only when they are on the 'comment level' that is being viewed are
they shown.

>
> What I was referring to before was 'Overload Mode'. Slashdot has a "breaking"
> variable, which when set, will effectively limit the maxiumum size of a users
> CommentLimit setting. Basically if CommentLimit > Breaking, then CommentLimit =
> Breaking / 2.

Ahh, why / 2 ? Why not just 'ignore' comments after the 'overload mode' threshold is met? So if you
have a story with 1000 comments and you set the 'overload mode' threshold to 500, the user only has
500 of the most recent comments to work with. (well i guess unless they display oldest first, in
which case they'd only have 500 of the oldest comments to work with)

>
> Sites with bandwidth concerns will definitely want to look into this value.
>
> Sorry abuot the confusion. Hope this clears everything up.
>

ah no problem, Slash is somewhat a beast and taming it isn't an easy thing. ;-)

> - Cliff
>
> _______________________________________________
> Slashcode-development mailing list
> Sla...@li...
> http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/slashcode-development
>

Re: [Slashcode-development] comment question

[Ask S. G. <cl...@sl...>]

On Tue, 17 Apr 2001 22:53:16 -0700, CertIndex.com Webmaster said:

>  >
>  > *COMMENTSPILL* is the threshhold a user sets so that they can get more
>  > "threads" displayed per page on a story with a large number of comments. Put
>  > simply, if a story goes over <commentspill> comments, then it is automatically
>  > switched to indexed mode.
>  >
>  > Some people prefer this than having to scroll thru 10-20 pages of comments to
>  > see most of the threads.
>  >
>  > Scenario:
>  >
>  > A story is posted that is more popular than normal and it goes over 600
>  > comments.
>  >
>  > User A, with a commentspill set to 500 and preferred post mode of "nested" will
>  > view the article and comments will be displayed in "indexed" mode, instead.
>  
>  Aha, and what is the difference between indexed mode and 'non-indexed mode'? 
>  I looked into this a while ago I believe and I think it only applies to nested 
>  displaytype correct? If so then it's not relevant to us since we only have 'flat' and
>  'threaded', and comments never 'break out' of their thread status and show fully. 
>  Only when they are on the 'comment level' that is being viewed are they shown.

Then you should never see commentspill take effect.

Basically, an 'indexed' display only shows links to a comment. It never shows
that conmment unless the user sets taht comment to "break out" based on score.
Since your site does not do this, commentspill is effectively unused.

Another thing to note...if the "breaking" variable is set low enough, many
users will NEVER SEE their commentspill setting take affect. The highest value
this can effectively be on Slashdot is 49. If it's >=50, it will never happen
because Overload mode will occur first (and a users comment limit will never be
greater than "breaking" / 2, the "breaking" value on Slashdot is 100.

>  
>  >
>  > What I was referring to before was 'Overload Mode'. Slashdot has a "breaking"
>  > variable, which when set, will effectively limit the maxiumum size of a users
>  > CommentLimit setting. Basically if CommentLimit > Breaking, then CommentLimit =
>  > Breaking / 2.
>  
>  Ahh, why / 2 ? Why not just 'ignore' comments after the 'overload mode' threshold is met? 
>  So if you have a story with 1000 comments and you set the 'overload mode' threshold to 500, the >  user only has 500 of the most recent comments to work with. (well i guess unless they display
>  oldest first, which case they'd only have 500 of the oldest comments to work with)

Divided by half for performance reasons. I don't know the reasoning BEHIND
this, but it makes sense if the point here is to save bandwidth. The reason why
comments are not DROPPED is because it is
impolite. If Overload Mode is hit, then comments.pl will attempt to paginate
the comments as best it can so that you don't HAVE to lose the later x portion
that your method would cut out.

Hopefully this brings you closer to enlightenment. I must say I found this
little bit of detective work educational. ;)

- Cliff

Re: [Slashcode-development] comment question

[CertIndex.com W. <web...@ce...>]

> Hopefully this brings you closer to enlightenment. I must say I found this
> little bit of detective work educational. ;)

yes, thank you for your help. :-) i appreciate it

> 
> - Cliff
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Slashcode-development mailing list
> Sla...@li...
> http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/slashcode-development
>