Problems with comments
| 12:51 UK time, Thursday, 18 May 2006
At the minute, we've got a bit of a problem with comments not appearing promptly.
The number of comments you see after each post (and on the right hand side of the main blog page) is the number of comments that should be on each post. But we have some technical problems which slows this process...
Here's why it happens.. (you may have seen this explanation before, on Nick Robinson's blog..)
"The difference is due to the way that the content of the blogs is published. Without going into too much heavy detail, when a blog is updated, certain bits of it are rebuilt and certain bits are automatically changed. These rebuilt sections are then transferred across multiple servers. Sometimes due to the heavy load on bbc.co.uk some of the bits find themselves stuck in a queue waiting to be published. The rebuilt bits can take longer to arrive than the others... and so there is sometimes a disparity between number of comments 'totals' and actual published numbers."
We are looking into a solution.
Comments
Are you really looking into a solution? This has been going on on other ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ blogs for ages! How hard can it be..
Yes, we *are* looking into a solution, we promise. We hope it will be resolved soon, though it's actually not an easy problem to solve.
I shot an arrow into the air, it fell to earth I know not where. Just about what to expect from comments posted on this blog. Only it's more like the Starship Enterprise disintegrating these postings, beaming them into outer space, and hoping they re-materialize in one piece again on some other cyber planet.
So by the time my comments on the usage of the word "gay" are posted it may have another new meaning?
ya, maybe they will use "happy" to replace "gay", so the world will feel happy, not gay.
Surely the problem is why the bbc went with moveable type in the first place? This tool regenenerates whole sections of the site whenever a new story is added so on an active site this overhead is massive. Any testing of this tool would have identified this as an issue.
There should be no excuse. So get a better manager of Blogs and give the commenters the service they expect.
Suggestion: ship the changes from server to server, not the changed content entire.
I have the feeling someone's not quite understanding the system ...
It seems to me, monitoring comment lists, that the comment count is displaying the total number of comments that have been approved, but is including those comments that have been approved and then hidden because of complaints.
I base this on the fact that comment referencing prior comments by number will be out of synch with the comments list after a while, as prior comments are hidden or deleted in complaint moderation.
Which is a nice way of saying the coders have borked the database query that generates the comment count by not including a filter to exclude the comments that have been approved then hidden by complaint-based moderation.
The fix should be simple, I'd be glad to help ... but I'm pretty sure it's not the result of any distributed page generation errors :P
Sorry Miika, the explanation above is the correct one.
Come on guys. I welcome the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's decision to emrace two way journalism.
But put your money (or rather my money) were your mouth is.
That doesn't make sense then ... even if you're pulling from multiple servers, and some of them are out of synch, they shouldn't be dropping comments from the middle of the block, they'd only be missing the latest approved ones.
Unless you're doing an individual query for each comment in the block when building the page to display, rather than getting all of them in one query, which isn't too optimized ...
Miika, the one flaw with your idea is that sometimes the comments that are removed come back and then vanish again only to come back again.
If they vanished due to being removed then they would not come back, this suggests that the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's comment is more correct.
Although, considering the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's prior history with message boards (anyone who uses 606 has a fair idea of what I mean) I am not going to hold my breath on it being resolved in the near future.
This may be at the level of, "is your system plugged in?" but that is often the best place to start. Have any of you people doing these bullity boards looked at how they were/are done in the UNIX/USENET community which existed and thrived well before the Web was woven? It seems to me the problems you refer to are problems that have already been solved, except that the UNIX/USENET universe was entirely command-line-driven and not graphic-user-interface. [One of the things quite frequently lost track of in this now-au-go-go, pixelated world is what you might call our mutual cultural history]
For heavens sake people you have to wait a while for people to see your comment! Just be greatfull there is the technology to allow it to even happen! twenty years ago you had to post such things to the editor of a national paper and hope they published it! Patience is a virtue!
We moost have good cheer annyhow. At least here we seem to be involving the technicians / programmers / engineers with the actual honest - to - God everyday needs / uses / experiences of the actual people who use the software. Unless you had been in the whirled of software development as I have in the last two decades anyhow you would not believe how isolated from real life the nerds and geeks who come up with popular software really are. This believe it or not is what we call [a technical term] "progress."
If the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ are using Movable Type then they ought to be able to get support from Six Apart.
Is it not to do with posts not authorised?
There does seem to be a lot of negative views on here and I'm not exactly delighted with having to wait for comments to appear but at least give time for the problem to be sorted, some solutions to server issues can take a long time and have various knock on issues.
Without these people there would be nowhere to air your views with others, please have some consideration for all trying to solve the problems.
Stop using outdated software.
Move to WordPress then you will have no such problems.
FRANKLY... I SMELL CENSORSHIP MORE THAN A TECHNICAL PROBLEM. SOME OF THE EDITORS HAVE A PROCLIVITY TO SCRUB THE NEWS UNTIL IT BECOME NEWES MORE FIT FOR SHEEP THAN FOR PEOPLE.
It’s nice to know that you are caring to look for a solution.
Besides this site ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ has been noticed facing similar problems in its various blogs including those of Message Boards, which need also consideration and reconsideration please.
I would LOVE to comment, but it probably would'nt make it there!
I've never managed to get a comment published on the bbc.
The recent one's were on Diana & 911 conspiracy theories.
None were rude but maybe they were a bit to close to the truth.
Technical glitch... or another 9.11 inside job conspiracy? I think the space aliens are causing this... or maybe its elvis. he's really alive you know.
It has nothing to do with technical problems are everything to do with the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ waiting until any relation to the article is taken off the main page.
The don't want to general public hearing what the 'great unwashed' have to say.
