[vox] lugod.org is a bit slow today...

[Ryan]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Sunday 11 April 2004 11:19 am, Ken Bloom kabloom-at-ucdavis.edu |lugod|=
=20
wrote:
> Has anybody thought about writing a cache.slashdot.org that handled *all*
> links from slashdot.org by caching them for a couple days the first time
> they were downloaded (and rewriting all of the links in the pages to point
> to cache.slashdot.org)

http://slashdot.org/faq/suggestions.shtml#su900

quote:

* Slashdot should cache pages to prevent the Slashdot Effect!=20

Sure, it's a great idea, but it has a lot of implications. For example,=20
commercial sites rely on their banner ads to generate revenue. If I cache o=
ne=20
of their pages, this will mess with their statistics, and mess with their=
=20
banner ads. In other words, this will piss them off.=20

Of course, most of the time, the commercial sites that actually have income=
=20
from banner ads easily withstand the Slashdot Effect. So perhaps we could=
=20
draw the line at sites that don't have ads. They are, after all, much more=
=20
likely to buckle under the pressure of all those unexpected hits. But what=
=20
happens if I cache the site, and they update themselves? Once again, I'm=20
transmitting data that I shouldn't be, only this time my cache is out of=20
date!=20

I could try asking permission, but do you want to wait 6 hours for a cool=
=20
breaking story while we wait for permission to link someone?=20

So the quick answer is: "Sure, caching would be neat." It would make things=
 a=20
lot easier when servers go down, but it's a complicated issue that would ne=
ed=20
to be thought through in great detail before being implemented.

- --=20
PGP/GPG Fingerprint: 3B30 C6BE B1C6 9526 7A90  34E7 11DF 44F3 7217 7BC7
On pgp.mit.edu, import with `gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-key 72177BC=
7`
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFAeY7dEd9E83IXe8cRAoWtAKCOfn/WqW46OVcpqh7FfbTBAWhXCACaAo90
FKihyO9gwxO//M0FF8hNBsQ=3D
=3DPhL1
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----