[olivedrab]

what is the purpose of the 50 second search delay? i got a message saying that the site requires X amount of seconds between searches and to try again after X minus 1 second. i wasn't even actually "searching" -- i was looking at my user info (profile) and clicked on the links to look at all my posts and all the threads i started -- and that's when i got the error message.

i can understand the posting delay so that spammers can't post multiple messages, but searching???

[Roy Fokker]

Originally Posted by olivedrab

what is the purpose of the 50 second search delay? i got a message saying that the site requires X amount of seconds between searches and to try again after X minus 1 second. i wasn't even actually "searching" -- i was looking at my user info (profile) and clicked on the links to look at all my posts and all the threads i started -- and that's when i got the error message.

i can understand the posting delay so that spammers can't post multiple messages, but searching???

Each search places a load on the database Every search query asks the server to comb through the hundreds of thousands of posts and threads on this website. That takes a decent chunk of processing.

Plus, have you seen the "Who's Online" lately? Go past the first few pages - just start from page 6 or 7. I'm sure you'll notice entries that say "Yahoo! Slurp Spider" or Google Web Crawler. These are information bots that mine data from bulletin boards and link them to the search engine dBase.

There are hundreds of these guys afoot! Add that to the 1000+ guests browsing the BB at any given time and the numbers start adding up LOL

So, to make a long reply short - the limit is placed for the same reason as posting delays are placed

[olivedrab]

Originally Posted by Roy Fokker

So, to make a long reply short - the limit is placed for the same reason as posting delays are placed

Ah, thanks for clearing that up....thought it was all about delaying spammers....