The problem still exists and is getting worse
And now a malicious warning!
I myself would like to thank you for publishing my comments, as i thought you were holding back. True, they seem to be taking a long time to get through, but surely with the money the beeb gets this could be sorted.
The explanation of delayed blogs doesn't really hold water - more likely the critical and ones with unpopular views are delayed.
Solution: use a PHP-based package such as Wordpress or Textpattern (as opposed to a CGI and HTML-based one like the Moveable Type you use at the moment). No rebuilding of pages necessary, so no problems like this.
Hate to say it, but he's right. Use a dynamic system and there's no chance of comments being missed out. If you cache the database query it shouldn't increase the server overheads, then you could specifically state that comments take say, half an hour to appear, meaning the the database query is regenerated every 30 minutes... it's fairly easy.
Do i assume you have purchased your computer systems from the same place as the National health service and the CPSA ?
GET BIGGER I.T. we do pay you enough, maybe if you cut back on some of the silly dreamy drama's, and concentrate on the real world of realism ans also moved with the times you might progress. people like me would even watch the bbc more often, and get our moneys worth, unlike some of the dreamy drama watchers. come on guys, not that old chestnut of an excuse. :)
Internet forums can bring out the meanest in people as evidenced by the rude and snarky posts here.
Hiding behind their computers, contributors can be as sarcastic and smart mouthed as they like - which is a shame.
One would have hoped the default setting for a human with relative anonymity would be neutral/polite/reasoning.
Clearly it is very different
Lots of us find our comments never appear. I wonder if 'trickle down' journalism is the way forward. It depends on enough of the Big Journalism players allowing enough of the little people in through the hallowed portals. I've tried hard to blog the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ, but find myself thwarted by your gatekeepers, more often than not.
You get the feeling Big Journalism (³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Editor Kevin Marsh's words, not mine) is doing us all a Big Favour allowing us to sit at the Blog Fest table and enjoy a pre-cooked meal.
Look...my comments always appear... :)
"Sometimes due to the heavy load on bbc.co.uk some of the bits find themselves stuck in a queue waiting to be published".
Why not take another look at lightening the load on bbc.co.uk then? Seven message boards for one radio programme (The Archers)? That's more than for the entire programme output of Radio 3. The cult-branded Stone Age version of myspace/wikipedia that is h2g2? You could get rid of some excess baggage here!
Agree with some of the previous comments...
Don't debate it - use Wordpress. Anyone who says a different blogging software is better... is clearly uninformed, or just plain stubborn.
³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Bloggers NEED to use Wordpress! Here's the link just in case you attempt to purposely forget it
If you don't partake in your country's governments propaganda or allied world of governments propaganda.
ie. If your truth offends your nation's government or the whole Earth's group of nations governments propaganda, your post is never seen.
Nearly a year later and no improvement?
Yet again we see Kirsty Warks contempt for Alex Salmond coming to the fore , no doubt aggrieved on behalf of the McConnells and her cosy labour pals. Never liked her would love to see her sacked.
Technical issues aside, what about the time it takes for someone employed by the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ to get around to looking at a comment and deciding if it is worthy of being published?
Try getting a comment published on a ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ blog over a weekend. If you're lucky, you'll see it appear by the following Tuesday.
And the Have Your Say forums often have hundreds, if not thousands of comments backed up in the so-called "Moderation Queue" - which should really be renamed the "Flush-down-the-loo Queue" since the vast majority of comments never reach the front of the queue.
Take this forum as an example:
There is currently a "Moderation Queue" of 2551 comments. Yet the "moderators" allowed only about 60 comments through yesterday. Can't you be a little more proactive in allowing people to have their say?
yeah, everyones an expert, anyhow, what you need to do is.....have a cup of tea and a biscuit, balls to it..
We pay you lots. You have a ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Worldwide Corporation that makes lots of money. I don't trust the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ. Why don't you use normal blog web technology. I work in IT and develop the technology you are talking about. It is cheap and easy. You are lying when you say it is difficult. You are monitoring our blogs like big brother. Thanks for the betrayal. It won't be forgotton.
Keep going lads we know your doin your best!!
How convenient that the embaressment the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ are facing right now on their blogs is being dampened by this mysterious and far too complicated problem, which means that all conversations are stalled and delayed, and some messages are also never actually appearing at all!
I also work in IT and my little SISTER has a more reliable blog than this one!
Is this a practical joke?
18 months later and no fix? or has someone hacked my PC and loaded old pages onto it?
Come on you know who you are!
I'm not in an episode of Life on Mars am I?
20 months later and still no fix ... but also notice that the worthy owner of this blog no longer bothers to assert the massively complicated nature of the problem ... he should realize that this only makes the bbc sceptics only more convinced that the time has finally come for the bbc to endure the commercial realities of "feedback"
I cannot believe that the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ technicians are incapable of implementing a reliable system to accept and store comments. It's one of the first functions any website requires and is trivial to implement.
The excuse that the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ has several servers is laughable. All websites, except your auntie's, have multiple servers and there are known engineering solutions to any associated problems.
Maybe the folks in charge are so technically in the dark, that they believe some cock-and-bull excuses made by a techie programmer. My advice to the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ is to get an external consultant to review the internal procedures and systems. Then it will get fixed double quick!
I would say about half of my comments to the bbc never get registered by the servers. It's hard work to make a comment! I hope it is not due to censorship...
Yes, I also find it a struggle to get a comment through to the Beeb. I guess most busy people give up - frustrated - after the first 'Sending failed' message - so one wonders exactly how many comments have never seen the light of day here?
I think we should give the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ a break: they are the only news service that even bothers asking us for our opinion.